Read Online Needful Things by Stephen King - Free Book Online Page A

She’s my housekeeper.”
    â€œNettie Cobb,” he said thoughtfully, cutting another bite from his slice of cake.
    â€œYes—do you know her?”
    â€œOh, I doubt it.” He spoke with the air of a man who is suddenly recalled to the present moment. “I don’t know anyone in Castle Rock.” He looked at her slyly from the corners of his eyes. “Any chance she could be hired away?”
    â€œNone,” Polly said, laughing.
    â€œI was going to ask you about real-estate agents,” he said. “Who would you say is the most trustworthy around here?”
    â€œOh, they’re all thieves, but Mark Hopewell’s probably as safe as any.”
    He choked back laughter and put a hand to his mouth to stifle a spray of crumbs. Then he began to cough, and if her hands hadn’t been so painful, she would have thumped him companionably on the back a few times. First acquaintance or not, she did like him.
    â€œSorry,” he said, still chuckling a little. “They are all thieves, though, aren’t they?”
    â€œOh, absolutely.”
    Had she been another sort of woman—one who kept the facts of her own past less completely to herself—Polly would then have begun asking Leland Gaunt leading questions. Why had he come to Castle Rock? Where had he been before coming here? Would he stay long? Did he have family? But she wasn’t that other sort of woman, and so she was content to answer his questions . . . was delighted to, in fact, since none of them were about herself. He wanted to know about the town, and what the flow of trafficwas like on Main Street during the winter, and if there was a place nearby where he could shop for a nice little Jøtul stove, and insurance rates, and a hundred other things. He produced a narrow black leather notebook from the pocket of the blue blazer he wore and gravely noted down each name she mentioned.
    She looked down at her plate and saw that she had finished all of her cake. Her hands still hurt, but they felt better than they had when she arrived. She recalled that she had almost decided against coming by, because they were so miserable. Now she was glad she’d done it, anyway.
    â€œI have to go,” she said, looking at her watch. “Rosalie will think I died.”
    They had eaten standing up. Now Gaunt stacked their plates neatly, put the forks on top, and replaced the top on the cake container. “I’ll return this as soon as the cake is gone,” he said. “Is that all right?”
    â€œPerfectly.”
    â€œYou’ll probably have it by mid-afternoon, then,” he said gravely.
    â€œYou don’t have to be that prompt,” she said as Gaunt walked her to the door. “It’s been very nice to meet you.”
    â€œThanks for coming by,” he said. For a moment she thought he meant to take her arm, and she felt a sense of dismay at the thought of his touch—silly, of course—but he didn’t. “You’ve made what I expected to be a scary day something of a treat instead.”
    â€œYou’ll be fine.” Polly opened the door, then paused. She had asked him nothing at all about himself, but she was curious about one thing, too curious to leave without asking. “You’ve got all sorts of interesting things—”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œâ€”but nothing is priced. Why is that?”
    He smiled. “That’s a little eccentricity of mine, Polly. I’ve always believed that a sale worth making is worth dickering over a little. I think I must have been a Middle Eastern rug merchant in my last incarnation. Probably from Iraq, although I probably shouldn’t say so these days.”
    â€œSo you charge whatever the market will bear?” she asked, teasing just a little.
    â€œYou could say so,” he agreed seriously, and again she was struck by how deep his hazel eyes were—how oddly beautiful.