sign every now and then and putting up

in its place. If he saw the right person approaching, that was-the sort of person with whom a fellow like Mr. Gaunt might want to do a spot of business. just what was his business?

Ace wasn’t sure he wanted to know. But he wanted to know what was in those crates. If he was going to transport them from here all the way back to Castle Rock, he had a goddam right to know.

He pushed the STOP button on the tape recorder and lifted it aside. He took a hammer from the tools on top of the work-table and the crowbar which leaned against the wall next to it. He returned to the crates and slid the crowbar’s flat end under the wooden lid of the one on top. He levered it up. The nails let go with a thin shriek.

The contents of the crate were covered with a heavy oilcloth square.

He lifted it aside and simply gaped at what he saw beneath.

Blasting caps.

Dozens of blasting caps.

Maybe hundreds of blasting caps, each resting in its own cozy little nest of excelsior.

Jesus Christ, what’s he planning to do? Start World War III?

Heart thumping heavily in his chest, Ace hammered the nails back down and lifted the crate of blasting caps aside. He opened the second crate, expecting to see neat rows of fat red sticks that looked like road-flares.

But it wasn’t dynamite. It was guns.

There were maybe two dozen in all-high-powered automatic pistols.

The smell of the deep grease in which they had been packed drifted up to him. He didn’t know what kind they wer@erman, maybe-but he knew what they meant: twenty-to-life if he was caught with them in Massachusetts. The Commonwealth took an extremely dim view of guns, especially automatic weapons.

This case he set aside without putting the lid back on. He opened the third crate. It was full of ammo clips for the pistols.

Ace stepped back, rubbing his mouth nervously with the palm of his left hand.

Blasting caps.

Automatic handguns.

Ammunition.

This was merchandise?

“Not me,” Ace said in a low voice, shaking his head. “Not this kid. Uh-uh, no way.”

Mexico City was looking better and better. Maybe even RioAce didn’t know if Gaunt was building a better mousetrap or a better electric chair, but he did know he wanted no part of it, whatever it was. He was leaving, and he was leaving right now.

His eyes fixed on the crate of automatic pistols.

And I’m taking one of those babies with me, he thought. A little something for my trouble. Call it a souvenir.

He started toward the crate, and at that instant the reels of the tape recorder began to turn again, although none of the buttons had been depressed.

“Don’t even think about it, Ace,” the voice of Mr. Gaunt advised coldly, and Ace screamed. “You don’t want to fuck with me. What I do to you if you even try will make what the Corson Brothers were planning look like a day in the country. You’re my boy now.

Stick with me and we’ll have fun. Stick with me and you’ll get back at everyone in Castle Rock who ever did the nasty to you… and you’ll leave a rich man. Go against me and you’ll never stop screaming.”

The tape recorder stopped.

Ace’s bulging eyes followed its power cord to the plug. It lay on the floor, covered with a fine spill of dust.

Besides, there wasn’t an outlet in sight.

Ace suddenly began to feel a little calmer, and this was not quite so odd as it might have seemed. There were two reasons for the steadying of his emotional barometer.

The first was that Ace was a kind of throwback. He would have been perfectly at home living in a cave and dragging his woman around by the hair when he wasn’t busy throwing rocks at his enemies. He was the sort of man whose response is only completely predictable when he is confronted with superior strength and authority. Confrontations of this kind didn’t happen often, but when they did, he bowed to the superior force almost at once. Although he did not know it, it was this characteristic which had kept him from simply running away from the Flying Corson Brothers in the first place. In men like Ace Merrill, the only urge stronger than the urge to dominate is the deep need to roll over and humbly expose the undefended neck when the real leader of the pack puts in an appearance.

The second reason was even simpler: he chose to believe he was dreaming. There was some part of him which knew this wasn’t true, but the idea was still easier to believe than the evidence of his senses; he didn’t even want to consider a world which might admit the presence of a Mr. Gaunt. It would be easier-safer-to just close down his thinking processes for awhile and march along to the conclusion of this business. If he did that, he might eventually wake up to the world he had always known. God knew that world had its dangers, but at least he understood it.

He hammered the tops back onto the crate of pistols and the crate of ammo. Then he went over to the stored automobile and grasped the canvas tarpaulin, which was also covered with a mantle of dust. He pulled it off… and for a moment he forgot everything else in wonder and delight.

It was a Tucker, all right, and it was beautiful.

The paint was canary yellow. The streamlined body gleamed with chrome along the sides and beneath the notched front bumper.

A third headlight stared from the center of the hood, below a silver ornament that looked like the engine of a futuristic express train.

Ace walked slowly around it, trying to eat it up with his eyes.

There was a pair of chromed grilles on either side of the back deck; he had no idea what they were for. The fat Goodyear whitewalls were so clean they almost glowed under the hanging lights.

Written in flowing chrome script across the back deck were the words “Tucker Talisman.” Ace had never heard of such a model.

He had thought the Torpedo was the only car Preston Tucker had ever turned out.

You have another problem, old buddy-there are no license plates on this thing. Are you going to try getting all the way back to Maine in a car that sticks out like a sore thumb, a car with no plates, a car loaded with guns and explosive devices?

Yes. He was. It was a bad idea, of course, a really bad idea… but the alternative-which would involve trying to fuck over Mr.

Leland Gaunt-seemed so much worse. Besides, this was a dream.

He shook the keys out of the envelope, went around to the trunk, and hunted in vain for a keyhole. After a few moments he remembered the movie with Jeff Bridges and understood. Like the German VW Beetle and the Chevy Corvair, the Tucker’s engine was back here. The trunk was up front.

Sure enough, he found the keyhole directly under that weird third headlight. He opened the trunk. It was indeed very cozy, and empty except for a single object. It was a small bottle of white dust with a spoon attached to the cap by a chain. A small piece of paper had been taped to the chain. Ace pulled it free and read the message which had been written there in teeny capital letters:

Ace followed orders.