'Salem's Lot(59)

'I don't mind. I'm a kitchen eater from a long line of kitchen eaters.'

The kitchen was astringently neat. On the small four-?burner stove, a pot of spaghetti sauce simmered and a colander full of spaghetti stood steaming. A small drop-leaf table was set with a couple of mismatched plates and glasses which had animated cartoon figures dancing around the rims - jelly glasses, Ben thought with amusement. The last constraint of being with a stranger dropped away and he began to feel at home.

'There's Bourbon, rye, and vodka in the cupboard over the sink,' Matt said, pointing. 'There's some mixers in the fridge. Nothing too fancy, I'm afraid.'

'Bourbon and tap water will do me.'

'Go to it. I'm going to serve this mess up.'

Mixing his drink, Ben said, 'I liked your kids. They asked good questions. Tough, but good.'

'Like where do you get your ideas?' Matt asked, mimick?ing Ruthie Crockett's sexy little-girl lisp.

'She's quite a piece.'

'She is indeed. There's a bottle of Lancers in the icebox behind the pineapple chunks. I got it special.'

'Say, you shouldn't - '

'Oh come, Ben. We hardly see best-selling authors in the Lot every day.'

'That's a little extravagant.'

Ben finished the rest of his drink, took a plate of spaghetti from Matt, ladled sauce over it, and twirled a forkful against his spoon. 'Fantastic,' he said. 'Mamma mia.'

'But of course,' Matt said.

Ben looked down at his plate, which had emptied with amazing rapidity. He wiped his mouth a little guiltily.

'More?'

'Half a plate, if it's okay. It's great spaghetti.'

Matt brought him a whole plate. 'If we don't eat it, my cat will. He's a miserable animal. Weighs twenty pounds and waddles to his dish.'

'Lord, how did I miss him?'

Matt smiled. 'He's cruising. Is your new book a novel?'

'A fictionalized sort of thing,' Ben said. 'To be honest, I'm writing it for money. Art is wonderful, but just once I'd like to pull a big number out of the hat.'

'What are the prospects?'

'Murky,' Ben said.

'Let's go in the living room,' Matt said. 'The chairs are lumpy but more comfortable than these kitchen horrors. Did you get enough to eat?'

'Does the Pope wear a tall hat?'

In the living room Matt put on a stack of albums and went to work firing up a huge, knotted calabash pipe. After he had it going to his satisfaction (sitting in the middle of a huge raft of smoke), he looked up at Ben.

'No,' he said. 'You can't see it from here.'

Ben looked around sharply. 'What?'

'The Marsten House. I'll bet you a nickel that s what you were looking for.'

Ben laughed uneasily. 'No bet.'

'Is your book set in a town like 'salem's Lot?'

'Town and people,' Ben nodded. 'There are a series of sex murders and mutilations. I'm going to open with one of them and describe it in progress, from start to finish, in minute detail. Rub the reader's nose in it. I was outlining that part when Ralphie Glick disappeared and it gave me . . . well, it gave me a nasty turn.'

'You're basing all of this on the disappearances of the thirties in the township?'

Ben looked at him closely. 'You know about that?'

'Oh yes. A good many of the older residents do, too. I wasn't in the Lot then, but Mabel Werts and Glynis May?berry and Milt Crossen were. Some of them have made the connection already.'

'What connection?'

'Come now, Ben. The connection is pretty obvious, isn't it?'

I suppose so. The last time the house was occupied, four kids disappeared over a period of ten years. Now it's occupied again after a thirty-six-year period, and Ralphie Glick disappears right off the bat.'

'Do you think it's a coincidence?'

'I suppose so,' Ben said cautiously. Susan's words of caution were very much in his ears. 'But it's funny. I checked through the copies of the Ledger from 1939 to 1970 just to get a comparison. Three kids disappeared. One ran off and was later found working in Boston - he was sixteen and looked older. Another one was fished out of the Androscoggin a month later. And one was found buried off Route 116 in Gates, apparently the victim of a hit-and-run. All explained.'

'Perhaps the Glick boy's disappearance will be ex?plained, too.'

'Maybe.'

'But you don't think so. What do you know about this man Straker?'

'Nothing at all,' Ben said. 'I'm not even sure I want to meet him. I've got a viable book working right now, and it's bound up in a certain concept of the Marsten House and inhabitants of that house. Discovering Straker to be a perfectly ordinary businessman, as I'm sure he is, might knock me off kilter.'

'I don't think that would be the case. He opened the store today, you know. Susie Norton and her mother dropped by, I understand . . . hell, most of the women in town got in long enough to get a peek. According to Dell Markey, an unimpeachable source, even Mabel Werts hobbled down. The man is supposed to be quite striking. A dandy dresser, extremely graceful, totally bald, And charming. I'm told he actually sold some pieces.'