JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 118 из 425He might have bought it as a way of demonstrating to himself thathe had really survived his childhood; had, in point of fact, triumphed over it.
Or he might have bought it as a toy for his beloved younger son. In the years when Devore was making his major land purchases in western Maine, Lance would have been just a kid. . but old enough for a perceptive father to see where his interests were tending.
Devore asked Lance to spend the summer of 1994 surveying purchases which were, for the most part, already ten years old. He wanted the boy to put the paperwork in order, but he wanted more than that—he wanted Lance to make sense of it. It wasn’t a land-use recommendation he was looking for, exactly, although I guess he would have listened if Lance had wanted to make one; he simply wanted a sense of what he had purchased.
Would Lance take a summer in western Maine trying to find out what his sense of it was? At a salary of two or three thousand dollars a month?
I imagine Lance’s reply was a more polite version of Buddy Jellison’s “Does a crow shit in the pine tops?”
The kid arrived in June of 1994 and set up shop in a tent on the far side of Dark Score Lake. He was due back at Reed in late August.
Instead, though, he decided to take a year’s leave of absence. His father wasn’t pleased. His father smelled what he called “girl trouble.”
“Yeah, but it’s a damned long sniff from California to Maine,” Bill Dean said, leaning against the driver’s door of his truck with his sunburned arms folded. “He had someone a lot closer than Palm Springs doin his sniffin for him.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“"Bout talk. People do it for free, and most are willing to do even more if they’re paid.”
“People like Royce Merrill?”
“Royce might be one,” he agreed, “but he wouldn’t be the only one. Times around here don’t go between bad and good; if you’re a local, they mostly go between bad and worse. So when a guy like Max Devore sends a guy out with a supply of fifty- and hundred-dollar bills…”
“Was it someone local? A lawyer?”
Not a lawyer; a real-estate broker named Richard Osgood (“a greasy kind of fella” was Bill Dean’s judgment of him) who denned and did business in Motton. Eventually Osgood had hired a lawyer from Castle Rock. The greasy fella’s initial job, when the summer of ’94 ended and Lance Devote remained on the TR, was to find out what the hell was going on and put a stop to it.
“And then?” I asked.
Bill glanced at his watch, glanced at the sky, then centered his gaze on me.
Or he might have bought it as a toy for his beloved younger son. In the years when Devore was making his major land purchases in western Maine, Lance would have been just a kid. . but old enough for a perceptive father to see where his interests were tending.
Devore asked Lance to spend the summer of 1994 surveying purchases which were, for the most part, already ten years old. He wanted the boy to put the paperwork in order, but he wanted more than that—he wanted Lance to make sense of it. It wasn’t a land-use recommendation he was looking for, exactly, although I guess he would have listened if Lance had wanted to make one; he simply wanted a sense of what he had purchased.
Would Lance take a summer in western Maine trying to find out what his sense of it was? At a salary of two or three thousand dollars a month?
I imagine Lance’s reply was a more polite version of Buddy Jellison’s “Does a crow shit in the pine tops?”
The kid arrived in June of 1994 and set up shop in a tent on the far side of Dark Score Lake. He was due back at Reed in late August.
Instead, though, he decided to take a year’s leave of absence. His father wasn’t pleased. His father smelled what he called “girl trouble.”
“Yeah, but it’s a damned long sniff from California to Maine,” Bill Dean said, leaning against the driver’s door of his truck with his sunburned arms folded. “He had someone a lot closer than Palm Springs doin his sniffin for him.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“"Bout talk. People do it for free, and most are willing to do even more if they’re paid.”
“People like Royce Merrill?”
“Royce might be one,” he agreed, “but he wouldn’t be the only one. Times around here don’t go between bad and good; if you’re a local, they mostly go between bad and worse. So when a guy like Max Devore sends a guy out with a supply of fifty- and hundred-dollar bills…”
“Was it someone local? A lawyer?”
Not a lawyer; a real-estate broker named Richard Osgood (“a greasy kind of fella” was Bill Dean’s judgment of him) who denned and did business in Motton. Eventually Osgood had hired a lawyer from Castle Rock. The greasy fella’s initial job, when the summer of ’94 ended and Lance Devote remained on the TR, was to find out what the hell was going on and put a stop to it.
“And then?” I asked.
Bill glanced at his watch, glanced at the sky, then centered his gaze on me.