Full Dark, No Stars

There was a moment of silence before Elvid began bel owing laughter. He strode around his card table, clapped Streeter on the back (with a hand that felt cold and fingers that felt long and thin rather than short and pudgy), then strode back to his folding chair. He col apsed into it, stil snorting and roaring. His face was red, and the tears streaming down his face also looked red—bloody, actual y—in the sunset light.

“Your best… since grammar… oh, that’s…”

Elvid could manage no more. He went into gales and howls and gut-shaking spasms, his chin (strangely sharp for such a chubby face) nodding and dipping at the innocent (but darkening) summer

sky. At last he got himself under control. Streeter thought about offering his handkerchief, and decided he didn’t want it on the extension salesman’s skin.

“This is excel ent, Mr. Streeter,” he said. “We can do business.”

“Gee, that’s great,” Streeter said, taking another step back. “I’m enjoying my extra fifteen years already. But I’m parked in the bike lane, and that’s a traffic violation. I could get a ticket.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Elvid said. “As you may have noticed, not even a single civilian car has come along since we started dickering, let alone a minion of the Derry PD. Traffic never interferes when I get down to serious dealing with a serious man or woman; I see to it.”

Streeter looked around uneasily. It was true. He could hear traffic over on Witcham Street, headed for Upmile Hil , but here, Derry was utterly deserted. Of course, he reminded himself, traffic’s always light over here when the working day is done.

But absent? Completely absent? You might expect that at midnight, but not at seven-thirty PM.

“Tel me why you hate your best friend,” Elvid invited.

Streeter reminded himself again that this man was crazy. Anything Elvid passed on wouldn’t be believed. It was a liberating idea.

“Tom was better-looking when we were kids, and he’s far better-looking now. He lettered in three sports; the only one I’m even halfway good at is miniature golf.”

“I don’t think they have a cheerleading squad for that one,” Elvid said.

Streeter smiled grimly, warming to his subject. “Tom’s plenty smart, but he lazed his way through Derry High. His col ege ambitions were nil. But when his grades fel enough to put his athletic eligibility at risk, he’d panic. And then who got the cal ?”

“You did!” Elvid cried. “Old Mr. Responsible! Tutored him, did you? Maybe wrote a few papers as wel ? Making sure to misspel the words Tom’s teachers got used to him misspel ing?”

“Guilty as charged. In fact, when we were seniors—the year Tom got the State of Maine Sportsman award—I was real y two students: Dave Streeter and Tom Goodhugh.”

“Tough.”

“Do you know what’s tougher? I had a girlfriend. Beautiful girl named Norma Witten. Dark brown hair and eyes, flawless skin, beautiful cheekbones—”

“Tits that wouldn’t quit—”

“Yes indeed. But, sex appeal aside—”

“Not that you ever did put it aside—”

“—I loved that girl. Do you know what Tom did?”

“Stole her from you!” Elvid said indignantly.

“Correct. The two of them came to me, you know. Made a clean breast of it.”

“Noble!”

“Claimed they couldn’t help it.”

“Claimed they were in love, L-U-V.”

“Yes. Force of nature. This thing is bigger than both of us. And so on.”

“Let me guess. He knocked her up.”

“Indeed he did.” Streeter was looking at his shoes again, remembering a certain skirt Norma had worn when she was a sophomore or a junior. It was cut to show just a flirt of the slip beneath. That had

been almost thirty years ago, but sometimes he stil summoned that image to mind when he and Janet made love. He had never made love with Norma—not the Ful Monty sort, anyway; she wouldn’t al ow

it. Although she had been eager enough to drop her pants for Tom Goodhugh. Probably the first time he asked her.

“And left her with a bun in the oven.”

“No.” Streeter sighed. “He married her.”

“Then divorced her! Possibly after beating her sil y?”

“Worse stil . They’re stil married. Three kids. When you see them walking in Bassey Park, they’re usual y holding hands.”

“That’s about the crappiest thing I’ve ever heard. Not much could make it worse. Unless…” Elvid looked shrewdly at Streeter from beneath bushy brows. “Unless you’re the one who finds himself

frozen in the iceberg of a loveless marriage.”

“Not at al ,” Streeter said, surprised by the idea. “I love Janet very much, and she loves me. The way she’s stood by me during this cancer thing has been just extraordinary. If there’s such a thing as harmony in the universe, then Tom and I ended up with the right partners. Absolutely. But…”

“But?” Elvid looked at him with delighted eagerness.