The Auctioneer

John opened the door himself and the two men stepped inside and stopped with their backs to the door, the cold spreading from them.

“Where are Mim and Hildie?” Perly asked.

“Gone,” John said.

Perly raised an eyebrow and considered. “Harlowe’s filled with trouble lately,” he said.

“Guess you heard about the fires all right, seven of them in a week and a couple more that never got goin’ good,” Mudgett said in his quick high voice. “And that bloody fool of a Gore took off.”

John said nothing. He stood perfectly still with his hands in his pockets.

“That makes Red here, as first deputy, the acting police chief,” Perly said, looking Mudgett over as if for the first time.

Mudgett stood rocking nervously on his toes as if to the rhythms of a transistor radio in his head. “Relax, Johnny,” he said. “We ain’t collectin’.” He gave a short laugh. “Unless collectin’ people counts.”

Both John and Ma listened impassively.

“People are getting panicky,” Perly said. “With good reason. We have to do something to keep the town safe. Somebody clearly has to take some initiative to straighten things out. And I’ve grown so attached to this town...”

“We want to know who’s settin’ them fires,” Mudgett said. “I hear tell you been lettin’ your temper hang out lately, Johnny. You got any idea who it could be?”

“Who, me?” John said.

“It’s the lightning strikin’, Red Mudgett,” Ma said, turning on Mudgett almost with relief, her voice confident against the man she had known as a child. “It’s the lightning strikin’, and it’s a goin’ to come after you too. Just you wait.”

“Mrs. Moore,” Perly said reproachfully. “Red lost the ell on his house last night.”

“And it ain’t lightning neither, Mrs. Moore. It’s some twolegged skunk. One that ain’t long for this world, I promise you.”

“We haven’t decided yet what to do,” Perly said. “We’ve called a meeting for tonight in the town hall to talk things over. We really need you as one of the old families. All of you,” he added, looking around, “if Mim and Hildie come back.”

Ma took a step toward Red Mudgett. “Goin’ to set fire to the whole lot of us at once, that’s what,” she said. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

Mudgett snapped his fingers. “Maybe we oughta take the truck after all, Perly.” he said, watching Ma.

Perly turned half-hooded eyes on Mudgett. “We can’t do a thing for the town till we get it back to normal,” he said. “Just keep that in mind.” He kept looking around the kitchen as if he half expected to find Mim and Hildie hidden in some corner—at Ma in her flannel robe leaning on her nicked canes, at the mutilated kindling stick on the table, at Hildie’s hair ribbon and rag doll in Mas lawn chair. “You will come?” he asked John. “We need all the input we can get. And what we don’t need is more trouble.”

John took his knife from his pocket and began absently stabbing at the table with it.

Mudgett gathered himself together and stood still, but Perly, his eyes on John’s face, continued to wait for an answer.

“I’ll think about it,” John said without looking up.

“Good enough,” Perly said, showing his teeth in a smile. He turned back toward the door. “See you there.”

“If not...” Mudgett said, and flicked the gun in its holster with his trigger finger so that John reflexively stepped back. Mudgett grinned.

Perly moved quickly down the path without a backward glance. Mudgett danced behind him, side-stepping and wheeling to keep a constant eye on John.

14

The Parade was so crowded they had to park the truck half a block away. Hildie danced on ahead, but not too far, excited and a little awed by the experience of being out after dark. Mim and John, one on each side, helped Ma as she limped down the road and up the long sidewalk toward the door of the town hall.

“I got a feelin’ there’ll be nothin’ but cinders left to go home to,” Mim said.

John said nothing.

“That there’s a man thinks he’s God. Thinks he can move the mountains and dry up the seas,” Ma said. “And there’s them as believes him too.”

“Not me, Ma,” John said. “But you might’s well sign a confession as stay home.”

Ma snorted. “He thinks we’re nought but a passel of witless ninnies, and we ain’t done nothin’ to show him otherwise.”

They moved slowly. People piled up behind them and stepped around them. A number stopped to say, “Why, Mrs. Moore, how you doin’?” as if they were half surprised to find her still alive. The men she had taught as boys in Sunday School, and the women she had made bridal bouquets for—some were deputies and some were not, but they all greeted Ma as if she were part of some prior life, before the town had been drawn off into parties.

The town hall served also as the theater and the movie house and the gymnasium and the selectmen’s office. It was heated by a crackling wood stove with a bright stainless steel exhaust pipe that ran glittering half the length of the room before it turned into the cinderblock chimney. The folding wooden chairs, the same ones they used for auctions, were set up in rows facing the stage.