Free Roadwork by Stephen King, Richard Bachman Page A

Mary, George. It’s not fair to anybody. You’re—
    He sat bolt upright, spilling his drink on the rug. “No one except maybe me.”
    Then what about the guns, George? What about the guns?
    Trembling, he picked up his glass and made another drink.

November 26, 1973
    He was having lunch with Tom Granger at Nicky’s, a diner three blocks over from the laundry. They were sitting in a booth, drinking bottles of beer and waiting for their meals to come. There was a jukebox, and it was playing “Good-bye Yellow Brick Road,” by Elton John.
    Tom was talking about the Mustangs-Chargers game, which the Chargers had won 37-6. Tom was in love with all the city’s sports teams, and their losses sent him into frenzies. Someday, he thought as he listened to Tom castigate the whole Mustangs’ roster man by man, Tom Granger will cut off one of his ears with a laundry pin and send it to the general manager. A crazy man would send it to the coach, who would laugh and pin it to the locker room bulletin board, but Tom would send it to the general manager, who would brood over it.
    The food came, brought by a waitress in a white nylon pants suit. He estimated her age at three hundred, possibly three hundred and four. Ditto weight. A small card over her left breast said:
    GAYLE Thanks For Your Patronage Nicky’s Diner
    Tom had a slice of roast beef that was floating belly up in a plateful of gravy. He had ordered two cheeseburgers, rare, with an order of French fries. He knew the cheeseburgers would be well done. He had eaten at Nicky’s before. The 784 extension was going to miss Nicky’s by half a block.
    They ate. Tom finished his tirade about yesterday’s game and asked him about the Waterford plant and his meeting with Ordner.
    “I’m going to sign on Thursday or Friday,” he said.
    “Thought the options ran out on Tuesday.”
    He went through his story about how Thom McAn had decided they didn’t want the Waterford plant. It was no fun lying to Tom Granger. He had known Tom for seventeen years. He wasn’t terribly bright. There was no challenge in lying to Tom.
    “Oh,” Tom said when he had finished, and the subject was closed. He forked roast beef into his mouth and grimaced. “Why do we eat here? The food is lousy here. Even the coffee is. My wife makes better coffee.”
    “I don’t know,” he said, slipping into the opening. “But do you remember when that new Italian place opened up? We took Mary and Verna.”
    “Yeah, in August. Verna still raves about that ricotta stuff ... no, rigatoni. That’s what they call it. Rigatoni.”
    “And that guy sat down next to us? That big fat guy?”
    “Big, fat . . .” Tom chewed, trying to remember. He shook his head.
    “You said he was a crook.”
    “Ohhhhh.” His eyes opened wide. He pushed his plate away and lit a Herbert Tareyton and dropped the dead match into his plate, where it floated on the gravy. “Yeah, that’s right. Sally Magliore.”
    “Was that his name?”
    “Yeah, that’s right. Big guy with thick glasses. Nine chins. Salvatore Magliore. Sounds like the specialty in an Italian whorehouse, don’t it? Sally One-Eye, they used to call him, on account of he had a cataract on one eye. He had it removed at the Mayo Clinic three or four years ago ... the cataract, not the eye. Yeah, he’s a big crook.”
    “What’s he in?”
    “What are they all in?” Tom asked, tapping his cigarette ash into his plate. “Dope, girls, gambling, crooked investments, sharking. And murdering other crooks. Did you see that in the paper? Just last week. They found some guy in the trunk of his car behind a filling station. Shot six times in the head and his throat cut. That’s really ridiculous. Why would anyone want to cut a guy’s throat after they just shot him six times in the head? Organized crime, that’s what Sally One-Eye’s in.”
    “Does he have a legitimate business?”
    “Yeah, I think he does. Out on the Landing Strip, beyond Norton. He sells cars.