Frendo stabs Harlan Jaffers and carries him off

Frendo’s attack on Mayor Harlan Jaffers follows his expulsion from a meeting where Sheriff George Dunne has secured the town’s support and control of the room. The abduction converts that public defeat into a more immediate crisis: isolated outside, Harlan is caught by a disguised assailant and removed in a waiting van, while his final thought insists that he remains mayor.

From Public Humiliation to Isolation

Harlan’s vulnerability begins inside the meeting. After Dunne’s show of authority, people in the room openly tell Harlan to leave; the rest offer silent assent. Harlan recognizes the imbalance behind their rejection: Dunne is larger, armed, and backed by the town. With no practical way to challenge him there, Harlan gathers his briefcase from beside the stage and gives up the floor. The episode establishes that his title has not translated into influence over the meeting or the people in it.

Outside, the humiliation follows him into a much emptier setting. Harlan fumbles for his keys and drops them into an oil-glazed puddle. As he bends to retrieve them, he hears someone moving behind him but supposes it might be another person leaving. A reflection in the wet asphalt, rather than a direct warning, alerts him to the figure: Frendo’s familiar silver-and-red colors, white greasepaint, and cigar-ash beard. Harlan turns in curiosity, not yet understanding that the meeting’s defeat has left him alone with a threat.

The Attack and Abduction

The meeting’s exclusion is followed almost immediately by a physical attack. Harlan notices Frendo only through the reflection in the wet pavement, then turns because he is curious about the figure in clown costume. The ice pick misses the temple and strikes his neck instead, leaving him too weak to call out. The abrupt reversal—from an official removed from a public meeting to a victim alone in the parking lot—makes the town’s political humiliation the prelude to a private assault.

Harlan remains conscious on the pavement for a short time, unable to summon help as he loses blood. Frendo then carries him to a waiting van and leaves him alone in its darkness. Harlan’s final thought, “Still mayor,” holds on to the office that had offered him no protection in the meeting and cannot protect him now. The abduction turns his loss of authority into a more extreme isolation, while leaving his fate unresolved at this point in the narrative.

The Office as a Final Claim

Harlan’s last thought gives the attack an ironic political edge. The title of mayor has just failed to secure him a hearing or meaningful support, yet in the van’s darkness he still defines himself through that office. “Still mayor” is not a recovery of authority: it is the remnant of a public identity carried into captivity, where the town’s political struggle has become intensely private and his ability to act has been stripped away. The ending therefore leaves a pointed contrast between holding a title and possessing power. Harlan’s insistence preserves his sense of who he is, even as the abduction makes clear how little protection that identity provides.

Narrative Function and Unresolved Fate

The scene’s structure makes the attack a reversal without turning it into an explanation. The meeting shows Harlan losing the room to Dunne; the parking-lot sequence then narrows the perspective to Harlan’s mistaken assumption that the footsteps belong to another departing attendee. Frendo is recognized only in the asphalt reflection, and Harlan turns in curiosity before he understands the danger. The assault and removal to the van therefore leave the reader with the consequences of the meeting’s power struggle, but not with an identified attacker or a stated motive. Harlan is taken alive, and the scene closes inside the van rather than resolving what will happen to him. His final thought preserves his claim to the mayor’s office even as the abduction suspends his ability to exercise it, leaving political status and practical power sharply divided.