Chapter 16

The alarm got him up at six-fifteen. He took half an hour to bury Bump in the sandy patch of ground between the house and the lake, and by seven he was rolling, just as planned. He was ten miles down the road and heading into Mechanic Falls, a bustling¹ metropolis² which consisted of a textile mill that had closed in 1970, five thousand souls, and a yellow blinker at the intersection³ of Routes 23 and 7, when he noticed that his old Buick was running on fumes⁵. He pulled into Bill's Chevron⁶, cursing himself for not having checked the gauge⁷ before setting out - if he had gotten through Mechanic Falls without noticing how low the gauge had fallen, he might have had a pretty good walk for himself and ended up very late for his appointment with Amy.

He went to the pay phone on the wall while the pump jockey tried to fill the Buick's bottomless pit. He dug his battered⁸ address book out of his left rear pocket and dialled Greg Carstairs's number. He thought he might actually catch Greg in this early, and he was right.

'Hello?'

'Hi, Greg - Mort Rainey.'

'Hi, Mort. I guess you've got some trouble up in Derry, huh?'

'Yes,' Mort said. 'Was it on the news?'

'Channel 5.'

'How did it look?'

'How did what look?' Greg replied. Mort winced⁹ ... but if he had to hear that from anybody, he was glad it had been Greg Carstairs. He was an amiable¹⁰, long-haired ex-hippie who had converted to some fairly obscure religious sect⁴ - the Swedenborgians, maybe - not long after Woodstock. He had a wife and two kids, one seven and one five, and so far as Mort could tell, the whole family was as laid back as Greg himself. You got so used to the man's small but constant smile that he looked undressed on the few occasions he was without it.

'That bad, huh?'

'Yes,' Greg said simply. 'It must have gone up like a rocket. I'm really sorry, man.'

'Thank you. I'm on my way up there now, Greg. I'm calling from Mechanic Falls. Can you do me a favor while I'm gone?'

'If you mean the shingles¹¹, I think they'll be in by-'

'No, not the shingles. Something else. There's been a guy bothering me the last two or three days. A crackpot. He claims I stole a story he wrote six or seven years ago. When I told him I'd written my version of the same story before he claims to have written his, and told him I could prove it, he got wiggy. I was sort of hoping I'd seen the last of him, but no such luck. Last evening, while I was sleeping on the couch, he killed my cat.'

'Bump?' Greg sounded faintly startled, a reaction that equalled roaring surprise in anyone else. 'He killed Bump?'

'That's right.'

'Did you talk to Dave Newsome about it?'

'No, and I don't want to, either. I want to handle him myself, if I can.'

'The guy doesn't exactly sound like a pacifist, Mort.'

'Killing¹² a cat is a long way from killing a man,' Mort said, 'and I think maybe I could handle him better than Dave.'

'Well, you could have something there,' Greg agreed. 'Dave's slowed down a little since he turned seventy. What can I do for you, Mort?'

'I'd like to know where the guy is staying, for one thing.'

'What's his name?'

'I don't know. The name on the story he showed me was John Shooter, but he got cute about that later on, told me it might be a pseudonym¹³. I think it is - it sounds like a pseudonym. Either way, I doubt if he's registered under that name if he's staying at an area motel.'

'What does he look like?'

'He's about six feet tall and forty-something. He's got a kind of weatherbeaten face - sun-wrinkles around his eyes and lines going down from the corners of the mouth, kind of bracketing the chin.'

As he spoke¹⁴, the face of 'John Shooter' floated into his consciousness with increasing clarity, like the face of a spirit swimming up to the curved side of a medium's crystal ball. Mort felt gooseflesh prick¹⁵ the backs of his hands and shivered a little. A voice in his midbrain kept muttering that he was either making a mistake or deliberately¹⁶ misleading Greg. Shooter was dangerous, all right. He hadn't needed to see what the man had done to Bump to know that. He had seen it in Shooter's eyes yesterday afternoon. Why was he playing vigilante, then?

Because, another, deeper, voice answered with a kind of dangerous firmness. Just because, that's all.

The midbrain voice spoke up again, worried: Do you mean to hurt him? Is that what this is all about? Do you mean to hurt him?

But the deep voice would not answer. It had fallen silent.

'Sounds like half the farmers around here,' Greg was saying doubtfully.

'Well, there's a couple of other things that may help pick him out,' Mort said. 'He's Southern, for one thing - got an accent on him that sticks out a mile. He wears a big black hat - felt, I think - with a round crown. It looks like the kind of hat Amish men wear. And he's driving a blue Ford¹⁷ station wagon¹⁸, early or mid-sixties. Mississippi plates.'

'Okay - better. I'll ask around. If he's in the area, somebody'll know where. Outta-state plates stand out this time of year.'

'I know.' Something else crossed his mind suddenly. 'You might start by asking Tom Greenleaf. I was talking to this Shooter yesterday on Lake Drive, about half a mile north of my place. Tom came along in his Scout¹⁹. He waved at us when he went by, and both of us waved back. Tom must have gotten a damned fine look at him.'

'Okay. I'll probably see him up at Bowie's Store if I drop by for a coffee around ten.'

'He's been there, too,' Mort said. 'I know, because he mentioned the paperback²⁰ book-rack. It's one of the old-fashioned ones.'

'And if I track him down, what?'

'Nothing,' Mort said. 'Don't do a thing. I'll call you tonight. Tomorrow night I should be back at the place on the lake. I don't know what the hell I can do up in Derry, except scuffle through the ashes.'

'What about Amy?'

'She's got a guy,' Mort said, trying not to sound stiff and probably sounding that way just the same. 'I guess what Amy does next is something the two of them will have to work out.'

'Oh. Sorry.'

'No need to be,' Mort said. He looked over toward the gas islands and saw that the jockey had finished filling his tank and was now washing the Buick's windshield, a sight he had never expected to witness again in his lifetime.

'Handling this guy yourself ... are you really sure it's what you want to do?'

'Yes, I think so,' Mort said.

He hesitated, suddenly understanding what was very likely going on in Greg's mind: he was thinking that if he found the man in the black hat and Mort got hurt as a result, he, Greg, would be responsible.

'Listen, Greg - you could go along while I talk to the guy, if you wanted to.'

'I might just do that,' Greg said, relieved.

'It's proof he wants,' Mort said, 'so I'll just have to get it for him.'

'But you said you had proof.'

'Yes, but he didn't exactly take my word for it. I guess I'm going to have to shove it in his face to get him to leave me alone.'

'Oh.' Greg thought it over. 'The guy really is crazy, isn't he?'

'Yes indeed.'

'Well, I'll see if I can find him. Give me a call tonight.'

'I will. And thanks, Greg.'

'Don't mention it. A change is as good as a rest.'

'So they say.'

He told Greg goodbye and checked his watch. It was almost seven thirty, and that was much too early to call Herb Creekmore, unless he wanted to pry²¹ Herb out of bed, and this wasn't that urgent. A stop at the Augusta tollbooths would do fine. He walked back to the Buick, replacing his address book and digging out his wallet. He asked the pump jockey how much he owed him.

'That's twenty-two fifty, with the cash discount,' the jockey said, and then looked at Mort shyly. 'I wonder if I could have your autograph, Mr Rainey? I've read all your books.'

That made him think of Amy again, and how Amy had hated the autograph seekers. Mort himself didn't understand them, but saw no harm in them. For her they had seemed to sum up an aspect of their lives which she found increasingly hateful. Toward the end, he had cringed inwardly every time someone asked that question in Amy's presence. Sometimes he could almost sense her thinking: If you love me, why don't you STOP them? As if he could, he thought. His job was to write books people like this guy would want to read ... or so he saw it. When he succeeded at that, they asked for autographs.

He scribbled²² his name on the back of a credit slip for the pump jockey (who had, after all, actually washed his windshield) and reflected that if Amy had blamed him for doing something they liked - and he thought that, on some level she herself might not be aware of, she had - he supposed he was guilty. But it was only the way he had been built.

Right was right, after all, just as Shooter had said. And fair was fair.

He got back into his car and drove off toward Derry.

1 bustling   

adj.喧闹的

参考例句：

• The market was bustling with life. 市场上生机勃勃。
• This district is getting more and more prosperous and bustling. 这一带越来越繁华了。

2 metropolis   

n.首府；大城市

参考例句：

• Shanghai is a metropolis in China.上海是中国的大都市。
• He was dazzled by the gaiety and splendour of the metropolis.大都市的花花世界使他感到眼花缭乱。

3 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。

4 sect   

n.派别，宗教，学派，派系

参考例句：

• When he was sixteen he joined a religious sect.他16岁的时候加入了一个宗教教派。
• Each religious sect in the town had its own church.该城每一个宗教教派都有自己的教堂。

5 fumes   

n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体

参考例句：

• The health of our children is being endangered by exhaust fumes. 我们孩子们的健康正受到排放出的废气的损害。
• Exhaust fumes are bad for your health. 废气对健康有害。

6 chevron   

n.V形臂章；V形图案

参考例句：

• He wore shoulderstrap rank slides with sergeant's chevrons.他佩戴标示级别的肩章，上面有中士的V形标志。
• The chevron or arrow road sign indicates a sharp bend to the left or right.V形或箭头路标表示有向左或向右的急转弯。

7 gauge   

v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器

参考例句：

• Can you gauge what her reaction is likely to be?你能揣测她的反应可能是什么吗？
• It's difficult to gauge one's character.要判断一个人的品格是很困难的。

8 battered   

adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损

参考例句：

• He drove up in a battered old car.他开着一辆又老又破的旧车。
• The world was brutally battered but it survived.这个世界遭受了惨重的创伤,但它还是生存下来了。

9 winced   

赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He winced as the dog nipped his ankle. 狗咬了他的脚腕子，疼得他龇牙咧嘴。
• He winced as a sharp pain shot through his left leg. 他左腿一阵剧痛疼得他直龇牙咧嘴。

10 amiable   

adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的

参考例句：

• She was a very kind and amiable old woman.她是个善良和气的老太太。
• We have a very amiable companionship.我们之间存在一种友好的关系。

11 shingles   

n.带状疱疹；（布满海边的）小圆石( shingle的名词复数 )；屋顶板；木瓦（板）；墙面板

参考例句：

• Shingles are often dipped in creosote. 屋顶板常浸涂木焦油。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The roofs had shingles missing. 一些屋顶板不见了。 来自辞典例句

12 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

13 pseudonym   

n.假名，笔名

参考例句：

• Eric Blair wrote under the pseudonym of George Orwell.埃里克·布莱尔用乔治·奧威尔这个笔名写作。
• Both plays were published under the pseudonym of Philip Dayre.两个剧本都是以菲利普·戴尔的笔名出版的。

14 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

15 prick   

v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛

参考例句：

• He felt a sharp prick when he stepped on an upturned nail.当他踩在一个尖朝上的钉子上时，他感到剧烈的疼痛。
• He burst the balloon with a prick of the pin.他用针一戳，气球就爆了。

16 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

17 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

18 wagon   

n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车

参考例句：

• We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
• The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。

19 scout   

n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索

参考例句：

• He was mistaken for an enemy scout and badly wounded.他被误认为是敌人的侦察兵，受了重伤。
• The scout made a stealthy approach to the enemy position.侦察兵偷偷地靠近敌军阵地。

20 paperback   

n.平装本，简装本

参考例句：

• A paperback edition is now available at bookshops.平装本现在在书店可以买到。
• Many books that are out of print are reissued in paperback form.许多绝版的书籍又以平装本形式重新出现。

21 pry   

vi.窥(刺)探，打听；vt.撬动(开，起)

参考例句：

• He's always ready to pry into other people's business.他总爱探听别人的事。
• We use an iron bar to pry open the box.我们用铁棍撬开箱子。

22 scribbled   

v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下

参考例句：

• She scribbled his phone number on a scrap of paper. 她把他的电话号码匆匆写在一张小纸片上。
• He scribbled a note to his sister before leaving. 临行前，他给妹妹草草写了一封短信。