Mort didn't believe that people - even those who tried to be fairly honest with themselves - knew when some things were over. He believed they often went on believing, or trying to believe, even when the handwriting was not only on the wall but writ1 in letters large enough to read a hundred yards away without a spyglass. If it was something you really cared about and felt that you needed, it was easy to cheat, easy to confuse your life with TV and convince yourself that what felt so wrong would eventually come right . . . probably after the next commercial break. He supposed that, without its great capacity for self-deception, the human race would be even crazier than it already was.
But sometimes the truth crashed through, and if you had consciously tried to think or dream your way around that truth, the results could be devastating3. it was like being there when a tidal wave roared not over but straight through a dike5 which had been set in its way, smashing it and you flat.
Mort Rainey experienced one of these cataclysmic epiphanies after the representatives of the police and fire departments had gone and he and Amy and Ted6 Milner were left alone to walk slowly around the smoking ruin of the green Victorian house which had stood at 92 Kansas Street for one hundred and thirty-six years. It was while they were making that mournful inspection7 tour that he understood that his marriage to the former Amy Dowd of Portland, Maine, was over. It was no 'period of marital8 stress.' It was no 'trial separation.' It was not going to be one of those cases you heard of from time to time where both parties repented9 their decision and remarried. It was over. Their lives together were history. Even the house where they had shared so many good times was nothing but evilly smouldering beams tumbled into the cellar-hole like the teeth of a giant.
Their meeting at Marchman's, the little coffee shop on Witcham Street, had gone well enough. Amy had hugged him and he had hugged her back, but when he tried to kiss her mouth, she turned her head deftly10 aside so that the lips landed on her cheek instead. Kiss-kiss, as they said at the office parties. So good to see you, darling.
Ted Milner, blow-dried hair perfectly11 in place this morning and nary an Alfalfa corkscrew in sight, sat at the table in the corner, watching them. He was holding the pipe which Mort had seen clenched12 in his teeth at various parties over the last three years or so. Mort was convinced the pipe was an affectation, a little prop13 employed for the sole purpose of making its owner look older than he was. And how old was that? Mort wasn't sure, but Amy was thirty-six, and he thought Ted, in his impeccable stone-washed jeans and open-throated J. Press shirt, had to be at least four years younger than that, possibly more. He wondered if Amy knew she could be in for trouble ten years down the line - maybe even five - and then reflected it would take a better man than he was to suggest it to her.
He asked if there was anything new. Amy said there wasn't. Then Ted took over, speaking with a faintly Southern accent which was a good deal softer than John Shooter's nasal burr. He told Mort the fire chief and a lieutenant14 from the Derry Police Department would meet them at what Ted called 'the site.' They wanted to ask Mort a few questions. Mort said that was fine. Ted asked if he'd like a cup of coffee - they had time. Mort said that would also be fine. Ted asked how he had been. Mort used the word fine again. Each time it came out of his mouth it felt a little more threadbare. Amy watched the exchange between them with some apprehension15, and Mort could understand that. On the day he had discovered the two of them in bed together, he had told Ted he would kill him. In fact, he might have said something about killing16 them both. His memory of the event was quite foggy. He suspected theirs might be rather foggy, too. He didn't know about the other two corners of the triangle, but he himself found that foggery not only understandable but merciful.
They had coffee. Amy asked him about 'John Shooter.' Mort said he thought that situation was pretty much under control. He did not mention cats or notes or magazines. And after awhile, they left Marchman's and went to 92 Kansas Street, which had once been a house instead of a site.
The fire chief and police detective were there as promised, and there were questions, also as promised. Most of the questions were about any people who might dislike him enough to have tossed a Texaco cocktail17 into his study. If Mort had been on his own, he would have left Shooter's name out of it entirely18, but of course Amy would bring it up if he didn't, so he recounted the initial encounter just as it had happened.
The fire chief, Wickersham, said: 'The guy was pretty angry?'
'Yes.'
'Angry enough to have driven to Derry and torched your house?' the police detective, Bradley, asked.
He was almost positive Shooter hadn't done it, but he didn't want to delve19 into his brief dealings with Shooter any more deeply. It would mean telling them what Shooter had done to Bump, for one thing. That would upset Amy; it would upset her a great deal ... and it would open up a can of worms he would prefer to leave closed. It was time, Mort reckoned, to be disingenuous20 again.
'He might have been at first. But after I discovered the two stories really were alike, I looked up the original date of publication on mine.'
'His had never been published?' Bradley asked.
'No, I'm sure it hadn't been. Then, yesterday, he showed up again. I asked him when he'd written his story, hoping he'd mention a date that was later than the one I had. Do you understand?'
Detective Bradley nodded. 'You were hoping to prove you scooped21 him.'
'Right. "Sowing Season" was in a book of short stories I published in 1983, but it was originally published in 1980. I was hoping the guy would feel safe picking a date only a year or two before 1983. I got lucky. He said he'd written it in 1982. So you see, I had him.'
He hoped it would end there, but Wickersham, the fire chief, pursued it. 'You see and we see, Mr Rainey, but did he see?'
Mort sighed inwardly. He supposed he had known that you could only be disingenuous for so long - if things went on long enough, they almost always progressed to a point where you had to either tell the truth or carve an outright22 lie. And here he was, at that point. But whose business was it? Theirs or his? His. Right. And he meant to see it stayed that way.
'Yes,' he told them, 'he saw.'
'What did he do?' Ted asked. Mort looked at him with mild annoyance23. Ted glanced away, looking as if he wished he had his pipe to play with. The pipe was in the car. The J. Press shirt had no pocket to carry it in.
'He went away,' Mort said. His irritation24 with Ted, who had absolutely no business sticking his oar4 in, made it easier to lie. The fact that he was lying to Ted seemed to make it more all right, too. 'He muttered some bullshit about what an incredible coincidence it all was, then jumped into his car like his hair was on fire and his ass2 was catching25, and took off.'
'Happen to notice the make of the car and the license26 plate, Mr Rainey?' Bradley asked. He had taken out a pad and a ballpoint pen.
'It was a Ford27,' Mort said. 'I'm sorry, but I can't help you with the plate. It wasn't a Maine plate, but other than that . . .' He shrugged28 and tried to look apologetic. Inside, he felt increasingly uncomfortable with the way this was going. It had seemed okay when he was just being cute, skirting around any outright lies - it had seemed a way of sparing Amy the pain of knowing that the man had broken Bump's neck and then skewered29 him with a screwdriver30. But now he had put himself in a position where he had told different stories to different people. If they got together and did a comparison, he wouldn't look so hot. Explaining his reasons for the lies might be sticky. He supposed that such comparisons were pretty unlikely, as long as Amy didn't talk to either Greg Carstairs or Herb Creekmore, but suppose there was a hassle with Shooter when he and Greg caught up to him and shoved the June, 1980, issue of EQMM in Shooter's face?
Never mind, he told himself, we'll burn that bridge when we come to it, big guy. At this thought, he experienced a brief return of the high spirits he'd felt while talking to Herb at the toll31 plaza32, and almost cackled aloud. He held it in. They would wonder why he was laughing if he did something like that, and he supposed they would be right to wonder.
'I think Shooter must be bound for
(Mississippi.)
' - for wherever he came from by now,' he finished, with hardly a break.
'I imagine you're right,' Lieutenant Bradley said, 'but I'm inclined to pursue this, Mr Rainey. You might have convinced the guy he was wrong, but that doesn't mean he left your place feeling mellow33. It's possible that he drove up here in a rage and torched your house just because he was pissed off -pardon me, Mrs Rainey.'
Amy offered a crooked34 little smile and waved the apology away.
'Don't you think that's possible?'
No, Mort thought, I don't. If he'd decided35 to torch the house, I think he would have killed Bump before he left for Derry, just in case I woke up before he got back. In that case, the blood would have been dry and Bump would have been stiff when I found him. That isn't the way it happened ... but I can't say so. Not even if I wanted to. They'd wonder why I held back the stuff about Bump as long as I did, for one thing. They'd probably think I've got a few loose screws.
'I guess so,' he said, 'but I met the guy. He didn't strike me as the house-burning type.'
'You mean he wasn't a Snopes,' Amy said suddenly.
Mort looked at her, startled - then smiled. 'That's right,' he said. 'A Southerner, but not a Snopes.'
'Meaning what?' Bradley asked, a little warily36.
'An old joke, Lieutenant,' Amy said. 'The Snopeses were characters in some novels by William Faulkner. They got their start in business burning barns.'
'Oh,' Bradley said blankly.
Wickersham said: 'There is no house-burning type, Mr Rainey. They come in all shapes and sizes. Believe me.'
'Well - '
'Give me a little more on the car, if you can,' Bradley said. He poised37 a pencil over his notebook. 'I want to make the State Police aware of this guy.'
Mort suddenly decided he was going to lie some more. Quite a lot more, actually.
'Well, it was a sedan. I can tell you that much for sure.'
'Uh-huh. Ford sedan. Year?'
'Somewhere in the seventies, I guess,' Mort said. He was fairly sure Shooter's station wagon38 had actually been built around the time a fellow named Oswald had elected Lyndon Johnson President of the United States. He paused, then added: 'The plate was a light color. It could have been Florida. I won't swear to it, but it could have been.'
'Uh-huh. And the man himself?'
'Average height. Blonde hair. Eyeglasses. The round wire-framed ones John Lennon used to wear. That's really all I re - '
'Didn't you say he was wearing a hat?' Amy asked suddenly.
Mort felt his teeth come together with a click. 'Yes,' he said pleasantly. 'That's right, I forgot. Dark gray or black. Except it was more of a cap. With a bill, you know.'
'Okay.' Bradley snapped his book closed. 'It's a start.'
'Couldn't this have been a simple case of vandalism, arson39 for kicks?' Mort asked. 'In novels, everything has a connection, but my experience has been that in real life, things sometimes just happen.'
'It could have been,' Wickersham agreed, 'but it doesn't hurt to check out the obvious connections.' He dropped Mort a solemn little wink40 and said, 'Sometimes life imitates art, you know.'
'Do you need anything else?' Ted asked them, and put an arm around Amy's shoulders.
Wickersham and Bradley exchanged a glance and then Bradley shook his head. 'I don't think so, at least not at the present.'
'I only ask because Amy and Mort will have to put in some time with the insurance agent,' Ted said. 'Probably an investigator41 from the parent company, as well.'
Mort found the man's Southern accent more and more irritating. He suspected that Ted came from a part of the South several states north of Faulkner country, but it was still a coincidence he could have done without.
The officials shook hands with Amy and Mort, expressed their sympathy, told them to get in touch if anything else occurred to either of them, and then took themselves off, leaving the three of them to take another turn around the house.
'I'm sorry about all of this, Amy,' Mort said suddenly. She was walking between them, and looked over at him, apparently42 startled by something she had heard in his voice. Simple sincerity43, maybe. 'All of it. Really sorry.'
'So am I,' she said softly, and touched his hand.
'Well, Teddy makes three,' Ted said with solemn heartiness44. She turned back to him, and in that moment Mort could have cheerfully strangled the man until his eyes popped out jittering45 at the ends of their optic strings46.
They were walking up the west side of the house toward the street now. Over here had been the deep corner where his study had met the house, and not far away was Amy's flower-garden. All the flowers were dead now, and Mort reflected that was probably just as well. The fire had been hot enough to crisp what grass had remained green in a twelve-foot border all around the ruin. If the flowers had been in bloom, it would have crisped them, as well, and that would have been just too sad. It would have been
Mort stopped suddenly. He was remembering the stories. The story. You could call it 'Sowing Season' or you could call it 'Secret Window, Secret Garden,' but they were the same thing once you took the geegaws off and looked underneath47. He looked up. There was nothing to see but blue sky, at least now, but before last night's fire, there would have been a window right where he was looking. It was the window in the little room next to the laundry. The little room that was Amy's office. It was where she went to write checks, to write in her daily journal, to make the telephone calls that needed to be made ... the room where, he suspected, Amy had several years ago started a novel. And, when it died, it was the room where she had buried it decently and quietly in a desk drawer. The desk had been by the window. Amy had liked to go there in the mornings. She could start the wash in the next room and then do paperwork while she waited for the buzzer48 which proclaimed it was time to strip the washer and feed the drier. The room was well away from the main house and she liked the quiet, she said. The quiet and the clear, sane49 morning light. She liked to look out the window every now and then, at her flowers growing in the deep corner formed by the house and the study ell. And he heard her saying, It's the best room in the house, at least for me, because hardly anybody ever goes there but me. It's got a secret window, and it looks down on a secret garden.
'Mort?' Amy was saying now, and for a moment Mort took no notice, confusing her real voice with her voice in his mind, which was the voice of memory. But was it a true memory or a false one? That was the real question, wasn't it? It seemed like a true memory, but he had been under a great deal of stress even before Shooter, and Bump, and the fire. Wasn't it at least possible that he was having a ... well, a recollective hallucination? That he was trying to make his own past with Amy in some way conform to that goddam story where a man had gone crazy and killed his wife?
Jesus, I hope not. I hope not, because if I am, that's too close to nervousbreakdown territory for comfort.
'Mort, are you okay?' Amy asked. She plucked fretfully at his sleeve, at least temporarily breaking his trance.
'Yes,' he said, and then, abruptly50: 'No. To tell you the truth, I'm feeling a little sick.'
'Breakfast, maybe,' Ted said.
Amy gave him a look that made Mort feel a bit better. It was not a very friendly look. 'It isn't breakfast,' she said a little indignantly. She swept her arm at the blackened ruins. 'It's this. Let's get out of here.'
'The insurance people are due at noon,' Ted said.
'Well, that's more than an hour from now. Let's go to your place, Ted. I don't feel so hot myself. I'd like to sit down.'
'All right.' Ted spoke51 in a slightly nettled52 no-need-to-shout tone which also did Mort's heart good. And although he would have said at breakfast that morning that Ted Milner's place was the last one on earth he wanted to go, he accompanied them without protest.
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writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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devastating
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| adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的 | |
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oar
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| n.桨，橹，划手；v.划行 | |
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dike
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| n.堤，沟；v.开沟排水 | |
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ted
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| vt.翻晒，撒，撒开 | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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marital
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| adj.婚姻的，夫妻的 | |
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repented
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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prop
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| vt.支撑；n.支柱，支撑物；支持者，靠山 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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delve
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| v.深入探究，钻研 | |
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disingenuous
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| adj.不诚恳的，虚伪的 | |
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scooped
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| v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等） | |
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outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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28
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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skewered
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| v.（用串肉扦或类似物）串起，刺穿( skewer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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screwdriver
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| n.螺丝起子；伏特加橙汁鸡尾酒 | |
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toll
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| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
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plaza
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| n.广场，市场 | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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arson
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| n.纵火，放火 | |
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wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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investigator
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| n.研究者，调查者，审查者 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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heartiness
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| 诚实，热心 | |
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jittering
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| v.紧张不安，战战兢兢( jitter的现在分词 ) | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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buzzer
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| n.蜂鸣器；汽笛 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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spoke
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| 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 | |
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nettled
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| v.拿荨麻打，拿荨麻刺（nettle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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