They were all quiet on the ride across town to the split-level on the east side where Ted1 hung his hat. Mort didn't know what Amy and Ted were thinking about, although the house for Amy and whether or not they'd be on time to meet the wallahs from the insurance company for Ted would probably be a couple of good guesses, but he knew what he was thinking about. He was trying to decide if he was going crazy or not. Is it real, or is it Memorex?
He decided2 finally that Amy really had said that about her office next to the laundry room - it was not a false memory. Had she said it before 1982, when 'John Shooter' claimed to have written a story called 'Secret Window' Secret Garden'? He didn't know. No matter how earnestly he conned3 his confused and aching brain, what kept coming back was a single curt4 message: answer inconclusive. But if she had said it, no matter when, couldn't the title of Shooter's story still be simple coincidence? Maybe, but the coincidences were piling up, weren't they? He had decided the fire was, must be, a coincidence. But the memory which Amy's garden with its crop of dead flowers had prodded5 forth6 ... well, it was getting harder and harder to believe all of this wasn't tied together in some strange, possibly even supernatural fashion.
And in his own way, hadn't 'Shooter' himself been just as confused? How did you get it? he had asked, his voice had been fierce with rage and puzzlement. That's what I really want to know. How in hell did a big-money scribbling7 asshole like you get down to a little shitsplat town in Mississippi and steal my goddam story? At the time, Mort had thought either that it was another sign of the man's madness or that the guy was one hell of a good actor. Now, in Ted's car, it occurred to him for the first time that it was exactly the way he himself would have reacted, had the circumstances been reversed8.
As, in a way, they had been. The one place where the two stories differed completely was in the matter of the title. They both fit, but now Mort found that he had a question to ask Shooter which was very similar to the one Shooter had already asked him: How did you happen by that title, Mr Shooter? That's what I really want to know. How did you happen to know that, twelve hundred miles away from your shitsplat town in Mississippi . ' the wife of a writer you claim you never heard of before this year had her own secret window, looking down on her own secret garden?
Well, there was only one way to find out, of course. When Greg ran Shooter down Mort would have to ask him.
1 ted | |
vt.翻晒,撒,撒开 | |
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2 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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3 conned | |
adj.被骗了v.指挥操舵( conn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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4 curt | |
adj.简短的,草率的 | |
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5 prodded | |
v.刺,戳( prod的过去式和过去分词 );刺激;促使;(用手指或尖物)戳 | |
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6 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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7 scribbling | |
n.乱涂[写]胡[乱]写的文章[作品]v.潦草的书写( scribble的现在分词 );乱画;草草地写;匆匆记下 | |
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8 reversed | |
v.(使)反转( reverse的过去式和过去分词 );(使)颠倒;(使)翻转;推翻adj.颠倒的 | |
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