When he came to, Mort rolled over, sat up groggily1, and turned his wrist to look at his watch. It said quarter past two, but of course it must have stopped at that time last night; he had found Tom's Scout2 at mid-morning, and this couldn't be afternoon. He had fainted, and, considering the circumstances, that wasn't surprising. But no one faints for three and a half hours.
The watch's second hand was making its steady little circle, however.
Must have jogged it when I sat up, that's all.
But that wasn't all. The sun had changed position, and would soon be lost behind the clouds which were filling up the sky. The color of the lake had dulled to a listless chrome.
So he had started off fainting, or swooning, and then what? Well, it sounded incredible, but he supposed he must have fallen asleep. The last three days had been nerve-racking, and last night he had been sleepless4 until three. So call it a combination of mental and physical fatigue5. His mind had just pulled the plug. And
Shooter! Christ. Shooter said he'd call!
He tried to get to his feet, then fell back with a little oof! sound of mingled6 pain and surprise as his left leg buckled7 under him. It was full of pins and needles, all of them crazily dancing. He must have lain on the goddam thing. Why hadn't he brought the Buick, for Christ's sake? If Shooter called and Mort wasn't there to take the call, the man might do anything.
He lunged to his feet again, and this time made it all the way up. But when he tried to stride on the left leg, it refused his weight and spilled him forward again. He almost hit his head on the side of the truck going down and was suddenly looking at himself in one of the hubcaps of the Scout. The convex surface made his face look like a grotesque8 funhouse mask. At least he had left the goddamned hat back at the house; if he had seen that on his head, Mort thought he would have screamed. He wouldn't have been able to help himself.
All at once he remembered there were two dead men in the Scout. They were sitting above him, getting stiff, and there were tools sticking out of their heads.
He crawled out of the Scout's shadow, dragged his left leg across his right with his hands, and began to pound at it with his fists, like a man trying to tenderize a cheap cut of meat.
Stop it! a small voice cried - it was the last kernel9 of rationality at his command, a little sane10 light in what felt like a vast bank of black thunderheads between his ears. Stop it! He said he'd call late in the afternoon, and it's only quarter past two! Plenty of time! Plenty of time!
But what if he called early? Or what if 'late afternoon' started after two o'clock in the deep-dish, crackerbarrel South?
Keep beating on your leg like that and you'll wind up with a charley horse. Then you can see how you like trying to crawl back in time to take his call.
That did the trick. He was able to make himself stop. This time he got up more cautiously and just stood for a moment (he was careful to keep his back to Tom's Scout - he did not want to look inside again) before trying to walk. He found that the pins and needles were subsiding11. He walked with a pronounced limp at first, but his gait began to smooth out after the first dozen strides .
He was almost clear of the bushes Shooter had stripped and beaten down with Tom's Scout when he heard a car approaching. Mort dropped to his knees without even thinking about it and watched as a rusty12 old Cadillac swept by. It belonged to Don Bassinger, who owned a place on the far side of the lake. Bassinger, a veteran alcoholic13 who spent most of his time drinking up what remained of his once-substantial inheritance, often used Lake Drive as a shortcut14 to what was known as Bassinger Road. Don was about the only year-round resident down here, Mort thought.
After the Caddy was out of sight, Mort got to his feet and hurried the rest of the way up to the road. Now he was glad he hadn't brought the Buick. He knew Don Bassinger's Cadillac, and Bassinger knew Mort's Buick. It was probably too early in the day for Don to be in a blackout, and he might well have remembered seeing Mort's car, if it had been there, parked not far from the place where, before too much longer, someone was going to make an extremely horrible discovery.
He's busy tying you to this business, Mort thought as he limped along Lake Drive toward his house. He's been doing it all along. If anyone saw a car near Tom Greenleafs last night, it will almost certainly turn out to be your Buick. He killed them with your tools
I could get rid of the tools, he thought suddenly. I could throw them in the lake. I might heave up a time or two getting them out, but I think I could go through with it.
Could you? I wonder. And even if you did ... well, Shooter almost certainly will have thought of that possibility, too. He seems to have thought of all the others. And he knows that if you tried to get rid of the hatchet15 and the screwdriver16 and the police dragged the bottom for them and they were found, things would look even worse for you. Do you see what he's done? Do you?
Yes. He saw. John Shooter had given him a present. It was a tar3 baby. A large, glistening17 tar baby. Mort had smacked18 the tar baby in the head with his left hand and it had stuck fast. So he had whopped that old tar baby in the gut19 with his right hand to make it let go, only his right hand had stuck, too. He had been - what was the word he had kept using with such smug satisfaction? 'Disingenuous,' wasn't it? Yes, that was it. And all the time he had been getting more entangled20 with John Shooter's tar baby. And now? Well, he had told lies to all sorts of people, and that would look bad if it came out, and a quarter of a mile behind him a man was wearing a hatchet for a hat and Mort's name was written on the handle, and that would look even worse.
Mort imagined the telephone ringing in the empty house and forced himself into a trot21.
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1
groggily
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| adv.酒醉地；东倒西歪地 | |
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scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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buckled
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| a. 有带扣的 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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kernel
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| n.(果实的)核，仁；(问题)的中心，核心 | |
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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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subsiding
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的现在分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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alcoholic
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| adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者 | |
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shortcut
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| n.近路，捷径 | |
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hatchet
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| n.短柄小斧；v.扼杀 | |
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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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glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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smacked
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| 拍，打，掴( smack的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gut
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| n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏 | |
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entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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