Shooter didn't call.
The minutes stretched out like taffy, and Shooter didn't call. Mort walked restlessly through the house, twirling and pulling at his hair. He imagined this was what it felt like to be a junkie waiting for the pusher-man.
Twice he had second thoughts about waiting, and went to the phone to call the authorities - not old Dave Newsome, or even the county sheriff, but the State Police. He would hew1 to the old Vietnam axiom: Kill em all and let God sort em out. Why not? He had a good reputation, after all; he was a respected member of two Maine communities, and John Shooter was a
Just what was Shooter?
The word 'phantom3' came to mind.
The word 'will-o-the-wisp' also came to mind.
But it was not this that stopped him. What stopped him was a horrible certainty that Shooter would be trying to call while Mort himself was using the line ... that Shooter would hear the busy signal, hang up, and Mort would never hear from him again.
At quarter of four, it began to rain - a steady fall rain, cold and gentle, sighing down from a white sky, tapping on the roof and the stiff leaves around the house.
At ten of, the telephone rang. Mort leaped for it.
It was Amy.
Amy wanted to talk about the fire. Amy wanted to talk about how unhappy she was, not just for herself, but for both of them. Amy wanted to tell him that Fred Evans, the insurance investigator4, was still in Derry, still picking over the site, still asking . questions about everything from the most recent wiring inspection5 to who had the keys to the wine cellar, and Ted2 was suspicious of his motives6. Amy wanted Mort to wonder with her if things would have been different if they had had children.
Mort responded to all this as best he could, and all the time he was talking with her, he felt time - prime late-afternoon time - slipping away. He was half mad with worry that Shooter would call, find the line busy, and commit some fresh atrocity7. Finally he said the only thing he could think of to get her off the line: that if he didn't get to the bathroom soon, he was going to have an accident.
'Is it booze?' she asked, concerned. 'Have you been drinking?'
'Breakfast, I think,' he said. 'Listen, Amy, I-'
'At Bowie's?'
'Yes,' he said, trying to sound strangled with pain and effort. The truth was, he felt strangled. It was all quite a comedy, when you really considered it. 'Amy, really, I -'
'God, Mort, she keeps the dirtiest grill8 in town,' Amy said. 'Go. I'll call back later.' The phone went dead in his ear. He put the receiver into its cradle, stood there a moment, and was amazed and dismayed to discover his fictional9 complaint was suddenly real: his bowels10 had drawn11 themselves into an aching, throbbing12 knot.
He ran for the bathroom, unclasping his belt as he went.
It was a near thing, but he made it. He sat on the ring in the rich odor of his own wastes, his pants around his ankles, catching13 his breath ... and the phone began to ring again.
He sprang up like a jack14 released from its box, cracking one knee smartly on the side of the washstand, and ran for it, holding his pants up with one hand and mincing15 along like a girl in a tight skirt. He had that miserable16, embarrassing I-didn't-have-time-to-wipe feeling, and he guessed it happened to everyone, but it suddenly occurred to him he had never read about it in a book - not one single book, ever.
Oh, life was such a comedy.
This time it was Shooter.
'I saw you down there,' Shooter said. His voice was as calm and serene17 as ever. 'Down where I left them, I mean. Looked like you had you a heat-stroke, only it isn't summer.'
'What do you want?' Mort switched the telephone to his other ear. His pants slid down to his ankles again. He let them go and stood there with the waistband of his jockey shorts suspended halfway18 between his knees and his hips19. What an author photograph this would make, he thought.
'I almost pinned a note on you,' Shooter said. 'I decided20 not to.' He paused, then added with a kind of absent contempt: 'You scare too easy.'
'What do you want?'
'Why, I told you that already, Mr Rainey. I want a story to make up for the one you stole. Ain't you ready to admit it yet?'
Yes - tell him yes! Tell him anything, the earth is flat, John Kennedy and Elvis Presley are alive and well and playing banjo duets in Cuba, Meryl Streep's a transvestite, tell him ANYTHING
But he wouldn't.
All the fury and frustration21 and horror and confusion suddenly burst out of his mouth in a howl.
'I DIDN'T! I DIDN'T! YOU'RE CRAZY, AND I CAN PROVE IT! I HAVE THE MAGAZINE, YOU LOONY! DO YOU HEAR ME? I HAVE THE GODDAM MAGAZINE!'
The response to this was no response. The line was silent and dead, without even the faraway gabble of a phantom voice to break that smooth darkness, like that which crept up to the window-wall each night he had spent here alone.
'Shooter?'
Silence.
'Shooter, are you still there?'
More silence. He was gone.
Mort let the telephone sag22 away from his ear. He was returning it to the cradle when Shooter's voice, tinny and distant and almost lost, said:
. . now?'
Mort put the phone back to his ear. It seemed to weigh eight hundred pounds. 'What?' he asked. 'I thought you were gone.'
'You have it? You have this so-called magazine? Now?' He thought Shooter sounded upset for the first time. Upset and unsure.
'No,' Mort said.
'Well, there!' Shooter said, sounding relieved. 'I think you might finally be ready to talk turk -'
'It's coming Federal Express,' Mort interrupted. 'It will be at the post office by ten tomorrow.'
'What will be?' Shooter asked. 'Some fuzzy old thing that's supposed to be a copy?'
'No,' Mort said. The feeling that he had rocked the man, that he had actually gotten past his defenses and hit him hard enough to make it hurt, was strong and undeniable. For a moment or two Shooter had sounded almost afraid, and Mort was angrily glad. 'The magazine. The actual magazine.'
There was another long pause, but this time Mort kept the telephone screwed tightly against his ear. Shooter was there. And suddenly the story was the central issue again, the story and the accusation23 of plagiarism24; Shooter treating him like he was a goddam college kid was the issue, and maybe the man was on the run at last.
Once, in the same parochial school where Mort had learned the trick of swallowing crooked25, he had seen a boy stick a pin in a beetle26 which had been trundling across his desk. The beetle had been caught - pinned, wriggling27, and dying. At the time, Mort had been sad and horrified28. Now he understood. Now he only wanted to do the same thing to this man. This crazy man.
'There can't be any magazine,' Shooter said finally. 'Not with that story in it. That story is mine!'
Mort could hear anguish29 in the man's voice. Real anguish. It made him glad. The pin was in Shooter. He was wriggling around on it.
'It'll be here at ten tomorrow,' Mort said, 'or as soon after as FedEx drops the Tashmore stuff. I'll be happy to meet you there. You can take a look. As long a look as you want, you goddamned maniac30.'
'Not there,' Shooter said after another pause. 'At your house.'
'Forget it. When I show you that issue of Ellery Queen, I want to be someplace where I can yell for help if you go apeshit.'
'You'll do it my way,' Shooter said. He sounded a little more in control ... but Mort did not believe Shooter had even half the control he'd had previously31. 'If you don't, I'll see you in the Maine State Prison for murder.'
'Don't make me laugh.' But Mort felt his bowels begin to knot up again.
'I hooked you to those two men in more ways than you know,' Shooter said, 'and you have told a right smart of lies. If I just disappear, Mr Rainey, you are going to find yourself standing32 with your head in a noose33 and your feet in Crisco.'
'You don't scare me.'
'Yeah, I do,' Shooter said. He spoke34 almost gently. 'The only thing is. you're startin to scare me a little, too. I can't quite figure you out.'
Mort was silent.
'It'd be funny,' Shooter said in a strange, ruminating35 tone. 'if we had come by the same story in two different places, at two different times.'
'The thought had occurred to me.'
'Did it?'
'I dismissed it,' Mort said. 'Too much of a coincidence. If it was just the same plot, that would be one thing. But the same language? The same goddam diction?'
'Uh-huh,' Shooter said. 'I thought the same thing, pilgrim. It's just too much. Coincidence is out. You stole it from me, all right, but I'm goddamned if I can figure out how or when.'
'Oh, quit it!' Mort burst out. 'I have the magazine! I have proof! Don't you understand that? It's over! Whether it was some nutty game on your part or just a delusion36, it is over! I have the magazine!'
After a long silence, Shooter said: 'Not yet, you don't.'
'How true,' Mort said. He felt a sudden and totally unwanted sense of kinship with the man. 'So what do we do tonight?'
'Why, nothing,' Shooter said. 'Those men will keep. One has a wife and kids visiting family. The other lives alone. You go and get your magazine tomorrow morning. I will come to your place around noon.'
'You'll kill me,' Mort said. He found that the idea didn't carry much terror with it - not tonight, anyway. 'If I show you the magazine, your delusion will break down and you'll kill me.'
'No!' Shooter replied, and this time he seemed clearly surprised. 'You? No, sir! But those others were going to get in the way of our business. I couldn't have that ... and I saw that I could use them to make you deal with me. To face up to your responsibility.'
'You're crafty,' Mort said. 'I'll give you that. I believe you're nuts, but I also believe you're just about the craftiest37 son of a bitch I ever ran across in my life.'
'Well, you can believe this,' Shooter said. 'If I come tomorrow and find you gone, Mr Rainey, I will make it my business to destroy every person in the world that you love and care for. I will burn your life like a canefield in a high wind. You will go to jail for killing38 those two men, but going to jail will be the least of your sorrows. Do you understand?'
'Yes,' Mort said. 'I understand. Pilgrim.'
'Then you be there.'
'And suppose - just suppose - I show you the magazine, and it has my name on the contents page and my story inside. What then?'
There was a short pause. Then Shooter said, 'I go to the authorities and confess to the whole shooting match. But I'd take care of myself long before the trial, Mr Rainey. Because if things turn out that way, then I suppose I am crazy. And that kind of a crazy man . . .' There was a sigh. 'That kind of crazy man has no excuse or reason to live.'
The words struck Mort with queer force. He's unsure, he thought. For the first time, he's really unsure ... which is more than I've ever been.
But he cut that off, and hard. He had never had a reason to be unsure. This was Shooter's fault. Every bit of it was Shooter's fault.
He said: 'How do I know you won't claim the magazine is a fake?'
He expected no response to this, except maybe something about how Mort would have to take his word, but Shooter surprised him.
'If it's real, I'll know,' he said, 'and if it's fake, we'll both know. I don't reckon you could have rigged a whole fake magazine in three days, no matter how many people you have got working for you in New York.'
It was Mort's turn to think, and he thought for a long, long time. Shooter waited for him.
'I'm going to trust you,' Mort said at last. 'I don't know why, for sure. Maybe because I don't have a lot to live for myself these days. But I'm not going to trust you whole hog39. You come down here. Stand in the driveway where I can see you, and see that you're unarmed. I'll come out. Is that satisfactory?'
'That'll do her.'
'God help us both.'
'Yessir. I'll be damned if I'm sure what I'm into anymore ... and that is not a comfortable feeling.'
'Shooter?'
'Right here.'
'I want you to answer one question.'
Silence . . . but an inviting40 silence, Mort thought.
'Did you burn down my house in Derry?'
'No,' Shooter said at once. 'I was keeping an eye on you.'
'And Bump,' Mort said bitterly.
'Listen,' Shooter said. 'You got my hat?'
'Yes.'
'I'll want it,' Shooter said, 'one way or the other.'
And the line went dead.
Just like that.
Mort put the phone down slowly and carefully and walked back to the bathroom - once again holding his pants up as he went - to finish his business.
收听单词发音 |
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hew
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| v.砍；伐；削 | |
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ted
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| vt.翻晒，撒，撒开 | |
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phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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investigator
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| n.研究者，调查者，审查者 | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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atrocity
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| n.残暴，暴行 | |
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grill
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| n.烤架，铁格子，烤肉；v.烧，烤，严加盘问 | |
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fictional
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| adj.小说的，虚构的 | |
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bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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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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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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mincing
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| adj.矫饰的；v.切碎；切碎 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…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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frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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sag
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| v.下垂，下跌，消沉；n.下垂，下跌，凹陷，[航海]随风漂流 | |
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accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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plagiarism
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| n.剽窃，抄袭 | |
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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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beetle
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| n.甲虫，近视眼的人 | |
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wriggling
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕 | |
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horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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maniac
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| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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noose
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| n.绳套，绞索（刑）；v.用套索捉；使落入圈套；处以绞刑 | |
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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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ruminating
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| v.沉思( ruminate的现在分词 )；反复考虑；反刍；倒嚼 | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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craftiest
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| 狡猾的，狡诈的( crafty的最高级 ) | |
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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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hog
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| n.猪；馋嘴贪吃的人；vt.把…占为己有，独占 | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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