He closed his eyes, and almost immediately opened them as a knock came upon the door.
'Valet, sir!' a voice called.
Lanois rose, and, sighing, opened the door to reveal a young man with his bagged suit, pressed and ready.
The young man entered, and Lanois took the suit, realizing that his wallet had been moved to the dresser.
'Come in, please, and wait a moment,' he said.
The young man, not more than seventeen and smiling, obeyed and entered the room, stopping a discreet distance inside the door.
Lanois retreated to the dresser, opened the top drawer and withdrew the two knives from where they lay atop his folded underclothes. 'Close the door, please,' he said.
The young man obeyed.
Lanois was instantly upon him, driving him against the door. He registered the terror in the young man's eyes.
Lanois raised the two knives and crossed them, driving deep, into his own neck.
The next morning, in his hotel room, Lanois read of the murder of the valet, whose bisected body had been found in the hotel's laundry chute.
This he read before he opened the window.
Bright sunshine assaulted him, and the day was already warm, heading toward the heat of spring. The trees in the hotel's courtyard were in full bloom, filled with robins, and squirrels chased one another from bole to bole.
The green face was there, a stringless balloon, three dimensional, perfectly formed.
His face.
'It doesn't matter if you're dreaming, does it?' the face said. It even had the fussily straight part of his hair, in bright green. 'It doesn't matter if you dream of winter or spring, or if robins chirp or squirrels play. If you see me, you will then dream, and they will die.' The face smiled. 'Is this not so?'
'Yes,' Lanois said, 'it is so. You have proved it. The murders are real, and you have caused them to happen.'
'Don't you want to know where I come from, Lanois? If I am a creature of your own mind, or a monster from the deep of cold space or roasting hell itself, come to feast on you?'
'It doesn't matter. You exist. I'm sure now.'
The face laughed again. 'Quite so. Next you will dream of the Prefect's wife, who you admire greatly. She is a handsome woman. They will find her legs cut off, and her tongue and hands.'
Lanois turned his back on the face.
'Don't you approve?' the green face laughed. It moved in closer to the open window, hovering above the sill, tilting slightly to stare at him in amusement.
'Of course I do,' Lanois said, turning back with both of the knives, crossed with immense tension at the blades, in his hands.
He lunged at the green face, and thrust both of the sharp weapons deep into his own throat.
His green throat.
White Lightning
We'd been talking about drinking the white lightning the whole week, but when it finally got to this morning, and we stood in the woods near Pisser Johnson's busted still with a jar of it in our hands, Billy didn't want to do it.
'Could be bad stuff,' he said. 'Could make us blind, or go crazy. I heard from Jodie McAfrey that Pisser's whiskey drove a man crazy in Dobbinsville a couple years ago. That's why Sheriff Mapes had to finally let the feds get at 'im. I heard the man got himself a gun and shot up the town, killed most of his family, then himself. I heard —'
'You a pussy?' I finally said, sick of his whining.
'I ain't no pussy,' he said, getting red in the face. That's about as far as he ever went in anger, getting red in the face. Soon he would look at the ground, then give in to me, just like always.
'Well, only pussies won't drink,' I said. 'You're tired of stealing your old man's bottle beer, ain't you? Here we got a whole box of jars, just to ourself. Remember the special beating my old man gave me 'time he found me watering his gin after we drank half of it?' I was yelling pretty loud, and Billy was looking at the ground.
'I ain't no pussy,' he repeated.
I held the jar out. 'Then drink. Chances are, it'll only make us feel real good.'
'Or kill us,' he said, still looking at the ground.
'You are a pussy,' I said.
So I drank from the jar first, closing my eyes, holding my breath, and felt the hot stuff go down my throat, then shoot up into my head.
I opened my eyes, and for a second I saw only stars, and thought I was blind. But then I saw Billy and the woods around him real bright, like they were lit up all around, and knew everything was just fine.
'Holy shit,' I said, and Billy looked at me kind of scared, but then I gave a whoop and took another long drink. The world flashed brighter, and I felt warm all through, like the Sun was inside me.
'Even pussies've got to try this!' I laughed, and handed him the jar, and he laughed and took a big swallow.
So we drank the rest of the jar, and took another with us, and hid the rest away in Pisser's storm cellar where we'd found them, where the stupid feds had missed them, and set off back to town to get Billy's old man's gun.
It was two o'clock by the time we got back, which meant Billy's old man was drunk, so we had to sneak around back. We heard Billy's old man raving around in front, yelling at the television, kicking the furniture.
'Let's get it,' I said, whispering.
The gun was in the back of the closet shelf in Billy's old man's room. We had to move some stuff aside; we'd had it down to play with a couple of times and knew exactly where everything was and where it had to go back. Billy's old man was a drunk, and drunks know where things should be and are always looking out for people doing them wrong.
The shoe box was there, along with the cardboard box full of clips. We brought them down, took everything out. I hefted the gun, pushed a 9mm clip into it.
'Feels good,' I said, smiling.
'Ought to,' Billy said. His head looked bigger, brighter, than it was supposed to. Everything he said came out large, like it was written in balloons above his head. 'My old man took it from the cop's body they found down by the Housack River last year.'
I kept smiling. 'Time we put it to some good use. Let's kill your old man.'
Billy started to protest, so I said, 'Why not?'
'He's my old man.'
'So what,' I said. 'He beat you this week?'
'He beats me every week.'
'So I'll kill him.'
I stared at him while he got red in the face, stared hard at the ground, then finally said, 'Go ahead.'
'Take the rest of the clips,' I said, and Billy emptied them into his jeans pockets.
We walked down the hall, me in front, smiling, to the living room. Billy's old man was up at the TV, fiddling
