Four Past Midnight

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 trot.

37

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 pusherman.

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 hew 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 'phantom' 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 investigator, was still in Derry, still picking over the site, still asking . questions about everything from the most recent wiring inspection to who had the keys to the wine cellar, and Ted was suspicious of his motives. 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 atrocity. 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 grill 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 fictional complaint was suddenly real: his bowels had drawn themselves into an aching, throbbing 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, catching his breath ... and the phone began to ring again.

He sprang up like a jack 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 mincing along like a girl in a tight skirt. He had that miserable, 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 serene 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 halfway between his knees and his hips. What an author photograph this would make, he thought.

'I almost pinned a note on you,' Shooter said. 'I decided 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 frustration 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 sag 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 accusation of plagiarism; 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 crooked, he had seen a boy