Four Past Midnight

... or Perkins ... or one of the others in the class ... I'm caught.

He had thought of suicide then - quite calmly and quite rationally. His mother had sleeping pills. He would use those. Somewhat eased by this prospect, he tore the envelope open and pulled out a single sheet of stationery. He held it folded in one hand for a long moment and considered burning it without even looking at it. He wasn't sure he could stand to see the accusation held baldly up in front of him. He thought it might drive him mad.

Go ahead, dammit - look. The least you can do is look at the consequences. You may not be able to stand up to them, but you can by-God look at them.

He unfolded the letter.

Dear Mort Rainey,

Your short story, 'Eye of the Crow,' was extremely well received here. I'm sorry this follow-up letter has been so slow in coming, but, frankly, we expected to hear from you. You have been so faithful in your submissions over the years that your silence now that you have finally succeeded in 'making it' is a little perplexing. If there was anything about the way your story was handled - typesetting, design, placement, etc. - that you didn't like, we hope you'll bring it up. Meantime, how about another tale?

Respectfully yours,

Charlie

Charles Palmer

Assistant Editor

Mort had read this letter twice, and then began to peal hoarse bursts of laughter at the house, which was luckily empty. He had heard of side-splitting laughter, and this was surely it - he felt that if he didn't stop soon, his sides really would split, and send his guts spewing out all over the floor. He had been ready to kill himself with his mother's sleeping pills, and they wanted to know if he was upset with the way the story had been typeset! He had expected to find that his career was ruined even before it was fairly begun, and they wanted more! More!

He laughed - howled, actually - until his side-splitting laughter turned to hysterical tears. Then he sat on the sofa, reread Charles Palmer's letter, and cried until he laughed again. At last he had gone into his room and lain down with the pillows arranged behind him just the way he liked, and then he had fallen asleep.

He had gotten away with it. That was the upshot. He had gotten away with it, and he had never done anything even remotely like it again, and it had all happened about a thousand years ago, and so why had it come back to haunt him now?

He didn't know, but he intended to stop thinking about it.

'And right now, too,' he told the empty room, and walked briskly over to the coffeemaker, trying to ignore his aching head.

You know why you're thinking about it now.

'Shut up.' He spoke in a conversational tone which was rather cheery ... but his hands were shaking as he picked up the Silex.

Some things you can't hide forever. You might be ill, Mort.

'Shut up, I'm warning you,' he said in his cheery conversational voice.

You might be very ill. In fact, you might be having a nervous br...

'Shut up!' he cried, and threw the Silex as hard as he could. It sailed over the counter, flew across the room, turning over and over as it went, crunched into the window-wall, shattered, and fell dead on the floor. He looked at the window-wall and saw a long, silvery crack zig-zagging up to the top. It started at the place where the Silex had impacted. He felt very much like a man who might have a similar crack running right through the middle of his brain.

But the voice had shut up.

He walked stolidly into the bedroom, got the alarm clock, and walked back into the living room. He set the alarm for ten-thirty as he walked. At ten-thirty he was going to go to the post office, pick up his Federal Express package, and go stolidly about the task of putting this nightmare behind him.

In the meantime, though, he would sleep.

He would sleep on the couch, where he had always slept best.

'I am not having a nervous breakdown,' he whispered to the little voice, but the little voice was having none of the argument. Mort thought that he might have frightened the little voice. He hoped so, because the little voice had certainly frightened him.

His eyes found the silvery crack in the window-wall and traced it dully. He thought of using the

chambermaid's key. How the room had been dim, and it had taken his eyes a moment to adjust. Their naked shoulders. Their frightened eyes. He had been shouting, He couldn't remember what - and had never dared to ask Amy - but it must have been some scary shit, judging from the look in their eyes.

If I was ever going to have a nervous breakdown, he thought, looking at the lightning- bolt senselessness of the crack, it would have been then. Hell, that letter from Aspen Quarterly was nothing compared to opening a motel-room door and seeing your wife with another man, a slick real-estate agent from some shitsplat little town in Tennessee

Mort closed his eyes, and when he opened them again it was because another voice was clamoring. This one belonged to the alarm clock. The fog had cleared, the sun had come out, and it was time to go to the post office.

43

On the way, he became suddenly sure that Federal Express would have come and gone ... and Juliet would stand there at the window with her bare face hanging out and shake her head and tell him there was nothing for him, sorry. And his proof? It would be gone like smoke. This feeling was irrational - Herb was a cautious man, one who did not make promises that couldn't be kept - but it was almost too strong to deny.

He had to force himself out of the car, and the walk from the door of the post office to the window where Juliet Stoker stood sorting mail seemed at least a thousand miles long.

When he got there, he tried to speak and no words came out. His lips moved, but his throat was too dry to make the sounds. Juliet looked up at him, then took a step back. She looked alarmed. Not, however, as alarmed as Amy and Ted had looked when he opened the motel-room door and pointed the gun at them.

'Mr Rainey? Are you all right?'

He cleared his throat. 'Sorry, Juliet. My throat kind of double-clutched on me for a second.'

'You're very pale,' she said, and he could hear in her voice that tone so many of the Tashmore residents used when they spoke to him - it was a sort of pride, but it held an undertaste of irritation and condescension, as though he was a child prodigy who needed special care and feeding.

'Something I ate last night, I guess,' he said. 'Did Federal Express leave anything for me?'

'No, not a thing.'

He gripped the underside of the counter desperately, and for a moment thought he would faint, although he had understood almost immediately that that was not what she had said.

'Pardon me?'

She had already turned away; her sturdy country bum was presented to him as she shuffled through some packages on the floor.

'Just the one thing, I said,' she replied, and then turned around and slid

the package across the counter to him. He saw the return address was EQMM in Pennsylvania, and Pelt relief course through him. It felt like cool water pouring down a dry throat.

'Thank you.'

'Welcome. You know, the post office would have a cow if they knew we handle that Federal Express man's mail.'