Four Past Midnight

He felt his hand tightening down on the telephone's handset again and forced himself to loosen up. He doesn't know what the situation up here is. You have to remember that.

'The one my nutty friend is kicking sand about,' he said, trying to maintain a tone which was light and mostly unconcerned. 'Sowing Season. Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine?'

'Oh, that!' Herb said.

Mort felt a jolt of fear. 'You didn't forget to call, did you?'

'No - I called,' Herb reassured him. 'I just forgot all about it for a minute. You losing your house and all .'

'Well? What did they say?'

'Don't worry about a thing. They're going to send a Xerox over to me by messenger tomorrow, and I'll send it right up to you by Federal Express. You'll have it by ten o'clock day after tomorrow.'

For a moment it seemed that all of his problems were solved, and he started to relax. Then he thought of the way Shooter's eyes had blazed. The way he had brought his face down until his forehead and Mort's were almost touching. He thought of the dry smell of cinnamon on Shooter's breath as he said, 'You lie.'

A Xerox? He was by no means sure that Shooter would accept an original copy ... but a Xerox?

'No,' he said slowly. 'That's no good, Herb. No Xerox, no phone-call from the editor. It has to be an original copy of the magazine.'

'Well, that's a little tougher. They have their editorial offices in Manhattan, of course, but they store copies at their subscription offices in Pennsylvania. They only keep about five copies of each issue - it's really all they can afford to keep, when you consider that EQMM has been publishing since 1941. They really aren't crazy about lending them out.'

'Come on, Herb! You can find those magazines at yard sales and in half the small-town libraries in America!'

'But never a complete run.' Herb paused. 'Not even a phone-call will do, huh? Are you telling me this guy is so paranoid he'd think he was talking to one of your thousands of stooges?'

From the background: 'Do you want me to pour the wine, Herb?'

Herb spoke again with his mouth away from the phone. 'Hold on a couple of minutes, Dee.'

'I'm holding up your dinner,' Mort said. 'I'm sorry.'

'It goes with the territory. Listen, Mort, be straight with me - is this guy as crazy as he sounds? Is he dangerous?'

I don't think I'd talk about this to anyone else. That'd be like standing out in a thunderstorm and tempting the lightning.

'I don't think so,' he said, 'but I want him off my back, Herb.' He hesitated, searching for the right tone. 'I've spent the last half-year or so walking through a shitstorm. This might be one thing I can do something about. I just want the doofus off my back.'

'Okay,' Herb said with sudden decision. 'I'll call Marianne Jaffery over at EQMM. I've known her for a long time. If I ask her to ask the library curator -that's what they call the guy, honest, the library curator - to send us a copy of the June, 1980, ish, she'll do it. Is it okay if I say you might have a story for them at some point in the future?'

'Sure,' Mort said, and thought: Tell her it'll be under the name John Shooter, and almost laughed aloud.

'Good. She'll have the curator send it on to you Federal Express, direct from Pennsylvania. just return it in good condition, or you'll have to find a replacement copy at one of those yard sales you were talking about.'

'Is there any chance all this could happen by the day after tomorrow?' Mort asked. He felt miserably sure that Herb would think he was crazy for even asking ... and he surely must feel that Mort was making an awfully big mountain out of one small molehill.

'I think there's a very good chance,' Herb said. 'I won't guarantee it, but I'll almost guarantee it.'

'Thanks, Herb,' Mort said with honest gratitude. 'You're swell.'

'Aw, shucks, ma'am,' Herb said, doing the bad John Wayne imitation of which he was so absurdly proud.

'Now go get your dinner. And give Delores a kiss for me.'

Herb was still in his John Wayne mode. 'To heck with that. I'll give 'er a kiss fer me, pilgrim.'

You talk big, pilgrim.

Mort felt such a spurt of horror and fear that he almost cried out aloud. Same word, same flat, staring drawl. Shooter had tapped his telephone line' somehow, and no matter who Mort tried to call or what number he dialled. it was John Shooter who answered. Herb Creekmore had become just another one of his pen names, and

'Mort? Are you still there?'

He closed his eyes. Now that Herb had dispensed with the bogus John Wayne imitation, it was okay. It was just Herb again, and always had been. Herb using that word, that had just been

What?

Just another float in the Parade of Coincidences? Okay. Sure. No problem. I'll just stand on the curb and watch it slide past. Why not? I've already watched half a dozen bigger ones go by.

'Right here, Herb,' he said, opening his eyes. 'I was just trying to figure out how do I love thee. You know, counting the ways?'

'You're thilly,' Herb said, obviously pleased. 'And you're going to handle this carefully and prudently, right?'

'Right.'

'Then I think I'll go eat supper with the light of my life.'

'That sounds like a good idea. Goodbye, Herb - and thanks.'

'You're welcome. I'll try to make it the day after tomorrow. Dee says goodbye, too.'

'If she wants to pour the wine, I bet she does,' Mort said, and they both hung up laughing.

As soon as he put the telephone back on its table, the fantasy came back. Shooter. He do the police in different voices. Of course, he was alone and it was dark, a condition which bred fantasies. Nevertheless, he did not believe - at least in his head - that John Shooter was either a supernatural being or a

supercriminal. If he had been the former, he would surely know that Morton Rainey had not committed plagiarism - at least not on that particular story - and if he had been the latter, he would have been off knocking over a bank or something, not farting around western Maine, trying to squeeze a short story out of a writer who made a lot more money from his novels.

He started slowly back toward the living room, intending to go through to the study and try the word processor, when a thought

(at least not that particular story)

struck him and stopped him.

What exactly did that mean, not that particular story? Had he ever stolen someone else's work?

For the first time since Shooter had turned up on his porch with his sheaf of pages, Mort considered this question seriously. A good many reviews of his books had suggested that he was not really an original writer; that most of his works consisted of twice-told tales. He remembered Amy reading a review of The Organ-Grinder's Boy which had first acknowledged the book's pace and readability, and then suggested a certain derivativeness in its plotting. She'd said, 'So what? Don't these people know there are only about five really good stories, and writers just tell them over and over, with different characters?'