Stephen King Two Past M

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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?'
Mort himself believed there were at least six stories: success; failure; love and loss; revenge, mistaken
identity; the search for a higher power, be it God or the devil. He had told the first four over and over,
obsessively, and now that he thought of it, 'Sowing Season' embodied at least three of those ideas. But was
that plagiarism? If it was, every novelist at work in the world would be guilty of the crime.
Plagiarism, he decided, was outright theft. And he had never done it in his life. Never.
'Never,' he said, and strode into his study with his head up and his eyes wide, like a warrior approaching the
field of battle. And there he sat for the next one hour, and words he wrote none.
26
His dry stint on the word processor convinced him that it might be a good idea to drink dinner instead of eat
it, and he was on his second bourbon and water when the telephone rang again. He approached it gingerly,
suddenly wishing he had a phone answering machine after all. They did have at least one sterling quality:
you could monitor incoming calls and separate friend from foe.
He stood over it irresolutely, thinking how much he disliked the sound modern telephones made. Once
upon a time they had rung - jingled merrily, even. Now they made a shrill ululating noise that sounded like
a migraine headache trying to happen.
Well, are you going to pick it up or just stand here listening to it do that?
I don't want to talk to him again. He scares me and he infuriates me, and I don't know which feeling I
dislike more.
Maybe it's not him.
Maybe it is.
Listening to those two thoughts go around and around was even worse than listening to the warbling beep-
yawp of the phone, so he picked it up and said hello gruffly and it was, after all, no one more dangerous
than his caretaker, Greg Carstairs.
Greg asked the now-familiar questions about the house and Mort answered them all again, reflecting that [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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