Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [173]
Oh yes. Right. And he partnered up with old Tom Greenleaf to do the job. In fact, it was probably Tom who went up to Derry and burned the house, while Shooter stayed down here and wasted the cat - right?
Now, think about it. Really THINK. Was he there? Was he REALLY?
So Mort thought about it. He thought about it harder than he had ever thought about anything in his life; harder, even, than he had thought about Amy and Ted and what he should do about them after he had discovered them in bed together on that day in May. Had he hallucinated John Shooter?
He thought again of the speed with which Shooter had grabbed him and thrown him against the side of the car.
'Greg?'
'I'm here, Mort.'
'Tom didn't see the car, either? Old station wagon, Mississippi plates?'
'He says he didn't see a car on Lake Drive at all yesterday. just you, standing up by the end of the path that goes down to the lake. He thought you were admiring the view.'
Is it live, or is it Memorex?
He kept coming back to the hard grip of Shooter's hands on his upper arms, the speed with which the man had thrown him against the car. 'You lie,' Shooter had said. Mort had seen the rage chained in his eyes, and had smelled dry cinnamon on his breath.
His hands.
The pressure of his hands.
'Greg, hold the phone a sec.'
'Sure.'
Mort put the receiver down and tried to roll up his shirtsleeves. He was not very successful, because his hands were shaking badly. He unbuttoned the shirt instead, pulled it off, then held out his arms. At first he saw nothing. Then he rotated them outward as far as they would go, and there they were, two yellowing bruises on the inside of each arm, just above the elbow.
The marks made by John Shooter's thumbs when he grabbed him and threw him against the car.
He suddenly thought he might understand, and was afraid. Not for himself, though.
For old Tom Greenleaf.
28
He picked up the telephone. 'Greg?'
'I'm here.'
'Did Tom seem all right when you talked to him?'
'He was exhausted,' Greg said promptly. 'Foolish old man has got no business crawling around on a scaffold and painting all day in a cold wind. Not at his age. He looked ready to fall into the nearest pile of leaves, if he couldn't get to a bed in a hurry. I see what you're getting at, Mort, and I suppose that if he was tired enough, it could have slipped his mind, but -'
'No, that's not what I'm thinking about. Are you sure exhaustion was all it was? Could he have been scared?'
Now there was a long, thinking silence at the other end of the line. Impatient though he was, Mort did not break it. He intended to allow Greg all the thinking time he needed.
'He didn't seem himself,' Greg said at last. 'He seemed distracted ... off, somehow. I chalked it up to plain old tiredness, but maybe that wasn't it. Or not all of it.'
'Could he have been hiding something from you?'
This time the pause was not so long. 'I don't know. He might have been. That's all I can say for sure, Mort. You're making me wish I'd talked to him longer and pressed him a little harder.'
'I think it might be a good idea if we went over to his place,' Mort said.
'Now. It happened the way I told you, Greg. If Tom said something different, it could be because my friend scared the bejesus out of him. I'll meet you there.'
'Okay.' Greg sounded worried all over again. 'But, you know, Tom isn't the sort of man who'd scare easy.'
'I'm sure that was true once, but Tom's seventy-five if he's a day. I think that the older you get, the easier to scare you get.'
'Why don't I meet you there?'
'That sounds like a good idea.' Mort hung up the telephone, poured the rest of his bourbon down the sink, and headed for Tom Greenleafs house in the Buick.
29
Greg was parked in the driveway when Mort arrived. Tom's Scout was by the back door. Greg was wearing a flannel jacket with the collar turned up; the wind off the lake was keen enough to be uncomfortable.
'He's okay,' he told Mort at once.
'How do you know?'
They both spoke in