Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [177]
He looked down at his omelette and didn't want it.
He dug in just the same, however, and managed to shovel most of it down his throat. It was still going to be a long day. Gerda Bowie's opinions on his looks and his love-life wouldn't change that.
When he finished, paid for breakfast and a paper, and left the store (the Public Works crews had decamped en masse five minutes before him, one stopping just long enough to obtain an autograph for his niece, who was having a birthday), it was five past nine. He sat behind the steering wheel long enough to check the paper for a story about the Derry house, and found one on page three. DERRY FIRE INSPECTORS REPORT NO LEADS IN RAINEY ARSON, the headline read. The story itself was less than half a column long. The last sentence read, 'Morton Rainey, known for such best-selling novels as The Organ-Grinder's Boy and The Delacourt Family, could not be reached for comment.' Which meant that Amy hadn't given them the Tashmore number. Good deal. He'd thank her for that if he talked to her later on.
Tom Greenleaf came first. It would be almost twenty past the hour by the time he reached the Methodist Parish Hall. Close enough to nine-thirty. He put the Buick in gear and drove off.
33
When he arrived at the Parish Hall, there was a single vehicle parked in the drive - an ancient Ford Bronco with a camper on the back and a sign reading SONNY TROTTS PAINTING CARETAKING GENERAL CARPENTRY on each of the doors. Mort saw Sonny himself, a short man of about forty with no hair and merry eyes, on a scaffolding. He was painting in great sweeps while the boom box beside him played something Las Vegasy by Ed Ames or Tom Jones -one of those fellows who sang with the top three buttons of their shirts undone, anyway.
'Hi, Sonny!' Mort called.
Sonny went on painting, sweeping back and forth in almost perfect rhythm as Ed Ames or whoever it was asked the musical questions what is a man, what has he got. They were questions Mort had asked himself a time or two, although without the horn section.
'Sonny!'
Sonny jerked. White paint flew from the end of his brush, and for an alarming moment Mort thought he might actually topple off the scaffold. Then he caught one of the ropes, turned, and looked down. 'Why, Mr Rainey!' he said. 'You gave me a helluva turn!'
For some reason Mort thought of the doorknob in Disney's Alice in Wonderland and had to suppress a violent bray of laughter.
'Mr Rainey? You okay?'
'Yes Mort swallowed crooked. It was a trick he had learned in parochial school about a thousand years ago, and was the only foolproof way to keep from laughing he had ever found. Like most good tricks that worked, it hurt. 'I thought you were going to fall off.'
'Not me,' Sonny said with a laugh of his own. He killed the voice coming from the boom box as it set off on a fresh voyage of emotion. 'Tom might fall off, maybe, but not me.'
'Where is Tom?' Mort asked. 'I wanted to talk to him.'
'He called early and said he couldn't make it today. I told him that was okay, there wasn't enough work for both of us anyways.'
Sonny looked down upon Mort confidentially.
'There is, a' course, but Tom ladled too much onto his plate this time. This ain't no job for a older fella. He said he was all bound up in his back. Must be, too. Didn't sound like himself at all.'
'What time was that?' Mort asked, trying hard to sound casual.
'Early,' Sonny said. 'Six or so. I was just about to step into the old shitatorium for my morning
constitutional. Awful regular, I am.' Sonny sounded extremely proud of this. 'Course Tom, he knows what time I rise and commence my doins.'
'But he didn't sound so good?'
'Nope. Not like himself at all.' Sonny paused, frowning. He looked as if he was trying very hard to remember something. Then he gave a little shrug and went on. 'Wind off the lake was fierce yesterday. Probably took a cold. But Tommy's iron. Give him