Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [193]
'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.'
'Well, I certainly appreciate it,' Mort said. Now that he had the magazine, he felt a need to get away, to get back to the house. This need was so strong it was almost elemental. He didn't know why - it was an hour and a quarter until noon -but it was there. In his distress and confusion, he actually thought of giving Juliet a tip to shut her up ... and that would have caused her soul, Yankee to its roots, to rise up in a clamor.
'You won't tell them, will you?' she asked archly.
'No way,' he said, managing a grin.
'Good,' Juliet Stoker said, and smiled. 'Because I saw what you did.'
He stopped by the door. 'Pardon me?'
'I said they'd shoot me if you did,' she said, and looked closely at his face. 'You ought to go home and lie down, Mr Rainey. You really don't look well at all.'
I feel like I spent the last three days lying down, Juliet - the time I didn't spend hitting things, that is.
'Well,' he said, 'maybe that's not such a bad idea. I still feel weak.'
'There's a virus going around. You probably caught it.'
Then the two women from Camp Wigmore - the ones everybody in town suspected of being lesbians, albeit discreet ones - came in, and Mort made good his escape. He sat in the Buick with the blue package on his lap, not liking the way everybody kept saying he looked sick, liking the way his mind had been working even less.
It doesn't matter. It's almost over.
He started to pull the envelope open, and then the ladies from Camp Wigmore came back out and looked at him. They put their heads together. One of them smiled. The other laughed out loud. And Mort suddenly decided he would wait until he got back home.
44
He parked the Buick around the side of the house, in its customary place, turned off the ignition ... and then a soft grayness came over his vision. When it drew back, he felt strange and frightened. Was something wrong with him, then? Something physical?
No - he was just under strain, he decided.
He heard something - or thought he did - and looked around quickly.
Nothing there. Get hold of your nerves, he told himself shakily. That's really all you have to do -just get hold of your motherfucking nerves.
And then he thought: I did have a gun. That day. But it was unloaded. I told them that, later. Amy believed me. I don't know about Milner, but Amy did, and
Was it, Mort? Was it really unloaded?
He thought of the crack in the window-wall again, senseless silver lightning-bolt zig-zagging right up through the middle of things. That's how it happens, he thought. That's how it happens in a person's life.
Then he looked down at the Federal Express package again. This was what he should be thinking about, not Amy and Mr Ted Kiss-My-Ass from Shooter's Knob, Tennessee, but this.
The flap was already half-open - everyone was careless these days. He pulled it up and shook the magazine out into his lap. Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, the logo said in bright red letters. Beneath that, in much smaller type, June, 1980. And below that, the names of some of the writers featured in the issue.