Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [203]
'I asked him to stop,' he said. 'I asked him twice.'
Amy reached out, squeezed his hand gently for a moment, then let it go.
'And that's it,' Evans said. 'I know a little more, mostly from the newspapers and two chats I had with Mr Milner
'Call me Ted.'
'Ted, then.' Evans did not seem to take to Ted's first name as easily as he had to Amy's. 'I know that Mr Rainey had what was probably a schizophrenic episode in which he was two people, and that neither one of them had any idea they were actually existing in the same body. I know that one of them was named John Shooter. I know from Herbert Creekmore's deposition that Mr Rainey imagined this Shooter was hounding him over a story called "Sowing Season," and that Mr Creekmore had a copy of the magazine in which that story appeared sent up so Mr Rainey could prove that he had published first. The magazine arrived shortly before you did, Amy - it was found in the house. The Federal Express envelope it came in was on the seat of your ex-husband's Buick.'
'But he cut the story out, didn't he?' Ted asked.
'Not just the story - the contents page as well. He was careful to remove every trace of himself. He carried a Swiss-army knife, and that was probably what he used. The missing pages were in the Buick's glove compartment.'
'In the end, the existence of that story became a mystery even to him,' Amy said softly.
Evans looked at her, eyebrows raised. 'Beg pardon?'
She shook her head. 'Nothing.'
'I think I've told you everything I can,' Evans said. 'Anything else would be pure speculation. I'm an insurance investigator, after all, not a psychiatrist.'
'He was two men,' Amy said. 'He was himself ... and he became a character he created. Ted believes that the last name, Shooter, was something
Mort picked up and stored in his head when he found out Ted came from a little town called Shooter's Knob, Tennessee. I'm sure he's right. Mort was always picking out character names just that way ... like anagrams, almost.
'I don't know the rest of it - I can only guess. I do know that when a film studio dropped its option on his novel The Delacourt Family, Mort almost had a nervous breakdown. They made it clear - and so did Herb Creekmore - that they were concerned about an accidental similarity, and they understood he never could have seen the screenplay, which was called The Home Team. There was no question of plagiarism ... except in Mort's head. His reaction was exaggerated, abnormal. It was like stirring a stick around in what looks like a dead campfire and uncovering a live coal.'
'You don't think he created John Shooter just to punish you, do you?' Evans asked.
'No. Shooter was there to punish Mort. I think . She paused and adjusted her shawl, pulling it a little more tightly about her shoulders. Then she picked up her teacup with a hand which wasn't quite steady. 'I think that Mort stole somebody's work sometime in the past,' she said. 'Probably quite far in the past, because everything he wrote from The Organ-Grinder's Boy on was widely read. It would have come out, I think. I doubt that he even actually published what he stole. But I think that's what happened, and I think that's where John Shooter really came from. Not from the film company dropping his novel, or from my ... my time with Ted, and not from the divorce. Maybe all those things contributed, but I think the root goes back to a time before I knew him. Then, when he was alone at the lake house . . .'
'Shooter came,' Evans said quietly. 'He came and accused him of plagiarism. Whoever Mr Rainey stole from never did, so in the end he had to punish himself. But I doubt if that was all, Amy. He did try to kill you.'
'No,' she said. 'That was Shooter.'
He raised his eyebrows. Ted looked at her carefully, and then drew the pipe out of his pocket again.
'The real Shooter.'
'I don't understand you.'
She smiled her wan smile. 'I don't understand myself. That's why I'm here. I don't think telling this serves any practical purpose - Mort's dead, and it's over -but