Misery (46 page)

  The first twinges of pain slipped down his legs like poisoned water. And the want. His body yelling for Novril. It was
the gotta,
wasn't it? Sure it was.

  Annie came back and took the third bottle of Pepsi. 'I'll bring down another couple of these before I go,' she said. 'Right now I need the sugar. You don't mind, do you?'

  'Absolutely not. My Pepsi is your Pepsi.'

   She twisted the cap off the bottle and drank deeply. Paul thought:
Chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug, make
ya want to holler hi-de-ho.
Who was that? Roger Miller, right? Funny, the stuff your mind coughed up.

Hilarious.

    'I'm going to put him in his car and drive it up to my Laughing Place. I'm going to take all his things. I'll put the car in the shed up there and bury him and his you know, his
scraps .
. . in the woods up there.'

  He said nothing. He kept thinking about Bossie, bawling and bawling and bawling until she couldn't bawl anymore because she was dead, and another of those great axioms of Life on the Western Slope was just this:
Dead cows don't bawl.

    'I have a driveway chain. I'm going to use it. If the police come, it may raise suspicion, but I'd rather have them suspicious than have them drive up to the house and hear you making a big cockadoodie fuss. I thought of gagging you, but gags are dangerous, especially if you're taking drugs that affect respiration. Or you might vomit. Or your sinuses might close up because it's so damp down here. If your sinuses closed up tight and you couldn't breathe through your mouth . . . '

    She looked away, unplugged, as silent as one of the stones in the cellar wall, as empty as the first bottle of Pepsi she had drunk.
Make ya want to holler hi-de-ho.
And had Annie hollered hide-ho today? Bet your ass. O brethren, Annie had yelled hi-de-ho until the whole yard was oogy. He laughed. She made no sign she had heard him.

  Then, slowly, she began to come back.

  She looked around at him, blinking.

    'I'm going to stick a note through one of the links in the fence,' she said slowly, re-gathering her thoughts. 'There's a town about thirty-five miles from here. It's called Steamboat Heaven, isn't that a funny name for a town? They're having what they call The World's Biggest Flea Market this week. They have it every summer. There's always lots of people there who sell ceramics. I'll write in my note that I'm there, in Steamboat Heaven, looking at ceramics. I'll say I'm staying overnight. And if anyone asks me later where I stayed, so they can check the register, I'll say there were no good ceramics so I started back. Only I got tired. That's what I'll say. I'll say I pulled over to take a nap because I was afraid I might fall asleep behind the wheel. I'll say I only meant to take a short nap but I was so tired from working around the place that I slept all night.'

  Paul was dismayed by the depth of this slyness. He suddenly realized that Annie was doing exactly what he could not: she was playing Can You? in real life.
Maybe, he
thought,
that's why
she doesn't write books. She doesn't have to.

   'I'll get back just as soon as I can, because policemen will come here,' she said. The prospect did not seem to disturb Annie's weird serenity in the least, although Paul could not believe that, in some part of her mind, she did not realize how close to the end of the game they had now come. 'I don't think they'll come tonight — except maybe to cruise by — but they will come. As soon as they know for sure he's really missing. They'll go all along his route, looking for him and trying to find out where he stopped, you know, showing up. Don't you think so, Paul?'

  'Yes.'

  'I
should
be back before they come. If I start out on the bike at first light, I might even be able to make it back before noon. I should he able to beat them. Because if he started from Sidewinder, be would. have stopped at lots of places before he got here.

    'By the time they come, you should be back in your own room, snug as a bug in a rug. I'm not going to tie you up, or gag you, or anything like that, Paul. You can even peek when I go out to talk to them. Because it will be two next time, I think. At least two, don't you think so?'

Paul did.

   She nodded, satisfied. 'But I can handle two, if I have to.' She patted the khaki purse. 'I want you to remember that kid's gun while you're peeking, Paul. I want you to remember that it's going to be in here all the time I'm talking to those police when they come tomorrow or the next day. The bag won't be zipped. It's all right for
you
to see
them
, but if
they
see
you
, Paul — either by accident or because you try something tomorrow like you did today — if that happens, I'm going to take the gun out of the bag and start shooting. You're already responsible for that kid's death.'

  'Bullshit,' Paul said, knowing she would hurt him for it but not caring.

  She didn't, though. She only smiled her serene, maternal smile.

   'Oh, you know,' she said. 'I don't kid myself that you
care
, I don't kid myself about that at all, but you
know
. I don't kid myself that you'd care about getting another two people killed, if it would help you . . . but it wouldn't, Paul. Because if I have to do two, I'll do four. Them . . . and us. And do you know what? I think you still care about your own skin.'

    'Not much,' he said. 'I'll tell you the truth, Annie — everyday that passes, my skin feels more and more like something I want to get out of.'

She laughed.

   'Oh, I've heard
that
one before. But let them see you put one hand on their oogy old respirators! Then it's a different story! Yes! When they see
that,
they yell and cry and turn into a bunch of real
brats!'

   'Anyway,' she said, 'I just wanted you to know how things are. If you really don't care, yell your head off when they come. It's entirely up to you.'

Paul said nothing.

   'When they come I'll stand right out there in the driveway and say yes, there was a state trooper that came by here. I'll say he came just when I was getting ready to leave for Steamboat Heaven to look at the ceramics. I'll say he showed me your picture. I'll say I hadn't seen you. Then one of them will ask me, "This was last winter, Miss Wilkes, how could you be so positive?" And I'll say, "If Elvis Presley was still alive and you saw him last winter, would
you
remember seeing him?" And he'll say yes, probably so, but what does that have to do with the price of coffee in Borneo, and I'll say Paul Sheldon is my favorite writer and I've seen his picture lots of times. I have to say that, Paul. Do you know why?'

    He knew. Her slyness continued to astound him. He supposed it shouldn't, not anymore, but it did. He remembered the caption below the picture of Annie in her detainment cell, the picture taken in the
caesura
between the end of the trial and the return of the jury. He remembered it word for word.
IN MISERY? NOT THE DRAGON LADY. Annie reads calmly as she waits for the
verdict.

  'So then,' she continued, 'I'll say the policeman wrote it all down in his book and thanked me. I'll say I asked him in for a cup of coffee even though I was in a hurry to be on my way and they'll ask me why. I'll say he probably knew about my trouble before, and I wanted to satisfy his mind that everything was on the up-and-up here. But he said no, he had to move along. So I asked if he'd like to take a cold Pepsi along with him because the day was so hot and he said yes, thanks, that was very kind.'

  She drained her second Pepsi and held the empty plastic bottle between her and him. Seen through the plastic her eye was huge and wavering, the eye of a Cyclops. The side of her head took on a ripply, hydrocephalic bulge.

   'I'm going to stop and put this bottle in the ditch about two miles up the road,' she said. 'But first I'll put his fingers on it, of course.'

She smiled at him — a dry, spitless smile.

   'Fingerprints,' she said. 'They'll know he went past my house then. Or they'll
think
they do, and that's just as good, isn't it, Paul?'

His dismay deepened.

    'So they'll go up the road and they won't find him. He'll just be gone. Like those swamis who toot their flutes until ropes come out of baskets and they climb the ropes and disappear. Poof!'

'Poof,' Paul said.

   'It won't take them long to come back. I know that. After all, if they can't find any trace of him except that one bottle after here, they'll decide they better think some more about me. After all, I'm crazy, aren't I? All the papers said so. Nutty as a fruitcake!

    'But they'll believe me at first. I don't think they'll actual want to come in and search the house — not at first. They look in other places and try to think of other things before they come back. We'll have some time. Maybe as much as a week.'

  She looked at him levelly.

  'You're going to have to write faster, Paul,' she said.

Dark fell and no police came. Annie did not spend the time before it did with Paul, however; she wanted to re-glaze his bedroom window, and pick up the paper-clips and broken glass scattered on the lawn. When the police come tomorrow looking for their missing lamb, she said, we don't want the to see anything out of the ordinary, do we, Paul?

  
Just let them look under the lawnmower, kiddo. Just let them look under there and they'll see
plenty
out of the ordinary.

   But no matter how hard he tried to make his vivid imagination work, he could not make it come up with a scenario which would lead up to that.

   'Do you wonder why I told you all of this, Paul?' she asked before going upstairs to see what she could do with the window. 'Why I went into my plans for dealing with this in such great detail?'

'No,' he said wanly.

    'Partly because I wanted you to know exactly what the stakes are, and exactly what you'll have to do to stay alive. I also wanted you to know that I'd end it right now. Except for the book. I still care about the book.' She smiled. It was a smile which was both radiant and strangely wistful. 'It really is the best
Misery
story of them all, and I do so much want to know how it all comes out.'

'So do I, Annie,' he said.

She looked at him, startled. 'Why . . . you
know
don't you?'

   'When I start a book I always
think
I know how things will turn out, but I never actually had one end
exactly
that way. It isn't even that surprising, once you stop to think about it. Writing a book is a little like firing an ICBM . . . only it travels over time instead of space. The book-time the characters spend living in the story and the real time the novelist spends writing it all down. Having a novel end exactly the way you thought it would when you started out would be like shooting a Titan missile halfway around the world and having the payload drop through a basketball hoop. It looks good on paper, and there are people who build those things who'd tell you it was easy as pie — and even keep a straight face
while
they said it — but the odds are always against.'

  'Yes,' Annie said. 'I see.'

  'I must have a pretty good navigation system built into the equipment, because I usually get close, and if you have enough high explosive packed into the nosecone, close is good enough. Right now I see
two
possible endings to the book. One is very sad. The other, while not your standard Hollywood happy ending, at least holds out some hope for the future.'

  Annie looked alarmed . . . and suddenly thunderous. 'You're not thinking of killing her
again,
are you, Paul?'

    He smiled a little. 'What would you do if I did, Annie? Kill me? That doesn't scare me a bit. I may not know what's going to happen to Misery, but I know what's going to happen to me . . . and you. I'll write THE END, and you'll read, and then
you'll
write THE END, won't you? The end of us. That's one I don't have to guess at. Truth really isn't stranger than fiction, no matter what they say. Most times you know exactly how things are going to turn out.'

'But — '

    'I think I know which ending it's going to be. I'm about eighty percent sure. If it turns out that way, you'll like it. But even if it turns out the way I think, neither of us will know the actual details until I get them written down, will we?'

  'No — I suppose not.'

  'Do you remember what the old Greyhound Bus ads used to say? "Getting there is half the fun."'

  'Either way, it's almost over, isn't it?'

  'Yes,' Paul said. 'Almost over.'

Before she left she brought him another Pepsi, a box of Ritz crackers, sardines, cheese . . . and the bedpan.

    'If you bring me my manuscript and one of those yellow legal pads, I'll work in longhand,' he said. 'It will pass the time.'

    She considered, then shook her head regretfully. 'I wish you could, Paul. But that would mean leaving at least one light on, and I can't risk it.'

  He thought of being left alone down here in the cellar and felt panic flush his skin again, but just for a moment. Then it went cold. He felt tiny hard goosebumps rising on his skin. He thought of the rats hiding in their holes and runs in the rock walls. Thought of them coming out when the cellar went dark. Thought of them smelling his helplessness, perhaps.

  'Don't leave me in the dark, Annie. Please don't do that.'

  'I have to. If someone noticed a light in my cellar, they might stop to investigate, driveway chain or no driveway chain, note or no note. If I gave you a flashlight, you might try to signal with it. If I gave you a candle, you might try to burn the house do" with it. You see how well I know you?'