Misery

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!" Not that you ever let that stop you, right, Annie?

"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.