Stephen King - Thinner

Movement behind the door; definite now. A shuffle rustle.

'I hit her and killed her. Now I'm losing weight. I'm not on a diet or anything like that; I'm just losing weight. About seventy-five pounds so far. If it doesn't stop soon, I'm going to look like the Human Skeleton in a carny sideshow.

'Cary Rossington – Judge Rossington – presided at the preliminary hearing and declared that there was no case. He's developed some weird skin disease -'

Billy thought he heard a low gasp of surprise.

and he's gone out to the Mayo Clinic. The doctors have told him it isn't cancer, but they don't know what it is. Rossington would rather believe it is cancer than what he knows it really is.'

Billy swallowed. There was a painful click in his throat.

'It's a Gypsy curse, Hopley. I know how crazy that sounds, but it's the truth. There was an old man. He touched me when I came out of the hearing. He touched Rossington when he and his wife were at a flea market in Raintree. Did he touch you, Hopley?'

There was a long, long silence … and then one word drifted to Billy's ears through the mail slot, like a letter full of bad news from home:

'Yes . . .'

'When? Where?'

No answer.

'Hopley, where did the Gypsies go when they left Raintree? Do you know?'

No answer.

'I have to talk to you!' Billy said desperately. 'I've got an idea, Hopley. I think -'

'You can't do anything,' Hopley whispered. 'It's gone too far. You understand, Halleck? Too … far.'

That sigh again – papery, dreadful.

'It's a chance!' Halleck said furiously. 'Are you so far gone that doesn't mean anything to you?'

No answer. Billy waited, hunting inside himself for more words, other arguments. He could find none. Hopley simply wasn't going to let him in. He had begun to turn away when the door clicked open.

Billy looked at the black crack between the door and the jamb. He heard those rustling movements again, now going away, back down the darkened front hall. He felt goose flesh scutter down his back and sides and arms, and for a moment he almost went away anyhow – Never mind Hopley, he thought, if anyone can find those Gypsies, Kirk Penschley can, so never mind Hopley, you don't need him, you don't need to see what he's turned into.

Pushing the voice back, Billy grasped the knob of the police chief's front door, opened it, and stepped inside.

He saw a dim shape at the far end of the hall. A door on the left opened; the shape went in. A dim light glowed, and for a moment a shadow stretched long and gaunt across the hall floor, bending to go halfway up the far wall, where there was a framed photograph of Hopley receiving an award from the Fairview Rotary Club, The shadow's misshapen head lay on the photograph like an omen.

Billy walked down the hall, spooked now – no use kidding himself. He half-expected the door behind him to slam shut and lock … and then the Gypsy will dart out of the shadows and grab me from behind, just like the big scare scene in a cheap horror movie. Sure. Come on, asshole, get your act together! But his triphammering heartbeat did not slow.

He realized that Hopley's little house had an unpleasant smell – low and ripe, like slowly spoiling meat.

He stood outside the open door for a moment. It looked like a study or a den, but the light was so faint it was impossible to tell for sure.

'Hopley.'

'Come in,' the papery voice whispered.

Billy did.

It was Hopley's den, all right. There were rather more books than Billy would have expected, and a warm Turkish rug on the floor. The room was small, probably cozy and pleasant under the right circumstances.

There was a blondwood desk in the center. A Tensor lamp stood on it. Hopley had bent the lamp's neck so that the shade was less than an inch from the desk blotter. There was a small and savagely concentrated circle of light on the blotter; the rest of the room was a cold land of shadows.

Hopley himself was a manlike bulk in what might have been an Eames chair.

Billy stepped over the threshold. There was a chair in the corner. Billy sat in it, aware that he had picked the chair in the room which was farthest from Hopley. Nevertheless, he found himself straining to see Hopley clearly. It was impossible. The man was nothing but a silhouette. Billy found himself almost waiting for Hopley to flip the Tensor lamp up so that it glared into his, Billy's eyes. Then Hopley would lean forward, a cop out of a 1940's film noir, screaming: 'We know you did it, McGonigal! Stop trying to deny it! Confess! Confess and we'll let you have a cigarette! Confess and we'll give you a glassa icewadduh! Confess and we'll let you go to the batroom!'

–But Hopley only sat canted back in his Eames chair. There was a soft rustle as he crossed his legs.

'Well? You wanted to come in. You're in. Tell your tale, Halleck, and get out. You're not exactly my favorite person in all the world these days.'

'I'm not Leda Rossington's favorite person, either,' Billy said, 'and frankly, I don't give much of a shit what she thinks, or what you think, either. She thinks it's my fault. Probably you do too.'

'How much did you have to drink when you hit her, Halleck? My best guess is that if Tom Rangely had given you the breathalyzer, that little balloon would have floated straight up to heaven.'

'Nothing to drink, no drugs,' Billy said. His heart was still thudding, but now it was powered by rage rather than fear. Each thud sent a sick bolt of pain through his head. 'You want to know what happened? Huh? My wife of sixteen years picked that day to give me a handjob in the car. She never did anything like that before. I don't have the slightest clue why she picked that day to do it. So while you and Leda Rossington -and probably Cary Rossington as well – have been busy laying it off on me because I was behind the wheel, I've been busy laying it off on my wife because she had a hand inside my pants. And maybe we should all just lay it off on fate or destiny or something and stop worrying about blame.'

Hopley grunted.

'Or do you want me to tell you how I begged Tom Rangely on my knees for him not to give me a breath test or a blood test? How I cried on your shoulder to soft pedal the investigation and kick those Gypsies out of town?'

This time Hopley didn't even grunt. He was only a silent slumped shape in the Eames chair.

'Isn't it just a little late for all these games?' Billy asked. His voice had hoarsened, and he realized with some astonishment that he was on the verge of tears. 'My wife was jerking me off, true. I hit the old woman and killed her, true. She herself was at least fifty yards from the nearest crosswalk and came out from between two cars, true. You soft-pedaled the investigation and hustled them out of town as soon as Cary Rossington slapped a quick coat of whitewash on me, also true. And none of it means shit. But if you do want to sit here in the dark and hand out the guilt, my friend, don't forget to give yourself a. plateful.'

'A great closing summation, Halleck. Great. You ever seen Spencer Tracy in that movie about the Monkey Trial? You must have.'

'Fuck you,' Billy said, and got up.

Hopley sighed. 'Sit down.'

Billy Halleck stood uncertainly, realizing that part of him wanted to use his anger for its own less-than-noble purposes. That part wanted to get him out of here in a manufactured huff simply because that dark slumped shape in the Eames chair scared him shitless.

'Don't be such a sanctimonious prick,' Hopley said. 'Sit down, for Christ's sake.'

Billy sat down, aware that his mouth was dry and that there were small muscles in his thighs which were jumping and dancing uncontrollably.

'Have it the way you like it, Halleck. I'm more like you than you think. I don't give a fart in a high wind for the postmortems, either. You're right ~ I didn't think, I just did it. They weren't the first bunch of drifters I ever busted out of town, and I've done other little cosmetic jobs when some hot-shit townie got involved in a mess. Of course I couldn't do anything if the townie in question made the mess outside the Fairview town limits … but you'd be surprised how many of our leading lights never learned that you don't shit where you eat.