He picked her up and kicked the door shut behind him. She did not need to direct him to the bedroom. He knew his way.

“You’re sure he’s not going to be home?” he asked.

Her eyes gleamed in the darkness. “Why, who can you mean, Mr Telephone Man? Not my handsome hubby…he’s in Burlington, Vermont.”

He put her down on the bed crossways, with her legs dangling off the side.

“Turn on the light,” she said, her voice suddenly slow and heavy. “I want to see what you’re doing.”

He turned on the bedside lamp and looked down at her. The apron had been pulled away to one side. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and warm, the pupils large and brilliant.

“Take that thing off,” he said, gesturing.

“You take it off,” she said. “You can figure out the knots, Mr Telephone Man.”

He bent to do it. She always made him feel like a dry-mouth kid stepping up to the plate for the first time, and his hands always trembled when they got near her, as if her very flesh was transmitting a strong current into the air all around her. She never left his mind completely anymore. She was lodged in there like a sore inside the cheek which the tongue keeps poking and testing. She even cavorted through his dreams, golden-skinned, blackly exciting. Her invention knew no bounds.

“No, on your knees,” she said. “Get on your knees for me.”

He dropped clumsily onto his knees and crawled toward her, reaching for the apron ties. She put one high-heeled foot on each shoulder. He bent to kiss the inside of her thigh, the flesh firm and slightly warm under his lips.

“That’s right, Corey, that’s just right, keep going up, keep—”

“Well, this is cute, ain’t it?”

Bonnie Sawyer screamed.

Corey Bryant looked up, blinking and confused.

Reggie Sawyer was leaning in the bedroom doorway. He was holding a shotgun cradled loosely over his forearm, barrels pointed at the floor.

Corey felt a warm gush as his bladder let go.

“So it’s true,” Reggie marveled. He stepped into the room. He was smiling. “How about that? I owe that tosspot Mickey Sylvester a case of Budweiser. Goddamn.”

Bonnie found her voice first.

“Reggie, listen. It isn’t what you think. He broke in, he was like a crazy-man, he, he was—”

“Shut up, cunt.” He was still smiling. It was a gentle smile. He was quite big. He was wearing the same steel-colored suit he had been wearing when she had kissed him good-by two hours before.

“Listen,” Corey said weakly. His mouth felt full of loose spit. “Please. Please don’t kill me. Not even if I deserve it. You don’t want to go to jail. Not over this. Beat me up, I got that coming, but please don’t—”

“Get up off your knees, Perry Mason,” Reggie Sawyer said, still smiling his gentle smile. “Your fly’s unzipped.”

“Listen, Mr Sawyer—”

“Oh, call me Reggie,” Reggie said, smiling gently. “We’re almost best buddies. I’ve even been getting your sloppy seconds, isn’t that right?”

“Reggie, this isn’t what you think, he raped me—”

Reggie looked at her and his smile was gentle and benign. “If you say another word, I’m going to jam this up inside you and let you have some special airmail.”

Bonnie began to moan. Her face had gone the color of unflavored yogurt.

“Mr Sawyer…Reggie…”

“Your name’s Bryant, ain’t it? Your daddy’s Pete Bryant, ain’t he?”

Corey’s head bobbed madly in agreement. “Yeah, that’s right. That’s just right. Listen—”

“I used to sell him number two fuel oil when I was driving for Jim Webber,” Reggie said, smiling with gentle reminiscence. “That was four or five years before I met this high-box bitch here. Your daddy know you’re here?”

“No, sir, it’d break his heart. You can beat me up, I got that coming, but if you kill me my daddy’d find out and I bet it’d kill him dead as shit and then you’d be responsible for two—”

“No, I bet he don’t know. Come on out in the living room a minute. We got to talk this over. Come on.” He smiled gently at Corey to show him that he meant him no harm and then his eyes flicked to Bonnie, who was staring at him with bulging eyes. “You stay right there, puss, or you ain’t never going to know how Secret Stormcomes out. Come on, Bryant.” He gestured with the shotgun.

Corey walked out into the living room ahead of Reggie, staggering a little. His legs were rubber. A patch between his shoulder blades began to itch insanely. That’s where he’s going to put it, he thought, right between the shoulder blades. I wonder if I’ll live long enough to see my guts hit the wall—

“Turn around,” Reggie said.

Corey turned around. He was beginning to blubber. He didn’t want to blubber, but he couldn’t seem to help it. He supposed it didn’t matter if he blubbered or not. He had already wet himself.

The shotgun was no longer dangling casually over Reggie’s forearm. The double barrels were pointing directly at Corey’s face. The twin bores seemed to swell and yawn until they were bottomless wells.

“You know what you been doin’?” Reggie asked. The smile was gone. His face was very grave.

Corey didn’t answer. It was a stupid question. He did keep on blubbering, however.

“You slept with another guy’s wife, Corey. That your name?”

Corey nodded, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“You know what happens to guys like that if they get caught?”

Corey nodded.

“Grab the barrel of this shotgun, Corey. Very easy. It’s got a five-pound pull and I got about three on it now. So pretend…oh, pretend you’re grabbing my wife’s tit.”

Corey reached out one shaking hand and placed it on the barrel of the shotgun. The metal was cool against his flushed palm. A long, agonized groan came out of his throat. Nothing else was left. Pleading was done.

“Put it in your mouth, Corey. Both barrels. Yes, that’s right. Easy!…that’s okay. Yes, your mouth’s big enough. Slip it right in there. You know all about slipping it in, don’t you?”

Corey’s jaws were open to their widest accommodation. The barrels of the shotgun were pushed back nearly to his palate, and his terrified stomach was trying to retch. The steel was oily against his teeth.

“Close your eyes, Corey.”

Corey only stared at him, his swimming eyes as big as tea saucers.

Reggie smiled his gentle smile again. “Close those baby blue eyes, Corey.”

Corey closed them.

His sphincter let go. He was only dimly aware of it.

Reggie pulled both triggers. The hammers fell on empty chambers with a double click-click.

Corey fell onto the floor in a dead faint.

Reggie looked down at him for a moment, smiling gently, and then reversed the shotgun so the butt end was up. He turned to the bedroom.

“Here I come, Bonnie. Ready or not.”

Bonnie Sawyer began to scream.

NINE

Corey Bryant was stumbling up the Deep Cut Road toward where he had left his phone truck parked. He stank. His eyes were bloodshot and glassy. There was a large bump on the back of his head where he had struck it on the floor when he fainted. His boots made dragging, scuffing sounds on the soft shoulder. He tried to think about the scuffing sounds and nothing else, most notably about the sudden and utter ruin of his life. It was quarter past eight.

Reggie Sawyer had still been smiling gently when he ushered Corey out the kitchen door. Bonnie’s steady, racking sobs had come from the bedroom, counterpointing his words. “You go on up the road like a good boy, now. Get in your truck and go back to town. There’s a bus that comes in from Lewiston for Boston at quarter to ten. From Boston you can get a bus to anywhere in the country. That bus stops at Spencer’s. You be on it. Because if I ever see you again, I’m going to kill you. She’ll be all right now. She’s broke in now. She’s gonna have to wear pants and long-sleeve blouses for a couple of weeks, but I didn’t mark her face. You just want to get out of ’salem’s Lot before you clean yourself up and start thinking you are a man again.”