Part 40 (1/2)
”I know a lot of things.”
”But I didn't tell you my name and there's no way you could read my registration from there anda””
She French inhaleda”then exhaleda”and said, ”As I said, Mr. Sheridan, I know a lot of things.” She shook her head. ”I don't know how I got like this.”
”Like what?”
”Dead.”
”Oh.”
”You still don't believe me, do you?”
He sighed. ”We've got about eight miles to go. Then we'll be in Porterville. I'll let you out at the Greyhound depot there. Then you can go about your business and I can go about mine.”
She touched his temple with long, lovely fingers. ”That's why you're such a lonely man, Mr. Sheridan. You never take any chances. You never let yourself get involved with anybody.”
He smiled thinly. ”Especially with dead people.”
”Maybe you're the one who's dead, Mr. Sheridan. Night after night alone in cheap little hotel rooms, listening to the country-western music through the wall, and occasionally hearing people make love. No woman. No children. No real friends. It's not a very good life, is it, Mr. Sheridan?”
He said nothing. Drove.
”We're both dead, Mr. Sheridan. You know that?”
He still said nothing. Drove.
After a time, she said, ”Do you want to know how tonight happened, Mr. Sheridan?”
”No.”
”I made you mad, didn't I, Mr. Sheridan, when I reminded you of how lonely you are?”
”I don't see where it's any of your business.”
Now it was her turn to be quiet. She stared out at the las.h.i.+ng snow. Then she said, ”The last thing I could remember before tonight was John T. holding me underwater till I drowned off the side of our boat. By the way, that's what all his friends called him. John T.” She lit one cigarette off another. ”Then earlier tonight I felt myself rise through darkness and suddenly I realized I was taking form. I was rising from the grave and taking form. And there was just one place I wanted to go. The apartment he kept in town for his so-called business meetings. So I went there tonight and killed him.”
”You won't die.”
”I beg your pardon?”
”They won't execute you for doing it. You just tell them the same story you told me, and you'll get off with second-degree. Maybe even not guilty by reason of insanity.”
She laughed. ”Maybe if you weren't so busy watching the road, you'd notice what's happening to me, Mr. Sheridan.”
She was disappearing. Right there in his car. Where her left arm had been was now just a smoldering red-tipped cigarette that seemed to be held up on invisible wires. A part of her face was starting to disappear, too.
”About a quarter-mile down the highway, let me out, if you would.”