JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 190 из 425How much is this going to cost me?”
“Seventy-five thousand dollars, minimum,” he said withno hesitation at all. With no apology in his voice, either.
“Don’t tell Mattie.”
“LALL right. Are you having any fun yet, Mike?”
“You know, I sort of am,” I said thoughtfully. “For seventy-five grand, you should.” We said our goodbyes and John hung up. As I put my own phone back into its cradle, it occurred to me that I had lived more in the last five days than I had in the last four years.
This time the phone didn’t ring and I made it all the way back into the office, but I knew I was definitely done for the day. I sat down at the IBM, hit the TU,N key a couple of times, and was beginning to write myself a next-note at the bottom of the page I’d been working on when the phone interrupted me. What a sour little doodad the telephone is, and what little good news we get from it! Today had been an exception, though, and I thought I could sign off with a grin. I was working, after all-working. Part of me still marvelled that I was sitting here at all, breathing easily, my heart beating steadily in my chest, and not even a glimmer of an anxiety attack on my personal event horizon. I wrote:
[NEXT: Drake to 1Zaiford. Stops on the way at vegetable stand to talk to the guy who runs it, old source, needs a good & colorful name. Straw hat. Disneyworld tee-shirt. They talk about Shackleford.]
I turned the roller until the IBM spat this page out, stuck it on top of the manuscript, and jotted a final note to myself: “Call Ted Rosencrief about Raiford.” Rosencriefwas a retired Navy man who lived in Derry. I had employed him as a research assistant on several books, using him on one project to find out how paper was made, what the migratory habits of certain common birds were for another, a little bit about the architecture of pyramid burial rooms for a third. And it’s always “a little bit” I want, never “the whole damn thing.” As a writer, my motto has always been don’t confuse me with the facts. The Arthur Hailey type of fiction is beyond me—I can’t read it, let alone write it. I want to know just enough so I can lie colorfully. Rosie knew that, and we had always worked well together.
This time I needed to know a little bit about Florida’s Raiford Prison, and what the deathhouse down there is really like. I also needed a little bit on the psychology of serial killers. I thought Rosie would probably be glad to hear from me… almost as glad as I was to finally have something to call him about.
I picked up the eight double-spaced pages I had written and fanned through them, still amazed at their existence.
“Seventy-five thousand dollars, minimum,” he said withno hesitation at all. With no apology in his voice, either.
“Don’t tell Mattie.”
“LALL right. Are you having any fun yet, Mike?”
“You know, I sort of am,” I said thoughtfully. “For seventy-five grand, you should.” We said our goodbyes and John hung up. As I put my own phone back into its cradle, it occurred to me that I had lived more in the last five days than I had in the last four years.
This time the phone didn’t ring and I made it all the way back into the office, but I knew I was definitely done for the day. I sat down at the IBM, hit the TU,N key a couple of times, and was beginning to write myself a next-note at the bottom of the page I’d been working on when the phone interrupted me. What a sour little doodad the telephone is, and what little good news we get from it! Today had been an exception, though, and I thought I could sign off with a grin. I was working, after all-working. Part of me still marvelled that I was sitting here at all, breathing easily, my heart beating steadily in my chest, and not even a glimmer of an anxiety attack on my personal event horizon. I wrote:
[NEXT: Drake to 1Zaiford. Stops on the way at vegetable stand to talk to the guy who runs it, old source, needs a good & colorful name. Straw hat. Disneyworld tee-shirt. They talk about Shackleford.]
I turned the roller until the IBM spat this page out, stuck it on top of the manuscript, and jotted a final note to myself: “Call Ted Rosencrief about Raiford.” Rosencriefwas a retired Navy man who lived in Derry. I had employed him as a research assistant on several books, using him on one project to find out how paper was made, what the migratory habits of certain common birds were for another, a little bit about the architecture of pyramid burial rooms for a third. And it’s always “a little bit” I want, never “the whole damn thing.” As a writer, my motto has always been don’t confuse me with the facts. The Arthur Hailey type of fiction is beyond me—I can’t read it, let alone write it. I want to know just enough so I can lie colorfully. Rosie knew that, and we had always worked well together.
This time I needed to know a little bit about Florida’s Raiford Prison, and what the deathhouse down there is really like. I also needed a little bit on the psychology of serial killers. I thought Rosie would probably be glad to hear from me… almost as glad as I was to finally have something to call him about.
I picked up the eight double-spaced pages I had written and fanned through them, still amazed at their existence.