JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 201 из 425There was an ostentatious quality to this gesture; in that moment he looked like a parlor magician showing you both sides of a silk handkerchief. And he was bluffing. I couldn’t be sure of that… and yet I was. Devore had taped our conversation, all right—that underhum really had been too loud, and on some level I’d been aware of that fact even while I was talking to him—and I thought it really was on the cassette Durgin was now slotting into the cassette player… but it was a bluff.
“I don’t recall,” I said. Durgin’s hand froze in the act of snapping the cassette’s transparent loading panel shut. He looked at me with frank disbelief… and something else. I thought the something else was surprised anger. “You don’t recall? Come now, Mr. Noonan. Surely writers train themselves to recall conversations, and this one was only a week ago. Tell me what you talked about.”
“I really can’t say,” I told him in a stolid, colorless voice. For a moment Durgin looked almost panicky.
Then his features smoothed. One polished fingernail slipped back and forth over keys marked EW, it, PLAY and P, EC. “How did Mr. Devore begin the conversation?’’ he asked. “He said hello,” I said mildly, and there was a short muffled sound from behind the Stenomask. It could have been the old guy clearing his throat; it could have been a suppressed laugh.
Spots of color were blooming in Durgin’s cheeks. “After hello? What then?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Did he ask you about that morning?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Didn’t you tell him that Mary Devore and her daughter were together, Mr. Noonan? That they were together picking flowers? Isn’t that what you told this worried grandfather when he inquired about the incident which was the talk of the township that Fourth of July?”
“Oh boy,” Bissonette said. He raised one hand over the table, then touched the palm with the fingers of the other, making a re s T. “Time OUT.”
Durgin looked at him. The flush in his cheeks was more pronounced now, and his lips had pulled back enough to show the tips of small, neatly capped teeth. “What do you want?” he almost snarled, as if Bis-sonette had just dropped by to tell him about the Mormon Way or perhaps the Rosicrucians.
“I want you to stop leading this guy, and I want that whole thing about picking flowers stricken from the record,” Bissonette said. “Why?”
Durgin snapped. “Because you’re trying to get stuff on the record that this witness won’t say.
“I don’t recall,” I said. Durgin’s hand froze in the act of snapping the cassette’s transparent loading panel shut. He looked at me with frank disbelief… and something else. I thought the something else was surprised anger. “You don’t recall? Come now, Mr. Noonan. Surely writers train themselves to recall conversations, and this one was only a week ago. Tell me what you talked about.”
“I really can’t say,” I told him in a stolid, colorless voice. For a moment Durgin looked almost panicky.
Then his features smoothed. One polished fingernail slipped back and forth over keys marked EW, it, PLAY and P, EC. “How did Mr. Devore begin the conversation?’’ he asked. “He said hello,” I said mildly, and there was a short muffled sound from behind the Stenomask. It could have been the old guy clearing his throat; it could have been a suppressed laugh.
Spots of color were blooming in Durgin’s cheeks. “After hello? What then?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Did he ask you about that morning?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Didn’t you tell him that Mary Devore and her daughter were together, Mr. Noonan? That they were together picking flowers? Isn’t that what you told this worried grandfather when he inquired about the incident which was the talk of the township that Fourth of July?”
“Oh boy,” Bissonette said. He raised one hand over the table, then touched the palm with the fingers of the other, making a re s T. “Time OUT.”
Durgin looked at him. The flush in his cheeks was more pronounced now, and his lips had pulled back enough to show the tips of small, neatly capped teeth. “What do you want?” he almost snarled, as if Bis-sonette had just dropped by to tell him about the Mormon Way or perhaps the Rosicrucians.
“I want you to stop leading this guy, and I want that whole thing about picking flowers stricken from the record,” Bissonette said. “Why?”
Durgin snapped. “Because you’re trying to get stuff on the record that this witness won’t say.