No, you don't, Warden, I thought. Never in a million years could you know what I'm thinking.

'You're thinking that our young friend will still be around for the Coffey execution. That's probably true—Coffey will go well before Thanksgiving, I imagine—but you can put him back in the switch room. No one will object. Including him, I should think.'

'I'll do that,' I said. 'Hal, how's Melinda?'

There was a long pause so long I might have thought I'd lost him, except for the sound of his breathing. When he spoke this time, it was in a much lower tone of voice. 'She's sinking,' he said.

Sinking. That chilly word the old-timers used not to describe a person who was dying, exactly, but one who had begun to uncouple from living.

'The headaches seem a little better... for now, anyway... but she can't walk without help, she can't pick things up, she loses control of her water while she sleeps... ' There was another pause, and then, in an even lower voice, Hal said something that sounded like 'She wears.'

'Wears what, Hal?' I asked, frowning. My wife had come into the parlor doorway. She stood there wiping her hands on a dishtowel and looking at me.

'No,' he said in a voice that seemed to waver between anger and tears. 'She swears.'

'Oh.' I still didn't know what he meant, but had no intention of pursuing it. I didn't have to; he did it for me.

'She'll be all right, perfectly normal, talking about her flower-garden or a dress she saw in the catalogue, or maybe about how she heard Roosevelt on the radio and how wonderful he sounds, and then, all at once, she'll start to say the most awful things, the most awful... words. She doesn't raise her voice. It would almost be better if she did, I think, because then... you see, then... '

'She wouldn't sound so much like herself.'

'That's it,' he said gratefully. 'But to hear her saying those awful gutter-language things in her sweet voice... pardon me, Paul.' His voice trailed away and I heard him noisily clearing his throat. Then he came back, sounding a little stronger but just as distressed. 'She wants to have Pastor Donaldson over, and I know he's a comfort to her, but how can I ask him? Suppose that he's sitting there, reading Scripture with her, and she calls him a foul name? She could; she called me one last night. She said, 'Hand me that Liberty magazine, you cocksucker, would you?' Paul, where could she have ever heard such language? How could she know those words?'

'I don't know. Hal, are you going to be home this evening?'

When he was well and in charge of himself, not distracted by worry or grief, Hal Moores had a cutting and sarcastic facet to his personality; his subordinates feared that side of him even more than his anger or his contempt, I think. His sarcasm, usually impatient and often harsh, could sting like acid. A little of that now splashed on me. It was unexpected, but on the whole I was glad to hear it. All the fight hadn't gone out of him after all, it seemed.

'No,' he said, 'I'm taking Melinda out square-dancing. We're going to do-si-do, allemand left, and then tell the fiddler he's a rooster-dick motherfucker.'

I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. Mercifully, it was an urge that passed in a hurry.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I haven't been getting much sleep lately. It's made me grouchy. Of course we're going to be home. Why do you ask?'

'It doesn't matter, I guess,' I said.

'You weren't thinking of coming by, were you?

Because if you were on last night, you'll be on tonight. Unless you've switched with somebody?'

'No, I haven't switched,' I said. 'I'm on tonight.'

'It wouldn't be a good idea, anyway. Not the way she is right now.'

'Maybe not. Thanks for your news.'

'You're welcome. Pray for my Melinda, Paul.'

I said I would, thinking that I might do quite a bit more than pray. God helps those who help themselves, as they say in The Church of Praise Jesus, The Lord Is Mighty. I hung up and looked at Janice.

'How's Melly?' she asked.

'Not good.' I told her what Hal had told me, including the part about the swearing, although I left out cocksucker and rooster-dick motherfucker. I finished with Hal's word, sinking, and Jan nodded sadly. Then she took a closer look at me.

'What are you thinking about? You're thinking about something, probably no good. It's in your face.'

Lying was out of the question; it wasn't the way we were with each other. I just told her it was best she not know, at least for the time being.

'Is it... could it get you in trouble?' She didn't sound particularly alarmed at the idea—more interested than anything—which is one of the things I have always loved about her.

'Maybe,' I said.

'Is it a good thing?'

'Maybe,' I repeated. I was standing there, still turning the phone's crank idly with one finger, while I held down the connecting points with a finger of my other hand.

'Would you like me to leave you alone while you use the telephone?' she asked. 'Be a good little woman and butt out? Do some dishes? Knit some booties?'

I nodded. 'That's not the way I'd put it, but—'

'Are we having extras for lunch, Paul?'

'I hope so,' I said.

9

I got Brutal and Dean right away, because both of them were on the exchange. Harry wasn't, not then, at least, but I had the number of his closest neighbor who was. Harry called me back about twenty minutes later, highly embarrassed at having to reverse the charges and sputtering promises to 'pay his share' when our next bill came. I told him we'd count those chickens when they hatched; in the meantime, could he come over to my place for lunch? Brutal and Dean would be here, and Janice had promised to put out some of her famous slaw... not to mention her even more famous apple pie.

'Lunch just for the hell of it?' Harry sounded skeptical.

I admitted I had something I wanted to talk to them about, but it was best not gone into, even lightly, over the phone. Harry agreed to come. I dropped the receiver onto the prongs, went to the window, and looked out thoughtfully. Although we'd had the late shift, I hadn't wakened either Brutal or Dean, and Harry hadn't sounded like a fellow freshly turned out of dreamland, either. It seemed that I wasn't the only one having problems with what had happened last night, and considering the craziness I had in mind, that was probably good.

Brutal, who lived closest to me, arrived at quarter past eleven. Dean showed up fifteen minutes later, and Harry—already dressed for work—about fifteen minutes after Dean. Janice served us cold beef sandwiches, slaw, and iced tea in the kitchen. Only a day before, we would have had it out on the side porch and been glad of a breeze, but the temperature had dropped a good fifteen degrees since the thunderstorm, and a keen-edged wind was snuffling down from the ridges.

'You're welcome to sit down with us,' I told my wife.

She shook her head. 'I don't think I want to know what you're up to—I'll worry less if I'm in the dark. I'll have a bite in the parlor. I'm visiting with Miss Jane Austen this week, and she's very good company.'

'Who's Jane Austen?' Harry asked when she had left. 'Your side or Janices's, Paul? A cousin? Is she pretty?'

'She's a writer, you nit,' Brutal told him. 'Been dead practically since Betsy Ross basted the stars on the first flag.'

'Oh.' Harry looked embarrassed. 'I'm not much of a reader. Radio manuals, mostly.'

'What's on your mind, Paul?' Dean asked.

'John Coffey and Mr. Jingles, to start with.' They looked surprised, which I had expected—they'd been thinking I wanted to discuss either Delacroix or Percy. Maybe both. I looked at Dean and Harry 'The thing with Mr. Jingles—what Coffey did—happened pretty fast. I don't know if you got there in time to see how broken up the mouse was or not.'