“Then, two days later, after I had just about decided to let it go, I came in to give you your afternoon medication. You were still having your nap. I tried to turn the doorknob, but for a few seconds it wouldn't turn - it was like the door was locked. Then it did turn, and I heard something rattle inside the lock. Then you started to stir around so I just gave you your pills like always. Like I didn't suspect. I'm very good at that, Paul. Then I helped you into your chair so you could write. And when I helped you into it that afternoon, I felt like Saint Paul on the road to Damascus. My eyes were opened. I saw how much of your color had come back. I saw that you were moving your legs. They were giving you pain, and you could only move them a little, but you were moving them. And your arms were getting stronger again, as well.

“I saw you were almost healthy again.

“That was when I started to realize I could have a problem with you even if no one from the outside suspected a thing. I looked at you and saw that I might not be the only one good at keeping secrets.

“That night I changed your medication for something a little stronger, and when I was sure you weren't going to wake up even if someone exploded a grenade under your bed, I got my little tool-kit from the cellar shelf and I took the keyplate off that door. And look what I found!” She took something small and dark from one of the flap pockets of her mannish shirt. She put it in his numb hand. He brought it up close to his face and stared at it owlishly. It was a bent and twisted chunk of bobby-pin.

Paul began to giggle. He couldn't help it.

“What's so funny, Paul?”

“The day you went to pay your taxes. I needed to open the door again. The wheelchair - it was almost too big - it left black marks. I wanted to wipe them off if I could.”

“So I wouldn't see them.”

“Yes. But you already had, hadn't you?”

“After I found one of my bobby-pins in the lock?” She smiled herself “You bet your rooty-patooties I had.” Paul nodded and laughed even harder. He was laughing so hard tears were squirting from his eyes. All his work… all his worry… all for nothing. It seemed deliciously funny.

He said, “I was worried that piece of bobby-pin might mess me up… but it didn't. I never even heard it rattling around. And there was a good reason for that, wasn't there? It never rattled because you took it out. What a fooler you are, Annie.”

“Yes,” she said, and smiled thinly. “What a fooler I am.” She moved her feet. That muffled wooden thump from the foot of the bed came again.

22

“How many times were you out in all?” The knife. Oh Christ, the knife.

“Twice. No - wait. I went out again yesterday afternoon around five o'clock. To fill up my water pitcher.” This was true; he had filled the pitcher. But he had omitted the real reason for his third trip. The real reason was under his mattress. The Princess and the Pea. Paulie and the Pig Sticker. “Three times, counting the trip for the water.”

“Tell the truth, Paul.”

“Just three times, I swear. And never to get away. For Christ's sake I'm writing a book here, in case you didn't notice.”

“Don't use the Saviour's name in vain, Paul.”

“You quit using mine that way and maybe I will. The first time I was in so much pain that it felt like someone had put me into hell from the knees on down. And someone did. You did, Annie.”

“Shut up, Paul!”

“The second time I just wanted to get something to eat, and make sure I had some extra supplies in here in case you were gone a long time,” he went on, ignoring her. “Then I got thirsty. That's all there is. No big conspiracy.”

“You didn't try the telephone either time, I suppose, or took at the locks - because you are just such a good little boy.”

“Sure I tried the phone. Sure I looked at the locks… not that I would have gotten very far in the mudbath out there even if your doors had been wide open.” The dope was coming in heavier and heavier waves, and now he just wished she would shut up and go away. She had already doped him enough to tell the truth - he was afraid he would have to pay the consequences in time. But first he wanted to sleep.

“How many times did you go out?”

“I told you - “

“How many times?” Her voice was rising. “Tell the truth!”

“I am! Three times!”

“How many times, God damn it?” In spite of the cruiser-load of dope she'd shot into him, Paul began to be frightened.

At least if she does something to me it can't hurt too much… and she wants me to finish the book… she said so…

“You're treating me like a fool.” He noticed how shiny her skin was, like some sort of polymer plastic stretched tightly over stone. There seemed to be no pores at all in that face.

“Annie, I swear - “

“Oh, liars can swear! Liars love to swear! Well, go ahead and treat me like a fool, if that's what you want. That's fine. Goody-goody for you. Treat a woman who isn't a fool as if she were, and that woman always comes out ahead. Let me tell you, Paul - I've stretched thread and strands of hair from my own head all over this house and have found many of them snapped later on. Snapped or entirely gone… just disappeared… poof! Not just on my scrapbook but in this hallway and across my dresser drawers upstairs… in the shed… all over.” Annie, how could I possibly get out in the shed with all those locks on the kitchen door? he wanted to ask, but she gave him no time, only plunged on.

“Now you go right ahead and keep telling me it was only three times, Mister Smart Guy, and I'll tell you who the fool is.” He stared at her, groggy but appalled. He didn't know how to answer her. It was so paranoid… so crazy…

My God, he thought, suddenly forgetting the shed, upstairs? Did she say UPSTAIRS?

“Annie, how in God's name could I get upstairs?”

“Oh, RIGHT!” she cried, her voice cracking. “Oh, SURE! I came in here a few days ago and you'd managed to get into your wheelchair all by yourself! If you could do that, you could get upstairs! You could crawl!”

“Yes, on my broken legs and my shattered knee,” he said.

Again that black look of crevasse; the batty darkness under the meadow. Annie Wilkes was gone. The Bourka Bee-Goddess was here.

“You don't want to be smart to me, Paul,” she whispered.

“Well, Annie, one of us has to at least try, and you're not doing a very good job. If you'd just try to see how cr - “

“How many times?”

“Three.”

“The first time to get medication.”

“Yes. Novril capsules.”

“And the second time to get food.”

“That's right.”

“The third time it was to fill up the pitcher.”

“Yes. Annie, I'm so dizzy “You filled it in the bathroom up the hall.”

“Yes - “

“Once for medication, once for food, and once for water.”

“Yes, I told you!” He tried to yell, but what came out was a strengthless croak.

She reached into her skirt pocket again and brought out the butcher knife. Its keen blade glimmered in the brightening morning light. She suddenly twisted to the left and threw the knife. She threw it with the deadly, half-casual grace of a carnival performer. It stuck, quivering, in the plaster below the picture of the Arc de Triomphe.

“I investigated under your mattress a little before I gave you your pre-op shot. I expected to find capsules; the knife was a complete surprise. I almost cut myself. But you didn't put it there, did you?” He didn't reply. His mind was spinning and diving like an out-of-control amusement-park ride. Pre-op shot? Was that what she had said? Pre-op? He was suddenly, utterly sure that she meant to pull the knife from the wall and castrate him with it.

“No, you didn't put it there. You went out once for medication, once for food, and once for water. This knife must have… why, it must have floated in here and slid under there all by itself. Yes, that's what must have happened!” Annie shrieked derisive laughter.