The cool water felt more than good on my overheated body; it felt like a resurrection.

State your name for the record.”

“Michael Noonan.”

“Your address?”

“Derry is my permanent address, 14 Benton Street, but I also maintain a home in TR-90, on Dark Score Lake. The mailing address is Box 832. The actual house is on Lane Forty-two, off Route 68.” Elmer Durgin, Kyra Devore’s guardian aa’/item, waved a pudgy hand in front of his face, either to shoo away some troublesome insect or to tell me that was enough. I agreed that it was. I felt rather like the little girl in Our 7aw, who gave her address as Grover’s Corner, New Hampshire, America, the Northern Hemisphere, the World, the Solar System, the Milky Way Galaxy, the Mind of God. Mostly I was nervous. I’d reached the age of forty still a virgin in the area of court proceedings, and although we were in the conference room of Durgin, Peters, and Jarrette on Bridge Street in Castle Rock, this was still a court proceeding. There was one mentionably odd detail to these festivities. The stenographer wasn’t using one of those keyboards-on-a-post that look like adding machines, but a Stenomask, a gadget which fit over the lower half of his face. I had seen them before, but only in old black-and-white crime movies, the ones where Dan Duryea or John Payne is always driving around in a Buick with portholes on the sides, looking grim and smoking a Camel. Glancing over into the corner and seeing a guy who looked like the world’s oldest fighter-pilot was weird enough, but hearing everything you said immediately repeated in a muffled monotone was even weirder. “Thank you, Mr. Noonan. My wife has read all your books and says you are her favorite author. I just wanted to get that on the record.” Durgin chuckled fatly. Why not? He was a fat guy. Most fat people I like—they have expansive natures to go with their expansive waistlines. But there is a subgroup which I think of as the Evil Little Fat Folks. You don’t want to fuck with the ELFFS if you can help it; they will burn your house and rape your dog if you give them half an excuse and a quarter of an opportunity. Few of them stand over five-foot-two (Durgin’s height, I estimated), and many are under five feet. They smile a lot, but their eyes don’t smile. The Evil Little Fat Folks hate the whole world. Mostly they hate folks who can look down the length of their bodies and still see their own feet. This included me, although just barely. “Please thank your wife for me, Mr. Durgin. I’m sure she could recommend one for you to start on.” Durgin chuckled. On his right, Durgin’s assistant—a pretty young woman who looked approximately seventeen minutes out of law school—chuckled. On my left, Romeo Bissonette chuckled. In the corner, the world’s oldest IF- 111 pilot only went on muttering into his Stenomask. “I’ll wait for the big-screen version,” he said. His eyes gave an ugly little gleam, as if he knew a feature film had never been made from one of my books—only a made-for-TV movie of Being Two that pulled ratings roughly equal to the National Sofa Refinishing Championships. I hoped that we’d completed this chubby little fuck’s idea of the pleasantries. “I am Kyra Devore’s guardian aa’/item,” he said. “Do you know what that means, Mr. Noonan?”

“I believe I do.”

“It means,” Durgin rolled on, “that I’ve been appointed by Judge Rancourt to decide—if I can—where Kyra Devore’s best interests lie, should a custody judgment become necessary. Judge Rancourt would not, in such an event, be required to base his decision on my conclusions, but in many cases that is what happens.” He looked at me with his hands folded on a blank legal pad. The pretty assistant, on the other hand, was scribbling madly. Perhaps she didn’t trust the fighter-pilot. Durgin looked as if he expected a round of applause. “Was that a question, Mr. Durgin?” I asked and Romeo Bissonette delivered a light, practiced chip to my ankle. I didn’t need to look at him to know it wasn’t an accident.

Durgin pursed lips so smooth and damp that he looked as if he were wearing a clear gloss on them. On his shining pate, roughly two dozen strands of hair were combed in smooth little arcs. He gave me a patient, measuring look. Behind it was all the intransigent ugliness of an Evil Little Fat Folk. The pleasantries were over, all right. I was sure of it. “No, Mr. Noonan, that was not a question. I simply thought you might like to know why we’ve had to ask you to come away from your lovely lake on such a pleasant morning. Perhaps I was wrong. Now, if” There was a peremptory knock on the door, followed by your friend and his, George Footman. Today Cleveland Casual had been replaced by a khaki Deputy Sheriff’s uniform, complete with Sam Browne belt and sidearm. He helped himself to a good look at the assistant’s bustline, displayed in a blue silk blouse, then handed her a folder and a cassette tape recorder. He gave me one brief gander before leaving. I remember you, buddy, that glance said. The smartass writer, the cheap date. Romeo Bissonette tipped his head toward me. He used the side of his hand to bridge the gap between his mouth and my ear. “Devore’s tape,” he said. I nodded to show I understood, then turned to Durgin again. “Mr. Noonan, you’ve met Kyra Devore and her mother, Mary Devore, haven’t you?” How did you get Mattie out of Mary, I wondered… and then knew, just as I had known about the white shorts and halter top. Mattie was how Ki had first tried to say Mary. “Mr. Noonan, are we keeping you up?”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic, is there?” Bissonette asked. His tone was mild, but Elmer Durgin gave him a look which suggested that, should the ELFFS succeed in their goal of world domination, Bissonette would be aboard the first gulag-bound boxcar. “I’m sorry,” I said before Durgin could reply. “I just got derailed there for a second or two.”

“New story idea?” Durgin asked, smiling his glossy smile. He looked like a swamp-toad in a sportcoat. He turned to the old jet pilot, told him to strike that last, then repeated his question about Kyra and Mattie. Yes, I said, I had met them. “Once or more than once?”

“More than once.”

“How many times have you met them?”

“Twice.”

“Have you also spoken to Mary Devore on the phone?” Already these questions were moving in a direction that made me uncomfortable. “Yes.”

“How many times?”

“Three times.” The third had come the day before, when she had asked if I would join her and John Storrow for a picnic lunch on the town common after my deposition. Lunch right there in the middle of town before God and everybody. . although, with a New York lawyer to play chaperone, what harm in that? “Have you spoken to Kyra Devore on the telephone?” What an odd question! Not one anybody had prepared me for, either. I supposed that was at least partly why he had asked it. “Mr. Noonan?”

“Yes, I’ve spoken to her once.”

“Can you tell us the nature of that conversation?”

“Well…” I looked doubtfully at Bissonette, but there was no help there. He obviously didn’t know, either. “Mattie—”

“Pardon me?” Durgin leaned forward as much as he could. His eyes were intent in their pink pockets of flesh. “Mattie?”

“Mattie Devore.

Mary Devore.”

“You call her Mattie?”

24o “Yes,” I said, and had a wild impulse to add: In bed/In bed I call her that/"Oh Mattie, don’t stop, don’t stop,” I cry/"It’s the name she gave me when she introduced herself. I met her—”

“We may get to that, but right now I’m interested in your telephone conversation with Kyra Devote. When was that?”

“It was yesterday.”

“July ninth, 1998.”

“Yes.”

“Who placed that call?”

“Ma… Mary Devote.” Now he’ll ask why she called, I thought, and I’ll say she wanted to have yet another sex marathon, JSREPLAY to consist of sgeding each other chocolate-dipped strawberries while we look at pictures of naked mai-firmed dwarves. “How did Kyra Devote happen to speak to you?”