Arthur stepped back. "You have the wrong room," he said, and started to close the door.

Blackburn put a hand on the door to hold it open. "I really think you'll want to talk to me," he said.

Arthur glared at him. "I'm doing a signing tomorrow at a Waldenbooks in St. Charles. Talk to me then." He tried to shove the door shut, but it didn't move.

Blackburn shook his head. "I was at your signing today," he said. "It was awful. None of those people knew your work, or what it means. And you… were drunk. Probably so you wouldn't have to think about those people."

"If you don't leave right now," Arthur said, "I'll yell for help. There are a lot of people on this floor, and they'll call hotel security. Or the police."

Blackburn held out The Guy Who Killed People. "This book is about me," he said.

Arthur's eyebrows rose. "Excuse me?"

"The man in the book," Blackburn said. "The guy who kills people, but only when they deserve it. I'm him."

Arthur's hands slid from the door, and he took another step back. "You don't say."

"If you'll give me a few minutes, you'll believe me," Blackburn said. He entered the room and closed the door. "You're the first person I've told about this. You can imagine why."

Arthur's grin was creeping back. "Oh, yes," he said. He went to the nightstand and picked up an open fifth of Jack Daniel's. He grasped the bottle by the neck and took a drink. Then he looked at Blackburn. "So you've sprung to life from the pages of my book, is that it? Must have been an easy birth. No water breaking, no straining. No blood."

"That's not what I mean, sir," Blackburn said. "I'm not a lunatic."

"I wasn't suggesting you were." Arthur went around the bed to the window, taking the bottle with him. He opened the drapes. The Gateway Arch was visible on the far side of I-70. "To believe you've been given life by words isn't lunacy. But to try to parachute down to land on top of that thing-" He pointed at the Arch. "Now, that's lunacy."

Blackburn didn't know what Arthur was talking about. "What I meant to say, sir," he continued, "was that I share the values and behavior of your nameless protagonist. I am a real-world analog of The Guy Who Killed People."

"Oh," Arthur said. "Well, in that case, you are a lunatic. Go parachute onto the Arch." He took a swig from the bottle.

"Please listen," Blackburn said. "Once I saw a man beating his wife, so I shot him. Another time I saw a man run over a dog on purpose. So I shot him. Another time I caught two mechanics cheating an old lady, so-"

"Let me guess," Arthur said. "You shot them."

"No. I would have, but I didn't have my gun with me. I crushed one of them under a hydraulic lift and blew up the other one with an air compressor."

"That was very resourceful." Arthur took a long drink. The bottle was almost empty. "Now get out of here before I call hotel security."

"You still don't believe me."

Arthur laughed, and it became a cough. He bent over and hacked, then spat and straightened up. His face had turned red. "You want to know the truth?" he asked.

Blackburn stepped toward the writer, holding The Guy Who Killed People before him like a holy icon. "Yes," he said. "I found truth in this book, so I know you're a man who understands what truth is."

"You bet," Arthur said. He drained the bottle and coughed again.

Droplets hit Blackburn's face. He breathed bourbon, and his lungs burned. He was glad the bottle was empty. Maybe things would go better now.

Arthur pushed Blackburn aside and returned to the nightstand. He set down the bottle and put his hand on the telephone. "The truth is that I don't care whether you ever killed anybody, or whether you're using my book as an excuse to hallucinate. Either way, you're nothing to me but a pain in the ass. I've met you a thousand times, and I only put up with you for the first hundred. So you can walk out of this room, or I can call someone to drag you out."

Blackburn was beginning to despair, but he had to keep trying. "I'm not like those others," he said, coming around the bed. "They want your fame to rub off on them. I don't. I only want to let you know that your vision isn't in vain."

Arthur looked puzzled. "What vision is that?"

"The vision in this book," Blackburn said, holding out The Guy Who Killed People again. "The vision of a man who understands the meaning of independence and justice, and who isn't afraid to act on that understanding."

Arthur picked up the empty bottle and tried to take another drink. Then he brought it up to his right eye and peered through the glass at Blackburn. "You are not only a lunatic," he said, "but a lunatic who can't read his way out of a wet paper bag."

"I don't know what you mean," Blackburn said.

"Of course not." Arthur lowered the bottle and shook it at Blackburn. "That's because you're a lunatic. Just like the man in my book. He's worse than a serial killer, worse than evil. He's stupid, which is the worst lunacy of all. The reader isn't supposed to sympathize with him. The reader's supposed to loathe him. I sure as hell did."

It was as if Blackburn had been slugged. "But the people he killed all deserved it," he said. The words hurt his throat. "They were horrible."

"We're all horrible!" Arthur yelled, waving the bottle. "I'm horrible, you're horrible, the President of the United States is horrible! Mother stinking Teresa is horrible! A newborn baby will be horrible as soon as it gets a chance! Trying to fight that isn't noble. It's futile. Why do you think I killed him off at the end, anyway?"

"To… make him a martyr?"

Arthur came close to Blackburn and bellowed in his ear. "BECAUSE HE WAS A PAIN IN THE ASS, THAT'S WHY!"

Blackburn flinched away. He was angry now. "I see," he said. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Arthur."

"Drop dead," Arthur said. "But get out first."

Blackburn went to the door, but then turned back toward the writer. "You know what I think?" he asked.

Arthur stood beside the bed, his shoulders slumped. The Jack Daniel's bottle dangled from his hand. "Not only do I not know," he said, "but I don't give a shit either."

"I think," Blackburn said, "that you've lied to me. I think you know you've written the truth, and you're afraid of it. I think you're so afraid of it that you have to get drunk to be brave. And then you lie to fight off your own truth."

Arthur's eyes opened wide. He raised the whiskey bottle over his head. "I said get-" He lunged forward. "-the FUCK OUT!"

Blackburn dodged, and the bottle clipped his shoulder. He came up against the wall and dropped The Guy Who Killed People. Arthur swung again, and the bottle bounced off Blackburn's skull. Blackburn saw a white burst like a flashbulb. He dropped to his hands and knees and scrambled. He didn't know which way he was going until he ran into the bed. He turned around and saw Arthur coming at him.

"You're not like the man in my book," Arthur said. His voice was thick with contempt. "But I am."

Blackburn got onto the bed. "I thought you said that you loathed him."

Arthur grinned. "Sure. Any man who doesn't despise himself hasn't looked close enough." He charged toward the bed and swung the bottle.

Blackburn lurched away, and the bottle missed him. He fell off the bed on the far side, landing on his rump.

Arthur bounced on the bed on his knees and glared down at Blackburn. "I've always wanted to kill people," he said. He hefted the bottle. "I've just never had the guts. So I write about it instead. But maybe I can at least hurt you."

Blackburn stood and reached into his coat. He opened the Velcro flap over the Python's pouch, then pulled out the pistol. He didn't point it, but he cocked it.

"I can't let you hit me again," he said. "No matter who you are or what you mean to me. Nobody hurts me."