CHAPTER FIFTEEN

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 ad litem ad litem, 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 Town Our Town, 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 G.o.d. 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 m.u.f.fled 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 f.u.c.k 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 a.s.sistant - 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 F- 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 Being Two that pulled ratings roughly equal to the National Sofa Refinishing Championships. I hoped that we'd completed this chubby little f.u.c.k's idea of the pleasantries. that pulled ratings roughly equal to the National Sofa Refinishing Championships. I hoped that we'd completed this chubby little f.u.c.k's idea of the pleasantries.

'I am Kyra Devore's guardian ad litem ad litem,' 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 a.s.sistant, 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 a.s.sistant's bustline, displayed in a blue silk blouse, then handed her a folder and a ca.s.sette tape recorder. He gave me one brief gander before leaving. I remember you, buddy I remember you, buddy, that glance said. The smarta.s.s writer, the cheap date The smarta.s.s 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 Mattie was how Ki had first tried to say was how Ki had first tried to say Mary 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 G.o.d 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 Mary Devore.' Devore.'

'You call her Mattie?'

'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!' 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 - ' '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 Devore. When was that?'

'It was yesterday.'

'July ninth, 1998.'

'Yes.'

'Who placed that call?'

'Ma . . . Mary Devore.' Now he'll ask why she called Now he'll ask why she called, I thought, and I'll say she wanted to have yet another s.e.x marathon, foreplay to consist of feeding each other chocolate-dipped strawberries while we look at pictures of naked malformed dwarves and I'll say she wanted to have yet another s.e.x marathon, foreplay to consist of feeding each other chocolate-dipped strawberries while we look at pictures of naked malformed dwarves. 'How did Kyra Devore happen to speak to you?'

'She asked if she could. I heard her saying to her mother that she had to tell me something.'

'What was it she had to tell you?'

'That she had her first bubble bath.'

'Did she also say she coughed?'

I was quiet, looking at him. In that moment I understood why people hate lawyers, especially when they've been dusted over by one who's good at the job.

'Mr. Noonan, would you like me to repeat the question?'

'No,' I said, wondering where he'd gotten his information. Had these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds tapped Mattie's phone? My phone? Both? Perhaps for the first time I understood on a gut level what it must be like to have half a billion dollars. With that much dough you could tap a lot of telephones. 'She said her mother pushed bubbles in her face and she coughed. But she was - '

'Thank you, Mr. Noonan, now let's turn to - '

'Let him finish,' Bissonette said. I had an idea he had already taken a bigger part in the proceedings than he had expected to, but he didn't seem to mind. He was a sleepy-looking man with a bloodhound's mournful, trustworthy face. 'This isn't a courtroom, and you're not cross-examining him.'

'I have the little girl's welfare to think of,' Durgin said. He sounded both pompous and humble at the same time, a combination that went together like chocolate sauce on creamed corn. 'It's a responsibility I take very seriously. If I seemed to be badgering you, Mr. Noonan, I apologize.'

I didn't bother accepting his apology - that would have made us both phonies. 'All I was going to say is that Ki was laughing when she said it. She said she and her mother had a bubble-fight. When her mother came back on, she was laughing, too.'

Durgin had opened the folder Footman had brought him and was paging rapidly through it while I spoke, as if he weren't hearing a word. 'Her mother . . . Mattie, as you call her.'

'Yes. Mattie as I call her. How do you know about our private telephone conversation in the first place?'

'That's none of your business, Mr. Noonan.' He selected a single sheet of paper, then closed the folder. He held the paper up briefly, like a doctor studying an X-ray, and I could see it was covered with single-s.p.a.ced typing. 'Let's turn to your initial meeting with Mary and Kyra Devore. That was on the Fourth of July, wasn't it?'

'Yes.' Durgin was nodding. 'The morning of the Fourth. And you met Kyra Devore first.'

'Yes.'

'You met her first because her mother wasn't with her at that time, was she?'

'That's a badly phrased question, Mr. Durgin, but I guess the answer is yes.'

'I'm flattered to have my grammar corrected by a man who's been on the bestseller lists,' Durgin said, smiling. The smile suggested that he'd like to see me sitting next to Romeo Bissonette in that first gulag-bound boxcar. 'Tell us about your meeting, first with Kyra Devore and then with Mary Devore. Or Mattie, if you like that better.'

I told the story. When I was finished, Durgin centered the tape player in front of him. The nails of his pudgy fingers looked as glossy as his lips.

'Mr. Noonan, you could have run Kyra over, isn't that true?'

'Absolutely not. I was going thirty-five - that's the speed limit there by the store. I saw her in plenty of time to stop.'

'Suppose you had been coming the other way, though - heading north instead of south. Would you still have seen her in plenty of time?'

That was a fairer question than some of his others, actually. Someone coming the other way would have had a far shorter time to react. Still . . .

'Yes,' I said.

Durgin went up with the eyebrows. 'You're sure of that?'

'Yes, Mr. Durgin. I might have had to come down a little harder on the brakes, but - '

'At thirty-five.'

'Yes, at thirty-five. I told you, that's the speed limit - '

' - -on that particular stretch of Route 68. Yes, you told me that. You did. Is it your experience that most people obey the speed limit on that part of the road?'

'I haven't spent much time on the TR since 1993, so I can't - '

'Come on, Mr. Noonan - this isn't a scene from one of your books. Just answer my questions, or we'll be here all morning.'

'I'm doing my best, Mr. Durgin.'

He sighed, put-upon. 'You've owned your place on Dark Score Lake since the eighties, haven't you? And the speed limit around the Lakeview General Store, the post office, and d.i.c.k Brooks's All-Purpose Garage - what's called The North Village - hasn't changed since then, has it?'

'No,' I admitted.

'Returning to my original question, then - in your observation, do most people on that stretch of road obey the thirty-five-mile-an-hour limit?'

'I can't say if it's most, because I've never done a traffic survey, but I guess a lot don't.'

'Would you like to hear Castle County Sheriffs Deputy Footman testify on where the greatest number of speeding tickets are given out in TR-90, Mr. Noonan?'

'No,' I said, quite honestly.

'Did other vehicles pa.s.s you while you were speaking first with Kyra Devore and then with Mary Devore?'

'Yes.'

'How many?'

'I don't know exactly. A couple.'