“What’s down there?”
“What?”
“You heard me. You were in that hole a long time, I was starting to think you died, so what’s down there?”
Now another thought came: He can’t know. No one can.
“Pumping machinery.” It was the first thing that came into my head.
“Pumping machinery? Pumping machinery? That’s what it is, ha-ha?”
“Yes. Otherwise everything floods in the backyard when it rains. And it runs down the street.” Brains kicking into gear. “It’s old. I was checking to see if I’ve got to get someone from the city down here to look at it. You know, the Water Depar—”
“Bullshit. Ha-ha. What’s really down there? Is there gold down there?”
“No. Just machinery.”
“Don’t turn around, kiddo, wouldn’t be smart. Not at all. You went down there with a great big gun, ha-ha, to check on a water pump?”
“Rats,” I said. My mouth was very dry. “I thought there might be rats.”
“Bullshit story, total bullshit. What’s that over there? More pumping machinery? Don’t move, just look to your right.”
I looked and saw the moldering corpse of the big cockroach Mr. Bowditch had shot. There wasn’t much left.
Even such feeble invention as I’d managed so far failed me, so I said I didn’t know, and the man I was thinking of as Rumpelstiltskin didn’t really care. He had his eyes on the prize.
“Never mind. Right now let’s check out the old guy’s safe. Maybe we’ll check out the pumping machinery later. In the house, kiddo. And if you make any noise on the way, I’m going to blow your head off. But first I want you to unbuckle the shootin’ iron, partner, ha-ha, and drop it.”
I started to bend over, meaning to undo the knots holding the tie-downs. The gun went back against my head, and hard.
“Did I tell you to bend over? I didn’t. Just unbuckle the belt.”
I unbuckled it. The holster hit my knee and turned over. The gun fell out on the shed floor.
“Now you can buckle up again. Nice belt, ha-ha.”
（At this point I’m going to stop most of the ha-ha shit, because he said it all the time, as a kind of verbal punctuation. Just let me add that it was extremely Rumpelstiltskin-ish. Which is to say, creepy.）
“Now turn around.”
I turned and he turned with me. We were like figures in a music box.
“Slow, chappie. Slow.”
I walked out of the shed. He walked with me. It had been overcast in the other world, but it was sunny here. I could see our shadows, his with one arm outstretched and a shadow gun in his shadow hand. My brains had managed to get from low gear into second, but I was a long way from third. I had been sandbagged, good and proper.
We climbed the back porch steps. I unlocked the door and we went into the kitchen. I remember thinking of all the times I’d been in here, never suspecting how soon I’d be entering for the last time. Because he was going to kill me.
Except he couldn’t. I couldn’t let him. I thought of people finding out about the well of the worlds and knew I couldn’t let him. I thought about city cops or a State Police SWAT team or Army guys overrunning the shoe-woman’s little yard, tearing down her crisscrossing lines and leaving her shoes in the dirt, scaring her, and knew I couldn’t let him. I thought of those guys tromping into the abandoned city and awakening whatever slept there and knew I couldn’t let him. Only I couldn’t stop him. The joke was on me.
Ha-ha.
2
Up the stairs to the second floor we went, me in the lead and Rumpel-fucking-stiltskin behind me. I thought of suddenly lunging backward halfway up and knocking him the rest of the way down, but didn’t try. It might work, but there was a good chance I’d be dead if it didn’t. If Radar had been here, she’d have had a go at Rumpel, old or not, and would likely be dead already.
“Bedroom, chappie. The one with the safe.”
I went into Mr. Bowditch’s bedroom. “You killed Mr. Heinrich, didn’t you?”
“What? That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. They caught the bloke who did that.”
I didn’t pursue the subject. I knew, he knew, and he knew I knew. I knew other things, as well. Number one was that if I claimed I didn’t know the combination to the safe and persisted in that lie, he would kill me. Number two was a variation of number one.
“Open the closet, kiddo.”
I opened the closet. The empty holster flapped against my thigh. Some gunslinger I turned out to be.