Mort stood there for a moment, the handset sinking away from his ear. Then he scooped up the bottom half of the Princess-style telephone. He was on the verge of throwing the whole combination against the wall before he was able to get hold of himself. He set it down again and took a dozen deep breaths - enough to make his head feel swimmy and light. Then he dialled Herb Creekmore's home telephone.

Herb's lady-friend, Delores, picked it up on the second ring and called Herb to the telephone.

'Hi, Mort,' Herb said. 'What's the story on the house?' His voice moved away from the telephone's mouthpiece a little. 'Delores, will you move that skillet to the back burner?'

Suppertime in New York, Mort thought, and he wants me to know it. Well, what the hell. A maniac has just threatened to turn my wife into veal cutlets, but life has to go on, right?

'The house is gone,' Mort said. 'The insurance will cover the loss.' He paused. 'The monetary loss, anyway.'

'I'm sorry,' Herb said. 'Can I do anything?'

'Well, not about the house,' Mort said, 'but thanks for offering. About the story, though -'

'What story is that, Mort?'

He felt his hand tightening down on the telephone's handset again and forced himself to loosen up. He doesn't know what the situation up here is. You have to remember that.

'The one my nutty friend is kicking sand about,' he said, trying to maintain a tone which was light and mostly unconcerned. 'Sowing Season. Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine?'

'Oh, that!' Herb said.

Mort felt a jolt of fear. 'You didn't forget to call, did you?'

'No - I called,' Herb reassured him. 'I just forgot all about it for a minute. You losing your house and all .'

'Well? What did they say?'

'Don't worry about a thing. They're going to send a Xerox over to me by messenger tomorrow, and I'll send it right up to you by Federal Express. You'll have it by ten o'clock day after tomorrow.'

For a moment it seemed that all of his problems were solved, and he started to relax. Then he thought of the way Shooter's eyes had blazed. The way he had brought his face down until his forehead and Mort's were almost touching. He thought of the dry smell of cinnamon on Shooter's breath as he said, 'You lie.'

A Xerox? He was by no means sure that Shooter would accept an original copy ... but a Xerox?

'No,' he said slowly. 'That's no good, Herb. No Xerox, no phone-call from the editor. It has to be an original copy of the magazine.'

'Well, that's a little tougher. They have their editorial offices in Manhattan, of course, but they store copies at their subscription offices in Pennsylvania. They only keep about five copies of each issue - it's really all they can afford to keep, when you consider that EQMM has been publishing since 1941. They really aren't crazy about lending them out.'

'Come on, Herb! You can find those magazines at yard sales and in half the small-town libraries in America!'

'But never a complete run.' Herb paused. 'Not even a phone-call will do, huh? Are you telling me this guy is so paranoid he'd think he was talking to one of your thousands of stooges?'

From the background: 'Do you want me to pour the wine, Herb?'

Herb spoke again with his mouth away from the phone. 'Hold on a couple of minutes, Dee.'

'I'm holding up your dinner,' Mort said. 'I'm sorry.'

'It goes with the territory. Listen, Mort, be straight with me - is this guy as crazy as he sounds? Is he dangerous?'

I don't think I'd talk about this to anyone else. That'd be like standing out in a thunderstorm and tempting the lightning.

'I don't think so,' he said, 'but I want him off my back, Herb.' He hesitated, searching for the right tone. 'I've spent the last half-year or so walking through a shitstorm. This might be one thing I can do something about. I just want the doofus off my back.'

'Okay,' Herb said with sudden decision. 'I'll call Marianne Jaffery over at EQMM. I've known her for a long time. If I ask her to ask the library curator -that's what they call the guy, honest, the library curator - to send us a copy of the June, 1980, ish, she'll do it. Is it okay if I say you might have a story for them at some point in the future?'

'Sure,' Mort said, and thought: Tell her it'll be under the name John Shooter, and almost laughed aloud.

'Good. She'll have the curator send it on to you Federal Express, direct from Pennsylvania. just return it in good ............