"Yes, sir. Well, sir, I would like tremendously to do a series of stories on John Bernard Books, the last shootist."
"A series?"
"Yes. How long will you be with us?"
"Not long."
"Oh. Well, I have a list of questions here." The reporter pulled a small note pad from his pocket. "I've made them up in advance—we could start today, right now, and get together again tomorrow."
"What kind of questions?"
"Let me see." Dobkins opened the note pad, took out a pencil. "There's been so much cheap fiction about gun men, as you know, Mr. Books. Dime novels, myths, downright lies, so on and so forth. I thought I'd get down to brass tacks for once—you know, the true story, the facts—while you're available, before anything happens to you. I mean, I hope nothing does, but—"
"The questions."
"Oh yes. Well, for example, we'd start at the beginning— your young years. What turned you to violence in the first place."
"Go on."
"These aren't questions so much as subjects. Then I'd want to cover your career factually—the statistics, you might say. How many duels you've had. How many victims."
Books nodded.
"I'd like to delve rather deeply into the psychology of the shootist—no one's ever done that seriously. How important is the instinct of self-preservation? What is the true temperament of the man-killer? Is he the loner they say? Is he really coolheaded under fire? Is he by nature bloodthirsty? Does he brood after the deed is done? Reproach himself? Or has he lived so long with death for a companion that he is used to it—the death of others, the prospect of his own?"
Dobkins was extemporizing. Carried away by rhetoric, he seemed unaware that his host had risen and moved to the closet. Books pushed aside the curtain and reached with one arm.
"Finally, I'd like to take one of your duels as an example and dissect it step by step, shot by shot. And afterward, how did you feel inwardly, when you came through unscathed? What were your emotions as you looked down upon your foe, mortally wounded, eyes glazing, breathing his last? What were his dying words? What did you reply? Oh, I see this as a splendid climax—we'll have the reader glued to—"
Dan Dobkins swallowed the rest of his sentence. His eyes glazed. He stared into the muzzle of a gleaming pistol.
"Open your mouth," Books said.
He opened his mouth. The barrel of the Remington was introduced to his tongue by an inch or two.
"Close your mouth. Don't bite down. Make believe it's a nipple. Suck."
Dobkins did as ordered.
"Now," Books said quietly. "Notice I have slipped the safety. This gun has a hair trigger. One fit or fidget and Mrs. Rogers will scrub your brains off the wallpaper with soap and water. Now put your pad and pencil away. Careful."
The reporter was careful.
"On your feet and start backward, toward the door. Don't shake or shiver or breathe—just suck. All right, move."
Dan Dobkins moved in slow motion, trembling, to his feet and commencing a kind of glide backward. He closed his eyes. His Adam's apple convulsed. He moaned.
"I'll open the door. You keep going. Through the entry. Easy."
Barrel in mouth, eyes closed, moaning, the reporter backed through the door and along the entry, Books following step by step. As they passed the parlor, Mrs. Rogers flew to her feet from the sofa. "Mr. Dobkins—Mr. Books, how dare you! What in heaven's name—"
"Be still, ma'am," Books warned. "We're in a touchy situation here."
She froze, hands stopping her mouth.
They reached the front doors. Reaching for the knobs, Books opened both doors and with his left hand spread them wide. He straightened, slipped the barrel of the Remington slowly from the reporter's mouth. Dobkins opened his eyes.
"Turn around."
"Please, Mr. Books, I beg—"
"Turn around."
Dobkins turned.
"Bend over."
Dobkins doubled.
Books stuck the pistol under his belt, steadied himself on his left leg, placed the sole of his right boot solidly against the young reporter's fundament.
"Dobkins, you are a prying, pipsqueak, talcumpowder little son of a bitch," he said. "If you ever come dandying around here again, I will kill you."
He shoved with all his strength. Dobkins hurtled through the doorway and across the porch with such momentum that, striking the edge of the top step with head and shoulders, he somersaulted down the flight and tumbled along the wooden sidewalk until he sprawled in a striped heap halfway to the street.
She upbraided him. After the shove, he had gone down on one knee. It was the most savage, most unjustified thing she had ever seen one person do to another, she said, and if she were a man she would horsewhip him for it. Suddenly he reeled up, his face like chalk, and twisted, and fell heavily against a wall. He stood for a moment, head bowed in agony, then put the flat of both hands against the wall to support himself and began, hand by hand, to work his way along the wall in the direction of his room. She feared he might collapse. She came to him and touched his hip as though to assist him. He struck her hand away, muttering that he would tend himself. When he reached the open door he gathered himself, lunged, hands extended, and lowered himself face down upon the bed. She asked if he wanted her to telephone the doctor. He shook his head no.
"Very well," Bond Rogers said. "I'm sure you are in no more discomfort than poor Mr. Dobkins, lying out there on the sidewalk. And if you are, Mr. J. B. Books, it serves you right."
Hostetler found him supine upon the bed, his head pillowed.
"You all right?"
"Yes."
"What happened?"
"I kicked a reporter out of here. It damned near tore me in two."
"Excitation of the cells. You can't do that kind of thing any more, you know."
"I know now. Here, I'll get up."
"No, don't. You lie there and I'll sit by you."
The doctor closed the door behind him and took the armchair by the bed.
"First things first, Doc. I forgot to ask. How much do I owe you?"
Hostetler smiled. "You're a man after my heart, Mr. Books. They usually ask that last, if they do at all. Oh, make it a dollar for the drug and four dollars for the two calls. Don't get up."
"In the closet, in the coat pocket, my wallet. Help yourself."
"I will later." From his bag the physician pulled a book bound in brown leather. "I promised to bring you this. Bruce's Principles of Surgery. There's a section on carcinoma you can read if you wish. I've turned down the page corner." He laid it on the library table. "Now." On the table he set a twelve-ounce bottle filled with purplish liquid. "Here you are. Your medicine."
"What is it?"
"Laudanum. A solution of opium in alcohol."
"Opium? Can't that get to be a habit?"
"It can. An addiction, in fact. But in your case—" The doctor shrugged.
Books scowled. "Yes. What's it taste like?"
"Terrible. But there's a consolation. You'll likely have dreams."
"Dreams?"
"Amazing dreams. Perhaps you'll even have visions. Are you much of a reader?"
"No."
"I confess I am, since we're in private. There's an English poet, Coleridge—Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He took opium habitually for a time, as I understand it, and waking one day, wrote down a poem he had composed in his sleep. Based to some extent on the vision he'd had. Quite a phenomenal thing. Kubla Khan, it's called. I can recollect the first two lines and the last four. Let me think." Charles Hostetler removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Ah, yes, 'In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/ A stately pleasure-dome decree.'"
"Xanadu? Where's that?"
"Who knows? Some strange and oriental sphere of the imagination. Probably in the Near East. Khan must have been some kind of potentate. The last four lines I find unforgettable. 'Weave a circle round him thrice/ And close your eyes with holy dread/ For he on honeydew hath fed/ And drunk the milk of Paradise.'" He shook his head. "What it means, I'm sure I don't know, but it certainly has a lilt to it."