Part 3

"No," Fleetwood said. "Doesn't sound pleasant at all." He looked at Dermitt with speculation. "Do you mean you actually could disintegrate right here at my feet? Is it really possible for people to do that sort of thing?"

"Oh, Lord!" Dermitt shrieked. "Tell me who sent you. Please, _please_!"

"I really don't know what to say," Fleetwood sympathized. "I'd love to tell you this is only a joke, since it seems to mean so much to you, but I honestly can't. I'm strapped by the facts, if you see what I mean."

* * * * *

Fleetwood's tone seemed to soothe Dermitt a trifle, for he returned to his chair and fell limply into it. For a space, he sat staring down at the carpet in a markedly haunted way, his hands twitching in his lap. Finally he looked up.

"I don't believe you," he murmured, and if he had anything more to say he was obviously quite beyond saying it for the moment. There was a prolonged silence in which Fleetwood became restive. He cleared his throat. Dermitt jumped.

"Look," Fleetwood said, seeing that any further negotiations were entirely up to him, "we've got to settle this business one way or the other. I want to get out of this fiction racket. In fact, I must. That's why I came here. But, obviously, if I'm going to quit successfully you're going to have to extend a certain amount of cooperation. At least you're going to have to stop using me in your stories. Along those lines I can't see any possibility of an agreeable settlement until you are convinced beyond any doubt that I am actually me. I suppose I'm going to have to prove it to you."

Dermitt rallied a bit at this. "And you'll never do that," he said, "not to my satisfaction. I just won't believe it. I refuse."

"Maybe you will," Fleetwood said. "You'll have to help me, though, I'm afraid."

"What are you going to do?"

"You'll see." Fleetwood paused for reflection. "Now, then, in that last scene you have me diving into a black abyss. That was the last bit of it, wasn't it?"

" ... _the floor opened into a black abyss in front of him_," Dermitt quoted, "_and he dived in headfirst._"

"That's right," Fleetwood nodded. "What's the next line?"

"The next line?" Dermitt said. "How should I know? I haven't written it yet."

"But you must have some idea. Suppose you go over there to your desk and write it out right now--just as an experiment?"

"Huh? What are you up to?"

"Just try it and see what happens. I'd rather like to know myself as a matter of fact."

Keeping his eyes on Fleetwood, Dermitt got up slowly and crossed to the desk in the alcove. "You're mad," he said uncertainly. "You're out of your mind."

"No," Fleetwood said with a wry smile. "I'm out of _your_ mind. Besides, you dwell too much on insanity. That's morbid in a fellow your age." Dermitt said something under his breath, but Fleetwood didn't hear it. "Now just sit down and write the next line as it comes to you. And watch me, too, while you do it. I think we may both learn something interesting."

* * * * *

Dermitt sighed deeply and seated himself before the typewriter. "Oh, well," he sighed, "what have I got to lose now?" His face however held the expression of a man who was on the verge of losing everything; he was whistling in the dark. He turned to the typewriter and pressed a trembling hand to his left temple.

"Just one line, though," Fleetwood cautioned him. "No more than that."

"The way I'm feeling," Dermitt muttered, "I'll be lucky to do that much." He lowered his uncertain fingers to the keys and began to type:

_Through the cushiony darkness that engulfed him, a voice called out to Fleetwood with metallic shrillness_ ... (At the very first tap of the keys, Fleetwood felt himself falling into black unconsciousness. He smiled with satisfaction and let it happen.) ... _like a silver cord plucked by a skeletal hand._

Fleetwood awoke slowly as the keys stopped tapping and the room grew still. He was still seated in the chair. He stretched himself and glanced across at Dermitt, whose eyes were now even larger than his glasses. The little man, lost in sputtering inarticulation, merely pointed at Fleetwood.

"You ... you ... you!" he managed finally. "You _faded_! Right in front of my eyes, you vanished!" He quivered emotionally. "Oh, my God!" He boosted himself unsteadily away from the desk and out of the chair. He came tottering across the room toward Fleetwood. "Wha ... what happened?"

Fleetwood shrugged. "It's perfectly plain, isn't it? You transferred me to paper."

"Then you _are_!"

Fleetwood spread his hands significantly.

* * * * *

Dermitt moved back to the chair and executed another collapse. It is not likely that the stock crash of '29 could have produced a more vivid picture of the Ruined Man. His arms hung slack at his sides.

"No wonder the story's been going so badly lately," he groaned. "No wonder you haven't been consistent in print." He looked up slowly. "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing special," Fleetwood said. "Live a little, I suppose. I haven't made any definite plans yet. Maybe I'll just do something quiet, like raising flowers."

"You mean--like you said--you're just walking out on me?"

Fleetwood nodded. "But I'd really prefer it if you wouldn't look at it just that way."

"But you can't, Cassidy, you just can't. Not just now anyway. I need you. I've got to finish that story. I've got to have the money from it. I'm up to my ears in bills and obligations. I can show you if you don't believe me.... My--our last one, The Kippered Caper, is going awfully well on reactions and they've already promised me a better price on this one...."

"I'm sorry," Fleetwood said, "really I am."

"But you _can't_!" Suddenly he stopped, and a look of inspired shrewdness came into his cherubic features. Magnified by his enormous glasses, the new light in his eyes was hard to miss. Fleetwood didn't like the look of it.

"I won't let you," Dermitt went on in a much calmer tone. "I'll put you on paper, and you'll have to stay there until I'm done with you. You can't dictate to me. I'll write night and day. I'll take pills to keep me awake, and...."

"I was afraid you might take this tack," Fleetwood said. "But it won't work. As you've said yourself, you've been having all sorts of trouble with me lately. That means I've developed a will of my own, even on paper. If you shove me back into that story you're going to have more trouble than you ever dreamed of. You'll never get the story finished. I meant it sincerely when I said I bear you no ill will, but you've got to remember I'm here to fight for my life."

"I see," Dermitt said, deflated. He leaned back, then sharply forward again. "Look, Cassidy, why can't we just make a friendly deal over this thing? There isn't much left to do on this yarn, hardly anything at all really. It's just a matter of finishing up. Why don't you stick it out with me until I'm finished? I'll never write about you again, I swear. I'll develop a whole new character." He looked to Fleetwood hopefully. "I'll pay you a regular salary, too, so much an hour--retroactive."

* * * * *

Fleetwood shook his head. "Huh-uh. I'm tired, Dermitt. If I have to mix it up with any more gunmen or double-dealing dames I'll have a nervous breakdown. I'm not kidding." His gaze moved to the window and the glittering vista stretching out into the eternal distance of the night. "Besides, I've met a girl...."

"A girl?" Dermitt said, incredulous. "How could you meet a girl? When did you have the chance?"

"This afternoon. In a drug store. But...."

"My God, you work fast, don't you? You didn't do anything unprintable, did you?"

"Of course not," Fleetwood said with sudden primness. "Besides, it's none of your business what I do outside of working hours."

Nonetheless, Dermitt pursued the subject further. "What's she like?" he asked. "Limpid eyes, full of subtle invitation? Green flecked with gold?"

"I should say not," Fleetwood said, shuddering at the thought. "Kitty's eyes, as nearly as I can remember, are more mud colored. Flecked with sand, if they must be flecked with anything. They're astonishing."

"Huh?" Dermitt said, taken aback. "But I'll bet her mouth is something to wire home about, eh? Petulant and full? Soft and warm?"

Fleetwood shook his head. "Narrow as a string," he said reminiscently. "Hard and cool. Kitty is no ordinary girl, you understand."

"Are you sure she's any kind of girl at all?" Dermitt asked hesitantly. "What about her nose? She has a nose, hasn't she?"

"Of course," Fleetwood said. "Two openings at the end for air, of course. It's just a nose, I suppose, but she's got one all right."

"Uh-huh," Dermitt nodded with subdued spirits. "And hair?"

"She got that too," Fleetwood affirmed. "Lusterless, it is, and sort of brownish. I've never seen anyone like her. She's absolutely tremendous."

"Fat, too, huh?" Dermitt murmured, "on top of everything else." He shook his head regretfully.

"Oh, no," Fleetwood put in. "You misunderstand. Her figure, I should say, could be described as definitely so-so."

"Holy smoke!" Dermitt cried. "So that's the kind of dame you pick out--you, Fleetwood Cassidy, who, thanks to me, has been in constant and close contact with some of the most fascinating females in fiction!"

"Oh, those tomatoes." Fleetwood sighed a jaded sigh. "I'm tired of all those sexy dames. They get so ordinary after a while. When you've seen one of them you've seen them all."

"Ordinary!" Dermitt said, outraged. "All of my women are unique artistic creations! And you're darned lucky to have been in the same stories with them. At least they...." He controlled himself with an effort and forced a smile. "But getting back to this--this Kitty of yours, what I had in mind was that maybe I could work her into the story too. God only knows how I'd do it, but what if I did? Then would you be willing to finish it out?"

* * * * *

Fleetwood sat up sharply. "No!" He fairly yelled it. "Emphatically no! You leave Kitty out of this. If you so much as put her name on paper I'll...."

Dermitt smiled with a certain formidable satisfaction. "You'll what?" he asked quietly. "I've been thinking how logical it is, that if I have the power to transform a fictional person into a live being, then I must also be able to reverse the process and make a live character into a fictional one."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"I might. And suppose I did? Suppose I transcribed Kitty to paper? I might even change her a little while I'm doing it. Then you'd just about have to go back into the story, wouldn't you, if you ever wanted to see her again?"

"But...."

"But what, Mr. Cassidy?"

"You wouldn't, Dermitt," Fleetwood said limply. "You wouldn't."

Dermitt lifted his gaze noncommitally to the ceiling. "She might make an interesting character at that," he mused, "if I used her to the proper advantage." He yawned. "For laughs, that is, and contrast."

"Now, look, Dermitt," Fleetwood said anxiously. "I...."

"Yes, Mr. Cassidy?"

"You say there isn't much of this story left to do?"

"Just a bit, really."

"How long would it take?"

"That depends," Dermitt shrugged. "If everything goes smoothly, if I can depend on the full cooperation of my characters, it shouldn't take more than a day. Two days at the outside."

"I see," Fleetwood said. "And how much rough stuff will there be?"

"No more than usual. Maybe a kick or two in the groin. A flesh wound, naturally."

Fleetwood winced. "Is it absolutely necessary? Do I always have to get myself shot in the last chapter?"

"If the readers demand it, what can I do?"

"Obviously your readers are from an extremely low level of civilized society. I'm surprised that a bunch of savage, sadistic-minded brutes like that know how to read."

"It's no good resorting to insults," Dermitt said mildly. "In fact, you had better mind your manners or this Kitty of yours is going to get the surprise of her pallid little life."

For a long moment Fleetwood was silent, weighing the alternatives. "Okay," he said finally, giving in to the inevitable. "Okay, you win. All I ask is that you get it over with as soon as possible."

"Fair enough," Dermitt said with satisfaction. "And I'm prepared to be reasonable about the thing, Cassidy. In fact I'm willing to go to work right now, if you like. All _I_ ask, though, is that you subdue those cowardly impulses of yours until I'm finished." He got up, crossed to the desk and sat down before the typewriter.

* * * * *

Watching with apprehension, Fleetwood stirred nervously and started to speak, but Dermitt motioned him to be quiet. The little man flexed his fingers, adjusted his monstrous glasses and regarded Fleetwood thoughtfully. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them with a nod of decision. He began to type.

A shudder of weakness passed through Fleetwood's long frame, and he tried to cry out, but suddenly his voice was only an echo of the clattering keys....

_Fleetwood stirred, and consciousness seeped into his mind like a cold, grey fog._

"_Fleetwood!_"

_A voice called to him with quiet urgency. He looked up and saw Evelyn's face blur into focus close above his own. Her arm was about his shoulders and she was pulling him toward her._

_"The kiss of death?" Fleetwood said flatly._

_"Don't," she whispered. "Please don't. I didn't know he was like that...."_

_"Where is he?"_

_It was a moment before she spoke, as though she needed time to make up her mind. "He's getting the car," she said. "He'll be back in a moment to take you with him. You've got to get out of here. I want you to."_

_Fleetwood glanced down at the gun beside her on the floor. "You're going to save me at gunpoint, huh?" he asked._

_"He made me take it." She picked it up and held it out to him. "Here, you can have it if you want." She pressed it into his hand._

_"How'd you get into all this?" he asked, sitting up. "You make a lousy gun moll. I'll bet you can't even smoke a cigar."_

_Her smile was bitter. "I needed money," she said. "Gambling debts, that sort of thing. It wouldn't be a new story, not to you. All I had were my jewels, and I didn't really have those; Blanchard took them for security. I had to get them from him. At first I figured I could get them easily enough, if I gave Blanchard the right story. I had it all worked out, and Blanchard always had a yen for me. Anyway, I was going to have Mario sell them for me on the quiet, then I was going to pay Blanchard off and keep the rest for myself. I didn't want Blanchard to know I was all the way down to the bottom. Pride, I guess."_

_"But Mario was smarter than you." He said it flatly._

_She nodded. "It was his idea to fake the robbery so we could collect the insurance money too. I think I agreed just to get out of facing Blanchard with a lie." She laughed harshly. "That's very funny, isn't it? Anyway, Mario was going to dispose of the jewels through a fence. All he wanted for his services, he said, was fifty percent of the final sale."_

_"He said," Fleetwood prompted._

* * * * *

And even as he said it the thought flickered in the back of his mind that he was wasting an awful lot of valuable time jawing with this dame when he should be getting the hell out of there. He controlled the impulse. He thought of Kitty.

_"Yes," Evelyn sighed. "Really he wanted everything. Me, too. But that doesn't matter any longer. You've got to get out of here." She got up and helped him to his feet. "You'll have to hurry."_

_He flipped the gun; it was as empty as a chorus girl's head. He looked up at Evelyn._

_"I--I didn't know," she said stupidly. "Mario just handed it to me."_

_He grabbed her by the arm and spun her around before she could get away from him. "There's nothing for winning like using a cold deck, is there, honey?" he snapped. He gave the arm a twist and her face registered pain. "Where is it? Where's the ammunition?"_

_"I don't know!" she cried. "Mario didn't...."_

_He pulled the arm up behind her and leaned down on it. The cords in her neck came out like harp strings. "Where'd you put it?"_

_"Over there!" she gasped, bending forward. "In the drawer of the cabinet."_

_He let her go and went to the cabinet. She hadn't lied. The slugs rolled forward as he pulled out the drawer. He scooped them up and fitted them into the gun. When he turned around she was still rubbing her arm, staring at him with frightened eyes._

_"What are you going to do?" she whimpered._

_"I'm not going to sneak out of here and let your boy friend shoot me down with this rod planted on me. Just how much would you be willing to bet this is the murder weapon the cops are looking for?"_

_"What are you going to do with it?"_

_"I'm going to trade with Mario when he gets tired waiting out there and comes back inside. Guns or bullet, baby, there's going to be a swap."_

_"No!" she cried. "No, Cassidy. No more killing." She moved close to him, swiftly, imploringly. "Mario's coming back for you. That's the truth. You must believe me, you have a chance to get out of here with your life. Take it while you still have it. That's all that matters now. You're right about the gun; it's the one. I knew you'd find out sooner or later. That's why I wanted you to have it, to put an end to all this rottenness. Take it or leave it, it doesn't really matter so much, only get out of here before Mario gets back."_

_"Who're you really worried about?" Fleetwood asked. "Mario or me? Or do you know yourself?"_

_"Why should it matter so long as you stay alive? If you don't go you'll only be engraving your own tombstone. Mario won't give you a chance. He's probably got you spotted from outside right now."_

* * * * *

In all justice, Fleetwood's reaction to these words came quite by reflex. It was simply that his newly-awakened sense of survival had responded to the lady's admirable logic in the same quick manner of a coiled spring answering the touch of release. His reply leaped from his lips before he had time to properly weigh and consider.

"How do I get out of here?" he said.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth, however, than he realized what he had done; the lady, Evelyn, stood before him an unreal, life-sized paper doll. Fleetwood permitted himself a cough of chagrin.

"Oops," he said mildly, then went on to qualify, addressing himself to the ceiling in the same way a simpler soul might direct a conversation to the heavens. "I'm sorry, Dermitt, but after all, you did have to go and build up all that sticky suspense. And I warned you, you know, that my nerves aren't reliable."

He waited a space, not knowing quite what to expect. The silence grew and thickened. The room faded as before into hazy obscurity.

"Well," Fleetwood shrugged. "We tried, but I guess it's just no good, old man." He started toward the fuzzily outlined doorway. "No hard feelings, I hope."

Then suddenly he stopped as the room jolted back into sharp focus and the door opposite the one toward which he was moving swung open to permit the entrance of a girl in maid's regalia. She was a singularly undistinguished young woman both in face and figure. Her hair was sand-colored and her complexion was dull. Fleetwood started feverishly.

"Kitty!" he yelped.

Kitty appeared neither to notice nor to hear. She addressed herself to the restored Evelyn.

_"You rang, madam?" she enquired nasally._

_"Yes, Kitty," Evelyn said. "I need a drink dreadfully if you don't mind."_

_"Yes, ma'm," Kitty said and turned away._

"Hello, Kitty," Fleetwood said tensely.

Though there was much in Kitty's glance as she passed Fleetwood she gave no sign that she had heard him. Her eyes met his only with an expression of restrained disdain, much the sort that a sophisticated cat might bestow on a mechanical mouse which had snapped its spring. With a lift of her chin she left the room.

"Hey!" Fleetwood yelled. "Hey!" He addressed himself again to the ceiling. "Now, look here, Dermitt, you monster," he said, "you can't go doing this sort of thing. Besides, you're only ruining your own story; the dame already said the maid wasn't here tonight. You can't come running new characters into the thing now. It doesn't make sense!"

_"I don't know why I keep that dismal child around," Evelyn said flintily, quite unmindful of any interruption. "For laughs, I suppose, or contrast. A bit of comic relief never hurt anyone."_

* * * * *

Fleetwood ran to the doorway through which the aloof Kitty had disappeared and found himself in a hall. He caught a glimpse of her skirt as she passed from sight into a lighted room at the back of the house and took out in hot pursuit.

The room, when he got there, proved to be a kitchen, and Kitty was at the far end, busily transferring liquid by careful measure from a full bottle into an empty glass. Fleetwood approached her uncertainly. She finished her chores with the glass, then turned to him, apparently not at all surprised at seeing him there. She picked the glass up from the counter.

_"A drink, sir?" she said, and forcibly and quite without warning flung the liquor into his face. "Get outa here and leave me alone, you flat-footed bum."_

"Kitty!" Fleetwood bubbled through the cascading bourbon. "Kitty, don't talk like that!"

_"Out!" Kitty snarled, cinching her faded eyebrows a notch closer together. "Beat it, Sherlock!"_

"Kitty," Fleetwood pleaded, "you don't understand. This isn't real, none of it. You don't belong here at all. It's Dermitt who's doing this to you, making you act this way. He's just trying to get even with me for messing up his continuity. You don't really hate me, Kitty, you like me. Think, Kitty, think hard. You said so."

_By this time Kitty had progressed to the cutlery drawer in a markedly purposeful manner and was in the act of withdrawing a carving knife, the blade of which gleamed in cold, brilliant concert with her angry eyes._

_"Sorry you have to leave so abruptly, Mr. Cassidy," she said with lethal sweetness. "But we all have to go sometime, don't we?" She brandished the knife so that it cut the air with a menacing whoosh. "My kid brother had to, when you helped put him in the chair."_

Fleetwood saw the point, but only momentarily, for he was already on his way back to the hall and safety. Taking cover behind the frame of the door he peered around its edge.

"I forgive you, Kitty," he said sadly. "I realize that this is none of your doing and I still hold the knowledge in my heart that you're really quite fond of me."

_"I'll cut your heart out, if you don't fade outa here," Kitty gritted back at him. "Scat!"_

Fleetwood scatted. But not in a mood of docile acquiescence. Fate had handled him quite nastily during the last several minutes and, therefore, deserved to be dealt with in kind. He addressed himself to Fate, using the surname.

"Dermitt," he said between clenched teeth, "now you've gone too far. Far, far too far. I told you to leave Kitty out of this. If you have trouble now you've only got yourself to blame. Remember that."

* * * * *

He retraced his steps through the hallway and back into the living room, where he seated himself solidly on the divan. Favoring Evelyn, who was still in evidence, with the most perfunctory of glances, he folded his arms adamantly across his chest and crossed his legs.

"I refuse to make another move," he announced haughtily, "until both Kitty and I are released from this preposterous narrative. And you may take that as an ultimatum. I don't care if we're all left dangling by our participles until we rot like grapes on a vine." And with that he settled into an attitude of stolid resistance, breaking the silence only once more for a terse sign-off. "Besides," he added, "your writing smells like a large dead fish."