Dolores Claiborne(77)

Accourse I knew she was well off, Andy; the fact that in the last few years she didn't wear nothing but flannel nighties n lived on a steady diet of Campbell's soup and Gerber's baby-food didn't change that. I saw the house, I saw the cars, n I sometimes looked at a wee bit more of the papers that came in those padded envelopes than just the signature line. Some were stock transfer forms, n I know that when you're sellin two thousand shares of Upjohn and buyin four thousand of Mississippi Valley Light n Power, you ain't exactly totterin down the road to the poorhouse.

I wa'ant askin so I could start applyin for credit cards n orderin things from the Sears catalogue, either - don't go gettin that idear. I had a better reason than that. I knew that the number of people who thought I'd murdered her would most likely go up with every dollar she left me, n I wanted to know how bad I was gonna get hurt. I thought it might be as much as sixty or seventy thousand dollars . . . although he had said she left some money to an orphanage, and I figured that'd take it down some.

There was somethin else bitin me, too - bitin the way a June deerfly does when it settles on the back of your neck. Somethin way wrong about the whole proposition. I couldn't put m'finger on it, though -no more'n I'd been able to put m'finger on exactly who Greenbush was when his secretary first said his name.

He said somethin I couldn't quite make out. It sounded like blub-dub-a-gub-area-of-thirty-million dollars.

'What did you say, sir?' I ast.

'That after probate, legal fees, and a few other small deductions, the total should be in the area of thirty million dollars.'

My hand on the telephone had started to feel the way it does when I wake up n realize I slep most of the night on it. . . numb through the middle n all tingly around the edges. My feet were tinglin, too, n all at once the world felt like it was made of glass again.

'I'm sorry,' I says. I could hear my mouth talkin perfectly well n perfectly clear, but I didn't seem to be attached to any of the words that were comin out of it. It was just flappin, like a shutter in a high wind. 'The connection here isn't very good. I thought you said somethin with the word million in it.' Then I laughed, just to show how silly I knew that was, but part of me must've thought it wa'ant silly at all, because that was the fakest-soundin laugh I ever heard come outta me - Yar-yar-yar, it sounded like.

'I did say million,' he said. 'In fact, I said thirty million.' And do you know, I think he woulda chuckled if it hadn't been Vera Donovan's dead body I was gettin that money over. I think he was excited - that underneath that dry, prissy voice he was excited as hell. I s'pose he felt like John Bearsford Tipton, the rich fella who used to give away a million bucks at a crack on that old TV show. He wanted my business, accourse that was part of it -I got a feelin that money's like electric trains to fellas like him n he didn't want to see such an almighty big set as Vera's taken away from him - but I think most of the fun of it for him was just hearin me flub-dubbin around like I was doin.

'I don't get it,' I says, and now my voice was so weak I could hardly hear it myself.

'I think I understand how you feel,' he says. 'It's a very large sum, and of course it will take a little getting used to.'

'How much is it really?' I ast him, and that time he did chuckle. If he'd been where I coulda got to him, Andy, I believe I woulda booted him in the seat of the pants.

He told me again, thirty million dollars, n I kep thinkin that if my hand got any stupider, I was gonna drop the phone. And I started to feel panicky. It was like someone was inside my head, swingin a steel cable around n around. I'd think thirty million dollars, but those were just words. When I tried to see what they meant, the only pitcher I could make inside my head was like the ones in the Scrooge McDuck comic books Joe Junior used to read Little Pete when Pete was four or five. I saw a great big vault fulla coins n bills, only instead of Scrooge McDuck paddlin around in all that dough with the spats on his flippers n those little round spectacles perched on his beak, I'd see me doin it in my bedroom slippers. Then that pitcher'd slip away and I'd think of how Sammy Marchant's eyes had looked when they moved from the rollin pin to me n then back to the rollin pin again. They looked like Selena's had looked that day in the garden, all dark n full of questions. Then I thought of the woman who called on the phone n said there was still decent Christians on the island who didn't have to live with murderers. I wondered what that woman n her friends were gonna think when they found out Vera's death had left me thirty million dollars to the good. . . and the thought of that came close to put-tin me into a panic.

'You can't do it!' I says, kinda wild. 'Do you hear me? You can't make me take it!'

Then it was his turn to say he couldn't quite hear - that the connection must be loose someplace along the line. I ain't a bit surprised, either. When a man like Greenbush hears someone sayin they don't want a thirty-million-dollar lump of cash, they figure the equipment must be frigged up. I opened my mouth to tell him again that he'd have to take it back, that he could give every cent of it to The New England Home for Little Wanderers, when I suddenly understood what was wrong with all this. It didn't just hit me; it come down on my head like a dropped load of bricks.

'Donald n Helga!' I says. I musta sounded like a TV game-show contestant comm up with the right answer in the last second or two of the bonus round.