Apt Pupil : A Novella in Different Seasons by Stephen King

Author:Stephen King
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780451197122
Publisher: Signet
Published: 1982-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

“Down deep inside, I don’t like you. Nothing could make me like you. You forced yourself on me. You are an unbidden guest in my house. You have made me open crypts perhaps better left shut, because I have discovered that some of the corpses were buried alive, and that a few of those still have some wind left in them.

“You yourself have become enmeshed, but do I pity you because of that? Gott im Himmel! You have made your bed; should I pity you if you sleep badly in it? No . . . I don’t pity you, and I don’t like you, but I have come to respect you a little bit. So don’t try my patience by asking me to explain this twice. We could obtain our documents and destroy them here in my kitchen. And still it would not be over. We would, in fact, be no better off than we are at this minute.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“No, because you have never studied the consequences of what you have set in motion. But attend me, boy. If we burned our letters here, in this jar cover, how would I know you hadn’t made a copy? Or two? Or three? Down at the library they have a Xerox machine, for a nickel anyone can make a photocopy. For a dollar, you could post a copy of my death-warrant on every streetcorner for twenty blocks. Four miles of death-warrants, boy! Think of it! Can you tell me how I would know you hadn’t done such a thing?”

“I . . . well, I . . . I . . .” Todd realized he was floundering and forced himself to shut his mouth. Dussander had just outlined a piece of duplicity so fundamental that it had simply never crossed his mind. He opened his mouth to say so, realized Dussander would not believe him . . . and that, in fact, was the problem.

He shut his mouth again, this time with a snap.

“And how would you know I hadn’t made two copies for my safety deposit box . . . that I had burned one and left the other there?”

Todd was silent and dismayed.

“Even if there were some impartial third party we could go to, always there would be doubts. The problem is insoluble, boy. Believe it.”

“Shit,” Todd said in a very small voice.

Dussander took a deep drink from his cup and looked at Todd over the rim.

“Now I tell you two more things, boy. First, that if your part in this matter came out, your punishment would be quite small. It is even possible—no, more than that, likely—that it would never come out in the papers at all. I frightened you with reform school once, when I was badly afraid you might crack and tell everything. But do I believe that? No—I used it the way a father will use the “boogeyman” to frighten a child into coming home before dark. I don’t believe that they would send you

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