The plant - By Stephen King Page 0,82

knew damned well Carlos had been there, and not just because of the fancy-shmancy attache case sitting on top of the desk. I could almost smell him.

"Things are a trifle disarranged in your cubby, Herbert," Bill said in a really terrible English butler voice. Maybe it was his way of trying to lighten the tension. "In fact, I believe someone may have urinated a bit in theah."

Herb glanced in, saw the destruction, and grunted an oath that sounded almost absent-minded before turning to Sandra's office. By then, I was getting a pretty clear picture. Two crazy men, both with grudges against different Zenith House editors. I didn't care how they got in or which of them had arrived first, but I was curious about how far apart in time they'd been. If they'd met in the lobby and had their lunatic shootout there, they could have saved us a lot of trouble. Only that probably wasn't the way Zenith wanted it. Aside from the fact that Carlos may have owed a rather large debt to something (or Something) in the Great Beyond, there's the fact that grits ain't groceries. Telepathic plants get more than lonely, it seems. Pore little fellers get hungry, too.

It's certainly something to think about.

"Roger?" Herb asked. He was still standing by his door, and he sounded timid again. "She... she's not in there, is she?"

"No," Roger said absently, "you know she's not. Sandra's on her way back from Cony Island. But our friend from Central Falls is finally present and accounted for."

We gathered around the door and looked in.

Carlos Detweiller lay face-down in what Anthony LaScorbia would undoubtedly call "a gruesome pool of spreading blood." The back of his suit-coat was pulled upward in a tent-shape, and the tip of a knife protruded through it. His hands were outstretched toward the desk. His feet, pointing toward the door, had already been partially covered by thin green bows of ivy. Zenith had actually pulled off one of his loafers and worked his way through the sock beneath. Maybe there was a hole in the sock to begin with, but somehow I don't think so. Because there were broken strands of ivy, you see. As if it had tried to pull him out, out and down toward the main mass of the growth, and had been unable. You could almost feel the hunger. The longing to have his carcass the way it had undoubtedly already had the General's.

"This is where they fought, of course," Roger said, still in that absent tone of voice. He saw the Rainy Day Friend lying on the floor, picked it up, sniffed at the little hole on top, and winced. His eyes began to water at once.

"If you set off the siren in that thing again, I will be forced to kill you as dead as the asshole at your feet," Bill said.

"I think the battery's fried," Roger said, but he set the thing down on Sandra's desk very carefully, also being careful not to step on Detweiller's outstretched hand.

Carlos had been in my office, because I was the one against whom he'd built his grudge. Then he left for something.

"I think it was food," Bill said. "He got hungry and went looking for food. The General jumped him. Carlos got to Sandra's gadget before Hecksler could give him the coup de grace, but it wasn't enough. Do you see that part, John?"

I shook my head. Maybe I just didn't want to see it.

"What's this?" Bill was out in the hall. He dropped to one knee, moved aside a clump of ivy, and showed us a guitar pick. Like the leaves of Zenith himself, the pick was as clean as a whistle. No blood, I mean.

"Something printed on it," Bill said, and squinted. "JUST A CLOSER WALK WITH THEE, it says."

Roger looked at me, finally startled out of his daze. "Good God, John," he said, "that was him! He was her!"

"What are you talking about?" Bill asked, turning the pick over and over in his fingers. "What are you thinking about? Who's Crazy Guitar Gertie?"

"The General," I said hollowly, and wondered if he'd had the knife when I gave him the two dollars. If Herb had been there that day, he'd be dead now. There was absolutely no question about that in my mind. And I myself was lucky to be alive.

"Well, I wasn't there, and you are alive," Herb said. He spoke with his old don't-trouble-me-with-the-details irritability, but his face was still