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No, the time travel tale
didn
'
t
have the ring of truth to it; simple logic and intuition pushed Dave toward disbelief, told him not to fall for the same trick twice. Probably, Larry had concocted the whole thing just to keep Dave and Billy from interfering in his escape.

Still, if Larry wanted the partners out of the way, why had he not simply killed them? If
he'd
been lying, there should have been no reason for him not to use the quickest and most effective method of silencing the witnesses. It would certainly have been easy enough for him to murder them out there at Wolf
'
s Rock; there was no one else around, and
he'd
already captured Billy, and he could have drawn Dave in with just a few threats to kill his friend. Once dead and hidden in the crannies of the rock, Dave and Billy probably
wouldn
'
t
have been found for a long time, maybe even weeks or months if Larry had moved their car from the area. It would have been the perfect way to remove the two obstacles, so why had Larry refrained from taking their lives? Had he shown them mercy because they had befriended him, because he liked them? Dave
didn
'
t
think so; it
didn
'
t
make sense that a ruthless killer would spare the two people who could most hurt him, just because they had been drinking buddies of his for a few weeks.

If Larry had been lying, why had he left Dave and Billy alive? For that matter, why had he given Dave so much new information? In confessing to the other murders, Larry had provided Dave with fresh ammunition which he could use against him, additional data which could be taken to the police. Was Larry so sure that Dave
wouldn
'
t
move against him that he
didn
'
t
care how much Dave knew? If Larry had been lying, why had he bothered to tell Dave anything?

Also, why had Larry not been
more worried about the video
?
He'd
made several stabs at finding out if it really existed, but he
hadn
'
t
pressed the inquiry as energetically as Dave thought he should have. If
he'd
been lying, if he was just a killer fleeing the area, would he want to risk leaving behind a
video
which linked him to the death of Tom Martin?

Larry had seemed confident that Dave
wouldn
'
t
use the
video
even if
he
ha
d
it; in addition,
he'd
said that it was too late for such a
video
to do Dave any good. That
didn
'
t
seem like a sensible assumption; without some supernatural force to whisk him from the face of the earth, he could still be apprehended, and a
video
of his visit to Martin
'
s house could still sear him in court. It was definitel
y
not
too late for a video
to run Larry aground...not if
he'd
been lying about his penchant for time traveling, anyway.

It
didn
'
t
seem possible that Larry had been telling the truth; his claims of being a time traveler, of being
Billy
,
were too preposterous to be factual. Still, Dave was disturbed by those things which suggested otherwise
-
Larry
'
s failure to kill the witnesses, his donation of damaging information, his limited interest in the
video
. There was also, of course, the proof that Larry had offered
-
the detailed rundown of Dave
'
s most closely
-
guarded secrets.

The secrets; they were difficult to dismiss. Larry
shouldn
'
t
have known about them at all, certainly
shouldn
'
t
have been able to recount them in such great detail. Only two people should have been privy to those secrets: Dave and Billy Bristol.

In the initial storm of shock and paranoia that
he'd
experienced while listening to Larry, Dave had doubted Billy
'
s trustworthiness, wondered if his best friend had betrayed him. Now, though, as he calmed and thought it through more carefully, Dave decided that Billy
couldn
'
t
have breached his confidence so egregiously. It just
wasn
'
t
the sort of thing that Billy would do; Billy knew how important it was to Dave that no one learn certain things about him, and
he'd
sworn many a time never to abuse Dave
'
s trust. Dave
couldn
'
t
accept that Billy would spill his guts to anyone, not even if he were loaded up with booze.

The cowardly rejection of Stacy Evans; the ill
-
fated trip to the whorehouse. Larry
shouldn
'
t
have known about either of them, and that was all there was to it. Each incident was a source of great shame to Dave; try as he might, he
couldn
'
t
imagine Billy divulging such dark moments to someone who was little m
ore than a stranger. Perhaps,
Billy might have told the story of how Dave had flattened Tom Martin
'
s tires, for Martin was now dead and that secret was no longer a danger...but Billy
wouldn
'
t
have opened the books on the rest of it,
ever
.

How, then, had Larry
known
?
The notion that he
was
Billy, that he
was
from the future, was ridiculous...but what other explanation could there be? Was he a mind
-
reader, perhaps, able to pluck memories from people
'
s heads as easily as if he were plucking flowers from their beds? That, at least, seemed more believable than the time
-
travel theory. Still, if he could read minds, why had he not known that the blackmail
video
didn
'
t
exist? When Dave had first threatened him with the
video
, why had Larry not simply exposed the lie and sent him on his way?

And what about the events which had suggested that Larry was able to foresee the future? In order to conclude that Larry had been lying, Dave would have to shrug off all of them, chalk them up to coincidence...but that seemed impossible. In two cases
-
the deaths of the Dumbrowskis and Martin
-
Larry
'
s foreknowledge could be dismissed as a killer
'
s awareness of his own plans...but for the rest of his precognitive flourishes, Dave could conjure no rational explanation, nothing that would hold water if Larry had been lying.

As a mere mortal, a liar, a regular guy, Larry
shouldn
'
t
have been able to predict that Peggy Kutz would turn Dave in for taking chocolate milk, or that the cop would show up at Billy
'
s trailer, or that Boris would try to kill himself. If Larry
wasn
'
t
a psychic and not a time traveler, then how had he made the predictions? In particular, how had he known every
detail
of Boris
'
suicide attempt?

Perhaps, thought Dave, Larry really
was
psychic.

Maybe, just maybe, Larry had told the truth in his first confession, then deliberately recanted to throw Dave off his trail. If Larry was psychic after all, that would explain the incidents with Peggy and the cop and Boris, explain them more believably than the time travel claims. Perhaps, Dave
'
s original theories about Larry were correct; maybe, the only factor that Dave
hadn
'
t
guessed earlier was Larry
'
s propensity for killing.

Still, if Larry could
see
the future but
wasn
'
t
from
the future, how had he known Dave
'
s secrets? If he
wasn
'
t
who he claimed to be, how could he have retold the stories of Stacy Evans and the whorehouse?

Had Larry lied, or had he told the truth?

Dave
couldn
'
t
figure it out.

The more that he thought about it all, the more confused he became. His instincts pressed him to reject Larry
'
s outrageous story; at the same time, he found that he
couldn
'
t
wholly refute what Larry had told him.

Adding to his confusion was a heavy measure of fear, fear that Larry
had
told the truth. Dave knew that the fear was irrational, that Larry
couldn
'
t
possibly
have been truthful...and yet, he
couldn
'
t
help but worry about what might happen if the killer
'
s tale had been something other than a fabrication.

If Larry had told the truth, and Dave acted against him, Billy Bristol
'
s life could be ruined. Maybe, if Dave stopped Larry from killing the last victim, the wheels of fate would
reassert
their awful course, push Billy into the gutter and finally the electric chair.

Maybe, everything would be all right for a while, and Dave would think that
he'd
made the right choice...but then, after five years, or ten, or twenty, the terrible pattern that Larry had described would take hold. Perhaps, Billy would start to go downhill, and Dave
wouldn
'
t
be able to help him, or
wouldn
'
t
even realize what was happening in time to help him.

"
Maybe I
'
m lying,
"
Larry had said,
"
but if I
'
m
not
, do you
dare
try to stop me, Dave? Will you be able to live with the consequences if I
'
m telling you the
truth
?
"

Larry had made a good point there. As long as Dave
couldn
'
t
be sure, one
-
hundred percent sure that Larry had been lying, how
could
he oppose the killer? As long as there was the slightest
chance
that opposition to Larry would harm Billy Bristol, how
could
Dave defy Larry
'
s pleas?

Still, how could Dave let Larry kill again? If Larry had lied, he could very well extend his killing spree beyond the single victim whom he claimed would be last. He might kill just one more, or he might kill
many
more, maybe
dozens
more during his lifetime...and Dave would be responsible for those murders. Maybe, someday, Larry would even come back to town and extinguish more of Dave
'
s friends and acquaintances, maybe Dave himself.

Dave felt obligated to prevent further deaths; likewise, he felt obligated to prevent his best friend
'
s potential decline. In order to fulfill one obligation, it seemed that he would have to shirk the other. Furthermore, without concrete evidence to support or refute Larry
'
s claims, Dave might never know if the obligation that he finally chose was the one most worthy of attention.

It seemed
impossible
that Larry was Billy, that
he'd
come from the future. Dave found the whole notion
ridiculous
, and he was angry that Larry thought him so gullible that he would buy into it for a second.

At the same time, however, Dave was throttled by doubt, by concern for his friend. Larry
'
s recitation of Dave
'
s most personal secrets haunted him, insisting that the impossible might be true.