I stopped beside the desk and stared at the top of it, not believing. I bent over and, with the flat of my hand, swept back and forth across the desk, as if I imagined that the phone had somehow become invisible and while I couldn't see it I could locate it by the sense of touch. But it wasn't that, exactly. It was simply, I guess, that I could not believe my eyes.
I straightened up from feeling along the desk top and stood rigid in the room, while an icy-footed little creature prowled up and down my spine.
Finally I turned my head, slowly, carefully, looking at the corners of the office, half expecting to find some dark shadow crouching there and waiting.
But there wasn't anything. Nothing had been changed. The place was exactly as I had left it, except there wasn't any phone.
Turning on the light, I searched the office. I looked in all the corners, I looked beneath the desk, I ransacked the desk drawers and went through the filing cabinet.
There wasn't any phone.
For the first time, I felt the touch of panic. Someone, I thought, had found the phone. Someone had managed to break in, to unlock the door somehow, and had stolen it. Although, when I thought of it, that didn't make much sense. There was nothing about the phone that would have attracted anyone's attention. Of course it had no dial and it was not connected, but looking through the window, that would not have been apparent.
More than likely, I told myself, whoever had put it on the desk had come back and taken it. Perhaps it meant that the ones who had talked to me had reconsidered and had decided I was not the man they wanted. They had taken back the phone and, with it, the offer of the job.
And if that were the case, there was only one thing I could do — forget about the job and take back the fifteen hundred.
Although that, I knew, would be rather hard to do. I needed that fifteen hundred so bad I could taste it.
Back in the car, I sat for a moment before starting the motor, wondering what I should do next. And there didn't seem to be anything to do, so I started the engine and drove slowly up the street.
Tomorrow morning, I told myself, I'd pick up Alf Peterson and we'd have our week of fishing. It would be good, I thought, to have old Alf to talk with. We'd have a lot to talk about — his crazy job down in Mississippi and my adventure with the phone.
And maybe, when he left, I'd be going with him. It would be good, I thought, to get away from Millville.
I pulled the car into the driveway and left it standing there.
Before I went to bed, I'd want to get the camping and the fishing gear together and packed into the car against an early start, come morning. The garage was small and it would be easier to do the packing with the car standing in the driveway.
I got out and stood beside the car. The house was a hunched shadow in the moonlight and past one corner of it I could see the moonlit glitter of an unbroken pane or two in the sagging greenhouse. I could just see the tip of the elm tree, the seedling elm that stood at one corner of the greenhouse. I remembered the day I had been about to pull the seedling out, when it was no more that a sprout, and how my dad had stopped me, telling me that a tree had as much right to live as anybody else. That's exactly what he'd said as much as anybody else. He'd been a wonderful man, I thought; he believed, deep inside his heart, that flowers and trees were people.
And once again I smelled the faint perfume of the purple flowers that grew in profusion all about the greenhouse, the same perfume I'd smelled at the foot of the Sherwood porch. But this time there was no circle of enchantment.
I walked around the house and as I approached the kitchen door I saw there was a light inside. More than likely, I thought, I had forgotten it, although I could not remember that I had turned it on.
The door was open, too, and I could remember shutting it and pushing on it with my hand to make sure the latch had caught before I'd gone out to the car.
Perhaps, I thought, there was someone in there waiting for me, or someone had been here and left and the place was looted, although there was, God knows, little enough to loot. It could be kids, I thought sonic of these mixed-up kids would do anything for kicks.
I went through the door fast and then came to a sudden halt in the middle of the kitchen. There was someone there, all right; there was someone waiting.
Stiffy Grant sat in a kitchen chair and he was doubled over, with his arms wrapped about his middle, and rocking slowly, from side to side, as if he were in pain.
"Stiffy!" I shouted, and Stiffy moaned at me.
Drunk again, I thought. Stiffer than a goat and sick, although how in the world he could have gotten drunk on the dollar I had given him was more than I could figure. Maybe, I thought, he had made another touch or two, waiting to start drinking until he had cash enough to really hang one on.
"Stiffy," I said sharply, "what the hell's the matter?" I was plenty sore at him. He could get plastered as often as he liked and it was all right with me, but he had no right to come busting in on me.
Stiffy moaned again, then he fell out of the chair and sprawled untidily on the floor. Something that clattered and jangled flew out of the pocket of his ragged jacket and skidded across the worn-out linoleum.
I got down on my knees and tugged and hauled at him and got him straightened out. I turned him over on his back. His face was splotched and puffy and his breath was jerky, but there was no smell of liquor. I bent close over him in an effort to make certain, and there was no smell of booze.
"Brad?" he mumbled. "Is that you, Brad?"
"Yes," I told him. "You can take it easy now. I'll take care of you."
"It's getting close," he whispered. "The time is coming dose."
"What is getting close?" But he couldn't answer. He had a wheezing fit. He worked his jaws, but no words came out. They tried to come, but he choked and strangled on them.
I left him and ran into the living-room and turned on the light beside the telephone. I pawed, all fumble-fingered, through the directory, to find Doc Fabian's number. I found it and dialled and waited while the phone rang on and on. I hoped to God that Doc was home and not out on a call somewhere.
For when Doc was gone, you couldn't count on Mrs Fabian answering. She was all crippled up with arthritis and half the time couldn't get around. Doc always tried to have someone there to watch after her and to take the calls when he went out, but there were times when he couldn't get anyone to stay.
Old Mrs Fabian was hard to get along with and no one liked to stay.
When Doc answered, I felt a great surge of relief.
"Doc," I said. "Stiffy Grant is here at my place and there's something wrong with him."
"Drunk, perhaps," said Doc.
"No, he isn't drunk. I came home and found him sitting in the kitchen. He's all twisted up and babbling."
"Babbling about what?"
"I don't know," I said. "Just babbling — when he can talk, that is."
"All right," said Doc. "I'll be right over." That's one thing about Doc. You can count on him. At any time of day or night, in any kind of weather.
I went back to the kitchen. Stiffy had rolled over on his side and was clutching at his belly and breathing hard. I left him where he was. Doc would be here soon and there wasn't much that I could do for Stiffy except to try to make him comfortable, and maybe, I told myself, he might be more comfortable lying on his side than turned over on his back.
I picked up the object that had fallen out of Stiffy's coat. It was a key ring, with half a dozen keys. I couldn't imagine what need Stiffy might have for half a dozen keys. More than likely he just carried them around for some smug feeling of importance they might give to him.
I put them on the counter top and went back and squatted down alongside Stiffy. "I called Doc," I told him. "He'll be here right away." He seemed to hear me. He wheezed and sputtered for a while, then he said in a broken whisper: "I can't help no more. You are all alone." It didn't go as smooth as that. His words were broken up.