Milton returned to consciousness to see that the late prime minister had indeed worked his way round to that topic. Suppressing a yawn, he forced himself to listen. After much rambling and personal digression, Mackenzie King began to outline his political plan. A few minutes later Milton was wide awake. This fellow’s ideas weren’t so ridiculous after all. Quite sensible, really. But what was this bit in his notes about prostitutes? He must have dreamed that part… What was he saying now? Soon Milton found himself leaning forward, saying excitedly: “Yes! Yes! That would work! What else?”
“Well, it’s quite simple really…”
Milton suddenly noticed that the clock, whose alarm he had forgotten to set, said 7:30. He was due in class in half an hour! It seemed a pity to interrupt such brilliance, but he had his academic career to think of.
Milton ventured to interrupt. “Excuse me, sir,” he said timidly, raising his hand. “I have to be getting to the university now.”
“In a moment,” said the ghost, and went on talking.
Five minutes later, Milton decided that he would have to be firm. “I have a test at eight. I must be going now.”
The great man frowned. “I haven’t finished yet,” he said peevishly.
“Really, I have to leave.”
“Well… I suppose I’ll come along. We can talk on the way.”
Milton got ready to leave, idly wondering whether the rest of the class would be able to see the visitor. Would he be invited to address the class? Perhaps the test could be postponed in his honor. Milton grabbed for his coat, scarf, and briefcase while the ghost continued to lecture steadily; in his present spectral state, it was no longer necessary for him to pause for breath. They left the room together, nodding and gesturing about various political details.
“… Registered Retirement Savings Plan…”
“Yes! Yes! I’ll make a note of it!” Milton scribbled furiously.
“… Temporary Wheat Reserves Act…”
“Of course!”
They continued down the hall, the ghost orating happily, while Milton nodded and noted, until they arrived at the end of the corridor, where a left turn would take them to the stairs. The deceased prime minister, deep in a monologue about taxable income, continued to walk straight ahead, passing gracefully through the brick wall. Milton, attempting to follow, slammed face-first into cold, solid reality. As the last strains of the voice reached him from some great beyond, Milton dabbed at his profusely bleeding nose, and reflected that Professor Paulsen had been right after alclass="underline" you could follow Mackenzie King just so far…
A WEE DOCH AND DORIS
HE STOOD FOR a long while staring up at the house, but all was quiet. There was one light on in an upstairs window, but he saw no shadows flickering on the shades. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse, Louis smirked to himself. Christmas wasn’t so hot if you were in his line of work. People tended to stay home with the family: the one night a year when everybody wishes they were the Waltons. But all that togetherness wore off in a week. By now everybody had cabin fever, and they were dying to get away from the in-laws and the rug rats. That’s how it was in his family, anyway. By New Year’s Eve his ma had recovered from the thrill of receiving candy from Anthony, bubble bath from Michael, and a bottle of perfume from Louis, and she had started nagging again. Louis always gave her a bottle of perfume. He preferred small, lightweight gifts that could be slipped easily and unobtrusively into one’s pocket.
He also preferred not to have endless discussions with his nearest and dearest over whether he was going to get a job or enroll in the auto mechanics program at the community college. Neither idea appealed to Louis. He liked his schedule: sleeping until eleven, a quick burger for brunch, and a few hours of volunteer work at the animal shelter.
Nobody at the shelter thought Louis was lazy or unmotivated. He was their star helper. He didn’t mind hosing down the pens and cleaning the food dishes, but what he really enjoyed was playing with the dogs, and brushing down the shaggy ones. They didn’t have a lot of money at the shelter, so they couldn’t afford to pay him. It took all their funds to keep the animals fed and healthy; the shelter refused to put a healthy animal to sleep. Louis heartily approved of this policy, and thus he didn’t mind working for free; in fact, sometimes when the shelter’s funds were low, he gave them a donation from the proceeds of his night’s work. Louis thought that rich people should support local charities; he saw himself as the middleman, except that his share of the take was ninety percent. Louis also believed that charity begins at home.
Christmas was good for the shelter. Lots of people high on the Christmas spirit adopted kittens and puppies, or gave them as gifts, and the shelter saw to it that they got a donation for each adoptee. So their budget was doing okay, but Louis’s personal funds were running short. Christmas is not a good time of year for a burglar. Sometimes he’d find an empty house whose occupants were spending Christmas out of town, but usually the neighborhood was packed with nosy people, eyeballing every car that went by. You’d think they were looking for Santa Claus.
If Christmas was bad for business, New Year’s Eve made up for it. Lots of people went out to parties that night, and did not plan on coming home until well after midnight. Being out for just the evening made them less security conscious than the Christmas people who went out of town: New Year’s party-goers were less likely to hide valuables, activate alarms, or ask the police to keep an eye on the premises. Louis had had a busy evening. He’d started around nine o’clock, when even the tardiest guests would have left for the party, and he had hit four houses, passing on one because of a Doberman pinscher in the backyard. Louis had nothing against the breed, but he found them very unreasonable, and not inclined to give strangers the benefit of the doubt.
The other four houses had been satisfactory, though. The first one was “guarded” by a haughty white Persian whose owners had forgotten to feed it. Louis put down some canned mackerel for the cat, and charged its owners one portable television, one 35mm. camera, three pairs of earrings, a CD player, and a collection of compact discs. The other houses had been equally rewarding. After a day’s visit to various flea markets and pawnshops, his financial standing should be greatly improved. This was much better than auto mechanics. Louis realized that larceny and auto mechanics are almost never mutually exclusive, but he felt that the hours were better in freelance burglary.
He glanced at his watch. A little after midnight. This would be his last job of the evening. Louis wanted to be home before the drunks got out on the highway. His New Year’s resolution was to campaign for gun control and for tougher drunk driving laws. He turned his attention back to the small white house with the boxwood hedge and the garden gnome next to the birdbath. No danger of Louis stealing that. He thought people ought to have to pay to have garden gnomes stolen. A promising sideline-he would have to consider it. But now to the business at hand.
The hedge seemed high enough to prevent the neighbors from seeing into the yard. The house across the street was vacant, with a big yellow FOR SALE sign stuck in the yard. The brick split-level next door was dark, but they had a chain-link fence, and their front yard was floodlit like the exercise yard of a penitentiary. Louis shook his head: paranoia and bad taste.