“They didn’t say anything? That’s weird. Zack says that telephones can lock you into these waves of energy from outer space, and he said that if everybody took their phones off the hook at exactly the same second all over the world you could get pure outer space energy coming in waves through the receiver. Another idea he had was that if everybody in the world called the same number at exactly the same split second, there’d be some kind of energy explosion. He says that electronic and things like telephones are all making us ready for the apocalypse and the revelations.” There was a doll-like brightness in all of this.
“I need a glass of water,” I said. “And a bath. That’s a hint.” I went to the sink and stood beside her while I watched cool water rush into a glass. I drank it in two or three large inhalations, feeling the water seem to sparkle along veins throughout my chest. A second glass failed to reproduce these sensations.
“Did you ever get any of those calls in the middle of the night?”
“No. I wouldn’t answer it if I did.”
“I’m surprised. It looks like a whole lot of people around here don’t like you very much. They talk about you. Didn’t something bad happen to you once a long time ago? Something did, didn’t it — something all the old people know about?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My life has been limitless bliss from infancy. Now I’m going to take a bath.”
“Daddy knows about it, doesn’t he? I heard him say something, well he didn’t really say anything, he was talking about it without saying it straight out, on the telephone a couple nights ago. I think he was talking to Zack’s father.”
“It’s hard to think of Zack having parents,” I said. “He’s more the head-of-Zeus type. Now scram. Please.”
She wasn’t going to budge. The water had awakened a sharp floating pain high behind my forehead. I could sense the tension in her, stronger now than my hangover. Alison crossed her arms over her stomach, consciously squeezing her breasts together. I caught her blood smell. “I said I had two reasons. I want you to make love to me.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“He won’t be back for at least two hours. It doesn’t take very long anyhow,” she added, giving me more insight than I wished to have into Zack’s sexual life.
“What would good old Zack think about it?”
“It’s his idea. He said it was so I could learn discipline.”
“Alison,” I said, “I’m going into the bathroom now. We can talk about this later.”
“We could both fit into the bathtub.”
Her voice was light, her face miserable. I was terribly conscious of her thighs in the tight brown jeans, of the large soft breasts, the plump pretty feet on the cold floor. If Zack had been there, I would have shot him.
Mildly, I said, “I don’t think Zack is very fair to you.” She abruptly turned and wheeled out, slamming the door.
After my bath I remembered what my conversation with Duane on Sunday had resolved me to do, and I went immediately to the telephone book jacketed with the two small boys suspended over cold water. Paul Kant lived on Madison Street in Arden, but when he picked up the telephone his voice was so faraway and small that he might have been in Tibet.
“Paul, this is Miles Teagarden. I’ve been around for a week or so, and I tried to see you a few days ago.”
“The women told me,” he said. “I heard you were in town.”
“Well, I heard you were in town,” I said. “I thought you would have been off long ago.”
“Things didn’t happen that way, Miles.”
“Do you ever see Polar Bears any more?”
He gave an odd, bitter laugh. “As little as possible. Look, Miles, it might be better… it might be better if you didn’t try to see me. It’s for your own good Miles. Mine too, probably.”
“What the hell? Are you in trouble?”
“I don’t know how to answer that.” His voice was strained and very small.
“Do you need help? I can’t figure out what’s going on, Paul.”
“That’s two of us. Don’t make things worse, Miles. I’m saying that for your own good.”
“Christ, I don’t understand what all the mystery is about. Didn’t we used to be friends?” Even through the telephone I could detect an emotion I had begun to recognize as fear. I said, “If you need any help. Paul, I’ll try to help. All you have to do is ask. You should have been out of that burg years ago. It’s not the right place for you Paul. I’ll be coming into Arden later today. Could I drop in to see you at the store?”
“I’m not working at Zumgo’s any more.”
“That’s, good.” I don’t know why, but I thought of the Woodsman.
“I was fired.” His voice was flat and hopeless.
“Then we’re both out of a job. And I’d think it’s an honor to be fired from a mausoleum like Zumgo’s. I’m not going to force myself on you, Paul, I’ve gotten involved in something that will probably take up nearly all of my time, but I think I should see you. We were friends way back then.”
“I can’t stop you from doing what you’re determined to do.” he said “But if you’re going to come, it’d be better to come at night.”
“Why do you—”
I heard a click a second of the silence Zack had told my cousins daughter was laden with waves of energy from outer space, and then the noncommittal buzz of the dial tone.
While I was pushing the old wooden furniture around, trying to reconstruct the sitting room as it had been twenty years before, I heard from the second of my two old Arden friends. I set down the chair I had been moving across the room and answered the telephone.
A man asked, “Is this Miles Teagarden?”
“That’s me.”
“One moment, please.”
In a few seconds another telephone lifted. “Hello, Miles. This is Chief Hovre.”
“Polar Bears!”
He laughed. “Not many folks remember that any more. Mostly people call me Galen”. I had never heard his real name before. I preferred Polar Bears.
“Doesn’t anyone dare call you Polar Bears any more?”
“Oh, your cousin Du-ane might. I hear that you’ve been making a few waves around here since you came in.”
“Nothing serious.”
“No, nothing at all serious. Freebo says if you went in every day he wouldn’t have to be thinking of selling his bar. Are you workin’ on another book now, Miles?”
So Freebo had passed on my impromptu story about Maccabee’s book. “That’s right,” I said. “I came up here for the peace and quiet.”
“And walked smack into all our troubles. Miles, I was wondering if I could arrange to see you sometime soon.”
“How soon?”
“Like today?”
“What’s it about?”
“Just for a friendly talk, you could say. Were you going to make it in here today?”
I had the disturbing feeling that he had telepathically overheard my conversation with Paul Kant. “I thought you’d be pretty busy these days, Polar Bears.”
“Always time to spare for an old buddy, Miles. How about it? Could you drop in for a talk sometime this afternoon? We’re still around the back of the courthouse.”
“I guess I can make it.”
“Looking forward to it, Miles.”
“But I wonder what would happen if I said I couldn’t.”
“Why do you think something would happen, Miles?”
But why? It sounded almost as though Polar Bears (Galen, if I must) had been monitoring my movements since I had come to the valley. Had one of Paul’s enemies seen me pocket Maccabee’s fraudulent book? If so, they would surely have stopped me before I left the store.