In six weeks Starling had still not found a job, and when the money ran out and they couldn’t pay the rent, he and Lois sublet the apartment to two nurses who worked at a hospital, and got out. Lois found an ad in the Pennysaver that said, “No Rent for Responsible Couple — House Sit Opportunity.” And they moved in that day.
The house was a ranchette in a tract of small, insignificant houses on fenced-in postage-stamp lots down on the plain of the Sacramento River, out from town. The owner was an Air Force sergeant who had been stationed in Japan, and the house was decorated with Oriental tastes: wind chimes and fat, naked women stitched over silk, a red enamel couch in the living room, rice-paper lanterns on the patio. There was an old pony in the back, from when the owner had been married with kids, and a couple of wrecked cars in the carport. All the people who lived on the street, Starling noticed, were younger than the two of them. More than a few were in the Air Force and fought loud, regular arguments, and came and went at all hours. There was always a door slamming after midnight, then a car starting up and racing away into the night. Starling had never thought he’d find himself living in such a place.
He stacked the dishes, put the grounds in the newspaper and emptied all the wastebaskets into a plastic bag. He intended to take the garbage for a ride. Everybody in the subdivision either drove their garbage to a dump several miles away or toured the convenience stores and shopping malls until they found a dumpster no one was watching. Once a black woman had run out of a convenience store and cursed at him for ditching his garbage in her dumpster, and since then he’d waited till dark. This afternoon, though, he needed to get out of the house, as though with the heat and talking to Reiner there wasn’t enough air inside to breathe.
He had the garbage set out the back door when the phone rang again. Sometimes car dealers called during lunch, wanting to talk to the Air Force sergeant, and Starling had learned not to answer until after one, when car salesmen all left for lunch. This time it might be Lois again, wanting him to come by the bar to see Reiner, and he didn’t want to answer. Only he didn’t want Lois going off somewhere, and he didn’t want Reiner coming over. Reiner would think the house with the pony was a comedy act.
Starling picked up the phone. “All right, what is it?”
An unfamiliar voice said, “Dad? Is that you?”
“No dads here, Reiner,” Starling said.
“Dad,” the voice said again, “it’s Jeff.”
A woman’s voice came on the line. “I have a collect call to anyone from a Jeff. Will you pay for the call?”
“Wrong number,” Starling said. He couldn’t be sure it wasn’t Reiner still.
“Dad,” the voice said. It was a teenager’s voice, a worried voice. “We’re in awful trouble here, Dad. They’ve got Margie in jail.”
“No, I can’t help,” Starling said. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
“This party says you’ve got the wrong number, Jeff,” the operator said.
“I know my own father’s voice, don’t I? Dad, for God’s sake. This is serious. We’re in trouble.”
“I don’t know any Jeffs,” Starling said. “It’s just the wrong number.”
Starling could hear whoever was on the line hit something against the phone very hard, then say, “Shit! This isn’t happening, I can’t believe this is happening.” The voice said something to someone else who was wherever he was. Possibly a policeman.
“It’s the wrong number,” the operator said. “I’m very sorry.”
“Me too,” Starling said. “I’m sorry.”
“Would you like to try another number now, Jeff?” the operator asked.
“Dad, please accept. Please, my God. Please.”
“Excuse the ring, sir,” the operator said, and the line was disconnected.
Starling put down the phone and stared out the window. The three boys who had blown up the tin can were walking past, eyeing his house. They were going for more fireworks. The torn can lay in the street, and the woman across the way was watching them from her picture window, pointing them out to a man in an undershirt who didn’t look like the man who worked on his car at night. He wondered if the woman was married or divorced. If she had children, where were they? He wondered who it was who had called — the sergeant’s kids were all too young. He wondered what kind of trouble Jeff was in, and where was he? He should’ve accepted the charges, said a word of consolation, or given some advice since the kid had seemed at wit’s end. He’d been in trouble in his life. He was in trouble now, in fact, but he hadn’t been any help.
He drove toward town and cruised the lot at the King’s Hat Drive-Inn, took a look in at the Super-Duper, then drove behind a truck stop. The garbage was with him in the hot front seat and already smelled bad despite the plastic. It was at the Super-Duper that the black woman had yelled at him and threatened to turn his garbage over to the police. Starling stopped back at the Super-Duper, parked at the side of the lot by the dumpster and went inside, leaving the garbage in the driver’s seat. A different black woman was inside. He bought some breakfast cereal, a bag of frozen macaroni and a bottle of hot sauce, then went back out to the car. Another car had driven in and parked beside his, and the driver, a woman, was sitting in view of the dumpster, waiting for someone who had gone inside. The woman might be another Super-Duper employee, Starling thought, or possibly the wife of someone in the back he hadn’t noticed.
He got in his car and drove straight out to a campground beside the Sacramento River, less than a mile from the house. He had come here and picnicked once with Lois, though the campground was empty now, all the loops and tables deserted. He pulled up beside a big green campground dumpster and heaved his garbage in without getting out of the car. Beyond the dumpster, through some eucalyptus trees, he could see the big brown river sliding swiftly by, pieces of yellow foam swirling in and out of the dark eddies. It was a treacherous river, he thought, full of perils. Each year someone drowned, and there were currents running deep beneath the surface. No one in his right mind would think of swimming in it, no matter how hot it got.
As he drove out he passed two motorcycles with Oregon plates, parked at the far end of the campground, and two hippies with long hair sitting on a rock, smoking. The hippies watched him when he drove by and didn’t bother hiding their dope. Two young women were coming out of the bushes nearby, wearing bathing suits, and one of the hippies gave Starling the black power salute and grinned. Starling drove back out to the highway.
The hippies reminded him of San Francisco. His mother, Irma, had lived there with her last husband, Rex, who’d had money. When he was in community college Starling had lived there with them for six months, before moving with his first wife across the bay to Alameda near the airport. They had been hippies of a certain kind themselves then and had smoked dope occasionally. Jan, his first wife, had had an abortion in a student apartment right on the campus. Abortions were not easy to get then, and they’d had to call Honolulu to get a name out in Castroville. They had been married six months, and Starling’s mother had had to lend them money she’d gotten from Rex.
When the abortionist came, he brought a little metal box with him, like a fishing-tackle box. They sat in the living room of the student apartment and talked about this and that, and drank beer. The man was named Dr. Carson. He told them he was being prosecuted at that very moment and was losing his license for doing this very thing — performing abortions — but that people needed help. He had three children of his own, he said, and Starling wondered if he ever performed abortions on his own wife. Dr. Carson said it would cost $400, and he could do it the next night, but needed all cash. Before he left he opened his metal box. There was nothing in it but fishing gear: a Pflueger reel, some monofilament line, several red-and-white Jitterbug lures. They had all three laughed. You couldn’t be too cautious, Dr. Carson said. They all liked each other and acted like they could be friends in happier days.