"Bart?" she was saying. "Are you still there, Bart?"
"I'm here."
"What good are you doing yourself thinking about Charlie all the time? It's eating you up. You're his prisoner."
"But you're free," he said. "Yes."
"Shall I see the lawyer next week?"
"Okay. Fine."
"It doesn't have to be nasty, does it, Bart?"
"No. It will be very civilized."
"You won't change your mind and contest it?"
"No."
"I'll . . . I'll be talking to you, then."
"You knew it was time to leave him and so you did. I wish to God I could be that instinctive."
"What?"
"Nothing. Good-bye, Mary. I love you." He realized he had said it after he hung up. He had said it automatically, with no feeling-verbal punctuation. But it wasn't such a bad ending. Not at all.
January 18, 1974
The secretary's voice said: "Who shall I say is calling?"
"Bart Dawes."
"Will you hold for a moment?"
"Sure."
She put him in limbo and he held the blank receiver to his ear, tapping his foot and looking out the window at the ghost town of Crestallen Street West. It was a bright day but very cold, temperature about 10 above with a chill factor making it 10 below. The wind blew skirls of snow across the street to where the Hobarts' house stood broodingly silent, just a shell waiting for the wrecking ball. They had even taken their shutters.
There was a click and Steve Ordner's voice said: "Bart, how are you?"
"Fine. "
"What can I do for you?"
"I called about the laundry," he said. "I wondered what the corporation had decided to do about relocation."
Ordner sighed and then said with good-humored reserve: "A little late for that, isn't it?"
"I didn't call to be beaten with it, Steve. "
"Why not? You've surely beaten everyone else with it. Well, never mind. The board has decided to get out of the industrial laundry business, Bart. The Laundromats will stay; they're all doing well. We're going to change the chain name, though. To Handi-Wash. How does that sound?"
"Terrible," he said remotely. "Why don't you sack Vinnie Mason?"
"Vinnie?" Ordner sounded surprised. "Vinnie's doing a great job for us. Turning into quite the mogul. I must say I didn't expect such bitterness-'
"Come on, Steve. That job's got no more future than a tenement airshaft. Give him something worthwhile or let him out. "
"I handy think that's your business, Bart. "
"You've got a dead chicken tied around his neck and he doesn't know it yet because it hasn't started to rot. He still thinks it's dinner."
"I understand he punched you up a little before Christmas. "
"I told him the truth and he didn't like it. "
"Truth's a slippery word, Bart. I would think you'd understand that better than anyone, after all the lies you told me.
"That still bugs you, doesn't it?"
"When you discover that a man you thought was a good man is full of shit, it does tend to bug one, yes."
"Bug one," he repeated. "Do you know something, Steve? You're the only person I've ever known in my life that would say that. Bug one. It sounds like something that comes in a fucking aerosol can."
"Was there anything else, Bart?"
"No, not really. I wish you'd stop beating Vinnie, that's all. He's a good man. You're wasting him. And you know goddam well you're wasting him."
"I repeat: why would I want to 'beat' Vinnie?"
"Because you can't get to me."
"You're getting paranoid, Bart. I've got no desire to do anything to you but forget you."
"Is that why you were checking to see if I ever had personal laundry done free? Or took kickbacks from the motels? I understand you even took the petty cash vouchers for the last five years or so."
"Who told you that?" Ordner barked. He sounded startled, off balance.
"Somebody in your organization," he lied joyfully. "Someone who doesn't like you much. Someone who thought I might be able to get the ball rolling a little in time for the next director's meeting."
"Who?"
"Good-bye, Steve. You think about Vinnie Mason, and I'll think about who I might or might not talk to."
"Don't you hang up on me! Don't you-"
He hung up, grinning. Even Steve Ordner had the proverbial feet of clay. Who was it Steve reminded him of? Ball bearings. Strawberry ice cream stolen from the food locker. Herman Wouk. Captain Queeg, that was it. Humphrey Bogart had played him in the movie. He laughed aloud and sang:
"We all need someone to Queeg on,
And if you want to, why don'tcha Queeg all over me?"
I'm crazy all right, he thought, still laughing. But it does seem there are certain advantages. It came to him that one of the surest signs of insanity was a man all alone, laughing in the middle of silence, on an empty street filled with empty houses. But the thought could not still his humor and he laughed louder, standing by the telephone and shaking his head and grinning.
January 19, 1974
After dark he went out to the garage and brought in the guns. He loaded the Magnum carefully, according to the directions in the instruction pamphlet, after dryfiring it several times. The Rolling Stones were on the stereo, singing about the Midnight Rambler. He couldn't get over what a fine album that was. He thought about himself as Barton George Dawes, Midnight Rambler, Visits by Appointment Only.
The .460 Weatherbee took eight shells. They looked big enough to fit a medium howitzer. When the rifle was loaded he looked at it curiously, wondering if it was as powerful as Dirty Harry Swinnerton had claimed. He decided to take it out behind the house and fire it. Who was there on Crestallen Street West to report gunshots?
He put on his jacket and started out the back door through the kitchen, then went back to the living room and got one of the small pillows that lay on the couch. Then he went outside, pausing to flick on the 200-watt yard light that he and Mary had used in the summer for backyard barbecues. Back here, the snow was as he had pictured it in his mind a little more than a week ago-untouched, unmarred, totally virgin. No one had foot-fucked this snow. In past years Don Upslinger's boy Kenny sometimes used the backyard express to get up to his friend Ronnie's house. Or Mary used the line he had strung kitty-corner between the house and garage to hang a few things (usually unmentionables) on days when it was too warm for them to freeze. But he himself always went to the garage by the breezeway and now it struck him as sort of marvelous-no one had been in his backyard since snow first fell, in late November. Not even a dog, by the look of it.
He had a sudden crazy urge to stride out into the middle, about where he set the hibachi every summer, and make a snow angel.
Instead he tucked the pillow up against his right shoulder, held it for a moment with his chin, and then pressed the butt plate of the Weatherbee against it. He glared down the sight with his left eye shut, and tried to remember the advice the actors always gave each other just before the gyrenes hit the beaches in the late-night war movies. Usually it was some seasoned veteran like Richard Widmark talking to some green private-Martin Milner, perhaps: Don't jerk that trigger, son - SQUEEZE it.
Okay, Fred. Let's see if I can hit my own garage.
He squeezed the trigger.
The rifle did not make a report. It made an explosion. At first he was afraid it had blown up in his hands. He knew he was alive when the recoil knocked him back against the kitchen storm door. The report traveled off in all directions with a curious rolling sound, like jet exhaust. The pillow fell in the snow. His shoulder throbbed.
"Jesus, Fred!" he gasped.
He looked at his garage and was hardly able to believe it. There was a splintered hole in the siding big enough to fit a teacup through.
He leaned the gun against the kitchen storm door and walked through the snow, never minding the fact that he had his low shoes on. He examined the hole for a minute, bemusedly prying up loose splinters with his forefinger, and then he went around and inside.