“Jack?”
The utility room door was partially closed. We were in shadow. I turned when she spoke, hearing the way she breathed. It was like being dragged fast through a knot hole. She had peeled off those shorts and she wanted to make sure I knew it.
I held her and she squirmed and panted. “I couldn’t wait, Jack. I couldn’t wait!”
We fell down on the pile of clothes. Right then it started. All through the house, from every room. His voice. Calling. Echoing:
“Shirley? Hey, Honey. Oh, Shirl? Bring me a coke, will you? Hey, Shirley. Come on, Honey—calling all cars, come to the corner bedroom, Victor Spondell is in dire need of sustenance in the way of a cold Coca-Cola.”
She crouched and began to curse him. I’d never heard anything like it. The language she used would have shamed a drunken Marine.
“Honey? Shirl? Where are you? Calling all cars. Disregard code signals. Go to the bedroom of....”
I got up and hauled her to her feet.
“You’ve got to go in there. Get a move on.”
Her face was flushed, her mouth twitching.
“Hurry up,” I said.
She yanked her shorts on.
“You wait right here,” she said. “I’ll be back!”
She went into the kitchen. I heard her speak to him over the intercom, sweet as syrup, and he came back with some of his bright wit. The refrigerator door slammed and shook the place. I heard her uncap a bottle of coke and pour it into a glass. Then she thundered through the house.
I waited. Nothing. Silence.
I waited a long time, sitting on the pile of clothes.
Finally I went through the house, and looked into the bedroom. She was seated in a chair beside his bed, reading to him.
I said, “Sorry to interrupt. I guess everything’s in order now.”
She looked up at me. Her expression was as if somebody had shot her in the face with salt. “Victor wanted me to read to him,” she said. She turned to him, smiling. “I’ll have to pay Mr. Ruxton, now, Victor.”
“All right,” he said. He said to me, “Thanks for everything you’ve done, Ruxton. Sure appreciate it. Makes things a lot easier, eh?” He laughed and coughed a little.
She came out, fuming.
I said, “You’d better pay me, and I’ll write out a receipt, just in case.”
He had already written out a check, and she had cashed it at the bank, to cover the expense of the installations. She counted out the money in bills, from her purse.
“Wouldn’t he arrange for a joint account?” I said.
She shook her head. “He never went for that. He won’t let anybody take care of him but me. He could afford nurses around the clock, and live in the finest places. He wants it this way. But he writes the checks. Sometimes, when we’ve had little arguments, he’s hinted how I may have it tough now, but I’ll get mine, someday. I honestly think there’s a mean streak in him—he gets enjoyment out of doing things the way he does.”
We were in her bedroom. She was in bad shape.
I said, “Remember, after I fix that condenser, it’s not going to be easy. The units will probably go out, and you’ll have to stick close to his room, so it’ll seem they’re on. You won’t be able to talk back to him—he wouldn’t hear anything. It’s a ticklish part, Shirley. If he catches on, before anything happens, you’ll just have to call me and we’ll go through the whole thing again.”
“I couldn’t stand it.”
“Well, then I was thinking. If you can excite him, some way—help bring on an attack. Think you could swing it?”
“Yes. I’ve seen it happen.”
I took hold of her shoulders. “That’s what you’ll have to do. We’ve got to work fast, once I do that soldering job.”
“I wish he were dead. God, how I wish it.”
“He will be.”
There wasn’t anything in the world now, but us. I held her close and tight and it all started up again. I had never wanted any woman the way I wanted Shirley Angela.
“Shirley?” His voice blared from the unit beside her bed. “This is Car 77, calling Headquarters....”
Seven
Waiting for her to call the store was a nightmare. Every time the phone rang, I had to grit my teeth to keep from jumping. I thought of a thousand things that could go wrong, but the big one was that she might lose her nerve.
Finally she called on the morning of the third day. I let Pete Stallsworth answer the phone, even though I was practically running standing still.
“Jack?” he said. “It’s for you.” He grinned, covered the mouthpiece, and whispered, “Sounds like real stuff. What a voice. Va-voom!”
“Okay.” I was plenty nervous. I said, “Ruxton speaking.”
“It’s all set,” she said. “I flipped the switch. And it’s like you said, Jack. It doesn’t bother him much that it’s not working. He’s over the excitement of it, and I’ve talked him into using it only for emergencies. I told him to remember, that was why we really had it installed. He’s taken to watching TV, now.”
“I see,” I said, loud enough so Pete Stallsworth could hear. “I’ll be right out. I’m very sorry you’ve had this inconvenience.”
“He just says to have it fixed.”
“All right.”
“There’s something I’d personally like fixed, too.”
“What’s that?”
“You guess.”
She could be like a bomb, sometimes. I went out there, driving the truck like a madman. I had been practicing soldering connections and making a sloppy job of it, for two days. The right kind of perfect, sloppy job. I had it so pat I could make a unit ground out with my eyes closed, and time it to within a matter of seconds.
I parked in her drive, got out the tools, and went to the door. She opened the screen with her knee.
She whispered it. “I wore a skirt.”
“Well, keep it down,” I shot at her. “I want to be steady now.”
She was lovely. I wanted to stand there and stare at her. Her eyes were full of excitement, and her hair was brushed out thick and full. She wore a white blouse with a big curling starched collar, and a full, fluffed out print skirt, loaded with splotches of color.
His bedroom door was closed.
“Jack,” she said. “We almost fouled up.”
“How do you mean?”
“When I turned off the main switch, the TV set went off, too.”
It had completely slipped my mind. I broke out in a sweat.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I figured it out. I put the switch back on when he mentioned it, then just loosened the fuse for his section of the house. It’s marked on the box.”
“Good girl,” I said. “That was close.”
From then on, I intended to be a lot more careful. It showed me how easy it was to miss on some point, even when you were watching everything. It was an obvious point. That’s what made it so bad.
We went into his room. He lay there with his gray eyebrows snarling, and gave me the glad, “Hello, Ruxton. How’s the old son-of-a-bitch, today?”
I didn’t think he looked so hot. I hoped I was right. After he spoke, he just lay there, and watched, without much comment. The TV set was on, with the sound turned down. I thought how it would have been if I had plugged the TV into a socket in his room, instead of on a different line in the attic. She would never have figured it out. There would have been no way to turn off just the intercom alone.
“We’ll fix you up in a jiffy,” I said.
She stood behind me, watching. I knew she was nervous. He watched with those eyes, breathing sickishly. It got me nervous, too. I lit a cigarette, and uncovered the unit, and had a look.