“Blow a tube, Ruxton?” he said.
“Could be. We’ll see.”
I went around the house, and made as if I were checking all the units, after I disconnected the one in his room. I tightened the fuse in the fuse box in the utility room. Then I went back and picked up the unit in his room, and said, “Ah-ha! Here it is.”
So I soldered a .005 mfd coupling condenser to a grid terminal of a tube socket. The solder flowed like hot gravy. Not a slip-up. It was really a neat job of sloppy work.
I put the unit back together, flipped it on, and let him try it out. Then I turned it off. It would work for approximately ten seconds before heating up enough to expand the metal, make contact, and ground out. The clearance was so close that once it went out, it would stay that way for good.
I looked at him. He was staring at me.
“Questions?” I said.
He didn’t say anything, watching me.
“No, Ruxton,” he said. “No questions.”
I took another look at him, hoped it would be my last, and went into the living room. She was right there, showing me her skirt.
“I can’t hang around,” I said. “We can’t take any chances. Right now is when it’s easy to slip up, make some damned fool mistake.”
“Please, Jack—hold me.”
Well, I held her. I held her tight, and looked over her shoulder at his bedroom door.
I said, “Don’t call me unless something unforeseen comes up. Otherwise, I’ll read about it in the papers.”
“This is it, isn’t it, Jack.”
“Yeah, that’s for sure.”
“I mean,” she said. “You know, it isn’t a bad feeling. I mean, it’s exciting. There’s so much to come.”
“Let’s hope it’s all things we can handle. Don’t get cocky. Keep levelheaded.”
“I love you, Jack.”
“I love you, too.”
“Say my name.”
“Shirley.”
“It shivers me,” she said. “It’s going to be rugged, not seeing you.”
“That’s how it’s got to be.”
“Jack, I’m all yours. All of me. I just want to be yours.”
I said, “You know how it is. Neither of us would be worth a damn, without that money. That’s how it is.”
“I’m not forgetting that.”
I said, “You’re sure the money’s not tied up, so we can’t get at it.”
“It’s like I told you. There’s that in the bank, in cash. He does have some invested, but everything’s negotiable. There’s not a thing to stew about, believe me.”
“And you want to go through with this.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because now’s the time to say it.”
“I want to go through with it. God, how I want that.”
“Okay,” I said. “We’re on the way. This is it.”
I left, then. And, well, there was a look in her eye. I got to thinking maybe it wouldn’t be long before I spotted the story on the obituary page. I sure didn’t want to see it on page one.
Somehow I got through that first night. I kept hearing the phone ring. I would sit up in bed and stare at the dark, listening. There would be nothing. Once I got out of bed, tripped over a chair, scrambling for the phone, grabbed it up. “Hello—Hello!”
It hadn’t rung. There was nobody on the line. It was just me. Dreaming.
And the next afternoon, about two o’clock, I was in the store, changing some stuff around in the show window. I kept feeling this black shadow from the street. I’d felt it for quite a while, back and forth, but it hadn’t meant anything. I looked up and it was Shirley Angela, driving past in the black Imperial, her white face staring at me.
She motioned for me to come out, when she saw me look.
She was double parked, down a couple doors. “I’ve got to see you. Get in.”
“No,” I said. “Is it important?”
“Yes.” Her face told me that. It was as if somebody had been clubbing her, or something. Not marked up. I mean, behind the eyes, in the expression.
“Meet me on the corner of Fourth and First,” I said. “Park the car and walk.”
I turned away and went on down to the drugstore and bought cigarettes, then came back to the store. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was afraid to speak to anybody, for fear I’d just talk a lot of mishmash. I went straight through the store, and the shop, and out back to the parking lot. I took the car and drove downtown. I had asked her to meet me on one of the busiest corners in town. I parked the car, and walked fast over there. She was walking up and down, waiting, working her fingers on a shiny black purse, as if she were playing a piano.
“Well,” I said. “I’ll be damned. You downtown, shopping?”
“Don’t fool with me, Jack.”
I shot it at her. “Make it seem like we met accidentally.”
Pedestrians streamed past.
“He wants to go to the hospital.”
“What?”
“Doctor Miraglia’s there right now,” she said. “I told him I had some shopping to do, that I’d only be gone a few minutes. I’ve been driving up and down past your darned store for over a half an hour.”
She was nervous and scared. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“You said not to call.”
“I told you if something unforeseen....”
She broke in. “All right.” She scraped at her lower lip with her teeth. “I was afraid to call, Jack. I didn’t know what to do. I thought if I could just catch your eye—I wasn’t thinking.”
I tried to act calm. “What do you mean, he wants to go to the hospital?”
“He’s been at me all day. How good he feels, stuff like that. He wants to go to the hospital for a complete physical check-up.”
“Can’t the doctor give that to him at home?”
“It’s not that. He doesn’t carry all the facilities around in his pockets. They use machines on him, all sorts of things.”
It hit me hard. It was very bad and for a second there I saw the whole thing exploding soundlessly in our faces. Her face was wrung. “Take it easy,” I said. “Try to smile and make it look good. You never know who might come by. I know a lot of people in this town.”
“That’s not all,” she said. “There’s more.”
“Naturally.”
“Doctor Miraglia talked with me privately. He says this is a miracle. He says it’s his chance—once he gets Victor to the hospital, he thinks he can talk him into staying there.”
I rubbed one hand across my face, hanging onto my jaw.
“Jack.” She whispered it tightly. “What will we do?”
“Easy, now,” I said. “Here’s what you’ll have to do. First, you get back there as fast as you can. And be sure to stop at the market and buy some stuff, so it’ll look as if you really went shopping.”
“Yes. But what—?”
“Ten to one, Miraglia will leave. He’ll plan to come back for him. Maybe an ambulance. Anyway, it’s up to you to get to Victor. He’s always been scared about hospitals. You’ll have to make him think that way again. Scare the hell out of him. Only you’ve got to do it so Miraglia won’t get wise. Play it careful—kid him, make it look good. If you fail, we’re done.”
She didn’t speak. She was staring at the front of a jewelry store, thinking. You could almost see the wheels winding up.
“All right,” she said. “I think I can do it.”
“But be careful.”
“Don’t worry.”
The way she said it, she would scare anybody.
“Jack,” she said, looking at me. “I love you so. Why must it be like this?”
“You know why.”
“I do love you so.”
“Easy. We’re on the street,” I said. “Now, get moving. And remember, I’m with you every minute.”
“It’s just that we have so much, so very much, Jack.”
“Yeah. Now, get—”