I gave a yell and ran toward the weeds, throwing aside all caution.
For there was something going on and I must find out what it was.
The scent of skunk was almost overpowering and, despite myself, I started veering off, and then I saw out of the corner of my eye what was going on.
I stopped and stared, not quite understanding.
There were bowling balls down there in the weeds, gamboling wildly and ecstatically and with complete abandon. They spun and rolled and leaped into the air.
And up out of that patch of weeds rose the nauseating eye-watering, spine-tingling smell left by a passing skunk that something had disturbed.
It was more than I could stand. I retreated, gagging.
Running for the car, I knew, in something less than triumph, that at last I’d found a chink in the bowling balls’ almost perfect armor.
They liked perfume, the Dog had said. Once they had seized the Earth, they would barter it for a consignment of perfumes. It was the thing they lived for; it was their one and only source of pleasure. It was the thing they valued beyond all else.
And here on Earth, on a weedy swale running down an autumn hillside, they’d found one that they liked. For there was no other way in which one could interpret their ecstatic gamboling. And one, apparently, that had a strong enough appeal to force them to give up whatever purpose they might have held in mind.
I got into the car and backed it out onto the road and drove back toward the main highway.
Apparently the bowling balls, I thought, had not found the other perfumes of Earth worth particular attention, but they’d gone crazy on the skunk. And while it made no sense to me, I suppose that, naturally, it must make some sort of sense to a bowling ball.
There must be a way, I told myself, that the human race could use the newfound knowledge to advantage, some way in which we could cash in on this matter of the bowling balls’ love affair with skunks.
I remembered back to the day before when Gavin had put Joy’s story about the skunk farm on page one. But the skunks in that particular instance had been different kinds of skunks.
I thought around in circles, and all the thinking came to nothing. And, I thought at last, how infuriating it would be if this one sign of the alien’s weakness could not serve some human purpose.
For it was, so far as I could see, the only chance we had. In every other department, they had us licked without a chance of recourse.
But if there were a way to use this thing we had, I couldn’t think of one. If there had been other people, if there had been more than myself alone, I might have thought of something. But, except for Joy, there wasn’t anyone.
I reached the outskirts of the city, and I’m afraid I wasn’t paying the attention that I should have to my driving. I hit a stoplight and sat there thinking and didn’t see the light change.
The first I knew of it was when a cab shot past me, with the irate driver leaning out.
“Knothead!” he yelled at me. There were some other things he said, probably worse than knothead, that I didn’t catch, and the other cars behind me began an angry honking.
I got out of there.
But now I knew, I thought. Now there was a way. Well, maybe not a way, but at least an idea.
I searched my memory all the way back to the motel and the memory finally came—the name of that other cabdriver, the one who had talked so enthusiastically about hunting coons.
I drove into the courtyard and parked before the unit and sat there for a while trying to get it figured out.
Then I got out of the car and walked to the restaurant. In the phone booth, I hunted up the name of Larry Higgins and dialed the number.
A woman’s voice answered and I asked for Larry. I waited while she went to call him.
“This is Higgins speaking.”
“Maybe you remember me,” I said, “and again you mightn’t. I’m the man you took to the Wellington Arms last night. You were telling me about hunting coons.”
“Mister, I tell everyone who’ll listen about hunting coons. It’s a passion with me, see.”
“But you didn’t just tell me. We talked about it. I told you I hunted ducks and pheasant and you asked me to go coon hunting sometime. You told me—”
“Hey, there,” he said, “I remember now. Sure, I remember you. I picked you up outside a bar. But I can’t go hunting tonight. I got to work tonight. You were lucky just to catch me in, I was about to leave.”
“But I don’t—”
“Some other night, though. Tomorrow will be Sunday. How’s Sunday night? Or Tuesday. I’ll be off on Tuesday night. It’s more fun, I tell you, mister—”
“But I didn’t call you about hunting.”
“You mean you don’t want to go? I tell you, once you’ve done it—”
“Sure, some night,” I told him. “Some night real soon. I’ll call you and we’ll fix a time.”
“OK, then. Call me any time.”
He was ready to hang up and I had to hurry. “But there was this other thing. You were telling me about this old man who had a way with skunks.”
“Yeah, that old geezer is a caution. Honest, I tell you—”
“Could you tell me how to find him?”
“Find him?”
“Yes. How can I get to his place?”
“You want to see him, huh?”
“Sure, I’d like to see him. I’d like to talk with him.”
“What you want to talk about?”
“Well . .
“Look, it’s this way. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. He’s a nice old guy. I wouldn’t want no one bothering him. He’s the kind of fellow other folks could poke a lot of fun at.”
“You told me,” I said, “that he was trying to write a book.”
“Yeah, I told you that.”
“And he’s getting no place with it. You told me that yourself. You said it was a shame, that he had a book to write but he’d never get it done. Well, I’m a writer and I got to thinking that maybe with a little help . . .”
“You mean that you would help him?”
“Not for free,” I said.
“He hasn’t nothing he could pay you.”
“He wouldn’t have to pay me anything. I could write the book for him, if he’s got a book. Then we could split the money we got out of the book.”
Higgins considered for a moment. “Well, that should be all right. He won’t never get a cent the way he’s going at that book. He sure could use some help.”
“OK, then, how do I find the place?”
“I could take you out some night.”
“I want to see him now if I can. I’ll be leaving town tomorrow.”
“All right, then. I guess it is all right. You got a pencil and some paper?”
I told him that I had.
“His name is Charley Munz, but people call him Windy. You go out Highway 12 and...”
I wrote down the directions as he gave them to me.
I thanked him when he had finished.
“Call me some other time,” he said, “and we’ll fix up some hunting.”
I told him that I would.
I found another dime and called the office. Joy still was there.
“Did you get the groceries, Parker?”
I told her that I had but that I had to leave again. “I’ll put the groceries inside,” I said. “Did you notice—was the refrigerator working?”
“I think so,” she said. Then she asked, “Where are you going, Parker? You sound worried. What is going on?”
“I’m going to see a man about some skunks.”
She thought I was kidding her about the story she had written and she got sore about it.
“Nothing of the sort,” I told her. “I mean it. There’s an old man by the name of Munz up the river valley. He’s probably the only man in the world who makes pets of unadulterated skunks.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “A gabby cabdriver ‘ by the name of Larry Higgins told me all about it.”
“Parker,” she said, “you’re up to some thing. You went out to the Belmont house. Did something happen there?”
“Not much. They made me an offer and I said I’d think it over.”
“Doing what?”
“Their press agent. I guess you’d call it that.”
“Are you going to take it?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I’m scared,” she told me. “More scared than I was last night. I tried to talk to Gavin about it and I tried to talk with Dow. But I couldn’t force myself to. What’s the sense of talking? No one would believe us.”
“Not a soul,” I said.
“I’m coming home. In just a little while. I don’t care what Gavin finds for me to do; I’m going to leave here. You won’t be gone for long, will you?”
“Not for long,” I promised. “I’ll put the groceries in the unit and you get dinner started.”
We said good-bye and I walked back to the car.
I lugged the groceries into the unit and put the milk and butter and some other stuff in the refrigerator. The rest I left sitting on the table. Then I dug out the rest of the money I had hidden and crammed my pockets with it.
And having done all that, I went to see the old man about his skunks.