Shaking her head, Junie said, "I know it does. I saw the telegram he got. When you were missing he got this telegram -- he didn't want me to see it, but I grabbed it away from him. I remember exactly what it said. It was about you. A report on you."
Ragle said, "What did it say?"
For a moment she squeezed together her faculties. Then, fervently, she said, "It said, 'Sighted missing truck. Gumm passed barbecue. Your move next."
"You're sure?" he said, aware of her vagaries.
"Yes," she said. "I memorized it before he got it back."
City trucks, he thought. Outside, in the street, the olive-drab trucks had not left. The men still worked away at the pavement; they had gotten quite a stretch of it dug up, by now.
"Bill has no contact with maintenance, does he?" he asked. "He doesn't dispatch the service trucks, does he?"
"I don't know what he does down at the water company," Junie said. "And I don't care, Ragle. Do you hear that? I don't care. I wash my hands of him." Suddenly she ran toward him and put her arms around him; hugging him she said loudly in his ear, "Ragle, I've made up my mind. This thing, this awful criminal vengeance business of his, finishes it forever. Bill and I are through. Look." She tugged off the glove of her left hand and waved her hand before his face. "Do you see?"
"No," he said.
"My wedding ring. I'm not wearing it." She put her glove back on. "I came over here to tell you that, Ragle. Do you remember when you and I lay out on the grass together, and you read poetry to me and told me you loved me?"
"Yes," he said.
"I don't care what Margo says or anybody says," Junie said. "I have an appointment at two-thirty this afternoon with an attorney. I'm going to see about leaving Bill. And then you and I can be together for the rest of our lives, and nobody can interfere. And if he tries any more of his strong-arm criminal tactics, I'll call the police."
Gathering up her purse, she opened the door to the hall.
"You're leaving?" he asked, somewhat dazed to find himself now in the ebb of the whirlwind.
"I have to get downtown," she said. She glanced up and down the hall and then she made a pantomime, in his direction, of ardent kissing. "I'll try to phone you later today," she whispered, leaning toward him. "And tell you what the lawyer said." The door snapped shut after her, and he heard her heels against the floor as she rushed off. Then, outside, a car started up. She had gone.
"What was all that?" Margo said, from the kitchen.
"She's upset," he said vaguely. "Fight with Bill."
Margo said, "If you're important to the whole human race you ought to be able to do better than her."
"Did you tell Bill Black I had gone off?" he said.
"No," she said. "But I told her. She showed up here, after you had gone. I told her I was too worried about where you were to give a darn what she had to say. Anyhow, I think it was just an excuse on her part to see you; she didn't really want to talk to me." Drying her hands on a paper towel she said, "She looked quite nice, just now. She really is physically attractive. But she's so juvenile. Like some of the little girls Sammy has for his playmates."
He barely heard what she was telling him. His head ached and he felt more sick and confused than before. Echoes of the night...
Outside, the city maintenance crew leaned on their shovels, smoked cigarettes, and seemed to be keeping in the vicinity of the house. Are they there to spy on me? Ragle wondered.
He felt a strong, reflexive aversion to them; it bordered on fear. And he did not know why. He tried to think back, to remember what had happened to him, what he had done and what had been done to him. The olive-green trucks... the running and crawling. An attempt, somewhere along the line, to hide. And something valuable that he had found, but which had slipped or been taken away...
eleven
The following morning, Junie Black called him on the phone.
"Were you working?" she asked.
"I'm always working," Ragle said.
Junie said, "Well, I talked to Mr. Hempkin, my attorney." Her tone of voice informed him that she intended to go into the details. "What a cumbersome business," she said, sighing.
"Let me know how it comes out," he said, wanting to get back to his puzzle solving. But, as always, he was snared by her. Involved in her elaborate, histrionic problems. "What did he say?" he asked. After all, he had to take it seriously; if she took it to court, he might be hailed in as the corespondent.
"Oh Ragle," she said. "I want to see you so badly. I want to have you with me. Close to me. This is such a grind."
"Tell me what he said."
"He said it all depends on how Bill feels. What a mess. When can I see you? I'm scared to come around your place. Margo gave me the worst look I've ever gotten from anybody in my life. Does she think I'm after you for your money, or what? Or is it just her naturally morbid mind?"
"Tell me what he said."
"I hate to talk to you over the phone. Why don't you drop over here for a while? Or would Margo be suspicious? You know, Ragle, I feel so much better now that I've decided. I can be myself with you, not held back artificially by doubts. This is the most important moment in my life, Ragle. It's really solemn. Like a church. When I woke up this morning I felt as if I had awakened in a church, and all around me was this sacred spirit. And I asked myself what the spirit was, and pretty soon I identified it as you." She became silent, then, waiting for him to contribute something.
"What about this Civil Defense business?" he said.
"What about it? I think it's a good idea."
"Are you going to be there?"
"No," she said. "What do you mean?"
"I thought that was the idea."
"Ragle," she said with exasperation, "you know, sometimes you're so mysterious I just can't follow you."
He gathered, at that point, that he had made a mistake. Nothing remained but to drop the business about the Civil Defense classes. It was hopeless to try to explain to her what he meant and what he had thought when Mrs. Keitelbein approached him. "Look, June," he said. "I want very much to see you, as much as you want to see me. More, very possibly. But I have this goddamn puzzle to finish."
"I know," she said. "You have your responsibility." She said it resignedly. "What about tonight, after you mail off your entry?"
"I'll try to call you," he said. But her husband would be home, so nothing could come of it. "Maybe later today," he said. "Late this afternoon. I think I can get my entry off early, today." He had had fair luck with it so far.
"No," she said. "I won't be home this afternoon. I'm having lunch with an old friend. A girl friend. I'm sorry, Ragle. I've got so much I want to say to you and do with you. A whole lifetime ahead of us." She talked on; he listened. At last she said good-bye and he hung up, feeling let-down.
How hard it was to communicate with her.
As he started back to his room, the phone rang again.
"Want me to get it?" Margo called from the other room.
"No," he said. "It's probably for me." He lifted the receiver, expecting to hear June's voice. But instead an unfamiliar older female voice said haltingly,
"Is -- Mr. Gumm there?"
"Speaking," he said. His disappointment made him gruff. "Oh Mr. Gumm. I wonder if you remembered the Civil Defense class. This is Mrs. Keitelbein."
"I remembered," he lied. "Hello, Mrs. Keitelbein." Making himself hard, he said, "Mrs. Keitelbein, I'm sorry to have to--"