I WILL FEAR NO EVIL by Robert A. Heinlein

(Take a tip from Winnie.)

(How dear?)

(Let her in on your plans. Then she’ll keep your secrets and never ask a question, just as you do for her. Try it.)

(I may have to. I’m sure she won’t talk . . . and will happily listen to anything I need to spill. But, Eunice, if I go outside the house, it’s going to be hard to keep Tom and Hugo, or Anton and Fred, from guessing. You saw the elaborate maneuver I had to use today.)

(You didn’t have to, Boss; they won’t talk.)

(Perhaps they won’t, but I don’t want them even to think. They’re beginning to think I’m an angel—named Eunice—and I’d rather keep it that way.)

(Boss, they know darned well that Eunice is no angel. Even Hugo knows it . . . because Hugo is the smartest of the four, even if he is an illit. Knows people. Understands them from having been there himself. Forgives them their transgressions and loves them anyhow. Boss dear, they loved me the way I was, feet of clay and all—and they’ll love you the same way.)

(Maybe, I hope so. I know I love you more, knowing more about you and things I never suspected, than I did before we consolidated, immoral little wench. What’s this about you and Fred and Anton? Did you really?)

(Wondered when you’d get around to that. Those good-night kisses did start out just friendly. Brotherly. Fatherly in Hugo’s case. Never got past that with Tom, as we were always either under Hugo’s eye, or Jake’s, or both—I just knew darn well a man was kissing me. But Fred and Anton weren’t much chaperonage for each other and they were both charged up over me. So, when a chance turned up, I thought ‘Why not?’)

(Pure charity, eh?)

(Was that sarcasm, Boss? Anyhow, they took me home late one night. Not a blood donation call, just working late with Jake when we were very rushed getting things arranged for you. The ‘warm body’ project. I invited them in for a Coke and a snack, as usual. Only it turned out Joe wasn’t home.)

(So human nature won—again.)

(You seem to have a low opinion of human nature, Boss darling.)

(I have a high opinion of human nature. I think it will prevail in spite of all efforts of wowsers to suppress it. But that’s all it took? Two men? Cold sober? And a chance that your husband might walk in? Lovely fallen angel, your story not only has holes; it is inconsistent. I do know something about men, having been one. What they’ll risk, what they won’t. Plenty, that is, for a woman. But two men tend to be wary of each other, and still more so when a husband might show up. Darling, you’ve left out something—this does not sound like a first time.)

(Boss, cross our heart, it was a first time…and the only time, for I was killed soon after. All right, I’ll fill in the holes. Joe wasn’t likely to walk in and they knew it. Couldn’t, as our door was hand-bolted from the inside whenever either of us was there. Joe was even more careful about it than I was, as he had always been a city boy. But they knew also that Joe was not due home until midnight and they brought me home about twenty-one thirty. No hurry, no worry, no flurry. While Joe can’t read, he can tell time—you know those little dummy clocks some one-man shops use? Back at such-and-such a time, and mark the time by setting the hands?

(We had one of those, to tell the other one when he would be back. That night the door opened to my voice, so I looked for the dummy clock and found it set for midnight—and told Anton and Fred that I was sorry but Joe wasn’t going to be home soon enough for a visit.)

(Called attention to it, minx. Sounds like a setup.)

(Well, I knew what was ready for, once I knew we had the place to ourselves. Oh, shucks, Boss, I’m still trying to be your ‘nice girl.’ I had had my ear cocked for a late arrival with that team for over a month. When Jake asked me to work after dinner, I phoned Joe, just as usual. And set it up under Jake’s nose. Short-talked it——almost another language if spoken by a husband and wife. What Jake heard was me telling Joe that I wouldn’t be home until twenty-one thirty. What Jake didn’t hear, or would not understand, was that I was asking Joe if he minded being elsewhere, in family short-talk code we used if we wanted that favor. It was all right, Boss darling; I made myself scarce for Joe’s sake oftener than I asked it of him. The only question was: Was he painting? Turned out he was not, so I was home free.