“They’re into everything,” he said.
“This is nothing to what they’d like to do,” Harry said.
“I know. You know what I heard on the news the other day? They want a law that says a guy riding on a motorcycle has to wear a mouth protector. A mouth protector, for God’s sake. Now is it the government’s business if a man wants to chance wrecking his bridgework?”
“Not in my book it isn’t,” Harry said, putting his book under the counter.
“Or look at that highway extension they’re building over in Western. Some snotnose surveyor says ‘It’s going through here’ and the state sends out a bunch of letters and the letters say, ‘Sorry, we’re putting the 784 extension through here. You’ve got a year to find a new house.’ ”
“It’s a goddam shame.”
“Yes, it is. What does ’eminent domain’ mean to someone who’s lived in the frigging house for twenty years? Made love to their wife there and brought their kid up there and come home to there from trips? That’s just something from a law book that they made up so they can crook you better. ”
Watch it, watch it. But the circuit breaker was a little slow and some of it got through.
“You okay?” Harry asked.
“Yeah. I had one of those submarine sandwiches for lunch, I should know better.
They give me gas like hell.”
“Try one of these,” Harry said, and took a roll of pills from his breast pocket. Written on the outside was:
ROLAIDS
125
“Thanks,” he said. He took one off the top and popped it into his mouth, never minding the bit of lint on it. Look at me, I’m in a TV commercial. Consumes forty-seven times its own weight in excess stomach acid.
“They always do the trick for me,” Harry said.
“About the shells-”
“Sure. A week. No more than two. I’ll get you seventy rounds.”
“Well, why don’t you keep these guns right here? Tag them with my name or something. I guess I’m silly, but I really don’t want them in the house. That’s silly, isn’t it?”
“To each his own,” Harry said equably.
“Okay. Let me write down my office number. When those bullets come in-”
“Cartridges,” Harry interrupted. “Cartridges or shells.”
“Cartridges,” he said, smiling. “When they come in, give me a ring. I’ll pick the guns up and make arrangements about shipping them. REA will ship guns, won’t they?”
“Sure. Your cousin will have to sign for them on the other end, that’s all. ”
He wrote his name on one of Harry’s business cards. The card said: Harold Swinnerton
849-6330
HARVEY’S GUN SHOP
Ammunition
Antique Guns
“Say,” he said. “If you’re Harold, who’s Harvey?” “Harvey was my brother. He died eight years ago.” “I’m sorry.” “We all were. He came down here one day, opened up, cleared the cash register, and then dropped dead of a heart attack. One of the sweetest men you’d ever want to meet. He could bring down a deer at two hundred yards.” He reached over the counter and they shook. “I’ll call,” Harry promised.
“Take good care.”
He went out into the snow again, past SHAKY CEASE-FIRE HOLDS. It was coming down a little harder now, and his gloves were home.
What were you doing in there, George?
Thump, the circuit breaker.
By the time he got to the bus stop, it might have been an incident he had read about somewhere. No more.
Crestallen Street West was a long, downward-curving street that had enjoyed a fair view of the park and an excellent view of the river until progress had intervened in the shape of a high-rise housing development. It had gone up on Westfield Avenue two years before and had blocked most of the view.
Number 1241 was a split-level ranch house with a one-car garage beside it. There was 126
a long front yard, now barren and waiting for snow-real snow-to cover it. The driveway was asphalt, freshly hot-topped the previous spring.
He went inside and heard the TV, the new Zenith cabinet model they had gotten in the summer. There was a motorized antenna on the roof which he had put up himself. She had not wanted that, because of what was supposed to happen, but he had insisted. If it could be mounted, he had reasoned, it could be dismounted when they moved. Bart, don’t be silly. It’s just extra expense . . . just extra work for you. But he had outlasted her, and finally she said she would “humor” him. That’s what she said on the rare occasions when he cared enough about something to force it through the sticky molasses of her arguments. All right, Bart. This time I’ll “humor” you.
At the moment she was watching Merv Griffin chat with a celebrity. The celebrity was Lorne Green, who was talking about his new police series, Griff. Lorne was telling Merv how much he loved doing the show. Soon a black singer (a negress songstress, he thought) who no one had ever heard of would come on and sing a song. “I left My Heart in San Francisco,” perhaps.
“Hi, Mary,” he called.
“Hi, Bart.”
Mail on the table. He flipped through it. A letter to Mary from her slightly psycho sister in Baltimore. A Gulf credit card bill-thirty-eight dollars. A checking account statement: 49 debits, 9 credits, $954.47 balance. A good thing he had used American Express at the gun shop.
“The coffee’s hot,” Mary called. “Or did you want a drink?”
“Drink,” he said. “I’ll get it.”
Three other pieces of mail: An overdue notice from the library. Facing the Lions, by Tom Wicker. Wicker had spoken to a Rotary luncheon a month ago, and he was the best speaker they’d had in years.
A personal note from Stephan Ordner, one of the managerial bigwigs in Amroco, the corporation that now owned the Blue Ribbon almost outright. Ordner wanted him to drop by and discuss the Waterford deal-would Friday be okay, or was he planning to be away for Thanksgiving? If so, give a call. If not, bring Mary.
Carla always enjoyed the chance to see Mary and blah-blah and bullshit-bullshit, etc., et al.
And another letter from the highway department.
He stood looking down at it for along time in the gray afternoon light that fell through the windows, and then put all the mail on the sideboard. He made himself a scotch-rocks and took it into the living room.
Merv was still chatting with Lorne. The color on the new Zenith was more than good; it was nearly occult. He thought, if our ICBM’s are as good as our color TV, there’s going to be a hell of a big bang someday. Lorne’s hair was silver, the most impossible shade of silver conceivable. Boy, I’ll snatch you bald-headed, he thought, and chuckled. It had been one of his mother’s favorite sayings. He could not say why the image of Lorne 127
Green bald-headed was so amusing. A light attack of belated hysteria over the gun shop episode, maybe.
Mary looked up, a smile on her lips. “A funny?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Just my thinks.”
He sat down beside her and pecked her cheek. She was a tall woman, thirty-eight now, and at that crisis of looks where early prettiness is deciding what to be in middle age. Her skin was very good, her breasts small and not apt to sag much. She ate a lot, but her conveyor-belt metabolism kept her slim. She would not be apt to tremble at the thought of wearing a bathing suit on a public beach ten years from now, no matter how the gods decided to dispose of the rest of her case. It made him conscious of his own slight bay window. Hell, Freddy, every executive has a bay window. It’s a success symbol, like a Delta 88. That’s right, George. Watch the old ticker and the cancer-sticks and you’ll see eighty yet.
“How did it go today?” she asked.
“Good. ”
“Did you get out to the new plant in Waterford?”
“Not today.”
He hadn’t been out to Waterford since late October. Ordner knew it-a little bird must have told him-and hence the note. The site of the new plant was a vacated textile mill, and the smart mick realtor handling the deal kept calling him. We have to close this thing out, the smart mick realtor kept telling him. You people aren’t the only ones over in Westside with your fingers in the crack. I’m going as fast as I can, he told the smart mick realtor. You’ll have to be patient.
“What about the place in Crescent?” she asked him. “The brick house.”
“It’s out of our reach,” he said. “They’re asking forty-eight thousand.”
“For that place?” she asked indignantly. “Highway robbery!”
“It sure is.” He took a deep swallow of his drink. “What did old Bea from Baltimore have to say?”