Sylvia on the side?'
“Oh, yes. David couldn't walk straight for a week and Syl still doesn't talk to Marg.'
“Julie left Spencer and moved in with Carlos.'
“Damn. Blythe made me miss Hospital. He's going to pay for that...'
* * * *
John W. Jones was worried. Friedrick Blythe was not a man to take bad news lightly. By now Earl Czeminski should have been trying to sell his assets. The video store closed. The small laundromat should have a ‘for sale’ sign in the window. And he should have been laid off his job at the electric co-operative.
This was crazy. Fred at the bank was putting off talking to him. Jeff at the co-operative stopped accepting his calls. And his local contact in the prosecutor's office had said that she wasn't going to be giving him any more information. He still had the local prosecutor in his pocket but the judge was starting to act hinky. Plus, it seemed that Blythe's companies had become a take-over target for some Wall Street investor. Jones was trying to stem the losses while finding out which investment firm was organizing the raid. But the biggest stock sale hadn't come from New York. It was some small Midwest company he couldn't track down that was incorporated under the strange name of Coffee Klutch Club.
God. It was only a half-hour before his next meeting with Blythe. He couldn't even give Blythe something on Daniel Karpinen. His employer was in Chicago and the company was large enough that Jones hadn't found any leverage that would work with the company to get him fired.
Chapter 7
Fizzle
It was the Christmas holidays and Tabitha and I were finally ready to test out our contraption. We worked for hours in the old garage so we could finish testing the setup before she had to leave for the start of the next semester in January. Tabitha said her financial problems were finally straightened out.
The old garage was cold so I dragged in an old propane salamander to keep the edge off while we were working. The salamander was able to hold the temperature just warm enough so we could work without our gloves and jackets. The old cement floor never got warm from the heater. I layered a dozen old gunnysacks around the Dodge transmission to cushion the concrete and keep the cold back. My legs just couldn't handle the hours of kneeling on the cement without the layers of burlap.
The salamander had been running for an hour. Our breath stopped making steam and we started to sweat. Taking off my jacket, I snatched a quick look at Tabby while she shrugged off hers. The fabric of her shirt pulled tight as she wiggled free. God was she built!
We triple checked the connections. The satellite dish was bolted firmly to the Dodge transmission. The four laser pointers were as close as we could get to the focus of the dish. We had five radio transmitters placed around the outside of the dish using the dish to reflect the signals to the focus. The two microwave and one infrared transmitters were balanced between the other units along the edge of the dish. We backed away, shaded our eyes and turned the switch on.
Nothing happened.
I rocked the switch back and forth a few times. Still nothing happened.
I looked at Tabitha. She looked at me. A smile formed on her face. Giggles started and full belly laughs followed. We hung on to each other, sides hurting, legs wobbling, trying to keep from peeing.
Through the laughter I felt Tabby's muscles move. Still laughing, I wanted to feel more. My hands went beneath her flannel shirt. Her hands unbuckled my pants. We rolled onto the gunnysacks, clothes pulled apart, laughing. Our skin felt so warm compared to the cold of the garage. We pressed ourselves together reveling in the warmth. The course weave of burlap rubbed the skin where her warm flesh didn't touch. The laughter stopped as the burlap rubbed my knees raw and started again when we finished.
We pulled our clothes together, turned the salamander off, and ran to my bedroom. Clothes went flying again but this time there was no laughter. I watched every move her body made as we rolled and moved in time with each other. It was much later. Tabitha was asleep. I was watching small droplets of sweat roll down her body around her breasts. Every droplet took a different path. I blew on her bare chest watching the goosebumps change the direction of the droplets. That was it! The equations showed that every electromagnetic transmission had to be at an exact frequency and at an exact nexus. Our contraption couldn't be exact. Just the changes in air temperature would sift the transmissions. I would have to fuzz the transmitters so they would cover a small band of frequencies close to what we needed. That way they would combine when, by chance or chaos, everything matched the frequencies we wanted.
I blew again on her bare skin. This time not only did goosebumps form but her nipples hardened. A pair of arms grabbed me and pulled me in.
I woke first and slipped out of bed. I started to tiptoe out of the bedroom until I saw the two hearing aids on the headboard. I felt eyes on my naked body. I looked at sleeping Tabitha. Eyes shut. Move-over was on a dresser top lying upside down and stretched out. His slitted eyes glowed from under his nose and between his dangling front paws.
“Move-over, you old voyeur. Did you get an eyeful?'
I dressed and went to the garage. I had an idea about running the output from an old boombox into the transmitters to fuzzy the signals. I was just bolting the boombox to the Dodge transmission when the door opened.
“There you are? I was wondering where you ran off to.'
“I had an idea about the signals. I think we need to fuzz them a little.'
“I get it. The frequencies aren't matching but since we can't increase the accuracy we fuzz the frequencies so they will occasionally match up.
“What would you like me to do?'
“I need a number 8 bolt with a nut that is about one inch long. There should be a few in the box over there.'
I started to hear humming and the tinkling of bolts and nuts. I looked over to Tabitha. The box was on the floor. She was bent at the waist, hands deep in the box with her legs spread wide. Her ass was rotating in time with the tune she was humming. God did she have a well-built set of legs and ass. I walked up behind her slowly touching her moving body with mine. We never got back to finishing our contraption before she left for school.
Tabitha was back in school. I have my work. I have the contraption we were making. And I have Move-over. But the house still felt empty. Looking out the window, I saw the clear sunlit cold of sub zero weather. Putting on my wools, I got the green wax tin and my skis from the back entryway. The waxing took just a minute and I was out the door heading across the snow to the woods across the fields.
One hundred yards from the house the coordinated hand leg movements of cross-country skiing broke through the feeling of loneliness. I was alert and ready to see the woods. By seeing, I meant more than seeing. I was ready to become, like my Uncle Ben, a part of the woods not just a viewer of the woods. Winter was the only time I could become part of the woods. During the other seasons, there was just too much life. I could only blend in. Halfway to the forest, I stopped and closed my eyes. I listened to the wind and rustling of the few dry leaves that hadn't fallen off the trees. My breathing slowed matching that of the forest. I headed on.
It had been a week since the last snow and I could see all of the activity that had happened since then. Mice, deer, dogs, rabbits, wolves. Just inside the tree line I came upon three depressions with the flaring marks of wings. Three partridges had slept last night within sight of the farmhouse. Rabbit tracks were just a dozen yards farther. I stopped to look for the rabbit's black eye. I found it thirty feet to the right. Squinting in the bright sun, I made out the white outline of the rabbit against the snow. In the winter the woods are thick with life. And the tracks tell you the patterns of the living.
I got to the stump chair. Brushing off the snow, I thought about the change in the pattern of my life
Tabitha made. There was a throbbing in my hand. The puukko Ben had given me was there. I didn't remember taking it out but the rocking of the balanced blade between my fingers gave the knife the feel of a heartbeat. I looked. A nuthatch and two chickadees were watching. I put the knife away and warmed my frozen
