Roadwork

evening-”

“Hi, Mary?” he said. “Listen, I’m in this place called Harvey’s Gun Shop. Yeah, about Nicky. I got the pistol we talked about, no problem. There was one right in the showcase. Then the guy showed me this rifle-”

“-clearing by tomorrow afternoon. Lows tonight will be in the thirties, tomorrow in the mid to upper forties. Chance of precipitation tonight-”

“I -so what do you think I should do?” Harry was standing in the doorway behind him; he could see the shadow.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know that.”

“Thank you for dialing the WDST Weatherphone, and be sure to watch Newsplus-Sixty with Bob Reynolds each weekday evening at six o’clock for a weather update. Good-bye.”

“You’re not kidding. I know it’s a lot.”

“Thank you for calling the WDST Weatherphone. This afternoon, snow flurries developing into-”

“You sure, honey?”

“Chance of precipitation tonight eight percent, tomorrow-”

“Well, okay.” He turned on the bench, grinned at Harry, and made a circle with his right thumb and forefinger. “He’s a nice guy. Said he’d guarantee me Nick didn’t have one.”

“-by tomorrow afternoon. Lows tonight-' “I love you too, Mare. Bye.” He hung up. Jesus, Freddy, that was neat. It was, George. It was. He got up. “She says go if I say okay. I do.” Harry smiled. “What are you going to do if he sends you a Thunderbird?” He smiled back. “Return it unopened.” As they walked back out Harry asked, “Check or charge?” “American Express, if it’s okay.” “Good as gold.” He got his card out. On the back, written on the special strip, it said:

BARTON GEORGE DAWES

“You’re sure the shells will come in time for me to ship everything to Fred?”

Harry looked up from the credit blank. “Fred?”

His smile expanded. “Nick is Fred and Fred is Nick,” he said. “Nicholas Frederic Adams. It’s kind of a joke about the name. From when we were kids.”

“Oh.” He smiled politely as people do when the joke is in and they are out. “You want to sign here?”

He signed.

Harry took another book out from under the counter, a heavy one with a steel chain punched through the upper left corner, near the binding. “And your name and address here for the federals.”

He felt his fingers tighten on the pen. “Sure,” he said. “Look at me, I never bought a gun in my life and I’m mad.” He wrote his name and address in the book:

Barton George Dawes 1241 Crestallen Street West

“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

“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 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,