“So long, Mr. Brady.”
“Goodbye, Trudy.”
“Thanks for the baby-sitting jobs.”
“You're welcome.”
She began to close the door, but that pretty blonde head showed one last time.
“Mr. Brady?”
“Yes, Trudy?”
“No matter what they say about old folks, you were real good.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was evening and we were sitting in the front room, Amy on my lap, half spraining my hardened penis, which was jabbing against her backside. It was performing like a beggar out in the cold, knocking to get in.
“Honey?”
“Hm?” I answered, reaching into her blouse and extracting an overwarm breast.
“About Alexander.”
I glared at the dog, who lay in the middle of the carpet on his side, dead to the world. “What about him?” I asked, suspicious as hell.
“I don't think we're going to need him any more.”
Letting my fingers and my rod press on, I looked her in the eye. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“Dr. Duncan gave me the news in his office this afternoon. The tests were positive.”
“Stop talking in riddles.”
“We're going to have a family, as the heroines say in the women's novels. A human family, not canine.”
I suppose I was still walking around on the ceiling, hog-calling, clapping my hands, stamping my feet, kissing Amy and screaming at the dog when the telephone rang. I hugged Amy one last time, dancing her about the room, before going to answer the thing.
I don't know why I bothered, except that I wanted to tell whoever it was the news-even if it was a wrong number.
“Hi, partner,” Sam drawled and, for some reason, I decided not to blurt it out right away.
“Samuel, my boy, how's tricks?”
He hesitated. “She's all right. In fact, that's why I called. Alice was wondering if you two wanted to play some bridge tonight. You know, kind of get reacquainted.”
I laughed, feeling mad as a March hare. “What you really, mean, partner, is can Amy and I come over so you can throw the blocks to my wife while I diddle Alice, correct?”
“Well… I hate to hear you put it quite that way, Don, but it's not a bad idea.”
I felt Amy come up behind me and reach around my hips, opening my fly and releasing my king cobra. I began to pant, but I was determined to finish the conversation.
“I'm afraid not, old fellow,” I replied, puffing like a fat man with a bad heart climbing Mount Whitney. “You might have an outside chance nine months from now, but I doubt it.”
“I don't get you,” Sam was stammering. “Right, and you don't get my wife, either.” I laughed, delighted with my idea, “Tell you what, though. There's a real friendly German shepherd in the living room. He's looking for a good home-somewhere else. Name's Alexander. Alice would love him.”
The rest is pretty hazy. I remember ringing off and then Amy was all over me, like a thousand electric needles and I knew our troubles were over-for good.
By the way, when the baby came, he looked just like me.
