Smoke

you look. At this particular moment, do you look sexy and pretty and thin, or do you look foolish or ugly or stupid? Or just merely cranky, probably, most of the time.

And of course Freddie, being a man, hadn't the slightest idea anything was wrong. He just went blithely on, being invisible, half the time in the apartment forgetting his Bart Simpson head, never wearing the gloves, never giving a second thought to the effect he was having on the person with whom he shared the apartment.

Which might be unfair, actually, though Peg wasn't in much of a mood to give Freddie the benefit of the doubt. But the other problem with living with an invisible man was the fact you can't see him. It wasn't merely that you can't see him, you can't see him. You can't see the expression on his face, can't tell if he's pleased or miserable, can't tell if he's bored or excited, can't tell what's going on. We all of us to some extent chart our voyages through life based on the weather occurring in our loved ones, but with an invisible man you can never tell what the weather is. The voice gives some clues, the words give some clues, but where are the facial expressions? Where's the body language? Where's the goddamn body?

I don't know how much more of this I can put up with, Peg thought. There, the thought was out.

So were the people. All at once, people were coming out of the fur-storage building a block and a half away, streaming across the street to the parking lot, calling out words to one another, waving, getting into their cars. A little pocket rush-hour now took place on the street in front of Affiliated Fur Storage, and then they were all dispersed, leaving only a little white security-company car parked at the gate. Five minutes later, as Peg watched, no longer impatient, no longer bored, happy and interested now that something was happening, three bulky men in brown uniforms came out of the building, paused to lock the front gate, then clambered into the little car and drove away.

Peg didn't wait for a signal from Freddie. She knew that place down there was empty, she knew he was in there dismantling the alarm system, she knew it would be only a very few minutes before he came out with a white towel or a roll of fax paper or something to wave at her, so she started the van and eased it slowly forward, through and beyond the intervening intersection.

The seltzer bottler and the uniform laundry, not being seasonal businesses with a high-volume June, had both shut for the day more than an hour ago. This was strictly a commercial area around here, with no pedestrians ever and no traffic after business hours. Peg had the world to herself as she drove on down the street, and was pulling up in front of the loading entrance to Affiliated when the garage door back in there lifted and out walked a fur coat, holding a white plastic in-tray in its nonexistent hand. 'Oh, Freddie,' Peg muttered, and just for a moment closed her eyes.

The fur coat, seeing she was already there, retired into the building to put down the in-tray, then came out again and unlocked the gate, while Peg backed and filled, getting the van into position. The fur coat opened wide both sides of the gate, then waved an arm at Peg, and she backed into the driveway, looking left and right, this mirror, that mirror, not quite scraping the sides of the van, moving slowly as the fur coat retreated, and finally kabunking against the black rubber edge of the loading dock. She switched off the engine as the van's rear doors opened and the fur coat said, 'Peg, I thought they'd never go home.'

'Freddie,' Peg said, trying to sound calm and dispassionate, 'why are you wearing that coat?'

'I'm cold, Peg. Believe me, it gets cold in there. I need my shoes and socks.'

The van jounced as the fur coat clambered in, then sat on the floor. Socks moved through the air. Peg said, 'You're going to get dressed, aren't you? I mean, regular dressed, your own stuff.'

'Let's do the job first,' he said. 'Here, put my things on the seat, okay?' Freddie's clothing floated toward her, as he said, 'I'll put the rest on when I'm done loading up the van.'

Peg took the mound of clothing, mostly to stop it from floating like that. 'You want help?'

'No, you stay with the van, in case there's some kind of trouble. If you gotta take off, I'll make my way home later.'

'Take off?' Peg looked out at the street. Police patrols, that was what Freddie was thinking of. But if the police came along, and if they didn't like the look of the situation here, all they'd have to do was park across the front of this driveway, blocking her in.

Get arrested? Do eight years of prison laundry upstate? This, Peg thought, is not what I signed on for.

She might have said something, she wasn't sure what, but the fur coat, now sporting loafers and white socks, was skidding back out of the van. She watched him go, and there was just something so stupidly comical about a shin-length mink coat wearing white socks and brown shoes and no head that she forgot the awful possibility of getting Jean Harris's old room, and simply watched as the mink coat made a dozen trips in and out of the building, bringing great armloads of fur, dumping them into the back of the van, shoving them in, pushing them in, piling them in, until the leading edge of the pile, like a furry iceberg spreading, began to intrude into the driver compartment. 'Enough, Freddie!' Peg yelled through the muffling mountain of mink, not sure he'd even be able to hear her back there.

But he did. 'Right!' his voice shouted, dulled but intelligible. Thunk thunk, the rear doors closed. 'Drive it out!'

She did. Stopping in the street, looking in the right-hand outside mirror, she watched the mink coat with the white socks and brown shoes, and what a busy mink coat it was! First it ran inside the building one last time, then ran back out as the garage door lowered, then came forward to close and lock the gates, with itself on the outside. Finally, it came up to the van and opened the passenger door. As Peg watched through the open door, the mink coat paused, then suddenly went mad and then limp, as Freddie took it off. The coat then appeared to stuff itself in among the other coats crowding the back of the passenger seat, and Peg looked away, watching the street for police patrols, until Freddie said, 'Okay, Peg, you can look now.'

He was back, or Bart Simpson was back, standing out there beside the van. She smiled, relieved, actually liking Freddie when all was said and done. Putting the van in gear, she said, 'Now what?'

'On to Jersey Josh,' Bart said, sounding like a cartoon character with a head cold, and climbed into the van.

14

'9,' Jersey Josh repeated, with more emphasis.

'The thing is, Josh,' Freddie Noon's voice said in his ear from this old telephone, 'I'm making these deliveries, see, I mean I'm already loaded up here.'

Obviously, as Josh well knew, there was only so much one could say under such circumstances, because who knows how many telephones are tapped? All of them, probably; after all, this is the information age. But what Josh understood, from what little Freddie could say, and from the traffic noises in the background, was that Freddie was calling from a pay phone somewhere out on some street, and that his van was already loaded up with whatever it was he wanted to sell Josh, and he didn't like the idea of driving around the city for hours with his van full of felony convictions.

However, that was Freddie's problem, and had nothing to do with Josh. Josh's problem was, he would not, repeat not, repeat never, never ever lower the elevator and open the delivery entrance at the side of the building in daylight. Period. June is the worst of months for a fellow like Josh, with daylight practically all around the clock, which meant he was not going to think about opening that door down there until 9 P.M. Two A.M. would be better, but 9 P.M. he could live with.

But not a second earlier. '9,' he said, for the third time.

Freddie sighed. 'Okay, Josh, I understand. I just don't like Peg out by herself at night, that's all.'

The woman again? Josh flinched, his head suddenly aching at the memory, as he said, 'Not U?'

'Naw, you know, I pushed myself, I shouldn't have got out of bed so soon; I just can't make it. You know Peg now, so that's okay.'

'S.' He knew Peg, all right.

'So she'll be there at nine o'clock.'

And this time, Josh thought, she doesn't get off so easy. This time, no more Mr. Nice Guy. This time, no subtlety, no wine and cheese, no Centerspread Girls. This time, direct action. Hit her on the head, start from there. '9,' Josh said, and hung up, and went to look for something heavy.

Nine. Josh stepped onto the thick wooden-plank floor of the freight elevator, turned the key in the lock, and