'Tony, really--'
'I just don't want to be there when he tells you it's good work but only that of a gifted amateur.'
'You're impossible.'
'Cautious.'
'Such a pessimist.'
'Realist.'
She didn't have time to look at all of the sixty canvases that were stacked in the living room. She was surprised to learn that he had more than fifty others stored in closets, as well as a hundred pen and ink drawings, nearly as many watercolors, and countless preliminary pencil sketches. She wanted to see all of them, but only when she was well-rested and fully able to enjoy them. She chose six of the twelve pieces that hung on the living room walls. To protect the paintings, they carefully wrapped them in lengths of an old sheet, which Tony tore apart for that purpose.
He put on a shirt and shoes, helped her carry the bundles to her car, where they stashed them in the trunk.
She closed and locked the trunk, and they looked at each other, neither of them wanting to say goodbye.
They were standing at the edge of a pool of light cast by a twenty-foot-high sodium-vapor lamp. He kissed her chastely.
The night was chilly and silent. There were stars.
'It'll be dawn before long,' he said.
'Want to sing 'Two Sleepy People' with me?'
'I'm a lousy singer,' he said.
'I doubt it.' She leaned against him. 'Judging from my experience, you're excellent at everything you do.'
'Bawdy.'
'I try to be.'
They kissed again, and then he opened the driver's door for her.
'You're not going to work today?' she asked.
'No. Not after ... Frank. I have to go in and write up a report, but that'll take only an hour or so. I'm taking a few days. I've got a lot of time coming to me.'
'I'll call you this afternoon.'
'I'll be waiting,' he said.
She drove away from there on empty early-morning streets. After she had gone a few blocks, her stomach began to growl with hunger, and she remembered that she didn't have the fixings for breakfast at home. She'd intended to do her grocery shopping after the man from the telephone company had gone, but then she'd heard from Michael Savatino and had rushed to Tony's place. She turned left at the next corner and went to an all-night market to pick up eggs and milk.
***
Tony figured Hilary wouldn't need any more than ten minutes to get home on the deserted streets, but he waited fifteen minutes before he called to find out if she had made the trip safely. Her phone didn't ring. All he got was a series of computer sounds--the beeps and buzzes that comprised the language of smart machines--then a few clicks and snaps and pops, then the hollow ghostly hissing of a missed connection. He hung up, dialed once more, being careful to get every digit right, but again the phone would not ring.
He was certain that the new unlisted number he had for her was correct. When she had given it to him, he had double-checked to be sure he'd gotten it right. And she read it off a carbon copy of the telephone company work order, which she had in her purse, so there wasn't any chance she was mistaken about it.
He dialed the operator and told her his problem. She tried to ring the number for him, but she couldn't get through, either.
'Is it off the hook?' he asked.
'It doesn't seem to be.'
'What can you do?'
'I'll report the number out of order,' she said. 'Our service department will take care of it.'
'When?'
'Does this number belong to either an elderly person or an invalid?'
'No,' he said.
'Then it falls under normal service procedures,' she said. 'One of our servicemen will look into it sometime after eight o'clock this morning.'
'Thank you.'
He put down the receiver. He was sitting on the edge of the bed. He stared pensively at the rumpled sheets where Hilary had lain, looked at the slip of paper on which her new number was written.
Out of order?
He supposed it was possible that the serviceman had made a mistake when he'd switched Hilary's phones yesterday afternoon. Possible. But not probable. Not very likely at all.
Suddenly, he thought of the anonymous caller who had been bothering her. A man who did that sort of thing
