“But I don’t know!”
“Well, then, maybe he’ll come back,” Matt said, and by the expression that flicked across Saugherty’s face for just a second he knew he’d hit on it. Saugherty’s eyes glanced to one side, his mouth made a small grimace, and then it was over. But that was all Matt needed. He nodded and said, “Yeah, that’d be nice. He’ll come back here. How soon do you figure he’ll be back, Ed?”
Saugherty said, “He isn’t coming back. He’ll just call. When there’s no answer, he’ll be afraid to come back.”
“Naw. Not if the phone’s just out of order. He’ll be back. And we’ll just wait for him. Unless you’ve got some idea where he is? Some small idea?”
“I don’t. I swear I don’t.”
The woman said, “Ed, if you’re protecting that man — “
“For the love of God, Pam, do you think I’d — “
Matt turned to her, smiling his little smile. “Maybe you know something you’d like to tell us.”
“I didn’t talk to him,” she snapped. “My husband talked to him when he called.”
“He called?” Matt turned back to the husband. “When was this, Ed?”
“This afternoon.”
“And what did he say, Ed?”
“He said he wasn’t coming back, but he’d call, he’d let me know what was happening.”
“He didn’t say where he was?”
“He said he was in Washington; some girl was beaten up down there or something.”
“In Washington.”
“But he wasn’t staying there. He said he was leaving right after the phone call.”
“It’s a mobile age,” Matt said. “It’s easy to forget that. So the son of a bitch was in Washington today, was he?” He looked at Paul. “He’ll be back, won’t he?”
“I don’t know, Matt. The phone out of order could scare him off.”
“Can you splice it, patch it up?”
“Maybe. It looked like there was some tools and stuff out in the garage.”
Matt thought and then nodded. “Okay. We’ll fix the phone and we’ll wait. And George will call, and Ed, you’ll tell him everything’s okay here, he can come back, no trouble. And you better sound convincing.”
“Oh, I will,” Saugherty said, and all at once he sounded bitter. “I don’t owe George Uhl anything, don’t you worry.”
“I’m not worried,” Matt said.
Paul said, “You want me to fix the phone now, Man?”
“Not yet. A little later. Right now you keep an eye on everybody while the little lady gives me a tour of the house.” He smiled at her and saw the startled expression on her face. But she wasn’t as tough as that bitch down in Washington this afternoon; she wouldn’t take as much convincing. There’d be a lot of energy left in her when they got to it.
Paul said, “Must you?” His voice was full of hurt, like always.
Matt shrugged, grinning at him. “Just a boyish peccadillo,” he said. “It don’t mean anything, baby.” He turned and took a step over to the wife. He put his hand out. “Come on, Pam, I got the hots to see your house.”
“Don’t touch me,” she said and leaned back against the sofa to keep away from him.
He leaned forward to take her arm, and she slapped at his hand, and he slapped her hard across the face. One of the kids let out a shriek.
Saugherty shouted something and ran at Matt. Everybody always needed convincing. He reached out one hand and held Saugherty with it and used the other hand to start hitting him.
Six
The doorbell woke Joyce Langer from a dream in ‘which seven old crones who smelled like bacon were trying to drown her beside a rowboat on a cold, black river surrounded by fog. She came out of the dream slowly, almost reluctantly, fighting off the bony hands for a long time, her mind confused in its attempt to fit the sound of the ringing into her dream somehow, a black stone church with a bell ringing in its steeple appearing out of the fog just as the fog crumbled away entirely and she was awake, in bed, in a room in a building on West 87th Street in New York City, alone, unhappy, in darkness, with the doorbell ringing.
Her clock radio over on the dresser had a luminous dial, and it read twelve minutes past one o’clock in the morning. Who would be ringing her bell at a time like this?
She thought of Tom Lynch, the strange tough man who’d taken her to dinner this evening. Could he be back? She had a sudden sexual vision, almost physically staggering in its effect, and then it drained away again and she admitted to herself just how unlikely it was that Tom Lynch would have returned at this hour, and how much more remote from possibility that he would be here to have sex with her. She knew the kind of man she attracted, the kind of man she could succeed with, and he wasn’t it.
Then who was it? The doorbell rang again as she switched on the light and got out of bed, smoothing her peach pajamas down over her legs. Various people from the past flickered through her mind as she went to the closet for her robe, and then she thought of George Uhl, and she stopped with the robe half on, knowing that that was who it was.
