frankly–’
‘I lie. The tape I got on is Abba. The Abba group. Real soothing stuff from way back.’
For a moment Sheriff Stallard hesitated. He didn’t want to cross Wally Immelmann but if that was Abba and real soothing his name wasn’t Harry Stallard.
‘Anyway, I’m just calling to ask you to cut the stuff off. You got a remote control or something?’
‘A remote control? Are you crazy? There’s no remote control can cover twenty-five miles with forest and mountains in between. You think I can bounce it off a satellite.’
‘I guess I thought you might have some way of shutting it off,’ said the Sheriff.
‘Not from here I haven’t. Got myself a generator so the power can’t be cut off. Anyhow, what’s it to you?’
Sheriff Stallard decided the time had come to break the news. ‘I mean, what you and Mrs Immelmann are discussing over that sound system you’ve built up there isn’t something you’d want to hear. The guy in Lossville says–’
‘Fuck the little shit,’ said Wally. ‘I told you he is always complaining.’ He paused. The Sheriff’s last statement had hit him. ‘What do you mean, what me and Mrs Immelmann are discussing?’
Sheriff Stallard gritted his teeth. This was going to be the hard bit. ‘I don’t really like to say, sir,’ he muttered. ‘It’s kind of intimate.’
‘Intimate?’ Wally yelled. ‘Are you fucking drunk or mad or something? Me and Mrs Immelmann?’
The Sheriff had had enough. He was getting real mad now. ‘And Dr Cohen!’ he shouted back. There was a gasp and silence on the line. ‘You still there, Mr Immelmann?’
Mr Immelmann was still there. Just. He just wasn’t hearing right. He couldn’t be.
‘What was that last you said?’ he asked finally and in a weak voice.
‘I said you and Mrs Immelmann are discussing intimate personal details about…well, I guess you know what you were talking about.’
‘Like what?’ Wally demanded.
‘Well, like Dr Cohen and–’
‘Shit!’ yelled Wally. ‘You telling me the bastard over in Lossville…oh, my God!’
‘He called in to say it was all over the district up there, and we thought you might want to know.’
‘I might want to know? I might want…What else did he say?’
‘Could you cut it off is what he really wanted because the noise is driving his wife crazy. And what you and Mrs Immelmann are shouting about, like your sex life and what she didn’t want you to do to her, isn’t helping.’
Wally could well imagine it. The knowledge was driving him crazy too, trying to work out how what he and Joanie had said in the bedroom was coming out of the sound system at a thousand decibels plus. It wasn’t possible.
‘The thing is, there has to be some way to shut it down,’ the Sheriff insisted. ‘We got the National Guard team moving in. Maybe…Mr Immelmann, are you all right?’
Something in the Starfighter Mansion had crashed on to something else, like a table.
‘Mr Immelmann, Mr Immelmann, oh shit!’ shouted the Sheriff. ‘Baxter, get an ambulance over there fast. Sounds like Wally’s had a heart attack.’
Chapter 20
