“Hello, Punchy,” said the Titan cheerfully. “How’s it cooking?”
“Madeleine needs to come out and speak to Jack.”
Prometheus looked at Jack and then back to Punch. “I don’t think she really wants to.”
“Please? It’s important.”
The door closed, and Punch winked at Jack while dialing a number on his cell phone.
“Who’s your phone provider?” he asked Jack. “I get a hundred free min—Agatha? It’s Punch…. I know your next appointment isn’t until Tuesday, but I’ve just heard about the regrettable incident with Mr. Spratt.”
There was a pause as Punch listened to a tearful babble of Agatha’s woes.
“I disagree,” he said as soon as he could get a word in. “The whole situation is a long way from irredeemable. You’re to tell your husband
There was another pause.
“It’s the right thing to do, Agatha. You’ll feel a lot better for it…. Here she is.”
Madeleine had appeared at the door and glared at Jack. She reluctantly took the proffered phone and went back inside.
“Now what?” asked Jack.
“Agatha will sort it out—unless you really
“I didn’t. How do you know Agatha?”
Judy and I run a marriage-guidance center. Mr. and Mrs. Briggs have been seeing us for several years now. It’s bad. Separate-beds bad.”
The door reopened a few minutes later, and Madeleine came out, wiped a tear from her eye, handed the phone back to Punch and hugged her husband.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He held her tightly. “And I’m sorry I never told you I wasn’t real. People don’t change just because you know more about them. I’m still the same Jack Spratt that you knew yesterday, and I’ll be the same Jack Spratt tomorrow and the day after. You can hold this against me if you want, but it doesn’t alter anything that I’ve ever said to you or taken any of the happiness out of the times we’ve spent together. I’m just an ordinary guy trying to support his family in the only way he can. I may not ever make superintendent, but I’ll always be standing beside you.”
She kissed him and said, “That was a
“It’s only painful when I think.”
“If you hadn’t made me love you so much, I wouldn’t have hit you so hard.”
“I had a feeling it might be my fault.”
She laughed, and they rested their heads on each other’s shoulders and rocked gently from side to side.
“That’s the way to do it,” said Punch with the air of job well done.
“Hey, shitface!” said Judy, popping her head over the garden fence and punctuating the romance of the moment in a most disagreeable fashion. “Are you going to jabber all night or give me a good ******** like you promised?”
“Hold your tongue, viper!” yelled Punch.
“You’re dead meat, you stinking heap of trash!” she screamed back. “I’ll—”
But then she suddenly noticed Jack and Madeleine embracing under the yellow glow of the outdoor light.
“What’s going on?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“A misunderstanding, sweetness—but it’s all right now.”
“Ahhhhh!” she murmured, watching them both and holding out her hand toward Mr. Punch, who took it and caressed it gently.
“I like an argument with a happy ending. Actually, I just like an argument.” Then she looked at her husband with a coquettish smile and said, “It’s still early. Why don’t you and I get all togged up and have a meal, an excellent bottle of wine and then a stand-up row and a punch-up down at the Green Parrot?”
He reached over and kissed her affectionately. “That sounds like a beautiful idea, Pookums. Can it be a really
“You’re just a sweet romantic at heart, aren’t you?” she replied tenderly. “I’ll ring up the Green Parrot for a reservation, book a couple of beds at the hospital and alert the finest emergency trauma team in Berkshire—and it’s my treat.”
Jack and Madeleine went back inside and upstairs to bed, shooing Caliban out the door when he tried to follow them. They were both fast asleep a half hour later, the best and deepest sleep for them both in many weeks. And as they slept, Mr. and Mrs. Punch donned their evening dress and knuckle-dusters, Agatha had a heart-to-heart with her husband, and below on the street outside, a single rust bubble popped up on the paintwork of the otherwise pristine Allegro.
31. The Truth Is Out There
Largest flying boat ever: In 1934 the Soviet Union decided to enter the global-travel world with the mighty Ilyushin-95. With a wingspan of 520 feet and weighing in at almost two hundred tons, this monstrous behemoth of the skies was powered by no fewer than sixty-eight Vokspod-87 290-horsepower radial engines. The first and only attempt to fly it was on June 15, 1934, when it was tugged out into the Caspian Sea, filled with fuel and the pilot and crew told not to return until they “had brought glory on the motherland.” With all engines roaring, the flying boat vanished over the horizon and into legend. Nobody knows what became of it, but it is thought that after failing to get airborne it made landfall in Turkey, where the crew, too worried about the repercussions of failure, quietly sold it for scrap.
Jack woke with a start at 5:30 A.M. He and Madeleine were still entwined, and he carefully unraveled her sleeping form from his before donning a dressing gown and walking into the bathroom. He examined the bruise on his chin where Briggs had thumped him and the one on his head from the rolling pin. He swallowed a couple of Tylenol, relieved himself and went downstairs.
Jack sighed deeply. He had told Briggs he was on a three-month rest, although in reality he was anything but. There were at least two murderers loose in Reading, a mother of all conspiracies was unfolding unseen in front of him, and if what he thought was true, the geopolitical future of the world was very much in the balance. Perhaps. He made some coffee and tapped in to toad-news.com to see if the Gingerbreadman had been caught or shot. He hadn’t.
“Can I come to work with you?”
It was Caliban, sitting on the kitchen table.
“I’m on leave.”
“Sure you are.”
“I am. And get off the table.”
“Please?” implored Caliban as he jumped to the floor.
“There is no place for you in—Hang on,” he added, suddenly thinking of something. “You’re a thieving little swine, aren’t you?”
“One of the finest,” replied Caliban proudly, puffing out his chest.
“Then I may have a job for you.”
“Sorry,” said the ape, wagging a finger at him. “I never steal to order—that would be immoral. I only do it for fun.”
