The envelope dropped into the out box.
When Inez Ferrel left her house that evening, Theodore followed in his car. Downtown, Mrs. Ferrel got off the bus and went into a bar called the Irish Lantern. Parking, Theodore entered the bar cautiously and slipped into a shadowy booth.
Inez Ferrel was at the back of the room perched on a bar stool. She’d taken off her jacket to reveal a clinging yellow sweater. Theodore ran his gaze across the studied exposition of her bust.
At length, a man accosted her and spoke and laughed and spent a modicum of time with her. Theodore watched them exit, arm in arm. Paying for his coffee, he followed. It was a short walk; Mrs. Ferrel and the man entered a hotel on the next block.
Theodore drove home, whistling.
The next morning, when Eleanor Gorse and her father had left with Mrs. Backus, Theodore followed.
He met them in the church lobby when the service was over. Wasn’t it a wonderful coincidence, he said, that he, too, was a Baptist? And he shook the indurate hand of Donald Gorse.
As they walked into the sunshine, Theodore asked them if they wouldn’t share his Sunday dinner with him. Mrs. Backus smiled faintly and murmured something about her husband. Donald Gorse looked doubtful.
“Oh, please,” begged Theodore. “Make a lonely widower happy.”
“Widower,” tasted Mr. Gorse.
Theodore hung his head. “These many years,” he said. “Pneumonia.”
“Been a Baptist long?” asked Mr. Gorse.
“Since birth,” said Theodore with fervour. “It’s been my only solace.”
For dinner he served lamb chops, peas, and baked potatoes. For dessert, apple cobbler and coffee.
“I’m so pleased you’d share my humble food,” he said.
“This is, truly, loving thy neighbour as thyself.” He smiled at Eleanor who returned it stiffly.
That evening, as darkness fell, Theodore took a stroll. As he passed the McCann house, he heard the telephone ringing, then James McCann shouting, “It’s a
The phone slammed down. “God
“Darling, please be
The telephone rang again.
Theodore moved on.
At exactly two-fifteen a.m. Theodore slipped outside, pulled up one of Joseph Alston’s longest ivy plants and left it on the sidewalk.
In the morning, as he left the house, he saw Walter Morton, Jr., heading for the McCann house with a blanket, a towel and a portable radio. The old man was picking up his ivy.
“Was it pulled up?” asked Theodore.
Joseph Alston grunted.
“So
“Last night,” said Theodore, “I heard some noise out here. I looked out and saw a couple of boys.”
“You seen their faces?” asked Alston, his face hardening.
“No, it was too dark,” said Theodore. “But I’d say they were-oh, about the age of the Putnam boys. Not that it was them, of course.”
Joe Alston nodded slowly, looking up the street.
Theodore drove up to the boulevard and parked. Twenty minutes later, Walter Morton, Jr., and Katherine McCann boarded a bus.
At the beach, Theodore sat a few yards behind them.
“That Mack is a character,” he heard Walter Morton say. “He gets the urge, he drives to Tijuana, just for kicks.”
In a while Morton and the girl ran into the ocean, laughing. Theodore stood and walked to a telephone booth.
“I’d like to have a swimming pool installed in my backyard next week,” he said. He gave the details.
Back” on the beach he sat patiently until Walter Morton and the girl were lying in each other’s arms. Then, at specific moments, he pressed a shutter hidden in his palm. This done, he returned to his car, buttoning his shirt front over the tiny lens. On his way to the office, he stopped at a hardware store to buy a brush and a can of black paint.
He spent the afternoon printing the pictures. He made them appear as if they had been taken at night and as if the young couple had been engaged in something else.
The envelope dropped softly into the out box.
The street was silent and deserted. Tennis shoes soundless on the paving, Theodore moved across the street.
He found the Morton’s lawn mower in the backyard. Lifting it quietly, he carried it back across the street to the McCann garage. After carefully raising the door, he slid the mower behind the work bench. The envelope of photographs he put in a drawer behind a box of nails.
Returning to his house then, he phoned James McCann and, muffledly, asked if the Ford was still for sale.
In the morning, the mailman placed a bulky envelope on the Gorses’ porch. Eleanor Gorse emerged and opened it, sliding out one of the booklets. Theodore watched the furtive look she cast about, the rising of dark colour in her cheeks.
As he was mowing the lawn that evening he saw Walter Morton, Sr., march across the street to where James McCann was trimming bushes. He heard them talking loudly. Finally, they went into McCann’s garage from which Morton emerged pushing his lawn mower and making no reply to McCann’s angry protests.
Across the street from McCann, Arthur Jefferson was just getting home from work. The two Putnam boys were riding their bicycles, their dog racing around them.
Now, across from where Theodore stood, a door slammed. He turned his head and watched Mr. Backus, in work clothes, storming to his car, muttering disgustedly, “A
He smiled and mowed along the side of his house, glancing into Eleanor Gorse’s bedroom. She was sitting with her back to him, reading something. When she heard the clatter of his mower she stood and left the bedroom, pushing the bulky envelope into a bureau drawer.
Henry Putnam answered the door.
“Good evening,” said Theodore. “I hope I’m not intruding.”
“Just chatting in the den with Irma’s folks,” said Putnam. “They’re drivin’ to New York in the mornin’.”
“Oh? Well, I’ll only be a moment.” Theodore held out a pair of BB guns. “A plant I distribute for was getting rid of these,” he said. “I thought your boys might like them.”
“Well,
While the older man was gone, Theodore picked up a couple of matchbooks whose covers read
“Mighty nice of you, Gordon,” said Putnam at the door. “Sure appreciate it.”
“My pleasure,” said Theodore.
Walking home, he set the clock-radio for three-fifteen and lay down. When the music began, he moved outside on silent feet and tore up forty-seven ivy plants, strewing them over Alston’s sidewalk.
