Vic turned on the fluorescent light in the garage and walked slowly through, glancing at his neat herb boxes, at his aquaria full of land snails that were gliding through the moistened jungle of oat shoots and Bermuda grass in which they lived, glancing at his opened electric drill case on his worktable and automatically noting that every tool was present and in its proper place.
His own room was almost as severe and functional as the garage—a plain three-quarter bed with a dark-green slipcover on it, one straight chair and one leather desk chair, a huge flat-topped desk on which stood dictionaries and carpenters' manuals, ink bottles, pens and pencils, account books, and paid and unpaid bills, all arranged in an orderly manner. There were no pictures at all on his walls, only a plain calendar, donated by a local lumber company, over his desk. He had the ability to sleep for as long as he wished without the aid of anything or anyone to awaken him, and he looked at his wristwatch and set himself to awaken in half an hour, at seventeen minutes to five. He lay down on the bed and methodically relaxed himself from head to toe.
Within about a minute he was asleep. He had a dream of being in church and of seeing the Mellers there. Horace Meller smiled and congratulated him for having murdered Malcolm McRae in defense of his marriage. The whole town of Little Wesley was in church, and everyone smiled at him. Vic woke up smiling at himself, at the absurdity of it. He never went to church, anyway. Whistling, he combed his hair, straightened his shirt under his pale-blue cashmere sweater, and strolled back through the garage.
Ralph and Melinda were in a corner of the sofa and had apparently been reclining, or half reclining, because they both straightened up at the sight of him. Ralph, pink-eyed now, looked him up and down with drunken disbelief and resentment.
Vic went to the bookshelf and bent over, scanning the titles.
"Still reading?" Melinda asked.
"Um-hm," Vic said. "No more music?"
"I was just about to leave," Ralph said hoarsely, getting up. He looked exhausted, but he lighted a cigarette and threw the match viciously in the direction of the fireplace.
"I don't want you to leave." Melinda reached for his hand, but Ralph swung away and took a step back, staggering a little. "'S awfully late," Ralph said.
"Practically time for breakfast," Vic said cheerfully. "Can I interest anybody in some scrambled eggs?"
He got no answer. He chose the pocketbook 'World Almanac', a book he could always browse in with pleasure, and went to his armchair.
"I should think 'you'd' be getting sleepy," Melinda said, looking at him as resentfully as Ralph.
"No." Vic blinked his eyes alertly. "Had a little nap just now in my room."
Ralph wilted visibly at this information and stared at Vic with a stunned expression as if he were about to throw up the sponge, though his eyes, shrunken and pink in his pale face, burned all the harder. He stared at Vic as if he could have killed him. Vic had seen the same look on Jo-Jo's face, and even on Larry Osbourne's lean, blank face, a look inspired by Vic's demoniacal good humor, by his standing clear-eyed and sober at five in the morning while they wilted on the sofa, wilted lower and lower in spite of their efforts to haul themselves upright every fifteen minutes or so. Ralph picked up his full glass and drank half of it at one draft. He'd stay to the bitter end now, Vic thought, as a matter of principle: it was nearly six in the morning, and what was the use of going home to sleep now, since tomorrow was ruined anyway? He might pass out, but he'd stay. He was too drunk to realize, Vic supposed, that he could have Melinda all the afternoon tomorrow if he wanted her.
Suddenly, as Vic watched him, Ralph staggered backward, as if something invisible had pushed him, and sat down heavily on the sofa. His face was shiny with perspiration. Melinda pulled him toward her, her arm around his neck, and began to cool his temples with her fingers which she dampened against her glass. Ralph's body was limp and sprawled, though his mouth had set grimly and his eyes still bored into Vic as if he were trying to hang on to consciousness now by simply staring fixedly at one thing.
Vic smiled at Melinda. "Maybe I'd better make those eggs. He looks as if he could use something."
"He's fine!" Melinda said defiantly.
Whistling a Gregorian chant, Vic went into the kitchen and put a kettle of water on for coffee. He held up the bourbon bottle and saw that Ralph had finished about four-fifths of it. He went back into the living room. "How do you like your eggs, Ralph—besides juggled?"
"How do you like your eggs, darling?" Melinda asked him.
"I jus' like 'em—like 'em juggled fine," Ralph mumbled. "One order of juggled eggs," Vic said. "How about you, puss?" "Don't call me 'puss'!"
It was an old pet name of Vic's for her that he hadn't used in years. She was glaring at him from under her strong blond eyebrows, and Vic had to admit she was not quite the little puss she had been at the time he married her, or even at the earlier part of this evening. Her lipstick was smeared, and the end of her long, upturned nose was shiny and red, as if some
