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to be like. I'll let you know when I see you just how accurate you've been."
"It's accurate. Subject to minor slips of memory."
"Mmm . . . you certainly make it sound logical. But in the meantime I think you are the most
agreeable lunatic I've ever met. Not that it handicaps you as an engineer. . . or as a friend. I like you,
boy. I'm going to buy you a new strait jacket for Christmas."
"Have it your own way."
"I have to have it this way. The alternative is that I myself am stark staring mad. . . and that would
make quite a problem for Jenny." He glanced at the clock. "We'd better wake her. She'd scalp me if I let
you leave without saying good-by to her."
"I wouldn't think of it."
They drove me to Denver International Port and Jenny kissed me good-by at the gate. I caught the
eleven o'clock shuttle for Los Angeles.
CHAPTER 11
The following evening, 3 December, 1970, I had a cabdriver drop me a block from Miles's house
comfortably early, as I did not know exactly what time I had arrived there the first time. It was already
dark as I approached his house, but I saw only his car at the curb, so I backed off a hundred yards to a
spot where I could watch that stretch of curb and waited.
Two cigarettes later I saw another car pull up there, stop, and its lights go out. I waited a couple of
minutes longer, then hurried toward it. It was my own car.
I did not have a key but that was no hurdle; I was always getting ears-deep in an engineering
problem and forgetting my keys; I had long ago formed the habit of keeping a spare ditched in the trunk.
I got it now and climbed into the ear. I had parked on a slight grade heading downhill, so, without turning
on lights or starting the engine, I let it drift to the corner and turned there, then switched on the engine but
not the lights, and parked again in the alley back of Miles's house and on which his garage faced.
The garage was locked. I peered through dirty glass and saw a shape with a sheet over it. By its
contours I knew it was my old friend Flexible Frank.
Garage doors are not built to resist a man armed with a tire iron and determination-not in southern
California in 1970. It took seconds. Carving Frank into pieces I could carry and stuff into my car took
much longer. But first I checked to see that the notes and drawings were where I suspected they
were-they were indeed, so I hauled them out and dumped them on the floor of the car, then tackled
Frank himself. Nobody knew as well as I did how he was put together, and it speeded up things
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enormously that I did not care how much damage I did; nevertheless, I was as busy as a one-man band
for nearly an hour.
I had just stowed the last piece, the wheel-chair chassis, in the car trunk and had lowered the
turtleback down on it as far as it would go when I heard Pete start to wail. Swearing to myself at the time
it had taken to tear Frank apart I hurried around the garage and into their back yard. Then the
commotion started.
I had promised myself that I would relish every second of Pete's triumph. But I couldn't see it. The
back door was open and light was streaming out the screen door, but while I could hear sounds of
running, crashes, Pete's blood-chilling war cry, and screams from Belle, they never accommodated me
by coming into my theater of vision. So I crept up to the screen door, hoping to catch a glimpse of the
carnage.
The damned thing was hooked! It was the only thing that had failed to follow the schedule. So I
frantically dug into my pocket, broke a nail getting my knife open-and jabbed through and unhooked it
just in time to jump out of the way as Pete hit the screen like a stunt motorcyclist hitting a fence.
I fell over a rosebush. I don't know whether Miles and Belle even tried to follow him outside. I doubt
it; I would not have risked it in their spot. But I was too busy getting myself untangled to notice.
Once I was on my feet I stayed behind bushes and moved around to the side of the house; I wanted
to get away from that open door and the light pouring out of it. Then it was just a case of waiting until
Pete quieted down. I would not touch him then, certainly not try to pick him up. I know cats.
But every time he passed me, prowling for an entrance and sounding his deep challenge, I called out
to him softly. "Pete. Come here, Pete. Easy, boy, it's all right."
He knew I was there and twice he looked at me, but otherwise ignored me. With cats it is one thing
at a time; he had urgent business right now and no time to head-bump with Papa. But I knew he would
come to me when his emotions had eased off.
While I squatted, waiting, I heard water running in their bathrooms and guessed that they had gone to
clean up, leaving me in the living room. I had a horrid thought then: what would happen if I sneaked in
and cut the throat of my own helpless body? But I suppressed it; I wasn't that curious and suicide is such
a final experiment, even if the circumstances are mathematically intriguing. But I never have figured it out.
Besides, I didn't want to go inside for any purpose. I might run into Miles-and I didn't want any truck
with a dead man.
Pete finally stopped in front of me about three feet out of reach.
"Mrrrowrr?" he said-meaning, "Let's go back and clean out the joint. You hit `em high, I'll hit `em low."
"No, boy. The show is over."
"Aw, c'mahnnn!"
"Time to go home, Pete. Come to Danny."
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He sat down and started to wash himself. When he looked up, I put my arms out and he jumped into
them. "Kwleert?" ("Where the hell were you when the riot started?")
I carried him back to the car and dumped him in the driver's space, which was all there was left. He
sniffed the hardware on his accustomed place and looked around reproachfully. "You'll have to sit in my
lap," I said. "Quit being fussy."
I switched on the car's lights as we hit the street. Then I turned east and headed for Big Bear and the
Girl Scout camp. I chucked away enough of Frank in the first ten minutes to permit Pete to resume his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]