Part 16 (1/2)

Jenny had been quietly knitting; she never talked unless she really had something to say. Now she put down her knitting, a clear sign. ”If we did move there, dear, we could join the Oakdale Club; they have outdoor swimming all year round. I was thinking of that just this last weekend when I saw ice on the pool at Boulder.”

I stayed until the evening of 2 December, 1970, the last possible minute. I was forced to borrow three thousand dollars from John-the prices I had paid for components had been scandalous-but I offered him a stock mortgage to secure it. He let me sign it, then tore it up and dropped it in a wastebasket. ”Pay me when you get around to it.”

”It will be thirty years, John.”

”As long as that?”

I pondered it. He had never invited me to tell my whole story since the afternoon, six months earlier, when he had told me frankly that he did not believe the essential part-but was going to vouch for me to their club anyhow.

I told him I thought it was time to tell him. ”Shall we wake up Jenny? She's ent.i.tled to hear it too.”

”Mmm... no. Let her nap until just before you have to leave. Jenny is a very uncomplicated person, Dan. She doesn't care who you are or where you came from as long as she likes you. If it seems a good idea, I can pa.s.s it on to her later.”

”As you will.” He let me tell it all, stopping only to fill our gla.s.ses-mine with ginger ale; I had a reason not to touch alcohol. When I had brought it up to the point where I landed on a mountainside outside Boulder, I stopped. ”That's it,” I said. ”Though I was mixed up on one point. I've looked at the contour since and I don't think my fall was more than two feet. If they had-I mean 'if they were going to'-bulldoze that laboratory site any deeper, I would have been buried alive. Probably would have killed both of you too-if it didn't blow up the whole county. I don't know just what happens when a fiat wave form changes back into a ma.s.s where another ma.s.s already is.”

John went on smoking. ”Well?” I said. ”What do you think?”

”Danny, you've told me a lot of things about what Los Angeles-I mean 'Great Los Angeles' -is going 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 9.

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 gla.s.s 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. n.o.body knew as well as I did how he was put together, and it speeded up things 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 cha.s.sis, 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 d.a.m.ned 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 pa.s.sed 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-b.u.mp 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 circ.u.mstances 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.”

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 h.e.l.l were you when the riot started?”) I carried him back to the car and dumped him in the driver's s.p.a.ce, 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 rightful place, which suited us both better. When I had the floor clear, several miles later, I stopped and shoved the notes and drawings down a storm drain. The wheel-chair cha.s.sis I did not get rid of until we were actually in the mountains, then it went down a deep arroyo, making a nice sound effect.

About three in the morning I pulled into a motor court across the mad and down a bit from the turnoff into the Girl Scout camp, and paid too much for a cabin-Pete almost queered it by sticking his head up and making a comment when the owner came out.

”What time,” I asked him, ”does the morning mail from Los Angeles get up here?”

”Helicopter comes in at seven-thirteen, right on the dot.”

”Fine. Give me a call at seven, will you?”

”Mister, if you can sleep as late as seven around here you're better than I am. But I'll put you in the book.”

By eight o'clock Pete and I had eaten breakfast and I had showered and shaved. I looked Pete over in daylight and concluded that he had come through the battle undamaged except for possibly a bruise or two. We checked out and I drove into the private road for the camp. Uncle Sam's truck turned in just ahead of me; I decided that it was my day.

I never saw so many little girls in my life. They skittered like kittens and they all looked alike in their green uniforms. Those I pa.s.sed wanted to look at Pete, though most of them just stared shyly and did not approach. I went to a cabin marked ”Headquarters,” where I spoke to another uniformed scout who was decidedly no longer a girl.

She was properly suspicious of me; strange men who want to be allowed to visit little girls just turning into big girls should always be suspected.

I explained that I was the child's uncle, Daniel B. Davis by name, and that I had a message for the child concerning her family. She countered with the statement that visitors other than parents were permitted only when accompanied by a parent and, in any case, visiting hours were not until four o'clock.

”I don't want to visit with Frederica, but I must give her this message. It's an emergency.”

”In that case you can write it out and I will give it to her as soon as she is through with rhythm games.”