A Good Story and Other Stories
- Автор: Уэстлейк Дональд Эдвин
- Год: 2000
- Язык: английский
- Год: International Polygonics
- ISBN: 978-1-55882-035-7
- Жанр: Малые литературные формы прозы
Электронная книга - «A Good Story and Other Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
It was clear enough in his mind what he intended say. He would tell about his discovery and of the General Delivery scheme. He would explain his desire to travel, explain how he intended to remail the evidence every week to a new location — Cannes, Palm Beach, Victoria Falls — and point out that he would require a large and steady income to enable him to pick the evidence up each time within the five-day deadline. He would say that although he thought Elizabeth was perhaps too much of a homebody to fully enjoy the sort of life Albert intended leading from now on, he did still feel a certain fondness for her and would prefer to be able to think that she was being suitably provided for by Mr. Clement in his absence.
He would say all that. Some day. All hope, he believed, was not yet lost. The day would come when his courage was sufficiently high or his desire for the good life sufficiently strong, and on that day he would do it. The day, however, had not yet come.
In the meantime, the mailing and remailing of the blackmail letter had become a normal part of Albert’s weekly routine, integrated into his orderly life as though there were nothing strange about it at all. Every Monday, on his way to lunch, he picked up the letter at General Delivery. Every Monday, in the washroom of the City Hall Luncheonette, he transferred the documents to the fresh envelope and flushed the used envelope away. Every’ Monday, on the way back to work from lunch, he dropped the letter into a handy mailbox. (The letter would reach Tom the Postal Clerk on Tuesday. Wednesday would be day number one, Thursday number two, Friday three, Saturday four, Sunday no number, and Monday five, the end of the old cycle and beginning of the new.)
This particular Monday was no different from any other, except of course for the sniffles. Sally the Waitress commented on that, saying, as she delivered the roast beef, “You look like you’re coming down with something, Mr. White.”
“Just the sniffles,” said Albert.
“Probably one of those twenty-four-hour bugs that’s going around,” she said.
Albert agreed with her diagnosis, ate his lunch, paid for it and left his usual twenty-five-cent tip, and walked on back to the office, making two stops on the way. The first was at the handy mailbox, where he dropped the evidence in for another round-trip through the postal system, and the second was at the Bizy Korner Stationery, where he bought a pocket packet of tissues for his sniffles.
He would have preferred to think that Sally the Waitress was right about the length of time these sniffles would be with him — the “twenty-four-hour bug” she had mentioned — but he rather doubted it. From past experience he knew that the sniffles lasted him approximately three days; he could look forward to runny nose and rheumy eyes until about Thursday, when it would surely begin to clear up.
Except that it didn’t. Monday went by, uneventful after the remailing of the documents, Tuesday and Wednesday followed, and Thursday dawned clogged and stuffy, both in the outside world and in the interior of Albert’s head. Albert wore his raincoat and rubbers, carried his umbrella, and snuffled his way through Thursday, going through an entire box of tissues in the office.
And Friday was even worse. Elizabeth, the kind of woman who looks most natural when wearing an apron and holding an apple pie, took one look at Albert on Friday morning and said, “Don’t you even bother to get up. I’ll call Mr. Clement and tell him you’re too sick to go to work today.”
And Albert was. He was too sick to go to work, too sick even to protest at having to stay in bed, and so utterly miserably sick that he even forgot all about rhe letter ticking away in General Delivery.
He remained just as sick, and just as oblivious, ail through the weekend, spending most of his time in uneasy dozing, rising to a sitting position now and then in order to down some chicken broth or tea and toast, and then reclining at once to sleep some more.
About eleven o’clock Sunday night Albert awoke from a sound sleep with a vision of that envelope clear in his mind. It was as though he had dreamed it: the envelope, clean and clear, sitting fat and solitary in a pigeonhole, and a hand reaching out to take it, a hand that belonged to Bob Harrington, crusading reporter.
“Good heavens!” cried Albert. Elizabeth was sleeping in the guest bed while Albert was sick, and so didn’t hear him. “I’d better be well tomorrow,” he said aloud, laid his head back down on the pillow, and stayed awake quite a while, thinking about it.
But he wasn’t well on the morrow. He was awakened Monday morning by the sound of rain beating on the bedroom window. He sat up, knew at once that he was as dizzy and weak as ever, and felt a real panic begin to slide over him like a blanket of fire. But he fought it down, if not quite out; he had, at all costs, to remain calm.
When Elizabeth came in to ask him what he wanted for breakfast, Albert said, “I’ve got to make a phone call.”
“Who do you want me to call, dear?”
“No,” said Albert firmly. “7 have to make the call.”
“Dear, I’ll be happy to—”
Albert was seldom waspish, but when the mood was on him he could be insufferable. “What would make you happy,” he now said, the sardonic ring in his voice muffled a bit by the blockage in his nose, “is of not the slightest interest to me. I must make a phone call, and all I ask of you is that you help me get to the living room.”
Elizabeth protested, thinking to be kindly, but eventually she saw Albert was not going to be reasonable, and so she agreed. He was weak as a kitten, and leaned heavily on her as they made their way down the stairs to the first floor and into the living room. Albert sagged into the chair beside the phone and sat there panting a few minutes, done in by the exertion. Elizabeth meantime went to the kitchen to prepare, as she put it, “a nice poached egg.”
“A nice poached egg,” Albert muttered. He felt vile, he felt vicious. He had never been physically weaker in his life, and yet he had never felt before such violent desires to wreck furniture, shout, create havoc, beat people up. If only Mr. Clement had been here now, Albert would have told him what was what in jig time. He’d never been so mean.
Nor so weak. He could barely lift the phone book, and turning the pages was a real chore. Then, of course, he looked it up in the wrong place first; under “P” for “Post Office.” Finding the number eventually in one of the subheadings under “US GOVT,” Albert dialed it and said to the person who answered, “Let me talk to Tom, please.”
“Tom who?”
“How do I know? Tom!”
“Mister, we got three Toms here. You want Tom Skylzowsky, you want—”
“Tom!” cried Albert. “At the General Delivery window!”
“Oh, you mean Tom Kennebunk. Hold on a minute.”
Albert held on three minutes. At intervals he said, “Hello?” but received no answer. He thought of hanging up and dialing again, but he could hear voices in the background, which meant the receiver was still off the hook at the other end, which probably meant if he broke the connection and dialed again he’d get a busy signal.
His impatience was ultimately rewarded by the sound of Tom the Postal Clerk’s voice saying, “Hello? You want me?”
“Hello, there, Tom,” said Albert, striving for joviality. “It’s me, Mr. White. Albert White, you know.”
“Oh, yeah!” How are ya, Mr. White?”
“Well, that’s just it, Tom, I’m not very good. As a matter of fact, I’ve been sick in bed all weekend, and—”