One More for the Road (11 page)

“I'm not mad.”

“You talk so, well, old-hat,” said Conway.

“New things often seem dated,” said Smith. “We surf and think it's bottom.”

“Please,” said Conway. “Your theories—”

“Discoveries!” said Smith. “I see you've learned nothing.”

“Business prevents.”

“And church on Sundays? Run by a preacher who hand-laundered you for heaven? Shall I do you a favor? I wonder. Open your eyes. Telephone PL8-9775.”

“Why?”

“Call and listen tonight, tomorrow, the night after. Meet me here Friday.”

“Friday—?”

“Call that number.”

“Who'll answer?”

Smith smiled. “The Beasts.”

Then he was gone.

Conway laughed, paid the bill, strolled forth in fine weather.

“PL8-9775?” He laughed. “Dial and say what? Hello, Beasts?”

 

He forgot the conversation, the telephone, and the number during dinner with his wife, Norma, said good night to her, and stayed up late reading murders. At midnight the phone rang.

He answered and said, “It must be
you
.”

“Hell,” said Smith, “you guessed.”

“You want to know if I've dialed PL8-9775?”

“I know by your voice, no lightning's struck. Dial the number. Call!”

 

Call
, he thought. Hell, no. I
won't
call!

At one in the morning the phone rang. Who's
that?
he wondered. The phone rang. This late? he thought. The phone rang. Who'd call
now?
The phone rang. Christ! The phone rang. He reached out. The phone rang. He clutched it.
Ring!
He held tight.
Ring!
Now he was wide awake!
Ring! Don't! Ring!
He grabbed but did not clap it to his ear. Why? He stared at it as if it were a huge insect, buzzing.
Whisper
. Clearer.
Whisper
. Very clear.
Whisper
. Click! He slammed it down. Christ! He had heard
nothing!
Something.
Whisper
.

He kicked the phone across the carpet. Jesus! he thought. Why
hit
it? Why?

He left it on the floor and went to bed.

But he could hear it buzzing, protesting. Finally he went in and slammed the receiver back into its cradle.

There. It was nothing. No.
Someone
. Smith? He switched off the light. Why did he think he heard several voices? Stupid. No!

He stared back into the parlor.

The phone was silent.

Good! he thought.

But he had heard
something
.

Something that brought a dampness to his face? No!

He lay awake until …

Three in the long dark morning. The soul's midnight. When the dying shed their ghosts …

Hell!

He got out of bed and stalked in to stand over that damned Smith-inspired thing.

The mantel clock chimed three-fifteen. He raised the phone and heard it hum. He sat with the phone in his lap, and at last, slowly, dialed that number.

He had expected to hear a woman's voice, Smith's accomplice, yes, a woman. But only whispers.

And then a blur of voices, as if many calls had fused into a cloud of static. He hung up.

Then, flinching, he redialed and got the same sounds. An electric surf, neither men's nor women's voices, riding each other, protesting, some demanding, some pleading, some …

Breathing
.

Breathing? He stifled the phone. Breathing? In, out. Phones, he thought, do not inhale, exhale.

Smith, he thought, you bastard.

Why?

Because of the strange quality of this breathing.

Strange?

Slowly he brought it up to his ear.

The voices moved apart, and all …

Breathing heavily, as if they had run a long way. Running in
place
. In place? How could these voices, male, female, old, young, jog, race, run in place, hold still but rise, fall, up, down?

Then all gave cries, shrieked, gasped, sucked in, blew out.

His cheeks burned. Sweat rained from his chin. Jesus! Dear Jesus God!

The phone fell.

The bedroom door slammed.

 

At four-thirty
A.M.
Norma Conway let her arm fall near his face. She touched his chin and brow.

“My God,” she said. “You're sick.”

He stared at the ceiling. “I'm all right,” he said. “Go to sleep.”

“But …”

“I'm fine,” he said. “Unless …”

“Unless?”

“I can come over on your side of the bed.”

“With that fever?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“Nothing. Something.”

He turned, his breath a furnace.

Everything
, he thought, but did not say.

 

He ate a large breakfast. Norma stroked his brow and exhaled. “Thank God, it's gone.”

“Gone?” He shoveled in the bacon and eggs.

“Your fever. I felt it across the bed. You're ravenous. How
come?
”

He stared at his empty plate.

“I'll be damned, yes,” he said. “Sorry about last night.”

“Oh,
that
.” Norma laughed gently. “I just didn't want you to hurt yourself. Better move. It's nine. What about the phone?”

On his way out, he stopped.

“Phone?”

“The wall socket looks broken. Shall I call the phone company?”

He stared at the phone on the floor.

“No,” he said.

 

At the office, at noon, he took the crumpled note from his pocket.

“Stupid,” he said.

And dialed the number.

The phone rang twice and a voice came on. “The number you have dialed is no longer in service.”

“No longer in service!”

Almost instantly, a single line of type jumped up on the fax machine.

PL4-4559.

No signature, no address.

He dialed through to Smith.

“Smith, you bastard, what're you up to?”

“No good,” Smith said triumphantly. “The old number's out of commission. Good for just one night. Try the new one. See you, drinks and dumb-talk, yes?”

“Bastard!” Conway yelled and hung up.

And went to the drinking, dumb-talk lunch.

 

“Say it,” said Smith. “‘Smith, you s.o.b.' Sit. Your martini awaits. Put a straw in it.”

Conway swayed over the luncheon table, making fists.

“Sit,” said Smith.

Conway downed the martini.

“My, my, you're thirsty. Well,” Smith leaned forward. “Tell Papa. Upchuck. Confess.”

“No confessions!”

“Well then, what
almost
happened? Are you guilty, innocent, asking for mercy?”

“Shut up and drink your gin,” said Conway.

“Thanks, I will. In celebration.”

“Celebration?”

“Of the fact you now have the new number. The old one was a freebie. The new, if used, will cost fifty bucks. Tomorrow night,
another
new number, will run two hundred.”

“My God, why?!”

“You'll be fascinated. Hooked. Not able to stop. Next week, eight hundred. You'll pay.”

“
Will
I?!” Conway cried.

“Softly. Innocence rides free. Guilt costs. Your wife will question your bank balance.”

“She won't! It won't happen!”

“Lord, you're Joan of Arc run amok.
She
heard voices, too.”

“God's voices, not phone-sex whispers.”

“True, but still she died. Waiter! Keep the drinks coming. Agreed?”

Conway jerked his head.

“Why so mad?” Smith asked. “We haven't started lunch and—”

“I haven't been
told
things!” Conway said.

“All right, all right. Are you ready?”

Smith drew on the tablecloth with his knife, and talked to the lines.

“Are you familiar with the storm drains under L.A., the dry tunnels that channel our rains, our floods?”

“I know them, yes.”

“Uncover any manhole on any major street, step down in tunnels twenty miles long, all heading for the sea. All of a rainless year it's empty as a desert runoff. You must walk to the ocean someday with me, under the civilized world. Bored?”

“Continue,” said Conway.

“Wait.” Smith moistened his lips with his martini. “Imagine that every night at three
A.M.
the doors of every house on the block, every block in the tract, opened and shadows, men in their middle years, walked into the street and lifted the storm drain lids and stepped down into darkness, eh?—and moved toward that far sea they could not hear. But then it sounded louder and louder as they walked closer and closer with more shadows, all heading toward that surf at three in the morning, inhaling, exhaling, murmuring, sighing, and as they moved, as the fever from their faces lit the storm-drain walls, no need for lights, the fever does it, and the men find more tunnels in motion, a flood under houses, and the city asleep above, not knowing the surge of shadows yearning for a warm sea, whispering, wanting, in love with what? A crazed internet of flesh and blood.”

“Internet, no. Crazed? Yes!”

“But this is
real!
Not laptop films. Hungry men, rushing, whispering, elbows knocking, shoes scuffing cement, on, on, until they find that far shore on a night with no moon and dawn a salvation a million miles off, but no one
wants
saving as they flood the shore of that hot sea and stand, trembling, eyes wild, by the thousands, watching volcanic waves burn the shore.”

“What,” said Conway, “are they
doing
there?”

“Doing? They swim that roaring furnace, that suction, to drown, inhale, exhale out, far out. You heard it last night. So you had to come. The hairs all over your body jumped. Your mouth eats cold steel, gasps flames, right?”

“No!”

“Liar!”

“No,” said Conway. “What are those voices?”

“Homeless libidos, love-starved wannabees.”

“
What
love is starved,
what
do they wannabe?”

“Together.” Smith stirred his drink with his little finger. “To be
wildly
together.”

“How?”

“By its sound, can't you
guess?
To be part of that lost soul circuit. To throw themselves in that sea of lust. Ever read Thoreau? He said most men lead lives of quiet desperation.”