Time Out of Joint (14 page)

Ragle said, "You’re right."

The Kesselmans exchanged glances.

"I was driving around intending to commit suicide," Ragle said. "I meant to get up speed and leave the road. Crack up in a ditch. But I lost my nerve."

The Kesselmans stared at him in horror. "Oh no," Mrs. Kesselman said. She got up and started toward him. "Mr. Gumm—"

"My name’s not Gumm," Ragle said. But obviously they recognized him. Had recognized him from the start.

Everybody in the universe knows me. I shouldn’t be surprised. In fact I’m not surprised.

"I knew who you were," Mrs. Kesselman said, "but I didn’t want to embarrass you if you didn’t feel inclined to tell us."

Garret said, "If you don’t mind my asking, who is Mr. Gumm? I guess I should know, but I don’t."

His mother said, "Dear, this is the Mr. Gumm who keeps winning the contest in the Gazette. Remember last week on TV we saw that film about him." To Ragle, she said, "Oh, I know all about you. In 1937 I entered the Old Gold contest. I got all the way up to the top; I got every single puzzle right."

"She cheated, though," her son said. "Yes," Mrs. Kesselman said. "A girl friend and I used to slip out on our lunch hour with five dollars we pooled together, and buy a dope-sheet from a little old news vendor who slipped it to us from under the counter."

Garret said, "I hope you don’t mind sleeping down in the basement. It’s not really a basement; we made it into a rumpus room a few years back. There’s a bathroom and a bed down there ... we’ve been using it for guests who couldn’t make it back down the hill."

"You don’t still intend to—do away with yourself, do you?" Mrs. Kesselman asked. "Hasn’t that left your mind?"

"Yes," Ragle said.

With relief, she said, "I’m so glad. As a fellow contest enterer I’d take it very hard. We’re all looking to you to keep winning."

"Just think," Garret said. "We’ll go down in history as the persons who kept—" he stumbled over the name—"Mr. Gumm from yielding to the impulse toward self-destruction. Our names will be linked with his. Fame."

"Fame," Ragle agreed.

Another round of Tennessee sour-mash whiskey was poured. The three of them sat about the living room, drinking it and watching one another.

NINE

The door chimes rang. Junie Black dropped her magazine and got up to answer it.

"Telegram for Mr. William Black," the uniformed Western Union boy said. "Sign here, please." He handed her a pencil and pad; she signed and received the telegram.

Closing the door she carried the telegram to her husband. "For you," she said.

Bill Black opened the telegram, turned away so that his wife couldn’t read it over his shoulder, and saw what it had to say.

CYCLE MISSED TRUCK. GUMM PASSED BAR-B-Q. YOUR GUESS.

Never send a boy to do a man’s job, Bill Black said to himself. Your guess is as good as mine. He glanced at his wristwatch. Nine-thirty P.M. Later and later. It was too late now.

"What’s it say?" Junie asked.

"Nothing," he said. I wonder if they’ll find him, he wondered. I hope so. Because if they don’t some of us will be dead by this time tomorrow. God knows how many thousands of dead people. Our lives depend on Ragle Gumm. Him and his contest.

"It’s a catastrophe," Junie said. "Isn’t it? I can tell by the expression on your face."

"Business," he said. "City business."

"Oh indeed?" she said. "Don’t lie to me. I’ll bet it has something to do with Ragle." Suddenly she snatched the telegram away from him and rushed out of the room with it. "It is!" she cried, standing off by herself and reading the telegram. "What did you do —hire somebody to kill him? I know he’s disappeared; I was talking to Margo on the phone and she says—"

He managed to get the telegram back from her. "You haven’t got any idea what this means," he said with mighty control.

"I can tell what it means. As soon as Margo told me Ragle had disappeared—"

"Ragle didn’t disappear," he said, almost at the end of his mighty control. "He walked off."

"How do you know?"

"I know," he said.

"You know because you’re responsible for his disappearance."

In a sense, Bill Black thought, she’s right. I’m responsible because, when he and Vic popped out of that clubhouse, I thought they were kidding. "Okay," he said. "I’m responsible."

Her eyes changed color. The pupils became tiny. "Oh I hate you," she said, shaking her head. "I wish I could slit your throat."

"Go ahead," he said. "Maybe it would be a good idea."

"I’m going next door," Junie said.

"Why?"

"I’m going to tell Vic and Margo that you’re responsible." She hurried to the front door; he went after her and caught hold of her. "Let me go," she said, yanking away from him. "I’m going to tell them that Ragle and I are in love with each other, and if he survives your vicious—"

"Sit down," he said. "Be quiet." And then he thought again of Ragle not being around to work tomorrow’s puzzle. Panic got started in him, then, and began to control him. "I feel like getting into the closet," he told his wife. "No," he said, "I feel like burrowing down into the floor. Down into the ground."

"Infantile guilt," Junie said, with derision.

Bill Black said, "Fear. Plain fear."

"You’re ashamed."

"No," he said. "Infantile fear. Adult fear."

" ’Adult fear,’ ’’ Junie snorted. "There’s no such thing."

"Yes there is," he said.

Garrett laid a folded, fresh bath towel on the arm of the chair, and, with it, a washrag and a bar of soap in its wrapper. "You’ll have to get along without pajamas," he said. "The bathroom is through this door." He opened a door, and Ragle saw down a narrow corridor, like a ship’s passage, to a cramped, closet-like bathroom at the far end.

"Fine," Ragle said. The liquor had made him sleepy. "Thanks," he said. "I’ll see you tomorrow."

"There’s plenty of books and magazines in the rumpus room itself," Garret said. "If you can’t sleep and want to read. And there’s a chess set and other games. None for one person, though."

He departed. Ragle heard his footsteps as he climbed the stairs to the first floor. The door at the top of the flight of stairs closed.

Sitting down on the bed, Ragle tugged his shoes off and let them drop to the floor. Then he caught hold of them with a finger in each, hoisted them high, and searched for a place to put them. He noticed a shelf running along the wall; on the shelf was a lamp, a wind-up clock, and a small white plastic radio.

As soon as he saw the radio he put his shoes back on, buttoned up his shirt, and dashed out of the room to the stairs.

They almost fooled me. But they gave themselves away. He ascended two steps at a time and pushed open the door at the top. Only a minute or so had passed since Garret Kesselman had preceded him. Ragle stood in the hallway, listening. From a distance came the sounds of Mrs. Kesselman’s voice.

She’s getting in touch with them. Calling them on the phone or broadcasting to them. One way or another. With as little noise as possible he moved along the hall, in the direction of her voice. The hall, dark, ended at a half-open door. Light streamed out into the hall, and as he got near he saw into a dining room.

Wearing a robe and slippers, her hair up in a turban, Mrs. Kesselman was feeding a small black dog from a dish on the floor. Both she and the dog started with surprise as Ragle pushed the door open. The dog backed away and began to bark in a rapid staccato.

"Oh," Mrs. Kesselman said. "You scared me." In her hands she held a box of dog biscuits. "Did you need something?"

Ragle said, "There’s a radio downstairs in my room."

"Yes," she said.

"That’s how they communicate," Ragle said.

"Who?"

"They," he said. "I don’t know who they are, but they’re all around me. They’re the ones who are after me." And, he thought, you and your son are two of them. You almost had me. Too bad you forgot to hide the radio. But probably you didn’t have time.

From the hallway Garret appeared. "Everything okay?" he asked, in a worried voice.

To him his mother said, "Dear, close the door so I can talk to Mr. Gumm alone. Will you?"

"I want him in here," Ragle said. He moved toward Garret, who blinked and backed away, his arms flapping helplessly. Closing the door Ragle said, "There’s no way I can tell if you’ve called to say I’m here. I’ll have to take the chance that you haven’t had time."

I don’t know where else to go, he thought. Certainly not tonight.

"Now what’s this about?" Mrs. Kesselman said. Stooping down, she resumed the feeding of the dog. The dog, after a few more barks at Ragle, returned to his food. "You’re being pursued by a group of people and you say we’re part of that group. Then that business about your ’committing suicide’ is something you made up."

"I made it up," he agreed.

"Why are they pursuing you?" Garret said.

Ragle said, "Because I’m the center of the universe. At least, that’s what I’ve inferred from their actions. They act as if I am. I only have that to go on. They’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to construct a sham world around me to keep me pacified. Buildings, cars, and entire town. Natural looking, but completely unreal. The part I don’t understand is the contest."

"Oh," Mrs. Kesselman said. "Your contest."

"Evidently it plays a vital role with them," Ragle said. "But I’m baffled. Do you know?"

"I don’t know any more than you do," Mrs. Kesselman said. "Of course, we always hear that these big contests are rigged ... but except for the usual rumors—"

"I mean," Ragle said, "do you know what the contest really is?"

Neither of them spoke. Mrs. Kesselman, her back to him, continued feeding the dog. Garret sat down on a chair and crossed his legs, leaning back with his hands wrapped behind his head, trying to appear calm.

"Do you know what I’m really doing every day?" Ragle said. "When I’m supposedly plotting where the little green man will show up next? I must be doing something else. They know, but I don’t."

Both the Kesselmans were silent.

"Had you called?" Ragle asked them.

Garret quivered with embarrassment. Mrs. Kesselman seemed shaken, but she continued to feed the dog.

"Can I look through the house?" Ragle said.

"Surely," Mrs. Kesselman said, straightening up. "Look, Mr. Gumm. We’re doing the best we can to accommodate you. But—" With a wild gesture she burst out, "Honestly, you’ve got us both so upset we hardly know what we’re doing. We never saw you before in our lives. Are you crazy—is that it? Maybe you are: you certainly are acting as if you are. I wish now you hadn’t come here; I wish—" She hesitated. "Well, I started to say I wished you’d gone off the road with your car. It isn’t fair to us to cause us all this trouble."

"That’s right," Garret murmured.

Am I making a mistake? Ragle asked himself.

"Explain the radio," he said aloud.

"There’s nothing to explain," Mrs. Kesselman said. "It’s an ordinary five-tube radio that we got right after World War Two. It’s been down there for years. I don’t even know if it works." Now she seemed angry. Her hands trembled and her face had become strained, pinched with fatigue. "Everybody owns a radio. Two or three of them."

Ragle opened each of the doors that led off the dining room. One of them opened onto a storage closet, with shelves and bins. He said, "I want to look around the house. Get in here, so I won’t have to worry about what you’re doing while I look." In the lock there was a key.

"Please," Mrs. Kesselman began, glaring at him and almost inarticulate.

"Just for a few minutes," he said.

They glanced at each other. Mrs. Kesselman made a sign of resignation, and then they walked wordlessly into the closet. Ragle closed it and threw the bolt. He put the key in his pocket.

Now he felt better.

At its dish, the black dog watched him intently. Why is it watching me? he wondered. And then he noticed that the dog had finished its food and was hoping that he would give it more. The package remained on the long dinner table where Mrs. Kesselman had left it; he sprinkled a few more dog biscuits into the dish and the dog fell to eating again.

From within the closet Garret’s voice was distinctly audible. "... face it—he’s a nut."

Ragle said, "I’m not a nut. I’ve watched this thing grow step by step. At least, I’ve become aware of it step by step."

Mrs. Kesselman said to him through the closet door, "Look, Mr. Gumm. It’s clear to us that you believe what you say. But don’t you see what you’re doing? Because you believe everyone’s against you, you force everyone to be against you."

"Like ourselves," Garret said.

There was a lot in what they said. Ragle, uncertainly, said, "I can’t take any chances."

"You have to take a chance with someone," Mrs. Kesselman said. "Or you can’t live."

Ragle said, "I’ll look through the house and then I’ll make up my mind."

The woman’s voice, controlled and civilized, went on, "At least call your family and tell them you’re all right. So they won’t worry about you. They’re probably quite upset."

"You should let us call them," Garret said. "So they wouldn’t phone the police or something."

Ragle left the dining room. First he inspected the living room. Nothing seemed out of order. What did he intend to find? The same old problem ... he wouldn’t know until he found it. And perhaps even then he wouldn’t be sure.

On the wall, beyond a small spinet piano, hung a telephone, a bright pink plastic phone with a curly plastic cord. And upright, in the bookcase, the phone book. He lifted the book out.

It was the same phone book as the one Sammy had found in the vacant lot. He opened it. Written, in pencil, red crayon, ball-point pen and fountain pen, were numbers and names on the blank first page. Addresses, jotted notations of dates, times, events ... the current phone book, in use in this house by these people. Walnut, Sherman, Kentfield, Devonshire numbers.

The number on the wall phone itself was a Kentfield number.

So that settled that.

Carrying the book he strode back through the house, into the dining room. He got out the key and unlocked the closet door, swinging it wide.

The closet was empty. A large hole had been neatly cut in the rear wall, a still-warm rim of wood and plaster through which showed one of the bedrooms. They had cut a passage out in a matter of minutes. On the floor, by the hole, lay two tiny drill-like points; one had been bent, damaged and scored. The wrong size. Too small. And the other, probably not tried; they had found the right size and finished the job, scrambled out in such haste that they had forgotten these parts of the cutting-tool.

Holding the drill-like points in the palm of his hand he saw that they were like nothing he had ever seen before. In all his life.

While they had talked reasonably and rationally, they had been cutting through the back wall.

I’m hopelessly outclassed, he said to himself. I might as well give up.

He made a cursory tour of the house. No sign of them. The back door banged open and shut in the late-evening wind. They had gone outside. Left the house entirely. He sensed the emptiness of the house. Only he and the dog. Not even the dog; there was no sign of it, now. The dog had gone with them.

He could plunge out onto the road; possibly somewhere in the house was a flashlight he could take. There might even be a heavy coat he could wear. With luck, he could march a good distance before the Kesselmans had time to return with support. He could hide in the woods, wait until daylight. Try to reach the highway ... try to hike all the way to the bottom of the hill, however many miles it was.

What a dismal prospect. He shrank from it; he needed rest and sleep, not more walking.

Or—he could stay in the house, and in the time left to him explore it as fully as possible. Learn as much as he could before they got him in tow again.

The latter appealed to him, if it had to be one or the other.

He returned to the living room. This time he opened drawers and cupboards and poked into the ordinary objects, such as the television set in the corner.

On top of the television set, mounted in a mahogany frame, was a tape recorder. He snapped the switch, and a reel of tape, already on the mechanism, began to move. After a moment or so the screen of the television set lit up. The tape, he realized, was for video use, as well as audio. Standing back, he watched the screen.