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day, ten in the morning to three thirty in the afternoon. Bring me
sandwiches." He waved the sheaf of counterfeit letters and documents. "When
these are confetti and flushed away, my heart might slow down some you think?"
He went into the bathroom with them and I placed a credit card call, station
to station to the Santo offices, and after a short wait I got Mary Smith.
The approach, to be convincing, had to be that of the male who'd been brushed
off.
"McGee here," I said. "What was Santo's decision?"
"Oh. Trav. I've been so impatient for you to call, darling."
"I bet. What did he decide."
"I want to tell you something else first, because I have the hunch that if I
tell you first, you'll hang up."
"Can you think of any good reason why I shouldn't?"
"Darling, I can think of a very good reason. My darned telephone was acting
up. I knew it was you, but it just kept making a horrid ringing sound in my
ear when I picked it up." Her voice was intimate, cheery, persuasive.
"Nice try, kid."
"But I'm telling the truth! Really I am. What could make you possibly think I
wouldn't be there? If you want to be such a grouchy old bear, you can call the
phone company and ask them if a certain Mary Smith raised absolute hell with
them Saturday afternoon. I got the message you left at the office, and I left
one for you, hoping you'd call back."
"At least you make it sound good; Miss Smith."
"Travis, I know how disappointed and angry you must have been."
"How come the phone company couldn't fix the phone?"
"Actually they swore there was nothing wrong with it. They tested and tested,
and when I made them come back the second time, they took out the instrument
and put in a new one."
"Which didn't work either. Which didn't work on Saturday night."
"I... wasn't there."
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"You said you had the weekend open. So why didn't you hang around? How about
four o'clock Sunday morning, kid?"
"I... I was told you'd made other plans, dear."
"By who?"
"To tell you the truth, I drove up to Lauderdale just to find you. I saw that
fantastic boat of yours, dear. It must be a marvelous way of life. A man told
me you might be at a party on another boat and I went there, but a very
odd-looking girl told me I'd missed you and you might come back. So I waited
there. You can ask those people. A lot of them are your friends, I guess. It
is quite a... lively group. Then that strange girl came and told me that she
found out you had left with another girl, so you probably wouldn't be back.
So... you see, I really tried."
The persuasive lilt of her tone was dying away, fading back into the monotone
of a deadly exhaustion. "So even at four in the morning, you weren't home yet?
I guess you had a good time."
"Not terribly. But it was pleasant. I... called up an old friend and she
invited me over, and it got to be too late to drive back so they put me up for
the night, dear."
"So when did you get home?"
"I think it was about... ten o'clock last night. I spent the day with them.
Why, dear? You had a date, didn't you? There was hardly any point in roaring
home and sitting panting by the phone, was there? Listen, dear, I don't blame
you for having a date. After all, it was perfectly reasonable for you to
assume I stood you up, and so you said the hell with Mary Smith and her lousy
steak. Don't I get any points for driving all the way up there to find you?"
I said in a marveling tone, "And all it was was a phone out of order. You
know, there must be a hex on us."
"I guess there must be," she said. She sighed audibly and heavily.
"So expect a man at about nine tonight, honey, Okay?"
"Oh no, darling! I'm sorry."
"What now?"
"Well... I guess the hex is still working. I... uh... my friends have this
little boat at their dock. They live on a canal. And they were going to take
me out in the boat, and like a clumsy idiot I tripped somehow and fell
headlong, right off the dock into the boat. Honestly I'm an absolute ruin. I
was waiting for you to call so that I could get out of here and go home and
take a hot bath and go to bed. I've been tottering around here today like a
little old lady."
"Gee, honey, that must have been a nasty fall. Where did you hurt yourself?"
She gave a tired laugh. "Where didn't I? There were a lot of... you know...
fishing tackle things in the boat. I must have hit my mouth somehow because
it's all puffed out, and when I looked at myself head to toe in my mirror this
morning, I swear I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I'm battered and
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