“SHH—HH!” An extremely tall, slender Oriental man wagged a long, pointy finger in our direction. His disapproving frown relaxed as he turned back to the book he was perusing. It was a tome on table-tennis rackets.
“It’s almost closing time,” Phoebe whispered. “Just sit down and wait, and then we’ll be able to talk.”
I took a seat at a nearby table and leafed through a magazine.
The little old lady strode up to the desk and slammed Lady Chatterley’s Lover down in front of Phoebe. “Miz Phreeby,” she announced loudly, “this is a disgusting and immoral book!”
“Shh.” Phoebe tried to quiet her.
“Don’t you shush me, young lady! I tell you this book is pornographic trash designed to appeal to the prurient interest!”
“You don’t have to read it,” Phoebe pointed out.
“I have already read it, and I have been revolted and offended with each disgusting page!”
“Then why did you go on reading? Why didn’t you stop!”
“Because, as a responsible member of this community, it is my self-imposed duty to read works of a questionable nature. Having done so, I am now ordering you to withdraw this filth from the shelves of this library!”
“I don’t have the authority to do that. And you don’t have the authority to order me to do it.”
“Then I shall confiscate it!”
“All right.” Liberty pressed a dater to an ink-pad, stamped a card, and inserted it in the book. “You can confiscate it for two weeks,” she told the old lady. “After that you’ll have to pay three cents a day overtime charges.”
“Humph!” She turned on her heel and started out.
“Don’t forget your matches,” Phoebe called after her.
“Matches?” She turned around, puzzled. “I. don’t smoke. And I don’t allow anyone to smoke in my presence.”
“Not for smoking,” Phoebe told her. “For burning.”
“Burning what?”
“Why not start with ‘A’ for ‘Aristophanes’?” Phoebe suggested.
The old lady snorted and exited in a huff. The lanky Oriental followed her out. A moment later the man Phoebe had identified as a possible Russian agent appeared from the stacks.
He waited at the door until Phoebe came over. Then he whispered something to her and left. She locked the door behind him. When she turned to face me, she was pale with fear.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He warned me not to tell you anything. He said I’d be killed if I did.”
“If you have reason to think he’s a Russian agent, why haven’t you contacted the authorities?” I wondered.
“Because it would mean putting my own neck in a noose.” She sighed. “It’s all so complicated. I-—”
“What the hell?” Suddenly all the lights had gone out.
“An automatic timer,” Phoebe explained. “It turns off all the lights at closing time. Let’s go to the staff room,” she suggested. “There’s a lamp there that isn’t hooked into the timer. Also a hot plate. We can have coffee and talk.”
Walking beside her down the darkened aisle toward the rear of the library, I realized how tall she was, almost as tall as I was myself. I also noticed that she was trembling. I didn’t blame her. I wouldn’t have thought a library could seem so spooky in the dark.
When we reached the back wall, Phoebe paused. There was a window there. It was open.
“I locked that myself not three-quarters of an hour ago.” Although the breeze from the window was balmy and warm, she hugged herself as if suddenly chilled.
I thought of the stocky man in the snug-fitting tweeds and his threat to her. I closed the window and locked it. We continued down the passageway paralleling the rear wall until we came to the door to the staff room.
Phoebe opened it, lit a table lamp, and locked the door behind us. It was a cozy place. There was a couch with end tables and lamps. Across from it were some wall cabinets, a sink, and a long shelf. There was a hot plate, a large coffeepot, and some cups and saucers on the shelf. Phoebe busied herself preparing the coffee. I sat down on the couch.
“This is the staff room. And I”-—Phoebe smiled ruefully——“am the entire staff. It isn’t much, but it’s my only refuge from the local literati.”
“And the Mafia.” I steered the conversation.
“Liberty told you about that? Yes. And the Mafia. They really scared me back in Darnell. Little did I guess that there were worse things than the Mafia closing in on me.”
“Such as?”
“I hardly know where to start.”
“Start with Tom Swift,” I suggested.
“Tom Swift! I wish I’d never known him!” Phoebe was bitter. “He’s the reason everybody and his brother is out to kill me!”
“You were involved with him?”
“Yes.”
“Umm. Intimately?” I asked delicately.
“I suppose that’s true. In a strange sort of way.”
“When did you meet him?”
“I’ve never met him personally. That is, I’ve never actually seen him.”
“But you said you were intimately involved.” I was confused.
“We were.”
“I guess I didn’t make myself clear. I mean sexually involved.”
“So do I.”
“But you’ve never met?” Things weren’t getting any clearer.
“That’s right.”
“A neat trick,” I told her sarcastically.
“The neatest.” Phoebe put the coffee on to boil, sat down next to me on the couch, and proceeded to elaborate. “My first contact with Tom Swift was about a year ago on a toll-free-loop-around in Salt Lake City. You know What a toll-free-loop-around is?”
I looked blank.
Phoebe explained how virtually all telephone exchanges hold open a pair of numbers to be used for testing trunk lines by other exchanges out of their area. The two numbers are hooked up with an open line and are usually the same except for the last digit, which is usually consecutive. Thus the paired test numbers might be nine-five-six-oh-four-oh-four. Any two people, calling from anywhere, by dialing these numbers at the same time, will be connected with each other without charge. The setup is known as a "toll-free-loop-around,” and even amateur phone phreaks have compiled lists of such numbers for exchanges all over the country.
“In those days I had two phones,” Phoebe told me. “And I used to use toll-free-loop-arounds to call myself up.”
“Why?” I asked.
“To talk to myself.”
“What about?”
“You know.” She giggled. “I’d tell myself sexy things. Or maybe read from a spicy book. Things like that. The kick was hearing my own voice in my ear sounding so erotic. The more I listened, the more turned on I’d get and the sexier my voice would sound. It was a gas!”
To each his own!
“Then one night,” Phoebe continued, “there was another voice, a man’s voice, and it was whispering things I’d never even thought about before. It really got to me.”
“Tom Swift?”
“Right. He’d M.F.-ed into this Salt Lake loop-around and listened to me until it got to him. Then he cut into the scene himself. That was how it started. We talked a little and agreed to hook up again on a Memphis loop-around the next night. Pretty soon we were doing it regularly. Oh, those nights! And how the days used to drag until it was time to call!”
“You were long-distance lovers and you never met,” I summed up.
“Were we ever! The things that man could do over a telephone! And the things he taught me! He opened up the whole world of phone tripping to me. He introduced me long-distance to other phreaks and-—”
“Did you . . . umm . . . you know . . . with them, too?”
“Oh, no. I was always faithful to Tom. Even after our affair ended, I never made it phone-wise with anybody else. Only with myself.”
“You mean you went back to auto-eroticism? To calling yourself up?”