“Believe me,” said Lester, “you are not half so disturbed as I am. What’s more, it has occurred to me that I’m the only one who is being threatened all over the place with all sorts of mayhem, and I’d like to know why.”
“Well, it’s in a good cause,” Uncle Homer said. “You owe something to your family, my boy.”
“Lester can’t help being cowardly,” Hester said, “and we mustn’t blame him for it. Lester, did you even get a glimpse of Senorita Fogarty while you were there?”
“No, I didn’t. She was closed in Mrs. Crump’s room, and I was denied visiting privileges. Moreover, she’s under the weather, mourning for Grandfather. Mrs. Crump plans to cure her with oatmeal and sex.”
The abrupt disclosure of this news made Uncle Homer jerk so violently that his martini slopped over and the olive leaped out of the glass onto the floor.
“Sex!” he said. “Did you say sex?”
“That’s what I said, and I’ve been trying to say it ever since I got here. Mrs. Crump is determined on a stud.”
“Can’t something be done to stop her?” said Flo. “Can’t she be arrested for flagrant immorality or something?”
“She says it’s not immoral,” Lester said. “She says all dogs are born married.”
“Is that true? Hester, are all dogs born married?”
“Whether they are or not,” said Hester, “it has no biological significance. For my part, I am not concerned with that. As usual, you have allowed yourselves to be diverted by a secondary issue. My concern is with the oatmeal.”
“Oatmeal?” Uncle Homer said. “Oatmeal won’t keep the damn dog from getting pregnant. Will it? If it will, I never heard of it.”
“It won’t keep her from getting pregnant,” said Hester, “but it could keep her from becoming a mother. It could, that is, if it were loaded with arsenic or something.”
“Hester, darling, you’re perfectly right,” Flo said. “Arsenic in Senorita Fogarty’s oatmeal would settle everything satisfactorily.”
“Well, someone go and put it in,” said Uncle Homer. “Lester, you go.”
“Not I,” Lester said. “I was there once, and I absolutely refuse to go back.”
“There’s no great hurry,” said Hester. “I don’t know just what the gestation period for a Chihuahua is, but at least it is long enough to allow us time to proceed carefully. It would never do to fail in this as miserably as Lester has failed in corrupting Mrs. Crump.”
“Well, it will have to be done sooner or later,” Uncle Homer said, “and in my opinion Lester should be required to do it. After all, he is the one who started the whole thing.”
“Like hell,” Lester said. “I won’t do it.”
“Has anyone thought how it’s to be done?” Flo said. “How is it?”
“I don’t know,” said Hester. “I’m trying to think of a way.”
“Maybe you had better have a martini after all,” Uncle Homer said. “It will sharpen your wits.”
9
It was no later than the next day, as things went, that Lester’s resolution regarding the arsenic in the oatmeal began to waver. He had been driven by desperation into taking a walk, a form of extreme exercise that was a fair measure of his need for therapy. He had a vague idea that it would assemble his addled thoughts and somehow remove his troubles, but he was convinced after a few blocks that walking as therapy was greatly overrated, if not a plain fraud, and he returned to his apartment with the idea of resorting to gin, which was a proven treatment that could be relied upon in many cases, although not all.
Flo, who had been out when he left, was back when he returned, and came at once to the door of her bedroom to see who was there.
“Oh,” she said. “Is it you, Lester, darling?”
“As you can see,” he said, “it is.”
“I wondered where you were. Where were you?”
“If you must know, I was taking a walk.”
“A walk? Whatever for?”
“Because I wanted to, that’s what for.”
“Well, it seems like an absurd thing to do for no better reason than that. I must say, Lester, that you’ve lately become very difficult to understand. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“No, I’m not, as a matter of fact.”
“You must try to take a positive attitude, darling. Nothing is to be gained by always thinking the worst. By wandering off as you did, you missed a telephone call.”
“Telephone call? Who called? Was it Pearl?”
“No, it was a man. Someone called King Louie, I asked him King Louie who, and he said you’d know. Do you?”
“Unfortunately, I do. What did he want?”
“He wanted to talk with you, naturally, and I told him that you had just walked out for a while, never dreaming that you actually had gone on walking and walking, and then he said something that seemed odd, to say the least. He said walking was a very convenient thing to be able to do, and wouldn’t it be a shame if you couldn’t. What did he mean, exactly?”
“He meant exactly what he said. What else did he say?”
“Nothing much. He said he’d call you again later. Do you want to call him back?”
“No, I don’t. Excuse me, Mother. I think I’ll go lie down.”
“Why don’t you, darling? Clearly, you are not well.”
He went into his bedroom, but he didn’t lie down. He sat on the edge of his bed and tried to decide who was the more fearsome, King Louie or Mrs. Crump, and there didn’t seem to be much choice between the two. After a while, however, he decided that he might as well try to gain access to the oatmeal after all, inasmuch as King Louie’s hired laborers were a virtual certainty, barring solvency, whereas Mrs. Crump’s meat cleaver might, with luck, be avoided. It was a difficult decision, but having made it, he felt a little better, although not much, and he was able to give his attention to another problem that was on his mind, and the problem on his mind was Pearl.
He had not seen Pearl since they had gone to King Louie’s Lounge, and whenever he’d tried to see her she had been otherwise engaged, which meant in simplest terms that he was a candidate for consignment to the discard, if he hadn’t already been consigned. He had just about resigned himself to this humiliation, but now his resignation was disturbed by his instant hope that it was she who had called, and if he was going to take another precarious chance with Mrs. Crump, he thought, he at least owed himself another one first with Pearl. So thinking, he picked up his telephone and dialed Pearl’s number, and after a couple of rings he heard Pearl’s voice.
“Hello, Pearl,” he said. “This is Lester.”
“I know who it is, Lester. What do you want?”
“I was just sitting here thinking about you, and I thought I might run over and see you.”
“Think again.”
“Oh, come on, Pearl. There’s something important I want to tell you.”
“No, no, Lester. You mustn’t start lying again. I am having trouble enough being firm as it is.”
“Firm about what?”
“About not seeing you any more, of course. Frankly, Lester, you are the type of person a girl is always thinking about and wanting to see, even after it has obviously become a waste of time.”
“Let me come over, and we’ll see if it’s a waste of time.”
“That’s not what I mean, Lester. I admit that you are amusing when you are in the mood for it.”
“I’m in the mood now, damn it Are you?”
“I won’t say I’m not, but I can hardly afford distractions that come to nothing in the end but entertainment. You must realize, Lester, that you have been a great disappointment to me. I have to apply myself to projects with a reasonable chance of coming to something substantial.”