Growling a throaty to-hell-with-it he turned and stalked to the bathroom door. The room was tiled in cream and green. He opened a mirrored cabinet above the washstand and found his shaving needs.
They weren’t his own of course, but they were exact duplicates of everything he owned: the same type of razor and the blades made for it, the same kind of brushless shaving cream, the same brand of face lotion. A new toothbrush wrapped in cellophane hung beside the identical flavor of toothpaste he was currently using.
Dammit, he thought bitterly, she must have been watching over his shoulder! A year — an entire year, and he had never tumbled. To his dismayed face in the mirror he directed a thought: she knows you, too. Like a book, each and every page in the book. She said so! In fact, you must be page one.
He scrubbed and shaved page one.
He walked back to the window and showed his newly-shaven face to the dog. The animal apparently hadn’t moved and if it noticed any appreciable difference in the face, it gave no sign. He peered downward through the pane of glass searching for nails, but none were visible. Well, there remained only the third door.
Crossing over to it he put his fingers on the knob and rotated it silently. It moved with his fingers. Surprised, he pushed the door open. The corridor beyond the sill was empty but for the unseen, tantalizing odor of fresh coffee, bacon and eggs. He stepped cautiously into the corridor, without anyone taking a shot at him, punching his jaw or turning another dog loose. Encouraged, he turned to follow the beckoning odor of food to its source.
In the kitchen doorway he paused.
“A... hello,” he offered.
The buxom and middle-aged colored woman turned from the stove to survey him. Examining him from neatly-combed hair to the tips of his slippers, she suddenly chuckled. He wished he had a shirt.
“Good morning, Mister Jack,” she said, and motioned to the table. “Breakfast is ready for you.”
“I can use it,” he assured her. “My name isn’t Jack.”
The Negro woman pursed her lips into a friendly smile and studied his answer. She had shining white teeth that contrasted with her skin, interrupted only by one gold filling in the center of her mouth, upper row. She also had an unconscious habit of running a thumb back and forth over the filling when engaged in serious study. She did it now. She scanned him again, repeating the previous route from his head to his feet, and then back to his face.
She said, “Miss Betty, she said your name is Mister Jack. Sit down and eat your breakfus’. It’s pas’ nine a’clock.” And that closed the matter of his new name.
Mister Jack only grinned at her. “What’s your name?”
“Hilda, Mister Jack. Now sit down and eat.”
“But supposing I don’t want to, Hilda? Supposing I make trouble instead?”
Hilda favored him with a becoming smile. The gold filling shone. Somewhere inside her she was amused.
“Miss Betty, she said you might ask foolish questions like that. She said that’s what Bumble is here for.”
“She did, eh? And who is Bumble?”
Hilda pointed behind him. “That’s Bumble.”
“Mister Jack” pivoted very slowly and very carefully on his heels. Oh — yes: that would be Bumble.
Bumble was standing like Mount Everest in the doorway of the corridor he had just quitted. Bumble was grinning at him in comradely fashion, amiability and friendliness fairly oozing from his massive, idiotic face. Bumble was, furthermore, thoughtlessly playing with a regulation police nightstick of heavy mahogany.
The mountain called Bumble was a six-and-a-half-foot-tall, two hundred and forty pound Negro Adonis.
“Good morning, Bumble,” the detective said soothingly.
Bumble grinned the wider and remained mute.
“Shucks, Mister Jack,” Hilda broke in, “Bumble can’t hear nothing you say. He can’t hear nothing and he can’t talk nothing. He was born that way. But he’s a mighty good man, he is.”
“I don’t doubt it, Hilda; not a damned bit! I think I’ll eat now.”
She chuckled again and began transferring the hot meal from the stove to the table.
“This is wonderful!” he told her enthusiastically.
“I guessed you’d be hungry, Mister Jack. Miss Betty, she said you was in a fit when you come home last night. Menfolks are always hungry after they’s a fit.”
“I was in a fit?”
“Yessir, you sure was. Bumble carried you in.”
“He did? Oh. Yes — I guess I was pretty heavy. Ba— Betty couldn’t do it.” He massaged his head.
“Yessir. If you want more, just say so.”
“More of — oh, sure. Thanks.” He ate a few moments in silence and explored another avenue. “That’s a fine dog you have out there.”
“Yessir, Mister Jack, that’s a right smart dog! Miss Betty, she and Bumble trained him. There ain’t nothing that dog can’t do. You know what she calls him?”
“No, I don’t. I’m a stranger around here.”
She passed it over as if it meant nothing to her.
“Miss Betty, she calls him Winken, Blinken and Nod.” Hilda didn’t bother with a chuckle, she laughed outright this time. “That’s because he don’t almost ever sleep.”
“Betty has a keen sense of humor. For instance, she nailed down the windows to keep the flies out.”
“Oh, nossir, Mister Jack, that ain’t for flies. We spray for flies. All the windows is fastened shut. We got air-cooling!” She chortled it, proudly.
“Of course!” He stopped eating to stare at her. “I had noticed it was cooler in here than it looked outside, but I didn’t stop to think about it. Now imagine that — air-cooling!”
Hilda wanted to parade all the improvements in the house before him. She thoroughly enjoyed her modern domain.
“This is a fine house, Mister Jack. A wonderful house! Miss Betty, she’s got everything in this house. That there air-cooling ain’t half of it. We got electric lights and a’ electric stove and a’ electric icebox. And down in the cellar there a big, red electric pump that brings water right up from the spring. And we got hot water any time you want it; you just turn on the faucet. In the winter time Bumble don’t have to shovel no coal, there’s a’ oil burner. Mister Jack, we even got flush toilets!”
“No!”
“Yessir, just like in town!”
“That is certainly wonderful,” he agreed. “Just how far are we from town?”
Hilda’s proud grin vanished as completely as if it, too, were electric and he had pushed the wrong button.
“I don’t rightly know, Mister Jack,” she said shortly.
“Ummm. Are we all alone out here?”
“Oh, no, Mister Jack. Me and Bumble stay here.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I’m speaking of neighbors. I noticed we were away out in the country: how far away is the nearest house?”
Stiffly, “I couldn’t rightly say, Mister Jack.”
Mister Jack decided it was time to change the subject if he desired to keep on the good side of Hilda — which he earnestly wanted to do. Stupidity and cocksureness had got him into this. Brains were needed to get him out.
He cleaned up his plate without pushing the matter further, held out the empty coffee cup for a refill, and asked, “Where’s Betty?”
That was the right button. The electric Hilda smile and personality flooded back over him.
“She went away in the car, Mister Jack. She told me and Bumble to take good care of you. She said to tell you she was coming home pretty soon, maybe by lunch time, and if there was anything you wanted, me and Bumble was to get it for you. She said, if we haven’t got it here, she’d get it in town for you, Mister Jack.”
“Swell. I need a shirt. Size fifteen. Suppose she can manage it?”