“Miss Betty, she can get anything you want, Mister Jack. Anything. Miss Betty, she thinks the world of you.”
“She does?” He rubbed the touchy point of his skull. “She’s an excitable girl, all right. Can I walk around outdoors?”
“Oh, no, Mister Jack! Miss Betty, she said to keep the doors locked so tramps can’t break in.”
He got up from the table, thanked Hilda for the breakfast, and said he’d like to see the rest of the house. Hilda invited him to make himself at home, and said if there was anything he wanted, send Bumble. Send Bumble.
He soon discovered what she had implied. The faithful Bumble dogged his every footstep, grinning at the back of his head as if it were a constant, ludicrous joke. Well, he reflected, perhaps it was.
He inspected the basement first; looked admiringly at the big red pump that sucked up water from the spring, at the hot water heater, at the oil burner which saved Bumble so many hours of labor of shoveling coal and carrying ashes. There was a fruit room well stocked with scores of jars of home-canned food, a barrel of homegrown and hand-wrapped apples, and five cases of beer.
He pulled a bottle out of the uppermost case. It was cool from the temperature of the basement but not cold enough to drink. Suggestively, he turned to Bumble and held out the bottle. Bumble grinned, turned to dash up the stairs, and was back again in seconds with an ice-cold bottle.
Horne accepted it, thanked him, and made as if to offer a bottle to Bumble. The giant Negro made a negative wag of his head, his grin never lessening. Horne replaced the bottle in the case and continued his tour, sipping from the cold bottle. Bumble followed him.
The bungalow had five rooms. Upstairs again, he saw a door leading off the kitchen and guessed it was the bedroom of Hilda and Bumble. He didn’t go in but crossed the kitchen and entered the short corridor. Hilda was making up the bed he had recently climbed out of. She was singing to herself, punctuating the song with gleeful chuckles.
He ignored her and tried another closed door directly opposite the bedroom. It was firmly locked. A Corbin lock, he noted, was set in the door above the regular lock built into the doorknob assembly. Double locked.
The source, he thought to himself, the source, the stockpile, the root of the evil. From that room had undoubtedly come the little red cylinder the size of a quarter and perhaps three or four inches long. There might be more in there. The little red things that had blown a man to hell and made a crater in the street deep enough for a man to walk in.
Betty carried the keys. She would always carry the keys, but not in her purse. Comparatively speaking, that wasn’t a safe place. A purse could be mislaid, lost or stolen. The keys must never be mislaid, lost or stolen. Betty would carry those keys on her person.
The fifth room occupied the entire width of the house in front and was the size of two rooms.
There was a fireplace at one end, flanked by glassed-in bookcases that reached from the floor to the ceiling. Before the fireplace was a long, low divan that seemed to fill that end of the room; it was at least eight feet in length. It faced the fireplace.
He walked to the windows facing the front.
The latticed fence blocked off all sight, entwined as it was with thick greenery, including what seemed to be hundreds upon hundreds of pink and red roses. From somewhere on the other side of that fence, far away and heard very dimly in the airtight house, was the sound of speeding automobiles on a paved highway.
There was also the ever-present dog, glaring at his face. He wished it would go away, or at least turn tail to him.
He inspected the room. Betty was one who liked the best in comfort at home and cared not a whit for formality. The room was a living room, a rumpus and game room, an everything room. One corner contained a small bar. There was a juke box which would play continuously, when switched on, without coins being fed into it. There was a long and sinfully soft studio couch.
He walked to the bookcases to see what she read.
Betty went in heavily for romances, both the pure, and the suggestive volumes. There were a couple of thin books of poetry he recognized. He had their counterparts at home, locked in the chest at the foot of the bed.
Somewhat idly he wondered if Sergeant Wiedenbeck would get around to opening that chest when they started searching for him. His keys were lying on the floor. Yes — the sergeant probably would. The sergeant would see the volumes of poetry and clamp his lips shut. And if he, Horne, were missing long, Wiedenbeck would make the druggist report every sale of the stuff. That... that was an idea.
At random Horne picked up a heavy volume. The title struck him as being ironic: The First Freedom. What was that Betty had harped on? “You’re property. My property.”
She regarded him as so much property, like Hilda, like the house and its electric gadgets, like the dog, like the books! The books... Military Aspects of Atomic Energy, Fission Materials, The Atom As A Weapon...
He stopped reading, stung.
Involuntarily, he glanced at the double-locked door. Bumble had wandered across the room to sit in one of the easy chairs, a picture book in his hands. The beer stood on the end table by the studio couch, forgotten.
Using his index finger, he counted the number of books dealing with atoms and atomic energy. There were fifteen that he recognized, perhaps more that he did not.
Horne’s thoughts spun back to the man he had watched at the bottom of the crater, the man holding the glass box, listening. He had supposed he knew the answer then; in his all-wiseness he thought he saw it all. But now, at the source, with the very obvious screaming at him from the bookshelves about him, he was suddenly a little afraid, unsure of what he had uncovered, afraid he was suddenly a part of it.
He turned on the Negro.
“Bumble — how does she do it?”
Bumble continued looking at the pictures.
“How does she do it?” Horne demanded desperately. “How can it be done on so small a scale? Those things aren’t like pineapples, to toss around or wire under a hood. They’re big! Little parts fit into big parts and pretty soon the last vital part is fitted into place and wham, it goes off. Nobody can reduce those things to red packages carried in a purse! Bumble! How does she do it?”
He raced across the floor.
The Negro looked up and grinned, showed him the picture book he was holding. It was Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.
Ten
He suddenly sensed her intimate, perfumed presence behind him. He didn’t turn. He was seated astraddle a chair by the window in her (his-? their-?) bedroom, exchanging stares with the watchdog.
The room had been filled with the clinging scent of her but this new thing was something fresh, something more personalized. He kept his back to her and looked out across the sun-drenched fields. His chin was in his hands.
She shocked him, twice.
She reached down and tenderly raked her long fingernails the length of his naked spine. And then, while the tingling was playing along his back, she bent over to kiss the back of his neck.
He jumped, upsetting the chair.
Betty screamed in delight. “Sissy!” she taunted.
He put the chair back on its feet and faced her. The wind created by the swift car had blown her auburn hair into a luxurious tangle about her head. The large black pupils were laughing at him deep within the green eyes.
She looked wonderful; wonderful and inviting.
But he said, “You go to hell.” There was no strength behind his words and they both realized it.
She wrinkled her nose. “You’ve been drinking.” Walking to the bedroom door she called into the kitchen, “Hilda! Draw two.” Presently the beaming Hilda appeared in the room with two freshly uncapped bottles of beer.