“You hear me, Dumbo? Why don’t you say something?”
Dumbo reached the lower level and passed the door to the longitudinal corridor.
“Not that way, mother.” Carl caught her shoulder from behind.
She wrenched free and ran. Carl gave a startled grunt and came after her, his footfalls speeding up as he remembered the armoury. Dumbo burst through the door, throwing herself towards the rifle rack. Carl’s hand raked down her back. She snatched one of the weapons by the barrel and swung it blindly, hoping to find Carl’s belly. He had fallen forward on to his hands and knees, and the rifle butt opened his face like a purse. He rolled on to his back, unconscious, with a bright red bubble quivering at each nostril.
Dumbo placed the rifle butt on his upturned throat and bore down with all the weight of her big, soft body.
Morning sunlight streamed across the breakfast table, making it glow like an altar.
Dumbo set out five dishes of hot porridge and went to fetch the children who were tumbling noisily outside. She hummed quietly to herself as she watched the boys eat, taking pride in the very smell of the good, simple food. As soon as she was sure the children had everything they needed she loaded a wooden tray and carried it into Carl’s room.
“Come on, darling,” she said brightly. “I know you don’t feel like eating, but you must make the effort.”
Carl sat up in the bed and touched his bandaged face. “What is this?” The words came slowly through swollen lips.
“It’s your breakfast, of course. I’ve made your favourites today. Now eat up so you’ll get well quickly.”
He stared up at Dumbo for a moment, then his face relaxed.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said wonderingly. “I thought you were going to kill me, but you must have realised you couldn’t make out here on your own.”
“Eat up, darling. Don’t let your breakfast get cold.” Dumbo fluffed up the pillows to support Carl’s back.
Carl shook his head, chuckling with relief. “Well, I’ll be damned. And you even had sense enough to go back on the shots.”
Dumbo leaned down on the bed to get her face close to his.
“Correction,” she said coldly. “I haven’t taken a shot. Not yet. I took a fresh lot of the drug from the store and primed the gun with it, but I haven’t taken the shot yet. I wanted to wait.” She glanced at the watch on her wrist.
“Wait for what?” Carl pushed the tray away. “What are you doing with my watch?”
“I waited to see your face, of course. I could have taken the shot earlier, when you were still sleeping, but I would have become Dumbo again and wouldn’t have understood what was happening. Would I?”
“Get off my bed,” Carl said thickly. “I’m getting up. Where’s the hypo gun?”
“Don’t rush, darling,” Dumbo pushed him back on to the pillows. “Let me tell you what I’ve been doing while you were asleep. First of all, I brought you here from the ship, and that took ages because I had to drag you most of the way. Then I put you to bed and fixed your face and a little while ago, while the oven was warming up, I went back to the ship and …’ she glanced at the watch again,”… listen, darling.”
Carl pushed her away savagely, using his knees. He half-rose in the bed, spilling the tray of food, then froze as the sound reached the house.
It was a distant multiple explosion.
“What was that?” His shocked eyes hunted across her face.
“That, darling, was your organ bank. I had no idea the grenades would make such a noise. I hope they haven’t worried the children. I must see how they are.” She paused at the door and looked back.
Carl was kneeling naked on the bed.
“Oh, yes,” Dumbo said. “I musn’t forget this.”
She took the hypo gun from a pocket, fired the charge into her wrist and went out to the startled boys. By the time she had washed up the breakfast things and tidied the room the walls no longer seemed like metal. She went to the window and looked out. Her roses shone redly in the peaceful morning air. It was going to be yet another perfect day.
Dumbo smiled as she watched the boys at play. She hoped the next child would be a girl because that was what Carl wanted more than anything else in the world.
And all she wanted was to be his wife.
Repeat Performance
The trouble came to a head when they picked on Milton Pryngle.
Do you remember him? In old movies he was usually the harassed, exasperated hotel clerk. He was short and dapper, with a petulant round face and an exquisite slow burn which I have always considered the equal of Edgar Kennedy’s. And when they picked on him, they had gone too far.
Perhaps I’m wrong about when this mess started. Perhaps, if I was one of those people who think deeply about causes and effects—like my projectionist, Porter Hastings—I would say it all began in my childhood. I was a fanatical moviegoer from the age of seven and before reaching high school had already decided that the only business worth considering was owning a theatre. Twenty years later I finally made it and, although I hadn’t foreseen the effects of things like colour television, was still convinced it was the best life in the world. Mine is a small suburban theatre—a stucco cube which had once been white and now is an uncertain yellow, with streaks of saffron where the gutters are particularly bad—but I make sure it’s clean inside, and my choice of repertory movies attracts a steady flow of customers. There are plenty of old films on television, but they get chopped up too much, and any connoisseur knows the only way to appreciate their flavour is in the original nostalgic atmosphere of the stalls.
Anyway, the trouble sneaked up on me a month or so ago—in disguise. I was standing beside the box office watching the mid-week crowd trickle out into the blustery darkness. Most of the faces were familiar to me, and I was nodding good-night to about every other one when C. J. Garvey shuffled past me, turned up his coat collar and disappeared through the outer door. His name probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but C. J. Garvey was a bit player in upwards of a hundred undistinguished movies, always as a kindly, world-wise pawnbroker. I doubt if he ever spoke more than three lines, but any time a script called for a kindly, world-wise pawnbroker, Garvey was automatically the man.
I was surprised to discover he was still alive, and amazed to find him going to a movie in a small-town theatre in the mid-West. The thing which really got me, however, was the magnitude of the coincidence—the main feature that night was The Fallen Rainbow and Garvey was in it, playing his usual role. Filled with a sentimental yearning to let the old guy know his movie career had not gone entirely unnoticed, I hurried out on to the front steps but there was no sign of him in the windy, rain-seeded night. I went back in and met Porter Hastings coming down the stairs from the projection room. He appeared worried.
“We had that dim-out tonight again, Jim,” he said. “That’s the third Wednesday night in a row.”
“It can’t have been serious—there weren’t any complaints.” I was in no mood for technical trivialities. “Do you know who walked out through that door just a minute ago? C. J. Garvey!”
Hastings looked unimpressed. “It’s as if there was some kind of a power drain. A real massive one which sucks all the juice out of my projectors for a few seconds.”
“Listen to what I’m saying, Port. C. J. Garvey had a bit part in The Fallen Rainbow—and he was in our audience tonight in person.”
“Was he?”
“Yes. Just think of the coincidence.”
“It doesn’t seem much of a coincidence to me. He was probably passing through town, saw that one of his old movies was showing here and stopped by to have a look at it. Straightforward cause and effect, Jim. What I’d like to know is what goes on around here on Wednesday nights to overload the power supplies like that. Our regulars will be noticing these dim-outs and getting the idea I can’t handle the job.”