Backteria and Other Improbable Tales (12 page)

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Smiling a little, she picked up the receiver and pushed back her reddish-blonde hair with the earpiece.

“Hello,” she said.

“Don Tyler there?” a man’s voice asked.

“No,” she said, “You must have the wrong number.”

The man laughed unpleasantly. “No, I guess not,” he said.

“What number are you calling?” Betty asked.

The man coughed loudly and Betty pulled the receiver away from her ear with a grimace.

“Listen,” the man said, hoarsely, “I wanna talk to Don Tyler.”

“I’m sorry but—”

“You married to him?” interrupted the man.

“Look here, if you—”

“I said I wanna talk t’ Don.” The man’s voice rose in pitch and Betty heard a distinct break in it.

“Hold the line,” she said, dumping the receiver unceremoniously on the table. She went back into the kitchen.

“Man says he wants Don,” she said, “Don
Tyler
though.”

“Oh?” Don grunted and started for the dining room. “Who is it?” he asked over his shoulder.

“
I
don’t know,” Betty said, starting to put cream on the chocolate pudding.

In the dining room she heard Don pick up the receiver and say hello. There was a moment’s silence. She smoothed the cream over the surface of the glossy pudding.

“
What
!” Don’s sudden cry made her start. She put down the cream bowl and went to the doorway. She looked at Don standing in the half-dark dining room, his face in a patch of light from the living-room lamp. His face was taut.

“Listen,” he was saying, “I don’t know what this is all about but—”

The man must have interrupted him. Betty saw Don’s mouth twitch as he listened. His shoulders twisted.

“You’re
crazy
!” he said suddenly, frowning. “I’ve never even
been
in Chicago!”

From where she stood, Betty could hear the angry sound of the man’s voice over the phone. She moved into the dining room.

“Look,” Don was explaining, “Look, get this straight, will you? My name is Martin, not Tyler. What are you—
listen
, I’m trying to tell you—”

The man cut him off again. Don drew in a ragged breath and gritted his teeth.

“
Look
,” he said, sounding half-frightened now, “If this is a joke, I—”

Betty saw him wince as the phone clicked. He looked at the receiver incredulously, then put it down in its cradle and stared at it, his mouth slightly open.

“Don, what
is
it?”

He jumped at the sound of her voice. He turned and looked at her as she walked over and stood in front of him.

“Don?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered.

“Who
was
it?”

“I don’t
know
, Betty,” he said, his voice on edge.

“Well…what did he want?”

His face was blank as he answered her.

“He said he was going to kill me.”

She picked up the towel with shaking fingers. “He said
what?
”

He looked at her without answering and their eyes held for a long, silent moment. Then he repeated it in a flat voice.

“But why, Don?
Why?
”

He shook his head slowly and swallowed.

“Do you think it’s a joke?” she asked.

“He didn’t sound like he was joking.”

In the kitchen the clock buzzed once for eight-thirty. “We’d better call the police,” Betty said.

He drew in a shaky breath.

“I guess so,” he said, his voice worried and uncertain.

“Maybe it was one of the men from your office,” she said, “You know they’re always—”

She saw from the bleak expression on his face that she was wrong. She stood there restively, clutching the towel with numbed fingers. It seemed as if all the sounds in the house had stopped, as if everything were waiting.

“We’d better call the police,” she said, her voice rising a little.

“Yes,” he said.

“Well,
call
them,” she said, nervously.

He seemed to snap out of it. He patted her on the shoulder and managed a thin smile.

“All right,” he said, “Clear up the dishes. I’ll call them.”

At the kitchen door she turned back to face him. “You were never in Chicago, were you?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

“I thought maybe you were there during the war.”

“I was never there,” he said.

She swallowed. “Well, be sure to tell them it’s a mistake,” she said, “Tell them the man asked for Tyler and your name is Martin. Don’t forget to—”

“All right, Betty, all
right
.”

“Sorry,” she murmured and went back into the kitchen.

She heard his low voice in the dining room, then the receiver being put down. Footsteps; he came back into the kitchen.

“What did they say?” she asked.

“They said it was probably some crank.”

“They’re coming over though, aren’t they?”

“Probably.”

“Probably! Don, for God’s sake—!” Her voice broke off in frightened exasperation.

“They’ll come,” he said then.

“That man said he was going to—”

“They’ll
come
,” he interrupted, almost angrily.

“I should hope so.”

In the silence, he pulled down a towel from the rack and started drying glasses. She kept washing the dishes, rinsing them and standing them in the rack to dry.

“Do you want any pudding?” she asked.

He shook his head. She put the pudding bowl into the refrigerator, then turned, her hand still on the door handle and looked at him.

“Haven’t you any idea who it might be?”

“I
said
I didn’t,” he answered.

Her mouth tightened. “Don’t wake up Billy,” she said, quietly.

He turned to face the cabinet and put glasses on the shelf.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m nervous. It isn’t everyday that—” He broke off and started drying the dishes, wooden-like.

“It’ll be all right, sweetheart,” she said, “As long as you say the police are coming.”

“Yeah,” he said, without conviction.

She went back to her work and the only sound in the kitchen was that of dishes, glass and silverware being handled. Outside, a cold November wind blew across the house.

She gasped as Don put down a glass so hard it cracked. “What
is
it?” she asked.

“I just thought,” he said, “that he might have been calling from the corner drug store.”

She dried her hands automatically. “What are we going to do?” she asked, “What if the police don’t come in time?”

She followed as he ran into the dining room. He started turning off the living room lamps and she turned and ran back, her nervous fingers pushing down the wall switch in the kitchen. The fluorescent tube went out and she stood there trembling in the dark kitchen until she heard him come back in.

“Call the police again,” she said in a low, guarded voice as if the man were already lurking nearby.

“It wouldn’t do any good,” he answered, “They—”

“Try.”

“Christ, the upstairs light!” he said.

He ran out of the kitchen and she heard him jumping up the carpeted steps. She moved into the dining room, legs trembling. Upstairs she heard Don close the door to Billy’s room quietly. She hurried for the stairs.

She was about to start up when, suddenly, she heard Don’s footsteps cease.

Someone was ringing the front doorbell.

He came down the stairs.

“Is it him? Do you think it’s him?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” He stood beside her without moving.

“What if Billy wakes up?”

“What?”

“He’ll cry if he wakes up. You know how afraid he is of the dark.”

“I’ll see who it is,” Don said.

He moved silently across the living room rug and she followed a few feet, then stopped. He stood against the wall and looked out through the window curtains. Rays of light from the street lamp fell across the brick porch.

“Can you see?” she asked as quietly as she could. “Is it him?”

He took a heavy, shaking breath in the darkness. “It’s him.”

She stood in the middle of the living room and it seemed as if all the heat in the house had suddenly disappeared. She shuddered.

The doorbell kept ringing.

“Maybe it’s the police,” she said nervously.

“No. It’s not.”

They stood there silently a moment and the buzzing stopped.

“What are we going to
do?
” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

“If we opened the door, wouldn’t he—?” She heard the sound he made and didn’t finish. “Why should he make such a mistake with
you?
Why?”

His breath sucked in. “Damn it,” he muttered.

“What?”

He was already moving for the front door—and her mind was seared by the sudden thought—
it isn’t locked
.

She watched Don stoop and take off his shoes. He moved quietly into the front hall. She closed her eyes and listened tensely. Didn’t the man hear that slight clicking as Don turned the lock? Her throat moved convulsively. How did Don know it wasn’t a detective? Would a man intent on murder ring the doorbell of the man he intended to—

Then she saw a dark figure standing at the front windows trying to look in, and froze where she stood.

Don came back from the hall. “I think he—” he began to say. “
Shhh
!”

He stiffened and, as if he knew, turned his head quickly toward the living room window. It was so still that Betty heard his dry swallow distinctively.

Then the shadow moved away from the window and Betty realized that she’d been holding her breath. She let it escape, her chest shuddering as she exhaled.

“I’d better get my gun,” Don said in a husky voice.

She started then. “Your—?”

“I hope it works. I haven’t cleaned it in a long time.”

Don pushed by her. She heard him bounding up the stairs. She stood paralyzed.

Upstairs, she heard Billy crying.

She backed out of the kitchen and felt her way to the stairs, her eyes always on the kitchen, in her ears the sound of the man trying to get in the house to kill Don.

At the top of the stairs, Don came around the wall edge and almost collided with her.

“What are you
doing
?” he snapped.

“I heard Billy crying.”

She heard something snap in the darkness and realized that he’d set the hammer of his army automatic.

“Didn’t you tell the police that he said he was going to
kill
you?”

“I told them.”

“Well, where are they, then?”

Her words choked off. The man was breaking through a back window.

She stood mute, listening to the fragments of window spatter on the kitchen linoleum.

“
What are we going to do?
” Her whisper shook in the darkness.

He pulled away from her grip and moved down the stairs without a sound. She heard his shoeless feet pad cross the dining room rug. In the kitchen the man was clambering through the window. She gripped the banister until her hand hurt.

There was a rush of sight and sounds.

The kitchen light flickered on. Don leaped from the wall and pointed the gun at something in the kitchen. “Drop it!” he ordered. The house was filled with the roar of a gun and something crashed in the front room.

Then Betty sank down on the steps in a nerveless crouch as Don’s pistol only clicked and she saw it drop from his hand. Between the banister posts she saw him standing in the light that flooded from the kitchen.

The man in the kitchen laughed.

“Got you,” he said, “I got you now.”

“No!” She didn’t even realize that she’d cried out. All she knew was that Don was staring up at her, his white face helpless in the kitchen light. The man looked up at her.

“Turn on the light,” the man told Don. His throat seemed clogged; all the words came out thick and indistinct.

The dining room light went on. Betty stared at a man with lank, black hair, white face, an unkempt tweed suit with an egg-spotted vest buttoned to the top. The dark revolver he held in a claw of hand.

“Come down here,” he told her.

She went down the steps. The man backed into the kitchen, kicking aside Don’s gun.

“Get in here, both of you,” he ordered.

In the fluorescent light, the man’s pocked face looked even whiter and grimier. His lips kept drawing back from his teeth as he sniffed. He kept clearing his throat.

“Well, I got you,” he repeated.

“You don’t understand,” Betty was able to speak at last, “You’ve made a mistake. Our name is Martin, not Tyler.”

The man paid no attention to her. He looked straight at Don.

“Thought you could change your name, I wouldn’t find you, huh?” he said. His eyes glittered. He coughed once, his chest lurching, spots of red rising in his puffed-out cheeks.

“You’ve got the wrong man,” Don said quietly, “My name is Martin.”

“That’s not what it was in the old days, is it?” the man said hoarsely.

Betty glanced at Don, saw his face go slack. Something cold gripped her insides.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Don said.

“Oh, don’t you!” snarled the man, “It was okay so long as the riding was high, wasn’t it, Donsy boy. Soon as things got hot you cut out quick enough, didn’t you? Didn’t you, you son-of-a-”

She didn’t dare speak. Her eyes fled from the man’s face to Don’s and back again, her mind jumping in ten different directions at once. Why didn’t Don
say
something?

“You know what they did t’us?” the man went on in a flat voice, “You know what they did? Sent us up for ten years. Ten years;
count
‘em.” His smile was crooked. “But not you, Donsy boy. Not you.”

“Don.” Betty said. He didn’t look at her.

“And you got married,” said the man, the gun shaking in his hand, “You got
married
. Ain’t that—”

A cough shook his body. For a second, his eyes filled with tears and he stepped back quickly and banged against the table. Then, in an instant, he stood, legs wide apart, holding the gun out before him, rubbing the tears from his pale cheeks.

“
Get back
,” he warned. They hadn’t moved. His eyes widened, then his face grew suddenly taut. “Well, I’m gonna kill you,” he said. “I’m gonna kill you.”