Rock Island Line David Rhodes (ereader iphone .txt) 📖

another try. This was at ten thirty in the morning. At a little before one o’clock he went outside, ran around the block twice, in the front door, up the stairs, slammed a dime into the slot, dialed the number without listening to the tone, made it through two full rings, heard the snap of the connection being completed and hung the receiver quickly and noisily back into the chrome handle.

Each time the phone rang, Mal’s heart turned over. But she sat on the sofa and made herself look as though she had no feelings one way or the other. Her mother and father were going to Cincinnati and she had the whole weekend to herself . . . to wait for the phone.

“Maybe we better call the phone company,” she said calmly to Carol, who was standing with the dead receiver still in her hand.

“There’s nothing wrong with the phone,” she snapped. “I heard some creep hanging up that time.”

“Oh well, at least it wasn’t an obscene call.”

Carol put the receiver down, lifted it again and began to dial.

“Who are you calling?”

“The police. I’ll get them to put a tracer on our line. Then let whoever it is try to call again. They can have four squad cars over there before he hangs up. . . . Hello. Yes, this is Carol Pickney, and we just had an obscene phone call. . . . What do you mean, what did he say? He didn’t get a chance to say anything this time. . . . Very funny.” She hung up. “Wiseacre.”

Mal crossed the room to stare at a painting she had half completed on the easel, a sequel to “The Crabs,” this one of magpies and giant cicadas among rocks.

“Say, let’s go down to Delanie’s,” said Carol. “It looks like it might begin to rain, and I don’t want to be stuck here all day.”

“Why don’t you go ahead? I think I’ll just stay home this afternoon and paint.”

“Just for a little while. Come on. I hate going places alone. And besides there’s nothing here to eat.”

“Nothing?”

“That’s right, lazy. You ate all the potato chips last night.”

“I did not,” she said automatically.

“You did too.”

“Well, so what, there was only a half a bag left.”

“Half a bag, my eye!”

Then the phone rang. “There he is again!” shouted Carol. “Whatever you do, don’t answer it.”

“It might be somebody else,” Mal said, going for the phone as it rang a second time.

“Leave it alone, Mal.”

But Mal kept going toward the phone. It rang again.

“I’ll get it,” said Carol. She reached over and picked up the receiver and, before Mal could say one word of caution, shouted into it: “Who is this? The police are after you.”

There was a long pause at the other end, and a sound like somebody breathing. Then the line went dead.

“Who was it?” asked Mal anxiously.

“How do I know? The creep wouldn’t give his name.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. He just panted.”

“Panted?”

“Yes. Trying to make himself sound like an animal.”

Mal didn’t know what to think. From experience she knew her roommate to be a little quick to jump to conclusions, and a little obstinate about hanging on to those she’d reached, and so with only her to talk to, it would be difficult to get to the bottom of the matter. Probably of no importance. Still, the possibility that July might have been on the other end of the line trying to call her, that Carol’d simply made up the panting part, and that he might never call back again made her angry, and she almostsaid something she would’ve regretted later. The weekend of waiting for the phone to ring promised to be long enough, without throwing in an emotional crisis.

“Why don’t you go down to Delanie’s for a while?” said Mal, in a tone that was both friendly and earnest. Carol’d heard the tone before, and had even anticipated it earlier in the day—certain ways Mal betrayed being a little on edge. Like sitting perfectly still when the phone rang, and lighting cigarettes from the glowing ends of used ones. Carol resigned herself to being ignorant of whatever it was that was bothering her—at least for now—put on her blue coat and left.

As soon as she was alone Mal felt some of the pressure of waiting lifted from her. She tried to paint but with no success; it seemed that everything on the canvas was ending up in converging lines, and the color of the rocks continued to creep stroke by stroke toward muddy brown. Shadows were looking like holes, and at one time she became so fed up with herself that she threw her brush (one of her good brushes) against the wall, leaving a greenish-brown smear there and on the carpet. She picked it up, cleaned it with a rag and turpentine, put a piece of plastic over the canvas to keep the oils workable and gave up for the day.

Then there seemed to be nothing that would occupy her. She picked up a book and read the same page four times. As it was Saturday afternoon, there was nothing but middle-aged entertainment and middle-aged advertisements on television. She wasn’t hungry and there wasn’t anything to eat even if she were. So she made coffee and smoked cigarettes, looking out the window toward South Philly. Finally, at four o’clock there was a movie on television and after that was over she kept the set on and began watching one program after another without bothering to change channels or even see what was on the other stations from TV Guide. She wished Carol would come back, but knew from the way she had left that it would be late—half so that Mal might have the opportunity to worry about her and half as a statement of her rights.

At midnight she switched over to UHF. Then the phone rang. Mal turned the set down. It rang a second time. Let him wait, she thought. A third time.