Ричард Деминг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 6, June, 1953

“Well, is it or is it not?”

“It is.”

“And you’re this gorgeous little babe named Phoebe, ain’t you?”

Panic peered in at all the windows and its sneer rustled the string-drapes between the parlor and dining room. Miss Turner went hot and cold with perspiration, and could barely hold the receiver.

“What do you want with me?”

The snicker came over unmistakably. “Who, me? Why, nothing. Nothing at all. Except what would anybody want from the sexiest broad we got in town?”

Miss Turner prepared to slam down the receiver. “Why, you lunatic. How dare you? I’m going to hang up and if you ever have the audacity to call this number again, I’ll call the police.”

“Well, well, how cozy,” the voice said. “You going to let them in on it too? And the fire department? And the U.S. Marines?”

Miss Turner flushed and brought the receiver down, but not before the last raucous statement had come through to her ears. “You’re going to hear from me often. Day and night. Mostly nights.”

On the way up, Miss Turner felt dizzy. She decided she’d better not tell her mother. Her mother had a bad heart. “Some nut with a wrong number,” she called out in answer to the querulous inquiry from the other room. But at breakfast it almost came out. They were having orange juice and oatmeal in the alcove off the hallway when the phone rang. It was 7:30. Miss Turner jumped, then tried to take hold of herself. She went to the phone casually but at once gripped the receiver so hard her knuckles showed white. It was the voice again.

“Look you, whoever you are,” she whispered fiercely. “My mother is a very sick woman and can’t stand very much more of this sort of thing, I can tell you. If you don’t hang up this minute and stop bothering us I’ll go to the police.” Her voice became a bit hysterical. “Hang up,” she said.

“What a shame,” the man said. “Sick? Your mother?”

“Yes. Extremely.”

There was a pause, then a chuckle, deep in the throat and outrageous. “Then you and me’ll have to be real careful we don’t disturb her when I come calling. We’ll just use the downstairs couch.” The voice went down to a sexy whisper. “Ready for me yet, sweetheart — huh?”

Miss Turner slipped the receiver down without a sound and immediately raised her voice. “I’m sorry, madam. You’ve got the wrong number. This is Bedford 3-5573, not four. Please do be careful in the future.” She forced a smile and went back to the alcove and her mother.

Her mother was a wasted away woman with slipshod white hair and a deep pallor, chronically weary. She had been a vivacious woman at one time, with a good sense of humor — totally opposite from the traditional possessive mother. But after a lifetime of sickness, early widowhood, and total dependence on her daughter, her kindly humor had turned into a kind of bitterness. Complaint often crept into her voice. “Another wrong number, Marie? Who is it, a secret boy friend?” Her voice changed. “Couldn’t sleep a wink after the phone ringing last night.”

The teacup was shaking in Miss Turner’s hand. “If this goes on I just don’t know what we’re going to do, mama.”

However much you want to keep a thing like this secret from someone who shares your home, Miss Turner saw clearly, it soon becomes impossible. If the calls were going to persist her mother would finally have to know, and Miss Turner was afraid of what it would do to her heart.

That night exactly at midnight the third call came and Miss Turner again had to rush down from bed. This time she hung up right away. When he called back immediately she left the receiver off the hook. But half an hour later — just time enough for her to have crept back into bed and gotten to sleep — the phone company sent its attention-getter alarm through, and kept blasting insistently until her mother cried out, “For heaven’s sake, Marie. Answer the phone.” When the voice called shortly after, he threatened to ring all night, if necessary, and Miss Turner had to talk to him for at least five minutes. The abuse was worse with more outrageous invitations and four-letter descriptions.

“For God’s sake,” Miss Turner said, almost in tears. “What do you have against me? Who are you? Why are you doing this to us? Won't you please stop calling?”

The man laughed again, the strange, suggestive laugh. “Call you in the morning, baby. Early. Maybe I’ll catch you with your pants off.”

The first thing that morning Miss Turner decided. She’d better tell her mother. These calls were going to continue. And at breakfast she did. “In case you were to answer the telephone sometime, mama.”

To Miss Turner’s surprise, Mrs. Turner was neither amazed nor upset, just rather amused. And, staring, Miss Turner said: “Thank God, at least, mama, for that.”

Her mother said that, why, yes she’d heard of such cases, cranks getting hold of someone’s telephone number and making a nuisance of themselves for spite, an imagined grievance, or something. Had her daughter insulted or slighted someone down at the office?

“Why, no,” Miss Turner said. That’s what she’d been wracking her brains over. She didn’t have an enemy in the world.

“Well,” her mother suggested, “there’s only one thing to do. Take the matter up with the telephone company immediately. Have them trace the call.”

“Yes,” Miss Turner said. That’s what she’d been thinking herself.

The following Wednesday, her afternoon off, she went downtown to the local company offices and was referred at once to the supervisor, a Mrs. Armstrong. Mrs. Armstrong was a courteous, smart looking woman who heard her out alertly and showed sincere dismay but said that unfortunately not much could be done. There were too many similar cases and they couldn’t track down local calls unless of the utmost emergency. The only thing she could suggest would be to install a new, unlisted number. But Miss Turner made a sad sound. “Oh, I do outside stenographic work, Mrs. Armstrong. I’m listed in all the agencies. People wouldn’t know where to call.” Mrs. Armstrong was sympathetic. In that case, Miss Turner would simply have to bear it out until the caller, undoubtedly one of those psychopathic cases, got tired, or picked up the trail of someone else. If it got too troublesome — disturbing a sick mother certainly was a bad thing — Miss Turner might take the matter up with the police. Perhaps they could work something out. It certainly would be worth trying.

“Well, maybe he’ll stop himself.” Miss Turner managed to smile. “If only we could get a clue as to who he is.” When she walked down the long corridor on her way out she saw Mrs. Armstrong making a moue of puzzlement. It was obvious to Miss Turner that Mrs. Armstrong was wondering who would call on such a precious anonymous little thing like her. Telephone cranks and poison pen writers usually knew what their victims looked like, wanted somebody glamorous.

That, apparently, was the question puzzling not only Mrs. Armstrong. That evening as Miss Turner and her mother sat together reading magazines in the little parlor still furnished with antimacassars and rockers from Mrs. Turner’s youth — both really quite openly waiting for the telephone to ring — Miss Turner saw that her mother was wondering about it, too. Miss Turner knew exactly what was going on in her mother’s head, had for years. In her own heyday, Mrs. Turner had been a pretty, gay young woman with a great many male admirers. And she’d never stopped thinking her daughter should have inherited some of it. Miss Turner watched the older woman peer over the top of the magazine with a strange sour antagonism. Maybe, Miss Turner was beginning to realize, her mother had a point. Those droopy old dresses! She hadn’t had a new hat in three years! Even to herself she had to admit that she was hopeless, an old maid. The past 20 years all she’d done for excitement was go to church suppers, take in a movie once a week, and, for her annual two-week vacation, visit with her mother at a quiet lake hotel nearby, rocking on the porch with the old ladies.