Philip Dick - In Milton Lumky Territory

At a glance he recognized the people as clerkish types from the office building at which Peg worked. They had that thin, indoor look, and at the same time what he thought of as the Idaho Look. By that he meant a kind of slowness. A lapse of time between hearing and understanding, a measurable interval. Watching them, he could see the gradual course of response. They just plain did not get with it. Even the simplest things had to be mulled over, and the hard things—well, the hard things had never gotten up into Idaho and never would. So it was no problem.

“This is Bruce Stevens,” Peg said, to them in general. “He just got in from Reno; he’s been on the road all day long.”

By the time she had introduced him to the last person he had already forgotten the name of the first one. And by the time she had fixed him a drink, bourbon and ice, he had forgotten all their names. They had gone back to listening to the phonograph, so it made no difference. A conversation went on, too, something that had to do with Russian attempts to reach the moon, and were the planets inhabited. He seated himself with his drink, as near Peg as possible.

The thin, indoor clerks chatted and ignored him. He kept his eyes fixed on Peg, wondering if and drinking his drink. And, while he did that, the door to the bathroom opened at the far end of the house, and a woman came along the hall and into the living room. He had not seen her before; evidently she had been in there since his arrival. Looking up, he saw a dark-haired older woman, very attractive, wearing a white scarf around her neck and great ring-like earrings. With a swirl of skirts she seated herself on the arm of the couch, and he saw that she had on sandals. Her legs were bare. She smiled at him.

“I just got here,” he said.

“Oh, Susan,” Peg said, coming to life. “Susan, this is Bruce Stevens. Bruce, I want you to meet Susan Faine.”

He said hello.

“Hello,” Susan Faine said. That was all she said. Ducking her head, she joined with the others in their conversation, as if it had been going on when she had left the room. Probably it had been. He watched the way her hair, tied back in a pony-tail, swung from side to side. Besides a long skirt she wore a leather belt, very wide, with a coppery-looking buckle, and a black sweater. On her right shoulder a silver pin had been pinned. Studying it he decided that it was Mexican. And the sandals, too, perhaps. The more he looked at her, the more attractive she seemed.

In his ear, Peg said, “Susan just got back from Mexico City. She got a divorce down there.”

“Oh yeah,” he said, nodding. “I’ll be darned.”

He kept on watching her, holding his drink glass up so that he appeared—or hoped he appeared—to be inspecting it. Her hands had a strong, competent manner, and he guessed that she did something manual. Beneath her black sweater he could see the straps of her bra, and, when she bent over, a bit of bare back between the top of her skirt and the sweater.

Suddenly she turned her head, conscious that he was watching her. She looked at him so intently that he could not stand it; he ceased to watch her and let his gaze wander off blankly, feeling his cheeks flush at the same time. Then she went back to talking with those on the couch.

To Peg, he said, “Miss or Mrs.?”

“Who?”

“Her,” he said, indicating Susan Faine with his glass.

“I just said she got a divorce,” Peg said.

“That’s right,” he said. “I remember now that you did. What’s she do? What line is she in?”

“She runs a typewriter rental service,” Peg said. “And she does typing and mimeographing. She does work for us.” By that she meant the firm of lawyers that employed her as a secretary.

Susan Faine said, “Talking about me?”

“Yes,” Peg said. “Bruce asked what you do.”

“I understand you just got back from Mexico,” Bruce said.

“Yes,” Susan Faine said, “but that’s not what I do.” The people took that as funny and laughed. “Not exactly,” she added. “In spite of what you may possibly hear.”

She hopped down from the arm of the couch, then, and went off into the kitchen with her empty glass. One of the thin clerkish-looking men arose and followed her.

As he sipped his drink, Bruce thought, I know her. I’ve seen her before.

He tried to remember where.

“Don’t you want me to hang your coat up?” Peg said to him.

“Thanks,” he said. Preoccupied, he set his drink down, got up, and unbuttoned his coat. As she took it and carried it to the hall closet he followed after her. “I think I know that woman,” he said.

“Do you?” Peg said. She fixed the coat around a hanger, and while she was doing that one of those things happened that no man can anticipate and few can live through. From the pocket of the coat the box of Trojans, in its Hagopian’s Drug and Pharmacy bag, fell out and onto the carpet.

“What’s this?” Peg said, stooping to pick it up. “So small.”

Of course Fred Hagopian had wrapped the tin so that it came easily out of the bag, visible to all. Seeing it, Peg got a weird, frigid expression on her face. Without a word she returned the tin to the bag and the bag to the coat pocket. Closing the closet door she said, “Well, I see you came prepared.”

He wished he had driven on through to Boise.

“You always were so optimistic,” Peg said. “But they last, don’t they? I mean, they’re good any time.” Returning to the living room she said over her shoulder, “I don’t want you to have wasted your investment.”

“What investment is that?” one of the dull figures on the couch asked.

Neither he nor Peg said anything. And this time he did not trouble to sit near her. Certainly, it was hopeless now. He sat drinking his drink and wondering how to leave.

An opportunity to leave occurred almost at once. Across from him a small bald-headed clerk arose from the couch and declared that he had to get started home, by bus.

Bruce, also standing, said, “I’ll give you a lift. I’m going on to Boise anyhow.”

Nobody protested. Peg nodded good-bye and disappeared into the kitchen as he and Mr. Muir started from the house.

It took some time, after they had gotten to Boise, to locate Mr. Muir’s street. The man, not being a motorist himself, had little idea of direction. After he had let him off at last, Bruce started back onto the highway, searching for a motel. And then, just as he made out a fair-looking motel, he realized that he had left his coat hanging in the hall closet back at Peg’s. His shame had caused him to strike it from his mind.

Should I go back for it? he asked himself.

Should I not?

Stopping at the side of the road, he looked at his watch. After nine o’clock. It would be nine-thirty by the time he got back to Montario. Better to wait until tomorrow? He had to have it; he couldn’t show up for his business appointment without it.

Tomorrow, he decided, Peg would start off early for work. If he missed her, he would not see his coat again.

Starting up the car, he made a U-turn and drove back in the direction that he had come.

The cars that had been parked near her house had gone. And the lights had been shut off. The house, dark and shut-up, had a deserted look. He hurried up the path to the porch and rang the bell.

No one answered.

He rang again. Experience told him, first, that no one even in Montario went to bed at nine-thirty, and second, that me party could not have broken up so fast. They might have all gone off somewhere else, to another house. Or to Hill Street for something or other, a second dinner, or beer at one of the bars, or God knew.

But in any case his coat was in the house. Trying the door, he found it locked. So he went around the familiar path, through the gate, to the back. The laundry room window had been propped open; he remembered it. Setting a box against the house he managed to get the window open, and then himself through it, hands-first, to sprawl onto the floor of the laundry room.