Philip Dick - In Milton Lumky Territory

Ordinarily he would not have expected such a long shot to work out, but here in Milt Lumky territory it seemed perfectly natural. Now that it had happened it failed to astonish him.

Standing beside him in the grocery store, the girl asked him what he wanted to see Milt about. In her slippers, without heels, she came up to the second button of his coat. He guessed that she was not over five foot one. Now, in better light, he saw that her skin was dry and rougher than a child’s, and her hands, when she reached out for the bag of groceries, had nothing in common with a child’s hands. Her fingers were knobby and the knuckles were rubbed red. Her nails, painted once but now chipped and irregular, had apparently been gnawed short. The palms of her hands had deep grooves in them. Her arms were unusually muscular; she wore a sleeveless blouse, and he saw, on her arm, a white vaccination scar that undoubtedly was years old. On one finger she had a gold band, what appeared to be a wedding ring.

He answered that he had business he wanted to discuss with Milt. The girl nodded, evidently accepting that as natural. He asked what her name was, and she told him that she was Cathy Hermes and that she was married. Her husband, Jack, lived somewhere in Pocatello but not with her; they had separated a year or so ago. She had met Milt at the place she worked, an office in the Pocatello City Hall; she was a clerk-typist, and Milt had dropped by selling paper supplies to the city. For months now they had been living together, exactly as if they were married.

“How long has Milt been in Pocatello?” he asked her, as they walked back to their cars.

She answered that Milt had been in town almost a week; he had not gotten past Pocatello, but had come down sick on his way east to Montpelier and gone no farther.

“What’s the matter with him?” he asked. He held the door of the Mercedes open for her.

She replied that neither of them knew; or, if he knew, he didn’t let on. It was a chronic condition that got inflamed now and then. In a few minutes he could see for himself; her apartment was not far off.

Getting into his Merc he followed the tail lights of the Mercedes until at last she turned off into a driveway on a residential street and parked in a wooden doorless garage. He parked behind her, in the driveway itself. Cathy approached him carrying the bag of groceries.

“It’s upstairs,” she said. “We can go up the back way.” She led him up an outside flight of wooden steps, past washing hanging on lines and piles of newspapers and bottles and flower pots, past several doors and at last to the top floor. Balancing the grocery bag she brought out a key and unlocked the door; he and she passed on inside a hallway that smelled of soap.

When she turned on a light he discovered that he was in an old, old building that still had brass plumbing fixtures and artificial candles set in the walls and the ornate egg-shaped doorknobs that he remembered from his childhood. The walls were painted yellow. The hall was quite narrow, but after that he found himself in a large front room with a high ceiling; here, the chandelier had been taken down and electric wiring ran from the ceiling to the floor, where someone had fixed up a socket for the lamp and radio.

“Milt,” the girl said, disappearing into another room. Returning, she said to Bruce, “Just a minute.” She carried the grocery bag back into the kitchen while he waited. The room seemed cold, and he saw her strike a kitchen match and light the oven of the black ancient stove.

“Milt,” she repeated, going past him once more, into the other room. “There’s a man here who drove up from Reno to talk to you.” The door swung shut after her and he could neither hear nor see. He waited.

Through the closed door he heard stirrings and a man’s mutterings. Then the girl’s voice. They seemed to be arguing. At last the sound quieted down and he heard nothing.

The door opened and she came out and shut it after her. “Do you mind not seeing him for a while?” she asked.

“Okay,” he said, struggling with his impatience.

The girl entered the kitchen and began fixing the orange juice.

“What are his symptoms?” he asked her.

“He has a constant fever,” she said. “And no strength, and he’s swollen up around the eyes. And he has trouble urinating.”

“It sounds like a kidney infection,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, mixing the orange juice in a quart mayonnaise jar. “He has some pills he takes. It come and goes. It’s not as bad as it was yesterday.”

“Did you tell him my name?” he asked.

The girl said, “He’s too dopey right now.”

“You mean he didn’t know who it was?”

“He feels so out of sorts that he doesn’t like to see anybody until he feels better.” She would not say whether Lumky had remembered him. “I know he’ll want to talk to you later on when he feels improved.”

He told her that he could only stay in Pocatello so long.

“Maybe tomorrow,” she said. “He’ll probably feel more like himself when he wakes up in the morning. Right now he hardly knows what he’s saying. If you want to talk to him about business you better wait.”

A disturbance from the other room caused her to put down the jar of orange juice and go out of the kitchen. He heard her and Milt talking, and then her moving about from one room to another. Water ran in a bowl; something was filled, carried; then more talking.

When the girl returned he said. “I’ll drop by tomorrow morning, then.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Here, I’ll let you out the front door. Now that he’s awake.” She led him through the apartment and into the room in which Milt lay on the couch wrapped up in blankets, his head on a white pillow. Passing by him, he saw that it was Milt Lumky beyond any doubt. The man’s eyes were shut and he breathed noisily. His arms had a dark unhealthy color and so did his face. The room smelled of illness. On the floor around the couch were glasses and pans and medicines.

Holding the front door open for him, the girl let him out onto a hallway. “Good night,” she said, and shut the door almost at once behind him.

Anyhow he had seen him; he knew for certain that it was Milt.

He returned to his motel.

When he returned to her apartment the following morning he found the door locked and a note tacked to it.

Dear Sir:

Mr. Lumky felt better today and he went to the dairy to see them. I am at work. Will be home at five-thirty.

Cordially yours,

Mrs. Cathy Hermes

He tried the knob. What did this remind him of? It reminded him of the night he had gone back to Peg Googer’s for his coat, found the house locked up and deserted, and had gone in through a window and discovered Susan lying in the bedroom smoking a cigarette. But how different this was…he wandered around to the back of the dilapidated three-story building and climbed the stairs; the back door was locked, too, and so was the single window overlooking the porch. Mrs. Hermes was too careful.

The Mercedes, of course, had gone; the garage was empty. One of them had driven off in it, most likely Milt. He wondered if Milt would come back here, or having finished his business with the dairy, would speed on to the next town to make up for lost time.

Unable to think of anything else he could do he parked his car directly before the building and, sitting behind the wheel, waited.

An hour or so later a jolt that made the whole car jump forward startled him into panicky wakefulness. The Mercedes had glided up behind him and banged bumpers; hopping out he found himself facing Milt Lumky, who grinned at him from behind the wheel of the Mercedes.

“Hello, McFoop,” Milt said, leaning out the window. He shut off the car’s motor and stepped out carrying his leather satchel and several packets of samples. “Think sharp, be sharp,” he said. He looked the same as always; there was no sign of illness. In his jaunty bow tie, pink shirt, and sporty suit he passed by Bruce and up the steps of the building. “Come on,” he said over his shoulder.