Philip Dick - In Milton Lumky Territory

“Maybe that’s what I need,” she said. “Everything’s been so mixed up since I got back from Mexico City. That was only a month or so ago, actually. I can’t seem to get back in with things…why don’t you drop by and visit us one day? Here, I’ll give you our official card.” She trailed past him, out of the kitchen. He remained. When she returned she carried a business card which she presented to him with a formal flourish. “Drop by,” she said, “and you can take me out and buy me lunch.”

“I’d love to do that,” he said, already considering how and when he would be up at Boise again. Was it worth making the drive, over a thousand miles round trip, on his own time? If he waited for company business, it might be another six months, and then, as now, it would permit him only a day or so. While he battled it out in his mind, Susan left him and went into the living room with the others.

I could really go for her, he thought. In a big way.

A few minutes later he had said good-bye to everyone and had left the house, for a second time.

As he drove along in his car, back toward the highway, he thought to himself how much better-groomed an older woman was. If they looked good they do so on purpose, not because of chance. Not because nature had flung them a nice build and teeth and legs. They had a cultivated beauty.

And in addition to that, he was positive—without having tried it—that they knew what to do.

He had gotten almost to the highway when, all at once, he remembered who Susan Faine was. Slowing, he drove by reflex, letting the car roll.

Back in those days she had lived in Montario. None of them had known her first name, and of course “Faine” was her married name. Naturally, she had not had that name, then. They all thought of her as Miss Reuben. The last time he had seen her had been in 1949, when he was in high school, still a student, and of course he had thought of himself that way, and so had she. It had been natural for both of them to think of him as a student from the beginning.

Susan Faine had been his fifth grade teacher. At the Garret A. Hobart Grammar School, in Montario. Back in 1944, when he had been eleven years old.

He spent the night at a motel on the outskirts of Boise. The next morning he met with the auto supply people and negotiated successfully for the lot of car wax.

At eleven in the morning he had rented a trailer and had begun loading as many cartons as possible onto the trailer and into his car. The auto supply people had meantime confirmed his check. They signed the tag, arranged for delivery of the balance of the cartons, and off he drove, the load and trailer keeping his speed down.

With such a load he could not make the drive back to Reno during the heat of day. Were he to get out on the desert now, the engine of the Merc would overheat, boil off its water, and possibly warp the head. Usually, in circumstances of this kind, he paid a dollar or so and got use of a motel room for the day; he could nap, take it easy, read, and then, at sunset, get back out on the road.

He drove along the motel strip for a time, but then he changed his mind, made a U-turn, and returned to downtown Boise.

At one in the afternoon he parked his car and trailer in front of a shoe store, got out, made certain that the cartons in the trailer could not be pried loose by passing thieves, and then he walked along the sidewalk, with the midday shoppers, until he saw ahead of him a small office with a sign above it reading: R & J Mimeographing Service.

Perspiring with nervousness, he entered the office noticing that the counter and fixtures were modern and that directly across from the doorway another modern office, a real estate and notary public firm, did business. A fan, on the counter, cooled the place. Several dark-shiny waiting room chairs had been set out for customers.

A friendly-looking middle-aged woman wearing a smock approached him. “Hello,” she said.

Bruce said, “Is Miss Reuben around?” Then he wished he had asked for Mrs. Faine; he had given it all away right off the bat. If she heard him she knew he had known her in the past.

But the middle-aged woman said, “Susan didn’t come in today. She phoned about nine this morning and said she wasn’t feeling well.”

“That’s too bad,” he said, relieved. Now he became calmer. “Ill drop by again some other time,” he said.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” the woman asked, standing with her hands clasped together, into the sleeves of her smock. She wore tortoise-shell glasses, and her hair was done up in a braided ring. She had a sympathetic, wrinkled face, round, heavy at the jowls, and when she smiled she showed a variety of gold and silver dental work.

“No,” she said. “I’m a friend of hers. I’m up from Reno and I thought I’d drop by and say hello.”

“What a pity you missed her.”

“Well,” he said, “I saw her last night.”

“Oh, over at Peg Googer’s?”

“Yes,” he said.

“How was she feeling then?”

“Not too well,” he said. “She was lying down for awhile. She said something about being afraid she had picked up a bug in Mexico. It sounded more to me like Asiatic Flu.”

“Listen,” the woman said, with agitation. “Why don’t you drive up to the house? You have a car, don’t you?” She hurried away from him, back behind the counter. Gathering together piles of papers, she said, “I have these things she has to see, today. I was going to close up at four and take a cab out there.” She returned to the counter with an armload. “Checks she has to sign, mail, a manuscript a student brought in that has math symbols in it; we can’t type the symbols, but Susan can draw them in—she’s the one who does that, not me.” She held out the armload to him.

“I don’t know if I can,” he muttered, but the armload was dropped into his hands and he found himself holding it. “I’ve never been there.”

“It’s not hard to find.” She took hold of the sleeve of his coat and led him over to a large lacquered wall map of the city. “Here,” she said, pointing to a red x on the map. “This is where we are. You drive out this way.” She explained the route in detail and wrote down the address, obviously relieved that she had found someone to deliver the things to her partner. “I really appreciate it,” she finished up. “I have so much to do here, with Susan away. She’s been away, you know, out of the country. I’ve had it all to do,” she called, as she went back behind the counter and seated herself at a big old-fashioned electric typewriter. Smiling at him over her glasses, she began to type. “I hope you’ll excuse me,” she said.

“Thanks for telling me how to get there,” he said, disturbed that she would give the firm’s checkbook to a stranger simply because he mentioned the other owner’s name. What a guileless soul, he thought. And what a haphazard way to run a business. “Do you think there’s any medicine or anything I can pick up for her?” he said. “As long as I’m going out there?”

“No,” she said cheerfully. “The mail and the checkbooks are the important thing. And don’t forget to remind her that she or I have to call that student—his name’s on the manuscript—before we start on it, so he’ll know how much it’ll be. He only has fifty dollars.”

Saying good-bye, he left the office. A moment later he had opened his car door and was depositing the heap of papers, envelopes, and the heavy board check ledger on the car seat.

Now I have to go out there, he realized.

He started up the car, drove out into traffic, and in the direction of Susan Faine’s house.

Years ago, when he had been in high school, he had been a paper boy. He had delivered papers after school, in Montario, and Miss Reuben had lived along his route. For the first few months he had had no contact with her, because she had not subscribed to the paper. But one day, when he had picked up his bundle, he found a notice of a new subscriber on route 36, plus one additional newspaper to add to his pack. So he walked up the wide cement steps, past the trees and flower beds, until he stood below the second-story balcony, and from there he had lobbed a folded-up paper over the railing and onto the porch of the house. And six times a week he did the same after that, for almost a year.