Three

When Martha and Gene left, I watched from the living room window as they got into Martha’s VW bug. I have Martha’s promise that if she ever sells the bug, I get first dibs. Originally it was a nice light green, but now one fender’s a mottled brown and the other’s red. The engine is still great, though. We, or Gene really, have a big dignified Volvo, but it was at the dealer’s for brake work. It’s ten years old and always at the dealer’s for something or other. Considering that Gene walks to and from his office and we don’t have our own garage and can’t park in front of the house for more than an hour without hitting the meter, the V is nothing but a big expensive nuisance, but Gene loves it and doesn’t care.

He’s been trying to get the city to zone our block for unlimited day parking for years, but it’s a losing battle. We live in the only remaining private house downtown, and the land developers, who are all tight with City Hall, would love to drive us out and get their hands on our place. Not for the house—they wouldn’t care about that at all. It’s limestone and it was originally a farmhouse. Long before I came to live with him, Gene had reworked the whole house, pulling down walls to make fewer but bigger rooms, uncovering the old fireplaces, and tearing up layers of cruddy linoleum to get to the original wide, pine plank floors. The house is really his baby. He tried for a long time to have it declared a historic building. He lost that battle, too.

Since we live downtown in the middle of stores and offices, some nights it’s as quiet as the country. This was one of the country nights. That is, until Martha pulled away from the curb. She likes to say that in another life she wasn’t an artist, she was a racing car driver. I watched out the front window as she roared down the street.

A moment later, another car pulled away from the curb. Coincidence? That made the most sense—but not to me. I jerked open the front door and ran down the stone walk. Where had the car been parked? Had someone been watching the house? My stomach lurched, a hand in there grabbing and squeezing. I was lucky, half-lucky—I raced down the street, caught sight of the car just before it turned the corner. I got the first three letters of the license plate. Not good, but enough for an entry.

In my room, I filed the information under NOTED. “AAR … B1. 4 dr F. new, fllwd G&M in bug.” I kept my sightings in an ordinary green school notebook divided into two sections, DEFINITE and NOTED. Every time I made an entry, I checked and cross-checked to see if that particular car had ever turned up before. Now and then, it happened.

I was still flipping through the pages and brooding over the car that had (might have?) followed Gene and Martha when the phone rang in the kitchen. The hand grabbed me in the belly again. I shoved the notebook into my desk. The phone kept ringing.

“I’m coming,” I yelled as I went downstairs.

“Hi, Peter.”

“Deirdre!” I hitched myself onto the counter.

“How’d you know it was me, Peter?” She pronounced it Peet-ah.

“I ought to know your voice by now, Dee.”

“That’s true, I always recognize your smashing voice when you call us, luv.” Deirdre is one of my friend Drew’s sisters. For about two years, she’s been crazy for anything English. She listens only to English rock groups, says “smashing” as often as possible, and reads everything written on Princess Di. “No one else sounds like you, old chap, but I didn’t know I had such a distinctive voice.”

“Bloody modest of you, luv.”

“You’re teasing me, Pete!” she said, suddenly sounding like the old Deirdre.

I’ve known Deirdre almost as long as I’ve known Drew. She, Dawn, Drew, and I used to play kickball and King of the Hill together. Deirdre’s a year older than I am, Dawn’s a year younger. It was always Deirdre I was interested in. Sometimes we used to go off by ourselves to talk. I was a fairly horny little kid even in elementary school, and I spent a lot of time praying for Deirdre to be overcome by passion for me. All she ever did, though, was complain about her mother’s favoring Drew over her and Dawn. Once, when I tried to kiss her, she just laughed.

“Where’s Drew?” I said now.

“Oh, he and Mummy went out to look at stuff for the shop. Some bloody old antique dining room set. I called to ask when you’re coming over, Peter. We blokes haven’t seen you in a huge while. Come on over and have supper with us one of these nights.”

“If you promise to sit next to me.”

“Oh, my, aren’t you growing up, though.”

“I’ve been this way for years, luv. Remember when I tried to kiss you?”

“Hmmm. Can’t say that I do, Peet-ah. Don’t tell me about it! I always thought you were the nicest boy I knew. I don’t want to get all disillusioned about you.”

We fooled around like that for a while. All the time, in the back of my mind, I wondered if anyone was listening to our conversation. I have this clear picture in my head of a man in a cellar. I can’t see his face, but I know he’s wearing earphones and chain-smoking. Next to him there’s a tape deck, turning and turning, recording all our thousands of conversations. Martha to Gene. Gene to me. Me to Drew. Nothing exciting, nothing unusual, but the man doesn’t care. He’s patient, the way a hunter has to be patient. He’s waiting. Waiting for me or Gene to forget, to make one unguarded comment, one indiscreet remark. That’s all he would need. Actually, in this age of electronic miracles, I guess tapping phones is done a lot more easily than sticking some poor agent into a damp cellar. But somebody has to listen to the stuff, don’t they? It might as well be my faceless man in the cellar.