Tales from the Nightside by Charles L. Grant Read Free Book Online Page B

the raise that did not come when they had expected it and had purchased the new station Wagon on the basis of its place in a revised and now utterly useless budget; about their son's having to attend summer sessions in New York because of a failure in biology during his freshman year at Cornell and his refusal to take his credits at Hawksted College in the Station; about his own reluctance to acknowledge his sullen dissatisfaction with his present job, the lack of extra money definitely not included. Felicity had been after him for over a year to take any one of the several offers he had had, to stop being so pigheadedly and unrealistically loyal to a company that clearly did not appreciate his talent for figures as much as it took him smugly for granted; and, she concluded as she always did, if he was going to stay with the firm in spite of everything, then he should stop bitching about not having any money, time, respect, and the dozens of other things that made his coming home during the heat wave something to be dreaded.
    "I see," he said slowly at last, on Thursday night, when the latest skirmish had ended. He reached for the kitchen's screen door. "I suppose you'd rather have me stay in town, is that it? Is that what you're trying to say?"
    She did not look up from the table where her hands were clasped knuckle-white. "When you're like this, Art, day after day after... yes." She took a deep breath. "Yes."
    He slammed the door without satisfaction and shoved his hands into his jean pockets, walked stiff-legged down the driveway to the sidewalk and turned left. He ignored the muted heavy-summer sounds of televisions and radios, stereos and faint laughter, that hung over the street like the humidity that clung to the foliage in a timid fog; he paid no heed to a convertible blaring past that screamed out-of-date acid rock like a calliope in the hands of a madman; and he prayed once, fervently, that the dog—whatever kind of dog it was—that had killed the Irish setter would take hold of Julius Delarenzo's wattled neck and squeeze until Art got himself the raise, and a goddamned new office.
    Love you, too, Julius, he said to the scowling image of his boss that floated about the trees; you goddamned ape.
    He walked aimlessly for several blocks, listening to his breathing and the slap of his loafers on the pavement.
    He blamed his temper, and Felicity's, on the sodden blanket heat.
    Just as he blamed their winter's arguments on the brittle, dry cold.
    He counted himself lucky he was not drinking; he wished his son home for someone to talk to; he wanted very much, and suddenly, not to be so predictably faithful that he had to refuse to accept the none-too-subtle blandishments of Carole Neuman across the street, who seemed to be spending more time lately vamping him than she did making dinner for her husband.
    Just one quick tumble, he thought, almost wistfully; get hold of those boobs and ride those hips... just one. Just one. And he smiled ruefully as he kicked at a stone and watched it scuttle into the gutter. Guilt. There would be too much guilt. And though his affection for his wife might not always recall those earlier Hollywood-romantic days of drifting gently on the Seine, there was still something... something he could not quite name, though he would never call it love.
    Another car, and he blinked, rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes, and saw himself standing in front of Schiller's house. Then, glancing down, he shuddered when he realized the darkness beneath his feet just might be the bloodstains left from the setter. The thought propelled him without thinking through the unlatched gate and up to the door, had him knocking before he knew what he was doing. And before he could turn around, Cal was peering through the screen door and grinning.
    He was tall, stooped as a man might be who had carried the height for a decade too long, with a head of blinding white hair that Art had once claimed had to have come