Stillness & Shadows by John Gardner (accelerated reader books TXT) 📕

again. Another tingle, premonition, whiff of blood. She stood turned away from him, hands in her coat pockets, waiting. His mind raced, lost, then dug in. “Hannah, see if you can find me a book about tumps.”

“Tumps, Cramer”

He spelled it for her.

“Why in the world—”

“Never mind, just see if you can find one. Royce all right this morning?”

“He didn’t come in. Craine, what’s got into you, askin about Royce? Where you phonin from?”

“Tell him to take the day off if he comes in. Tell him I’m raising his salary.”

“You are drunk. Listen, you see Royce you stay clear of him, hear me?” When he said nothing she insisted, “Craine? You hear me what I’m telling you?”

“Gotta go,” he said. Excitement leaped in him—no reason he could think of. “Keep an eye out for sin.”

Outside the phone booth, as Elaine Glass turned to him, he said loudly, heartily, “Sorry. I remembered I’d better call my office.”

She nodded, breaking in at once with how much everything had cost, how much she’d tipped, how much change she’d been given, as if scared to death she might have gotten something wrong or he might think she’d embezzled; then at last she counted the change out carefully into his hand. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s fine! Take it easy!” He checked automatically to see that he had his pipe, tobacco, whiskey.

When they were seated in the cab of the truck she said, “Funny-looking sky.” She hunched forward to look up under the visor.

Craine hunched in the same way, starting up the engine. The clouds were high and fast, the sky a sickly yellow, almost green. “Storm on its way,” he said, and nodded. He backed out carefully, both hands on the wheel, shifted, and drove to the exit and out onto the street. He felt the tingle coming, and concentrated. It faded back.

“I hate storms,” she said. She was sitting with her shoulders against the plastic of the seat back. She pursed her lips as if thinking deeply. “I’m scared to death of them.”

“Oh, no need to worry about storms,” he said. The air had gotten still warmer, hot as a cow’s breath.

She turned her head sharply to look at him, eyes wide with indignation. “Are you kidding? If a tornado hits your house, that’s it!”

“It won’t,” he said. “I’ve been living here—”

“They say one hit Murphysboro and blew half the town away.” She reached out to the dashboard with her right hand as if to brace herself.

“That was years ago,” Craine said.

She turned her face forward, still bracing herself, thinking about it. “Jesus,” she said, and then: “I feel naushus.” Her face was gray.

Ahead of him, the railroad gate went down and he slowed, then, thirty feet back from the gate, eased the brake on. It was odd how carefully her presence made him drive. Normally, give him a whiskey or two and it was every dog and cat for himself. As the switch engine slid into view he said, “Elaine, how many people did you tell about the man in the blue and white runner’s clothes?”

Again she turned sharply. “Nobody,” she said, then frowned and turned her face forward once more. “I wrote a paper about it in advanced composition. I guess the teacher read it in class.”

“You guess?”

“He did, I mean.” She nodded. Abruptly, her mouth fell open and she jerked her face around to stare. “You believe me! You saw him! That’s why you called your office!”

“I didn’t say that,” he said. A semi pulled up behind them, brakes hissing.

She wasn’t fooled for a moment—no dolt, this girl, he was beginning to see. But then, Gerald Craine was no dolt either, no beginner, he told himself, sitting with a wry smile, watching the switch engine slide back out of sight. He hung weightless an instant, waiting for the tiny electric tingle. He saw he must somehow get his mind much clearer and, with an effort, did so, like an optometrist snapping on a lens that brings the eye chart to focus. “It must be a terrible thing,” he said—an ironic drawl—“to live your whole life in a state of wild panic.” He didn’t need to glance at her to know that the gentle attack had distracted her. “Afraid of tornadoes a month after the season for ’em, afraid of restaurants, afraid of phantoms wearing blue and white clothes any fool can get from Sears if he’s got twenty-four dollars. Afraid of detectives, afraid of men…” The gate went up. He eased carefully forward, crossed the tracks, and turned left onto University, heading for Church, then Ash. “You ever try living with a man, Elaine?”

When she said nothing he glanced at her and saw that she was angry and alarmed; rightly enough. A thought of the bottle in his pocket came briefly into his mind. “I didn’t mean to offend you with that question,” he said. “Part of my business is figuring psychological angles, you know what I mean? But you’re the client, it’s your money. You don’t like the way I work—” Still she said nothing, and Craine sucked the insides of his cheeks, thinking fast. “It’s a hard thing, working for a client that doesn’t trust you—client that thinks you don’t respect her human rights.” He kept the irony—a mere hint. “I’ve noticed how you’ve been. I don’t blame you, understand.” He glanced over. She was listening. He reached inside his suit coat pocket and drew out his pipe. They were coming up on Ash, and though he drove more slowly than a farmer between fields, he knew he’d never bring her around before she was out of the truck and free of him. Hurried though he was, he fitted his pipe between his teeth and got out matches, then looked at her. The lines of her face were too sharp; another trick of the Scotch. “I can let you off and wait for you, if you like, and then drive you to class.”

“I missed class,” she said. She looked