Travis McGee 09 - Pale Gray For Guilt by John D. MacDonald

Author:John D. MacDonald
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-03-20T05:00:00+00:00

Eleven

ON SATURDAY before noon I looked through the stowage areas for fifteen minutes before I found my gadget. It is called the McGee Electric Alibi. The two D cells had expired, so I replaced them with fresh ones and tested it. Once upon a time it was a doorbell, but I removed the bell and replaced it with a piece of hardwood that has exactly the right timbre and resonance.

I direct-dialed my love and hunched over the desk top so I could listen to the earpiece and hold the mouthpiece at the pretested and precalculated distance from the mouthpiece. It only rang twice before she picked up the phone, but twice was enough to give me the duration and interval of the rings.

“Darling?” she said. It was exactly noon, as promised.

I pressed the button, transmitting the raucous clatter of a phone that keeps trying to ring after you’ve picked it up.

Between the first two imitation rings I heard her say, “… dammit to…” and in the next gap, “… stinking thing… ” I heard the clicking as she rattled the bar. “… n of a bitch…” I gave it eight fake rings and that made ten in all, as they instruct you in the yellow pages, and hung up.

Poor guy calls up all steamed up, right on time, and she isn’t even home. Fine thing. So he thinks maybe her clock is wrong and she ran out for a paper or a loaf of bread or something. Five minutes later I tried again, and she answered, and I rattled her eager, frustrated, infuriated, helpless little eardrum and this time heard her cry over and above the racket, “Goddamn it to hell!”

So on the off chance, the guy would call the office, so I phoned at once before she would decide I might, and a subdued voice said, “Three one two one. ”Is Mary Smith there, please? Extension sixty-six.“

“Miss Smith is not in today, sir.”

“Well… if she should come in or phone in, would you tell her that Mr. McGee has been trying to reach her, and he’ll phone her at home again at three o’clock.”

“Is there a number where she can reach you, sir?”

“No. I don’t expect to be here much longer, thanks.”

She would know I had the right number, as I had reached her before. I had the bell on my phone switched off. I could make outgoing calls, however. So I tried her at twelve thirty. She hung up on the second rasp. At one her line was busy when I tried it. I had been hoping for that. It would be a help. A few minutes later it wasn’t busy. She caught it on the first ring. “Hello?” Raaaasp. Cry of pure despair. Clunk as she hung up.

Snoopy the dog wears a guilty and evil grin from time to time. I couldn’t work one up.

Meyer and I were in the lounge going over final details when I suddenly realized it was exactly three. I had no time to prepare him for the Electric Alibi.

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