Cleveland in My Dreams by Block Lawrence

Author:Block, Lawrence [Block, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Lawrence Block
Published: 2013-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, on his way to work, Hackett gave himself up to a feeling of supreme well-being. He had repaid Krull’s kindness to him in the best way possible, by passing on the favor to another. At his desk that morning, he waited for the phone to ring with a report from Feverell.

But Feverell didn’t call. Not that morning, not the next morning, not all week. And something kept Hackett from calling Feverell.

Until finally he ran into him on the street during the noon hour—and Feverell looked terrible! Bags under his eyes, deeper than ever. Sallow skin, trembling hands. “Mike!” he said. “Mike, are you all right?”

“Do I look all right?”

“No, you don’t,” Hackett said honestly. “You look awful.”

“Well, I feel awful,” Feverell said savagely. “And I don’t feel a whole lot better for being told how terrible I look, but thanks all the same.”

“Mike, what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? You know damned well what’s wrong. It’s this dream I’ve been having. I told you the whole story. Or did it slip your mind?”

Hackett sighed. “You’re still having the dream?”

“Of course I’m still having the dream.”

“Mike,” Hackett said, “when the doorbell rings, before you do anything else, you were going to call me, remember?”

“Of course I remember.”

“So?”

“So I’ve called you. Every night I call you, for all the good it does.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do, every goddamned night.”

“And then I come over? And I bring my friend?”

“Oh, right,” said Feverell. “Your famous friend, the clean-cut psychiatrist. Whom I’ve yet to meet, because he doesn’t come over and neither do you. Every night I call you, and every night you hang up on me.”

“I hang up on you?” Hackett stared. “Why would I do a thing like that?”

“I don’t know,” said Feverell. “I don’t have the slightest idea. But every night I call you and you don’t even let me get a word in edgewise. ‘I’m sorry,’ you say, ‘but I can’t talk to you now, I’m on my way to Cleveland.’ Cleveland yet! And you hang up on me!”

The End

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