Dreamsongs, Volume II by George R.R. Martin

Author:George R.R. Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780553904345
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-11-26T16:00:00+00:00

THE DOORBELL WAS BROKEN, SO HE HAD TO KNOCK. NO ONE ANSWERED, but Willie didn’t buy that for a minute. “I know you’re there, Mrs. Juddiker,” he shouted through the window. “I could hear the TV a block off. You turned it off when you saw me coming up the walk. Gimme a break, okay?” He knocked again. “Open up, I’m not going away.”

Inside, a child started to say something, and was quickly shushed. Willie sighed. He hated this. Why did they always put him through this? He took out a credit card, opened the door, and stepped into a darkened living room, half-expecting a scream. Instead he got shocked silence.

They were gaping at him, the woman and two kids. The shades had been pulled down and the curtains drawn. The woman wore a white terry cloth robe, and she looked even younger than she’d sounded on the phone. “You can’t just walk in here,” she said.

“I just did,” Willie said. When he shut the door, the room was awfully dark. It made him nervous. “Mind if I put on a light?” She didn’t say anything, so he did. The furniture was all ratty Salvation Army stuff, except for the gigantic big-screen projection TV in the far corner of the room. The oldest child, a little girl who looked about four, stood in front of it protectively. Willie smiled at her. She didn’t smile back.

He turned back to her mother. She looked maybe twenty, maybe younger, dark, maybe ten pounds overweight but still pretty. She had a spray of brown freckles across the bridge of her nose. “Get yourself a chain for the door and use it,” Willie told her. “And don’t try the no-one’s-home game on us hounds of hell, okay?” He sat down in a black vinyl recliner held together by electrical tape. “I’d love a drink. Coke, juice, milk, anything, it’s been one of those days.” No one moved, no one spoke. “Aw, come on,” Willie said, “cut it out. I’m not going to make you sell the kids for medical experiments, I just want to talk about the money you owe, okay?”

“You’re going to take the television,” the mother said.

Willie glanced at the monstrosity and shuddered. “It’s a year old and it weighs a million pounds. How’m I going to move something like that, with my bad back? I’ve got asthma too.” He took the inhaler out of his pocket, showed it to her. “You want to kill me, making me take the damned TV would do the trick.”

That seemed to help a little. “Bobby, get him a can of soda,” the mother said. The boy ran off. She held the front of her robe closed as she sat down on the couch, and Willie could see that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. He wondered if she had freckles on her breasts too; sometimes they did. “I told you on the phone, we don’t have no money. My husband run off. He was out of work anyway, ever since the pack shut down.

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