Rock Springs by Richard Ford

Author:Richard Ford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2006-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

On the morning Marge was getting ready for her first day back at the bar, the phone rang in the kitchen and Sims answered it. It was almost nine and he was reading the paper while Marge was getting dressed.

“Vic,” a voice said, a man’s voice, a voice he didn’t know. There was a long pause then, during which it sounded like the receiver was being muffled and talking was going on.

“Yes,” Sims said. “Who is it?” It occurred to him that it was probably Marge’s boss calling from the bar, needling Sims about being a housewife or something like that. Marge’s boss, George, was a fat, good-natured Greek guy everybody liked. “Is this Big George?” Sims said. “I know what you’re going to tell me, George. You better watch your step out there.”

“Vic,” the voice said again. Sims somehow sensed it wasn’t George—though it could’ve been—and in the same instant he realized he had no earthly idea who it was or could be, but that it wasn’t good. And in the silence that followed his own name, the feeling of a vast outside world opened up in him, and scared him so that he stood up beside the wall phone and stared at his own phone number. 876-8076. This was somebody calling from far away.

“This is Vic,” Sims said stiffly. “What do you want? What’s this about?” He heard Marge’s footsteps in another room, heard her closet door close, smelled her perfume in the air.

“We’re going to kill Marge, Vic,” the man said. “If you let her out of your sight, anywhere, we’ll be waiting for her. The devil needs Marge, Vic. You’ve given up your right to her by being an asshole and a slime, by fucking somebody else. And now you have to pay for it.”

“Who is this?” Sims said.

“This is the devil calling,” the voice said. “Everybody’s a loser today.”

Someone, a woman in the background, laughed a long, witchy, raspy laugh until she started to cough, then laughed through the cough and laughed until she couldn’t stop coughing. Then a door slammed in a room at the end of the line, very far away. Sims knew who it was now. He turned and looked out the window and across the yard between his house and the Krukows’. Betty Krukow was standing at the sink, her hands down and out of sight. She looked up after an instant and saw Sims looking at her. She smiled at him through the two panes of glass and across the sunny yard with the fence in between. When Sims stared at her a moment longer, she held up a plate out of the sink, dripping with suds and dishwater, and waved it in front of her face as if it were a fan. Then her face broke into a wide laugh and she walked away from the window.

“Cleo,” Sims said. “Let me speak to Cleo. Let me speak to her right now. Right this instant.” Things didn’t have to be this way, he thought.

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