"And your husband? Did he have the same dream?"
Fresh tears resulted. "Can't you leave me alone?" She turned her back.
"I got things to do. You can make yourself comfortable--" She indicated
the barber chairs, and left through the back door.
Sol looked after her, and then ambled over to the first chair and
slipped into the high seat. His reflection in the mirror, strangely gray
in the dim light, made him groan. His clothes were a mess, and he needed
a shave. If only Brundage had been alive ...
He leaped out of the chair as voices sounded behind the door. Dawes was
kicking it open with his foot, his arms laden with two rather large
feet, still encased in bedroom slippers. Charlie was at the other end of
the burden, which appeared to be a middle-aged man in pajamas. The
Sheriff followed the trio up with a sad, undertaker expression. Behind
him came Mrs. Brundage, properly weeping.
"We'll take him to the funeral parlor," Dawes said, breathing hard.
"Weighs a ton, don't he?"
"What killed him?" Sol said.
"Heart attack."
The fat man chuckled.
The tableau was grisly. Sol looked away, towards the comfortingly
mundane atmosphere of the barber shop. But even the sight of the
thick-padded chairs, the shaving mugs on the wall, the neat rows of
cutting instruments, seemed grotesque and morbid.
"Listen," Sol said, as they went through the doorway. "About my car--"
The Sheriff turned and regarded him lugubriously. "Your _car_? Young
man, ain't you got no _respect_?"
Sol swallowed hard and fell silent. He went outside with them, the woman
slamming the barber-shop door behind him. He waited in front of the
building while the men toted away the corpse to some new destination.
* * * * *
He took a walk.
The town was just coming to life. People were strolling out of their
houses, commenting on the weather, chuckling amiably about local
affairs. Kids on bicycles were beginning to appear, jangling the little
bells and hooting to each other. A woman, hanging wash in the back yard,
called out to him, thinking he was somebody else.
He found a little park, no more than twenty yards in circumference,
centered around a weatherbeaten monument of some unrecognizable military
figure. Three old men took their places on the bench that circled the
General, and leaned on their canes.
Sol was a civil engineer. But he made like a reporter.
"Pardon me, sir." The old man, leathery-faced, with a fine yellow
moustache, looked at him dumbly. "Have you ever heard of Armagon?"
"You a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Thought so."
Sol repeated the question.
"Course I did. Been goin' there ever since I was a kid. Night-times,
that is."
"How--I mean, what kind of place is it?"
"Said you're a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Then 'tain't your business."
That was that.
He left the park, and wandered into a thriving luncheonette. He tried
questioning the man behind the counter, who merely snickered and said:
"You stayin' with the Dawes, ain't you? Better ask Willie, then. He
knows the place better than anybody."
He asked about the execution, and the man stiffened.
"Don't think I can talk about that. Fella broke one of the Laws; that's
about it. Don't see where you come into it."
At eleven o'clock, he returned to the Dawes residence, and found Mom in
the kitchen, surrounded by the warm nostalgic odor of home-baked bread.
She told him that her husband had left a message for the stranger,
informing him that the State Police would be around to get his story.
He waited in the house, gloomily turning the pages of the local
newspaper, searching for references to Armagon. He found nothing.
At eleven-thirty, a brown-faced State Trooper came to call, and Sol told
his story. He was promised nothing, and told to stay in town until he
was contacted again by the authorities.
Mom fixed him a light lunch, the greatest feature of which was some hot
biscuits she plucked out of the oven. It made him feel almost normal.
He wandered around the town some more after lunch, trying to spark
conversation with the residents.
He learned little.
* * * * *
At five-thirty, he returned to the Dawes house, and was promptly leaped
upon by little Sally.
"Hi! Hi! Hi!" she said, clutching his right leg and almost toppling him
over. "We had a party in school. I had chocolate cake. You goin' to stay
with us?"
"Just another night," Sol told her, trying to shake the girl off. "If
it's okay with your folks. They haven't found my car yet."
"Sally!" Mom was peering out of the screen door. "You let Mr. Becker
alone and go wash. Your Pa will be home soon."
"Oh, pooh," the girl said, her pigtails swinging. "Do you got a
girlfriend, mister?"
"No." Sol struggled towards the house with her dead weight on his leg.
"Would you mind? I can't walk."
"Would you be my boyfriend?"
"Well, we'll talk about it. If you let go my leg."