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Read Ebook: Twee Edellieden van Verona by Shakespeare William Burgersdijk L A J Leendert Alexander Johannes Translator
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Ebook has 819 lines and 25181 words, and 17 pages
the Divers
He had forgotten the beer again. He remembered that he had forgotten only as he opened the apartment door. A wave of smoke and onions and hamburger flowed past him into the dingy corridor and he stumbled on the garbage pail, plunked right in the doorway for him to lug along the passage to the chute. The bed was not made in one of their two rooms and newspapers littered the other. Elsie was in the kitchen.
"Fred! Fred, did you remember my beer?"
He closed the door so that the neighbors would not hear the row to come, except through the walls.
"Didja, Fred?"
She stood akimbo in the kitchen doorway, a cigarette hanging from her lips, her dressing gown loose and spotted, her feet in old scuffs.
"I forgot," he mumbled. "I'll go now."
Oh, no, he wouldn't. Not until he had heard a full resum? of his lack of character, lack of enterprise, ambition, decency, thoughtfulness, manhood, semblance of virtue.
"I said I was going, Elsie. I said I was going, didn't I?"
"Well, my day! You remembered my name!"
It was true he rarely used her name or called her any husbandly term such as dear or darling instead, and rarely looked at her at all if he could avoid it inconspicuously. Ten years of marriage--ten years of legal proximity, rather, for nothing in him was married to anything in her any more.
"I don't know why you married me," he said.
"Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Go on, get out."
He almost knocked the man over as he left the apartment. The man was standing there, about to ring the bell. Well dressed, clean, expensive overcoat, polished shoes, black hat and a mild friendly face.
"Mr. Frederick Williams?" the man asked.
"Yes," said Fred.
"Yes. Did I win it?"
"Unfortunately, no," said the man.
"Oh. Well, excuse me, I've got to go and get something."
"I'll come with you. My name is Howard Sprinnell, Mr. Williams, and I've been examining the entries to that competition. Frankly, we think you have considerable talent."
"Mister," said Fred over his shoulder as they went down the stairs, "if you're trying to sell me something--"
"I don't want a penny from you, Mr. Williams."
"Then what--"
"We would merely appreciate a few hours of your time, at your convenience."
"We are, of course, very glad to offer you compensation for your time, Mr. Williams," said the man.
Elsie would just drink it away. He'd have to haul crates of bourbon instead of cans of beer, that's all.
"Not interested," he said.
"Not interested," Fred said.
"Fred," said the man as they reached the bottom of the stairs, "I'm doing you a favor. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but either you come voluntarily or you'll come anyway. Why not get paid for it?"
"Not interested. And if anyone wants me, they can come and get me. I don't care. I just don't care."
He slouched off into the rain toward the supermarket.
As Dr. Howard Sprinnell watched him go he took a small silver case from his top-coat pocket. He raised the case to his lips and said quietly: "Sprinnell here. No. A clear case, but no. Pick him up."
The squad car arrived silently on its jets as Fred Williams reached the door of the apartment house. He was carrying a pack of beer in each hand and was glad to see the man had gone. That's all you had to do--just keep saying "not interested" until they went away.
"O.K., bud."
The troopers took him on both sides, grasped his arms, and levered him round.
"Hey!" Fred protested. "The beer's for my wife. She's waiting for it. Please, fellers, I'll never hear the end of it if she doesn't get her beer."
"Joe," said the trooper on Fred's right, jerking his head in the direction of the door behind them.
A third trooper climbed out of the squad car, took the packs from Fred's hands and walked into the apartment house. He climbed the stairs swiftly, wrinkling his nose at the stale thickness of the air, knocked on the apartment door and waited for Elsie to open it.
"Here's your beer," he said shortly.
"Where's Fred?"
"Your husband is being detained in connection with a robbery at his office."
"Fred! Are you kidding? Fred hasn't the sense or the guts! How long will he be gone?"
"Two or three weeks."
"Oh," said Elsie, scratching herself disinterestedly. "Well, thanks for the beer."
She shut the door and the trooper returned to the squad car. He looked at Fred sympathetically but said nothing. The squad car took off, then turned on its sirens.
"What's this all about?" asked Fred Williams from the back seat.
"Just excitement, bud. We live a dull life."
You think you do, you should live mine. I don't care anyway. If I ask them what I'm doing in this squad car, I'll get a silly answer.
"A guy called Spinner or something send for you?"
"We don't get sent for, bud. Where have you been, the Middle Ages?"
He had a point there. Security troopers were under direct control of the President and came and went as they pleased. The satellite stations gave them general directives and the President directed the stations. Fred Williams grinned at the thought of Spinner, or whatever his name was, calling the President to call a satellite station to call these cops to come and get him. He would have been shocked and frightened if anyone had told him this was almost exactly what had happened.
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