Read Online A Bridge of Years by Robert Charles Wilson - Free Book Online Page B

a long, appraising
look. "Toilet training this one?"
    "Tom
has a lot of potential," Klein said. "I can tell."
    "He's
the owner's brother. That's a whole lot of potential right there."
    "Hey,
Chuck," Klein said disapprovingly. But Alberni was very hot in
sales right now and he could get away with things like that.
    Tom
said nothing.
    The
intercom was still live. In the next room, the customer took the hand
of his nervous wife. "If we put off the cedar deck till next
year," he said, "maybe we can ante up another thousand."
    "Bingo,"
Alberni said.
    "See?"
Klein said. "Nothing is left on the table. Absolutely nothing at
all."
    Tom
said, "You eavesdrop on them? When they think they're alone?"
    "Sometimes,"
Klein said, "it's the only way to know." "Isn't that
unethical?"
    Alberni
laughed out loud. Klein said, "Unethical? What
the hell? Who are you all of a sudden, Mother Teresa?"

    He
clocked out at quitting time and took the highway to the Harbor Mall.
At the hardware store he picked up a crowbar, a tape measure, a
chisel, and a hammer. He paid for them with his credit card and drove
the rest of the way home with the tools rattling in his trunk.
    The
northeastern end of the house, Tom thought. In the basement. That's
where they live.
    He
microwaved a frozen dinner and ate it without paying attention:
flash-fried chicken, glutinous mashed potatoes, a lump of "dessert."
    He
rinsed the container and threw it away.
    Nothing
for them tonight.
    He
changed into a faded pair of Levi's and a torn cotton shirt and took
his new tools into the basement.
    He
identified a dividing wall that ran across the basement and certified
by measuring its distance from the stairs that it was directly
beneath a similar wall that divided the living room from the bedroom.
Upstairs, he measured the width of the bedroom to its northeastern
extremity: fifteen feet, give or take a couple of inches.
    In
the basement the equivalent measurement was harder to take; he had to
kneel behind the dented backplate of the Kenmore washing machine and
wedge the tape measure in place with a brick. He took three runs at
it and came up with the same answer each time:
    The
northeastern wall of the basement was set in at least three feet from
the foundation.
    He
pulled away storage boxes and a shelf of laundry soap and bleach,
then the two-by-four shelves themselves. When he was finished the
laundry room looked like Beirut, but the entire wall was exposed. It
appeared to be an ordinary gypsum wall erected against studs,
painted flat white. Appearances can be deceptive, Tom thought.
But it would be simple enough to find out.
    He
used the chisel and hammer to peel away a chunk of the wallboard. The
wallboard was indeed gypsum; the chalk showered over him as he
worked, mingling with his sweat until he was pasty white. Equally
unmistakable was the hollow space behind the
wall, too deep for the overhead light to penetrate. He used the
crowbar to lever out larger chunks of wallboard until he was
ankle-deep in floury rubble.
    He
had opened up a hole roughly three feet in diameter and he was about
to go hunting for a flashlight for the purpose of peering inside
when the telephone buzzed.
    He
mistook it at first for some angry reaction by the house itself, a
cry of outrage at this assault he had committed. His ears were
ringing with the effort of his work and it was easy to imagine the
air full of insect buzzing, the sound of a violated hive. He
shook his head to clear away the thought and jogged upstairs to the
phone.
    He
picked up the receiver and heard Doug Archer's voice. "Tom? I
was about to hang up. What's going on?"
    "Nothing
... I
was in the shower."
    "What
about the videotape? I spent the day waiting to hear from you, buddy.
What did we get?"
    "Nothing,"
Tom said.
    "Nothing?
Nada? Zip?"
    "Not
a thing. Very embarrassing. Look, I'm sorry I got you involved in
this. Maybe we ought to just let it ride for a while."
    There
was a silence. Archer said, "I can't believe I'm hearing
this