Read Online People Who Knock on the Door by Patricia Highsmith - Free Book Online

Arthur again placed his bike within view and entered the shop with deliberate cool, as if price were of no importance, though he had barely twenty dollars with him. And would his father stop his allowance, now that he had a part-time job? Very likely.
    “I’ll take it,” said Arthur, looking at himself in the mirror in the square-tailed shirt.
    When Arthur looked back on the evening at Maggie’s, he wondered why he had been so anxious. The atmosphere had been quite unsticky. Maggie’s mother Betty had put a gin and tonic in his hand, and then laughing, had excused herself, because she hadn’t asked him if he wanted it. Maggie had told her that he liked gin and tonics. Arthur kept it. Maggie’s father had come down at the last minute before dinner, in his uniform trousers and white shirt without tie or jacket, and he had paid little attention to Arthur, which in a way had been a relief. Warren had been expecting the telephone to ring (it did not) to inform him that he had to replace another pilot on a short late flight tonight. If not, he was going to sleep at the hotel owned by Sigma Airlines near the Indi airport, as he usually did before a flight in the morning. A happy element in the evening was Maggie’s attitude: She acted as if she wanted her parents, especially her father, to like him. After her father left at 10, Arthur even helped in the kitchen. Then he and Maggie had been alone in the living room for a while. “. . . Most boys are joking and pretending all the time. . . .” The words before that and after, Arthur couldn’t remember. But Maggie had said she liked him because he was serious.
    On his bed that night, Arthur found one of his father’s little pamphlets whose title in bold black letters was FOR DISBELIEVERS. Well, not tonight. Tonight he believed in a lot of things, even in himself, in himself and Maggie, but not in this crap! And what had he done wrong today?
    He carefully unbuttoned his new shirt. “All signals go,” he said softly, picked up the pamphlet with two fingers, and dropped it on the floor by his closed door. Tomorrow it could get lost among the other stuff in the living room.

7
    J une spread itself over the town, making lawns green, the woods lush, gardens bright with flowers, in day after day of sunshine. Sometimes at 6 p.m. when Arthur cycled home from Shoe Repair, there would be a half hour of light rain, as if nature were doing the exactly correct watering that year. Arthur felt it was the happiest month of his life. His grades had averaged 88, a 75 in French having pulled him down and a 96 in biology having pulled up the average of six subjects.
    He had even attended the Chalmerston High School graduation rites in cap and gown, after hesitation. A stuffy ceremony with beaming parents was Arthur’s idea of hell and absurdity, because if you passed the exams, you made it and that was that. But Maggie was going, with an attitude of “sure it’s silly, but it doesn’t take long and people expect it.” So Arthur went, and his family was represented by his mother and a slightly reluctant Robbie in the auditorium audience. His father said he had important clients to see that Tuesday morning and couldn’t get away. When Arthur came home with his mother at noon, she told him there was a surprise for him on the table in his room. This was a new typewriter, a beautiful blue Olympia portable, clean and shining, lovely. Arthur had had his present typewriter since the age of ten, though it still worked perfectly.
    “I thought you could use a second to take with you east,” said his mother. “Then you’ll have your old one here when you come home on visits.”
    He had sent off his report card to the Columbia admissions officer, a Mr. Anthony Xarrip, with a letter reminding Mr. Xarrip of the favorable comments six months ago of Mr. Cooper of the biology department of Chalmerston High School. Arthur wrote the letter twice to get it right and showed it to his mother before he