and not some spokesman for him, rang off abruptly.
Though Doug had every reason to be furious, he was mostly frightened. To speak so to a man whom he did not know, Perlmutter obviously possessed considerable power. Else how could he so easily assume that Doug would not prove dangerous if provoked? Unless of course the man was a nut case of the sort it was routine to encounter in the city. There are persons who if denied what they believe is their right of way will leap from their car, draw a pistol, and shoot down the other driver. One read in the papers that on public transport a passenger will knife another who trips on his foot, and Doug had had personal experience of cabdrivers who verbally abuse their passengers and threaten to do worse if any complaint is sounded. How is it that the target of the aggressor never happens to be one of the other violent people at large? Is it never dangerous for the threatener, on whose approach the intended victim might draw his own gun and get off the first shot? Not only would such reversal of roles seem to violate a basic law of human intercourse, but the Perlmutters of the world have an unerring sense of when to strike. Doug was no coward, but he had been taken utterly offguard.
He went into his bedroom and lay down. Had Chuck been spying on him? Only now did it occur to him to wonder whether Chuck might be Perlmutterâs âChaz.â Or rather, only now did he summon up the courage to entertain that possibility: underneath it all, he had never been in doubt.
Lydiaâs family had the biggest pool in town, and there were always relatives in the water who would teach a younger child to swim. Bobbyâs story of being purposely almost drowned by a malicious larger cousin could be matched by nothing in the history of Lydiaâs childhood.
The Gravesesâ pool was of normal size, and therefore if only one more person shared it with her, she felt crowded: this was true even if the other person happened to be Bobby, who howeverâand unexpectedly, given his proficiency at the other summer sportsâseldom entered the pool, and when he did so, swam none too well. As to the nearby ocean, no one from the Graves family went into or on it, and when Lydia once asked about this abstention, Bobby failed to give a real answer, mumbled something about currents and shrugged lugubriously, and hoping as she did to overcome the influence of her mother, who on any pretext would querulously question her father to the point at which he lost his temper, Lydia did not pursue the matter, though it seemed unusual that people would spend their summers surrounded by an element into which they would not dip their toes.
By now the day had become warmer and more humid than it looked when one faced the inland greenery. There were individual air-conditioners in the rooms, but it went against Lydiaâs grain to resort to unnatural cooling at oceanside. However, when she plunged into the pool she found the water sickeningly warm as soup. This could not have been the effect of mere sunlight, which owing to the nearby trees fell directly on only about half of the surface.
Godâs sake, was the pool heater on? She climbed up and out on the chromium ladder at the deep end and walked drippingly to the little structure that contained the filtering mechanism and the heater, here of utilitarian design and screened by bushes, not the miniature Swiss chalet her father had had specially designed and conspicuously situated.
Indeed, the thermostat was set at 92 degrees, and why, when the older Graveses never swam there, and Bobbyâs style was to paddle briefly at the shallow end, then climb up to sit on the rim, long shins in the water, to watch her racing dive and three fast laps, each in another style: breast, butterfly, crawl. That she might have been Olympic material had been routinely pointed out by relatives and friends, and nowadays her husband as well, but the truth was that in this day
Though Doug had every reason to be furious, he was mostly frightened. To speak so to a man whom he did not know, Perlmutter obviously possessed considerable power. Else how could he so easily assume that Doug would not prove dangerous if provoked? Unless of course the man was a nut case of the sort it was routine to encounter in the city. There are persons who if denied what they believe is their right of way will leap from their car, draw a pistol, and shoot down the other driver. One read in the papers that on public transport a passenger will knife another who trips on his foot, and Doug had had personal experience of cabdrivers who verbally abuse their passengers and threaten to do worse if any complaint is sounded. How is it that the target of the aggressor never happens to be one of the other violent people at large? Is it never dangerous for the threatener, on whose approach the intended victim might draw his own gun and get off the first shot? Not only would such reversal of roles seem to violate a basic law of human intercourse, but the Perlmutters of the world have an unerring sense of when to strike. Doug was no coward, but he had been taken utterly offguard.
He went into his bedroom and lay down. Had Chuck been spying on him? Only now did it occur to him to wonder whether Chuck might be Perlmutterâs âChaz.â Or rather, only now did he summon up the courage to entertain that possibility: underneath it all, he had never been in doubt.
Lydiaâs family had the biggest pool in town, and there were always relatives in the water who would teach a younger child to swim. Bobbyâs story of being purposely almost drowned by a malicious larger cousin could be matched by nothing in the history of Lydiaâs childhood.
The Gravesesâ pool was of normal size, and therefore if only one more person shared it with her, she felt crowded: this was true even if the other person happened to be Bobby, who howeverâand unexpectedly, given his proficiency at the other summer sportsâseldom entered the pool, and when he did so, swam none too well. As to the nearby ocean, no one from the Graves family went into or on it, and when Lydia once asked about this abstention, Bobby failed to give a real answer, mumbled something about currents and shrugged lugubriously, and hoping as she did to overcome the influence of her mother, who on any pretext would querulously question her father to the point at which he lost his temper, Lydia did not pursue the matter, though it seemed unusual that people would spend their summers surrounded by an element into which they would not dip their toes.
By now the day had become warmer and more humid than it looked when one faced the inland greenery. There were individual air-conditioners in the rooms, but it went against Lydiaâs grain to resort to unnatural cooling at oceanside. However, when she plunged into the pool she found the water sickeningly warm as soup. This could not have been the effect of mere sunlight, which owing to the nearby trees fell directly on only about half of the surface.
Godâs sake, was the pool heater on? She climbed up and out on the chromium ladder at the deep end and walked drippingly to the little structure that contained the filtering mechanism and the heater, here of utilitarian design and screened by bushes, not the miniature Swiss chalet her father had had specially designed and conspicuously situated.
Indeed, the thermostat was set at 92 degrees, and why, when the older Graveses never swam there, and Bobbyâs style was to paddle briefly at the shallow end, then climb up to sit on the rim, long shins in the water, to watch her racing dive and three fast laps, each in another style: breast, butterfly, crawl. That she might have been Olympic material had been routinely pointed out by relatives and friends, and nowadays her husband as well, but the truth was that in this day
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