Page 36 - Three Adventures

Deflator Mouse

“Well, I don’t want to keep you from your dinner, Cindy. I just
called to see how you were doing. I’m going to take it easy here
myself, tonight. Do you want to get together on the week-end?”
“Of course I do, Ken! I can just see that hurt little-boy look on
your face! I’m sorry I’m such a drag. You just caught me on a bad
night. Call me Thursday: we’ll make plans.”
“Okay, babe. Talk to you then.”
“Thanks. Bye.”
Ken hung up and stood staring down at the telephone. His
relationship with Cindy had been ripening slowly, from a chance
encounter on the beach to an almost-regular schedule of week-end
dates. Together they had enough income to get married, and
separately neither wished to continue the expense of remaining
single. She was a girl without guile, a quality he knew he’d require in
an Anglo mate; he had spent enough time with white women whose
interest in him was not totally healthy. But Cindy saw Ken as no
different from any other American male; given the proper cues, her
feminine responses could have been given to any number of men.
Ken, however, did not dislike being treated generically; rather, he felt
totally comfortable in her presence, an actor playing himself to the
hilt. But his part had changed. Just now he’d felt the strain of taking
on an unaccustomed role: the liar. There had been several openings
at Litmus for accounting clerks. And he was not going to spend the
evening in front of the television. Ken opened a cupboard and took
out a bag from Fabulous Fabrics. In it was ten yards of solid black
cotton cloth; for photographic back-drops, he had told the salesgirl.
He laid the yardage out on his kitchen table and set about copying an
old karate outfit. Deflator Mouse had work to do.

* * * * *

An aging janitress pushed her cart of mops and brooms slowly past
the door marked Director. The squeal of tiny wheels abruptly returned
Oscar Beveledge’s attention to his immediate environment. He
pushed back his chair and crept quickly around his desk to the door.
On the verge of pulling it open he recognized the familiar nocturnal
sound of lackadaisical maintenance. Blinking and shaking his head, he
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