Jack of Spades Read Online Free Page B

sure, Andrew . . . You know, you had another bad night last night.”
    I don’t think so.
    “Well—I seem to remember . . .”
    Not at all, Irina. But thanks! Love you.
    And I hung up, before the murmured echo Love you .
    It was like my dear wife, I thought, to exaggerate. Irina had thought she’d overheard my uplifted voice just now, and she’d misinterpreted my mood. She seemed to have misremembered the previous night, which had been featureless as a dark, placid sea in which the turbulence of waves is indecipherable.
    Such wifely solicitude is tender, when it is not exasperating!
    In my fingers was a glass of wine—(tart white wine, my favorite)—which I hadn’t remembered pouring.

4 The Accusation
    “God damn. ”
    Of course, I could not work! My heart was beating rapidly and my breathing felt constrained as if something, or someone, were tightening a band around my chest.
    Impulsively then, though I should have known better, I decided to call C. W. Haider. Any lawyer would have advised me not to try to communicate with this individual who’d accused me—(fraudulently, crazily)—of theft; but of course, I could not resist trying to appeal to his sense of justice and fair play. I could not resist thinking, with childish vanity— But he will like me, when he hears my voice. Everyone likes Andy Rush!
    There appeared to be no “C. W. Haider” listed in the Harbourton directory but there were several Haiders living in town, on older, historic streets near the town square. No one answered the first two calls, but the third was answered on the second ring, by an individual with a bright expectant voice who might have been a precocious child, or a mildly retarded adult—“Yes-ss? Hel-lo?”
    I asked if I might speak to “C. W. Haider” and the voice responded brightly, “You are! You are speaking to ‘C. W. Haider.’”
    A child! Or, a woman posing as a child.
    Awkwardly I introduced myself. As I uttered “Andrew J. Rush” it seemed to me that I could hear an intake of breath at the other end of the line.
    “I’m calling to inquire about a summons I received today from the Harbourton Municipal Court. ‘C. W. Haider’—which you say is you—has filed a complaint with the court accusing me of theft. But I don’t understand what the ‘theft’ could be, Ms. Haider. (It is ‘Ms. Haider’—isn’t it?) Are you actually claiming that I took something from you, when you must know we’ve never met?”
    Silence. Again, a sound of breathing, close against the phone receiver.
    “Hello? Is this—Ms. Haider? Are you there?”
    Now the voice came in a low childish sly drawl—“Yes-ss.”
    “You’ve charged me with theft, you’ve issued a complaint with the municipal court, will you please explain why ? What is it I’m supposed to have stolen from you?”
    “ You know.”
    “I know—what?”
    “ You know what you took, Mr. Rush.”
    The voice was louder now, sharper and not so childish.
    “No. I don’t. I don’t know ‘what I took’—I don’t know who the hell ‘C. W. Haider’ is, or anything about you. I think you owe me the courtesy of an explanation, at least.”
    “Well, it has to stop. It has gone on too long, and now I am putting a stop to it. The judge will help me put a stop to it.”
    The voice lifted in shrill protest. You could imagine the eyes shining with indignation and hurt.
    “A stop to what?”
    “You know, Mr. Rush. You know what you are doing to me.”
    “But what is it that I’m doing?”
    “Stealing from me. The pages you took, for your novels. The things that are mine, that you took. You are a plagi-a-rist—a plagiarist. I will expose you to the world.”
    “‘Stealing’—‘plagiarist’—you’re accusing me of plagiarism ? That’s outrageous.”
    “It is outrageous! It is! That is why you will be exposed, and punished! I want the things you have stolen returned, and I want you to apologize. And you owe me money—royalties.”
    “Is this a joke? Are