The Deceivers Read Free

they have them walking around in a day or two.”
    They were heading down the turnpike into Hillton, and they both looked at the hospital off to the left. Chrome twinkled in the parking area, and the flower beds were bright patches of color.
    “Better than Gollmer Street,” he said.
    “Oh, much much better!”
    They had had experience with the dingy hospital on Gollmer Street, when Nancy had had her appendix removed, and when Kip had broken his left wrist’ in a fall from the railing of the porch of the rented house a month after they had arrived in Hillton.
    On the eastern outskirts of Hillton, the new turnpike made a long curve to the north and crossed the Silver River on the big sweep of the Governor Carson Bridge, bypassing the congestion of the city. When they had first bought theCrescent Ridge house, the commuting problem had been severe. Carl had had to drive nine miles to Hillton on a winding two-lane highway in fast traffic, find his way through the city, cross the inadequate Prince Street Bridge, and drive three more miles to the parking lot of the Hillton Metal Products Division of Ballinger. Though only a little over twelve miles, he could never make it in less than forty minutes, and when there was sleet or snow or heavy rains, it would often take over an hour.
    When the limited-access turnpike was opened, it cut the trip to a comfortable fifteen minutes. He could bypass the city and exit from the turnpike just three blocks from the plant. Now, however, he turned off at the eastern edge of the city and drove down through the quiet streets of a Sunday summer afternoon and parked in a metered space almost in front of Steuben’s, the best restaurant in the city. They took a small table in the air-conditioned, dimly lighted cocktail lounge and had two rounds of martinis.
    Their conversation had a strange tempo. There would be times of being very gay and amusing—and being too amused by what they said. And then she would give him earnest instructions about all manner of household trivia. And then would come a silence that would begin to be uncomfortable.
    “It’s like a funny kind of celebration,” she said.
    “I know what you mean.”
    “You’ve gone away, but this is the first time I’ve gone away.”
    “Don’t stay as long as I did,” he said, knowing that she was thinking of his two years overseas in the war.
    “Darling, don’t try to come out for the afternoon visiting hours tomorrow. Tomorrow they’re just going to be doing tests and things. Tomorrow evening will be soon enough. Seven to eight-thirty.”
    “That isn’t very long.”
    “To sit and look at somebody in bed? It’s long enough. And please don’t think you have to come in and sit for the whole hour and a half. I know how restless you get.”
    “I’m paying for the accommodations. I guess I can sit as long as I want to.”
    “God knows I’m going to have enough company,” she said. “Every one of the girls will come piling in, dragging their reluctant husbands whenever they can.”
    “Time to eat,” he said, glancing at his watch. He paid the bar check and they found a corner table in one of thesmaller dining rooms. They ordered abundantly and told each other how good the food was at Steuben’s, but neither of them finished the dinner. As they were having coffee, Carl looked across the room and saw their reflections in a mirrored wall. He tried to look at the two of them as a curious stranger might. After seventeen years of marriage, it was as difficult for him to be objective about Joan’s appearance as about his own. He thought that it would have to be a most inquisitive stranger to waste more than the single glance required to ascertain that this was a married couple, the man about forty-two, tall and quite spare, with black hair thinning on top, rather swarthy complexion, two deep lines bracketing the mouth, the habitual expression rather morose and withdrawn. The woman was a year or two younger, not over five feet