The Minotaur Read Free Page B

the
wall by the kitchen table. The ringing stopped just as he reached
for the receiver. He went back to the car for the other sack.
    The airplane on the tid of the box looked gorgeous, mouth-
wateringly gorgeous, but inside the box was sheet after sheet of raw
balsa wood. At least the aircraft parts were impressed, stamped,
into the wood. All you would have to do was pick them out and
maybe trim the pieces. The instruction booklet looked devilishly
complicated, with photos and line drawings. Jake studied the pic-
tures. After a bit he began laying out the balsa pieces from the box
on the kitchen table, referring frequently to the pictures in the
booklet. When the box was empty he surveyed the mess and
rubbed his temples. This was going to be a big job, even bigger than
he thought.
    He put coffee and water in the brewer and was waiting for the
Pyrex pot to fill when the phone rang again. “Hello.”
    “Jake. How are you feeling this morning?” Callie, his wife,
called twice a day to check on him, even though she knew iCirri-
tatedhim.
    “Fine. How’s your morning going?”
    “Did you go out?”
    “Downtown.”
    “Jake,” she said. tension creeping into her voice as she pro-
nounced his name firmly. “We need to talk. When are you going to
call that admiral?”
    “I dunno.”
    “You can’t keep loafing like this. You’re well. You’re going to
have to go back to work, or retire and find something to do. You
can’t just keep loafing like this. It isn’t you. It isn’t good for you,
Jake.”
    She emphasized the word “good,” Jake noticed listlessly. That’s
Callie, instinctively dividing the world into good and evil- “We’ll
talk about it this weekend.” She was driving over from Washington
when she got off work this evening. Jake had driven over to the
beach house two days ago.
    “That’s what you said last weekend, and Monday and Tuesday
evenings. And then you avoid the subject” Her voice was firm.
“The only way I can get your undivided attention is to call you on
the phone. So that’s what I’m doing. When, Jake?”
    This weekend. We’ll discuss it this weekend. I promise.”
    They muttered their goodbyes. Jake poured a cup of coffee and
sipped it as he sorted through the piles of balsa again. What had be
gotten hinuetf into?
    Coffee cup in hand, he went through the front door and walked
past UK car to the street He turned toward the beach, which was
about a hundred yards away. The house beside hw wu empty, a
suaiiBer place that belonged to some doctor in Baltimore. The aext
house belonged to a local, a phar»adst whose wife worked sights
down at the drugstore. He had seen their son OB the beach flying a
radio-controlled airplane, and didnt Callie say this week was
spring break for the kids? He went to the door and knocked.
    “Captain Grafton. What a pleasant surprise.”
    “Hi, Mrs. Brown. Is David around?”
    “Sure.” She turned away. “David,” she called, “you have a visi-
tor.” She turned back toward him, “Won’t you come in?”
    The boy appeared behind her. “Hey, David,” Jake said. He ex-
plained his errand. “I need some of your expert advice, if you can
come over for a little while.”
    Mrs. Brown nodded her approval and told her son to be back for
lunch.
    As they walked down the street, Jake explained about the plane.
The boy smiled broadly when he saw the pile on Jake’s kitchen
table- “The Gentle Lady,” David read from the cover of the in-
struction booklet. “That’s an excellent airplane for a beginner.
Easy to build and fly. You chose a good one. Captain.”
    “Yeah, but I can’t tell which parts are which. They aren’t la-
beled, as far as I can tell.”
    “Hnunm.” David sat at the table and examined the pile. He was
about twelve, still elbows and angles, with medium-length brown
hair full of cowlicks. His fingers moved swiftly and surely among
the parts, identifying each one. “Did you get an engine for this
plane?”
    “Nope.”
    “A glider