THE WIND was still roaring in the evening, the tide was still high, the basement was completely flooded, the cabins were partly submerged, and our island was only a fraction of its usual size, but the fire was crackling in the lounge, and we survivors were rosy with self-congratulation when I read “The Mysteries of Mrs. Jerrold’s Bedroom,” episode twenty-four of Dead Air.
AS A BOY, I sometimes worked as a door-to-door salesman. I sold the Babbington Reporter, raffle tickets, the Babbington Cub Reporter — a neighborhood newspaper that I published myself — and, for a couple of months in the fall before I turned thirteen, flying-saucer detectors.
Of all the potential buyers of flying-saucer detectors in my neighborhood, Mrs. Jerrold was the most attractive. She had been my first call. She had been busy with another door-to-door salesman when I called, but my grandfather had taught me that persistence is the rock on which a salesman builds success, so after I had made a couple of other calls I returned to Mrs. Jerrold’s house and knocked at the back door.
Mrs. Jerrold came waltzing to it. “Hi, Peter,” she said dreamily. “What’s up?”
“I’m selling flying-saucer detectors,” I said.
“Mmm,” she said, abstractedly.
“I was here before, remember?”
She smiled languorously, stretched, giggled, tousled my hair, and said, “I remember.”
“My mother has one of these detectors,” I said, “and she finds that it really helps her sleep.”
“Does your mother have trouble sleeping?”
“Not now, but she used to. She used to worry about flying saucers and intercontinental ballistic missiles, but now, thanks to the Magnetomic Flying-Saucer Detector, she has no worries. ‘No worries, no kidding,’ that’s our slogan. Here’s her testimonial.” I handed Mrs. Jerrold a flyer.
She read it, smiled, and said, “Okay, I’ll take one.” I would have been delighted by this easy sale if she had spoken to me in the tone of a passionate woman who would have preferred the comforts of the flying-saucer-detector salesman to the comforts of the flying-saucer detector he was selling, but she didn’t. She used the tone of a suburban housewife amused by a little boy from the neighborhood and one of his little follies.
“My mother had me install hers on her bedside table,” I said. “Having it right beside her while she sleeps gives her the maximum relief from anxiety.”
“Mmm,” said Mrs. Jerrold, taking a strand of my forelock in her fingers and tugging it, pulling me toward her. “Do you think I should have mine installed beside the bed, too?”
“Probably.”
“Go on upstairs and set it up then.”
“Sure,” I said, trying to sound as if it didn’t make any difference to me.
I walked upstairs and into the Jerrolds’ bedroom. The bed was rumpled. I touched the sheets. They were warm. There were two bedside tables, one on either side of the bed, and I didn’t know which side of the bed Mrs. Jerrold slept on, so I began looking for clues. I slid the drawer of one bedside table open and found a pipe, a scattering of bits of tobacco, a pack of playing cards with a photograph of a naked woman on the back of each one, and a box of condoms. In the other I found hairpins, a brush and comb, and a sachet. I decided that this one was hers. I put the detector down, aligned it quickly, and then began looking into the drawers of the dresser beside the bedside table. My recollection of what happened next is a little fuzzy. I remember handling her stockings and underwear, sweating, breathing in irregular gulps, and trembling to the rhythm of my throbbing heart; then, I think, I may have fainted, because the next thing I recall is lying on the bed, on Mrs. Jerrold’s side, with my hand in my pants.
“How’s it going?” she called from the stairs.
“Not aligned yet,” I said, leaping up.
“Okay. Let me know when you’re ready.”
Since I wasn’t ready for her, and wouldn’t be without a moment to calm myself, I allowed my curiosity to turn me to the closet. I put my hand on the knob and twisted it. It did not move, didn’t even budge. This was not a familiar experience: more than merely odd, it was completely wrong, not at all the way a doorknob ought to behave. I touched it again, drew a breath, and gave it another twist, tentatively, and it resisted me again. I stood there with my hand on the knob, wondering whether I should try harder, holding my breath, and in the stillness of the moment I heard a sound from under the bed, a humming sound. I let go of the doorknob, got down on my hands and knees, and looked under the bed. There was the Jerrolds’ tape recorder, and it was running.
“Peter? Are you ready for me yet?”
“Yeah!” I said. “I’m ready. Come on up.”
She came up the stairs and into the bedroom, paused a moment in the doorway and ran her eyes around the room, then came to my side, and we stood there, side by side beside the bed, looking down at my little gadget, which rested there doing nothing, as it was supposed to when there was no danger.
“Cute,” she said, and as she said it she put her arm across my shoulders. “Very cute.”
[to be continued]
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