Don't Call Me, I'll Call You

when rosemary agreed to trap the phone freak, little did she guess the incredible outcome

"Rosebay 102? Miss Rosemary Underwood? Lieutenant Mackintosh calling. Stratton Police Headquarters."

Rosemary was always careful and efficient in parking her car. If she had had a dog, the dog would never have been permitted to foul the sidewalk. Indeed, that nonexistent animal would never have permitted himself to foul the sidewalk. There was an aura of healthy wholesomeness about this rosy, personable lady that effectively discouraged any sort of fouling, on any level. Which goes, my dear reader, for you, on yours.

"What can it be, Lieutenant? Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Ask not what you can do for me, Miss Underwood. It's what you can do for the whole community."

Rosemary was the village librarian. She loved her job and she loved her village. "For the community? Certainly. Whatever I can."

"You'll have to be a very plucky lady."

"I don't know about that, Lieutenant. I suppose I can try."

"It's about these phone calls."

"Would you mind speaking up a little? I'm afraid we've got a bad line."

"Obscene phone calls, Miss Underwood. This character's been making them in all the four villages. He's got a bad line, all right."

"Not here in Rosebay, surely?"

"Different village each week. First Idell."

"Idell? Oh, dear! I hope Mrs. Ferguson wasn't bothered. Her husband's away so often."

"It's only the single ladies. Then calls in Morton's Pond. Then Padwick. And now he's in your neck of the woods. Complaint every night since Monday."

"How really unpleasant! All the same, Lieutenant, I hardly see where I fit in."

"You're in already, miss. (continued on page 160) Don't Call Me (continued from page 145) Up to your . . . well, up to your ears, let's say. According to our Extrapol Projection here on my blotter, he's got you lined up for his little talk show this very evening."

Obscene phone calls are often accompanied by heavy breathing, sometimes at both ends of the line. Rosemary's bountiful bosom rose and fell. It did so only slightly and only once, but it was like the soft swell of that unusual wave that tells of an upheaval in the distant deeps. She was left with just breath enough to ask, "But how can you possibly know that?"

"Psychology in crime prevention. Miss Underwood. You'd call this man a low-down, disgusting pervert. We call him the obsessive-compulsive type. In a case like that, you look into his operating pattern: then it's just locate, arrive, arrest. Now, we've just got wise to what this individual's hung up on. In his case it's alphabetical order, and that lands him right on your doorstep."

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

"In the phone book. The single ladies. In Rosebay, it was Miss Daniels on Monday. Miss Jackson Tuesday. Miss Roberts, Miss Rutherford, and tonight it would be Miss Taylor, only it seems like our man's a bit of a peeper as well: we've observed he passes up all but the good-lookers. So we figure you're next in line. Just by way of briefing. Miss Underwood, he chooses what we might call the cocktail hour, doubtless hoping to strike it lucky with a lady who's had a snifter or two and lost her inhibitions. We're getting into the time slot now when he's due to be giving you a tinkle."

"Thank you for the warning. Lieutenant. I shall hang up immediately."

"That's the very thing we're calling you to ask you not to do."

"Not to hang up? Of course I shall hang up. What else do you expect? What are you asking of me?"

"We're asking you for time. Miss Underwood. Precious time, on behalf of the community. Time to get a fix on this unsavory character, using electronic detection techniques to locate the instrument he's operating on, make the snatch and rid society of one who tends to deprave and corrupt. How can we do that if you hang up on him. Miss Underwood?"

"You want me to listen to whatever he chooses to say to me?"

"Strictly as an act of public service."

"I'm sorry, I definitely will not be subjected to a torrent of absolute filth, Lieutenant."

"You definitely will not be subjected to a torrent of absolute filth. Miss Underwood."

"But you've just asked me to keep on listening."

"Not to filth. Erotic romancing I'd prefer to call it. Not a four-letter word in the whole program. Well, maybe just one or two when he's all steamed up right at the end, but reports agree that these are indistinctly uttered and barely audible. Anyway, that's the moment we make the pounce. Having waited for the medical evidence, if you want me to be scientific about it."

"Lieutenant Mackintosh, I'm afraid I can have no truck whatever with this disgusting creature."

"Now, hold your horses, Miss Underwood! Call him a dirty rotten pervert--that's your privilege. But disgusting may be too strong a word. I've got his composite word picture here on my blotter, boiled down from what all the ladies say. Type: professional or artistic. Voice: sensitive yet virile. Choice of vocabulary--get this: refined, poetic, Complainants' being asked to freely associate in terms of charm rating and good appearance with imaginary line-up of well-known movie stars. Paul Newman had it by a landslide. That's the gentleman who'll soon be engaging you in a little light conversation."

"Conversation? Are you suggesting now that I should reply to him? In his terms, perhaps?"

"We can't have him thinking he's onto some frigid square, now, can we, Miss Underwood? Or it'll be him hanging up before we can trace the call, much less lay hold of him. So if you could bring yourself to play ball just a little, just enough to keep him sort of spellbound, that's all we're asking of you. And we'd certainly appreciate it."

"I'm afraid you've come to the wrong type of person. Lieutenant, I wouldn't know how to help you at all."

"Not with all those new books you carry nowadays in the library, Miss Underwood? I'm sure you could recollect certain passages that would be a real inspiration to you."

"I don't like that sort of suggestion, Lieutenant."

"Well, miss, for your information and strictly off the record, we happen to know about those books, because they've been brought to our attention here at headquarters."

"And for your information. Lieutenant, each of those books has been found by the committee to possess redeeming social value."

"Please don't think I'm trying to pressure you. Miss Underwood, It's just that I'm thinking of the social value of the pure young schoolgirls this monster'll soon be pouring his insidious poison into the innocent ears of. Take it from me, you're the last of the adult ladies in all the four villages. Next time around, it'll be the fresh little flowers be'll be depraving and corrupting and scarring psychologically for life. Do you want to see it in their laces as you go along the street?"

Rosemary, remembering a gentleman with a flashlight encountered in her earliest teens, was forced to admit that she didn't want that at all. "How long would this business take if I were to consent to it?"

"Oh, not long. Not long at all. And, like I said, a well-chosen word or two from you would go far in speeding things up. Think of the satisfaction of hearing him pounced on!"

"I see no sort of satisfaction from any angle. However, if I must. I must. How will you know when this person is in touch with me?"

"It'll be any minute now, Just pull down your blind when the phone rings. Our radio car will see it. And leave the rest to me."

"I hope I shan't let you down."

"Believe me. Miss Underwood, we have faith in you as a great little trouper who's going to put on a real sizzling show. And in the name of your local law enforcement, and the whole community at large, I want to thank you in advance for--"

Rosemary replaced the receiver while it was still dribbling the gratitude and platitudes of the fuzz.

She looked around her beloved house as if to assure herself that nothing had changed. The menace was from outside: outside, in the soft evening, beyond windowpanes washed to a bright nothingness, stood her little, sweetly scented from garden, guarded by a picket fence as innocently white as the whitest lace.

Within, the furniture, simple, fragile, borderline antique, stood all in place and shone like the laces of a company of Sunday-school children. Even the clock-face was clearer and more candid, the very air seemed purer, and the covers and drapes softer and fresher, than in other rooms.

What a filthy mess you would have made, my friend, with your clumsy great shoes and your stinking pipe, had you somehow managed to penetrate this sweet tranquillity! But at this point of time, no such unseemly intrusion had occurted. Why, then, did all this spotless virtue look back at Rosemary, it seemed reproachfully, as if she had opened an entrance to the enemy?

What entrance? And what enemy? She suddenly saw it was that double agent, the telephone. Hitherto, it had rested on the table by the couch as innocent as a sea shell, murmurous only with the harmless gossip of the four villages. Now it had all the look of one of those villainous Oriental bottles from which at (continued on page 199) Don't Call Me (continued from page 160) any moment there might issue a voice, an evil presence, a bronzed and fleshy-torsoed, gross and muscular jinni, capable of gratifying the wildest fancy, and--who knows?--once released, impossible to bottle up again. But Rosemary sharply checked this train of thought, declaring it to be inoperative.

Resentful at being declared inoperative, the telephone at once went off like an alarm clock. No need for Rosemary to ask for whom that bell pealed: it pealed for her. She found she was moving, and quickly, to pull the blind down, and then with slowing pace toward the clamorous phone. She lifted the receiver as though it weighed a ton and sank, exhausted, speechless and almost lifeless, onto the couch.

Someone at the other end appeared to be offering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The thought, like all good medicine, was distasteful but effective. After a moment, Rosemary was able to say, "Yes?" It seemed quite a speech, possibly from a Greek tragedy.

A voice, low-toned and so extremely rich and respectful as to resemble that of a hot-fudge sundae offering grace before meat, inquired. "Have I the pleasure of speaking to Miss Rosemary Underwood?"

"This is she. What can I do for you? That is to say. who is this speaking?"

"One who adores you."

"I can hardly believe that."

"Adores you. On my knees. In the library, Kneeling at the bottom row right in front of where you sit. Looking up a reference in the Britannica. Looking right up your dress. Miss Underwood."

Rosemary instinctively but all too retroactively brought her knees together. In what was, though she had never thought of it as such, the very center of her being, she experienced a feeling akin to that of the sensitive sea anemone at the impertinent intrusion of a stick.

"In view of which." continued the mellow-cello voice that poured like bad music from the earpiece, "in the very beautiful view of which, may I call you Rosemary?"

"I suppose you may as well."

"Rosemary. I have said I adore you. Some people think anyone who calls up on the telephone is nothing but a dirty rotten pervert. I hope you don't think that of me, Rosemary."

"You may be a little compulsive."

"Love is a strong compulsion, my dear."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," said Rosemary, using a phrase she had heard on some street corner, and finding the game not too difficult, so far.

"Only by way of practice," returned the other. "I didn't dare call you up without a rehearsal or two. It's because I'm shy and timid where you are concerned. It's not because I'm lacking in true manhood. I'm not in the least lacking in true manhood. Rosemary, and I hope you'll allow me to prove it to you."

With that, the abandoned wretch, speaking in the peculiar tone, at once brazen and furtive, at once hesitant and urgent, of the hardened sensualist, invited Rosemary to a little monkey business with a zipper. One thing leads to another: he next impalpably took her by the hand and drew her upon a conducted tour of a cavity not as large as that of Kentucky nor decorated like that of Lascaux but not entirely devoid of points of interest. But nothing on such a trip can be more tiresome than the patter of the guide. He extolled his stalactites and stalagmites as though this were the eighth and these the ninth and tenth wonders of the world. After a little reluctant curiosity, and even faint beginnings of awe. Rosemary became annoyed when she sensed that the whole display was being thrust down her throat, as it were. At once, and in vehement distaste. "Why." she cried, "you filthy, disgusting beast!" Remembering the community, she fell silent.

There was silence, but somehow not an answering silence, at the other end.

"Are you there?" faltered Rosemary.

More silence. An empty phone booth, its door gaping wide on a dead city. Infinite empty space beyond. Utter failure.

And then, like the first faint note of the reprise of a motif that had seemed utterly lost, her interlocutor spoke up, but in a small pouting voice, prickly with offense, and rather high-pitched, as if a shark had been at him: "Now you've hurt my feelings. I think I'd better hang up."

"Oh, don't do that," cried Rosemary. "I didn't quite mean what I said."

"You want me to forgive you?"

"Oh, please."

"Will you prove your sincerity?"

"If I can."

"You'll have to be punished a little."

"Punished?"

"I'm afraid so, Rosemary. Poppa spank."

Believe it or not, these simple words created a turmoil somewhere deep in Rosemary's mind, a turmoil such as can only be compared to the effect of a highspeed outboard motor circling in a nudist swimming pool. Rounded objects seemed to be floating everywhere in a rosy froth of misty memories and tingling thrills. Juvenile squeals echoed faintly from the forgotten past. The fact is, her own father, whom she had absolutely adored as a moppet, had been a little old-fashioned in his methods of nursery discipline.

"Oh!" said Rosemary.

"I want you to do exactly as I tell you, without fail. Or it's goodbye forever at the first sign you're up to any tricks. Are you sitting on the couch, by any chance?"

"Well, yes, I am," said Rosemary.

"I want you to kneel up in the middle of that couch and put your head down on the cushion at the end. Put the telephone close beside you, so I can tell by the tone of your voice that you're doing what I say and feeling what I want you to feel. If not--"

"I'm kneeling. Just the way you said." whispered Rosemary, all in a fluster.

"Very well. Now, my naughty dear, I must ask you to..." And what do you think the infamous wretch ordered our poor Rosemary to do? He demanded that she raise this garment, and undo this, and lower these, until, like a frightened ostrich, she was reared invertedly up, with all her delicate plumage in foamy disarray. "Thank heaven," thought Rosemary, "that I first had to lower the blind!"

Now her telephone tyrant, after the insubstantial homage of a compliment or two rendered sight unseen, administered a wicked little tickle that ran giggling for the nearest cover. There, since sound and feeling were indistinguishable in this peculiar experience, it could still be felt trembling with suppressed merriment like a child at hide-and-seek.

Rosemary was next invited to entertain a pair of smart slaps, evenly distributed, and to acknowledge receipt of same. Remembering that, for the sake of the community, this had to be done as expressively as possible, the conscientious subject replied with a quiver and a quaver worthy of a student of the method.

This in turn provided sauce for both goose and gander. You cannot possibly imagine, unless you are as depraved and corrupt as this villainous voluptuary himself, the unseemly postures he ordered his hapless victim to assume, nor how he darted upon her with a fusillade of warming slaps and stinging kisses that made her cry out even more convincingly than before. Thereupon, marking the change with the piercing punctuation of a precisely placed pinch, he resorted to remorseful strokings and tender caresses, all to the accompaniment of cooing sounds of such sweet solicitude that Rosemary, like the crystal that returns the note of the violin, found herself responding with a coo or two of her own. This was the unhappy lady's undoing.

Quick to recognize the unguarded sincerity of this response, the distant aggressor became so inflamed that he implanted whole colonies of kisses, settling them in regions hitherto unknown to man, and soon, in the name of law and order, he sent his vigorous viceroy to take charge.

Once apprised of the arrival of this arrogant minion, whose progress was soon being celebrated with the drumfire delivery of a red-hot sports announcer, Rosemary found herself possessed by a sensation that can only be described as indescribable. And that rapidly became more so.

I don't know if you have ever contemplated a giant tank of that liquid high explosive known as soup during those fatal moments when it takes on a life of its own, heaving, quaking, palpitating with a mysterious agitation as it approaches, and recedes from, and approaches ever nearer the flash point of an explosion that will level whole city blocks on every side. Lacking such an experience, you can form no idea of how Rosemary's whole being was heaving, quaking and palpitating and approaching by wave after wave that block-leveling flash point. But suddenly she was startled and arrested by a harsh cry at the other end of the line, followed by a succession of staccato yelps much like the babbling of a pack of hounds in full cry, which in turn put her in mind of the pounce of the fuzz. Now she listened, quick-frozen with terror, to the sound of hoarse and strangled breathing, as if the police had him by the collar, choking him into submission. Suddenly the phone, that instrument that had seemed so electronically vibrant with a super-smashing life force, went dead.

Nothing can be more dismaying than to hold such an instrument in one's hand and suddenly find it dead. "He has been cut off." cried Rosemary. "He has been snatched, as they call it. And I am responsible. I did it for the sake of the community."

This last reflection did nothing to calm her uneasiness. It increased to such a pitch that she could no longer sit still. She was compelled to rise and prowl the floor. Her sweet and orderly living room stood amazed at the sight of a lady prowling the floor. Her clear-faced, candid clock lifted a hand as if to tell her it was time to behave more sedately. (Greedy little swine of a clock; piggy bank of minutes! Could you not have spared Rosemary just two or three more?)

Rosemary noticed the clock but read its message in her own way. "By this time, they are dragging him in," thought she. "I hope they will not treat him with brutality. They may forget he is obsessive-compulsive and regard him as a dirty rotten pervert, and then they will beat him up." With that, she swooped down on the phone, and with trembling fingers she dialed Stratton Police Headquarters.

"Is that Stratton Police Headquarters? This is Miss Underwood of Rosebay, whom you called earlier this evening. I heard your men make the arrest. I hope no one was hurt. I'm calling to say I don't wish to bring charges."

"Now, wait a minute. Miss Underwood, did you say?"

"Yes. And I want also to say that I am convinced this man has a psychological problem. He needs help. He needs therapy. He needs to find the right person to talk to. Above all, he should not be beaten up."

"Here, hold it, miss--please! Let's take this step by step, if you don't mind. What's this arrest you're talking about?"

"Why, the man who makes the phone calls. The man you called me about earlier. But am I not talking to Lieutenant Mackintosh?"

"No Mackintosh here, miss."

"No Mackintosh? But there must be. He called me. With instructions."

"No Mackintosh here, miss. And never has been."

"Then who was it calling, if it wasn't Lieutenant Mackintosh?"

"If he said he was from here, miss, it was somebody pulling your leg."

Rosemary replaced the receiver and after a moment or two, she closed her mouth, which had fallen open. "He might at least have had the common decency..." said she at last. "If only we could have talked a little longer!"

She took another turn or two about the room, still trying to bring her thoughts into some sort of order. Her eye fell again upon the telephone. It seemed to cower under her gaze like a guilty dog. "But, after all," thought Rosemary, "it is a mere instrument. It only comes to life when one takes it up, like this, and uses it to..." But she was already dialing Idell 263. It was the number of the Fergusons' cottage, which they had recently let to a young man who, people said, had come there to concentrate on his novel.

I'm told that his publishers are highly delighted with the last few chapters he has sent in.