The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler [66]
Now he had a new symptom. His chest had developed a flutter that bore no resemblance to a normal heartbeat.
“If you don’t get me out of this I’m going to call for the police to come shoot him,” Charles said.
“No! Don’t do that!”
“I can’t just sit here waiting for him to break through.”
“He won’t break through. You could open the door and walk right past him. Believe me, Charles. Please. I’m up on top of this building and—”
“Maybe you don’t know that I’m prone to claustrophobia,” Charles said.
One possibility, Macon decided, was to tell the restaurant people he was having a coronary. A coronary was so respectable. They would send for an ambulance and he would be, yes, carried—just what he needed. Or he wouldn’t have to be carried but only touched, a mere human touch upon his arm, a hand on his shoulder, something to put him back in connection with the rest of the world. He hadn’t felt another person’s touch in so long.
“I’ll tell them about the key in the mailbox so they won’t have to break down the door,” Charles said.
“What? Who?”
“The police, and I’ll tell them to—Macon, I’m sorry but you knew that dog would have to be done away with sooner or later.”
“Don’t do it!” Macon shouted.
A man emerging from the restroom glanced in his direction.
Macon lowered his voice and said, “He was Ethan’s.”
“Does that mean he’s allowed to tear my throat out?”
“Listen. Let’s not be hasty. Let’s think this through. Now, I’m going to . . . I’m going to telephone Sarah. I’m going to ask her to come over and take charge of Edward. Are you listening, Charles?”
“But what if he attacks her too?” Charles asked.
“He won’t, believe me. Now, don’t do anything till she comes, you understand? Don’t do anything hasty.”
“Well . . .” Charles said doubtfully.
Macon hung up and took his wallet from his pocket. He rummaged through the business cards and torn-off snippets of paper, some of them yellow with age, that he kept in the secret compartment. When he found Sarah’s number he punched it in with a trembling finger and held his breath. Sarah, he would say, I’m up on top of this building and—
She didn’t answer.
That possibility hadn’t occurred to him. He listened to her phone ring. What now? What on earth now?
Finally he hung up. He sifted despairingly through the other numbers in his wallet—dentist, pharmacist, animal trainer . . .
Animal trainer?
He thought at first of someone from a circus—a brawny man in satin tights. Then he saw the name: Muriel Pritchett. The card was handwritten, even hand-cut, crookedly snipped from a larger piece of paper.
He called her. She answered at once. “Hel-lo,” roughly, like a weary barmaid.
“Muriel? It’s Macon Leary,” he told her.
“Oh! How you doing?”
“I’m fine. Or, rather . . . See, the trouble is, Edward’s got my brother cornered in the pantry, overreacting. Charles I mean, he always overreacts, and here I am on top of this building in New York and I’m having this kind of, um, disturbance, you know? I was looking down at the city and it was miles away, miles. I can’t describe to you how—”
“Let’s make sure I’ve got this right,” Muriel said. “Edward’s in your pantry—”
Macon collected himself. He said, “Edward’s outside the pantry, barking. My brother’s inside. He says he’s going to call the police and tell them to come shoot Edward.”
“Well, what a dumb fool idea.”
“Yes!” Macon said. “So I thought if you could go over and get the key from the mailbox, it’s lying on the bottom of the mailbox—”
“I’ll go right away.”
“Oh, wonderful.”
“So good-bye for now, Macon.”
“Well, but also—” he said.
She waited.
“See, I’m up on top of this building,” he said, “and I don’t know what it is but something has scared the hell out of me.”
“Oh, Lord, I’d be scared too after I went and saw Towering Inferno.”
“No, no, it’s nothing like that, fire or heights—”
“Did you see Towering Inferno? Boy, after that you couldn’t get me past jumping level in any building. I think people who go up in skyscrapers are just plain brave. I mean if you think about it, Macon, you have to be brave