Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [83]
He straightened his back. One more try. He had to be able to get back. It wasn't fair to get stuck here, now, after all he'd gone through! He squeezed his eyes shut, again evoking the recollection of the garden, the French doors behind him, the music of the Blatz waltz. He sniffed, recalling the scent of jasmine, the fresh fragrance of the garden, hearing the murmur of wind through the trees . . .
There was a clatter of metal, a groaning wow-wow-wow; an engine blattered into life. O'Leary stared dismally at the jalopy parked across the way; it dug off with a squeal of rubber and roared away down the street in a cloud of exhaust fumes. So much for night-blooming jasmine and the wind in the willows.
Something was wrong. Always before, when he hadn't been distracted by something like a dinosaur snapping at his heels, he'd been able to make the shift, if he just tried hard enough. But now—a total blank. It was as though his abilities had suffered a paralytic stroke. He couldn't feel so much as a tentative stir even when he focused every erg of Psychic Energy he possessed.
But there had to be some way. If he could only get word to Nicodaeus, tell him—
O'Leary stood stock-still, balancing a fragile idea. Nicodaeus. He had talked to him before, from the phone in the jail. And the number—it had ten digits, he remembered that . . .
He screwed his eyes shut and tried for total recall. The reek of the cell, the chill of the morning air—Artesia was unaccountably cooler than Colby Corners—the white-washed wall. The phone had been an old-fashioned one, with a brass mouthpiece. And the number—
It started with a nine . . . five three four, that was it; then a nine, two oh's, and ended with—was it two eleven? Or one one two? . . .
Lafayette looked along the street. There was a phone booth there, half a block away. He tried his pocket; it yielded a dime. He set off at a run.
The phone booth was small, cramped, of an old-fashioned design, with a folding wooden door. Inside, an ancient instrument with a brass mouthpiece and a hand crank hung crookedly from a wall thick with carved initials and frank anatomical sketches accompanied by phone numbers. He held his breath, dropped the coin, twirled the crank. There was a long silence. Then a click. Then more silence. Then a sharp ping! and a hum.
"Central," a bright voice said tinnily in his ear. "Number, please."
"Uh—nine, five, three, four, nine, oh, oh, two, one, one," Lafayette got off breathlessly.
"That number is no longer in service. Please consult your directory."
"Wait!" O'Leary yelled. "I have to talk to you!"
"Yes, sir?"
"I have to get back—back to Artesia," O'Leary gulped, rallying his thoughts. "I was there, you see. I belong there and everything was going swell; then, for no reason—here I was! And now—"
"I'm sorry, sir, where did you say you were calling from?"
"What? Why, from this phone booth—here in Colby Corners, on the corner next to the Schrumph's candy shop—what's that got—"
"An error has been made, sir. Calls from that sector are not authorized—"
"Let me talk to the supervisor!" O'Leary demanded. "It's a matter of life or . . . or exile!"
"Well . . . one moment, please."
O'Leary waited, hearing his heart pound. Half a minute passed. Then a distinguished-sounding voice said, "Yes?"
"Hello! Look, I've been the victim of some sort of mistake; I was perfectly happy there in Artesia—"
"One moment, please," the voice interrupted. Then in an aside: "Operator, this seems to be some sort of eccentric; the call originates in one of the null sectors, I note. Probably an inebriated local, dialing in by mistake. Lucky to get a line, at that. With the circuits as busy as they are, a fifty-year wait isn't uncommon."
"I'm not drunk! I wish I were!" O'Leary yelled.