want to report a fire in Oldtown,” Johnny said. “Can you give me the correct number to call, please?”
“Hey,” one of the nurses said. “Whose house is on fire?”
Eileen shifted her feet nervously. “He says mine is.”
The nurse who had been talking about her apartment to her beautician did a double take. “Oh my God, it’s that guy,” she said.
Johnny pointed at the callboard, where five or six lights were flashing now. “Why don’t you go see what those people want?”
The operator had connected him with the Oldtown Fire Department.
“My name is John Smith and I need to report a fire. It’s at ...” He looked at Eileen. “What’s your address?”
For a moment Johnny didn’t think she was going to tell him. Her mouth worked, but nothing came out. The two coffee-drinkers had now forsaken their cups and withdrawn to the station’s far corner. They were whispering together like little girls in a grammar school john. Their eyes were wide.
“Sir?” the voice on the other end asked.
“Come on,” Johnny said, “do you want your cats to fry?”
“624 Center Street,” Eileen said reluctantly. “Johnny, you’ve wigged out.”
Johnny repeated the address into the phone. “It’s in the kitchen.”
“Your name, Sir?”
“John Smith. I’m calling from the Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.”
“May I ask how you came by your information?”
“We’d be on the phone the rest of the day. My information is correct. Now go put it out.” He banged the phone down.
“... and he said Sam Weizak’s mother was still ...” She broke off and looked at Johnny. For a moment he felt all of them looking at him, their eyes lying on his skin like tiny, hot weights, and he knew what would come of this and it made his stomach turn.
“Eileen,” he said.
“What?”
“Do you have a friend next door?”
“Yes ... Burt and Janice are next door ...”
“Either of them home?”
“I guess Janice probably would be, sure.”
“Why don’t you give her a call?”
Eileen nodded, suddenly understanding what he was getting at. She took the phone from his hand and dialed an 827 exchange number. The nurses stood by watching avidly, as if they had stepped into a really exciting TV program by accident.
“Hello? Jan? It’s Eileen. Are you in your kitchen? ... Would you take a look out your window and tell me if everything looks, well, all right over at my place? ... Well, a friend of mine says ... I’ll tell you after you go look, okay?” Eileen was blushing. “Yes, I’ll wait.” She looked at Johnny and repeated, “You’ve wigged out, Johnny.”
There was a pause that seemed to go on and on. Then Eileen began listening again. She listened for a long time and then said in a strange, subdued voice totally unlike her usual one: “No, that’s all right, Jan. They’ve been called. No ... I can’t explain right now but I’ll tell you later.” She looked at Johnny. “Yes, it is funny how I could have known ... but I can explain. At least I think I can. Good-bye.”
She hung up the telephone. They all looked at her, the nurses with avid curiosity, Johnny with only dull certainty.
“Jan says there’s smoke pouring out of my kitchen window,” Eileen said, and all three nurses sighed in unison. Their eyes, wide and somehow accusing, turned to Johnny again. Jury’s eyes, he thought dismally.
“I ought to go home,” Eileen said. The aggressive, cajoling, positive physical therapist was gone, replaced by a small woman who was worried about her cats and her house and her things. “I ... I don’t know how to thank you, Johnny ... I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, but ...” She began to weep.
One of the nurses moved toward her, but Johnny was there first. He put an arm around her and led her out into the hall.
“You really can,” Eileen whispered. “What they said ...”
“You go on,” Johnny said. “I’m sure it’s going to be fine. There’s going to be some minor smoke and water damage, and that’s all. That movie poster from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I think you’re going to lose that, but that’s all.”
“Yes, okay. Thank you, Johnny. God bless you.” She kissed him on the cheek and then began to trot down the hall. She looked back once, and the expression on her face was very much like superstitious dread.
The nurses were lined up against the glass of the nurses’ station, staring at him. Suddenly they reminded him of crows on a telephone line, crows staring down at