Ansel Varth about the streets of King's Neck. She had seen him standing beside the gasoline pump in the Shell station, seemingly absorbed in the roll of the high-test meter. She had glimpsed him leaving his home on Frigate Lane with his plump little wife beside him. And she had seen him sometimes at the post office. She had heard that Varth was an accountant who worked out of his home, and he apparently conducted much of his business by mail. It was at the post office that Varth was at his most grotesque. When he approached the slots, he had the furtive quality of a small boy who had dirtied himself and had decided to brazen it out by walking as if the lump in his trousers did not exist.
They reached the slots at the same time, and Gilly made contact. "Excuse me," she said, brushing against him. "I want to send this to Manhattan. Do I use the out-of-town slot, or the local slot?"
"The out-of-town slot," Varth answered, speaking with the careful enunciation of a second-rate comedian attempting to imitate a Harvard homosexual. "The out-of-town slot is for all mail not to be delivered within the unincorporated area of King's Neck. Any mail that is to be delivered within King's Neck goes into the local slot. I usually use the out-of-town slot."
Bingo! The voice was unmistakable. There was simply no question about it. Gillian knew immediately where she had heard it before. Gotcha you bastard, she thought. Then she started laughing. Of all people, she thought, Ansel Varth. Why he even wore a homburg.
"Well, I'll tell you one thing," she said. "I never thought it would be you."
"I beg your pardon," Varth said.
"Come on, you know who I am. I'm Gillian Blake. God knows you've spoken to me enough times."
"I don't believe I've had the pleasure, Mrs. Blake. I'm Ansel Varth from Frigate Lane."
Gillian stared at Varth and trapped his eyes. She smiled her sweetest smile. "Oh, we've had the pleasure," she said. "I've got a pair of big ones, and you're jack the Fucker."
Varth's mail bag plopped to the floor. He looked as if he were going to cry.
"What was it you told me the last time you called?" said Gilly. "Oh yes, you came to a point. And you said I was a whore."
Now Varth looked as if he might be sick.
"Don't worry," Gillian said. "It was kind of nice, having a crank caller, all my own. Besides, you've heard of Madame Pompadour. Well, I'm her cousin, Lady Asshole."
"Please… " said Varth.
"Don't worry," she said.
"You mean you're not…."
"No," said Gillian. "Actually, it interests me."
Ansel Varth took off his eyeglasses. "Holy shit!" he said.
"That's better," Gilly said. "Why didn't you tell me it was you making all those phone calls? We would have met long before this."
"Son of a bitch!" said Varth.
Varth hastily stuffed his mail into the slots, and asked if they could go somewhere. Gillian suggested a motel. She was having a marvelous time. Ansel Varth might be just the tonic she was looking for. She was going to have this coitus-crazed accountant make an entry. Maybe even a double entry.
Varth loosened up during the drive to the motel. He was still talking as they entered the room. His conversation was full of words like cunt and snatch.
Gilly was enchanted. Nobody had ever talked dirty that way to her before.
"I'll tell you one thing," she said. "You certainly don't sound like an accountant."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, you can enunciate like one, but you'll have to admit that your conversation isn't what you'd expect from an accountant."
"What do I sound like?" he asked.
Gillian laughed. "Like a crank-caller," she said. "Or like someone who writes dirty books."
Varth, who had just shucked off his topcoat, dropped on the bed and stared at her.
"Cocksucker!"
"What's the matter?" she said.
"You're fantastic. You must be psychic or something."
"I don't understand you, lover."
"Well that's what I do, don't you see?"
"I'm afraid you're losing me."
"That's what I do. I write dirty books."
"You what!"
"I write dirty books! I mean, that's it. That's how I really make a living."
Now it was Gillian's turn to drop to the bed. "You're putting me on."
"No, no. Honestly. I really do."
"Son of a bitch!" This time it was Gillian. She shook her head. She had the look of a woman whose bra had just been snapped open. What a tonic, she thought.
Gillian had never met a professional pornographer before, and she questioned Varth almost as if she were doing an