The Deceivers Read Online Free PDF

surprising glint of tears in her eyes.
    “I read some of Cindy’s stuff before we got married,” Bucky said. “It was pretty damn good. I tried to get her to let me send it to an old buddy of mine from Ohio State who was in the advertising department of
Collier’s
, but she wouldn’t let me send it along. The way I figure it, if you want to get stuff published, you got to have contacts in the business end of the magazines.”
    “Bucky has got old buddies scattered all over hell and gone,” Cindy said, not too kindly.
    Bucky said, in a defensive way, “You got to keep up your contacts. You never know when you can help somebody or a guy can help you. That’s what makes the world go round.”
    “It never hurts to have friends,” Joan said.
    “Except that sometimes it hurts to have friends,” Cindy said.
    “There they go again,” Bucky said. “Why don’t you pair of eggheads go on a quiz program some place?”
       Now Cindy came slowly, with her smile that tilted higheron one side than the other, into the hospital room, hair in a pony tail, wearing a white tailored shirt with the sleeves rolled up, gray walking shorts, red sandals, carrying a flat package in red polka-dot paper under her arm.
    She handed the package to Joan and said, deadpan, “This is a hilarious book. It is excruciatingly funny. The clerk laughed so hard while she was explaining it to me that I haven’t the faintest idea what it’s about.”
    “Thank you, Cindy.”
    Carl gave Cindy the chair and sat on the end of the bed. As Joan unwrapped the book, Cindy said, “This is my first day of settling into the life of a slob.”
    “Oh, did the kids get away?” Joan asked. “Say, I heard about this book! I read a wonderful review. Thanks so much, dear.”
    “What’s this about the kids?” Carl asked.
    “Bucky’s parents drove over yesterday from Battle Creek and picked up the little monsters. I think they suspect I am an unnatural parent and all that, because I did do a little devious staff work to get them off my hands for a while. I suspect I am called that strange girl Bucky married. Anyhow, they are doting grandparents, and they have a lovely place in the country not far from Fort Custer, and they did a decent job of raising five kids of their own, and they have the devoted services of the irreplaceable Myra who has been with them several centuries. They will be returned, spoiled rotten no doubt, on the last day of August to their loving parents. I do love the little animals dearly, but I have had too much time in the sole company of infants. The conversation is not very stimulating or rewarding. I had to do something before I ended up going around thrumming on my lips and wolfing pablum.”
    “They can be an awful chore,” Joan said.
    “I just had to have a break. I hope it’s going to turn into a summer custom. I’ve always been the sort of a person who needs privacy to sort of renew myself. And, boy, am I going to have it now. I’m going to turn the television to the wall. I’m going to read and loaf and toast in the sun and eat when I feel like it, and drink beer when I feel like it, and let the Cable manse go to rack and ruin. Bucky and I plan to take our three weeks in August, and end up at the farm to pick up the kids. And by the way, Carl, Bobby took along that little microscope thing you gave him. I asked him why and he said it was essential. That was the word he used, and youcan’t argue with that. So I asked politely why it was essential and he said he planned to look at a chicken with it. I asked him if the chicken would stand still and he said if it wouldn’t, he would run too. I get an odd mental image out of that. Old Bitsy, the butterball, was a gem. She cooed and danced and admired her new dress and babbled away about the wonderful farm. She is convinced from her personal research library of children’s books that all the animals will, of course, talk. It will break her heart when they won’t. She was