The Fiend Read Online Free PDF

life-size cardboard skeletons we have in stock around Halloween. Some woman claims she ordered a dozen for a pathologists’ convention dance that’s being held tomorrow night.” Then into the telephone, “I can’t find any record of your order, Miss Johnston, but I’ll check again. I promise you you’ll get your skeletons even if I, ha ha, have to shoot a couple of my employees. Yes, I’ll call you back.” He hung up, turning his attention to Charlie. “And believe me, I meant everything but the ha ha. Now let’s start searching.”
    Charlie was so dizzy with relief that he had to hold on to the doorjamb to steady himself. “Yes, sir. Right away. If I knew exactly what to search for—”
    â€œA package from Whipple Novelty in Chicago.”
    â€œThat came in this morning, Mr. Warner.”
    â€œIt did? Well, I’ll be damned.” Warner looked pleasantly sur­prised, like a man who doesn’t expect or deserve good news. “Well, I hand it to you, Charlie. You’re getting to know the business. I ask for skeletons, you produce skeletons.”
    â€œNo. No, I—”
    â€œI saw you at the drive-in the other night, by the way. You were with a nice-looking young woman. Funny thing, I could have sworn I’ve seen her before. Maybe she’s one of our cus­tomers, eh?”
    â€œNo, sir. She works at the library, in the reference depart­ment.”
    â€œThat explains it, then,” Warner said. “So she’s a librarian, eh? She must be pretty smart.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œIt pays to have a smart wife.”
    â€œNo, no. She’s not—I mean, we’re not—”
    â€œDon’t fight it, Charlie. We all get hooked sooner or later.”
    Charlie would have liked to stay and explain to Mr. Warner about his relationship with Louise, but Mr. Warner had picked up the phone and was dialing, and Charlie wasn’t sure he could explain it anyway.
    He felt sometimes that he had known Louise all his life and at other times that he didn’t know her at all. In fact, he had met her about a year ago at the library. Charlie was there at Ben’s insistence: “You don’t want to be a stock boy forever, Charlie. I bet there are careers you never even heard about. One of them might be just down your alley but you’ve got to investigate, look around, find out what’s available.”
    And so, night after night, Charlie went to the library and read books and magazines and trade journals about electronics, photography, turkey farming, real estate, personnel management, mining engineering, cartooning, forestry, interior design, cabinet-making, raising chinchillas, mathematics. He barely noticed the woman who helped him locate some of this material until one night she said, “My goodness, you certainly have a wide range of interests, Mr. Gowen.”
    Charlie merely stared at her, shocked by the sudden attention and the fact that she even knew his name. He thought of a library as a warm, safe, quiet place where people hadn’t any names or faces or problems. The woman had no right to spoil it, no right—
    But the next time he went, he wore a new shirt and tie, and a very serious expression which befitted a man with a wide range of interests. He took out an imposing book on archi­tecture and sat with it open on the table in front of him and watched Louise out of the corner of his eye as if he had never seen a woman before and wasn’t sure what to expect from the strange creature.
    He guessed, from the way her colleagues deferred to her, that she was head of the department and so must be at least in her late twenties. But she had a tiny figure like a girl’s with the merest suggestion of hips and breasts, and her movements were quick and light as if she weighed scarcely anything at all. Every time Charlie caught her glancing at him, something ex­panded inside of him. He