LITMIR.BIZ

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are you up to, Milly?” Dubykky asked. His manner was cordial, not a hint of censure in the tone, but Mildred recognized the look in his eye and was embarrassed. He read her so easily.

      “Shopping,” she answered. The pout in her voice was obvious even to her. She was tempted to add, “for feminine napkins,” but decided not to. The moment to be naughty had passed. It would only sound vulgar. Besides, however Matt Gans might react to the risqué, Will was impossible to provoke. Gans paid for his tape, nodded goodbye, and left them at the counter.

      “Milly, Milly,” began Dubykky and paused, squinting one eye. “Fifteen years older, married, three children—is there anything else you require before accepting that a man is not right for you?”

      She folded her arms and pouted openly. The clerk behind the cash register, the widow Eschenbaugh, put her hand to her mouth, pretending to hide a smile. (The hag!) Mildred thrust her chin forward and walked away.

      “See you at six,” Dubykky called behind her. “Don’t forget about the rocks.”

      Really, why she ever, sometimes, bothered to think of William Dubykky as a possibility! He only liked to ruin her fun, which he did with an accuracy and persistence that almost seemed supernatural. For a husband he would never do.

      As for Dubykky, watching her walk away and, despite sulking, sway her hips sultrily, he reflected on the time, the one brief time, when out of deep aggravation he had actually considered marrying her as the least troublesome measure. It would satisfy his debt to the family. He could watch her behavior and protect her directly. Their first meeting, Mildred’s dreadfully coquettish behavior, had goaded him into an overreaction.

      It happened in 1953 when he was fresh out of military service. He realized he was facing a unique challenge as soon as the front door opened on the Warden house and he introduced himself.

      “Ma’am,” he started when Gladys stood before him. Then he faltered. The words he had rehearsed suddenly seemed stilted, vapid—My name is Will Dubykky, an army buddy of your husband. I’m setting up law practice in town and thought I’d look you up. If there’s any way I can be of help, just ask. For Victor’s sake. Here’s my card.

      Gladys had smiled wanly at his silence. Then behind her Mildred appeared, and her budding beauty took him by surprise, even though Victor Warden had shown him a photograph of his wife and daughter. She might have passed for a teenage Audrey Hepburn, almost. Mildred’s face was a tad longer, her upper lip more bowed, and her eyes dulled with daydreams, but she was no less winsome.

      “Ma’am,” he said again, “Victor sent me. I’m Will Dubykky, and he was the best friend I ever had.”

      “Oh, my Victor,” Gladys breathed. Her eyes rounded, brimming with tears.

      Weepiness left Dubykky cold, but what happened next provoked an unaccustomed emotion, and powerful: astonished distaste. Mildred stepped forward, pointed her shoulder at him, peered over it, tucked one knee behind the other, and purred, “Hello there, William.” The worse part was how long she took pronouncing his name. It was but a foretaste of his dealings with silly Milly Warden.

      Gladys offered her hand shyly and invited him in. He went reluctantly, yet during the ensuing, often uncomfortable hour his initial reaction to Mildred evolved. There was enough of her father in her that he felt a twinge of affection. At the same time her simpering and posing exasperated him.

      “I owe this to Victor,” he sighed to himself once he was outside the house again, free of lugubrious Gladys and flirty Mildred. But marry Milly, or worse, Gladys? The prospect made him shudder. He would watch over them, nothing more.

      Now seven years later, though he had grown used to being a member of the family, standing in the Five and Dime, he repeated to himself wearily, “I owe this to Victor.”

      He had done what he could. Mildred, who was bright, had matured. Some. But not without taxing his patience so much that sometimes it seemed bankrupt. He would not have put up with her had not his fondness deepened and the distaste at her silliness turned to worry about her future.

      More than that, he could not regret his obligation to Gladys and Mildred because it arose from his own decision. Disregarding his accustomed solitary life, he had befriended Victor. Even though his duty to evil forbade attachments, he enjoyed the friendship. He could not abandon it by ignoring Victor’s last request.

      It amounted to the biggest of the changes to have come upon him. A complex of fondness, friendship, and loyalty. Why would such sentiments master him, a factotum of evil? Now, after centuries and centuries? He did not know. He had come to recognize one thing, however: that very same evil made friendship with Victor tempting. It made being Mildred’s protector a compulsion.

      He stepped up to the store’s wide display window, but not to watch Milly walking away. To check on Gans. Something about the man troubled him. Gans was just a little too smooth, too sharp-eyed. That on its own meant nothing. Yet if Gans was lurking outside to spy on Milly, that did mean something.

      Gans was nowhere in sight, but Dubykky felt no less troubled. The image of Junior sitting in the hovel came to mind. Dubykky’s misgivings intensified.

      DUBYKKY ARRIVED EARLY for dinner at the Warden house, which lay only two blocks away from his own. Under his arm was a picture frame wrapped in brown paper. Gladys eyed it warily as she let him in. Her house was full of Dubykky’s odd gifts. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted another. But she changed her attitude after he laid it on the living room coffee table and unwrapped it. She even forgot about the headache that had been tormenting her all afternoon.

      “Oh, Will,” she breathed, entranced. “It’s beautiful.” Then, “What are they?”

      Dubykky explained. The mahogany frame contained four rows of rock slices, each highly polished. Some were agates; others were ores, like malachite and cinnabar. The rows were arranged by colors: shades of red, blue/purple, green, and yellow/gold. There was a neatly hand-lettered label beneath each gleaming piece.

      On the way home from work, Dubykky had stopped off at Pastor’s Rock and Mineral. Ralph Pastor owed him for past legal work, most of it involving deserted prospecting claims that he wanted to take over. Dubykky convinced him to satisfy part of the debt by handing over one of the most striking displays in his shop, which Pastor had made himself. He was a capable artist, if a poor businessman. It was Mildred who was supposed, by Dubykky’s order, to arrange for rock art to be on hand in the living room, but Mildred was Mildred, flighty and forgetful. Dubykky decided at the last minute not to leave the task to her.

      When Mildred glided in and beheld the rock display, she was as full of praise as her mother. She ran a forefinger over each one, pronouncing the name underneath it. Suddenly she straightened and said, “Oh! I was supposed to bring rocks too, wasn’t I, Will!” She hustled from the room.

      When she returned, it was with a big, knowing smile on her face. She was carrying a thick encyclopedia volume on top of a black frame. “I’ll bet you thought I forgot, but I didn’t. Remember after we talked to Mr. Gans, the high school shop teacher? You said—I must say, you weren’t very nice to me about it. It was just a casual encounter, and he was so pleasant.”

      “Mr. Gans?” cut in Gladys. “You were talking to Mr. Gans?”

      Mildred nodded enthusiastically. “A very manly sort of man.”

      Gladys agreed, “I’ve seen him at the market. He looks like that movie star. What’s his name …?”

      “Dana Andrews?” suggested Mildred.

      “No, the other one.”

      Dubykky, long used to the ricocheting conversations of Gladys and Mildred and well aware they might continue indefinitely, interrupted by asking Mildred what was in her hands.

      “I told you I didn’t forget!” She lifted one shoulder, turned her chin over it, lowered her eyelids, and smiled knowingly again. Then she set

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