The Thomas Berryman Number

He noticed several lean Dobermans roaming loose, prancing on the shiny tarmac, apparently liking the sound made by their paws on stone.

Out beyond the main lights the field got dark enough for Berryman to walk out of the bushes again. Far down the airfield, a younger guard came up to the little pillbox with a leashed Doberman. He tied up the muscular animal, and for a minute or two it stood around front snapping at its old lady, also tied.

As Berryman stood watching the pair, a hidden Doberman flew out of the tree shadows. It barked no warning, growled late.

Berryman fell, and the long Crossman flashed up with an airy

pffssss. Pffssss.

The pretty dog twisted around itself and collapsed. It lay still with its teeth bared, the way dogs look after they’ve tried, too late, to bite killer automobiles.

The Doberman would sleep for hours. Then, it would wake up yipping and limping. With religion.

The younger of the two watchmen wasn’t going to be so fortunate. Berryman needed him.

He pushed himself up from the cold airfield tarmac. Felt where his coat and sweater were ripped at the elbow. He started off toward the jet, and a long night’s work.

The following morning, Berryman prowled around the Shepherd kitchen like a sick man. He had butterflies in his stomach and he was trembling slightly. Among other things, he hadn’t slept that night.

Across the room, a little blacklady cook was doing a slow burn.

Morality had never been ambiguous with the woman and she highly disapproved of a party held there the night before. She held Thomas Berryman responsible.

He’d arranged the bash.

“Hmmpff. I jus won’t work ’round here no more, things being like this,” she complained around the kitchen. “Hmmpff.”

She scrambled a bowl of eggs and kept shaking her head in disgust. “Women’s underwears in the garden. Little maraschinos cherries in the swimmin’ pool. Hmmpff. Hmmpff.” She turned to Berryman and looked him squarely in the face: wise little acorn face to big mustache face. “I thought you was a gentleman,” she said. “Wrong. Wrong again,” she shrugged. “Won’t be the first time. Won’t be the last.”

Berryman was fiddling over by her stove, looking half-contrite. He appeared to be sorry to have caused her displeasure, if nothing else. “What’s this here?” he asked after a respectful pause.

“Hmmpff,” the old lady bit her tongue. She beat her duck eggs dark gold. “Now what …” she said, biting the tongue, “now what in the world does that

look

like?”

Thomas Berryman cocked his head back and popped a biscuit-sized fruit into his mouth. “Tastes like strawberries,” he grinned. “Only they’re too big to be strawberries.” Juice ran over his chin and he dammed the flow with a forefinger.

The cook moved over and nudged him away from her stove. She was half-playing now. “I’m really mad at you, Mister Shear.”

She sidled him across the kitchen with her bony little hip. “You a bad influence comin up Lake Steven actin like that last night.”

As further appeasement, it seemed, Berryman started to fill a row of four pewter coffee mugs on the counter. “Who’s who?”

“Mister Ben an’ you the cream an’ sugar boys,” the old lady started. Then she reconsidered. “But you not bringin nothin’ to nobody. You must make it a big joke. Bit joke on Mrs. Bibbs, ha ha, very funny indeed.”

“Put down the coffee,” she said. “

Down

boy.”

As the little black woman returned to scooping eggs onto warmed, waiting plates, Berryman dropped small tablets into two of the coffee mugs. The tablets were a combination of iron sulfate, magnesium oxide, and ipecac.

“What a sore sport,” he sucked his cheek as he watched the pills dissolve. “What a party pooper, Mrs. B.”

As he continued to grin at her, the old woman finally looked up. She flashed a gold bridgework smile at him. As usual, he was forgiven.

The youngest Shepherd brother, Benjamin, sat still as grass, glassy-eyed, chewing a breakfast muffin over and over like it was rubber tire. He thought he was having a heart attack.

He could hear his big heart thumping and felt it could blow open his chest. His body was flushing blood. Numb fingers, toes. His lungs were filling up with fluids, and he was having regrets about the life he’d led.

Pancakes were being passed by. His brother was kidding Thomas Berryman about the trip back to Michigan.

Benjamin Shepherd slipped down to the floor, and began vomiting recognizable food.

Charles and William Shepherd carried their brother to a first floor bedroom. They held him on a bed while his body convulsed. He dryheaved. His back arched like a drawbridge.

Gradually it dawned on Charles Shepherd that his cook was screaming bloody murder in another room. Back in the dining room. She screamed for a long time, calling for Charles Shepherd and for Jesus.

When his young brother finally fainted, Charles ran back to the dining room.