"After this, bicarbonate."
"Very funny."
And for the first time in several years she did not kiss him good night, when they parted.
He turned off the blacktop and started down the rutted path. He switched the headlights off about halfway to the shack, and parked it a hundred or so yards away from it and walked the rest. The shack was dark.
Instead of knocking, Muldoon walked around to the back and peered through the single window at the rear. He could see nothing. Now isn't this just dandy, he thought. Drive all the way out here, and nobody's at home. Damn! He went around to the front and started back to the car. His attention was caught by a greenish glow of light from the far end of the dump heap.
His curiosity aroused, Muldoon warily made his way through the metal litter until he was close enough to make out the source of the light. It came from the center of a shallow area that had been cleared of rubble. A rusted misshapen mass of metal lay in the center of the cleared space. The greenish glow was coming from an opening in the mass.
Muldoon crept closer until he was able to make out details. Not too many but enough to give him an idea of the size and general shape of the thing. But what really held him were the figures of Robert and Evin Reeger.
He saw them quite distinctly.
One of the twins was bent over a machine of some sort. There were levers, gears, and rollers mounted on a webbed platform no larger than a rather oversized typewriter. Muldoon's eyes went wide at the sight of the greenbacks coming in a steady stream from the interior of the machine and falling into a box at the side. He could see very little else that was in the room, other than the brother of the twin at the machine. He was on the far side of it, fiddling with something hidden.