The only thing that wasn't as it should be was the picture on the wall. It was a reproduction of a painting by Pieter de Hooch, which he had always liked, aside from the fact that he had been named after the seventeenth-century Dutch artist. The picture was slightly askew on the wall.
He was sleepily trying to figure out the significance of that when the phone sounded. He walked over and picked it up. "Yeah?"
"Guz? Guz? Get over here quick!" Sam Willows' voice came excitedly from the instrument.
"Whatsamatter, Puss?" he asked blearily.
"Number Two just blew! We need help, Guz! Fast!"
"I'm on my way!" de Hooch said.
"Take C corridor," Willows warned. "A and B caved in, and the bulkheads have dropped. Make it snappy!"
"I'm gone already," de Hooch said, dropping the phone back into place.
He grabbed his vacuum suit from its hanger and got into it as though his own room had already sprung an air leak.
Number Two has blown! he thought. That would be the one that Ferguson and Metty were working on. What had they been cooking? He couldn't remember right off the bat. Something touchy, he thought; something pretty hot.