Patrolman Whedbee stood by the back of the truck. Chief Grindstaff placed a device like an atomizer under Whedbee's nose and released the spray.
Miss Betsy Tapp awoke after not more than one hour of fitful sleep. The door to the garage apartment shook under the tattoo of a heavy fist. Miss Tapp's heart thudded somewhere inside her thirty-eight-inch bosom. She lay rigid in darkness penetrated only by the glimmer of a distant street light.
The knocking ceased. Boards creaked on the platform outside the door. A face appeared at the window, a face in complete shadow except for two eyes that glowed with greenish light.
Miss Tapp, unaware of the disarray of her nightgown, sat upright. The alarm clock on the floor by the bed clacked in the stillness. The tap in the kitchen cubicle dripped. Timbers, contracting in the cool of early morning, popped faintly.
"I need to marry you," the face said. "I was wrong tonight. Forgive me."
"Fred?" Miss Tapp gasped in sudden joy.
"Open the portal," Fred said.
Wrenching metal curlers from her permanently waved hair, Miss Tapp bounded to the door. She released the catch and threw herself at the figure on the landing. Fred purred, "I want to marry you. I was wrong tonight. Forgive me."
"Oh, Fred," Miss Tapp sighed. "I knew you'd come back! You just had too much to drink! I forgive you, Fred! We'll—"