The Geographer's Library

Jon Fasman
At first all I could hear was a whooshing sound, like someone was holding the
phone out an open car window. Then something or someone tapped on the
mouthpiece, three times, then a pause, then three times again.
“Hello? Hello?” I called down the phone.
“Not this one. Not this one. Not this one. Not this one. Not this one . . .”
A deep, expressionless voice droned on as I looked across at Art flicking a
cigarette with his thumbnail. I held the phone away from my ear, and when I
listened again, the words had changed to “I’ll find her. I’ll find her. I’ll find
her.” I gently knocked on Art’s desk to get his attention and handed it to him.
He put the phone to his ear and looked at me strangely.
“What do you think?” I whispered.
“’Round these parts we call this a dial tone,” he said, handing the phone
back to me. Sure enough, a robust dial tone sounded in the earpiece. “What
happened, you get cut off or something?”
“No,” I said, bewildered. “No, there was this guy on the other end, and he
kept saying ‘Not this one’ over and over again.”
“Uh-huh,” Art said skeptically. “Tell you what, why don’t you try the
number again? And don’t just hit redial.”
Art’s evenness and his skeptical look had me almost doubting what I had
heard. Still, I punched in the number again, and this time a man answered.
“Yeah.” Man’s voice, sounded peeved.
“Yeah, uh, did you just answer the phone?” I asked.
“No, fucknut, I’m talking to you through a tin can. What do you think?”
“No, not now. I mean just before now. Who was talking here before?”
“When before? You mean just now?”
“Yeah.”
“Nobody. Before you, nobody. Scared the shit out of me when the phone
rang. What the hell do you want anyway?”
“I’m calling from the Lincoln Carrier. I’d like to speak with someone
there about Jaan Pühapäev.”
“Poo who? The fuck is it?” The voice stepped up from peeved to angry. It
sounded like a man with a mustache. I heard a car horn, loud: the phone was
outside.
“Someone there reported a death last night. I’m trying—”
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