oyt Lewis, meter reader for Georgia Power Company, parked his truck under a big tree in the alley and settled back with his lunch box. It was no fun opening his lunch now that he packed it himself. No little notes in there anymore, no Surprise Twinkie.

He was halfway through his sandwich when a loud voice at his ear made him jump.

"I guess I used a thousand dollars' worth of electricity this month, is that right?"

Lewis turned and saw at the truck window the red face of H. G. Parsons. Parsons wore Bermuda shorts and carried a yard broom.

"I didn't understand what you said."

"I guess you'll say I used a thousand dollars' worth of electricity this month. Did you hear me that time?"

"I don't know what you've used because I haven't read your meter yet, Mr. Parsons. When I do read it, I'll put it down on this piece of paper right here."

Parsons was bitter about the size of the bill. He had complained to the power company that he was being prorated.

"I'm keeping up with what I use," Parsons said. "I'm going to the Public Service Commission with it, too."

"You want to read your meter with me? Let's go over there right now and-"

"I know how to read a meter. I guess you could read one too if it wasn't so much trouble."

"Just be quiet a minute, Parsons." Lewis got out of his truck. "Just be quiet a minute now, dammit. Last year you put a magnet on your meter. Your wife said you was in the hospital, so I just took it off and didn't say anything. When you poured molasses in it last winter, I reported it. I notice you paid up when we charged you for it.

"Your bill went up after you did all that wiring yourself. I've told you until I'm blue in the face: something in that house is draining off current. Do you hire an electrician to find it? No, you call down to the office and bitch about me. I've about got a bait of you." Lewis was pale with anger.

"I'll get to the bottom of this," Parsons said, retreating down the alley toward his yard. "They're checking up on you, Mr. Lewis. I saw somebody reading your route ahead of you," he said across the fence. "Pretty soon you'll have to go to work like everybody else."

Lewis cranked his truck and drove on down the alley. Now he would have to find another place to finish his lunch. He was sorry. The big shade tree had been a good lunch place for years.

It was directly behind Charles Leeds's house.

At five-thirty P.M. Hoyt Lewis drove in his own automobile to the Cloud Nine Lounge, where he had several boilermakers to ease his mind.

When he called his estranged wife, all he could think of to say was "I wish you was still fixing my lunch."

"You ought to have thought about that, Mr. Smarty," she said, and hung up.

He played a gloomy game of shuffleboard with some linemen and a dispatcher from Georgia Power and looked over the crowd. God­damned airline clerks had started coming in the Cloud Nine. All had the same little mustache and pinkie ring. Pretty soon they'd be fixing the Cloud Nine English with a damned dart board. You can't de­pend on nothing.

"Hey, Hoyt. I'll match you for a bottle of beer." It was his supervi­sor, Billy Meeks.

"Say, Billy, I need to talk to you."

"What's up?"

"You know that old son of a bitch Parsons that's all the time calling up?"

"Called me last week, as a matter of fact," Meeks said. "What about him?"

"He said somebody was reading my route ahead of me, like maybe somebody thought I wasn't making the rounds. You don't think I'm reading meters at home, do you?"

"Nope."

"You don't think that, do you? I mean, if I'm on a man's shit list I want him to come right out and say it."

"If you was on my shit list, you think I'd be scared to say so to your face?"

"No."

"All right, then. If anybody was checking your route, I'd know it. Your executives is always aware of a situation like that. Nobody's checking up on you, Hoyt. You can't pay any attention to Parsons, he's just old and contrary. He called me up last week and said, 'Con­gratulations on getting wise to that Hoyt Lewis.' I didn't pay him any mind."

"I wish we'd put the law on him about that meter," Lewis said. "I was just setting back there in the alley under a tree trying to eat my lunch today and he jumped me. What he needs is a good ass-kicking."

"I used to set back there myself when I had the route," Meeks said. "Boy, I tell you one time I seen Mrs. Leeds - well, it don't seem right to talk about it now she's dead - but one or two times she was out there sunning herself in the backyard in her swimming suit. Whooee. Had a cute little peter belly. That was a damn shame about them. She was a nice lady."

"Did they catch anybody yet?"

"Naw."

"Too bad he got the Leedses when old Parsons was right down the street convenient," Lewis observed.

"I'll tell you what, I don't let my old lady lay around out in the yard in no swimming suit. She goes 'Silly Billy, who's gonna see me?' I told her, I said you can't tell what kind of a insane bastard might jump over that hedge with his private out. Did the cops talk to you? Ask you had you seen anybody?"

"Yeah, I think they got everybody that has a route out there. Mailmen, everybody. I was working Laurelwood on the other side of Betty Jane Drive the whole week until today, though." Lewis picked at the label on his beer. "You say Parsons called you up last week?"

"Yep."

"Then he must have saw somebody reading his meter. He wouldn't have called in if he'd just made it up today to bother me. You say you didn't send nobody, and it sure wasn't me he saw."

"Might have been Southeastern Bell checking something."

"Might have been."

"We don't share poles out there, though."

"Reckon I ought to call the cops?"

"Wouldn't hurt nothing," Meeks said.

"Naw, it might do Parsons some good, talk with the law. Scare the shit out of him when they drive up, anyhow."