He looked at his shoes.
“Everything you have, you earned the hard way. Not every neglected child could have made it to be an orderly at a fine institution like this one.”
“They call us valets,” he said.
“But you know your real function.” They exchanged glances. This was the first time Ellie had been so straightforward about the home’s real purpose. “I want to make sure that my little Sylvia—”
“I thought you said her name was Sherry?”
“That’s her nickname,” Ellie added quickly. “Chérie. You know, ‘dear’ in French.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “I want to make sure Sylvia has your fortitude, your strong attitude.”
To her horror, John took her hand and squeezed it. He’d touched her. She fought the urge to grimace. “I understand,” he said.
She pulled her hand away and stood. “So, the codes?” Afraid her voice had been too harsh, she added, “John, dear?”
His gaze searched the room, then, apparently making a decision, he reached into his breast pocket for an index card. “Here.”
Ellie released her breath. “Thank you. You won’t regret this.”
“You will be back, though?”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
Her regency-style clock—bolted to the mantel and soldered shut—tick-tick-ticked. At last, John sighed and stood. “I’ll carry your bag.”
They padded down the darkened halls, the floors redolent of lemon wax. The other residents would be sleeping by now, locked into their rooms. She and John came to the rear service entrance.
He handed her the satchel and punched a code into the keypad near the door. He held it open for her. “I’ll wait up for you.”
“Oh, please, I’d feel so much better if you got some rest. You’ll do that for me, won’t you?”
He shyly tucked his chin and nodded. “Bye, Ms. Mill—I mean, Whiteby.”
Ellie walked serenely until she passed out of the building’s light, then picked up her pace. Pausing behind an ornamental shrub, she pulled her black shawl up over her hair so that her body was a long shadow. She’d planned her break for a night when the moon was new, and the home’s grounds were so black she could almost feel it. She was still too close to the main building to turn on her flashlight. Any false move could trigger the alarm and trip floodlights.
As planned, she kept to the path. Her nightly regimen of calisthenics in her room gave her the endurance to keep moving, despite the heavy bag. Within twenty minutes she was at the service gate. Only now did she dare use the flashlight, and even then she kept it sheltered in her shawl. She set down her bag and pulled out the index card John had given her. The exit code was marked in careful block letters.
She glanced behind her. The house was the size of a child’s plaything in the distance, but would someone be able to hear the gate’s motor? She had to risk it. She held her breath as she punched in the code, and the black metal gate slid open, nearly silent on its oiled track.
If she’d been another person, she would have pumped her fists in the air for victory. Eleanor Whiteby didn’t partake in these kinds of antics. She calmly pressed the release button to close the gate and walked away from the Bedlamton Arms. Forever.
She slung her bag over her shoulder. Keeping to side roads, she walked through the countryside. The new moon gave scant light, and the night was rich with the scent of wet earth. Twice she passed raccoons rustling in the bushes, and once she almost collided with a porcupine.
Her three months at the Bedlamton Arms had felt like three years. Instead of running a business empire, as she had before, she’d spent her days in a zombie-like schedule of individual therapy, crafts, lunch, group therapy, and “taking the air.” No wonder lobotomies weren’t fashionable anymore. They didn’t need them with deadening routines like those.
She’d used the routine to meet her needs the best she could. During crafts, for instance, she’d fashioned a set of picklocks, and during group exercise, she’d built her physical endurance. And, of course, she’d befriended John the orderly.
After a few miles, houses sprang up here and there, their occupants deep in sleep. Then the density of houses thickened, and soon she was within Carsonville’s city limits.
Dawn still a few hours away, Ellie dropped an envelope into the first postbox she found. An anonymous letter, of course, to the Bedlamton Arms’s management. They should know they had a traitor on staff.
4
Alone at last, Adele thought. Alone and free. Well, sort of.
She closed her bedroom door behind her, then opened and closed it again, just because she could. Gilda had lent her a filmy, mint green peignoir with marabou trim to wear, but another resident, Red, the lovely white-haired safecracker’s widow, had set a flannel nightgown on top.
Adele knew she wasn’t allowed to open the window, but surely just an inch wouldn’t hurt. She celebrated her freedom with a deep lungful of spring night air before closing it again. The moist air eased the throb at the base of her skull. She carried the flannel nightgown to the bathroom.
At dinner, Gilda had made sure Adele had stayed out of sight, close to the cafeteria’s inner wall. The Villa’s cook had prepared a delicious risotto with mushrooms and fragrant herbs she couldn’t name, although anything would have been manna after the awful food at Carsonville Women’s. The company was different, too, despite the fact that they all had rap sheets.
First, Mort had come around and taken everyone’s cocktail orders, followed by a platter of clams casino. Father Vincent put Dean Martin on the stereo, although Red complained they always listened to the Rat Pack, and how about some Loretta Lynn for a change?
“They let you have cocktails?” Adele asked.
“We’re old, child. Not dead,” Father Vincent said as he accepted a tumbler of Scotch whisky.
“The usual,” Red told Mort. “Soda water with lime.” She directed this to Adele. “Heart trouble. I have to keep an eye on my blood pressure.”
A short, round woman named Mary Rose settled in with a Manhattan and told Adele that she was also a forger, only her specialty had been sausage. For years, she’d sold meat wholesale under a national brand name—“Rhymes with Timmy Bean”—but it was so good that before long no one would buy the real stuff. The national firm found out and sent her a cease-and-desist order.
Conversation turned to Adele’s request to round up her forgeries. The Booster Club was skeptical about the Oak Hills golf club painting. It wasn’t easy to convince them, and Gilda seemed a bit too quiet, as if she knew Adele hadn’t told her the whole story. After half an hour of her best arguments—her head throbbing the whole time—one of the Villa’s residents agreed that it might be “interesting” to consider. Father Vincent ventured that he knew at least three routes home from the golf club, including one that passed a parking structure in which he could shake any tail. Bobby pointed out that golf clubs have kitchens that need health inspections, and county IDs were as easy to fake as Boy Scout cards.
In the end, they had decided to give the heist a go. If Adele wasn’t mistaken, extra excitement pulsed through the Villa’s residents. Red and Mort danced to the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and Cook joined them for dessert.
After dinner, the redhead, Gilda, had patted her arm and sent her upstairs to “rest after such a stressful day.” Gilda was a sweet lady. She seemed to be the Villa’s de facto den mother, and she was always humming a tune or shouting orders. While the dishes were cleared, Adele had caught Gilda looking into the distance with a sadness that vanished seconds later when she’d asked if anyone would like coffee.
Full and happy, Adele turned down the sheets on her bed—real sheets! A feather pillow!—and opened the bathtub’s taps. She stripped and dangled a toe in the water. Perfect. Gilda had offered to lend her nail polish, and maybe she’d take her up on it. A Monet pink would suit her.
As the tub filled, Adele lowered herself into the water and leaned back. Even if the police busted i
n right now and hauled her off, it was worth it for this moment. Anxiety would come to visit later, for sure, but right now was pure bliss.
The tub was nearly full, and she sat up to turn off the tap. Adele’s eyes snapped open. The water didn’t slow. The tub was nearly overflowing, and she couldn’t stop it.
She yanked the tub’s stopper and leapt from the water, pulling on the flannel nightie as she darted from her room and down the stairs. The manager. She needed to find the manager.
She skidded to a stop in front of his office and gasped, “Warren.”
He tossed a fat novel onto the desk and sat up. “What?”
“The bathtub. I can’t make the water shut off.”
Warren froze for a second, then shot up the stairs, Adele at his heels. He burst into Adele’s room, the tub’s taps rushing in the background. He reached behind the tub and twisted two oval-shaped knobs just as the water rippled at the tub’s lip.
Adele fell against the wall and caught her breath.
Warren perched on the tub’s edge and again folded his arms. “You still want a bath?” He said. The tub was slowly draining. She had the feeling he struggled to control his anger.
She looked at her feet. “No. That’s okay.”
“I’ll fix the taps in the morning. Faucet probably needs a new sleeve. But look here” —he touched the oval valves— “If this happens again, all you have to do is turn these. There’s no need to come get me.”
Adele pulled up the flannel nightgown’s collar. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was quiet. She averted her eyes from Warren’s stare. He didn’t like her and resented the risk she brought to the Villa. He’d made that clear. And now this. “You don’t want me here.”
He stood and leaned against the towel rack. He was a big man. All muscle and shaved head. Plus, he looked to be in his early thirties, just a bit older than she and a lot younger than anyone else at the Villa. She plucked at her flannel sleeve.
“It’s not you,” he said. “It’s this whole situation. Everyone here has some kind of background, and chances are good that they haven’t paid their full time for it.”
“Yes?”
“These are good people.”
Adele nodded. She got that.
“We don’t need anything that points a finger here, you see? Especially with the relicensing.”
“Yes,” she said.
“I don’t know why they’re so uptight about the inspection. We’d be fine without your uncle’s help. I can take care of things here.”
“Clearly.” He seemed to be calming down, but still tense. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. With the curve of his shoulders under his T-shirt and his prominent brow, he could be the modern-day equivalent of a laborer in a Work Progress Administration mural. “I don’t want to draw trouble to the Villa, but I have to make things right.”
“Before you die. I heard you telling the others.”
“Brain aneurysm. Right here.” She touched the base of her skull. “I asked Uncle Larry if he could get me out, and I guess he found the Booster Club.”
“I guess.” He dropped his arms. “But, listen. You’d be doing us all a favor if you turned yourself in. Walk out tomorrow, find a phone downtown, and call the prison.”
She looked toward the bathroom’s pink tile floor but didn’t reply. He wouldn’t understand about her need to destroy the forgeries. He wouldn’t know a Turner from a turnip. When she gathered the courage to look at him, his gaze was soft. Curious.
“But you’re dying.” And with that, he left.
5
It was almost light when Ellie arrived at the Villa Saint Nicholas. She stood out of sight, down the block, and watched the sun wash pink over the stucco on the home’s eastern wall.
She was going to take the Booster Club down. Before they came into her life, she’d been the toast of Carsonville: CEO of a successful development company, owner of the best salon in town, and president of the Carsonville Women’s League. Roger, her husband, was from one of the city’s founding families. If she’d wanted, she could have been the guest of honor at dinner parties every night of the week.
Then the Booster Club decided to turn one of her capital projects—a decrepit firehouse that should have been a sparkling new building full of condos and boutiques—into a shelter for homeless families. They’d tricked her. Her breath quickened with rage to remember it. When the judge had sentenced her to lockdown psychiatric treatment, her reputation had plummeted. People had even had the nerve to suggest she should have gone to jail. Now, no one would cross the street to spit on her if she were on fire.
Oh, yes, the Booster Club was going down. She’d thought out her plan to the last detail. Her months at the Bedlamton Arms had been productive. She’d scoured floor plans, net worths, laws, and timetables. She’d strengthened her body and sharpened her mind. During her regular bouts of insomnia, she’d run through the scenario like a movie until every second of the plan was embedded in her brain.
Except for one detail. She hadn’t figured out where to stay. From her study of the city map, the Villa’s neighborhood was mostly residential, and a look at a real estate website confirmed that its houses were occupied. She shifted her gaze to the school separated from the Villa by a chain link fence. This would have to be it, then. It was her last resort, but she didn’t see an alternative. She picked up her bag and rounded the block.
Just an old pickup truck was in the school’s parking lot. The janitor. She’d studied the school’s floor plans and knew that, as was true for many mid-century buildings, an attic ran across the building’s top. It would have to be her lodging for the few days it would take to carry out her plan.
The school’s side door was unlocked. Inside, she heard a cheerfully whistled rendition of “Ain’t We Got Fun,” but the hall was empty. Directly to her right was a staircase. She leapt into it just as she saw a mop jab its way out of a classroom and into the hall.
She crept up the staircase, past some child-drawn nonsense about Earth Day plastering the walls. Two floors, a basement, and an attic, the floor plans had said. Thank goodness for the solid construction of these old buildings. Back when she’d worked in real estate, she never would have shelled out for terrazzo floors. But they didn’t creak.
The stairs stopped at the second floor with no door to the attic. Ellie stepped into the dark hall. There was another stairwell at the building’s opposite end. Keeping her black-clad body near the wall in case she had to duck into a classroom, she hurried down the waxed floors, her bag bumping against her legs.
Just as she reached the end, the janitor’s whistling filled the stairwell. Ellie yanked herself into the nearest classroom and crammed her body behind a rack of coats just inside the door. Damned kids. The coat rack hung so low that she had to crouch. She held her breath as the rolling clatter of the janitor’s mop bucket passed the door. She straightened her back, then crept to the door. All clear.
The door to the attic was at the top of this stairwell. Weeks of studying videos and practicing with the Bedlamton Arms’s pantry lock—most of the other locks were keypad controlled—made cracking this simple doorknob lock a cinch.
And she was in.
The attic’s only light was from a row of dirt-streaked windows, placed more for decoration than function. Although mice scat showed that no one had used the attic in years, at one point someone had made a sort of lounge at its center. Ellie left her bag at the door and swallowed a sneeze as she crossed the bare wood floors to an old couch and armchair. Not ideal, but it would do.
Using a corner of her shawl, she wiped the window. The school’s eaves would hide her, and while this window was her eye into the world, it was only a tiny spot to anyone on the street. She was safely hidden. A smile spread over her face. Yes, there it was: the Villa Saint Nicholas.
Today was Friday. Tonight, when the school emptied, she’d break into the janitor’s cupboard and clean the attic up enough to make it bearable for the few days she’d stay. The cafeteria woul
d yield some kind of meal. She could wash herself in the teachers’ lounge. In the meantime, she’d lie low. And deliberate the Booster Club’s demise.
6
“Put them right there.” Gilda pointed to a side table in the cafeteria.
The homeless man wheeled a shopping cart full of dead flowers to Gilda’s worktable. “Got you six or seven arrangements already made. I found a new spot.”
“Where?” Fred looked pretty good lately, Gilda thought. He was putting on weight, and his skin was clear. Must be staying sober.
“You won’t tell the others?”
“It’s just you, Fred.” Gilda pulled a block of green Styrofoam from the cart. An entire white floral arrangement was stuck in it. Brilliant. All she’d have to do was set it aside until it worsened from limp to fried, and she’d be set with a readymade Bad Seed bouquet.
“I was digging in the Dumpsters behind the floral shops, like you said, see, and I thought, why not go to where they get bouquets all the time?”
“The church,” Gilda said. “You went to the church.”
“There are big weddings down at St. Stephen’s nearly every weekend. I’d try the country club, too, but I can’t push the cart that far.”
“Have you had breakfast yet? Cook probably has some leftover sausages and pancakes.” Gilda pulled a wad of cash from between her breasts and peeled off a few twenties. “Here. Have a seat. I’ll see what we’ve got.”
As Fred finished his meal, the recorded chimes of an ice cream truck neared. “Just in time for dessert,” he said.
Gilda checked her watch. “Yep. Right on schedule. You should see the kids next door go nuts. I swear he drives by just to torture them.”
When Fred’s breakfast dishes were cleared and he’d left, Gilda set to work. It was her job to plan the Booster Club’s first outing for Adele, and over her eighty years of life—forty-nine, if anyone asked—she’d learned that she thought best when her hands were busy. She had three arrangements to make today: one for a lascivious boss, and two for cheating husbands. Most of her clients were women. That figured. Women were subtler about revenge, she’d found. Men drank a lot and made scenes. Women hired lawyers and sent dead flowers.
Cat in a Bag Page 3
