On Saturdays, Rollins usually went out for breakfast at a local cafe. With the rain, he was tempted to stay in, but when he checked the refrigerator, he saw that he was all out of coffee beans, and the muffins he’d been counting on were moldy. Just for a moment, he wished that things might get done in his apartment without his being the one to do them. Perhaps he needed a maid. His parents had always employed a cook and a housekeeper, along with their factotum, Gabe. Such assistance hadn’t, in fact, been in style when he was a child, but his father, whose own childhood had been spent only on the edges of the privileged life, had insisted on it, and his mother had quickly warmed to all the help. She had, in fact, become quite magisterial with the small staff. Unfortunately, given the size of his apartment, Rollins realized that it would be ridiculous to have even a part-timer come in. There was barely enough room for Rollins himself.
He wondered if Marj was any good at cooking. Somehow, he doubted it.
He took a shower and, while he was at it, knelt down to clean some grime out of the drain while the warm water pounded on his shoulders and neck. He shaved in the shower, then stepped out and toweled off.
As he was about to leave the bathroom, he noticed that the door was slightly ajar. He’d been pretty sure that he had shut it tight behind him when he’d come in. He secured the towel around him and pushed the door open. He felt a cool breeze on his chest and still-damp underarms as he peered out into his bedroom. “Hello?” he called out. Everything seemed the same: the unmade bed, his clothes draped over the chair by the window, the drapes pulled tight.
He pulled on a polo shirt from his bureau and stepped into a pair of undershorts, then advanced toward his closet. “Hello?” he asked again, feeling a little foolish this time, as he approached the closed closet door. Still, he thought that he should have something in his hand, some weapon, but nothing came to mind except an old tennis racquet in the front hall. He placed his hand on the doorknob and eased the door open. He braced himself, but no attack came. Nothing moved in his closet. He carefully parted the clothes on their hangers to examine the back. There was no sign of anyone, just his usual array of dusty old shoes, an abandoned TV, and a few cardboard boxes filled with winter clothes. He grabbed a pair of khakis off the hanger, and pulled them on. He felt better, but he still checked under the bed. Nothing.
He ventured into the other parts of the apartment. Nothing was amiss in the living room or in the kitchen. He pushed aside the coats in the front hall closet, just to be sure. The locks were still secured on the front door. Everything appeared to be in order.
He absolutely had to relax.
He returned to his bedroom, put on a pair of foul-weather shoes, then added a windbreaker from its hook in the front hall closet. He checked the locks on the windows before he went out, then was careful to set the burglar alarm and dead-bolt his door behind him.
The cafe was down past the laundromat; it was a small place called Della Rosa’s. There were just a few people inside, most of them paging through newspapers. He found a seat by a window. He ordered a cappuccino and one of the flaky pastries he’d seen out on the counter.
The waitress brought him his food a few minutes later. She was youngish, in a tight tie-dyed T-shirt. She asked him if his name was Rollins by any chance.
Rollins felt a twinge at the back of his neck. “That’s right.”
“I thought it was you.” She smiled. “A friend of yours came in.” She made it sound like good news.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, some guy. Didn’t give his name. Asked about you. Said he hadn’t seen you in a while. He’d tried to call, but I guess you don’t have an answering machine.”
Rollins asked her what the man looked like, and, after pausing for a second to think, the waitress said, “Real skinny, that’s all I remember.”
Rollins felt those words in his stomach. “Mustache?” He dragged an index finger across his upper lip.
“Yeah, that’s right!” The woman nearly shouted.
“What did he want?”
“Just if I’d seen you around.”
Rollins waited. He sensed he wouldn’t have to ask many questions to keep her talking.
“I told him, sure, I’d seen you in here a couple times. You live around here, right?”
Rollins glanced around the cafe. No one seemed to be paying much attention. He nodded.
“Yeah, thought so. Nice of him to check up on you, huh?”
“Isn’t it.” Rollins’ mind drifted back to the sight of the gaunt man disappearing around the corner just a few blocks away.
The waitress moved back to the counter. Rollins had lost his appetite. He didn’t finish his coffee or his pastry. He got up to go. When he reached the register, the waitress asked him if “that guy” had ever gotten in touch with him.
“Yes he did, actually.” Rollins paid the bill and added a decent tip. “Just the other day. He didn’t say anything about coming around here, though. When did you see him?”
“Yesterday, I think it was. No, wait, the day before. I didn’t work yesterday.”
That must have been Thursday. Through Marj’s binoculars, Rollins had seen the gaunt man talking to Sloane that very night. They might have been talking about him after all.
“How funny,” the waitress said.
Rollins wasn’t sure he followed.
“’Cuz, like, he’d just seen you.”
Rollins smiled, doing his best to keep his composure.
“Well, tell him hi for me next time you see him, okay?” she called after him.
“He knows your name?”
“Everybody does. It’s Leeann. Pleased to meet you.” She smiled.
Outside, the rain had let up. As he walked along, he was aware of his body, of the bodies of the other people he passed. None of them seemed especially lean, none had mustaches. He hurried down the sidewalk, took a right on Hanover. The rain must have backed up traffic downtown, because the street was choked with cars in both directions. He searched the faces of the drivers and was glad not to recognize anyone. When he reached the door to his apartment building, he clung to the knob for a second, grateful for its cool solidity, before he gave it a twist and stepped inside.
The staircase lights were still out, and it took his eyes a while to adjust to the dimness. At first, there seemed to be a bag of some sort on the front stairs. But then he saw that it was a little girl in a brown dress that reached barely to her knees. It was Heather. A teddy bear was perched on the step beside her. “Hi, mister,” she called out to him. “Wanna play Old Maid? I’ve got the cards in here someplace.” She rummaged around inside a purple knapsack beside her.
“Heather? That you?” He felt a lifting inside him.
“Yup.”
“You okay? How’s the fever?”
“I cooled down. I’m fine now.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“Out.”
“And she just left you here?” That was puzzling. Whatever else she was, Tina had seemed like a devoted mother.
“I was upstairs, but I got kinda itchy.” She sniffled and wiped her nose on the shoulder of her dress, then pulled a hand out of her bag. “Oh, here they are. See?” She showed Rollins the Old Maid pack. “C’mon, just one game?” She sniffled again. Rollins handed her a handkerchief from his back pocket. She thanked him and blew her nose into it. She started to hand it back.
“You can keep it,” Rollins said.
“Really?”
Rollins nodded, and she zipped it into the pouch of her backpack. “Thanks, mister,” she said.
Rollins didn’t feel safe with her there, so close to the front door. He offered to play upstairs, but Heather said it was boring in her apartment with all the stupid boxes. So he suggested they go to his place. Heather, of course, had no idea how rare it was to receive such an invitation. Still, she brightened as if she had been given a free ticket to Disneyland. She stuffed her teddy bear and Old Maid cards into her knapsack as if she were packing f
or a long trip, then followed Rollins up the stairs. Her sneakers, with their untied laces, hardly made any sound.
Heather showed no particular interest in the lavish furnishings in Rollins’ apartment. She merely dropped her knapsack on the floor just inside the door, wiped her hands on her dress, and asked if he had anything to eat.
Rollins led Heather back into the narrow kitchen. He thought for a moment of offering her the remains of some Thai take-out in his refrigerator, but decided instead on some Milano cookies, which he set out for her on a saucer as if she were a stray kitten. The candlesticks were still out on the table, and he’d propped the original notepaper with the strange seven-digit number back up on it, along with the return fax. He’d been looking at them at odd moments, waiting for inspiration. Now, he quickly snatched them up and set them aside in a pile before she, too, was drawn into the mystery. But it was too late.
“What are those?” Heather asked.
“Nothing important.”
“They looked important.”
“Well, they aren’t really.”
Heather took a bite of cookie. “Then why don’t you throw them out?”
“I probably should.”
Heather stopped chewing for a moment. “Then why don’t you?” She was a persistent little thing.
“I will later, all right? Do you want any milk?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then.” He could feel himself loosening up. He was surprised how much he was enjoying this, the back-and-forth, the sound of another voice echoing off the pale yellow walls in the kitchen, the actual presence of another person—albeit a small, young one—to fuss over and be startled by.
Rollins checked the refrigerator. He had a carton, but, when he took a sniff, discovered that the milk had gone bad. “Sorry,” he said. “Do you suppose water would be okay?”
“Sure.” She sounded disappointed.
He set down a glass. The cookies were gone. “You were hungry,” Rollins said.
“Yeah, I was!” Heather brushed off a few crumbs that had stuck to the corner of her mouth. He set out the rest of the bag, but Heather said she needed to use the bathroom.
Rollins ushered her through the sitting room toward his bedroom. He couldn’t get over how small she was, how light on her feet. He kept thinking how forbidding his antiques must look to her, just as they had looked to him as a child. But she said nothing about them and merely tagged along behind him without a sound. He paused for a moment before pushing open the bedroom door. It was dark inside, with the shades drawn, and he had to click on the light. He was afraid she might ask about the long row of tapes over his bed, but, instead, as she stepped inside, she fixed on his pictures of antique cars. “These yours?” she asked, bringing her nose right up to them.
“The pictures are,” he replied. “Not the cars.”
“I like that one.” She pressed a finger on the 1937 Pierce-Arrow, leaving a light smudge on the glass.
“Me, too.” He left the smudge there, glad to have something to remember her by. The car had belonged to Rollins’ grandfather. He used to take Rollins driving around his Dover estate when Rollins was very young. The property had seemed to him to be the size of a small town; they could drive around almost forever, a plaid blanket over their legs against the early morning chill. But, like so many things, that had all stopped with Stephanie’s death; after that, Rollins seemed to spend all his spare time with child psychiatrists, when he would have much preferred to be tooling around with Gramps in the Pierce-Arrow.
Rollins went on to the bathroom to flip on the light over the sink. Heather followed closely behind him. But Rollins withdrew well before she made her way to the toilet. He told her he would be outside if she needed him. He was sitting at the foot of the bed when Heather came back out. She dug a finger under the waistband of her dress. She was such a pretty girl, with her golden yellow hair and sky blue eyes; Rollins felt happy just to look at her. Aside from the rare get-togethers with Richard’s kids, he saw so few children. He patted the bed again. “Come here, would you?”
Suddenly, Heather tried to dart past Rollins, but he caught her tiny wrist just as she was turning the corner of the bed.
“Got you!” he shouted cheerfully. It was his father’s mock-gruff voice, he realized, from the rare days when they used to roughhouse on the big rug in the living room.
“I was just going to get my teddy!” Heather pleaded, her voice quivering. Tears had formed in her eyes. “Can’t I get my teddy?”
“My goodness, of course!” Rollins felt terrible to have riled her, and he tried to be as soothing as he could. “I’m sorry.” He released her wrist and gently stroked her hair. He could feel the heat from her scalp. “Here, I’ll get it.” Rollins hurried out to the hall, grabbed the knapsack, and returned to the bedroom. “There you are.” He dropped the knapsack on the bed, and Heather dug the fuzzy, brown teddy bear out of it and hugged it to her chest. Rollins perched himself on the bed in front of her. “Can I show you something?” Heather didn’t sit beside him as he had hoped, but she did lean against the edge of the bed, watching him. “Please?” he asked gently. Heather nodded. She was all eyes now.
He rolled to his left, pushed a hand into his back pocket and drew out his wallet. He flipped it open, dug a finger underneath all the slots that held his credit cards and teased out a small photograph, slightly brown from all its years pressed up against the calfskin of his wallet. As he did so, he could see Heather lean toward him trying to get a peek.
It was a baby picture of a tiny little girl in a white gown. She had wispy hair, a slightly dazed expression, and soft blue eyes. “This is Stephanie,” Rollins said. “It was taken about six months after she was born. It’s the only picture I have of her.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s my little sister.”
“She’s cute.”
Rollins could sense the girl relaxing. “Yes, isn’t she? You remind me of her a little.”
“She doesn’t look like you.”
“You don’t think so?” He held the picture up by his face so she could compare.
Heather wrinkled her nose. “She’s a lot younger. Littler, too.”
“This was taken a long time ago. Look how big her pupils are. They were the most beautiful blue.”
Heather took another look.
“They were always looking for me, that’s what my mother said. And her hands were so little. I had no idea they’d be so small. They always seemed to be reaching for me.”
There was a shout from the front hall. “Heather? Heather? You up there, darling?”
Rollins turned to Heather. “Your mother’s looking for you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Oh, but you should.” He stood up. “Take my hand?”
Heather hesitated only for a moment. “Okay.”
Her hand was warm and light. He held on to it, and then picked up her knapsack and led her through the sitting room to his front hall. Tina was just inside Rollins’ door. She was wearing a clingy shirt, and she had on makeup this time. “So you are here.” Tina flicked her hair off her shoulders, then reached out and swept her daughter up into her arms. “I was looking everywhere for you!”
“I’ve been playing with mister,” Heather said.
“You were? Well, isn’t that nice.” She turned to Rollins. “I didn’t mean to be out so long.” She smiled again, demurely. “You must think I’m the worst mother.”
“Not at all,” Rollins reassured her. “I know how things can come up.”
“Mister showed me a picture,” Heather said.
“Of my sister,” Rollins quickly explained.
“Oh?” Tina said, with a look that compelled him to get out the photograph again. He handed it to her reluctantly. Tina studied it a moment. “Cute.”
“I left the door open,” Rollins assured her.
“Oh, listen—” Tina blurted out in a voice that Rollins took to be reassuring.
“I just did
n’t—”
“You’ve been real nice,” Tina said, handing back the photograph. “Mrs. D’Alimonte was right about you.” Rollins waited for a moment. He thought something might come—a gesture, an offer. Some overture that would put him in a terrible quandary. But Tina merely thanked him.
“You can borrow my teddy sometime if you want,” Heather added. She held up the well-worn bear and gave it a little shake. “Everybody needs a friend, you know.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Rollins told her.
Then, with Heather still in her arms, Tina made her way back down the hall to their apartment.
It was drizzling when Rollins set out to meet his mother an hour later. The traffic hadn’t subsided, so he decided to walk to Richardson Brothers, which was across from the Johnson building, maybe ten minutes away. He felt anxious as he hurried along under his black umbrella, and he glanced about him periodically, but saw no sign of any pursuers. Halfway along, too late to do anything about it, he realized he was doing something quite unwise. The Richardson Brothers offices were practically the family vault, after all; the Brothers had held various family trusts for generations. The money itself was rarely seen of course, but it had certainly had its effects, funding that big house in Brookline, a country house in Vermont, the private schools, the European ski trips that Rollins never much enjoyed. If he was indeed being followed, it hardly seemed prudent to draw attention to the family’s pile.
Richardson Brothers was located in one of the grand granite office buildings that fronted onto the small European-style park, heavy on marigolds, the blossoms clotted in the rain, in Post Office Square. He’d come here a few times before, the first being the most memorable. It had been shortly after his twenty-first birthday, and he had been summoned from Williams by a Mr. Grove for what he described as “an important conversation.” When Rollins arrived in jacket and tie, Mr. Grove explained about his trust fund. Rollins had some trouble grasping the concept of a big bundle of money—it was $573,000 then—that had come, virtually gift-wrapped, down to him through the ages to do with entirely as he pleased, so Mr. Grove actually took him into a back room, through a thick steel door and into a vault to examine the stock certificates themselves. “Nothing quite like touching it,” the older man had said with a laugh. The certificates had proved to be unusually large, ornate documents printed on the same paper as cash money, but adorned with the names of prominent American corporations like IBM, Ford, and General Electric. “I own all this?” Rollins had asked, flipping through all the paper as one might an encyclopedia. Mr. Grove merely nodded, a beguiling half-smile on his face. Since then, Rollins had often sensed that the money gave him a secret allure, an importance that went beyond anything that he actually did, which was another reason he thought it best to keep quiet about it. Still, Rollins himself had gazed with fascination on his quarterly statements, watching the sums grow steadily, year by year, as if charged with a powerful vitality all of their own.
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