She had no trouble finding the business listing she was looking for: Herman Mullet, Suite 204, Arcade Building. Under his name, his title or his business? Security Advisor. What was a security advisor? Bodyguard? Someone who sold alarm systems? Someone who sold stocks and bonds?
“Excuse me,” said Allison, poking her head into the room, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but…”
Jane jotted down the information. She wasn’t sure if it was important, but it was something she could mention to Lucky. Maybe it would unlock a door.
“It’s your mother…”
“On my way,” said Jane, following Allison down to the main floor.
Jane understood why Allison and the other staff members might be getting anxious to say their good-byes to Nellie. She had helped herself to the rag next to the coffee urn and proceeded to circulate through the first floor, wiping down the study tables. Most readers simply lifted their books so she could swipe her rag beneath them, but a few patrons seemed dismayed to be interrupted and annoyed when Nellie commented on their choices of reading material.
“What are you reading a book on finding a job for? Just get out there and start going to places. Look for signs in the window. Pink’s needs a dishwasher,” said Nellie to a distinguished looking middle-aged man, who had been taking copious notes from a book on choosing graduate school programs.
Jane took her mother’s arm and handed the dishrag to Allison, thanking her for her help.
As they exited, Jane saw a display from the old library, the one in which she spent her formative years. Front and center was a wooden card catalog. If it hadn’t been out of reach, behind a velvet rope, Jane would have leaned over and caressed it. When Jane had first heard about the library move, she had mourned the change from the old building to the new in the way that many mourned the change from rotary phone to cell, from manual typewriter to laptop, from book to e-Reader. She was no longer sure that mourning was the right attitude—at least as far as the library was concerned. She liked this new space, the way it welcomed the entire community with different interests and needs. When she thought about it, she realized she also loved the smart phone that allowed her to wave good-bye to her son Nick and let him live apart from her, attending the school he loved and still stay in immediate touch. She loved the look of the old manual typewriters and their tap-tap-tap, but would she be able to work effectively with Tim or Oh if she didn’t have online access to eBay or Google? Trade-offs, she thought with a sigh, and then wondered, if by any chance, the library could be persuaded to sell her the wooden card catalog.
Crossing the library parking lot, heading back toward the market and their car, Jane saw Mary Wainwright coming toward her, wagging a finger in her direction.
“I knew it, I knew you were up to something, Jane Wheel.”
Jane had no idea what she was talking about and, uncharacteristically, Mary did not stop to elaborate. Instead, she walked past Jane and Nellie, shaking her head, intent on her own trip to the library.
“You said Herman Mullet had more money than the rest of the kids,” said Jane. “How did you know that?”
Nellie shrugged. “Just knew. Better clothes, maybe. Not worn out. New shoes or something. I don’t remember exactly how,” said Nellie. “I wore my sister’s clothes and she played ball all the time so everything had patches and mends where she had torn a hem or ripped a hole. I guess Herman just dressed nicer than the rest of us.”
“That’s because he didn’t wear hand-me-downs,” said Jane. “Herman Mullet was an only child so he got everything new and—”
“Yeah, that’s probably why he still yaks so much, he was probably spoiled rotten,” said Nellie, settling herself into the car.
“Because he was an only child? You think only children are spoiled?” asked Jane, surprised at how much Nellie’s opinions helped clarify her own thoughts on Herman’s childhood experiences. Maybe it was Oh’s “listening” techniques amped up to a whole new level. Jane had to admit that listening to her mother expound on almost anything did make one think.
“Spoiled probably, yeah,” said Nellie. “But also, just alone, you know? In our house, my parents were both working their tails off. My mother took in laundry, Pa was working on the railroad. And all of us kids had jobs, too. Even if we ever had anything to say, there wouldn’t be anybody around who had time to listen.”
“So, one child meant that he got undivided attention?” said Jane, more to herself than to Nellie.
“Yeah, unless … hey, don’t forget we’re going to Carl’s. Don’t turn here,” said Nellie.
Jane flicked off the left turn signal. “Unless what, Mom?”
“Unless they didn’t like him. Maybe they had a kid and figured out they weren’t cut out to have children. Maybe they didn’t like kids that much.”
“Come on, Mom,” said Jane. She realized that her mother might be talking about her. Wasn’t she the mother of an only child? “Nick’s an only child and he isn’t spoiled, and Charley and I love kids. Sometimes things just happen.”
“Yup.”
“Yup what?” asked Jane.
“Yup nothing. You’re right. You and Charley are good parents. Nick’s a great kid. And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” said Nellie. “But not with Lucky Miller.”
“Do you know what that means, Mom? A cigar is just a cigar?”
“Nah, but I hear people say it all the time. And if ever a cigar was more than a cigar, it would be with Lucky. He uses that thing as a weapon, for Christ’s sake, stabbing at people with it all the time. And you mark my words, his parents either spoiled him or hated him, but it wasn’t in between like it’s supposed to be.”
Jane pulled up in front of Wally’s tavern and shut off the engine. “So I know you didn’t spoil Michael and me, right?” said Jane.
“Nope,” said Nellie.
“But you didn’t hate us, either,” said Jane.
“Nope,” said Nellie. “I liked you fine. See, you just need to stay in between spoiling and hating with kids. That way nobody gets hurt.”
Jane had no time to pursue any more of her mother’s child-rearing theories, although she sensed a potential Belinda St. Germaine bestseller lurking in Nellie’s words. Gears, however, needed to be changed for the visit to Carl’s apartment. The entrance was next to the tavern doors and Nellie used the key marked “outer” to let them into a dimly lit foyer, barely large enough for the two of them to stand. The stairs were lit with two cheap fixtures, both fitted with low-wattage bulbs.
“Have you ever been here before?” asked Jane, climbing the stairs ahead of Nellie.
“Hell no. Carl didn’t exactly do any entertaining at home. When he moved in here … it had to be over fifty years ago … he asked me where he should get furniture. I told him to go to Turk’s and buy up everything new to fill up the place. Might be more money than he wanted to pay, but he’d get good stuff and it would last forever. He told me he went and bought what he needed. I remember somebody at the bar asked him what style he got.” Nellie gave one of her rare short laughs. “He said, ‘wood.’”
Although Nellie had opened the street level door herself, she passed the key to Jane to unlock the apartment. Jane usually loved opening the door to an unknown space. A kind of spinning reel began inside her head, all of her most coveted objects passing before her eyes. In a north shore suburb, she might walk in and find incredible art; in a small retirement apartment, there might be valuable first editions; in a stylish gated community, there might be weighty sterling serving pieces. Here, opening the door to Carl’s apartment, where he had lived for nearly fifty years, over Wally’s Tap, what could she possibly find besides the lonely furnishings of a lifelong bachelor bartender? Jane hesitated as she heard the tumblers in the lock click. She always played a game, imagining the first thing she’d see when she and Tim entered a house. It wouldn’t be respectful if she didn’t play it with Carl’s place.
“What do you think we’ll see as soon as we open the door?” J
ane asked Nellie.
“A bottle of whiskey and a water glass he stole from the EZ Way Inn,” said Nellie.
Her mother was good at this game.
“I think there’ll be a plastic laundry basket on the floor in front of one chair that’s positioned in front of the television,” said Jane.
“Are the clothes clean or dirty?” asked Nellie.
She was really good at this game.
Jane opened the door and gasped. Even Nellie, standing next to her, took in a little puff of air.
“I’ll be damned,” said Nellie. “It’s as neat as a pin.”
Leave it to Nellie to note the cleanliness. Jane had her eye on something else. On everything else. The apartment opened into a living-dining area with a small galley kitchen off to one side of the dining area. There was a hall that led in the other direction, Jane assumed, to a bedroom and bath. There was a coat closet to their right and Jane could see a door off the kitchen that probably led to the rear stairs down to the alley.
“He was a clean man, he kept the bar clean and washed the glasses fine. I shouldn’t be surprised at this, but I didn’t expect it to look so…” Nellie stopped herself and looked at Jane. “What is this? What does this look like?”
“A bachelor pad from some early sixties movie with a B-list star?” said Jane.
“What the hell does that mean?” asked Nellie, stepping around the black leather ottoman that went with the impeccable black leather lounge chair, moving closer to the pale wooden table in the dining area surrounded by four matching chairs.
Jane didn’t need to check any labels, although she would look later when she came back with Tim. For now, she was satisfied that the chair was an Eames lounger. The table and chairs were Heywood Wakefield, as was the matching credenza under the window that faced the side street. The bark cloth curtains were off the rack, in a great turquoise and black atomic print. Jane quickly walked down the hall and saw a double bed, neatly made with a plain tan corduroy bedspread smoothed over the top. The frame, end tables, and matching chest looked like Dunbar, but Jane wasn’t ready to open drawers and start the label search. First, she wanted to marvel at the closet, with neatly hung pairs of pants, eight white shirts, and eight dark striped ties hung on a wooden rack. Two pairs of black shoes, polished, with wooden shoetrees in them, were on the closet floor.
There were two photographs on the wall, both of the EZ Way Inn. One was an exterior shot with the beer signs in the window and the tumble-down roof looking like it might fall at any minute and the other was a shot of the bar’s interior with Don and Nellie smiling at the camera. Who had shot those eight-by-ten glossies?
“Uncle Chucky,” said Nellie, behind Jane, looking at the photos, reading her mind.
“I have an Uncle Chucky?” asked Jane.
“No,” Nellie growled. “Chuck had a studio where he took pictures of babies and kids and families and he called it Uncle Chucky’s. He was a friend of your dad’s and took those pictures. We had them hung up in the bar. Your dad took them down when we paneled the dining room twenty years ago and I never found them after that. Figured they got thrown out.”
“Carl needed some family photos,” said Jane.
“Yup,” said Nellie, removing them from the wall. “Guess I can take them back now.”
“So Turk’s sold him some good stuff,” said Jane, following her mother into the kitchen area.
“Yeah, he did okay,” said Nellie, her head inside of a cabinet. “Wasn’t much on the pots and pans.”
Jane smiled. There was a teakettle and one sauce pan and a frying pan. Nothing looked like it had ever been used. In one of the upper cabinets, there was a set of turquoise and pink melamine dishes, service for six. Jane held up a plate and couldn’t see one scratch made by a knife or fork.
“Here we go,” said Nellie. “I win.” The cabinet next to the stove had three bottles of whiskey in it with two EZ Way Inn glasses.
Jane and Nellie checked the other cabinets, finding them sparsely populated. A few cans of soup and an ancient box of saltines. There was a fancy jar of strawberry preserves that still had vestiges of a Christmas bow on the lid. Never opened. Jane held it up close and read the brand.
“I gave this to Carl last Christmas,” said Jane. “In a basket with sausages and cheese and stuff. At least he ate the other stuff.”
“Nope,” said Nellie, opening the refrigerator.
Jane looked over her mother’s shoulder and saw all of the fancy sausage and cheese and small jars of mustard set neatly on the second shelf. On the top shelf were two six-packs of beer.
“Why the beer?” said Jane. “Carl didn’t like beer, did he?”
“He kept it for when he quit drinking,” said Nellie, opening drawers and taking out a few old metal advertising trays that Jane was sure had come from the EZ Way Inn.
“What do you mean quit drinking? Beer’s—”
“Maybe twice a year, Carl’d go on a bender and drink himself stupid. Then he’d sober up and quit drinking for a couple months. Then he’d get on an even keel and be okay for a while.”
“I don’t understand the beer,” said Jane.
“It was for when Cark quit drinking,” said Nellie, plainly annoyed that she had to repeat herself.
“But beer’s—” began Jane.
“When you drink a quart of whiskey a day most all your life, switching to beer is quitting, okay?” said Nellie, on her knees looking in the drawer under the stove. “I don’t know why anybody starts in the first place, but once you do, it’s a slippery slope.”
Jane had never heard her mother use the expression “slippery slope” before and was quite sure Nellie had no idea it signified anything other than a hill one shouldn’t attempt to climb. No reason to get into a discussion on semantics with Nellie. It would be a slippery slope indeed.
Jane looked up at the clock above the sink and a small “oh” escaped when she registered what she was looking at. A George Nelson Petal Clock in those amazing four colors read 1:45. The clock looked so perfect in this kitchen that she hated to take it down. Pulling out a small step stool from the pantry cupboard, she did remove the clock. It was the bait she would use to have some fun with Tim before she reeled him in.
“Why don’t you leave it up there?” asked Nellie. “You’ll need a clock.”
Jane shook her head. “I’m not moving in here, Mom.”
Jane thought she saw Nellie’s shoulders relax a little. “It’s nicer than the basement and it’s got all this good furniture in it from Turk’s,” said Nellie. “I wouldn’t blame you.”
“Nope,” said Jane. “I’ve got an idea about a place to live, Mom, but it’s not the basement or here. I’m still thinking about it.”
Nellie shrugged. “Just as well. Your dad wouldn’t like you living over a bar.”
“And you?” asked Jane, with a smile.
“Up to you,” said Nellie. “I don’t interfere.”
* * *
Jane had to meet Lucky Miller before the bowling tournament and in her big tote bag, she imagined that the Petal Clock was ticking. She dropped Nellie off back at home and ran inside to call Oh, pet Rita so that her dog might remember who she was, and see how her father was getting along on day two of the EZ Way Inn being closed.
“It’s not bad, Jane, having a Saturday off,” said Don. Quiet voices came from the television. Golfers were teeing up and someone was discussing the Leader Board. Don, however, had left his chair and was scouring out the coffeemaker with some kind of vinegar mixture. He also showed Nellie that he had cleaned out two junk drawers and looked through several old magazines for nonexpiring coupons.
“We’ll save some money on groceries this week,” he said proudly.
“What’s got into you?” said Nellie, sniffing at the coffeepot.
“We’re always cleaning stuff up at the tavern, but we never have any time here. I thought maybe we should spruce the house up a little bit.”
“Why? We putting it up for sal
e?” said Nellie. She had her back to her husband and was looking over the drawers that Don had organized. When Don didn’t answer right away, she whipped around and faced him.
“You’re not thinking about selling the house again, are you?”
Don shrugged.
“Again?” asked Jane, looking up from where she sat on the floor, rubbing Rita behind the ears. “When were you thinking about selling the house?”
“I’ll tell you exactly when,” said Nellie. “When Milt died. Every time somebody dies, your dad starts cleaning out drawers and closets and starts looking at brochures for places called ‘communities’ in Arizona.”
“Not exactly true,” said Don, looking at Jane. “But you know, a wake-up call now and then makes you think.”
“Stop thinking,” said Nellie. “We can’t afford to retire and nobody’s going to buy this house right now anyway. Remember your investment opportunity?”
Don shushed Nellie. Jane might be a grown-up with financial responsibilities of her own, but her father still didn’t believe in discussing money in front of the children.
Jane pulled the petal clock out of her bag and set it on the kitchen table. “I have to go meet Lucky before the bowling tournament, but can we all talk about this later? I have an idea about me helping out at the EZ Way Inn while you guys get back on your feet. Then maybe I can help you plan ahead for retirement, okay? But can we talk about it later? No decisions right now? I’m already late,” she said, pointing to the unplugged clock, positioned like a dinner plate on a woven placemat.
Don nodded. He gave Jane a hug and promised that no decisions would be made while she was out.
“We’ve been talking about this for ten years and haven’t decided anything yet, so I guess we can wait another hour or two.”
“Good,” said Jane.
Lucky Stuff (Jane Wheel Mysteries) Page 20
