She’d scratched away at the hinge until, exhausted, she fell asleep.
This morning, she had awakened stiff and creaky and sore. A little gray light was coming through the crack. She wound her watch, causing her fingers to bleed again, and held it to the light until she managed to figure out that it was six-thirty. The sun is amazing, she used to tell her fifth-graders. Source of life and energy. Powerful beams starting so far away, pushing through clouds, bouncing off buildings, bouncing under the high back porch and through her thin curtains, bouncing around her kitchen and through the crack, so that even Julia, incarcerated in the middle of a solid old house, received a little light. Maybe she’d join the sun-worshipers if she got out. Maybe she’d write a book. Old Sol Grows Up. She smiled as she replaced her watch.
Even with Old Sol’s help, though, she couldn’t see much of what she’d done last night. There was a faint, lighter shade where she’d scraped off all the old varnish, but she’d still have to work by feel today. Not that there was a lot of feeling left in her scarred fingertips, cut by the sharp edges of the screw head. The screw! Where was it? Had she lost it? Frantically, she fell around the little cabinet. There it was, back in the corner. Thank God. She’d have to be more careful tonight, put it in her pocket, along with the hair.
She was so stiff. The little cabinet was thirty inches square, maybe three and a half feet tall. Lucky she didn’t suffer from claustrophobia. She’d slept all night slumped in a stiff curl, and this morning her shoulders and neck and back and arthritic knees were all raucously unhappy. No way to stretch out, of course. But maybe she could change positions. Laboriously she pulled her feet under her, straightened her legs carefully while bending over at the hips. When she was younger she could touch her toes. Maybe she’d learn again now. She swung her arms around to loosen up. It helped a little. She checked her pocket: the precious tuft of hair was still there.
Okay. Back to work. The old salt mines, the teachers had called their classrooms. The old rat race. The daily grind. And here she was, hard at work again at sixty-eight. Mrs. Northrup, the interviewer would say, it’s so exciting! Whatever made you decide to embark on a new career at the age of sixty-eight? Well, Sonny, it’s just my philosophy. Live life to the fullest. You can’t imagine the sense of purpose and direction that a career in hinge removal can give to those of us with limited mobility. Ah, Mrs. Northrup, Sonny would reply, you are an inspiration and a role model to us all.
Gradually a new problem presented itself. Besides being hungry and thirsty and cramped and aching, Julia realized that she needed the bathroom. Phooey. What could she do? The hinge was still a long way from removable—waiting until she got out was not an option. She’d be here for hours yet. But thirty inches square was not your usual luxury apartment with Jacuzzi and bidet. Last night she had solved the pee problem, after a fashion, by remembering that one of the forward corners by the handrope was lower than the others. She’d once spilled a bottle of window cleaner on the floor of the cabinet and it had flowed quickly to that corner and out. So by arranging herself as close to the corner as she could, she minimized the problem. But this was not so easily minimized.
Julia considered and decided to sacrifice her skirt. It was old anyway. The blouse would be softer but she needed the blouse pocket to keep the hair safe. She took off the skirt, squirming and wriggling in the little space, and ripped it into several pieces. Most she folded carefully into the back corner. Then she spread one square in the low corner and squatted over it. Poopy-pants, chanted the first-graders who didn’t yet understand the more adult obscenities, pointing fingers at some unpopular classmate. God, though, they were right, those little first-graders. This was a lot less attractive than sex. Ugh. She wrapped her mess in the piece of skirt and pushed it gingerly to the corner as far as it would go, trying not to breathe much. Too bad she hadn’t thought of this when she was trying to discourage buyers. Even the meddling Miss Ryan might have thought twice about buying a place that smelled this revolting.
But the torn pieces of skirt had given her an idea. She took another small piece and wrapped her sore fingers. They slipped a little more on the screw head, but it was slightly more comfortable. She settled to her task. Work is the province of cattle, said Parker. How true.
She chipped away at the hinge all morning. Uncovered one screw. Started on the next.
And grew thirstier.
Come on, Teach, Beat the Clock.
In the afternoon, the ringing phone broke the silence. Who was it this time? Someone new? Or the same person who had tried before? Probably just the free introductory dance lesson again. Congratulations, Mrs. Northrup, you have won our grand prize. Well, maybe she’d accept this time. She needed to get out of the house more, right?
In the twenties she’d been a good dancer. So had Vic. He was bashful and in those early days at the college socials Julia had ignored him. Sort of nice-looking, she and her girlfriends had decided, but hard to talk to. Julia, not a flapper, really, but just a touch flirtatious, had preferred John Randall or the handsome Bennett brothers, all of them pleasant and ready with compliments for her. “You look good as ice cream, Julia!” John Randall would say. “Your eyes sparkle like champagne!” Tom Bennett would whisper wickedly. Vic managed to say; “You look real pretty tonight, Julia,” but after that it was up to her to think of conversation. She would chatter about the people around them or the decorations or the food, and Vic, back then, would smile and answer in friendly, boring monosyllables. But when he danced with her there was no need for words. They were the best pair there. Waltzes, foxtrots, Charlestons, the whole range. Their bodies instinctively understood each other. One night, desperate to break the silence that descended on them between numbers, Julia had babbled something silly about the American Revolution.
“No, Julia,” he’d answered seriously, “it had less worldwide effect than the French Revolution, but then, the French Revolution was partly inspired by ours.” Startled, she’d rallied a few thoughts from her world history classes in response, and discovered that he could talk perfectly well about ideas even though he was a bit short on silly compliments. Ideas and dancing. Were those such bad reasons to marry him? Bad or good, it had worked for thirty years. Most of the time, anyway.
The phone was still ringing. Nine rings. Ten. Eleven. “Sorry, dear,” she said to it, “but I don’t have a partner anymore. And anyway, I’m too busy to go dancing today. I have to work late.” God, her mouth was dry. She could hardly get the words out. Her voice sounded so rough. Would she be able to scream if someone came? She tried. Okay, she could do it, but it was getting raspy. Her throat was drying out too.
Maybe she’d die.
Stop it, Teach. Don’t think thoughts like that. Work on the hinge, get out of here, have a drink, take the hair to Brugioni. Beat the Clock.
But if she did die, she didn’t want the murderer to get away. There was still some light coming through the crack, filtering dimly against the back wall of the dumbwaiter. She turned her back to the cruel oak door for a moment, and scratched big letters into the varnish of the back wall: HAIR IN POCKET.
Then she turned back to the hinge, and kept on sawing.
The phone rang twice more before the light disappeared, but Julia ignored it. She just went on scratching.
And grew thirstier.
11
“Hey, how about this one?” said George, his gnomelike face leering. “Belinda Belden. Specialties: German dialects.”
Nick inspected the bikini-clad woman in the photo and shook his head solemnly. “I don’t think it’s him.”
They had skimmed through Equity directories and cast lists from non-Equity productions. No Dennis Burns. Now they were sifting through George’s files. As an actors’ agent, he received a deluge of photographs with résumés from would-be actors, in addition to letters, cards, balloons, flowers, and any other attention-getting devices the desperate young hopefuls could dream up. If he wasn’t busy, George glanced at them and occasion
ally set one aside to look at further. Usually he was busy, and his secretary put them, unsorted except for rough alphabetization, into a bin labeled optimistically “To be filed.”
“Yeah, but look what she clipped to her photo,” George persisted. He held up a black lace garter.
“Better sign her up, then,” said Nick. “German dialects are always in demand.”
George hung the garter on his ear, tossed the photo onto the stack he’d already checked, and rummaged on through the pile. “God, what a business,” he lamented. “All these hopeful kids.”
“They won’t be hopeful long.”
“Yeah? Some of them turn into hopeful middle-aged bald guys.”
“Not hopeful. Masochistic. Speaking of which, I’d better be on my way.” Nick put down his stack and stood up. “Have to see if the powers at Black Rock think I’m talented enough to die in a fiery car crash.”
“Yeah, I hope they take you off the streets,” grumbled George. “Keep you from wasting all my time looking for résumés of somebody who’s already dead.”
“By the time you get around to us, it’s a wonder we aren’t all dead.”
“Yeah, most of you audition that way,” retorted George, picking up another photo. “God, this is about the tenth résumé this Bartlett kid has left. I ought to take him on. He’ll keep after the jobs. Not like you, wasting your time playing policeman.”
“Okay, okay, I’m going. Ready to die ignominiously in flames just to earn you a fat commission.” In fact, Nick worked fairly steadily by the standards of a profession in which more than ninety percent of even union members were usually unemployed.
“Yeah.” George flipped through a last pile of photographs. “That pretty well finishes the B’s anyway. I’ll call Russell and ask if this kid was maybe enrolled in a class there. But if he was an actor, he wasn’t trying very hard.”
“Maybe he just heard the truth about you and decided to shop elsewhere for an agent.”
“Get out of here, ingrate!” George threw the garter at him. Nick shot it back slingshot style and ducked out the door before more lethal missives could follow.
Waiting for the subway that would take him to the CBS audition, Nick wondered about Dennis Burns. He was intrigued by the young man who, like himself, had lost a father and had hoped to make a name for himself in the theatre. Clearly, he was not a very active actor. He must have put in an appearance at some cattle calls, since the volatile Curt had accepted Nick’s lie about meeting Dennis at one of them. But he was not a member of Equity, had not been cast in any of the dozens of nonunion productions Nick and George had skimmed over, and had not even left his photo with a reasonably well-known agent. Whatever the big job was, it didn’t have much to do with acting.
Some kind of con game? A lot of criminals in this city might like a clean-cut kid from Winston as a front. Or drugs? His father had been a doctor, right? Was that what he’d left with Curt—drugs? Was that why Curt was half-expecting the mob? Well, there just wasn’t enough information yet to draw any conclusions. And right now, Nick had to concentrate on becoming a criminal himself, a criminal whose life would end in a flaming car. He turned his mind to the upcoming audition.
By late afternoon, the pounding in Len’s head had considerably eased. Dumb move, drinking so much. He hadn’t done that since college, on the day he’d faced up to the fact that he was not an artist. What was he having to face up to now? Nancy leaving, of course. The abortion question. Their future. The fact that a joyous and carefree love sometimes had painful consequences. She’d said: I’m not a person who hurts people. And he’d made soothing noises and started talking about money. Not smart, in retrospect, but dammit, money was important too. Some hurts it could soften.
Despite his dulled state he’d managed to get some work done. He’d given his apartment-building proposal to Joyce, with a brief explanation, and she’d promised to look at it when she could. She’d had a busy day, calling lawyers and bankers and appraisers to make sure everything would be set for the million-dollar Feldheim closing scheduled for the next day, in addition to her usual rounds of appointments. Len had shown a couple of buildings and was now making up a list of owners in an improving district where Banks Realty had recently sold four apartment buildings with commercial street floors. He had suggested to Joyce that they send letters with news about the prices and sales to these owners. “If they know we can sell in that area, they’ll call us when they’re ready to sell.”
“Actually, they’ll call their brothers-in-law,” Joyce informed him. “But you’re right, Len, we may get a listing or two from people who don’t have relatives in real estate.”
“And one listing would pay for the mailing, right?”
Joyce smiled. “Go ahead.”
That had taken him several hours. But now, finishing the list of addresses so that Renata could type them tomorrow, he began to think himself capable of facing Nancy with greater success than the previous night. She’d call tonight, surely. Or even stop by.
Joyce came out of her private office and over to his desk. “I looked over your proposal, Len.”
“Oh. Thanks. What did you think?”
“I’d like to do it. We have a meeting Thursday afternoon. I’ll bring it up.”
“Thanks, Joyce! That’s great!”
“I can’t promise anything. But I’ll tell them it seems worth a try.”
“It’ll work out, I know. All I need is a little help getting started.”
Joyce smiled, approving of his optimism. “I’ll tell them. Right now, I need the key to show that co-op tonight.” She opened the lock box, and looked around as the door opened. “Hello, Arthur!”
“Joyce, honey, you did it!” Arthur Lund skipped across the room to hug her. “I came straight over from the office to thank you! Loretta is so excited!”
Joyce returned his embrace, smiling. “1 appreciate it, Arthur, but Len here is the one to thank.”
“Oh, I thanked him when he brought my copy of the contract over,” said Lund, nevertheless turning to crush Len’s hand in his own. “But I wanted to ask if there’s anything else I should do.”
“Not until closing,” said Joyce.
“It’s in the lawyers’ hands now,” Len explained. “We just wait around for them to summon us.”
“Shouldn’t I have the place cleaned or anything?”
“It looked fine when I was there,” said Joyce. “Len, did the police make any kind of mess that should be cleaned up?”
“No. If anything, it’s better dusted now than ever. Of course, there’s Mrs. Northrup’s place. But even that was neat the last time I saw it.”
“She wouldn’t let you in to clean it anyway,” said Joyce.
“Well, okay,” said Lund. “I just don’t want this deal to fall through for any reason.”
“It shouldn’t,” said Joyce. “You’re holding the mortgage yourself, so a bank can’t mess things up. And if there is anything that needs adjustment, the lawyers will tell us.”
“Nick and Maggie won’t back out,” said Len. “They’re enthusiastic about the place. I was surprised, frankly, with that body up there, but—”
“Oh! Don’t remind me!” exclaimed Lund. “I thought right then it was all over for that house.”
“So did I. We were lucky,” said Joyce. “But really, Arthur, there’s nothing else you have to do until closing. Your lawyer will tell you what to bring—tax bills, utilities, and so forth. Keys. Checkbook.”
“Oh, I’ve had those bills ready for a long time. I update them every month,” said Lund. “Well, okay, thanks. Let me know if you think of anything I can do.”
“Sure. But basically, just take it easy.”
Lund went out again, a happy, if nervous, man. Joyce shook her head, amused. “Ever notice how the little sales take more time? Someone like Feldheim can decide millions of dollars in a few minutes, while Arthur frets for months over a few thousand.”
“A few thousand seem like a lot from down
here,” said Renata.
“Besides,” said Len, “these people may bring us a big deal tomorrow.”
“Not someone who thinks as small as Lund. Taking out short-term loans for months and then finally dropping the price to where it should have been in the first place.”
“Well, Nick O’Connor then. Suppose he gets cast in a big hit like Kojak.”
Joyce laughed. “Optimism, Len. You’re right.” She locked the keys away and went back into her own office.
Len turned back to his list of addresses. There were nearly sixty different owners in the blocks he’d selected. Karen Weld and Fred Stein finished and left by five, but Len decided to complete the list before he went. No Nancy to hurry home to anyway.
The phone rang. “For you, Len,” said Renata.
“Len? Glad I caught you. It’s Maggie. I wondered if it would be possible to get the measurements of the kitchen on Garfield Place. We want to make plans and get materials ordered so we can start work as soon as it’s ours.”
“Sure. I have rough measurements already.”
“No, we’ll need exact numbers for the kitchen. Would Lund let us come back?”
“I don’t see why not. He was just here asking if there was anything he could do. When do you want to go over?”
“Tonight, tomorrow night. The sooner the better.”
“Let me see what I can set up. Shall I call you right back?”
“I’m still at the office.”
Len dialed Julia Northrup’s number, but there was no answer. Well, that might not be necessary anyway, if Maggie just wanted to see the kitchen on the first floor. He unlocked the key box and looked through it, and then again, more thoroughly. The little amber tag was nowhere to be seen. Lund’s keys were gone.
Where were they? He’d returned them himself last week. Hadn’t he? He tried to think. The police! Brugioni had left them on Mrs. Northrup’s bookcase for him. So he must have brought them back here. And he didn’t think anyone had been back to the house since. Fred? Had Lund himself taken them back? Well, they’d turn up. He called Maggie.
Murder Unrenovated Page 15
