The Case of the Lady in Apartment 308

by Lass Small

  She retorted sassily, “I’m naturally neat and tidy. And I work by the job, not the hour.”

  “Those overalls are silent witness to how neat and tidy you are.”

  She laughed. She really did. She looked at him and her eyes twinkled with her humor. She told Ed, “I’ve been trying to discourage you so that you wouldn’t be interested and distract me.”

  “Distract you…from painting!” He was totally unbelieving.

  “Well, uh, yeah.”

  There was a knock on her door.

  Marcia got up, and so did Ed. She went over and opened the door. “Yes?”

  “I hear some guy in here with you?”

  She opened the door a little more and gestured. “He’s the rent collector.”

  Ed saw the big guy’s glance go over him, dismiss him and then go on to stop on the table. Two places set. Obviously Ed was company invited there to eat.

  The looming intruder said, “Okay.” And he left.

  Ed blinked. “Is he part of your painting crew?”

  “On occasion, we work together.”

  “Painting?”

  “He takes care of the bigger problems.” She smiled at Ed.

  “He could. What’s his reach?”

  “I don’t know. He does get things done.”

  “He looks like an albino gorilla.” Ed nodded over the ID. Then Ed grudgingly added, “His features are a bit better.” Ed’s eyes narrowed. “He looks like a crook. Have you done a background check on him?”

  “You’d hurt his feelings if you said something like that to him. He’s very kind and gentle.”

  “Doing…what?” Ed leaned his head closer to her and his face was stony.

  She gestured in a gentle openness as she explained, “His work.”

  “He doesn’t look like a painter.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “What’s a painter look like? You? He doesn’t look at all like you.” Then she was soothing. “He’s another careful worker.” To change the subject, she asked Ed, “Have you ever been on one of the riverboats? The ones with gambling?”

  “Sure.”

  “I never have. Did you go on a moored boat or one that went out on the river?”

  “Both. They’re just like anything else. But on the river, the view’s better. And the food’s good. Would you like to go?”

  She smiled a little as if it was an unexpected invitation—or as if he’d taken the hook? She said, “Yeah. That would be fun.”

  “Let’s go now.”

  “I’ll…check my calendar. Let me call you…in about an hour?”

  So she had dismissed him. She hadn’t suggested he stay there while she changed. There were two rooms. She could have done that. So he pushed it. “You’re dressed just right.”

  She smiled at Ed. “Thank you. I’ll see.”

  “We haven’t had dessert.” He said that as he looked at her. Why would she want him out of her place…for an hour?

  She said, “We can have dessert on board the boat.”

  That was logical, but hadn’t she prepared any dessert? Hmmmm. And his mind went searching. It landed on the big lump who had checked on her.

  However, Ed replied slowly, “Okay. Call me. Do you have my number?”

  Her eyes twinkled, so amused, and she replied, “Yes.”

  She did have his phone number—and his parents’ number. That was nigglingly interesting.

  As Ed was putting his arms into his jacket, he noticed that her binoculars weren’t in sight in her temporary apartment. She had either put them away or kept them in the other apartment so that she could take breaks and look around.

  Her curiosity was interesting. Ed had never before seen any painter who cared about anything but getting the job done and going on to another.

  And she was slow.

  Quick to get phone numbers, but a slow painter.

  As directed, Ed left the apartment and drove back to his place at the compound. He was somewhat disgruntled because he didn’t understand her wanting the break in their time together. Why had he had to leave her?

  And again he considered that while her apartment was being painted, by her, her interim place was a two-room apartment. If she’d wanted to change clothes, she could have closed the bedroom door. He wouldn’t have been offended by that.

  She just didn’t add up.

  Maybe she was married to that lump of a lug. However, he didn’t appear to be the tolerant type. Was she dating the guy? And she needed permission to take off for a night out with another man? Hardly. She wouldn’t be involved with a guy like that lump.

  But the guy had really looked Ed over. He’d been so hostile that Ed was surprised the guy hadn’t sat down on the sofa and read the paper until Ed left.

  There’d been daddies who’d done that when Ed was young and dating younger girls who were not yet women.

  Daddies had it rough.

  How strange for Ed to think of that at this time. Marcia was old enough to date without having a chaperone. From the looks of her, she wasn’t a newly born chick. She’d been around a block or two.

  Marcia had the look of a woman who had seen life and survived it very well. She had moxie. She knew what was what. Who was who. And she was familiar with the ropes that set off conduct.

  How interesting that she had so carefully shunned Ed…almost. She’d had lunch with him twice and barely said a word either of those times. She’d talked before then when they’d first met. But during those two lunches, she’d hardly said anything.

  This time, at her own place, she’d been quite chatty. And it had been she who had brought up the gambling boats!

  She’d probably borrow money in order to play the slots “one more time.” Yeah, she’d be like that.

  Gamblers probably had a welcome mat they put out just for her. They’d hired her to bring in new blood— him—for their gambling.

  She was a touter. They probably gave her extra chances. Not money. She’d spend that anyway.

  Ed considered his cynicism. Well, he’d also been around the block a time or two. After all, he was thirty-seven. In a couple of years he’d be edging into— forty! By that age, a man had been around and seen and experienced just about everything.

  And he knew women.

  Yes, he did.

  Ed paced his floor and waited for her call. Why would he be that impatient? He ought to sit down and read the paper and be as aloof as she deserved.

  His phone rang and instead of letting it ring at least twice, he grabbed it right away. A really stupid thing to do with a new woman. He said a casual, “Hello.” What a stupid thing to say. Why hadn’t he said, “I’m here.” Or “It took you long enough.”

  A male voice said, “Ed? This is Charlie. You busy?”

  God, Charlie was the world’s worst chatterer. Why had he called then?

  So Ed replied quickly, “I’m waiting for a call from California. Let me get back to you.”

  And Charlie said, “Well…”

  But Ed hung up.

  And the phone rang!

  Cautiously Ed said, “Yeah?”

  She said, “Come by in twenty minutes?”

  Ed replied, “Yeah.”

  She hung up.

  He was slower.

  Being ready, Ed needed to delay about fifteen minutes, so he called Charlie. Ed began, “I got just under fifteen minutes. Give me an outline.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “What! How’d I know what?” Ed frowned at the wall.

  “My job’s been eliminated in the downsizing of the company.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “We’ve got four kids!”

  “Didn’t you ever expect this to happen?”

  Charlie reminded Ed, “My father-in-law was the senior executive vice president.”

  Carefully, Ed echoed, “Was?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why don’t you two come to our meeting on Wednesday. It’s a great support group and—”

  “Jim is zonk
ed. He can’t face it.”

  “I’ll give you a list of the members tomorrow. He’ll be right at home. It’ll be a shock to see the numbers and caliber of those present. Have heart.”

  “Ed—”

  “I have a new date in five minutes. I’ll get back to you tomorrow. Chins up. This is solvable. You’ll be astounded. Hang in there.” And Ed hung up.

  If he hadn’t hung up, it would have been a crying jag next. While that isn’t wrong for a man to be shocked in such a matter, it was wrong for Ed to be involved in it right at that minute.

  He had given the first glimmer of light in the end of the dark tunnel for Charlie—and probably his father-in-law. Tomorrow, Ed would listen as long as it took Charlie to get the pus out of the aching wound of surprise at being fired.

  The word had once been terminated. That had sounded so final. Like a death knell.

  Released was another substitute word for fired. The mental image was pigeons being freed from a sack on a rooftop.

  Being fired was now called downsizing. That meant the firm was in trouble financially. The CEOs were paid too much in unbelievably staggering amounts. That took money from the budget, which limited or shrunk the lower echelon.

  Charlie was Ed’s age, give or take a couple of years. He was a good, easy golfer and a cheerful father. His father-in-law was a competent man and had been hanging on carefully by his fingernails. At his age, he was mistaken for deadwood.

  The company would hire some cheap, wet-eared kids, and those novices would proceed to brilliantly foul things up. Then the older men would be brought back on piecework to try to sort out and glue the whole mess together while the kids learned what to do.

  It was all as inevitable as rain. Sometimes it took longer but it would rain.

  Then Ed remembered reading in Time magazine of the archaeologists who had dug into the soil of the Middle East. They discovered that once there had been a three-hundred-year drought.

  A stunning thing. There were no seeds in those soil layers of time. The land had been stark and barren.

  So as Ed went out to his car to go pick up Marcia, his thoughts of the offer in California loomed in his mind.

  At least Ed had an income. Forewarned is really forearmed. If he hadn’t “downsized” his own life, he’d be in the same bind Charlie now found himself.

  But Ed had caught the wind shift for middle management. He’d studied how to counter it. And now he knew he would be all right. With study, anything can be stabilized.

  In time, even Charlie and his father-in-law would be okay. They might not have the clout they’d had, but they’d be all right. They’d be back on the treadmill.

  Treadmill.

  That was an interesting word to pop up at such a time. Did Ed consider that working in an office was a…treadmill? Had he been doing altered things over and over, from varying directions, and mentally getting nowhere? Hmmmm.

  Was there a glass roof for men? Yeah. Long before women hit it, there had been men splattered against it.

  Being “freed to follow other avenues” was a premise to be considered. At least Ed had no wife and kiddies to worry about.

  Ed missed the drollness of the last thought as he arrived at the apartment house to fetch Marcia.

  She was dressed in a demure, ladylike, light blue dress. She looked so sweet that she could be the choir director. She could, if the observer didn’t notice her sly eyes.

  As Ed noticed them, her eyes cleared and the lashes lifted to look into his with honest candor.

  This was a woman a man needed to be careful about. She could be dangerous to a man…to him…to Edgar Hollingsworth.

  Well, he could handle a little danger.

  Ed smiled and said, “You really look different lately. I think it could have been those coveralls.”

  “Oh, do you suppose?”

  “I didn’t realize you were…so female.”

  “You’d never make a cop. No imagination at all.” She smiled, her teeth in her lower lip, and her eyes sparkled unduly.

  She didn’t think he had any imagination? But he replied to her comment, “I’ve only known pragmatic cops.”

  Marcia sassed, “They hide their humor and intelligence quite well.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She looked surprised. “I ran into a cop…just this week. It was a fluke, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “But he said I’d turned wrong.”

  Ed guessed, “It was a one-way street?”

  She nodded soberly. “I went into the middle lane and had to back up for almost a mile on the thruway.”

  Ed nodded serious bobs. “That was an experience. A challenge.”

  She complained, “A lot of people honked at me.”

  Again Ed’s head nodded in agreement. “That’s probably what they’d do.”

  “A cop came along and led me.”

  “Well! That was nice.”

  She explained, “It was so it could be he who gave me the…the lecture! He was really…upset.”

  “He didn’t want you wasted.”

  She defended herself. “Nobody was shooting at me, only honking.”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “I was in my painting coveralls and hat and wearing my glasses. He was not charmed by me…at all.”

  “Did you drive yourself home?”

  She was emphatic. “With great care.”

  Keeping his eyes mostly on the road, Ed briefly glanced at her as he reached over and waggled her head. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt. The cop was probably sweating and worried and a father. Fathers tend to get upset when kids get in physical trouble and come out of it safely.”

  She countered that. “I broke a fingernail.”

  It took him a while to realize that was a bad thing. He asked kindly, “Which one?”

  She held out her left hand and pointed to the little finger.

  With his eyes on the road, he took her hand in his big one and lifted it to his mouth to kiss it. Then he put her hand on his thigh and covered it entirely with his bigger hand, holding it there. It was their first romantic encounter.

  Yeah. He’d kissed her finger. But she hadn’t with-drawn her hand. Her hand was on his thigh under his hand, and hers wasn’t squirming to get away.

  What would she do if he put his hand on her thigh?

  He’d sec.

  He drove across the bridge over the Illinois River and into East Peoria, which is a manufacturing area. There were hotels and motels along the riverbank. And he drove north to the parking lot for the gambling boats. There was an off-duty cop working the entrance of the big pavilion.

  The cop scowled at Marcia.

  Ed looked at Marcia. She was old enough. Why the scowl?

  As they walked on by the cop and entered the pavilion, Ed glanced back at the cop who was looking off, away, in a rather pointed manner.

  Ed asked Marcia, “Who’s the cop? Do you know him?”

  “He’s the one who objected to my going backward down the thruway.”

  “A stickler.” Ed nodded in agreement with his words.

  “The worst kind.”

  Ed was holding the hand with the shortened fingernail.

  With other arrivals, the couple came to the split halls in the building. One way was to the dining room. Ed asked, “Would you like dessert here? I don’t believe they serve any dessert on board.”

  Marcia replied, “Not now. I want to see the boat. That would be dessert enough for me.”

  So they went down the other hall. At one of the wire-enclosed cashier cages, Ed paid for tickets to board the gambling boat.

  They went up some stairs and then up the covered gangplank and on to the first deck. There were open covered decks on each level and a big paddle wheel was at the back of the boat.

  They walked around so that Marcia could see everything.

  Ed mentioned, “I can’t believe you’ve never been here before. If you don’t gamble, it isn’t expensive.�
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  “Who’d come to a gambling boat and not gamble?”

  “Me.”

  She frowned. “How can you not?”

  He opened his hand out and replied, “I watch people lose money.”

  “Some win.”

  “Not very many.”

  Off the top deck, inside, there was a big gambling room with specific kinds of gambling. From the lower deck they found an oval bar in the middle of the slot machine room. A sandwich bar was to one side.

  First the venturing pair went strolling around, hand in hand, along the open decks. The boat left the mooring and went upriver. Being on a wide river is a pleasure.

  She told Ed, “We all love water because we came from the sea.”

  “I hadn’t realized that.”

  She scoffed, “What a neutral reply.”

  He held her hand between them and glanced at her tolerantly. It was a beautiful night. A special time. There was a moon.

  They mostly watched the water’s wake, the turning of the large wheel at the back of the boat, and they watched each other.

  Then they went into the gambling rooms to see what all was offered. They watched some of the high rollers. Neither had an alcoholic drink. She asked, “Don’t you drink booze?”

  “On occasion.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. And finally they went to gamble.

  Ed stopped at a wire cage where he bought and gave her chips. And he watched her play.

  She asked, “Aren’t you going to play?”

  He repeated, “I don’t gamble.” Of course, he was doing that in looking for a job. He was even gambling with knowing this puzzling woman. She was a painter who painted so gently and precisely that she’d never make a living on her own.

  He asked, “Have you been living at home?”

  Her eyes concentrated on the machine in front of her, she replied, “How did you know?”

  “I was trying to figure how you could afford an apartment. Have you been living with somebody?”

  “No. Just at home, as you guessed.”

  “Never been married?” Why had he asked again?

  She replied, “No.”

  What a final word. Why hadn’t she said, “Not yet” instead?

  Ed looked at her playing the slots. She was so intense, pitted against a programmed machine that way. Why couldn’t she be that intense with him?