Martha wasn’t home from work yet, so I boiled two eggs without scorching the bottoms and toasted some bread. I cracked the eggs and mashed them with some bottled mayonnaise, added salt and pepper and I was as good as restored to health. I put the works on a plate, and brought it to the enamel-topped table. I poured a glass of milk from the blue carton in the refrigerator. Meanwhile my mind was guttering on aspects of this Larry Geller business. This was Tuesday. For six days I’d been playing around with the case and not making friends or influencing people while I was doing it. I could have gone down to Daytona Beach on Nathan’s suggestion. I might not have turned up Larry Geller, but I could have got some sun and maybe even some swimming. Everybody I know gets to go to Florida for one reason or another. This time I could have written the whole trip off as a business expense, but some still small voice inside me doesn’t like the way it bounces, so I tell Nathan to shove it, and stay in Martha’s back room. At least in Daytona Beach I’d be able to retire to my own hotel room. Still, small voices should bother other private investigators once in a while.
Back in my car, I headed down across the old canal instead of across the high-level bridge. I parked near the short bridge and sat in the car looking at the three colours of water running under the span. There was the green water from the creek, brown from the pollution works in Papertown and a white scum that held the two other streams apart. It was like Neapolitan ice-cream designed by a madman with a perverse sense of humour. Above the water-line, the red-brick foundry was belching out dark smoke from the tin smoke-stack. The smoke was blowing under the high-level bridge and getting lost among its dark girders.
Ruth Geller was not expecting me. In fact I wasn’t sure myself how I got there. I’d been mooning about for over an hour without any clear direction. My mental processes, if they can be called that, were keeping their thoughts to themselves. I was just the driver. I parked the car at this still exclusive address on Burgoyne Boulevard. As far as I could see, property values hadn’t plummeted. There were no “For Sale” signs visible on the surrounding front lawns. No additional windows had been broken at number 222 nor was there an accumulation of rotten fruit on the lawn.
“Mr. Cooperman! This is a surprise.” Ruth Geller looked honestly taken aback as she saw me standing at her front door. I’d rung the bell twice and was just wondering about a third strike and out when I heard steps approaching the door. “What brings you to this neighbourhood today? Don’t answer that; I just remembered. You never sleep. Will you come in? I was just going to make some tea.” I followed Ruth through the lush hall with the deep-pile broadloom to the immaculate white kitchen. She had more white gadgets than a hardware store. The stove and sink were hard to locate. I finally found them in an island in the middle of the room. The stove was so integrated into the rest of the decor that you practically had to leave a kettle showing just to keep your bearings. Gummed fruit stickers and magnetic letters dotted the refrigerator with spots of colour that the designer hadn’t called for. It was the sort of kitchen where one dirty cup on the counter embarrassed all the clean dishes wherever they were hiding in their knobless cupboards. “I’ll put the kettle on,” Ruth said, and pushed something that looked like it would transport both of us to the command deck of the USS Enterprise. “I hope you don’t mind decaffeinated tea? I’ve had to give the real stuff up because I’m not sleeping very well these days.” I nodded approval and she found a box of cookies and put some on a plate. Her milk was from a carton of two percent just like Martha’s.
“I should have telephoned first,” I apologized. “The fact is I didn’t know I was coming here. I just ended up parked outside your front door.”
“You looked a little lost when I opened the door. I thought it was just my surprise.” In spite of the welcome mat and her smile, Ruth was edgy. Her hands trembled.
“There are a couple of things I remembered I hadn’t cleared up.”
“Sure. A couple of things. There are more than a couple of things I’d like cleared up. Like ‘What the hell are my kids going to do for a father when they get home?’”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get you started. The kettle’s boiling. That’s a fast kettle.” She ignored my diversion but got up to make the tea. I was surprised to see that decaffeinated tea came in bags just like nature’s own. I’d expected a pale blue powder.
She made the tea and we sipped in silence only broken by the munching I was doing on a cookie. It had almonds in it. They had almonds in them, as I found out on further exploration. After a few angels flew by, I picked up the dropped thread again. “Mrs. Geller, do you remember on the telephone last Friday, I asked you about a man named Wally Moore?”
“I honestly can’t recall that, Mr. Cooperman. But if you say so, I’ll believe you.”
“Wally was a bum, a vagrant, a panhandler, a regular feature on St. Andrew Street.”
“I still don’t …”
“He was a little guy, with a Charlie Chaplin bamboo cane, and he walked with his feet pointed in different directions.”
“I’m sorry. Wally doesn’t ring any bells. Is it important?”
“Yeah, it’s important. According to a witness he paid a call on you and you paid him off for information or silence or to keep off your grass. I don’t know why you paid him off, but we know that he came into money. For him, a fortune. And he said that you were the lady bountiful behind it.”
“Well, this man is just not telling you the truth. I pay a gardener. I paid the man who fixed the front window. Maybe he was trying to pull your leg, Mr. Cooperman. You look very serious just now, but you might be susceptible to the man’s blarney.”
“Wally isn’t pulling legs any more, Mrs. Geller. He’s on his way to a grave paid for by the city.”
“You mean he’s …”
“Yes, Ma’am. He’s dead. That’s why what we know about him is important. He could have made up the story, but he couldn’t have made up the money. Only you can shed light on this.”
“But I told you. I’ve never seen the man. I don’t know him and I never paid him off. I suppose I’m sorry that he’s dead. I want to be honest, so I shouldn’t pretend that I’m terribly upset.”
“He didn’t just die, Mrs. Geller. He was murdered.”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry I can’t help you. But I can’t see what it has to do with Larry’s leaving town.”
“He might have seen something he shouldn’t.”
“He might have seen them driving in the direction of the city limits.”
“Them? Who do you mean, them?”
“I meant Larry. I don’t know why I said them.”
“Mrs. Geller, you’ve just made a slip. You know something you haven’t told the police. You’d better tell me before anyone else gets hurt.”
“I’ve told you all I know. I haven’t any information I didn’t have last week when you came.”