She could wear you out with words. In self-defense I waved to the waitress.
I had coffee; she had the Caesar salad.
‘Do you eat dead animals?’ she asked.
‘Sometimes I eat soy substitutes. Several people at my office in Chicago eat them all the time. I’m starting to get used to them.’
‘I get sick to my stomach just thinking about eating a dead animal.’
‘You mind if we talk about Jim Waters a little?’
‘Oh, yeah, right. Well, first of all I should tell you that I really feel like shit about this. I gave my solemn word. Solemn. You know what that means?’
‘I have a pretty good idea.’
She kind of threw herself back against the booth as if she’d been electrocuted. Then she crossed herself. I couldn’t tell if she was kidding. She squeezed her eyes shut and said, ‘Forgive me, Jimmy.’
The only thing I could do was wait through her sighs, her lower-lip biting and her nail drumming on the table between us. ‘About a week before he died Jimmy told me that there was a kind of trapdoor in his kitchen. Only it wasn’t really a trapdoor that led anywhere. They must have made it at the time the house was built. Anyway, it was about a foot deep and two feet wide, he told me. He said it was underneath the refrigerator. That’s how he found it. One day he had to pull the refrigerator out because he accidentally broke a bottle of something and it was leaking everywhere. He didn’t want it under the refrigerator. That’s how he spotted it — the trapdoor, I mean. He said it was pretty cool. He wondered if it had been built when the mob was strong out here.
‘Jimmy read up on the mob in this part of the state all the time. He thought they were pretty cool even though they killed people. Anyway, he said that if he ever wanted to hide something, that’s where he’d put it.’
‘You think he hid something there?’
‘Maybe. It’d be worth a look.’
That one I had to think about. The police wouldn’t have had any reason to move the refrigerator. The apartment wasn’t the crime scene. On the other hand they were probably still going through his things, looking for anything that might lead them to the killer. Which meant that they wouldn’t want anybody prowling around in there. And despite the fact that a trapdoor had a nice Hardy Boys ring to it, the chances of finding anything meaningful was a long shot at best.
‘Your forehead wrinkles when you think.’
‘Ah.’
‘Makes you look older.’
‘I see.’
‘You’re not a bad-looking guy from certain angles. But not when you’re thinking like that.’
‘I’ll have to be careful not to think.’
‘And to just hold your head at certain angles.’
‘That, too.’
Halfway through her food, Jenny said, ‘I can tell you’re thinking again.’
‘The wrinkles?’
‘Uh-huh. Personally, if I had wrinkles like that I’d try Botox.’
‘I was thinking of Botox for my butt.’
Her explosive laughter caused several tables full of people to gawk in our direction.
‘God, I wish my father would say stuff like that.’
Every time she mentioned her father I thought of my shortcomings with my own daughter. She loved me and forgave me for all the times I wasn’t there but I wondered if she had the kind of moments I did. I’d see a father strolling with his four-year-old little girl and I’d regret all the moments I could have shared with my own little girl.
‘One of the things that’s been giving me wrinkles is how we might get into Jim’s apartment now. The police probably told the manager not to let anybody in. It’ll be locked and there’s probably a piece of yellow crime scene tape across it.’
‘The manager? He’s an idiot. I can get him to do anything. He thinks we’re going to sleep together.’
‘Why would he think that?’
‘Because I sort of told him we would if he’d let me in when I forgot my key and stuff like that.’
‘So you could convince him to let us in?’
‘Not ‘us.’ No way he’d let you in. He’d get jealous if he thought there was something between you and me. You know, like you were moving in on his territory.’
‘I see.’ She was a passing fair judge of male psychology. We get territorial about women who wouldn’t have anything to do with us even if we had a bag of cash and an Uzi.
‘But when I get in there I can open the window off the fire escape and let you in.’
My recollection of the place — I’d only seen it at night — was that Waters’ apartment had a fire escape running past his bedroom window. I also recalled, or thought I did, seeing the side of another apartment building next to it. I didn’t particularly look forward to being seen on a fire escape in daylight.
I told her about that.
‘Well, his wife works at the supermarket down the street during the day. He’s always hinting that we could “have some fun” when she’s gone. I’ll just get Pierce to let me inside his apartment for a few minutes then you can sneak upstairs and hide somewhere.’
‘I don’t like the idea of you being alone with him.’
‘He’s a moron. I won’t have any trouble with him at all.’
‘What if he decides to stay with you in Jim’s room?’
‘I’ll tell him to go get nice and spruced up and wait for me downstairs.’
At first I thought she’d had a seizure of some kind. Her body jerked and then jerked again. Her hands went to her Goth face and covered it. Her wail wasn’t quite as loud as her laugh had been but now, when the other diners shot glances my way, they were filled with recrimination. Surely I’d said something terrible to this strange girl. Mean bastard.
‘He’s dead,’ she managed to say. ‘I just realized that I’ll never be able to see him again. Never.’ At least she kept her crying in the low decibels. ‘I never thought of that till now. That I’ll never be able to see him again. I loved him and his apartment and all his comic books. He was the only person who understood me.’ Her mascara had started running. That much makeup, it wasn’t a pretty sight.
‘I’m sorry, Jenny.’
She plucked some Kleenex from her purse and went to work on her face. ‘I know you are. And I know his other friends are, too. But sorry doesn’t do much good, does it?’
‘It’s about all we’ve got.’
‘I just want to go home and hide under the covers and pretend it didn’t happen.’
‘Can we go to his apartment first?’
‘Oh, sure. I just need a little while to sit here and sort of suck it up. Is that okay?’
TEN
I don’t know what she had to do but whatever it was it worked. When I peeked through the front door glass of Jim Waters’ apartment building I saw that the mailbox area, which was on the right side of the vestibule, was clear. I eased in, surveyed the area, then began tiptoeing my way up the steps.
A few minutes after I reached the second floor I heard a door below me open and the oily voice of the manager say, ‘Remember now, you promised.’
‘If it wasn’t my time of month we’d do it right now.’
‘And I’m going to hold you to it, babe.’
Discreet he wasn’t. He was broadcasting his infidelity to anybody who’d listen.
Two doors left, two doors right. One narrower door at the far left. I rushed over there. An interior rear staircase that apparently Jenny had either not known about or had forgotten.
I closed the door to the staircase and put my ear to it. Soon enough they made their way up the stairs.
‘Hey, don’t do that! You don’t want to get caught, do you?’