It was good to get up from the work table and stretch before going home for lunch. I'd been so slow getting up I'd had a scanty breakfast, so I was pretty hungry and trying to visualize what was in my refrigerator as I twisted my key in the lock. When a voice boomed out from behind me, I wasn't frightened, just aggravated that I wasn't going to get to eat.
"Roe! Teentsy said you'd be coming in about now! Listen, we got a little problem in our place," old Mr. Crandall was saying.
I turned around, resigned to postponing food. "What's the little problem, Mr.
Crandall?"
Mr. Crandall was not eloquent about anything but guns, and finally I realized that if I was to understand the problem Teentsy was having with the washer, I'd better go along with him.
It wasn't right to feel put-upon; after all, this was my job. But I had been looking forward to eating without Lillian's voice droning in my ears, and since it was Wednesday, there should be a new Time in my mailbox. I sighed quietly, and trudged across the patio in Mr. Crandall's wake. The Crandalls' washer and dryer were in the basement, of course, as they were in all four units. There was a straight flight of rather steep stairs down to the basement, open on one side except for a railing. I clopped down the Crandalls' stairs, Teentsy Crandall right behind me telling me about the washer catastrophe in minute detail. When I reached the bottom, I saw a spreading water stain. With a sinking feeling of doom and dismay, I knew I'd have to spend my lunch hour tracking down a plumber.
Despite all the odds against it, I struck gold with my first phone call. The Crandalls watched admiringly as I talked Ace Plumbing into paying my tenants a call in the next hour. Since Ace was one of the two plumbing firms my mother used for all her properties, perhaps it wasn't totally amazing to find them willing; but to actually get them to commit themselves to coming right away—now that was amazing! When I was off the phone and Teentsy put a plate with country fried steak, potatoes, and green beans in front of me, I suddenly saw the bright side of being a resident manager. "Oh, you don't need to do that," I said weakly, and dug in. Calories and cholesterol did not factor in Teentsy's cooking, so her food was absolutely delicious with that added spice of guilt. Teentsy and Jed Crandall seemed delighted to have someone to talk to. They were quite a pair, Teentsy with her bountiful bosom and childish voice and gray curls, and Jed with his hard-as-a-rock seamed face. While I ate, Teentsy frosted a cake and Mr. Crandall—I couldn't bring myself to call him Jed—talked about his farm, which he'd sold the year before, and about how convenient it was for them to live in town where all their doctors and kinfolk and grandchildren were. He sounded unconvinced though, and I could tell he was spoiling for something to do.
"That sure was a nice young man we saw you with last night," Teentsy said archly. "Did you two have a good time?"
I was willing to bet Teentsy knew exactly when Robin had brought me home. "Oh, yes, it was fine," I said in as noncommittal a voice as I could summon. I glanced around their den and kitchen area. Mine was lined with books; Mr. Crandall's was lined with guns. I knew next to nothing about firearms, and was fervently content to keep it that way, but even I could tell these guns were of all different ages and types. I started wondering about their value, and from there it was a natural leap to being concerned about my mother's insurance coverage of these units; what would her responsibility be in case of theft, for example? Though it would take a foolhardy burglar to attempt to take anything away from Jed Crandall.
Thinking of hazards and security in general led my thoughts in another direction. I looked at the Crandalls' back door. Sure enough, they'd added two extra locks.
I laid down my fork. "Mr. Jed, I have to talk to you about those extra locks," I said gently.
Yes, he had read his lease agreement carefully. His tough old face went sheepish in an instant.
"Oh, Jed," chided Teentsy, "I told you you needed to speak to Roe about those locks."
"Well, Roe," her husband said, "you can see this gun collection needs more protection than that one lock on the back door." "I can appreciate how you feel, and I even agree," I said carefully, "but you know that if you do put on extra locks, you must give me a key, and you have to leave the locks in and give me all the keys if you ever decide to move. Of course I hope you never will, but you do have to give me an extra set of keys now."
While Mr. Crandall grumbled on about a man's home being his castle, and it going against the grain to give anyone else keys to that castle—even a nice gal like me—Teentsy was on her feet and rummaging through a drawer in the kitchen. She came up with a handful of keys immediately, and began sorting through them with a troubled look on her face.
"Now I've been promising myself I'd go through these and throw away the old ones we didn't need, and since we're retired I should have all the time in the world, but still I haven't done it," she told me. "Well, here are two that I'm sure are the spares for these locks ... here, Jed, try them and make sure." While her husband tested the keys in the locks, she stirred the others around with a helpless finger. "This looks like the key to that old trunk... I don't know about this one... you know, Roe, now that I think about it, one of these keys is to that apartment next door that that Mr. Waites rents now. I know you remember Edith Warnstein, she had it before him. She gave us an extra key because she said she was always locking herself out and it was always when you were at work."
"Well, when you find it, just bring it over sometime," I said. Mr. Crandall handed me his extra keys, which had proved to be the right ones, and I thanked Teentsy for the delicious lunch, feeling even more guilty that they'd fed me and then I'd "invaded their castle." It was hell being conscientious, sometimes. I felt much better when my departure coincided with the arrival of the plumber. Judging solely by his appearance—two-day beard stubble, bandanna over long ringlets of black hair, and Day-Glo overalls—I wouldn't have trusted him with my washer, but he hefted his tool bag in an authoritative way and actually wrote it down when I told him to bill my mother's company for the repairs, so I left feeling I'd performed a service.
I almost literally ran into Bankston on my way out the Crandalls' patio gate. He was hefting his golf bag, and looked shining clean, right out of the shower. He'd obviously been out at the country club having a few rounds. He looked surprised to see me. "The Crandalls having plumbing problems?" he asked, nodding towards the plumber's truck.
"Yes," I said distractedly, after glancing at my watch. "Your washer and dryer okay?"
"Oh, sure. Listen, how are you doing after your troubles of the past few days?" Bankston was being nice and polite, but I didn't have the time or the inclination to chitchat.
"Pretty well, thanks. I was glad to hear that you and Melanie are getting married," I added, remembering that I did owe something to courtesy. "I didn't have the chance to say anything the other night when we met at my place. Congratulations."
"Thanks, Roe," he said, in his deliberate way. "We were lucky to finally really get to know each other." His clear eyes were glowing, and it was apparent to me that he returned Melanie's strong feeling. I was a little envious, to tell the truth, and bitchily wondered what two such stolid people could have to "really get to know." I was also late.
"Congratulations," I repeated sunnily, and pretty much meant it. "I've got to run." I rabbited away to my place to put the keys to the Crandalls' apartment on my official key ring, and though I needed to hurry back to the library, I took an extra minute to label them.