She didn't think there was another serious woman in the picture yet. She still had time to work things out with him.
She would get the kids to bed early tonight, put on a pretty negligee, and perfume. He had said he would be home early, so that they could talk. Instead, she planned to show him she remembered how to be a wife to him, in every way.
She had answered the door without hesitation, thinking Geraldo must have misplaced his key. A strange man in a uniform with an emblem sewn above his pocket stood on the porch, staring at her nightie.
“Mrs. Rodriguez,” he said. “It's so good to meet you in person.”
She knew the voice, but couldn't place it. Aware of the darkness outside, the hour, and the skimpiness of her clothes, she tried to close the door, but the man had a toe in the way.
“I'm here to clean the furnace,” he said. “You made an appointment with me for tonight.” She couldn't see him too well on the porch, but what she could see matched the voice: a pockmarked face, a short body, a certain twist to the trunk that suggested something not quite right with his posture.
Had she made an arrangement with this man? She had drunk a few glasses of wine that evening, waiting for Geraldo, who had said he was delayed, quite a few glasses, and those phone calls just weren't all that important. She couldn't remember exactly what she had said. She got a lot of calls from solicitors, and at the moment, she had a headache and a certain amount of blurriness.
“This is a bad time,” she said.
“I'll have to charge you seventy-five dollars for a house call whether I clean the furnace or not, at this point, Mrs. Rodriguez. It'll only take fifteen minutes. Might as well let me do my job.”
Seventy-five dollars! For fifteen minutes of work! Geraldo would kill her! Lost in her thoughts, trying to figure out a way to make this whole thing palatable to her husband, who should be home any moment, she let the little man in.
He brought some tools in a canvas plumber's bag. While she scrambled for a robe, he picked up dirt and lots of clinky bits of debris from the vents in each room, snaking a long vacuum hose a long way down, except for in the children's bedrooms, even though, as he said, those might be the dirtiest. Kids stuck all kinds of things down there. But she didn't want him to wake them up.
Then he needed to get into the basement. Geraldo insisted that she unlock the basement for workers, and never give out the key to anyone. To get there, they had to go out the back door, and down a steep hill alongside the house to a half-size door that led underneath. She put some shoes on, and turned on the outside lights while he waited, watching her. She pulled a jacket on over the wispy robe she had found, tucking her wallet into its pocket, and led him outside. She wasn't letting him back in the house.
He followed her down the steep hill, slipping and sliding in the mud. She had trouble with the key; it took forever to get the door open. The cold night air worked on her, and suddenly clearheaded, she remembered the phone call. She hadn't told the furnace man to come at all.
He followed her through the door.
She flipped the light on by the door, exposing the dirt floor of a hillside basement and showed him where the furnace was, in the farthest corner, while she tried to think about what she should do now he was here and had already done some of the work. He fiddled with the furnace for a couple of minutes, maybe five total, and announced that he was done.
“You said you would replace the filter,” she said. “I didn't see any filter.”
“I don't have the right size. Anyway, yours is in good shape. You don't need a new one.”
She hadn't needed to have the furnace cleaned, either. And she could as easily have vacuumed the vents.
“I'm not going to pay you,” she said. “You didn't do anything. And I didn't ask you to come here tonight.”
“Oh, but you did, Mrs. Rodriguez,” he said, coming close enough so that she could smell the alcohol on his breath. Maybe he could smell hers, too. “You wanted me to come. And now you owe me.”
“I'm not going to pay,” she said. She took a step back. Her foot caught on a box, and she started to fall. The furnace man caught her in his arms, one hand still clinging to a heavy wrench that she hadn't seen him use.
She pulled away, shaking him off like dirt.
“Where's your husband tonight, Mrs. Rodriguez? Working late, huh?” He blinked brown eyes as solid and impassive-looking as thumbtacks. “He'll pay if you don't. I'll just wait with you for him to come home and we'll tell him all about it.”
She was walking toward the basement door, with him following a few steps behind. She whirled to face him. “We're not going to pay! I never asked you to do anything!”
“Look at it from my point of view,” he said, taking that wheedling tack that she just hated. “You have this nice house in a nice neighborhood. I come and do some work for you: I expect to get paid. Is that so hard to understand? Don't tell me you can't afford it. Not too many women can stay home these days, but you do. You're home all day, aren't you? Plenty of time to take a little nap, get out some frozen food for dinner real quick before everyone comes home. It's a nice setup.”
“What do you know about me? You don't know me at all.”
He laughed, and the sound sent a chill up her bare legs. “I know enough. You had a dirty furnace and I cleaned it. Now you owe me money.” All in that nasty voice of his…
“You can't stay.”
“I'm not leaving until I'm paid.”
She wanted this settled without him making a racket and waking the kids and her neighbors. They were standing at the basement door. She took her wallet from her jacket pocket. “Look,” she said. “Just take a look. I only have twenty dollars. How about if you take that and go away?”
“That's not enough,” he said.
“You hardly did anything.”
“The job is seventy-five bucks. It's a deal. A sale.” He set his bag down, with the wrench on top of it, as if he were resigning himself to a long wait.
“What's the name of your company?”
“Goodwill Heating and Plumbing,” he said.
Huh? For the first time she realized he had never given her the same name twice. He was making things up as he went along. Why, she'd bet he didn't even have a shop! Coming to her house like this, in the night, uninvited… probably just set off in his truck with no idea who would be foolish enough to let him in, no business address, no records of any kind… She should never have let him into the house. “Send me a bill. I'll get the money and send it to you.”
“Cash on completion,” he said.
“You have got to leave. My husband is about to come home. If he finds you here…”
“What?” he asked innocently. “Didn't you tell him about the furnace?”
She wanted to scream at him. My God, the man was unreasonable. He was making her crazy! He had no idea! Geraldo might be home any minute! Her husband would be wild, finding her dressed like some floozy, and a man hanging around. He could ruin everything worth anything in her life with his impossible demands! “Get out!”
He folded his arms, and stood there with a little smile on his face. He had her. The men always did get their way…
She grabbed the heavy wrench off his bag, raised it in both hands, and brought it down on his head, while he stood there, goggle-eyed with surprise. He had never expected such a thing from her, that was for sure. He knew nothing about her, nothing. She had to hit him several times before he stopped moving and thrashing around on the ground.
She went back up to the house to get a couple of big trash bags out of the kitchen drawer, put some yellow plastic dishwashing gloves on, and bagged him up, using tape to seal the bags. She made a quick trip to the garage for the shovel, and went to work, digging a fairly deep hole, one that would cover him nicely, in the soft loamy soil at the middle of the basement. She buried him with his tools.