And what the hell was this? Galeano’s mind felt numb. And she added suddenly, "Oh, you got to excuse me, I want to make the eleven o’clock Mass-" She rushed around in her living room (scarcely as neat and clean as Marta’s counterpart across the hall) gathering up purse, coat, prayer book; she rushed out past him.
He stood there thinking about what she’d said. Marta had come home at two-thirty that day. The rest of it was silly, but- He turned to go down the stairs and faced a nice-looking fresh-faced high-school-aged kid just coming up. The kid passed him and rang the bell of Marta’s apartment.
SIX
"Mrs. Fleming’s not home," said Galeano.
The boy turned. "Oh. Maybe she just went to church. You-you don’t want to buy the car, do you? Because she gave me first option on it. That’s what I came to tell her, I got the money to pay for it now."
"That’s good," said Galeano. "I know she wants to sell it."
"It’s a real good deal," said the kid. "A sixty-three Dodge, only sixty thousand on it, for four-fifty. The tires are good too, and it handles O.K.-I’ve drove it some already. If we can sort of clinch the deal right away, I'd like to."
Galeano said it sounded fine. "Anyway," said the kid, "even if we can’t, I want to borrow it again this afternoon to take Mom to Aunt Madge’s. Mrs. Fleming let me borrow it before, take her to the doctor’s. You a friend of hers? She’s a nice lady, isn’t she?"
"Oh, yes," said Galeano.
"You suppose she’ll be home pretty soon?"
"I don’t know."
"Well-uh-my name’s Newton. Jim Newton."
"Galeano." They shook hands solemnly.
"There she is," said Jim a moment later as the front door shut below. "I bet she was just out to church." And remembering Mrs. Del Sardo’s revelation, Galeano heard the light footsteps running up the stairs with a leaden heart. She stopped short on the landing, startled to see them.
She wore the hooded coat again, and her tawny hair was spangled with a few drops of rain; just since he’d been here, it must have started again. She had a little purse in one hand, a bunch of keys in the other.
"Hello, Mrs. Fleming. I come by to tell you I can get the car. I already saved up two hundred and my dad says he’ll go the rest if I take Mom places in it and pay the gas. Could I maybe take it now? I got the money, if you’ll take Dad’s check. Oh, Mr. Galeano wants to see you too, but I guess I got here first."
"I have no doubt," said Marta. She came between them and unlocked the door. "It is all right that you buy the car, Jimmy, but now I do not know about the-the legalities, it is registered to my husband."
"If you’ve got the pink slip," said Galeano, "you can just hand it over, and Jim can re-register it to himself."
"I see. You would know," she said. They had both followed her into the neat little living room.
"You haven’t been driving it much, have you, Mrs. F1eming?"
"I have not been driving it at all," she said.
"Oh, I know you had it out a couple of weeks ago, because I came to ask to borrow it and it wasn’t here. I just wondered."
Marta turned to stare at him. "I have not driven the car since we moved here. That can’t be, Jimmy."
"No, it was gone-honest. It was two weeks ago Friday, I wanted it to take Mom to the doctor’s. Gee, Mrs. Fleming, you seen it since, haven’t you? I mean, nobody’s stole it?" He was suddenly anxious.
"Just a minute," said Galeano. "I’d like to hear more about this, Jim. Two weeks ago Friday? You came to borrow the car, and it wasn’t in the garage? How’d you know?"
"Well, gee-" He looked from her to Galeano uneasily. "Because I looked. Acourse I knew you’d be at work, Mrs. Fleming, but Mr. Fleming had keys to it. It was raining so hard, Mom said to see could I borrow it because the buses are so bad, so I-but there wasn’t any answer to the bell so I thought maybe Mr. Fleming had to go to the doctor or something and you’d took him, so I looked in the garage and the Dodge wasn’t there."
Marta was standing very still in the middle of the room. "I do not know anything about this," she said. "It must be a mistake."
"What time was this?" asked Galeano. "You know, Jim?"
"Sure. It was about one o’clock, Mom’s appointment was for two-thirty, and I took off from school because of helping her on and off the bus with the cast still on her ankle, see. Say, listen, Mrs. Fleming, you sure it hasn’t been stolen, if you didn’t know-"
"Let’s all go down and look at it," said Galeano.
"This is all very silly," said Marta.
"Come on," said Galeano. They all went downstairs together and down the driveway. It was drizzling very slightly. "You’ve driven the Dodge, have you, Jim? Trying it out? I suppose, you interested in buying it, you noticed the mileage."
"Sure," said Jim. "The last time I brought it back, it was sixty thousand and forty-one miles. Sure I’m sure of that. I got a good head for figures."
"I wouldn’t be surprised," said Galeano. "The key to the garage, Mrs. Fleming?" Silently she singled it out on her ring of keys and gave it to him. He unlocked the padlock and swung open one leaf of the old-fashioned double doors. The old Dodge sat inside. "Let’s see what the mileage is." He opened the driver’s door.
"Well, there," said Jim Newton, "you can see it’s been out since. Sixty thousand and seventy-two miles and four tenths."
"What about it, Mrs. Fleming? Suppose you give Jim the keys, so he can drive his mother-he can come back and make the deal with you later. That O.K., Jim?"
"Sure, sir." Jim’s eyes were puzzled on them. Marta gave him the keys. "I hope Mr. F1eming’s O.K., Mrs. Fleming."
"That’s fine," said Galeano meaninglessly, took her arm and walked her back up the drive. "I’ve just heard from Mrs. Del Sardo that you came home about two-thirty that Friday, Mrs. Fleming. Not five o’clock as you said. And went out again right away. Why didn’t you tell us about that?"
"No," she said. They stopped just inside the front door, in the square little lobby. "No, that is not so. I have told you all the truth."
"And now this comes to light about the car. Kids like Newton know their cars pretty well, and he’s sure of what he says. The car was out that Friday, and driven thirty-odd miles. Where, Mrs. F1eming'?"
"No. I do not know. It is impossible."
"Do you have a driver’s license?"
"Yes, but I have not driven it since we came here. Only to run the engine because of the battery, a few moments."
"Who had keys to it? How many sets?"
She was shaking her head slowly, blindly, back and forth. "No. Edwin had keys, I have keys. Edwin’s keys are still here, in the apartment. This is all nonsense, it cannot be."
"I don’t think so, Mrs. Fleming. Where were you that afternoon?"
"Ach, Gott!" she exclaimed suddenly, violently, and put her hands to her head. "But it is all too much-too much!" She turned and plunged up the stairs, and before he could move to follow her he heard the door bang shut up there. Galeano stood looking after her, his heart strangely heavy, and all he could think was, they were right. The damned cynics. They had been right about her all along.
He drifted unhappily into Mendoza’s office to tell him about that, and found Hackett there, one hip on a corner of Mendoza’s desk. They both listened to what he had to say, and Hackett commented interestedly, "The same thought, about his faking the paralysis, crossed my mind, but of course there’s nothing in it, they hadn’t anything to gain and more than one doctor said it was genuine. But this bit about the car, what in hell does it mean? That just makes it funnier, Luis. So she could have driven him somewhere-where and why?"