The problem was this:
In the absence of an invitation, I had no legitimate reason to enter Gus Vronsky’s house when he was home, let alone when he was out. It was pure chance that I’d seen him pass in Solana’s car, heading off to god knows where. If I were caught, what possible explanation could I give for being in his house? There’d been no smoke boiling out his windows and no cries for help. No power failure, no earthquake, no gas leak, no break in the water main. In short, I had no excuse beyond my fear for his safety and well-being. I could just imagine how far that would fly in a court of law.
In the course of this home invasion, I was hoping for one of two things: either reassurance that Gus was in good hands or evidence I could act on if my suspicions were justified. I went down the hall and into Gus’s bedroom. The bed was neatly made-“a place for everything and everything in place” being Solana Rojas’s credo. I opened and closed a few drawers but saw nothing out of the ordinary. I’m not sure what I expected, but that’s why you look, because you don’t know what’s there. I went into his bathroom. His oblong pill organizer was sitting on the sink. The compartments for S, M, and T were empty, as was W. T, F, and S were still filled with assorted pills. I opened the medicine cabinet and scanned his prescription medications. I rooted through my shoulder bag until I found my notebook and pen. I wrote down the information from every bottle I saw: date, physician’s name, the drug, the dosage, and instructions. There were six prescriptions altogether. I’m not well versed in pharmaceutical matters, so I made careful notes and replaced the containers on the shelf.
I left the bathroom and continued down the hall. I opened the door to the second bedroom, where Solana kept clothing and personal items for use on the nights she stayed over. This room was the former warehouse for numerous unlabeled cardboard boxes, all of which had been removed. The few pieces of antique furniture had been dusted, polished, and rearranged. I could see she’d made herself right at home. A handsome carved mahogany bed frame had been reassembled and the linens were as taut as an army cot. There was a burled walnut rocking chair inlaid with cherry, an armoire, and a plump-shouldered fruitwood chest of drawers with ornate bronze drawer pulls. I opened three drawers in succession and saw that all were filled with Solana’s clothes. I was tempted to search her room further, but my good angel suggested I was already risking jail and had better cease and desist.
Between the second and third bedrooms there was a full bath, but a quick peek through the open door revealed nothing significant. I did open the medicine cabinet and found it empty except for a number of cosmetics, which I’d never seen Solana wear.
I crossed the hall and opened the door to the third bedroom. Someone had put heavy black-out drapes across the windows so the room was dark and the air dense with heat. In the single bed against the wall there was a massive shape. At first I didn’t understand what I was looking at. Oversized pillows? Laundry bags bulging with discarded clothes? I was so accustomed to Gus’s hoarding that I assumed this was one more example of his inability to throw things out. I heard a grunt. There was a shifting motion, and the man lying in the bed turned from his left side to his right so he was then facing the door. Though his upper body remained in shadow, a band of daylight bisected the bed, illuminating two glittering slits. Either he slept with his eyes open or he was looking right at me. He didn’t react and there was no indication he’d registered my presence. Immobilized, I stood there and held my breath.
In the depths of sleep our animal instincts take over, alerting us to any dangers that arise. Even a subtle shift in temperature, a change in the air as it eddies through the room, the faintest of noises, or an alteration in the light can trigger our defenses. In changing positions, the man had moved up from the deepest recess of sleep. He was reaching for consciousness, ascending slowly like an underwater diver with a circle of open sky above his head. I would have mewed in fear, but I didn’t dare make a sound. I backed out of the room, acutely aware of the whisper of my denim jeans as I moved, the press of my boot sole against the wood floor. I closed the door with infinite care, one hand firmly on the knob, the other resting against the edge of the door to prevent even the softest click as the door met the frame and the strike nosed into the plate.
I turned and retraced my steps at the tiptoeing equivalent of a dead run. I held my shoulder bag close to me, aware that the slightest bump of a kitchen chair might bring the fellow bolt upright, wondering who was in the house with him. I crossed the kitchen, let myself out the back door, and crossed the porch with the same caution. I descended the back-porch steps, my ears cued to any sound behind me. The closer I got to safety, the more in jeopardy I felt.
I crossed Gus’s grass. Between his property and Henry’s there was a short length of fencing and a longer stretch of hedge. When I reached the line of shrubs, I raised my arms to shoulder height and forced my way through a narrow gap between two bushes, then more or less fell onto Henry’s patio. I probably left a telltale path of broken twigs behind me, but I didn’t stop to check. It wasn’t until I was in my apartment with the door locked that I dared take a breath. Who the hell was that guy?
I turned the thumb lock on the door, left the lights off, and went around the kitchen counter to the blind cul-de-sac, where my sink, stove, and cupboards form a windowless U. I sank to the floor and sat there with my knees drawn up, waiting for someone to pound on the door and demand an explanation. Now that I was safe, my heart began to pound, banging in my chest like someone trying to break down a door with a battering ram.
In my mind’s eye, I ran through the entire sequence of events: the show I’d made of tapping on the window in the front door, pretending to communicate with someone inside. I’d tromped merrily down the front steps and tromped merrily up the back. Once inside, I’d opened and closed doors. I’d slid drawers back and forth on their tracks, checked two medicine cabinets, which by all rights should have squeaked on their hinges. I’d paid no attention to the noise I made because I’d thought I was alone. And all the time, that gorilla was sleeping in the next room. Was I out of my freakin’ mind?
After thirty seconds in hiding, I started to feel stupid. I hadn’t been apprehended like some hot prowl burglar in the process of breaking and entering. No one had spotted me going in or out. No one had called the cops to report an intruder. Somehow I’d escaped detection-as far as I knew. Nonetheless, the incident was meant as an object lesson for yours truly. I should have taken it to heart, but I was struck dumb by the realization that I’d passed up the chance to lift the passbooks to Gus’s bank accounts.
21
On the way to work the next morning, I took Santa Teresa Street as far as Aurelia, turned left, and made a detour into a drugstore parking lot. Jones Apothecary was an old-fashioned pharmacy, where the shelves were stocked with vitamins; first-aid remedies; nutritional supplements; ostomy supplies; nostrums; skin, hair, and nail products; and other items meant to alleviate minor human miseries. You could have your prescriptions filled, but you couldn’t buy lawn furniture. You could rent crutches and buy arch supports, but you couldn’t have film developed. They did offer a free blood-pressure check, and while I waited for service I sat down and affixed the cuff to my arm. After much huffing, squeezing, and releasing, the readout was 118/68 so I knew I wasn’t dead.