“So where are the records?”
With a small, twisted smile on her face she stared at me. When I didn’t say anything, she tapped me lightly in the middle of my forehead and whispered. “Turn on your lights, Neal, or is your battery getting low?”
I finished the Magic Stuff. “The records are still in the building.”
“They may still be in the building, down in the basement, in the old walk-in cooler. After Bob had his stroke, I did all the bookkeeping, and when the joint was sold, I gave copies of everything to the tax people and the state. But if the nuns didn’t hoe the place out, the original paper is still there.”
“You don’t remember any bill of sale for that chest?”
“It probably crossed the desk, but it wouldn’t have rung any bells. As for Cat, I’ll do her four times a week. In return I’d like you to join Blood Sweat and Black Iron for a year. I’ll only charge you half, three hundred.”
“Surely you jest.”
“I jest not, and don’t call me Shirley.”
“I’m sixty-three. Your proposition is ludicrous.”
She smiled, shrugged, and said, “You’re a very good sixty-three, and after a year doing weights you’d be a fabulous sixty-four, but it’s your choice. I don’t open the place until two. Bring Cat by any morning. I’ll charge you a pound of coffee for four sessions a week.”
“Thank you.” I reached for Cat. “I’m going to go to the senior center and peek into that walk-in.”
“Leave Cat here. As soon as I gulp down some more caffeine, I’ll stretch her out. But I gotta do the caffeine first. I was up until three watching a Xena festival on cable.”
“A Xena festival?”
“Xena, the kick-butt warrior princess, you dolt. She’s my role model.”
With Cat gripped in CeeCee Dorfman’s thick arms, I left. Cat wasn’t happy with the situation, and I could hear plaintive meows as I closed the door and headed down the outside stairway. Halfway down I turned around, went back up, opened the door, and said, “Don’t give her any milk or cream; it wreaks havoc with her digestive system.”
CeeCee Dorfman looked up from petting Cat and smiled. “Got it. No cream. No milk. See ya later.”
Again I started downstairs and again turned around, went back up, and opened the door. But before I could speak, CeeCee pointed a finger at me. “Neal, get a grip and get out.”
After stopping briefly at Kreb’s Hardware, I pedaled to the senior center. The parishioners were obviously putting their drachmas somewhere besides the collection box, for the center needed paint and more than a few new clapboards. The parking lot looked like a tank platoon had been using it for maneuvers, and I didn’t see anyplace to lock my bicycle.
I pushed bike and trailer up two wood steps, pulled open one of the big entrance doors, and managed to get everything inside without damage or mishap. I stood in a wide, short hall and looked into a room the approximate size of a high school basketball court.
People were milling about or sitting in a strange collection of recliners and easy chairs, reading. A sizable group was seated in a semicircle around a big television set watching a movie. The movie was in black and white, and all the men wore suits and hats and all the women were smiling.
Outside of a nun dressed in traditional garb I was probably the youngest person in the building. I leaned the bike against the inside wall and strolled into the main room. Trying to look Catholic and casual, I scanned the place for a likely looking door to the basement.
To my left was an island of overstuffed chairs and a couch. Most of the chairs were filled with shapeless, doughy-faced people with white hair, and most of them were sleeping. And sitting on the sunken, torn, leather couch, her arm around a sobbing woman with very thin white hair, was Mildred Beede.
She saw me and gestured, so I walked over to the couch and raised my eyebrows.
She nodded at the sobbing woman beside her. “I’m a volunteer. Twice a week I drive in and help Sister Marie run the center. This place is open to all seniors, and they’re short-handed and welcome any help they can get, even from an old Baptist like me.”
Her smile pushed her crinkled face into an overlapping series of semicircles. “The real surprise is seeing you. What game induces you to enter this Christian stronghold?”
“I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop in. I must have passed this place a million times and I...”
“Harry Neal, a Catholic-run senior center is the last place on earth you would visit voluntarily, so please don’t insult what little intelligence I still possess by feeding me one of your I-just-happened-to lines.”
“Well, I will admit to a certain mercenary bent to my visit.”
The sobbing woman patted Mildred’s hand, mumbled, “Thank you,” gave me a wet, red-eyed glance, and shuffled away. Mildred slumped against the back of the couch, sighed, and said, “Life is truly a harsh mistress, Harry.”
“To quote Annie misquoting Thomas Hobbes. ‘Life is nasty, brutal, and short.’ He wasn’t, but he could have been referring to the winter of one’s life.”
Mildred sighed again. “A certain mercenary bent?”
“In the basement of this building is an old walk-in cooler. It’s possible that some records I would like to look at are still in that cooler.”
Mildred stared at me a moment, then snorted. “I suspect, Harry, that you will have a lot to answer for when you are dragged before the gods.” She dug a clawlike hand into my shoulder for support and stood. “Why don’t I show you where the bathrooms are? By coincidence the basement door is just a few steps beyond the men’s room.”
Side by side, we strolled across the room, weaving through a mixed bag of men and women for whom sixty was young. As I glanced at them, a sharp-edged stone of gloom grew in my consciousness. A few scant years up the road and I might be slumped in one of those recliners drooling on my shirt.
We came to a wood door that appeared to have trench foot. Mildred opened it and motioned me into a dim hall cluttered with stacks of folding chairs, card tables, and two broken couches. She pointed to the end of the hall and whispered, “The key is above the door, the walk-in is near the front, on the north side. But don’t get your hopes up. The basement has always been empty ’cause of all the water.” She went back into the main room.
I walked down to the end of the hall and stood in front of a peeling, dirt-streaked door. I ran my hand along the sill and found a skeleton key much like the one on Bob Kokar’s key ring. I unlocked the door, turned the rusty knob, and fumbled for the light switch.
I went down solid, dirty stairs into a large cement room and walked along the north wall toward the front of the building. Except for a rumbling, foul-smelling furnace and several stagnant pools of black water, the basement was empty. Near the front, cm-bedded in the cement block wall, was a thick, wood-faced door with a large metal handle.
I gripped the handle and yanked. Groaning like a sick animal, the big door opened, and I looked into a musty, foul-smelling blackness that spoke of mold, fungus, and dangerous microbes. I found a light switch, and an encrusted twenty-five watt bulb revealed a small filthy room with wet and corroded metal walls and a damp looking wood floor.
Taking a deep breath, I carefully stepped in and immediately punched through the wood, going ankle deep before hitting cement slab. I took another step and punched through again. With both feet through the wood I squinted and looked around the room.
Except for a row of dirt-covered metal boxes stacked two high, the walk-in was empty.
Breaking through the wood floor with each step, I struggled to the boxes. I put on my Wal-Mart reading glasses and pulled out my brand-new overpriced penlight. Turning it on, I knelt and squinted at the faded labels in metal slots in the middle of each box.