On the main floor he passed two elderly women ' in bathrobes, huddled in conference. One of them was saying in a croaking voice, "I've been mugged five times. How many times have you been mugged?" "Only twice," said the other, shrilly, "but the second time they knocked me down." Both of them squinted suspiciously at Qwilleranas he passed.
He found Rupert hanging around the manager's desk, still with the red golf hat on the back of his head, while three boisterous students practiced karate chops in front of the elevators.
"Knock it off," Rupert warned them, "or I'll tell Mrs. T." The youths clicked their heels, clasped their hands prayerfully, and bowed low, then made a dash for Old Red when it arrived.
"Crazy college kids," Rupert explained to Qwilleran. "Everything okay on Fourteen?" "So far, so good." He started for the front door - but returned. "There's something I wanted to ask about, Rupert.
In my living room there's a huge piece of furniture - a serving bar - right in the middle of the floor. Do you happen to know why?" "Mrs. T said to put it there," said the custodian. "I didn't ask no questions. Me and the boy had to move the thing.
It's mighty heavy." "How long have you been working here, Rupert?" "Twenty years next March. Good job! Meet lotsa people. And I get an apartment in the basement thrown in." "What will you do if they tear down the building?" "Go on unemployment. Go on welfare, I reckon, if I can't find work. I'm fifty-six." Qwilleran had a long wait for Amberina, but the time was not wasted. While standing at the front door he watched a circus parade of tenants and visitors corning in and going out. He tried not I to stare at the outlandish clothing on the young ones, or the pathetic condition of some of the old ones, or the exotic beauty wearing a sari, or the fellow with a macaw in a cage.
When two well-dressed young men arrived, carrying a small gold tote bag from the city's most exclusive chocolatier, he watched them go to the burnished bronze door and ring for the private elevator, and he began to conjecture about the "Countess." The mysterious seventy-five-year-old who was visited by men wearing dinner jackets or bearing gifts sounded like Lady Hester Stanhope in Kinglake's Eothen, a book he had been reading aloud to the Siamese.
Lady Hester lived in a crumbling middle-eastern convent, subsisting on milk and enjoying the adulation of desert tribes.
Was the Countess the Lady Hester of the crumbling Casablanca?
His flights of fancy were interrupted when Amberina came running down the hall. "Sorry I'm late. I lost my contact lens, and I couldn't seem to get myself together." He said, "Who are the well-dressed men who ride up and down on the Countess's elevator?" "Her bridge partners," she explained. "She loves to play cards." Amberina had changed since their last meeting three years before. Her strikingly-brunette hair was a different color and a different style-lighter, redder, and frizzier. She had put on weight and her dimples were less beguiling. He was disappointed, but he said, "Good to see you again, Amberina. You're looking great!" "So are you, Mr. Qwilleran, and you look so countrified!" He was wearing his tweed coat with leather patches and his chukka boots.
They left the building and zigzagged down the broken marble slabs with care. "These steps should be repaired before someone trips and sues the Countess," he remarked.
"No point in making repairs when the whole place may be torn down next week," she said with a touch of bitterness. "We're all keeping our fingers crossed that nothing terrible will happen. Mary says the city would love it if the elevator dropped and killed six tenants, or a steam boiler blew up and cooked everyone on the main floor. Then they'd condemn the place and start collecting higher property taxes on a billion-dollar hotel or something. I do hope your people decide to buy the Casablanca, Mr. Qwilleran." Now they were strolling down Junktown's new brick sidewalks, recently planted with small trees and lighted with old-fashioned gaslamps.
Qwilleran said, "This is exactly what C. C. Cobb wanted three years ago, and the city fought him every step of the way." The jerry-built storefronts that previous landlords had tacked on to the front of historic town-houses had been removed. One could never guess where the old fruit and tobacco stand had been, or the wig and fortune-telling shop.
New owners had miraculously restored the original stone steps, iron railings, and impressive entrance doors. A brightly lighted coffee house occupied the premises of the former furniture-refinishing shop in an old stable, now named the Carriage House Cafe.
"Tell me about this restaurant we're going to. What is Roberto's?" Qwilleran asked.
"You know - don't you? - that Robert Maus wanted to open a restaurant when he gave up the law business. Well, he went to Italy and worked in a restaurant in Milan for a year. When he came home he was cooking Italian and had changed his name to Roberto." "I hope he didn't change his last name to 'Mausolini.' " Amberina let out an involuntary shriek. "Wait till Mary hears that! She won't think it's funny. She's very serious, you know." "I know. So is he." "Well, anyway, he opened this Italian restaurant in one of the old townhouses - Mary talked him into it, I think - and he lives upstairs. I've never eaten there - too expensive - but Mary says it's fabulous food." "Everything Robert prepares is fabulous. Will he be there tonight?" "You're supposed to call him Roberto, Mr. Qwilleran. No, he's off on Sundays, and they're closed on Mondays, but he personally supervises the kitchen five nights a week. Imagine! A law degree! And he's cooking spaghetti!" An unobtrusive sign on the iron railing of a townhouse announced "Roberto's North Italian Cuisine." As they climbed the stone steps Qwilleran knew what to expect. He had lived in Junktown long enough to be familiar with old townhouses. Even though they became rooming houses they had high ceilings, carved woodwork, ornate fireplaces (boarded up), and gaslight chandeliers (electrified)-all of these in various degrees of shabbiness. With Robert Maus's taste for English baronial he would add red velvet draperies and leather chairs studded with nailheads. Ecco! North Italian!
Qwilleran was shocked, therefore, when they entered the restaurant. The interior had been gutted. Walls, ceiling, and arches were an unbroken sweep of smooth plaster in a custardy shade of cream. The carpet was eggplant in hue; so was the upholstery of the steel-based chairs. Silk-shaded lamps on the tables and silk-shaded sconces on the walls threw a golden glow over the cream-tinted table linens.
Before he could splutter a comment, a white-haired woman armed with menus approached in a flurry of excitement. "Mr. Qwilleran! Do you remember me? I'm Charlotte Roop," she said in a reedy voice.
She had been his neighbor three years before on River Road - a strait-laced, spinsterish woman obsessed with crossword puzzles - but she had changed drastically. Where was her disapproving scowl? Her tightly pursed lips? Had she had a face-lift? Could she possibly have found love and happiness with a good man? Qwilleran chuckled at the idea.
Instead of her usual nondescript garb smothered in costume jewelry, she was wearing a simple beige dress with a cameo at the throat - a cameo brought from Italy by her new boss, Qwilleran assumed.
"Of course I remember you!" he exclaimed. "You're looking... you're looking... What's a six-letter word for beautiful?" "Oh, Mr. Qwilleran, you remembered!" she cried with pleasure, adding in a lower voice, "But I don't do crossword puzzles anymore. I have a gentleman friend." She flushed.
"Good for you! He's a lucky fellow!" Miss Roop touched the cameo self-consciously. "I'm the one who's lucky. I have a lovely apartment at the Casablanca and a lovely job with our wonderful Roberto. Let me show you to our best table." "This is a handsome place," Qwilleran said.