“Oh, no. I’m not that crazy in the head. If I go home now, Carroll will insist I cut the lawn, and who wants to cut a goddamn lawn in this heat?”
Jacoby nodded agreement.
“You have a point. Phew! This heat kills me. We should have air-conditioning here.”
“Talk to the Chief. You could persuade him. Anyway, it’ll be cooler in another few days.”
“How about your vacation, Tom? You’re off next week, aren’t you? Where are you going?”
Lepski released a laugh that would have frightened a hyena.
“Me? I’m going nowhere. I’m staying home. I’m going to sit in the garden and read a book.”
“A book?” Jacoby gaped. “I didn’t know you read books.”
“I don’t, but what the hell? It’ll make a change. I want to find out if I’m missing anything. From the look of the pictures on some of the books, I just could.”
Jacoby thought for a long moment, frowning.
“How about Carroll?” he asked finally.
Lepski looked shifty.
“There’ll be a little trouble, but I will handle it,” he said, unease in his voice. “You know something? Carroll has crazy ideas. Right now, she is reading travel brochures. She wants us to tour California in a coach. Imagine! You know what these travel thieves want to take you all over California? Three weeks for three thousand dollars! Crazy! Anyway who wants to travel with a load of finks in a lousy coach? Not me!”
Jacoby considered this.
“Well, it’s a way of seeing the country. I wouldn’t mind it. Carroll would have a ball. She likes chatting up people.”
Lepski released a snort that fluttered the newspaper on his desk.
“Listen, Max, no can do. I’m up to my eyes in back payments. Every time I walk into my bank the teller stares at me as if I were a heist man. Tonight, I’m going to explain the situation to Carroll. I’ve got out a balance sheet. Okay, she’ll scream the house down, but figures are facts. She’ll have to sit on the lawn and read a book like I’m going to do.”
Jacoby, who was a close friend both of Lepski and his bossy wife, Carroll, hid a grin.
“Can’t see Carroll agreeing to that,” he said.
Lepski glared at him.
“If there’s no money, there’s no vacation. I’ve still to pay for that hairdryer she bought. I’m late on the car payments.” He drew in a long breath. “Then I’m late on that goddamn TV set she wanted. So... no money... no vacation.”
“I’m sorry, Tom. You and Carroll need a vacation.”
“So what? We’ll have to do what thousands of finks are doing... stay at home.” Lepski got to his feet and wandered into the Chiefs office where he found Sergeant Beigler dozing behind Terrell’s desk.
Beigler, freckled with sandy hair, yawned, rubbed a powerful fleshy hand over his face and grinned at Lepski.
“How I hate this month,” he said. “Nothing doing. You’re off next week on vacation... right?”
“Yeah.” Lepski prowled around the office. “As soon as I go, I bet action starts. Listen, Joe, I’m not going away. I’m staying home, so if you want me, for God’s sake, call me.”
“Not going away? What’s Carroll going to say?” Beigler, like Jacoby, knew Carroll.
“No money: no vacation,” Lepski said firmly, although he experienced a qualm. Carroll and he often fought although they wouldn’t have been parted for the world. Unfortunately for him, Carroll always seemed to win their fights, and of this he was acutely aware. But this time, he kept telling himself, she must accept facts and be reasonable.
“You’re a betting man, Tom,” Beigler said with a cunning smile. “I’ll bet you ten to one you do take a vacation.”
Lepski became alert.
“Make that in hundreds and you’re on,” he said.
Beigler shook his head.
“To win a hundred off me, you’d break a leg, you Shylock.”
The telephone bell rang. Charley Tanner, the desk sergeant, was having trouble with a rich old lady who had mislaid her cat.
“Go and help him, Tom,” Beigler said wearily. “It’ll help pass the time.”
At 18.30, Lepski signed off. The air was cooler, and he decided this was the right time to talk to Carroll, and even cut the goddamn lawn. First, he decided, he would do the lawn, then have supper, then explain carefully to Carroll just why a vacation this year was not on.
He arrived at his cosy bungalow with his usual screeching of brakes. If nothing else, Lepski was a show-off, and he liked to impress his neighbours when he returned home. The finks, as he called them, were, as usual, in their gardens. They all gaped as Lepski got out of his car. This was something he liked, and he gave them a condescending wave of his hand, then he paused, and it was his turn to gape.
His lawn looked immaculate. When he had left home in the morning, the grass had been two inches high. Now, it looked like a billiard table: even the edges of the lawn had been trimmed: something he never did.
Carroll?
He pushed his hat to the back of his head. That wasn’t possible. Carroll was a dim-wit when handling the power mower. Only once had he persuaded her to have a try, and the result had been a damaged front gate and the loss of one of the rose beds.
Puzzled he walked up the path, opened the front door, and immediately his nose twitched. The smell of cooking that wafted out of the kitchen brought his gastric juices to attention.
Usually, the smell coming from the kitchen to greet him made him wonder if the bungalow was on fire. Although Carroll was an ambitious cook, her efforts invariably ended in disaster. The smell that was now greeting him came as a shock.
Cautiously he entered the small lobby and peered into the living room. Here again, he experienced a shock. On one of the small tables in the centre of the room was a vase filled with long-stemmed roses. Usually, Carroll cut the rather tired-looking roses from the garden, but these, in the vase, were the kind of roses some sucker would give a movie star in the hope of dragging her into his bed.
A sudden chill ran through Lepski. Was this day an anniversary he had forgotten? Lepski was hopeless about anniversaries. Had it not been for Max Jacoby who kept a birthday book and reminded Lepski, — Carroll’s birthday would have been forgotten.
What anniversary? Lepski stood gaping at the roses, trying to remember the date of his wedding anniversary. He knew it couldn’t be Carroll’s birthday. Only five months ago, Jacoby had saved him from disaster. But what anniversary?
Carroll was very touchy about any missed anniversary. Lepski thought she was a nut about such dreary affairs. She considered it of vital importance that he should remember her birthday, his birthday, their wedding anniversary, the day he got promoted to First grade, the day they moved into their bungalow. If forgotten, she would make Lepski’s life miserable for at least a week.
Lepski braced himself. He would have to play this off the cuff. He wished to God he could remember the date of their wedding anniversary: that was the important one. If he had slipped up on this one, he knew he would be in the dog-house for a month.
Then he heard Carroll, clattering pots and pans in the kitchen, burst into song. Her rendering of You, Me and Love set his teeth on edge. Carroll was no singer, but she had lots of lung power.
Dazed, Lepski moved to the kitchen door and stared at his dark, pretty wife, wearing an apron and dancing around the kitchen, beating time to her singing with a wooden spoon.
Jesus! he thought. She’s been at my Cutty Sark!
“Hi, baby,” he said huskily. “I’m back.”
Carroll threw the spoon in the air and descended on him, wrapping her arms around him and giving him the sexiest kiss since their honeymoon.
“Tom, darling! Hmm! Lovely! Again!”
Cutty Sark or not, Lepski reacted. His hands roved down her long slim back and over her buttocks, pulling her hard against him.