KATE KING RETURNED AT seven-thirty. I was washing at my sink, getting ready to go out, when I heard the bell. It was Saturday night. I had a date and didn't want to be late. I answered the door shirtless, drying myself with a towel.
I said, “Oh, it's you.”
She seemed struck dumb for a moment. The story of my life: a body that leaves women speechless.
Finally she said, sounding surprised, “You live here too?”
“Did you ring the bell thinking I wouldn't be here?”
“Uh, no. The light was on. I thought you were working.”
“Did you want to come in?” I asked. “Or did you just stop back to tell me that I can't help you after all?”
It was out of hours. I was fabulously successful. I could afford to be just that tiny bit snotty.
Or was such a relaxation of mental attitude the first step along the path back to failure? Oh my God!
She said, “There's something I want you to do.”
“Do? I thought you were deciding whether to tell me about a problem.”
“Now there's something I want you to do.”
“Come in and sit down. But give me a sec. Let me get dressed.”
“O.K.”
She came in.
I put on a shirt and fluffed my hairs and returned to the office. “So what do you want me to do, then?”
“Uh, deliver a package.”
“What kind of package?”
“This kind.” From a large pocket somewhere low inside her coat she produced a brick-shaped object, wrapped in brown paper and sealed with tape.
“What is in it?”
“Nothing dangerous.”
A funny word to pick. I would have said, “Nothing illegal,” if I had been trying to get me to do what she was trying to get me to do.
So I asked, “Something illegal?”
“Oh no. Nothing like that.”
And for some reason—that person-to-person thing we all think we're so good at—I believed her.
“Where do you want me to take it?”
“To Garfield Park. Do you know where that is?”
On the south side of town. Not all that far away.
“Yes. And when I get there do I take ten steps northeast from the third willow tree on the left and whistle `The Star-Spangled Banner' in the key of D-sharp major until a woman in a polka-dot bikini taps me on the shoulder and asks me what time it is in Tokyo?”
“What?”
“Ms King, this all sounds like spies and secret agents.”
“No no. Nothing like that.”
“How long is it going to take me to find something that it is like?”
“Just put it on one of the children's swings. The blue plastic ones near the main entrance. They're easy to find.”
“And when do you want it done?”
“Now.”
“Oh, now. Of course. Silly me.”
“You'll do it?”
If she was aware that she was asking me to do something odd, she gave no hint of it.
Yet . . . I was getting curious.
Does a Go-for-It Detective get to be curious?
“I'm not sure,” I said.
“We'll pay.”
“We?”
“I mean I. I'll pay.”
“How much?”
“How much do you charge?”
“For delivering packages to children's swings? The standard rate is a thousand dollars.”
“Really?” She looked at me.
“No, not really,” I said.
We were finally off her agenda, but she didn't know where we were.
I said, “I'll give you a choice of charges.”
“Yeah . . .?”
“If you tell me what this is all about, I'll do it for free. But if you don't tell me, it will cost you a hundred dollars.”
“I'll take the hundred dollars,” she said. Her free hand dived back inside the coat. It was there for a moment and then it came out with two small wads of bills. She didn't count them. How did she know I was going to ask for a multiple of fifty? Maybe she was a mind reader.
But she didn't push the money across the desk. She said, “There are conditions.”
“Oh. Conditions. Right. And what might those be?”
“Under no circumstances are you to open the package, number one.”
“Don't open package,” I said. “Right.”
“You are to leave within ten minutes after I go.”
“Leave within ten minutes, right.”
“And you are to follow the specific route I tell you. South on Shelby Street till you pick up 431. Leave 431 on Southern. The park is on the left.”
“Predetermined route.” I waited. “Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Now I'll tell you my conditions.”
“Your conditions?” The idea hadn't crossed her mind. “What do you mean?”
“Number one, you and I will go downstairs where you will meet my mother and her boarder, Norman.”
“What?”
“In front of my mother and Norman you will state that nothing in or about the package is illegal in any way whatever.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Yeah?”
“Then you will give me the hundred dollars. And I will give you a receipt. Those are my conditions. I'm sure you will agree that they are no more than simple protection for me.”
She was silent while she wrapped her mind around what I had said.
“Do you agree to my conditions?”
“Uh . . . uh, I don't know.”
“Maybe you'd like some time to think. Maybe you'd like to step outside while you do it.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think I'd like to go outside and think about it.”
“That's fine.”
I let her out.
This time I stood by the closed door as she descended and I did hear a few footfalls. Just a quiet kid, I guess.
I moved to the window and from it I watched her cross the street to a station wagon parked on the other side. This time she got into the back seat. The car was parked well away from lights and I couldn't tell what color it was. But I was willing to make a modest wager that the light of day would have revealed it to be pale green.
Or is gambling the way successful people became unsuccessful again? This damn life is so full of traps.
When the car my would-be client got into did not immediately drive away, I left my lookout and phoned my woman to tell her I was probably going to be late.
“You have a client?” she said. “Oh, don't give me that! If you're going to make excuses, make it something believable.”
Quite a wag, my woman.