It’s a good thing my Toyota knows the way home. As soon as I got near the car all my volleyball adrenaline and most of my righteous anger leaked out, leaving me deflated and sleepy and kind of ornery. A double-parked patrol car blocked my exit, so I had to clump back up the stairs, and trade insults with the desk sergeant until some jerk grudgingly moved it. I spit on the fender. I’m not proud of it. I just did it.
Roz was in the kitchen, yakking on the phone in her usual position, cross-legged on the countertop. She is a motor-mouth phone gabber, and it’s a miracle anybody ever gets through on my line. Paints, brushes, palette knives, and bottles of oily gook were spread over the kitchen table, and as far as I could tell, she was composing a still life of steel wool pads and a Windex bottle. I always know the cleaning aids I purchase will come in handy.
“Carlotta, great, I’ve got messages,” she said, dropping the phone to one shoulder. “Tequila, how about I call you back? At the Rat? Tonight? Gross. Jeez. Okay. Later.” She hung up on Tequila. I wondered if Tequila was a boy or a girl. I knew it wasn’t a rat. The Rat is this punk hangout in Kenmore Square. If Mooney got a call to go to the Rat, he’d bring rubber gloves, a chair, and a whip.
I stared blankly at the refrigerator, wondering if anything inside would make me feel human. The clock said three, and the sun was blazing through the window over the sink, so that made it three in the afternoon. Monday afternoon. I felt like it was 3 A.M. on some planet where everything was slightly out of focus. I held open the refrigerator door until it started doubling as an air conditioner. A container of cottage cheese looked vaguely appealing, except I couldn’t remember buying cottage cheese, so chances were that if I opened the carton, furry green curds would greet my eyes. I shut the refrigerator door.
“Messages,” Roz was saying. “You okay?”
She was wearing this fifties housedress get-up, with lacey white socks and black pointy-toed ankle-high boots. She’d added a purple streak down the left side of her pink hair. Her earrings looked like Coke bottle caps.
“Me?” I said in a dead voice. “I feel great. Absolutely.”
“It’s the riotous living,” Roz said.
Maybe she had eavesdropped on me and Sam. The idea perked me up.
“Carlotta?”
“Yeah?”
“This guy keeps calling. Sam Gianelli.”
My face got warm, all of a sudden. I hoped I wasn’t blushing. “Yeah?”
“He’s phoned like five times. Awesome voice.”
“Yeah.”
“I told him I didn’t know when you’d be back.”
He might call Gloria to check when I got off. That would be great. Gloria would razz me for the next hundred years. I stared ruefully at the telephone, picked up the receiver, and slowly replaced it in the cradle. I didn’t want to call Sam. I didn’t want to see Sam. I didn’t want to ask him about Jack Flaherty. Sam’s no dummy. He’d know I was investigating at G&W. He’d realize I didn’t trust him. And that would be the end. Better leave it for a few days. Then I could say I’d met the guy, and wondered if Sam had ever run into him. Something like that.
I opened the refrigerator again. I had a faint memory of a salami in the meat tray. Three anonymous tinfoil bundles later, I located it. I keep leftovers until they get fuzzy. That way I don’t feel guilty about throwing out good food.
“And Mooney’s been calling,” Roz said. “The cop. Just one message, repeated over and over and over. Call Mooney. Call Mooney. Call Mooney. Capitalized. Underlined. Totally emphatic, with sugar on top.”
I shrugged. It took all my concentration to slice three rounds of salami without severing a thumb.
“He got the hots for you, or what?” she asked.
“Didn’t he say?”
“He said urgent. Something else, too.”
She’s like that. Saves up the good parts. Eats her pie starting at the crust end.
“Contest,” she said, nodding her head gravely. The bobbing purple streak ruined the solemn effect. “Contest. Urgent, about some contest.”
I scooped up the phone so fast I almost dropped the knife on my foot.
And, of course, Mooney was nowhere to be found. I left a message.
Urgent.
“Jeez, that was some mess over in J.P.,” Roz said. “Wow. There was this pile of glop in the middle of the kitchen floor you wouldn’t believe. Flour and honey and cherry pie filling and oatmeal. Totally gross. Wanna see the pictures?”
“While I’m eating?”
“Lemon wanted to, like, blow the place up or something. He didn’t think we could ever get it clean.”
“Did you?”
“We had to use boiling water, and the ice scraper from the pickup. I’m going back over today to put another coat of wax on the floor.”
I excused myself, and dove into the bathroom. T.C.’s cat box looked untouched by other than feline paws. Leave the money there, Margaret had said. I don’t want it. I wondered how long I could live with IRA cash in the bathroom. It generated a bit of tension, like juggling eggs.
Roz was staring critically at the Windex bottle when I got back, edging it a shade to the right of the S.O.S.
“You didn’t see my old school friend, did you?” I asked. “Uh, Roger Smith or something?”
She cast sheepish eyes at the floor. “Nope, he hasn’t been by.” She frowned and returned the Windex bottle to its original position. “Unless—”
“Unless?”
She bit down on her tongue, then realized it impeded her speech. “Well, you got one more call, from a weirdo who sounded kind of like Roger Smith. But he said his name was Andrews. From Cedar Wash Condominium Resorts. You’re not buying some gross condo, are you?”
“Relax. I’ll still be here to collect the rent.”
“You like the Windex picture? You think I should put in some fruit? Garlic?” She likes to paint bulbs of garlic. Those I can always find later.
“Lot of potential.” That’s what I say when I’m baffled by one of Roz’s masterpieces. I’m scared she’ll explain the deeper meanings.
I ate two slices of salami, called it a balanced meal, and went upstairs.
I didn’t call Mooney again. I didn’t call Sam. I didn’t get back to Andrews at Cedar Wash. I slept six and a half hours, like a rock.