“I jist don’t know. I jist might stay. I been thinking maybe with the baby coming we oughta stay at the farm. City’s not a good place for a kid.”
“Or for anyone else,” Gillian said. “I’m really sorry to have you and Grace leave, you’ve done a great job managing the place.”
“I’m sure sorry. You’ve sure been nice to us. I don’t know what we’d of done ...”
“You’re good people, Odie. I’ll miss you and Grace. But I bet you’ll be glad to get back home.”
“Well ...”
“When will you be leaving?”
“Friday, I guess. The rents’re all paid up for last month and everything’s tip-top around here. Want me to bring the stuff over?”
“No, that’s fine. Just leave it all in your apartment so it’ll be there for the new people.”
“Okey-doke.”
“I might not be around for the next few days, so hang on a second and I’ll get you your pay.”
Odie stayed in the doorway while Gillian returned to her bedroom. Her handbag was on top of the dresser. She took out the checkbook and wrote a check.
Odie was drinking his Pepsi when she reached the door. She handed the check to him.
“Thank you very much,” he said. Then he glanced at it. He raised it close to his face and peered at it. His head stopped moving. He looked at Gillian, looked into her eyes. “You made a mistake here, Miss O’Neill. You got a zero too many.”
“It’s no mistake, Odie.”
“This says five thousand dollars. We get five hundred, nor five thousand.”
“It’s a bonus for you and Grace being such good managers.”
“Holy cow.”
“If I don’t get a chance to see you again before you leave, have a good trip.” She held out her hand. Odie gripped the check in his teeth and pumped her hand. “Drop me a line sometimes, let me know how things are going.”
His head started bobbing again. He took the check out of his teeth. “Sure will, Miss O’Neill. Gillian.” His voice was high-pitched. He grimaced as if he were in pain. He fluttered the check under his face. “Grace, she’s gonna lay a brick when she sees this.” He shrugged.
“Take it easy, Odie.”
“Yeah. Holy cow.” Rubbing the back of his hand under his nose, he turned away and started along the balcony toward the stairs.
Gillian shut her door. She went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.
She would miss Odie and Grace. She had managed the twenty-unit apartment complex herself for almost a year before they showed up in their lopsided pickup truck. Odie was unemployed, but Grace had already lined up a book-keeping job that would bring in enough money to cover the rent and little else.
Gillian not only liked the two at once, she trusted them. She gave them an apartment rent-free and hired Odie, overjoyed to be released from the burden of running the place.
Now they were leaving.
I’ll have to get someone else, she thought as she poured a mug of coffee. No way am I going to start managing again.
Sliding open the kitchen door, she stepped onto the sundeck and sat down on a padded chair. She stretched her legs out, propping her feet on a plastic table. She took a drink of coffee.
Damn.
Her stomach hurt. It wasn’t just losing her managers, it was liking them and knowing she would never see them again after they left.
They weren’t exactly
That’s life, she told herself. That’s why you shouldn’t start caring.
She drank some more coffee. She rested the mug on the arm of the chair, dosed her eyes and tilted her head back to feel the sun on her face.
How’s about bugging out? she thought.
I don’t know.
She’d only come back yesterday. The need wouldn’t start getting strong for a week or two.
Right.
But with Odie and Grace taking off, she might be stuck here after Friday—at least until she could find someone to replace them.
If you wait, you might have to go without for a whole month. Maybe even longer.
You’ll be climbing the goddamn walls.
Better go for it while you’ve got the chance.
Her decision made, Gillian felt a familiar stir of excitement.
Get a move on, she thought. If you don’t have any luck today, you’ll have to wait for Monday.
She finished her coffee and went inside.
Gillian drove to an area in Studio City where the homes were nice but not elaborate. Rarely did she venture into truly exclusive neighborhoods—except on occasions when she wanted a special treat. Not this time. She had no taste today for the luxuries of a million-dollar home. Nor for dallying with such frills as elaborate alarm systems and private security patrols. A nice home in a middle-income neighborhood was all she desired. This area was just right.
Gillian had spent a terrific week in a house not far from here. The Jenson place. Murray and Ethel, away on vacation to Boston, had been good enough to leave their calendar clearly marked with their departure and return dates. Gillian had simply cleared out the day before they were scheduled to return. That had been back in February. This was June, so plenty of time had passed. She never liked to return to the same general area unless at least three months had gone by.
After cruising the streets for a while, she spotted one of the white Jeeps with red and blue stripes used by mail carriers. It was parked near a comer.
Gillian left her car on the next block, then began to wander the streets in search of the mailman.
Within ten minutes, she found him.
She walked slowly toward him. With his detours to front doors, she soon overtook him. She left him behind. At the end of the block, she crossed to the opposite side of the street and watched him from there.
When he made no delivery to a house, Gillian wrote the address on a note pad.
She spent nearly two hours observing the mailman. By then, she had five addresses on her list.
She returned to each house.
At one, she heard voices through the front door. She walked away and scratched that address off her list.
At another, a surly old man came to the door when she rang the bell. He glared at her. “I ain’t buying. I ain’t donating, I ain’t signing shit. Get outa here’n stop annoying me.” Gillian smiled at him. “Are you saved?” she asked. “Get fucked,” he said, and slammed the door.
Gillian scratched that address off her list. Her hand shook when she did it.
At the other three homes, nobody answered the doorbell.
One of these had an alarm system, two didn’t. She scratched off the one that had the alarm.
In an alley behind one of the remaining homes, she peered through a narrow gap between the fence and gate. There was no swimming pool, but the back yard had a nice patio area and a hot tub.
She walked two blocks to the other house. On close inspection, she found that it had a swimming pool. A definite plus.
Gillian returned to her car.
On the way back to her apartment, she weighed the choices. A pool was preferable to a hot tub. However, the place with the hot tub had a vacant house next door with a For Sale sign in front. That would mean one less next-door neighbor who might get suspicious of her sudden presence.
