real Bill possibly being killed brought me to real tears, and I dabbed my eyes with my handkerchief.
“So you’re all alone?” Mrs. Smith’s eyes softened a bit. “Well, the room’s yours then. That’ll be five dollars for the first week, plus another five-dollar deposit—refundable if you leave it in good shape.”
I fished my change purse out of my handbag and handed over two fives. The two-dollar retainer I’d gotten from Joseph Przybilski didn’t cover this at all—too bad I didn’t really have a job at Consolidated to pay for it.
The back door opened and a burly man with wide fat shoulders and heavy bare arms, wearing a T-shirt and khaki pants, came in. Through the doorway, I saw the handles of garden tools lined up on the back porch. He was sweaty, with dirty hands—the odor of dirt and perspiration followed him in.
He tipped his chin at her, gave me a curious glance, then took the straw hat off the back of his head and hung it on a hook by the door. He went to the sink and began to wash up.
“George,” said Mrs. Smith, “come meet Laura Taylor, our newest tenant. She’ll be in number 14. Mrs. Taylor, this is my husband, Mr. Smith.”
“How do you do,” I said.
He took a clean white huck cloth towel from the swinging chrome rack by the sink and wiped his hands thoroughly, then came over to shake. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he rumbled. His hand was lumpy from hoeing and mowing and brown from working in the sun. He continued to look me over closely. Again, I felt like a piece of meat.
“George takes care of everything outside, and I handle all the inside work,” Mrs. Smith explained. “It’s a perfect partnership.”
Mr. Smith nodded. “I like the outdoors. Restful. But always something to do.” They exchanged a look that said things I couldn’t fathom.
“I’ll be running along now,” I said, and thought that running might be a very good idea. “I’ll be back with my suitcase later.”
“Later, then,” replied Mrs. Smith. Mr. Smith nodded. They both saw me to the door and stood on the porch as I walked down the steps and along 20th to the bus stop at Market Street.
Back at the office, I smiled as I opened the safe. The combination was our anniversary: 6-16-37. “That way, I’ll never forget it,” Bill had said, and it worked.
This year, knowing he was going to ship out soon, we’d taken a trip to Mexico for the day. We’d strolled the streets of Tijuana and enjoyed the mariachi music pouring from the clubs. Bill had convinced me to pose for a picture with a donkey painted to look like a zebra. In the mercado, Bill had fallen deep into discussion with the owner of a leather goods shop while I browsed the tailored jackets. He’d had a small package under one arm as we left, and didn’t unwrap it until we got home. It was a sewn leather bag filled with lead shot and attached to a sling—a sap, quiet and lethal.
“It’s too hard to get ammo for the gun now, with the war on, but if you’re going to take cases, I want you to have some protection,” he’d said, and we practiced various moves as he showed me how to use it. Now, I took the sap out of the safe and slipped it into the bottom of my handbag. Then I packed a small suitcase and went downstairs to wait for the streetcar.
The house loomed up against the deep blue sky. A dragon-like gargoyle snarled down at me from the top of the tallest tower. Like the house, he was painted white, with great green eyes and sharp wooden teeth.
I shivered despite the evening’s warmth as I hauled my suitcase up the old stairs. I found the bell-pull and gave it a tug. The pachucos watched me from their post down the street.
The massive door swung wide with an eerie silence. Mrs. Smith frowned down at me.
“There you are. This way.” She hooked a thumb at me as a signal to follow her into the dark maw of the house. I followed, though every ounce of me suddenly wanted to run like hell. I had a job to do. I owed it to Bill. I owed it to the agency.
We crossed the wide entryway and climbed the paneled stairwell as it turned and twisted to the third floor. The hall was barely lit by dim wall sconces. Cheaply constructed partitions bisected the original rooms. “Toilet’s in the basement, sink for washing up is down there too. You’ve got your own soap?”
I nodded.
“What, speak up!”
“Yes’m,” I replied meekly, thinking this was getting off to a bad start with her.
She said sternly, “Better keep it with you. Those girls are like a pack of crows, steal anything not nailed down.”
Mrs. Smith tilted her head and eyed me with a half-smile, looking a bit like a crow herself, as she unbolted a flimsy plywood door and ushered me into a tiny room. There was hardly room for the metal chair and the skinny bed. It had a thin mattress made of ticking material with a flat pillow and a tired crocheted afghan for a blanket. She pulled the blackout curtains closed and clicked on an old lamp with a low-wattage bulb. An old orange crate set up sideways served as a bureau.
After she left, closing the door softly behind her, I almost collapsed. I just managed to hold back tears. It was nearly nighttime, dark and shadowy. There was no bolt on the inside of the door, so I put my suitcase up against it, then tiptoed up to the window. I lifted the edge of the curtain and saw 20th Street in the failing dusk. The little grocery store was closing up for the evening. A man stood at the door, looked furtively around, and then knocked softly. The door opened a crack and he slipped in. A few people strolled in the dimness and the pachucos headed toward Market Street in a tight little pack.
I pulled the curtain back some more. I could just see part of the rear garden below, a miniscule flash of day lilies and geraniums. A palm tree rustled in the breeze off the bay.
I moved the chair over to the window, turned off the light, and fully opened the curtains to look down at the city. The waterfront and warehouse districts were graded squares of deep gray and black. The only illumination came from a dim layer of stars trying to twinkle through the evening fog on the bay.
Strangely, I felt removed, almost peaceful. I don’t know how long I stared out at the view, but sometime later, when the street had become completely black and I couldn’t imagine anyone moving out there, I dropped the
