She was in there and I’d wakened her. She wouldn’t be going right out. I went back and got into my car and drove the two or three hundred yards to Bloomingdale’s and brought a big silver wine bucket for a hundred bucks. It left me two dollars for lunch. If I got a chance for lunch. I was hungry. But I was used to that. I was always hungry. I had the wine bucket gift wrapped and went back to the apartment building. I parked out front this time and went into the foyer and rang Elaine Brooks again. She answered the first buzz and her voice had freshened up some.
”Package for Ms. Brooks,“ I said.
”Just leave it in the foyer,“ she said. ”I’ll get it in a while.“
”Mr. Giacomin said deliver it personal, ma’am. He said don’t leave it in the hall or nothing. He said give it right to you.“
”Okay,“ she said, ”bring it up.“
I said, ”Yes, ma’am.“ The door buzzed and I went in. I was wearing off-white straight-legged Levi’s cords, and moccasins and a blue wool shirt and a beige poplin jacket with a sheepskin lining and collar. A little slick for a cabbie maybe-if she noticed how much the shirt cost, but she probably wouldn’t.
I took the elevator to the third floor and counted numbers to 15. I knocked. There was silence while I assume she peeped out through the little spyglass. Then the door opened on a safety chain and a narrow segment of face and one eye looked out at me. I’d figured on that. That’s why I’d bought the bucket. In the box it was much too big to fit through a safety chain opening. I held the box up and looked at the small opening.
She said, ”Okay, just a minute,“ and closed the door. I heard the chain slide off and then the door opened. The Bloomingdale’s wrapper does it every time. Maybe I should rely on that more and on my smile less.
The door opened. She was as described only better looking. And she was busty. So is Dolly Parton. She’d done her hair and face, but hadn’t dressed yet. She wore a long brown robe with white piping and a narrow white belt tied in front. Her feet were bare. Her toenails were painted. It didn’t help much. Never saw a toenail I liked.
”Here you go, ma’am,“ I said.
She took the package. ”Any message?“
”Not to me, ma’am. Maybe inside. All Mr. Giacomin told me was see that I put it right in your hands.“
”Well, thank you,“ she said.
”Okay.“ I didn’t move.
She looked at me. ”Oh,“ she said. ”Wait a minute.“ She closed the door and was gone maybe a minute and then the door opened and she gave me half a buck. I looked at it sort of glumly.
”Thanks,“ I said.
She closed the door without comment and I went on back down to the car. I pulled out of the turnaround in front of the apartment and parked up the road a little so I could see in the rearview mirror. And I waited.
I’d accomplished a couple of things maybe. One, for certain, I knew what she looked like so if she left I could follow; otherwise, I had to wait for old Mel to show up. The second thing, maybe, was she’d call to thank him for the gift and he’d say he never sent it and that would stir them up and one would go to the other. Or it would make them especially careful and I wouldn’t be able to find him through her. The odds were with me though. And if his wife was right, he was too randy to stay away from her forever.
Over the years I’d found that stirring things up was better than not. When things got into motion I accomplished more. Or I seemed to.
CHAPTER 3
When she came out I almost missed her. I was watching the front door and just caught a glimpse of her as she cruised out from behind the apartment building in a black Buick Regal. I got in behind her, separated by one car as she swung up onto Route 9 and headed west. She had no reason to be looking for a tail and I had no reason to be tricky about it. I stayed a car or two behind her all the way onto 128 North and up Route 93 and onto Route 125 in Andover. Route 125 was harder. It was nearly deserted, running through the Harold Parker State Forest. Staying too close to her might make her notice. I hung a long way back and almost missed her again when she turned off just before Route 114 and went down Chestnut Street in Andover. What saved me was the red light. The car that had been ahead of her was stopped at it, and she wasn’t there. She must have taken the left just before it. I yanked the MG around and accelerated down Chestnut Street. It was a winding back road at this end and the MG did much better time than the Buick. I caught sight of her in about two hundred yards. I slowed and let her pull ahead again. A mile or so farther and she stopped on the right-hand side. I turned right a block behind her and stopped out of sight and got out and walked back. Her car was there and she was disappearing into a big white house on the right.
I walked down. The house she was parked in front of was a two-family, up and down. The front hall door was unlocked and inside were two other doors. The one on the right obviously led to the downstairs apartment. The one directly ahead to the upstairs. I put my ear against the downstairs door. I could hear a TV set and the sound of a baby crying. That wouldn’t be Giacomin. If she was visiting Giacomin. For all I knew she was here to play Parcheesi with an elderly aunt.
I tried the knob of the upstairs door. It turned but the door didn’t open. Above it was the round key side of a spring bolt. They were easy, if the jamb wasn’t tight. I took a thin plastic shim from my coat pocket and tried it. The jamb wasn’t tight. I popped the bolt back and opened the door. The stairs rose straight up ahead of me to a landing and then they turned right. I went up them. At the top was another door. I put my ear against it. I could hear a radio and the low sound of conversation.
I put my hand on the knob and turned it quietly. The door was not locked. I opened it silently and stepped into a kind of foyer. Ahead was a dining room. To my right a living room through an archway. In the living room Elaine Brooks sat in a red plush armchair leaning forward, talking with a big man with a long nose and small eyes and a droopy mustache. Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary.
She didn’t see me, her back was toward me. But he did. He was standing with a drink in his hand while she talked to him, and when I opened the door we looked right at each other. I had never figured the drill on a situation like this. Did I say ”Ah, hah“ vigorously, or just stare accusingly. He was quicker than I. He knew just the right thing to say.
He said, ”What the hell do you want?“
