After Midnight

turn on the air.

I flicked the switch and heard the blower start.

The sound was good to hear. I hadn’t liked that silence.

“Things’ll cool off fast, now,” I said, returning to the foyer.

“Are you sure it’s all right for us to be here?”

“Sure I’m sure. I have the keys, don’t I? Come on,” I said, and headed for the kitchen. “What do you like to drink?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“How about margaritas?”

“Are we going to use their stuff?”

“Sure.”

“Is it all right to do that?” he asked.

“Would I be doing it if it weren’t?”

“Maybe. I don’t know, would you?”

“Nope. Not me. I ain’t no thief.”

In the kitchen, I went straight for the cupboard where they kept the liquor. I opened it and took out a bottle of tequila.

“The deal is,” I explained, “they like me to use their stuff when I’m staying here. They even stock up on my favorite foods and drinks and things. They want me to live it up. They’re on vacation, and they want this to be like a vacation for me.”

“Really?”

“Don’t you believe me?”

“I just don’t want to get into any trouble,” he said.

“Relax. Everything’s fine. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

Elroy’s face contorted. He blurted, “Oh, my God. I’ve gotta get out of here.”

I burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny. I’m leaving.”

“I was kidding! It was a joke. The owners are my best friends. I’ve got the run of the place. You’re not going to get into any trouble. If they walked in the door right now, they’d be delighted to find us here and they’d make the drinks for us.”

“Honest?” Elroy asked.

“So help me.”

After that, he seemed to be all right. He even helped me. Soon, we had a blender full of margarita. While Elroy salted the rims of our glasses, I studied the meat situation.

It came as no surprise.

Except for some hot dogs and salami in the refrigerator, everything else was frozen. The freezer compartment was full of goodies: steaks, pork chops, lamb chops, chicken breasts. But they were as solid as bricks.

“If you don’t want grilled weenies,” I explained, “we’ll have to thaw out something.”

“I thought we were having steaks.”

“We still can have steaks.”

“But they’re frozen?”

“I’ll just nuke ’em till they thaw.”

“That’ll be tasty.”

“Well, we could thaw them out naturally, but that might take a few hours.”

“I’m not in any hurry,” he said, smiling and wiggling his eyebrows.

“Well, let’s see how it goes.” I opened the freezer compartment again. “We can have anything in here. Would you rather have lamb, or…?”

“You promised me a steak.”

For a guest, Elroy seemed awfully damn insistent.

“Then a steak you shall have,” I told him, and took out a couple of T-bones.

What is it, anyway, with people and slabs of beef? Hey, I like the things, too. But I’m not wild for them. Steaks aren’t the be-all and end-all. If you ask me, lamb and pork have more flavor. And chicken is usually more tender. Besides, steaks are tricky devils. If you don’t cook them just right, they get all dry inside. And sometimes, for reasons I’ve never figured out, you cook up a perfectly good steak and it ends up tasting like liver. I just don’t see what the infatuation is.

Anyway, I ripped the butcher paper off the T-bones. Serena was in the habit of freezing her meat in pairs, so the steaks were not only as solid as slabs of concrete, but also stuck together.

I didn’t even try to part them.

Smiling at Elroy, I hammered the counter a couple of times and said, “Dinner will be a while.”

“No problem,” he said.

“These can at least marinate…”

“Marinate?”

“You know, maybe some teryaki sauce.”

“No. Perish the thought. Do you want to ruin them?”

Figures!

“Let’s not marinate them,” I suggested.

“Just a dab of salt and pepper before they go on the fire,” Elroy said.

“Excellent. I’ll let you take care of it.”

Looking very pleased with himself, he said, “Happy to oblige.” Then he turned away. He gave the blender a quick buzz that swirled the margarita concoction, whipped it to froth and sent it climbing the sides of the pitcher.

As he filled our glasses, he asked, “Do we have anything to nibble on?”

I thought of Murphy’s pretzels.

“What would you like?”

“Tortilla chips, if you have them.”

“I’ll see if Serena has any,” I said, and headed for the cupboard where she kept various bags of chips.

“Who is this Serena?”

“She owns the joint. She and her husband.”

“Our out-of-town hosts?”

“Right.”

“Let’s see what they’ve got,” he said, and joined me in front of the cupboard.

There were plenty of nibbles to choose from. Elroy decided on a bag of lightly salted, fat-free, taste-free corn tortilla chips.

“Shall we take it all outside and enjoy it by the pool?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” Elroy said.

Carrying the bag of chips, I left the kitchen. Elroy followed with the drinks.

Wanting to avoid the den—I’d never gotten around to cleaning its glass door—I started across the living room. My plan was to open the drapes and let us out through the sliding door.

But along the way, striding by the fireplace, I turned my head to take a look at the saber.

What if it’s wet?

What if it’s dripping blood?

What if Elroy gets curious and takes a close look…?

But I didn’t need to worry about any of that.

The saber was gone.

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