He knelt, used a screwdriver to pry open a can of latex, and set the lid on old newspapers. As he lifted the can, Schmidt wondered whether opening the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel each day would make him think of her. As he leaned over and carefully poured paint into the roller pan, he felt the strain in his lower back. Fifteen, even ten years before, he’d have felt nothing. You’re getting up there, he thought.
Balancing the paint tray, he went up the stepladder, loaded the roller, and began painting the ceiling. If it could just stay simple, he thought. Getaway weekends to New York and Chicago, staying at her place or his. Just that. Great sex and dinner, movies and baseball games.
As he moved the roller back and forth, the wet paint made a sticky noise. On a dark winter day, the sound made him think of sex.
He re-loaded the roller and continued painting. Ever since her call telling him it was over, a question kept coming back to him: why had his first reaction been relief? After two days, Schmidt thought he had the answer: because he would not have to go with her to Florida.
Schmidt stopped rolling. He remembered three golfers, tourists like himself in need of a fourth player. That had been five, maybe six years ago in Fort Myers, when he and his wife Lillie were on vacation. He saw one of the men readying his ball to tee off. But he straightened, and all three men now turned to watch. Schmidt was walking on the golf-cart path, holding hands with a redhead young enough to his daughter. Or theirs.
That’s when Schmidt heard something.
It was coming from the apartment next door, the sound of someone dropping things. He came down the ladder and gently set the pan on the floor. He had installed sensors outside. When activated by movement, they turned on brilliant collagen lights in the alley. Deadbeat tenants sometimes snuck back to get even, people he’d carried for two months before giving an eviction notice. They broke or stole plumbing fixtures, punched holes in the walls.
The sensors were easy to disable. But the tenants next door were solid citizens, not deadbeats. Schmidt moved to the wall and laid his head on the cool plaster. It was just one person, he was sure. No voices, just drawers opening and slamming shut. Now came the lumpy bump of a sofa cushion being dropped on the floor.
He should phone the cops. But something about Brenda’s call led him to go out in the hall. Schmidt listened before he inserted his pass key. He eased open the door. In the half-dark of the living room’s closed venetian blinds, the muffled sounds came from the open bedroom. Clothes hangers scraped. Schmidt crossed, and waited a moment. He felt around the corner for the light switch and snapped it on, realizing in the moment he had no weapon.
But now, seeing the man, Schmidt didn’t think it mattered. Tall and caved-in looking, he backed out of the closet. He had on a dirty brown parka, his forehead sweaty with fright-wig hair. In his twenties, he had a junkie’s haunted face. He held a cheap flashlight, no potential club.
“Cool your jets,” he said. “I’m family. They give me a key, they want I should take their dry-cleaning—”
“Show me the key.”
“What? No, man, they left it unlocked, they told me—”
“Shut up.” Schmidt stepped forward. “You come with me and sit still while I call the police.”
“Huh? Say what? No, man, no cops. I made a mistake, okay? Wrong crib, grandpa, my mistake, I’m outta here—”
He came forward, not meeting Schmidt’s eyes. “No cops,” he said. “Don’t need no mister po-leese-man—” He was white and laughed to himself for speaking black. For no other reason, just because the guy thought he was funny and had said “grandpa,” Schmidt stepped in the way. The man was a head taller. He smelled bad, a funky mix of sweat, chemicals, cigarettes.
“What the fuck? I didn’t hurt nothing—”
As he shoved to get past, Schmidt jammed his elbow into the man’s ribs. The junkie grunted and threw a punch. Schmidt ducked it easily and punched him in the throat. Not waiting for him to go down, with both hands Schmidt grabbed the parka and slammed him face-first into the solid plaster wall. Not drywall, thick stucco. And again. Then he let him go. The man slid down, dirty hands on the plaster. His sigh came as a whisper, a sound of defeat that made Schmidt feel instantly wrong. Tall or not, the man had nothing in him beyond finding something to fence. Schmidt had known it at first glance. He had taken advantage, had wanted to punish.
He called and five minutes later buzzed them in. When the two uniforms came through the door, the junkie was still crowded on the floor against the wall.
“Hi, Charlie.” The older cop looked down. “What’ve we got?”
He knew Schmidt, a local landlord that police and half a dozen other city organizations could count on for drives and fundraisers.
“Break-in,” Schmidt said.
“What do you want to do?”
Schmidt shook his head.
“Right, what’s the point?”
Glad to be saved the paperwork, the cop reached down. “Come on, pilgrim, let’s go.” When the junkie was on his feet, his face was embossed with ugly welts from the stucco.
Deputy Lyle Buddy glanced down again at the body on the slate floor. “What was wrong with him?”
“Prostate cancer and emphysema,” Rivera said. “With episodes of congestive heart failure. He was anemic and suffered from mild dementia.”
“Damn,” Buddy said.
“I know, but the son didn’t want him in a nursing home. The trouble is, when they’re ambulatory, you can’t supervise them every minute. The attendant is new, but I’m sure
