Goodnight, Irene

“I have a confession to make, Guy. I haven’t been staying here for a few days. I trust you, but I owe it to the person who took me in not to publicize where I am staying now. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, not at all. I understand. It is wise, really. We should not have met here, though.”

“In hindsight, I think you’re right.”

“And now, as an amateur detective, may I make another observation?”

“Sure.” Uh-oh, I thought, here it comes.

“You are not really interested in — well, shall we say, seeing me again?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Guy,” I said, flustered at his directness. “This is such a mixed up time for me — I don’t know.”

How lame can you get, I chided myself — why don’t you be as direct as he is? “The truth is,” I went on, “I’ve recently met up again with someone that I knew a long time ago. There has always been some spark between us. We probably don’t have a prayer of ever making it work out — he’s a cop, and that creates some problems in itself — but the spark is there. I guess I’d like to see what happens. I should probably have my head examined for not forgetting the whole thing. And for disappointing someone like you — you’re an attractive and interesting man. And I enjoy your company.”

“Oh, Irene, stop. Next you’ll tell me I’m a nice guy, and every man hates to hear a woman say that.” He laughed. “Well, do you have any sisters? Any more like you at home?”

This brought on an idea. “I wouldn’t dare introduce you to my sister — as I said, I like you, Guy. But there are more at home, you might say. Let me think about it. I may have a friend you would like. In fact, I think you would like her very much.”

“Well, Irene, if your old flame turns out to have burned out after all, then keep me in mind. And I’m game to meet your friend. But I hope you will let me continue to help on this story you are working on?”

“More than that, Guy. I really need your help — and I would hope we could be friends.” I paused, looking at him and thinking I really was crazy. “I appreciate your being so understanding,” I said. “I feel kind of bad about not being able to respond the way you would have liked me to.”

“Don’t trouble yourself over it, chere. I’m always glad to have a friend. When I was twenty, this would have been a disaster. But at this point in life, friends are very important to me. Now, go home, and get a good night’s sleep. I’ll call you when I’ve learned more about whatever it was that frightened Mrs. Marchenko away from the bank.”

“Goodnight, Guy.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. He smiled and said goodnight, and I got out of the car. I waited until he drove away, then waved to Pete, got in my own car, and drove off to Lydia’s, Pete right behind me.

When I got to Lydia’s, he got out of his car and came over to me. He looked at his watch. “Well, it’s midnight. How does it feel to have had a day when nobody tried to kill you?” he asked.

“Pretty good, really. The business at the house scared me, but I’ve learned my lesson there.”

“Yeah, well, I hope so.”

“You finally going home now, or am I going to see your car parked out front all night?”

“Going home. You take care, Irene.”

“You too, Pete.”

I crept into the house, only to find Lydia and Cody watching television together. At least, Cody was giving the impression of watching it.

“Well, hello there,” she called.

“Hi. How are you doing?”

“Fine, but I’m worried that you’re mad at me.”

“For calling Frank? No, I guess I should thank you for that. You were right — I was being stupid.”

“I don’t know, Irene. Later I thought about it and I figured you were just getting sick of having all of us hovering over you all the time.”

“The jury is still out on that one. Anyway — change of subject — how would you like to meet someone tall, dark, and handsome?”

“This, I take it, is a rhetorical question?”

“Let’s have lunch together on Monday. I’d like to have you meet somebody.”

“Gonna make me wait until Monday, huh? Okay, you’re on.”

“Well, I’m turning in. I’ll let you sleep with that whore of a cat of mine.”

“He is sort of like a living teddy bear, isn’t he?”

“At nineteen pounds, he could be mistaken for a bear.”

Cody gave me a look that said he understood perfectly well what I was saying, and didn’t appreciate it much. He snorted. We laughed. That really made him mad, and he jumped off her lap and trotted off to the kitchen to sniff at his food bowl.

“Well, I guess he’s going to stop sleeping with me for good now,” I said. “Goodnight.”

“‘Night.”

I was in bed with the lights out when I remembered that I’d told Frank I’d call him. It was after midnight. I decided he would be more upset if I didn’t call than if I did and woke him up. I reached over and picked up the