“You gotta ride those things? I hear it can be pretty tough.”
“No,” Candy said, “I just want to check my bag there. I’ve got errands to do around town today, and that’s the only place where I can leave it.”
“Suit yourself, lady,” the cabbie said. “Have a good flight in?”
“Yeah,” Candy told him. “Great.”
The Neighborhood
When Candy had gone out of the Quaint, the witch said, “And now what of us, Mr. Stubb? Have you an investigation for yourself too? And one for me?”
Stubb nodded. “Soon as I finish my coffee.”
“Then I must tell you I cannot oblige you. I have matters of my own to which I must attend.”
“All right, but you’ll have to loan me the key to your room.”
“I cannot do that either.”
Stubb raised his voice. “Waitress! Hey! What time you got?”
The waitress glanced at him, then at her wrist. “Eight thirty-seven, sir. We’re on Eastern Standard Time here.”
“Thanks, doll.”
The witch said, “And what was that about?”
“A maid came to the door of our room, remember? It couldn’t have been eight o‘clock yet, and there she was. You really think the maids in this place come around and pound on doors at eight o’clock?”
The witch stared at him. At last she said, “It did not seem to me that she intended harm. I sense these things.”
“So do I, but I don’t make a big deal of it. She looked happy.”
“I sensed it before the door was opened. But yes, I concur. So?”
“Let me guess, all right? The maids here probably come to work around six thirty and start off by cleaning up the meeting rooms—any place that’s been used the night before but isn’t being used then. After that, they probably get a list of rooms where people have already checked out. There’s always a few guys with real early flights. Then maybe they do the corridors.”
“What is it you are circling toward, Mr. Stubb?”
“Suppose somebody stopped one on her way to work. Suppose this person said, ‘Look, honey, here’s fifty bucks and a ashtray.’ Or maybe it was one of the Gideon Bibles. Whatever. ‘You put this in room seven seventy-seven when you fix it up, and if you’ll meet me down in the lobby afterward and let me know you did it, I’ll slip you another fifty.’”
“I see. She would wish to get the money at once. Perhaps she would be afraid he would leave if she took too long. You are correct, there is an assignment for us both. We must go to my room and search.”
Before he knocked at Mrs. Baker’s door, Stubb stood on the sidewalk for a moment to study the wreck of Free’s house. As far as he could tell, it was just as he and the others had left it the night before; in fact, he could see their tracks in the snow going up and down the short walk, their footprints on the steps.
In the brilliant winter sunshine, its ruin was more apparent. Most of the front wall had been dashed to rubble. Most of what remained looked as though it might fall at any second. Stubb found himself wondering why the people who did not have houses, himself included, did not riot when houses like this, solid brick houses that might stand for five hundred years if only the governments and the banks would let them alone, were destroyed.
He looked around for the destroyers. The long-necked yellow machine waited quietly at the curb, its deadly black ball lying before its treads like a discarded toy before the paws of some great, sleepy beast. Both the machine and the ball were dusted with sparkling snow. There were no workers in sight. The houses to the left of Free’s had CONDEMNED signs in red on their windows, and some of the windows had been smashed.
He walked on, then up the step and onto the porch of Mrs. Baker’s house. Wires emerged from long-splintered wood where the doorbell should have been. He knocked hard, a habit acquired from bill collecting.
There was no sound inside.
After waiting a moment, he knocked again; this time he heard footsteps, slow and hesitant. A new Yale lock had been set into the door, but the old-fashioned keyhole remained. Stooping, he put his mouth to it and called, “It’s just me, Mrs. Baker. Jim Stubb, remember? From the hotel last night? I have to talk to you.”
The door opened. Mrs. Baker wore a gray housecoat and slippers. Her sparse hair was in curlers.
“I’m sorry if I got you out of bed,” Stubb said.
“Time for me to get up anyway. ‘Early to bed and early to rise, and get the jump on the other guys,’ that’s what the late Mr. Baker used to say. It’s from Shakespeare.”
“I’ve always felt the same way myself,” Stubb told the old woman.
“Anyway, come in. Would you like some cooco? Or maybe tea? ‘Cooco’s a cad and a cow.’ Better than milk, it means. Isn’t that what they say?”
“‘Tea is like the East he grows in,’” Stubb quoted from memory. “‘A great yellow mandarin, with urbanity of manner and unconsciousness of sin.’”
