The Case of the Lady in Apartment 308 (8 page)

“Nothing!” Marcia was indignant. “If we turned out to be kin, you would want to home in on our family, and you would shock my mother.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re wicked.”

His face went blank and his lips parted just a bit in shock as he glanced over at Marcia. “I’ve been a perfect gentleman!” Indignation is an excellent barrier. And how could she have read his mind and found out otherwise?

“I’ve been aware of the sly movements. You’ve touched me about everywhere…by accident.”

“They all
were
accidental!”

“So you’re aware you’ve been brushing around on me?”

“I have not! I’m a gentleman!”

“Who says so?”

“My mother.”

“A blind woman?”

“No! She’s a hovering buzzard of a mother. She watches us like a hawk! You wouldn’t believe what a weasel she is in questioning our conduct!”

“Hmmm.” She narrowed her eyes. “A hawk, a weasel and a buzzard? Genetically, you’re an interesting combination. What influence did your father contribute?”

“He showed us that it’s never worth the time to argue. Any man who argues with a woman only gets in deeper. All a guy can do is to just do everything her way and leave the house as soon as he can.”

“One of those.”

“Dad taught us that a guy can go back again. Just to wait long enough for her to calm down and miss him.”

“I believe that is a very stupid thing to do. While she’s trying to communicate, you ought to listen to her. You just might learn something. If you keep walking out until the quarrel blows over, you won’t really know what’s wrong. The quarrel might heal over, but it’ll fester and it could burst into a real problem.”

He looked over at her. “How’d you get that smart?”

“I’m a woman.”

He was silent. He coughed once. He licked his lips. Then he finally glanced over at her. She was sitting in a serene manner, looking out of her window. She had spoken.

He coughed another time or two.

She turned her head slowly and asked with a false concern, “Swallow a bone?”

He laughed as he said, “Probably.”

She suggested, “Stop the car and I’ll whack you on the back.”

“I hesitate to ask on the back…of what?”

“How many backs do you have?”

“There’s the back of my head, the back of my knees, the back of—”

Prissily, she instructed, “When one chokes, one swats the chokee on the back of his chest.”

“Oh.”

In a disbelieving tone, she inquired, “You’ve never done that before?”

“Nobody I know chokes.”

“You probably reply differently to those you know well.”

“Different…from what?”

“Friends who aren’t women. My telling you I knew because I am a woman caused you to choke. What have you thought I was? I’m told I do look female.”

With some seriousness, he allowed her the tribute. “You think like a man.”

“No. I think like a human.”

“Do you think men think like…humans?”

“Very few. Mostly they just go along thinking like men do.”

“In…what way?”

“Basics.”

Ed thought about that as he drove along with exceptional skill. “Yeah. You got it right. Men do that. On occasion we talk to women just to see how their minds work. It is always a remarkable insight. Women are different.”

“I know.”

“My place?”

She moved her head in a slow, discarding motion and her mouth was about to form the word no.

Ed saw that and said, “I have a good friend who was recently a victim of company downsizing. I need to check in with him.”

“It’s almost eleven o’clock.”

“He’s always been a night owl. He’ll be up another hour. He gets to sleep later in the mornings.”

“Kids?”

“Yeah.”

“And his wife works?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s feeling abandoned.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay. But you could just drop me off.”

“If I did that, I’d be too late in getting to Charlie.”

“Why…too late?”

“Well, I spent a lot of money on you to—”

“I’ll pay my half.”

“—and we need to share the savoring of the various things we ate and discuss them so it was worth-while to do all that eating. What do you remember especially? No…don’t start. I have to call Charlie, first.”

“You can call from my apartment.”

“Which one?”

“The one I’ll be living in.”

“Well, I really think it would be better to call Charlie from my place. He’s going to want to talk too long, and I can tell him I’ve got to get you home at a reasonable time.”

That sounded logical. Which just proves how sly men can be.

She commented, “As I recall, the apartment house is closest, and you can drop me there first and go on home and let Charlie take his time. He probably needs to get rid of all the distress…like women who need to talk to their husbands.”

Ed blinked. Was she teaching him to be a husband? Him? No way. He said, “The call’ll only be ten minutes, and we’ll have the opportunity to discuss the skill of the chef before it all fades from our palates.”

Actually, her nod acknowledged his slyness. Well, what did she expect of a man who was sly and thirty-seven?

Ed drove back to his place. When he came around the car to open her door, the door was locked but she said, “Since it won’t take you long, I’ll just wait here.”

He took his car key out and unlocked her door quite smoothly. He smiled and said, “I don’t want to leave you out here alone. You’ll be safer inside.”

She looked around the calm compound. She slid her eyes over to the probable Mr. Hyde person waiting to take her arm and help her from the shelter of his car.

Inside, she smiled. She was expert in karate. She exited the car. He was past due in finding out about real women.

They entered his dark apartment. She observed mildly, “You ought to have small lights in a socket in each room. Then you wouldn’t break a toe or be surprised.”

He smiled and reached for her but missed as she moved to a lamp. He got to watch as it turned on. She wasn’t
that
young! Well, he’d teach her.

He went to the phone and dialed Charlie’s number. Supposedly. He actually dialed the police desk. It was always busy. He got a cop. He said, “Sorry,” and redialed Charlie’s number.

And
it
was busy!

So he put down the phone and said, “It might take a minute or two.” He indicated the sofa and said, “Sit over there by the lamp. The light on your hair is so pretty.”

She chose a chair instead. She picked up
Field and Stream
and flipped through it with some casual interest.

He watched her. He knew she would look up eventually and get up out of that chair and come to him, her body starving for his. She’d wrap herself around him like a two-legged boa constrictor. He’d struggle like his mother had always warned, but she would conquer him.

She went on reading.

He knew that she lusted for him but she was being stern with her libido. She hungered for his body. He considered. He hadn’t had thoughts like that since he was about…fifteen. What was it about her?

He realized she was controlling herself.

Her breathing was slow and calm. How rude of her.

He tried Charlie again. Charlie’s phone was still busy. Ed wondered whose shoulder was wet by then? Who was Charlie’s other contact? Well, that did make it easier on Ed if Charlie had found another ear to bend with all his problems.

He looked over at the twenty-three-year-old innocent. She was still reading the magazine. How many women read
Field and Stream?
Probably more than he’d ever realized.

He said, “Find something else interesting?”

He expected her to put down the magazine and laugh, but she apparently finished the paragraph and then looked up as she kept her place with one finger. She inquired, “Ready?”

That set off all his idle cells, but then she said, “This is an old issue, you’ve probably already read it. Do
you mind if I borrow it for a couple of days? This article on bass fishing is especially good.”

He gave up.

He said, “Charlie’s line’s busy. I might just as well take you home.”

She was already rising from the chair as he talked. No romance in her. She was a dud. Zero.

He deliberately took his car keys from his pocket as if to obey her immediately. He did so in such a manner that she would think he’d brought her there just for the phone call.

Then, as if it had just hit him, he said, “I have a really good liqueur. It will touch your palate so gently that you’ll smile.”

“Not this time.”

How could any woman already twenty-three years old be so dumb?

A
s is only right, Ed told Marcia, “I took you out, fed you and I’m committed to getting you back to— one of your apartments safe and sound. I get a kiss.”

She tilted her head back and looked at him soberly from the sides of her eyes and from behind those lashes. She asked, “If I took you out, fed you and used my own car, would I be given a kiss?”

He added, “If you behaved right.”

“Have you?”

“Have I—what.”

She explained, “Have you behaved properly?”

“Haven’t I?”

Since he was standing there, waiting for her to go to his car, he got to see her chest as she shrugged and replied, “So far.”

Ed glanced aside discreetly. He’d been taught young by his older brother not to stare at females. Ed growled, “What do you mean ‘so far’ when you’re practically back home again?”

She turned her head as she looked aside. “I’m still in your apartment and not yet home.”

He was predictably indignant “Don’t you trust me?” That old hack.

“So far.”

He was earnest. “You could be naked, in bed with me and I’d not touch you if you didn’t want it.”

She picked up her bulky shoulder purse. “Has that worked very often?”

“No.” He said, “Quit being so snooty. You are going home.”

Walking toward the door, she questioned kindly, “Have I behaved properly?” She had the gall to ask that of him.

“No.”

That did surprise her. She laughed.

He complained, “You haven’t flirted or wiggled or brushed against me or leaned over to whisper to me or—”

“Whisper?”

“—salaciously,” he seriously instructed the neophyte. Then he continued on in listing her faults. “You didn’t convulse over my jokes.” In a mature voice he explained, “A slight smile doesn’t do it. You need to practice. The next guy won’t be as tolerant as I am.”

“You’re…tolerant?”

He nodded emphatically. “Killingly.” He was sure. “Come on, get in the car, you’re almost home, Goldilocks.”

“My hair is brown. I live in an apartment.”

He instructed her with mature knowledge, “You’re too young being off on your own this way. You ought
to go back home before some really lecherous guy finds you.”

She was so shocked that she put her hand on her uneven chest and gasped, “You’re a gentleman?”

“Yeah. Thank your guardian angel that I am.”

For some reason, she then tried her damnedest to muffle her spurt of giggles.

He knew that maturity would finally smooth her, but it would be long after he’d left for California. He wouldn’t be witness to her metamorphosis. Some other guy would be the luc—the victim.

Ed opened the front door of his place and waited as she took her own sweet time in walking past him and out to the parked car. She carried the magazine as if she was just a friend and would see him again to give it back. Well, he’d finished reading it anyway.

She had the gall to wait until he opened the car door. It was locked. He unlocked it. He watched as she moved and slid her legs and body gracefully into his car.

She could slide under him that same way. She ought to wear fewer clothes. She was probably a virgin. She was any man’s nightmare.

Thinking that, he closed her door with just the strength of his hands pressing firmly. Men never realize how much strength they use so casually.

Sitting safely inside his car, she flicked down the lock on the door between them. He was outside. She was safely in his car.

He had the key.

He walked around, unlocked the driver’s door and got in. He closed the door, and they were isolated from the rest of the world. She was with him.

Why did he feel so possessive of her? He looked over at her, and she was just a woman.

A frail woman who needed a strong man to protect her…to lead her through the beginnings of adulthood. She needed him. He looked over at her and smiled a little.

He started the car and eased it from the compound. He glanced at her. She was looking at the side street. She looked around a lot, he’d noticed.

Few women kept everything in sight. Marcia was aware of where she was and who all was around. Women…actually, women weren’t always that observant.

Was she looking for—another man? Someone other than Edgar Hollingsworth? He wasn’t chopped liver. But he was leaving Illinois. He was going to California.

He’d take her back to her apar—to the interim apartment, and he’d let go of her.

How could he “let go” of her when the only time he’d held her was when they were dancing? He looked over at the silent woman. She didn’t say much. She could talk, but the way she talked was cheeky and snotty. She thought she was equal to men.

Watching the street, glancing at the sidewalks and the cross streets, Ed also glanced at the silent woman.
Was it her silence that attracted his desire to ruffle her? What caught her attention?

Why should he care? He wasn’t interested. Not in her or any other woman. He was going to California. He’d call John the very next day and talk to him. Feel out the job.

He’d like to feel her out. That woman who was over there not two feet away but acting as if she was already safely home.

It must be kind of tough on a woman going out with an unknown man. She’d taken a big risk coming out with a man so much older and more experienced than she. Maybe she was stupid. Then he wondered if she was actually a tramp.

After all, Marcia had the apartment from Elinor. That was a clue as to her contacts. Maybe Marcia would have a couple of men living with her, just like Elinor had.

Ed looked over at Marcia. Naw. She wasn’t alluring enough. She didn’t know any tricks to take tricks. She was just a female.

An interesting one.

Not really. She wasn’t chatty. She just looked around. She hadn’t paid her half of the dinner bill nor had she returned his loan for her gambling spree.

He’d never considered she’d repay his stake. He’d invited her to go with him. Staking her was part of the date. She’d fed him supper. He’d taken her out for dessert.

They were already at the apartment house. He pulled up to the entrance and got out. She opened her own door and was out before he could help her.

She said, “It was a lovely evening. Thank you.”

“I’ll see you to your door.”

“No need. I’ll be okay.”

“My father told me that I’d have to do this until I was married.”

She questioned, “Did that keep you from marrying? You have a door fetish?”

He sighed with some patient drama. “You owe me a kiss.”

She had the gall to inquire, “Why?”

“I’ve been a good host, I’ve spent the entire evening entertaining you and I have a tension headache.”

She dug into her rather bulky purse. “I have an aspirin here somewhere. We’ll fix that headache right now.”

He expanded the premise. “A kiss does it. I can’t take aspirin. I have to be kissed by a nubile woman. Preferably a nubile virgin.”

She looked at him with interest. “Does that sort of baloney work for you?”

“With tenderhearted women, it does. Are you tenderhearted?”

“No.” She came up with a small bottle. She set the bulky purse on the sidewalk by her feet and opened the aspirin bottle.

With a serious face, he said, “Aspirin doesn’t do it for me.”

“Oh.” She observed him. There was a ghost of a smile that had touched her lips. Was it a smile or the beginnings of a sneer? A woman that age shouldn’t be that smart.

She asked, “So. What do you do for a headache.” It really wasn’t a question. She was just curious what he’d say.

“Baseball. Tomorrow the Chiefs play. Go with me to the game and my headache will be cured.”

She considered him quite seriously. “I’ll have to see if I can arrange the time.”

“I’ll help you paint.” My God, the ultimate sacrifice!

“No.”

She’d said it so quickly that he frowned at her.

She amended, “I’ll see if I can get my day’s painting in earlier. I’ll have to let you know. I’ll leave a message on your phone by noon. Would that be too late?”

“I’ll come over.”

“No.” It was quickly said.

Ed was caught by that. “Why not?”

“It’s my obligation. I’ll call you by noon.”

He frowned. “That won’t give us much time.”

“I’ll sing the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ to you on the way—if I can manage to go.”

By then, they were at her interim apartment. She had her keys out as her dad had obviously taught her.
She unlocked the door, and he stood watching her. Why had he invited her to the ball game? What idiot thing had made his mouth blurt out the invitation?

She had accepted.

She opened the door and turned. “It was a lovely evening. I haven’t been so lavishly entertained in all my life. It was elegant. And so are you.”

Then she stretched up along his body and kissed him!

Before he realized he hadn’t been hit on the back of his head by a four-by-four, he was still only beginning to move his hands up—and she closed the door.

That quick!

He was still reeling from her kiss. How’d a twenty-three-year-old ever learn to do
that?

In something of a paralyzed shock, he turned slowly and got to find out that going downstairs takes more concentration than he’d ever realized. Either that, or someone had rearranged the stairs.

He got into his car and drove around for a while. Since he’d lived in Peoria all his life, he didn’t get lost. He finally found his way back to the compound. Then he walked around rather aimlessly.

He realized he was on the street below her interim window. He felt the urge to yowl like a tomcat. She’d probably heave down one of her paint-splattered boots.

He walked back toward the compound a changed man. Changed? Entrapped? Of course not. It had just
been a while since he’d been kissed that way. How rude of her not to carry a warning sign.

How embarrassing to be sundered by a neophyte’s kiss. At his age? She was fourteen years younger than he! What in hell were the kids of today coming to?

On the sloppily plotted way back to the compound, Ed decided it wasn’t her skill that had boggled him so shockingly. It was his almost six month acrid desert of being out of a job and being only friendly with uninterested women.

Ed hadn’t had a kiss like that in too long. He was vulnerable. Well, they’d be at the ball game, so he ought to be relatively safe tomorrow.

At his place, he stripped, took a cold shower, two aspirin and drank a cup of warm milk. All night long, he slept the sleep of the gods who don’t need sleep, and he chased young females in wisps of gossamer through sheep pastures.

Ed wakened with dark circles under his eyes and a disgruntled attitude. He was thirty-seven years old and past all this nonsense. After the ball game, he’d mark the new woman off his list.

List? What list?

Of course, he went to the apartment building to look around. Everything was being taken care of on schedule. The carpenters for the seriously needed repair work were courteous but went on working. No one had time for him. He went to his parents’ house and sat talking to his dad at the kitchen table.

His dad asked, “Who is she?”

Ed looked up in shock. “Who is who?”

His mother corrected, “Whom.”

“What’re’ya talking about?”

His mother said, “Don’t slur your words together.”

His dad laughed.

That irritated the liver out of Ed. He soon excused himself, kissed his mother’s cheek, patted his dad’s shoulder…and left.

It was almost noon. He hurried home and punched his answering machine. Charlie had called. He sounded better. They were having a supper party on Friday. Bring a French loaf.

Carl had called to say hello. Call back.

John from California called, “You can see the state is stable. Come see us.”

And the neophyte had called to say, “It’s a go! See you at noon. I’ve been singing scales all night and will be able to do justice to the national anthem.”

Sassy. This was the last time he’d see her. It was just a good thing he was rejecting her.

How interesting it was that she was getting easier with him just as he was freezing up. Hmmm.

Marcia was at the outside door dressed in a long-sleeved cotton shirt, long cotton trousers, a billed hat and walking sports shoes. She had an over-the-shoulder looped carryall.

She didn’t wait for him to get out and escort her to the car; he just had to reach over and unlock the door as she tugged at the door handle,

She grinned and said, “This is the perfect day.”

How come she hadn’t been this enthusiastic when he was considering her? He was rejecting her. This was the last time they’d be together. He could be pleasant.

She moved her bag carefully and explained, “I realize we’ll eat hot dogs. You can’t go to a baseball game and eat anything else and still be true to tradition.”

He nodded soberly.

She laughed. “I brought lemonade. I figured during the afternoon you’d want a couple of beers. You can’t drive under the influence, so I’ll be sober and drive you home. You’re only a mile from the apartments, so I can walk back. You are allowed, this time, to drink beer but not get soused.”

“Soused?”

“You may indulge but not get drunk.”

He briefly slid his eyes over to her. If he
seemed
to get drunk, she might be Samaritan enough to put him to bed—Yeah. He’d get her.

Such a decision can be tricky.

As Ed drove them along, she sang the “Star-Spangled Banner” quite well. She did it with respect, quite seriously, and wiped her eyes when she’d finished. She said, “It gets me every time.”

He cleared his throat, but he didn’t say anything. The words of the song got to him, too.

Both being from Peoria, in the baseball crowd they did see quite a few people they knew. That wasn’t unusual for home folks. They saw family, those from work, from schools they’d attended and neighborhood friends.

While traditionally, the Hollingsworths sat along the first baseline, the Phillips kin were third base devotees. The ill-assorted pair sat along the first baseline. In their case, the identities were reversed. She was the big-eyed owl and he was a tomcat.