build a fire in weather like this? But it looked like it had been used plenty.
A flat-panel TV was on the opposite wall—it kept showing different pictures of flowers, one after another. Pyramid speakers al most as tall as me in two far corners. I couldn’t hear any hum, but I could feel the A/C.
No windows. None at all. But two doors. Besides the door we came through, there was one behind where she was sitting.
“You want anything?”
“Water would be great.”
“Go through the door behind me. The kitchen’s to the right.”
Making sure I got the message: she wasn’t the maid; she was the owner.
The kitchen was all stainless steel. I could see a side-by-side refrigerator-freezer, an oven, even a chrome microwave, but no stove. There was a long strip of something laid into the top of what had to be a fifteen-foot slab of ash-gray granite—maybe that’s where they cooked.
The refrigerator had all kinds of drinks. I didn’t want to go poking through all those stainless-steel cabinets looking for a glass, so I just took the biggest bottle of water I could find and went back inside.
“That’s Containe,” she told me, pointing at the bottle I was holding.
“Not water?”
“It’s fortified water.”
I uncapped the bottle and took a big swig. Tasted like water to me.
“You can’t taste the difference,” she said, like she was cutting me off before I could say it myself.
“It’s fine the way it is.”
“What it is, is enhanced,” she said, shaking her head a little when she said that last word—her hair kind of breezed before it settled down. A dark shade of red, easy to see against all that white.
Her blouse was almost the same color as her hair. A couple of buttons were opened. I could see that what she meant by “enhanced” covered more than a dye job on her hair.
“I’m Rena.”
“Stanley,” I said. “Stanley Wilson.”
“I like ‘Wilson’ better. You look like a guy who should have that one.”
“I don’t—”
“For your first name. So I’ll do that. Call you ‘Wilson,’ if you don’t mind.”
“Me? No.”
“It’s not like it’s your real name anyway,” she said. Not asking a question; just saying it.
“Is ‘Rena’ yours?”
“It’s what Albie liked.”
“You’re his … widow?”
“That’s a sweet way to put it.”
“Solly said—”
“Now, Solly, I am his niece.”
“For real?”
“What’s real? To me, he’s Uncle Solly. To him, I’m Rena. That’s the way I was introduced to him, understand?”
“Not really.”
She took a deep breath. She was either getting annoyed or showing off.
“Albie and Solly were brothers. And do not ask ‘For real?’ again, okay? Solly comes down here, oh, maybe seven, eight years ago. Albie meets him at the airport. They walk in, and here I am. Albie says, ‘Rena, this is your uncle Solly.’ And that’s the way it’s been ever since.”
“Okay.”
“How old do you think I am?”
“I don’t know. Twenty … seven?”
“I’ve been with Albie, it would have been exactly twenty years next month. What does that tell you?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m thirty-nine.”
“Okay,” I said, flashing on what Margo had told me about that age being the one any woman would lie about.
“That’s all?”
“Uh … you know why I’m here, right?”
I had to ask her like that. Fucking Solly never told me what to expect, so I didn’t know what she was expecting, either.
“Jessop.”
“That’s it.”
“Sure it is,” she said, as she stretched her hands high, like it was some kind of exercise. When she brought them down, she had another cigarette in her hand.
“You lost me,” I told her.
“Ssshhh,” she said as she blew out a long stream of smoke. “Go take a shower. Shave. Change your clothes. Call Solly—there’s some throwaway cells in the dresser. Take a nap. Whatever you have to do. I’ll be back here by … eight. We’ll have something to eat, okay?”
“Sure.”
We looked at each other for a few minutes. When she blew a smoke ring at the ceiling, I got up.
I did most of what Rena said. But I didn’t call Solly. I’m scared of cell phones. I know they can do all kinds of things with them. Anyway, Solly might still think I was carrying the one he gave me.
One good thing about prison, it teaches you what to do when you can’t do anything.
That little suite was like upscale solitary. I remember wishing solitary could be solitary, but the noise in there never stopped. Never. And the smells, they never changed, either.
“Wake up.”
I hadn’t even heard her coming.
I opened my eyes. She was standing in the doorway. Either she was smart enough never to touch