covering me to the throat. I told her how I’d been in the family feed business back home in South Dakota, that we’d been bought out at a good price by a competitor, and that I wanted to spend some time on my own in New York before I decided what turn my life should take next. I made the story very sincere and very dull, hoping she’d lose interest and remember a pressing engagement, but apparently she found my words more fascinating than I did because she hung on every one of them, sitting on the edge of my bed with her fingers interlaced around her knees and her eyes wide and innocent.
“You want to find yourself,” she said. “That’s very interesting.”
“Well, I never even suspected that I was lost. But now that I’m really at loose ends—”
“I’m in the same position myself, in a way. I was divorced four years ago. Then I was working, not a very involving job, and then I quit, and now I’m on unemployment. I paint a little and I make jewelry and there’s a thing I’ve been doing lately with stained glass. Not what everybody else does but a form I sort of invented myself, these three-dimensional free-form sculptures I’ve been making. The thing is, I don’t know about any of these things, whether I’m good enough or not. I mean, maybe they’re just hobbies. And if that’s all they are, well, the hell with them. Because I don’t want hobbies. I want something to do and I don’t have it yet. Or at least I don’t think I do.” Her eyelashes fluttered at me. “You don’t really want soup for breakfast, do you? Because why don’t I run around the corner for coffee, it won’t take me a minute, and you can put on some clothes and I’ll be right back.”
She was on her way out the door before I had any chance to object. When it closed behind her I got out of bed and went to the toilet. (I would avoid mentioning this, but it was the first time in a long time that I knew what I was doing.) Then I put on yesterday’s clothes and sat in my favorite chair and waited to see what came through my door next.
Because it might well be the plant-watering lady with the coffee come to serve breakfast to the earnest young man from South Dakota.
Or it might be the minions of the law.
“I’ll just run around the corner for coffee.” Sure. Meaning she’d just recognized the notorious murdering burglar, or burgling murderer (orbungling mumbler, or what you will), and was taking this opportunity to (a) escape his clutches and (b) let Justice be done.
I thought about running but couldn’t see any real sense in it. As long as there was a chance she wasn’t going to the cops, then this apartment was a damn sight safer than the streets. At least that’s how my reasoning went, but I suspect the main factor was inertia. I had a bloodstream full of last night’s lousy Scotch and a head full of rusty hardware and it was easier to sit than to run.
I could drag this out, but why? I didn’t have to wait for the door to open to know she’d come back alone. I heard her steps on the stairs, and there is just no way that a herd of cops can ascend a staircase and sound in the process like a diminutive young lady. So I was relaxed and at ease long before the door opened, but when it did in fact open and her pert and pretty face appeared, I must confess it pleased me. Lots.
She had bought real coffee, astonishingly enough, and she now proceeded to make a pot of it. While she did this we chatted idly and easily. I’d had a chance to practice my lies during her absence, so when she told me her name was Ruth Hightower I was quick to reply that I was Roger Armitage. From that point on we ruthed and rogered one another relentlessly.
I said something about the airlines having lost my luggage, tossing the line in before it could occur to her to wonder at my lack of possessions. She said the airlines were always doing that and we both agreed that a civilization that could put a man on the moon ought to be able to keep track of a couple of suitcases. We pulled up chairs on