I showered and threw some clothes on, and then took off, fleeing the premises. I still felt stung, but I was getting in touch with some anger too. What business was it of hers anyway? And why hadn’t Henry leapt to my defense?
When I pushed into Rosie’s, it was late afternoon and there wasn’t a soul in sight. The restaurant was gloomy and smelled of last night’s cigarette smoke. The TV set on the bar was turned off and the chairs were still upside down on the tabletops, like a troupe of acrobats doing tricks. I crossed to the rear and opened the swinging door to the kitchen. Rosie glanced up at me, startled. She was sitting on a tall wooden stool with a cleaver in her hand, chopping leeks. She hated anyone intruding on her kitchen, probably because she violated health codes.
“What happened?” she said when she saw my face.
“I had an encounter with Henry’s lady friend,” I replied.
“Ah,” she said. She whacked a leek with the cleaver, sending hunks flying. “She don’t come in here. She knows better.”
“Rosie, the woman is crazy as a loon. You should have heard her the other night after you tangled with her. She ranted and raved for hours. Now she’s accusing me of cheating Henry on the rent.”
“Take a seat. I got some vodka somewhere.” She crossed to the cabinet above the sink and stood on tippytoe, tilting a vodka bottle into reach, She broke the seal and poured me a hit in a coffee cup. She shrugged then poured herself one too. We drank and I could feel the blood rush back to my face.
I said, “Woo!” involuntarily. My esophagus felt scorched and I could sense the contours of my stomach outlined in alcohol. I always pictured my stomach much lower down than that. Weird. Rosie placed the chopped leeks in a bowl and rinsed the cleaver at the sink before she turned back to me.
“You got twenty cents? Give me two dimes,” she said, holding a hand out. I fished around in my handbag, coming up with some loose change. Rosie took it and crossed to the pay phone on the wall. Everybody has to use that pay phone, even her.
“Who are you calling? You’re not calling Henry,” I said, with alarm.
“Ssss!” She held a hand up, shushing me, her eyes focusing in the way people do when someone picks up the phone on the other end. Her voice got musical and syrupy.
“Hello, dear. This is Rosie. What are you doing right this minute. Uh-hun, well I think you better get over here. We have a little matter to discuss.”
She clunked the receiver down without waiting for a response and then she fixed me with a satisfied look. “Mrs. Lowenstem is coming over for a chat.”
Moza Lowenstein sat on the chrome-and-plastic chair that I’d brought in from the bar. She is a large woman with hair the color of a cast-iron skillet, worn in braids wrapped around her head. There are strands of silver threaded through like tinsel, and her face, with its pale powder, has the soft look of a marshmallow. Generally, she likes to hold on to something when she talks to Rosie: a bouquet of pencils, a wooden spoon, any talisman to ward off’attack. Today, it was the dish towel she’d brought with her. Apparently, Rosie had interrupted her in the middle of some chore and she’d hurried right over, as bid. She’s afraid of Rosie, as anyone with good sense would be. Rosie launched right in, skipping all the niceties.
“Who is this Lila Sams?” Rosie said. She took up her cleaver and began to pound on some veal, making Moza flinch.
Her voice, when she found it, was trembly and soft. “I don’t really know. She came to my door, she said in response to an ad in the paper, but it was all a mistake. I didn’t have a room for rent and I told her as much. Well, the poor thing burst into tears and what was I to do? I had to ask her in for a cup of tea.”
Rosie paused to stare in disbelief. “And then you rented her a room?”
Moza folded the towel, forming a lobster shape like a napkin in a fancy restaurant. “Well, no. I told her she could stay with me until she found a place, but she insisted that she pay her own way. She didn’t want to be indebted, she said.”
“That’s called room rent. That’s what that is,” Rosie snapped.
“Well, yes. If you want to put it that way.”
“Where does this woman come from?”
Moza flapped the towel out and dabbed it against her upper lip, blotting sweat. She laid it out on her lap and pressed it with her hand, keeping her fingers together in a wedge like an iron. I saw Rosie’s flinty gaze follow every movement and I thought she might give Moza’s hand a smack with the cleaver. Moza must have thought so too because she quit fiddling with the towel and looked up at Rosie with guilt. “What?”
Rosie enunciated carefully, as though speaking to an alien. “Where does Lila Sams come from?”
“A little town in Idaho.”
“What little town?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Moza said defensively.
“You have a woman living in your house and you don’t know what town she comes from?”
“What difference does it make?”
“And you don’t know what difference it makes?” Rosie stared at her with exaggerated astonishment. Moza broke eye contact and folded the towel into a bishop’s miter.
“You do me a favor and you find out,” Rosie said. “Can you manage that?”
“I’ll try,” Moza said. “But she doesn’t like people prying. She told me that and she was quite definite.”
“I’m very definite too. I’m definite about I don’t like this lady and I want to know what she’s up to. You find out where she comes from and Kinsey can take care of the rest. And I don’t have to tell you, Moza, I don’t want Lila Sams to know. You understand?”
Moza looked cornered. I could see her debate, trying to decide which was worse: infuriating Rosie or getting caught spying on Lila Sams. It was going to be a close contest, but I knew who I was betting on.
Chapter 16
I went back to my office late in the day and typed up my notes. There wasn’t much, but 1 don’t like to get behind. With Bobby dead, I intended to write regular reports and submit itemized bills at intervals, even if it was just to myself. I had tucked his file back in the drawer and I was tidying up my desk when there was a tap at the door and Derek Wenner peered in.
He said, “Oh. Hello. I was hoping I’d catch you here.”
“Hi, Derek. Come on in,” I said.
He stood for a moment, undecided, his gaze tracing the perimeters of my small office space. “Somehow I didn’t picture this,” he said. “Nice. I mean, it’s small, but efficient. Uh, how’d you do with Bobby’s box? Any luck?”
“I haven’t had a chance to look closely. I’ve been doing other things. Have a seat.”
He pulled a chair up and sat down, still looking around. He was wearing a golf shirt, white pants, and two-tone shoes. “So this is it, huh?”
This was his version of small talk, I assumed. I sat down and let him ramble briefly. He seemed anxious and I couldn’t imagine what had brought him in. We made mouth noises at each other, demonstrating goodwill. I’d just seen him a few hours earlier and we didn’t have that much to talk about.
“How’s Glen doing?” I asked.
“Good,” he nodded. “She’s doing pretty well. God, I don’t know how she’s gotten through, but you know she’s made of substantial stuff.” He tended to speak in doubtful tones, as if he weren’t absolutely certain he was telling the truth.
He cleared his throat and the timbre of his voice changed.
“Say, I’ll tell you why I stopped in,” he said. “Bobby’s attorney gave me a call a little while ago just to talk about the terms of Bobby’s will. Do you know Varden Talbot?”
“We’ve never met. He sent me copies of the reports on Bobby’s accident, but that’s the extent of it.”
“Smart fellow,” Derek said. He was stalling. I thought I better goose him along or this could take all day.
“What’d he have to say?”
Derek’s expression was a wonderful combination of uneasiness and disbelief “Well, that’s the amazing thing,” he said. “From what he indicated, I guess my daughter inner-, its the bulk of Bobby s money.”
It took me a moment to compute the fact that the daughter he referred to was Kitty Wenner, cokehead, currently residing in the psycho ward at St. Terry’s. “Kitty?” I said.