As she handed me the garments, she murmured, “Get out if you have the chance.”
“What about Raymond?”
“Don’t worry about it. I can handle him.”
“Everything okay?”
Raymond was standing in the doorway. He’d taken off his sport coat and his shoulders looked narrow without its bulk.
She turned on him in a flash. “Do you fuckin’ mind? We’re having a private conversation here if it’s any of your business.”
He flicked a look at me, embarrassed.
“I think I’ll take a shower,” I murmured.
He held out a package. “Here’s your toothbrush.”
“Thanks.”
I took the bag and moved past him, eager to escape. There’s nothing worse than being present when a couple gears up for battle. Both were making covert attempts to enlist my sympathy, and the nonverbal recruitment process was making my stomach churn.
I went into the guest bathroom and locked the door behind me. I hung my tank top over the doorknob to discourage anyone from peeping through the keyhole. My toes started curling at the state of the bathroom, which had all the charm one might picture in a military latrine. I’ve never been good at walking around barefoot in public locker rooms, where the floors always seem to be littered with hair, rusted bobby pins, and disintegrating clumps of spongy wet Kleenex. I won’t describe the sink. The glass shower door had been cracked and mended with plumber’s tape, and the metal track in which the door slid was crusty with soap scum. A long pointed stain extended from the shower head to the top of the tub itself. There was a plastic bottle of generic shampoo in the corner and I picked it up gingerly, my lips pursing with distaste.
I put paper on the rim of the toilet and availed myself of the facilities. While I was sitting there, I extracted Dolan’s telephone number from my right sock. I committed it to memory, tore the slip of paper in tiny pieces, and tossed them in the bowl, flushing it afterward. The water wouldn’t go down. The tiny pieces of paper, like confetti, whirled around and around with an agonizing laziness while the water level rose dangerously close to the rim. Oh, great. The toilet was going to overflow. I began to wave my hands, whispering, “Get back … get back.” Finally, the water subsided, but I didn’t care to try to flush again until the tank refilled. I cupped a hand to my ear without picking up any indication that this was happening. If Raymond burst in, would he fish out the pieces of the note and try to paste them all together? Surely not.
I opened the toilet tank. There were plastic packets taped along the sides of the tank … probably heroin or cocaine. Now there’s a concept. If the cops ever raided the place, they’d sure be fooled by that. One of the pouches was jammed up against the ball cock machine. I pushed it aside and rattled the lever. The tank began to fill. Finally, the toilet flushed with gallumphing sounds – a triumph of personal ingenuity and low-grade plumbing skills. My Dick Tracy secret code was safely washed out to sea.
The shower water was tepid to begin with, but I managed to lather myself with a tiny bar of soap that said “Ramada Inn.” I shampooed my hair and was just rinsing it when the hot water ran out. I finished in haste. The only towel in the bathroom was thin, stiff, and dingy from use. I patted myself dry with my tank top and got dressed.
When I emerged from the bathroom, dirty clothes in hand, the apartment was quiet. I peered into the living room. Luis had apparently gone home. Raymond and Bibianna were nowhere in sight. The door to the master bedroom was closed, and I could hear voices raised heatedly in Spanish. I leaned my head close, but I really couldn’t understand a word of it. I returned to the living room. Perro had been secured to the couch again, and he was chewing happily on the leather portion of the chain leash mat restrained him. The minute he saw me, he rose to his feet, the hair standing up along his back in a ridge. He lowered his head and began to hum down in his chest. To reach the front door, I’d have to pass within inches of him. Skip that, I thought.
The telephone, a touch tone, had been sitting on the coffee table. Now there was no sign of it. I scanned the room without result. Apparently, Raymond had unplugged the instrument at the jack and had taken it into the bedroom with him. That wasn’t very trusting. I backed up, turning left into a short hallway. The other bedroom contained a dilapidated brown couch and a bare mattress with a couple of pillows minus the cases.
I went to the window overlooking the street. I flipped open the locking mechanism and pushed at the aluminum-framed sliding window, which I managed to hump back in its track with a minimum of squeaks. It’s not that I was looking for an immediate avenue of escape. I just like to know where I am and what’s possible in the event of an emergency. I leaned close and angled my head so I could see in all directions.
To my right, the face of the building was shabby and plain, a sheer drop of some twenty-plus feet to bare sidewalk. No balconies, no wood trim, and no trees within range. From what I could see, this was a neighborhood of tacquertas and strip joints, auto body shops and pool halls, all of it as torn and deserted as a war zone. I checked to my left and was heartened to see a zigzagging metal stairway. At least in a pinch, I’d have access to the world at large.
I surveyed the room behind me, so exhausted I could hardly stand. I opted for the lumpy couch, which was slightly too short to stretch out on fully. The cushions smelled of dust and stale cigarette smoke. I pulled my knees up and crossed my arms, hugging them in against me for solace. I didn’t care what was happening, I had to get some sleep.
When I woke, I could tell from the slant of light in the room that it was close to four o’clock. The days had already begun to seem truncated, the premature darkness signaling the sudden onset of winter. At this point, annually, all the furnaces are turned on. The new cord of oak is delivered and stacked. This is the season when Californians, by agreement, begin to bring out their woolens, complaining loudly of the cold when it’s only fifty degrees out – as close to freezing temperatures as we’re likely to get.
The apartment was still quiet. I got up and tiptoed out to the living room. Perro was snoring, but I figured it was just a ruse. He was hoping I’d try to sneak past him so he could leap up and tear my ass off. I edged to my left, into the dining area, which formed a straight line with the galley-style kitchenette. I’d popped in there briefly when I helped myself to a beer, but I hadn’t been able to check for exits. I was hoping for a back door, but the kitchen was a dead end and there didn’t appear to be any other way out.
I glanced over at the kitchen table, which was still covered with stacks of papers. I picked up a sheaf and sorted through. What ho! Well, at least now I knew what had made the guy so cross. These vicious-looking batos locos had been licking their pencil points, trying to fill out insurance forms for a series of bogus injuries they couldn’t even spell right. “Wiplash” and “bruces” and “panes in my looer and uper bake.” One had written: “Were drivin north wen this car hit us from behine and nockt us into a telepone phole. I bump my hed on the winsheld, suffrin bruces. Ever sins the acident, I hadve wiplash and panes in my nek. Also, bad hedakes, dobull vishun and shootin panes in my bake.”
The attending physician on most forms was a Dr. A. Vasquez, with a chiropractor named Fredrick Howard running a close second in popularity. Now that I looked closely, I realized that all the “victims” had given identical accounts of their “accidents.” What Tomas had been doing was copying out the same information on form after form. Properly briefed or not, my investigative instincts began to stir and I could feel my excitement mount. This was part of what Dolan and Santos were looking for, grand theft in progress with the names of the players spelled out nice and neat. There was no sign of a file cabinet, from what I’d seen so far, but Raymond had to keep all the paperwork somewhere. I chose a completed claim form at random, folded it quickly, and shoved it down my blouse front, patting it into place. I left the remaining papers as I’d found them and returned to the spare room, crackling faintly as I walked. When I reached the doorway, I spotted Raymond standing near the window, going through the pouch of personal possessions I’d brought with me from the jail.