He checked the sweet rolls again, and this time, he took them out and put the pan on the trivet to cool. He glanced over at me. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you. She and I are going into a real-estate venture together.”
“Oh really?”
“Which is how the subject of your rent came up in the first place. Rental income affects the overall value of the property and that was her main concern. She said she didn’t mean to interfere in our relationship at all. She’s hard-headed when it comes to business but she didn’t want to look like she was butting in.”
“What kind of real-estate venture?”
“Well, she owns some property she’s going to put up as collateral, and with this place thrown in, we’ll just about have the down payment on the property we want.”
“Something here in town?”
“I better not say. She swore me to secrecy. I mean, it’s not firm yet anyway, but I’ll tell you about it when we get the deal put together. It should be happening in the next couple of days. I had to swear I’d keep mum.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “You’re selling your house?”
“I can’t even begin to understand the details. Too complicated for me,” he said.
“I wasn’t aware that she was involved in real estate.”
“Oh, she’s been doing this sort of thing for years. She was married to some big wheeler-dealer in New Mexico, and when he died, he left her very well off. She’s got a bundle. Does real-estate investments almost as a hobby, she says.”
“And she’s from New Mexico? I thought someone told me it was Idaho.”
“Oh, she’s lived everywhere. She’s a gypsy at heart. She’s even talking me into it. You know, just take off into the sunset. Big RV and a map of the States. Go where the road takes us. I feel like she’s added twenty years to my life.”
I wanted to question him more closely, but I heard Lila’s “yoo hoo” at the screen door and her face appeared, wreathed in saucy curls. She put a hand to her cheek when she saw me, turning all sheepish and coy.
“Oh, Kinsey. I bet I know just what you’re doing here,” she said. She came into the kitchen and paused for a moment, hands clasped in front of her as though she might drop to her knees in prayer. “Now don’t say a word until I get this out,” she went on. She paused to peer over at Henry. “Oh Henry, you did tell her how sorry I was to fuss at her that way.” She was using a special “little” voice.
Henry put an arm around her, giving her a squeeze. “I’ve already explained and I’m sure she understands,” he said. “I don’t want you to worry any more about that.”
“But I do worry, Puddy, and I won’t feel right about it ‘til I tell her myself.”
Puddy?
She came over to the stool where I was perched and took my right hand, pressing it between her own.
“I am so sorry. I tell you I am so apologetic for what I said to you and I beg your forgiveness.” Her tone was contrite and I thought Puddy was going to get all choked up. She was making deep eye contact with me and a couple of her rings were digging into my fingers rather painfully. She had apparently turned the ring around so that the stones were palm inward, producing maximum effect as she tightened her grip.
I said, “Oh, that’s all right. Don’t think another thing about it. I’m sure I won’t.”
Just to show her what a brick I was, I got up and put my left arm around her just the way Henry had. I gave her the same little squeeze, easing my foot across the toe of her right shoe and leaning forward slightly. She pulled back from the waist, but I managed to keep my foot where it was so that we were standing hip to hip. We locked eyes for a moment. She gave me a gooey smile and then eased her grip. I shifted my weight from her foot, but not before two coins of color had appeared high up on her cheeks like a cockatiel.
Puddy seemed pleased that we’d come to this new understanding and I was too. I made my excuses and departed soon after that. Lila had stopped looking at me altogether by then and I noticed that she had sat down abruptly, easing off one shoe.
Chapter 17
I let myself into my apartment and poured a glass of wine and then I made myself a sandwich with creamed cheese and thinly sliced cucumbers and onions on dark bread. I cut it in half and used a piece of paper toweling as a combination napkin and dinner plate, toting sandwich and wineglass into the bathroom. I opened my bathroom window a crack and ate standing in the tub, peering out at intervals to see if Henry and Lila were departing for their dinner date. At 6:45, they came around the corner of the building and Henry unlocked his car, opening the door for her on the passenger side. I eased into an upright position, ducking back out of sight until I heard him start the car and pull away.
I’d finished dinner by then and I had nothing to do in the way of dishes except to wad up my paper towel and throw it in the trash, feeling inordinately pleased with myself. I traded my sandals for tennis shoes, grabbed up my master keys, my key picks, penknife, and a flashlight, then headed down the block to Moza Lowenstein’s house, where I rang the bell. She peered out of the side window at me in perplexity, the opened the door.
“I couldn’t think who it was at this hour,” she said. “I thought Lila must be coming back for something she forgot.”
I don’t ordinarily visit Moza and I could tell she was wondering what I was doing on her doorstep. She moved back and admitted me, smiling timidly. The television was tuned to a rerun of “M.A.S.H.,” helicopters whipping up a cloud of dust.
“I thought I’d do a little background check on Lila Sams,” I said, while “Suicide Is Painless” played merrily.
“Oh, but she’s just gone out,” Moza said in haste. It was already occurring to her that I was up to no good and I guess she thought she could head me off.
“Is this her room back here?” I asked, moving into the corridor. I knew Moza’s bedroom was the one at the end of the hall to the left. I figured Lila’s must be the former “spare” room.
Moza lumbered after me. She’s a big woman, suffering from some condition that makes her feet swell. Her expression was a cross between pain and bewilderment.
I tried the knob. Lila’s door was locked.
“You can’t go in there.”
“Really?”
She was looking fearful by now and she didn’t seem reassured by the sight of the master key I was easing into the keyhole. This was a simple house lock requiring only a skeleton key, several styles of which I had on a ring.
“You don’t understand,” she said again. “That’s locked.”
“No, it’s not. See?” I opened the door and Moza put a hand on her heart.
“She’ll come back,” she said with a quaking voice.
“Moza, I’m not going to take anything,” I said. “I will work with great care and she’ll never know I was here. Why don’t you sit out there in the living room and keep an eye open, just in case? O.K.?”
“She’ll be so angry if she finds out I let you in,” she said to me. Her eyes were as mournful now as a basset hound’s.
“But she won’t find out, so there’s nothing to worry about. By the way, did you ever find out what little town in Idaho she’s from?”
“Dickey is what she told me.”
“Oh good. I appreciate that. She never mentioned living in New Mexico, did she?”
Moza shook her head and began to pat her chest as if she were burping herself. “Please hurry,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do if she came back.”
I wasn’t sure myself.
I eased into the room and closed the door, flipping on the light. On the other side of the door, I heard Moza shuffling back toward the front of the house, murmuring to herself.
The room was furnished with an ancient wood-veneer bedroom suite that I doubt could be called “antique.” The pieces looked like the ones I’ve seen out on thrift-shop sidewalks in downtown Los Angeles: creaky, misshapen, smelling oddly of wet ash. There was a chiffonier, matching bed-tables, a dressing table with a round mirror set between banks of drawers. The bed frame was iron, painted a flaking white, and the spread was chenille in a dusty rose with fringe on the sides. The wallpaper was a tumble of floral bouquets, mauve and pale rose on a gray background. There were several sepia photographs of a man whom I imagined was Mr. Lowenstein; someone, at any rate, who favored hair slicked down with water and spectacles with round gold rims. He appeared to be in his twenties, smooth and pretty with a solemn mouth pulled over slightly protruding teeth. The studio had tinted his cheeks a pinkish tone, slightly at odds with the rest of the photo, but the effect was nice. I’d heard that Moza was widowed in 1945. I would have loved seeing a picture of her in those days. Almost reluctantly, I turned back to the task at hand.