The agent finally came on the line and helped me get the reservations I needed. There was a flight from Louisville to Chicago at 7:12 p.m., arriving at 7:22, which reflected the hour’s time difference. After a brief layover, I then connected to a flight departing from Chicago at 8:14 p.m., arriving in Los Angeles at 10:24, California time. The flight to Santa Teresa left at 11:00 and arrived forty-five minutes later. That last connection was tight, but the agent swore the arrival and departure gates would be close to one another. Since I was traveling without luggage, he didn’t think it would be a problem. He did advise me to get to the airport an hour in advance of flight tune so I could pay for the ticket.
He’d just put me on hold when Ray stuck his head in the door, a clean towel in one hand. “That’s for you,” he said, tossing it on the bed. “When you finish your call, you can hop in the shower. There’s a robe hanging on the door. Ma says she’ll throw your clothes in the wash when you’re ready.”
I put a palm across the mouthpiece and said, “Thanks. I’ll bring ’em right out. What about the stuff in the car?”
“She’s got that already. I brought everything in.”
He started to depart and stuck his head around the door again. “Oh. I almost forgot. Ma says there’s a one-hour cleaners in the same mall as the market. You want to give me your jacket, I can drop it off before we go shopping and pick it up on the way back.”
The agent had come back on the line and was already busy reconfirming the flight arrangements while I nodded enthusiastically to Ray. With the receiver still tucked in the crook of my neck, I emptied the pockets of my blazer and handed it to him. He waved and withdrew while I finished up the call.
I headed for the bathroom, where with a quick search I uncovered the belly harness tucked down in the clothes hamper. I hauled it out and inspected it, impressed by the ingenuity of the construction. The housing resembled an oversize catcher’s face mask, a convex frame made of semiflexible plastic tubing, wrapped with padding, into which countless bound packets of currency had been packed. Heavy canvas straps secured the harness once in place. I checked a couple of packets, riffling through five-, ten-, twenty-, and fifty-dollar notes of varying sizes. Many bills seemed unfamiliar and I had to assume were no longer in circulation. Several packets appeared to be literally in mint condition. It grieved me to think of Laura covering day-to-day expenses with bank notes that a serious collector would have paid dearly for. Ray was a fool to stand by while his daughter threw it all away. Who knew how much money still remained to be uncovered?
I tucked the harness down in the hamper. I’m big on closure and not good at leaving so many questions unanswered. However, (she said) this was not my concern. In six hours, I’d be heading for California. If there were additional monies in a stash somewhere, that was strictly Ray’s business. There was a blue chenille bathrobe hanging on a hook on the back of the door. I stripped out of the borrowed denim dress and underwear, pulled the robe on, and carried my dirty clothes out to the kitchen. Ray and Laura had apparently left on their errand. I could see yams on the stove, simmering in a dark blue-and-white-speckled enamel pan. Quart Mason jars of tomatoes and green beans had been pulled off the pantry shelves and placed on the counter. Briefly, I pondered the possibilities of botulism poisoning arising from improperly preserved foods, but what the heck, the mortality rate is only sixty-five percent. Ray’s mother probably wouldn’t have attained such a ripe old age if she hadn’t perfected her canning skills.
The door to the utility porch was open. That room wasn’t insulated and the air pouring out of it was frigid. Ray’s mother went about her business as if unaware of the chill. An early-model washer and dryer were arranged against the wall to the left. Tucked between them was a battered canister-style vacuum cleaner shaped like the nose cone of a spaceship. “I’m about to hop in the shower, Mrs. Rawson. Can I give you these?” I asked.
“There you are,” she said. “I was just loading the few things Laura give me. You can call me Helen if you like,” she added. “My late husband used to call me Hell on Wheels.”
I watched as she felt for the measuring cup, tucking her thumb over the rim so she could feel how far up the side the detergent had come. “I’ve been considered legally blind for years, and my eyes is getting worse. I can still make my way around as long as people don’t go putting things in my path. I’m scheduled for surgery, but I had to wait until Ray come home to help out. Anyway, I’m just yammering on. I don’t mean to keep you.”
“This is fine,” I said. “Can I help with anything?”
“Oh no, honey. Go ahead and get your shower. You can keep that robe on ’til your clothes is done. Won’t take long with these old machines. My friend, Freida Green, has new and it takes her three times as long to run a load through and uses twicet the water. Soon as I’m done with this, I’m going to put some corn bread together. I hope you like to eat.”
“Absolutely. I’ll be out shortly and give you a hand.”
The shower was a mixed blessing. The water pressure was paltry, the hot and cold fluctuating wildly in response to cycles of the washing machine. I did manage to scrub myself thoroughly, washing my hair in a cumulus cloud of soapsuds, lathering and rinsing until I felt fresh again. I dried myself off and pulled on Helen’s robe. I slipped into my Reeboks, my fastidious streak preventing me from walking around barefoot on floors only marginally clean. I’m generally not vain about my appearance, but I could hardly wait to get back into my own clothes.
Before returning to the kitchen, I used my telephone credit card to put in a long-distance call to Henry. He was apparently out somewhere, but his machine picked up. I said, “Henry, this is Kinsey. I’m in Louisville, Kentucky. It’s after one o’clock here and I’ve got a flight out at seven. I don’t know what time we’ll be heading for the airport, but I should be here for the next couple of hours. If it’s possible, I need to have you meet me at the airport. I’m almost out of cash and I don’t have a way to get my car out of hock. I can try borrowing the money here, but these people don’t seem all that dependable. If I don’t hear from you before I leave, I’ll call you as soon as I get to Los Angeles.” I checked the telephone number written on the round cardboard disk in the middle of the dial, reciting Helen’s number to him before I hung up. I ran a comb through my hair and moved back into the kitchen, where Helen put me to work setting the kitchen table.
Ray and Laura came back with my blazer, in a clear plastic cleaning bag, and an armload each of groceries, which we unpacked and put away. I hung my blazer on the knob just inside the bedroom door. Laura followed me, moving on into the bathroom to take her shower. The wash must have been done because I could hear the dryer rumbling against the wall. As soon as the load was dry, I’d pull my clothes out and get dressed.
In the meantime, Helen showed me how to peel and mash the yams while she cut apples and onions into quarters and put them in the frying pan with butter. Like a fly on the wall, I kept myself quiet, listening to Ray and his mother chat while she put supper together. “Freida Green’s house got broke into here about four months ago. That’s when I had all them burglar bars put on. We had a neighborhood meeting with these two police officers, told us what to do in case of attack. Freida and her friend, Minnie Paxton, took a self-defense course. Said they learned how to scream and how to kick out real hard sideways. The point is to break a fellow’s kneecap and take him down. Freida was practicing and fell flat on her back. Cracked her tailbone big as life. Minnie laughed so hard she nearly peed herself ’til she saw how bad Freida was hurt. She had to set on a bag of ice for a month, poor thing.”
“Well, I don’t want to hear about you trying to kick some guy.”