by Carolyn Nash
“NO!” he said violently. He pushed up and away from me, dragging his head up until his eyes met mine. They glittered with fever. The skin of his face was drawn and grey; his red-blond hair dark with sweat. “You can’t. I told you.” He twisted his hand in the angora near my neck, pulling the sweater down. “Promise me!”
I nodded. “All right, I won’t. All right.”
He eased back against me, the stubble on his sweat-damp cheek rubbing on my skin. I held him, just barely rocking him, saying over and over, “All right, I won’t. All right.”
I had thought then that he was only resting, but when Harry came back and the young woman accompanying him knelt down and started examining the wound, Andrew didn’t even flinch.
I looked a question at Harry over the young woman’s back. “A friend,” he said.
The young woman met my eyes and smiled. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”
She pulled some things out of her bag and started snipping away the makeshift bandage and cleaning away the clotted blood. “This doesn’t look so bad,” she muttered.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“And… you’re not going to say anything.”
“No,” she said. “Harry said you were all right and, well, I have student loans to pay.”
When she finished bandaging him, she pressed a bottle of pills into my hand. “Antibiotics. You make sure he takes them just as the label says. He might get a fever, anyway, but these should knock it down.”
I nodded.
She sat back on her heels and studied my face. “You sure you can’t go to the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“I think he’ll be okay. He bled a lot, but the bullet doesn’t seem to have hit anything important on its way through. You keep him resting, give him plenty of fluids, and make sure he takes those pills and he should be all right. If he spikes a fever that wet compresses can’t help and that persists longer than 24 hours, you get him to a hospital, no matter what.”
I closed my eyes and sent a prayer of thanks skyward. “Yes, I will. Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much.” She left a few minutes later with several traveler’s checks in her hand.
I looked up at Harry. “I got a cab coming,” Harry said. “Guy’s a jerk, but he won’t ask too many questions and he’ll keep driving as long as you pay him.”
Andrew never stirred and when the taxi dropped down into the garage and came to a stop beside us, Harry had to carry him to the car. After Harry straightened, I turned to give him the seventy-five dollars.
He stepped back a pace and shook his head. “I don’t want your money. B’sides, looks like you’re gonna need it worse’n me.” The driver was craning his neck, looking from Andrew’s still form to the two of us standing by the car. “‘specially saddled with a drunk like that.” The driver sniffed, sneered and turned forward again.
Harry had lowered his voice and peered at me in the semidarkness. “You sure you can handle this?”
I nodded, even though I was not sure at all. “I can’t thank you enough,” I whispered before stretching up and kissing him on his broad cheek. As we were driving away, Harry had still been standing in the dim yellow light of the garage, watching us, and had lifted one large hand in farewell.
There are such good people in the world.
I shook my head.
Stop dreaming and think of something.
I looked out the cab window at the passing buildings. At that point we were driving through a residential neighborhood, the houses snug-looking old Victorians. I looked at the lighted windows and suddenly, violently envied the occupants of those houses who were safe and warm and home.
Home. Yes!
I leaned forward and tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Pull up when you see a newsstand. I want to get a paper.”
“I know it’s late and I’m sorry, but I really am getting desperate.” My voice quavered, and I didn’t need to try to make it so. It was the eighth call I’d made, standing in the cold at what might have been the last pay phone in San Francisco while the taxi idled nearby and Andrew shivered under my thin coat in the back seat. “My husband’s company only gave us two days to find a place to live and the furniture is coming tomorrow and my husband ate something at the airport that’s making him sick and I don’t know what else to do!” I stamped my feet and hugged myself, tucking my hand under my arm. Though the day had been unseasonably warm, the night had brought an overcast of thick clouds and a bone-chilling drop in temperature. Against it, my little angora sweater was of little help.
“Lady,” boomed the voice of the man on the phone. “It’s nine o’clock. You’re nuts if you think I’m going to show you an apartment at nine o’clock. Besides, I really don’t think you and your husband would like it here. Now it’s late and I’ve got to”
“Look,” I said. “Is it worth a $200 bonus, in cash, up front, for you to show me the place?”
The man hesitated. I could hear muffled words as he discussed it with someone on the other end. I held my breath, praying.
He came back on the line. “Okay, but I’m not saying I’ll let you have it. I’m only saying I’ll show it to you and you better have that money in your hot little hand.”
“Yes, yes I will. And thank you. Thank you so much. We’ll be right there.” I hung up quickly before he could change his mind.
“Here.” I ran back to the cab and shoved the paper over the seat. “That’s where we’re going.”
The driver grabbed it, tilted it into the light and then gave me an, are-you-nuts look. “What, this one?” He pointed at the last one circled. “You wanna go there?”
“Yes,” I snapped. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Just wouldn’t think it would be your kind of neighborhood,” he said.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! What possible difference...” I glared at the man. “Just put it in gear and go, will you?”
“Try to help some people.” He knocked the transmission into drive and the car lurched forward. A few minutes later we turned off on a little side street and pulled up under a street light in front of a large, old stucco house.
I leaned toward the driver. “Can you wait just a few minutes longer?”
He shrugged and pulled out his handkerchief again. Snort, snort, sniff, blow. “It’s your money.”
I watched the handkerchief get crammed back in his pocket and suppressed a shudder.
Andrew didn’t stir as I eased out from under him. I tucked the coat more tightly around him. “Hold on, just another couple of minutes,” I whispered.
The house looked to be at least 100 years old, built when plaster moldings of urns and wreaths were popular decor for porch uprights and door lentils. Up the cracked concrete walk, four cement steps led to a wide, dark porch that stretched across the front of the building. Bougainvillea grew up over lattice mounted on top of the low stucco walls that framed the cement porch. Robbed of their color by the darkness, the bushes created impenetrable shadows at each end of the porch. My high heels tapped hollowly on the tiles as I approached the front door. What was I getting myself into?
I looked back at the taxi. It idled at the curb, lit by the streetlamp at its right front fender. I could see the driver, but the back seat looked empty.
I took a deep breath and rapped sharply on the door. Almost instantly it swung inward and a shaft of bright light stabbed out at me. I held a hand up against it and squinted against the glare.
A man stepped into the wedge of light and stood, glaring at me. He was a large man, not exceptionally tall but massive with muscle which stretched the thin white material of his t-shirt and the worn denim of his Levis to their limits. Though he had an enormous, bushy, black mustache, his bare scalp glistened under the overhead light. He looked at me as if instead of finding a human being facing him across the threshold, he had opened the door only to find some alien life form that clearly disgusted him. “Well?” he asked.
I stepped forward. “I’m
Melanie Brenner. I came about the apartment.”
He rolled his eyes. “No kidding. Where’s the money?”
I pulled out the traveler’s checks.
His eyebrows went up and he began to shake his head. “You said cash.”
“This is cash, or just as good.”
He kept shaking his head as backed through the door and began to swing it closed. “No way, honey.”
I stepped forward, opened the booklet of fifty dollar checks and thrust them into the light. I leafed through them slowly, watching his face. “But they’re American Express.”
“Cash.” The door started closing again.
“Wait!” I pulled the seventy-five dollars that Harry had refused out of my pocket. “I have seventy-five in cash.”
The door stopped and the man stared at the checks. “Two hundred was the deal.”
“I know! But I only have seventy-five in bills!”
We stared at each other.
Another voice piped up from behind the door, a soft and cultured voice. “Show her the place, Doug. The worse that happens is you end up with seventy-five bucks.” A long-fingered hand reached around, grabbed the door and pulled it back and I saw the owner of the voice--a tall but small-boned, delicate man with a sweet, open face surrounded by soft, curling brown hair. I thought instantly of cherubs—no, not cherubs since they were small and round. More like cherubs who were older, perhaps in their early twenties, their faces longer, thinner but still angelic. I smiled at the thought and at him. He was simply beautiful. He responded with a dazzling smile and reached out to pat my hand.
“Don’t you worry, sweetie. We’ll show you the place.” He grabbed the sleeve of the larger man and pulled him back from the door.
“Tim,” the large man said.
“Oh, come on, Doug. It won’t kill you. Come along, sweetie, step in. Seventy-five you said?” He smiled and pulled the bills from my hand and tucked them down in his pocket. “So,” he said, hooking one of those delicate hands through my arm, “didn’t Doug tell me you had a husband? Didn’t he come along?”
“He’s waiting in the cab. He’s not feeling too well, something he ate, I think.”
“Oh, now isn’t that too bad. I have a terrible time with my stomach, too. The least little thing and I’m worshiping the porcelain god.”
I looked at him, startled, and he grinned and I found myself grinning back.
The apartment was in the back of the building, directly across the small lobby. Doug drove the key in the front door, twisted it sharply and shoved the door open so that it slammed back against the wall. Tim sailed past him, caught the door on the rebound and calmly pushed it back against the wall. He flipped the overhead light on, a small, lovely old chandelier of crystal and brass which flooded the room with a soft, warm light.
“As you can see, we come right into the living room, the kitchen is to the right, the bedroom to the left, and the bathroom is just off the bedroom.” He gestured widely, gracefully, theatrically, and somehow for him it looked perfectly natural. The living room was one step down and was wide and deep with high ceilings. The hardwood floors were obviously worn, but shone with a highly polished wax finish. A smoke-darkened brick fireplace was set in the wall to the right with a deep, carved mantel of some rich, dark wood around it. Around the tops of the walls were a reprise of the plaster moldings of urns and wreaths with vines twisting around them.
“Now my favorite part of this place is this.” Tim crossed the room to a set of French doors, turned the brass handles and flung them wide. The overhead light lit part of a wide patio and I could see the shadows of a wrought iron table and chairs to the left as well as some trees and a few shrubs beyond. “You can’t really see it right now but there is quite a nice garden that gets the light a good part of the day. And, there is another set of doors like this in the bedroom.”
I nodded. “Wonderful. It’s just lovely.”
Tim led me out and turned down a short hall to the kitchen. Doug followed us, standing just behind me, his arms folded tightly across his chest, his eyes narrow and angry. “As you can see the fireplace comes through into the kitchen.” The cabinets were of a light wood, the counters were yellow tile. Tim flung an arm around to point out the refrigerator and the stove. “Nice big room. The window over the sink looks out on the same garden, of course. Now down this way.” He led me back down the hall, past the living room to a small bedroom. As he had said, there were indeed French doors in this room as well, but I barely noticed them. Along one wall lay a king size mattress. Tim saw me looking at it. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll have that taken away.”
“No, no. It’ll be fine.” So much more than fine.
Tim continued to talk animatedly, pointing out the bathroom and the closet space, but Doug merely trailed us, his arms still folded, his lips tightly pressed together.
“Now, I know the bedroom is small,” Tim was saying, “but the kitchen and living room are large, so there’s plenty of room to do quite a lot with the place.” He touched my arm. “I really do think it’s got tons of potential, though the gentlemen who were here before just never did do a thing with it.”
I smiled trying to quell my nervousness. “It really is perfect and I would like to take it.”
His head cocked to the side. “Don’t you think your husband would like to see it first?”
“No, no. He really couldn’t care less. He’s so ill now that all he can think about is lying down somewhere.”
“Oh dear, poor thing. Where are you staying?”
I swallowed and looked from Tim’s inquisitive face to Doug’s closed, suspicious expression. “Actually, I was hoping here.”
The two men looked at each other. “Tonight?” Doug asked.
“Yes.”
Tim leaned in and his hand flitted over to touch my arm again. “Oh, but that wouldn’t be possible. There isn’t any furniture.”
“Yeah,” Doug scowled. “And I haven’t said you can have the place. You know there are such things as references and credit checks.”
“I’ll give you the money right now. First and last, a deposit, whatever.” I fumbled in my purse for the traveler’s checks. I looked from the tall slender man to the stocky man, both now with identical expressions of rejection and suspicion.
“Please,” I said, stretching out a hand, “I know it’s unusual but we need a place to stay and Andrew is so sick, I just want to get him settled, and there is a mattress and that’s all we need really. I’m going to run out and get some blankets.”
I could feel the tears start again; this time I encouraged them. It wasn’t difficult to do. I sank down on a crate near the door. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go anywhere else. I really can’t. I’ll give you anything you want but you’ve got to let us stay here tonight.”
The two men looked at each other, Tim hesitant and Doug openly scowling. It was the massive, bald, intimidating Doug who finally walked over to me. “Stop crying, will ya? Jesus! You can stay here and you don’t have to go buy blankets. We got some you can borrow until your stuff gets here. The water and the power are still on so it should be all right.”
I looked up at him, my mouth open, barely comprehending his words. I opened my purse again to find the checks, trying to see through the tears. “I don’t know how…”
“Then don’t,” he said gruffly. “And forget about the damn money. There’s plenty of time for that tomorrow. Come on, Tim. Let’s get the damn stuff for her and go to bed. Christ! It’s the middle of the damn night.”
He turned and stomped out of the room and Tim followed him. He stopped at the door and touched my arm and smiled. “See why I love him?”
CHAPTER 10
I ran down the porch steps, afraid suddenly that the street would be empty, the cab would be gone. But the cab sat at the curb, the motor still idling, the driver behind the wheel picking at the plastic steering wheel cover. It could have been my imagination, or maybe just the soft glow from the streetlamp, but whe
n I pulled open the rear door, Andrew even seemed to look a bit better.
The driver twisted around in his seat and scratched at his nose. I ignored him and leaned in across Andrew’s folded legs. His wrist felt hot and dry but his pulse beat evenly under my finger. “Andrew, please wake up. I’ve got a place for us to stay.” I put my hand under his cheek and turned his face into the light. “Andrew, please.”
The driver sniffed. “Is he still passed out?”
“Yes.”
He snorted. “Look, if he pukes in my cab you’re going to clean it up.”
I’ve never physically harmed anyone, or even really wanted to, but I had a fight on my hands just then trying to quell my sudden, overwhelming desire to do that narrow-faced little weasel serious bodily harm. “He’s not going to vomit,” I said.
The driver dug deep in his pocket and ceremoniously pulled out his handkerchief. “Well, just get him out.”
I slowly raised my eyes and looked at him over the back of the seat. The handkerchief stopped, then he briskly rubbed at his nose and turned forward again. I heard a rather feeble snort and blow from the front seat as I looked back at Andrew and gave his shoulder a gentle shake. “Please, Andrew. Wake up.”
He moaned slightly and his lips parted.
“Andrew?”
His eyes opened and he blinked a few times. “Melanie?” His voice was barely audible.
“Yes. Yes it’s me. Please Andrew, we’ve got to go.”
He nodded, then his eyes drifted closed again. I shook him again. “Listen to me! You’ve got to get up.”
He groaned and nodded slowly. “Okay, okay.” He shrugged my coat off his shoulders and tried to push off the seat, but he barely moved. “I can’t” His voice died and his eyes closed again.
“Andrew! No! Don’t let me down now. Please.”
This time when his eyes opened, they seemed to focus on me. He looked from me to the cracked red vinyl seat, up to the slit in the back of the front seat where the stuffing was coming out, and then, as his eyes scanned upwards to the back of the driver’s head they widened and flicked back to mine. “Where?” he whispered.