by E. C. Bell
“No. Don’t move until—”
A big truck, glowering about being caught in the bottle neck, pulled up behind James’ car, blatting its horn impatiently.
“I’m moving around the corner, he’s going to run us over!”
“Fine. Fine.” I ground the words between my teeth as James put the car into gear and lurched forward into the traffic. This caused more blats from the horns of angry motorists as vehicles swerved to get out of his way.
“See, we almost had an accident, you happy now?” James glanced at me and I was pretty sure he saw my face had whitened appreciably. Sheer terror will do that to a person, no matter how carefully she applies her makeup. “I’m sorry I scared you, I just—”
“Had to get the car out of the way.” I could mimic his whine pretty well, I thought, meanly.
“Mrs. Latterson requested this meeting and I have to be there. After all, she’s going to give us a sizable amount of money. Let’s hear her out.”
“Please tell me you didn’t mention my name,” I said.
“I was going to do it at the meeting.”
“Under no circumstances do that,” I said.
He frowned. “Why not? After all, we were going to discuss the idea of you being on the team tonight, anyhow, so why shouldn’t you be introduced to our first official client?”
I tried not to roll my eyes. He couldn’t be that thick.
He caught my eye roll, and his voice iced.
“Do you want to know why I want to introduce you? Because I owe you. You’re the reason she’s getting this information. I wanted to make sure you got the recognition you deserved. That’s why.” His voice was so quiet I could barely hear him.
“Oh.”
I almost felt bad that I was using this as a way to get out of going on a date with him. Then he absolutely creeped me out by turning toward me with a serious expression on his face.
“Are you trying to use this as a way to get out of going out on this date with me?”
“No!” As I tried to act appalled that he’d think that of me, I was reeling. What, could this guy read minds? “No, of course not.”
“Then why are you acting like this?”
I decided part of the truth was better than an outright lie.
“What I did was illegal, James. I broke into her ex-husband’s office and stole personal papers. And photocopied them. I don’t want to end up in jail, because you’re proud of the ‘work’ I did for you.”
“Oh.” It was his turn to whiten. He had obviously not thought of that. “Oh.”
He thought hard, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel of the car.
“So, stay in the vehicle,” he said. “I didn’t mention your name to her or anything, so if you’re out of sight, you can remain anonymous. This is just something about the bill, I think, and I want to get things straightened out. Does that sound okay?”
“Maybe.” I saw my opportunity to break and run disappearing as he came up with a rational way around the situation.
“Good. That’s great. After, we can go for supper. Discuss the case, stuff like that.” He glanced over at me and tried to smile. He almost pulled it off. “Does that sound okay?”
“All right.” My jaw unclenched. I would agree with this, but it was only for the money. Really. “So, where are we supposed to meet her?”
“Tim’s, on 104th Avenue.”
“A coffee shop?”
He had to good grace to look embarrassed. “She said she wouldn’t be caught dead in Chinatown.”
I started laughing, and didn’t stop until we pulled into the coffee shop’s parking lot, five minutes later. It sounded hysterical, but I didn’t care. It felt good to laugh.
Helen Latterson was easy to spot through the window of the crowded coffee shop. She was a tall, stick thin, blonde woman, well dressed, and supremely angry. I could see the rage coming off her in waves, a dull red heat that kept people away from her table. James strode up to her and held out his hand.
She looked surprised and stared at his face for a long calculating moment. She had probably been expecting Jimmy the Elder. Jimmy the Dead. She glanced down at her hands clenched on the top of the table, then back up at James, and spoke.
James’ face contorted, his hand hanging in the air like a dead fish. He finally dropped it to his side, and then started swaggering around, speaking very rapidly as he did so, and I was afraid he was actually trying to act like a private detective, like James Cagney or something. The problem was, from my vantage point, he came across a lot more like Clouseau than Cagney—or maybe it was Cagney, if he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
Helen spoke again, rather sharply, her lips thinning to nonexistence, and James collapsed onto the chair opposite her, a red-faced, sweating ball of confusion. I was ready to get out of the car and help him out, because the man really looked like he could use saving about that time, but he pulled himself together, and began talking earnestly to the furious woman sitting across from him.
I could tell the moment he told her Jimmy the Elder was dead. The absolute second. There is always that slack-jawed look, as though death is incomprehensible. She glanced down at her hands again, but James kept talking until she pulled herself together. I realized that now that he was no longer trying for the Cagney thing, he had her attention. She started to look relieved, and about ten years had dropped from her face by the time they shook hands, the meeting obviously over.
James didn’t move from his spot at the table until her car disappeared down the busy street. Then he straggled out, looking as though he’d been through a war.
“I need a drink.” He glanced around as though he expected something stronger than coffee to magically appear. Hoped it would appear.
“So do I.” I pointed to across the street. “Come on. Let’s go to Lucretia’s.”
We crossed the street to the little lounge that had been Gothic until Gothic didn’t sell anymore. I think the only thing the new owners kept was the original name. As we parked, I heard James sigh, a bunch of times. It was going to be a long night.
We stayed longer than I wanted to. James nursed a beer, but I made a bit of a mistake and pounded back three scotches in quick succession and got bleary-eyed until James finally ordered food. He would not answer any of my questions about Helen Latterson. Then I guess you could say we had our non-date.
James seemed happy enough, once the food was served, but I wasn’t. I felt really uncomfortable, especially since he wouldn’t talk about how the meeting with Mrs. Latterson had gone. I tried to bring it up a couple of times, but he put it off, saying we could discuss it the next day, that this was a nice evening out, let’s not wreck it with business talk.
That meant there was a problem, of course. I felt even worse, and barely picked at my food.
Finally, in the midst of one of his long winded-stories about his short-lived football career—I think he was talking about junior high—I told him I didn’t feel well, and wanted to go home.
He was actually a real gentleman about everything. He didn’t mention the fact that we were supposed to go dancing, and that this was supposed to be a celebration. He didn’t mention that I’d told him I’d give him my answer about the job offer.
All he did was gallantly hold my chair for me, and offer to pay. I didn’t let him, so I guess you could say I won that round, though it cut into my slender reserves. A lot.
The drive back to my place was dead silent until the traffic started to congest.
“What’s going on?” I glanced down at my wrist as if I expected a watch to magically materialize. “Are the movies letting out?”
“I don’t think so.” James twisted his hands on the steering wheel as the traffic ebbed and flowed around us. “Maybe there’s an accident up ahead.”
I peered out the front window. “Isn’t that smoke? I think it’s a fire. Man, that’s close to my place—”
My voice faded to nothing as the traffic stalled again. An ambulance, sire
n wailing, pulled to the wrong side of the road and parked.
“It is your place, Marie.” James’ voice raised an octave, and he gripped the steering wheel so hard I could hear his knuckles cracking, pop, pop, pop. “At least I think it’s yours—”
“Jesus.” I threw open the door of the Volvo, nearly nailing the car beside me as it tried to make a third lane on a two lane street. The motorist blatted his horn angrily, but I didn’t care. I jumped out and ran between the vehicles, waving my hands as if to ward off the evil that seemed to surround me with the acrid smoke and grey ash.
“Marie!” James called. “Marie! Get in the car!”
“My place is on fire!”
I could hear the craziness in my voice as I took another lazy, shambling step toward my fully engulfed apartment building, feeling like I was running through glue. I stopped in the street, and the traffic lurched around me. I smacked the side of one car as it swept by me, close enough to brush the edge of my coat with its side mirror, then turned back to my building, and watched it burn.
“Marie, get in the car!” James yelled, edging up to me. “Now!”
He stopped, but all I could do was stare, unable to move. “Somebody burned it down.”
I could feel the tears, the useless, useless tears, and could think of nothing to stop them. Everything I owned was going up in smoke, and I’d been out on a stupid date.
“Please get in the car.”
“It’s all gone—” A stupid, stupid date.
“Please, get in the car.”
“It’s all burned—” And I had no-one to blame but myself.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t move a muscle until James barked, “Get in the damned car!”
It was like he slapped me, and I finally responded, flailing ineffectually with the door handle until he reached across and pushed it open for me.
“I have to stay,” I said.
He started to say something, but the look on my face shut his mouth, and he simply nodded.
“I’ll park the car.”
He took off as I walked to the sidewalk, to the fire. To watch my life burn to the ground.
The firefighters were having trouble keeping idiots like me away from the building, which was still fully engulfed in towering, bellowing flames. I stood behind a hastily erected barricade, and stared. My coat was spotted with soot and tiny burns as the ash, still white hot, touched down. I didn’t care.
James touched me on the arm, as though he was going to hug me or something.
“Don’t,” I said, without turning around. I couldn’t take my eyes from my burning apartment building.
“Please folks.” An older fireman, with a pot belly and a bull horn, acted like he was in charge. “You gotta move back. This is a dangerous place to be right now.”
“This is our home!” Penelope Simpson, one of my neighbors, her hair still in curlers, fuzzy slippers black and sodden from the fire and the water, pointed at the burning building with one hand as she frantically clutched Harry, her fat, pissed off cat in the other. “It’s—we—” And then she burst into tears, braying out her grief until the cat scratched frantically, trying to get away.
“Penelope!”
When I called her name, she whirled around, curlers flopping around her face like small dead fish, the cat’s butt flying out away from her as she turned. I thought the cat was going to escape, until I saw how tightly Penelope was clutching him, and then I feared for his life. Cat’s eyes shouldn’t bug out like that.
“Marie!” Penelope cried, and stumbled toward me, over the hoses and debris and mud that had been, until a short time ago, our front yard. “Marie! My God girl, you’re all right! We were so worried! We couldn’t find you and—” She began braying again, tears falling in warm rain on her struggling cat’s head. “It’s burning.”
“Come here, Penelope. It’s safer over here.” I reached across the barricade and grabbed her by the belt of her housecoat, pulling her further from the fire. “Come stand with me.”
I took the cat away from the old woman, and tucked it into the crook of my arm, where it immediately calmed down and began preening. I put my other arm around the old woman.
“Where were you? We were scared to death.”
“I went out for a drink.”
“Oh, isn’t that nice.” The old woman turned toward James, with a half-smile on her smoke darkened face. “Were you out with this young gentleman?”
“Yes,” I sighed. I didn’t need this right now. I really didn’t.
“Oh, how very nice. A date. You don’t go—”
“It wasn’t a date,” I said hastily. “It wasn’t a date.”
“Oh. That’s too bad.” The old woman patted my arm, and turned back toward the fire. I turned, and James was beside me, looking heartbroken. I’d crushed him. I could tell.
“I’m sorry, James. It wasn’t a date. Not really.”
“I understand.” He sounded angry, but I didn’t have time to soothe his ruffled feathers right then, because Penelope clutched me frantically as something inside the building whined, then screamed, then exploded like a roman candle, spewing sparks and ash everywhere. Through it all, the cat sat in the crook of my arm and watched the melee with steady green eyes. And he purred.
Farley:
Las Vegas North
“Las Vegas north, Las Vegas north, Las Vegas north . . .”
Why can’t I just die?
“Las Vegas north, Las Vegas north, Las Vegas north . . .”
Oh yeah. Too late.
Marie:
Couch Surfing, at the Office
The flames weren’t completely out until three in the morning. The Red Cross helped everybody find a place to stay—even Penelope and her cranky cat. I turned them down, unwilling to leave until the last ember had been put out. James stayed with me. That was good of him.
When the fire was finally, truly out, he offered me his couch, which was also good of him, but even though I’d used half of my cash to pay for dinner and couldn’t have afforded a room anywhere, I wasn’t ready to camp at his place. Not after our non-date. I couldn’t give him the impression I was relying on him. That I needed him—even though I did.
If I was going to be absolutely honest about the whole thing, I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more than to have him take me back to his place and hug me, whispering to me that this was all a bad dream, and that we’d live happily ever after, when we got the smoke smell out of our clothes. That wasn’t going to happen, so I watched the firemen wrap up the last of the hoses as daylight started to touch the sky with grey, and tried not to lean on him, even accidentally.
“Well, you have to stay someplace. What about the office? There’s that cot, and we cleaned it all up the last time we were there. How about that?” He touched my arm tentatively, and seemed encouraged when I didn’t shrug him off, this time. “You can sleep there and we’ll figure out something more permanent tomorrow.”
I didn’t answer him, though it was the best suggestion I’d heard all night. I was starting to ache everywhere, as though I’d been through a disaster—which I guess I had, though I hadn’t had to do anything except watch—and I wanted a cup of tea badly.
“Come on. You need some sleep.” He tugged on the sleeve of my soot covered coat, and I followed. He was right. I needed sleep.
I glanced at the street as he led me to the Volvo. It was nearly empty now that the fire was out. A couple of cabs taking drunks home, a few cars, and a truck. The bass from its stereo pounded so deeply it made the material of my blouse jump on my chest. I couldn’t see into the darkly tinted windows as it slowly slid past us, heading north.
“I think I recognize that truck,” I said. James glanced at it, and shrugged. Then he took me firmly by the elbow and let me around the corner to his car, and I forgot about it.
I forgot about everything but the fact that I was homeless. Officially homeless. Finally, the tears came. James, ever the gentleman, lent me his handkerchief again.
Jimmy the Dead’s office smelled clean, fresh, like good linen that had been hung on the line to dry. I felt bad for bringing the smell of smoke in with me. It hung off me like a shroud, even when I took off my coat.
“I stink.” I tried to smile as I announced that fact, and almost pulled it off. James tried to smile back, and reached for the electric kettle, shaking it to see if there was any water in it. He’d promised me tea.
“The bathroom’s down the hall. You can clean up there.” He pulled out a towel and some hand soap. “This is all I’ve got here, sorry, it’s not great soap.”
I sniffed it appreciably. “Smells better than me.” I headed for the door. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
It took me a bit more than a minute to sluice the smell off myself in that woefully inadequate sink, but I did feel better as I headed back to the office.
The herbal tea James had brewed smelled great too. Strawberries and lemon wafted from the cup he handed me after I sank gratefully onto the cot James had opened up, and wrapped myself in a blanket.
“Thank you.” I buried my nose in the cup, taking in the sweet smell of spring time. “This is good.”
“You’re welcome.” He looked like he was going to start talking. I was afraid he would start quizzing me about my plans for the future or something, and I didn’t want to think about those kind of questions, much less formulate an answer that would be close to coherent, and so I buried my face in my cup. He must have understood, because he didn’t say anything. He simply sipped his own cup of tea, grimacing and putting it aside after the first taste.
“You don’t like it?” I took another appreciative sip. “I think it tastes great.”
“Well, this isn’t the kind of thing I normally drink.” He tried desperately not to act flustered, and failed. “I bought this—for you.”
“For me?”
“Yeah. You mentioned you liked this kind. I thought it would be nice, you know, around the office.” He stood, his face reddening ever so slightly. If I hadn’t been so amazingly tired, I would have laughed—or smiled. I did neither.