Round Robin

by Joseph Flynn

  Robin just shook her head.

  “It’s true. At least, that’s what the man told me. And he is moving into my basement apartment today. He might be there already. I’d like you to verify what he told me.”

  David goggled.

  “You want me to break into the CIA’s computer system?”

  Robin said, “If you and your hard disk are up to it.”

  Shameless, Robin thought, just shameless. Using a precocious child this way. Not that she was about to stop. But it made her admit, to herself anyway, that women could be just as rotten as men.

  David, of course, rose to the bait.

  “Sure, I could do it.”

  “Will you?”

  “Yes ... if you’ll give me something.”

  Robin felt her stomach turn over. She knew David wasn’t going to ask for a free cookie, and as much as she wanted to find out if Manfred’s story was legit, she wasn’t about to commit statutory rape to do it.

  “What?” she asked, trying not to wince.

  David leaned in close. “A kiss, a real kiss.”

  Bad enough, but at least it wasn’t criminal. What continued to boggle Robin’s mind — and frighten her — was that she couldn’t understand why David would want to kiss her. She looked at him, trying to fathom the incredible mind behind those wire-rim glasses. Was he a twisted genius, or what?

  “Okay,” she said, finally, “but no tongue.”

  A bit of disappointment registered in his eyes, but the boy still nodded.

  “Deal,” he said, and shook Robin’s hand.

  She paid for David’s sandwich out of her own pocket, but that didn’t make Robin feel much better. She’d sent a boy out to commit a crime that would land him in some sort of serious trouble if he got caught. And there he went, almost bouncing out the door he felt so giddy. Smart enough, maybe, to pull it off and dumb enough, no, young enough, not to know how badly he was being used.

  Because while Robin would deliver if David did, she wouldn’t give him his kiss until he was eighteen ... and then only if he still wanted it.

  Mimi came over to Robin at the register.

  “That was quite a little conversation you two had.”

  Mimi was still a little ticked at David, and clearly she wanted to know what had been said.

  But Robin only nodded.

  Then she said, “I used to think men were awful.”

  “And now you don’t?” Mimi asked, surprised.

  “Of course, I do. It’s just that now I think maybe we’re even worse. Me, anyway.”

  Robin knew.

  Before she ever got home, while she was still three houses down the block, she knew that Manfred had arrived, was in fact present at this very moment. The thought struck her that her home had been changed forever and a chill passed through her. On top of everything else, she smelled something peculiar. Maybe that was how she knew. It wasn’t a foul odor, just something unusual. A scent that was not her own.

  Wintergreen oil?

  Sniffing like a hound — there was a pleasant image, she thought — she followed her nose to the backyard. She was getting close to the source. It wasn’t coming from her house, it was coming from the garage. Robin stepped cautiously over that way and peeked through the garage’s rear window.

  Her eyes bugged out at what she saw.

  A roar that would shame a lion drove her away from the window.

  She backpedaled quickly and stumbled on her bum ankle as a huge, clanking jolt shook the ground. Robin fell on her can.

  She was seated there, dumbfounded, when Manfred appeared in the doorway of the garage and unnerved her even more. Looking up at him, starting at his ankles and tracking upward, she had never seen so much flesh, so much ... so much ... man. He was clothed, if you could call it that, in some kind of spandex unitard with an enormous leather belt around a waist that had the circumference of a beer barrel. He also wore work boots, and a bright yellow headband was stretched around his massive head. But his legs, his arms, his shoulders, his neck, his face, they were all so huge and pink, everything bulging and pulsing...

  Robin felt her head begin to spin.

  She awoke seated on the sofa in her living room. She awoke because her right foot was freezing. She pulled it out of a bucket of ice that had been tilted on its side and held in place by a pair of folded bath towels. When her mind cleared and she remembered what had happened, Robin looked around quickly. She saw that she was alone. More importantly, she felt that she was alone.

  Manfred wasn’t here.

  But he must’ve brought her here. He had to have carried her up the stairs. He had to fill the bucket with ice and put her foot in it. So he had been in her apartment. The phone rang. The portable. He’d left it on the sofa next to her.

  She pressed the answer button but said nothing.

  “Manfred Welk here. You are all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “I checked your eyes. Your pupils were equal and reacted to light.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Your ankle needed the ice, but I didn’t want the frostbite for you, so I called.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I am a power lifter. The weights, ja?”

  Robin almost said “ja” in reply, but she caught herself.

  “I understand that now,” she answered.

  “I was on the national team. On my way to L.A. Olympics, but Russians said nyet.”

  Robin wanted to crack wise, but she somehow lacked the will.

  “That’s too bad,” she said.

  Manfred asked, “Would you like me to come up and rewrap your ankle?”

  “No,” she said quickly, still edgy, “that won’t be necessary.”

  “Ja, that is what I thought. I left a first-aid pamphlet for you on your kitchen table. Red Cross instructions. They will show you how the ankle should be wrapped.”

  “Okay.”

  “Perhaps, from now on, I wear sweat clothes when I lift.”

  “That would be a good idea.”

  “Oh ... I bought part needed to complete the furnace repair. I have installed it. You have no more problems with furnace.”

  “I’m happy to hear that.”

  “Ja,” Manfred said. “I left bill for part. Also on kitchen table.”

  Business concluded for the moment, he rang off.

  Robin slumped back on the sofa and stuck her throbbing ankle back into the ice bucket.

  The part Manfred had bought for the furnace had cost $47, tax included. It was a rebuilt part, but Robin had Manfred’s stamp of approval that it was as good as new. A note he’d left said that he’d checked it thoroughly before buying it.

  Robin had smiled to herself.

  She had no doubt that Manfred had examined the part closely, and she couldn’t conceive of a retail clerk in the world who’d dare try to pull a fast one on him. She’d also found the instructions he’d left on how to wrap her ankle. She’d been pleased that she’d been able to follow them closely and had done pretty much as good a job as he had at binding the injury.

  After she’d done that and popped an analgesic, the throb had been barely perceptible. She’d been able to fix herself some dinner and stare at the TV from her bed, even though she had no idea of what she’d watched.

  Now, as she turned the set off and the lights out, Robin lay in bed and tried to enjoy the warmth of her gloriously heated home ... but she couldn’t keep her mind from drifting downward. He was down there in her basement. That huge pink German. What was he doing right now? He’d been unfailingly polite and even considerate, but she kept wondering whether she was a fool to put any trust in him. He was so big and so strong. It was like taking King Kong in as a pet.

  She smiled again.

  Her neighborhood, like any enclave for yuppies and their toys, was a target for burglars. And her building, unique on the block, had neither an alarm system nor a sign out front that warned of guard dogs or private cops. But now, Robin thought, she
could plant a sign that warned of Manfred.

  Premises protected by German powerlifter.

  With a silhouette of him in his spandex and boots.

  And the legend, “Ve haff vays of making you sorry.”

  That ought to scare off the creeps, she thought and giggled to herself.

  The thing was, she had to get over being frightened of him herself. She was ashamed to admit it but she’d swooned out there in the backyard. Her. Round Robin Phinney. If anyone at the deli ever found out, she’d be finished. Laughed right out of the joint.

  And she hadn’t even gone down to the park tonight, not because she didn’t want to try the stairs on her sore ankle, but because she hadn’t wanted to be so close to him, have only one floor separating them. Which was ridiculous. She’d let the guy into her house in the first place to save the park. Now, she wasn’t going to let him keep her out of it. She’d go down there tomorrow right after work, no two ways about it.

  Having resolved that issue, Robin closed her eyes to go to sleep ... and that was when she heard it. The sound. A deep, sharp buzzing roar, like a hundred-foot pine tree going through a sawmill. She tried to place the noise and came up with the only possible interpretation. Manfred was snoring.

  So loudly she could hear it two floors away.

  God!

  Maybe the guy’s wife had ratted him out to the Commies just to get away from that.

  Robin put a pillow over her head and began drifting into unconsciousness on a tide of mixed emotions, asking herself over and over what she had done, who she’d let into her home, her life, her...

  Sleep claimed Robin before she could find any answers.

  Chapter 7

  Tone Morello returned to Screaming Mimi’s on the third day following his cheerleader fiasco. This time he brought a cameraman with him. Tone wore a look of grim determination on his face. There was no way he was going to lose this time. No way he could lose.

  Because if he did he might have to shoot himself.

  After what had happened with the girls, word had gotten out. Two women who had claimed to have personal knowledge of his manhood had gone on record as saying he had a party frank between his legs. The story hadn’t made things easy for him when he’d had to do a locker room interview after the following night’s basketball game. The home team had won with a buzzer-beater from thirty-five feet; there’d been two fights and five ejections. The second brawl had spilled over so far into the stands that the commissioner had his soft drink spilled on his lap. But as soon as Tone had opened his mouth in the locker room, all the drama and anger of the game had been forgotten. Everybody had looked at him and started smirking. Especially those pencil-pushing creeps from the newspapers. One SOB had even said they were doing amazing new things with silicone implants these days. Tone hadn’t been able to get a straight answer to any of his questions. So he’d had his crew shoot the answers to the other assholes’ questions and then shoot him asking the proper questions back at the studio and then edit the whole mess together.

  Which was when Tone had thought of his latest idea. He’d take his cameraman to Mimi’s and have him shoot Tone ripping Robin to pieces. If she got him back, well, that would end up on the old cutting room floor. Then he’d use the tape in one of his sports segments and a million people would see it. He’d be redeemed.

  If the people who were in the deli tried to tell a different story, so what? They couldn’t hope to compete with the power of television. In fact, it might be better if they contradicted the tape. That way Tone could spread the word that all the other things people had heard about him were lies, too.

  Tone had greased his cameraman a grand to back his version of events and make sure that technically there’d be no way anyone could tell the tape had been edited. The guy swore with the new Japanese equipment he had the tape would look cherry.

  Tone had also hinted darkly that if the cameraman knew what was good for him—and his family—he’d stay bought. And never even think of blackmail. Tone didn’t actually know any leg-breakers, his dad was a roofer, but it didn’t hurt to have an Italian name.

  So, as he entered Mimi’s, Tone was feeling pretty sure there was no way he could lose this one. When the camera’s lights came on and blinded just about everybody in the joint he felt even better. Everyone was squinting and shielding their eyes and whining, generally acting like the no-talent, off-camera doofuses they were. He was sure that Robin was going to photograph like a beached whale, too.

  Except, looking around, he couldn’t see that tub of lard anywhere.

  And Tone heard his cameraman scream, “Hey, get away!”

  He knew what that hysterical, stay-away-from-my-baby cry of distress meant: Somebody was trying to touch his guy’s precious camera, probably put a grubby hand over the insanely expensive lens.

  He turned to see that the assailant was Mimi herself.

  She had, in fact, squirted the camera with brown mustard.

  Tone’s accomplice was furiously trying to clean his valued piece of equipment and Tone could tell from the look on his face that this attack was going to cost him extra.

  Then Mimi was in Tone’s face.

  “What kind of stunt are you trying to pull here?” she demanded.

  “Hey,” Tone responded, the picture of innocence, “what’s the problem? I thought I’d do a little slice-of-life piece. How we all face competition in our everyday lives. Put your place on the air. Make you famous.”

  Tone leaned in close. “Where’s Robin?”

  Mimi hadn’t just fallen off the turnip truck. She wasn’t sure what this moron was up to, but she knew he had something that wasn’t kosher up his sleeve.

  “Robin?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Tone said with an oily smile. “Miss Piggy’s body double.”

  Tone was glad to see his camera guy had gotten that one. He’d paid a kid at Second City fifty bucks to write that line for him. He had a half dozen more in his pocket.

  Mimi just gave him a hard stare.

  “Ah-ah,” Tone said. “That’s against the rules.”

  He pointed to the anti-Travis Bickle injunction on the register.

  “Maybe I should write a rule against those things,” Mimi said, jerking her thumb at the cameraman, who reflexively leaped a yard backward.

  “What?” Tone asked. “Every time I come in with somebody, you’re going to write a rule against it? Keep that up and nobody’s going to have much fun around here anymore.”

  Mimi looked around and saw that Tone had actually scored a point with her customers. She couldn’t just keeping changing the rules. She’d come across as too high-handed. Afraid to get in there and trade punches. But to let this idiot back her into a corner—she wanted to spit.

  Finally, Mimi said, “Robin’s not here today.”

  “What?”

  Tone seemed genuinely distressed. Then he thought he smelled a rat.

  “She’s in the kitchen, right? Camera shy. Afraid to face me for the record.”

  Tone felt a deep satisfaction that all his accusations were being captured on Memorex.

  “She hurt her ankle,” Mimi said. “She’s at the doctor and then she’s going home.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  Mimi said she wasn’t, and a guy eating a Reuben backed her up. Goof didn’t even know enough to stop chewing while he was being taped. The guy’d make a good insert shot. Laugh’s on you, dummy.

  Still, Tone was seriously disappointed that fate had gummed up his plans. Now, the stories about his ... shortcomings ... would keep eating away at his reputation, threaten his position in the local TV scene. The only thing he could do was to fall back on one of his most important tools. The sports cliche.

  “Okay,” he said sternly, “but you tell Robin Phinney I’ll be back.” Then Tone turned to look straight into the camera. “She can run but she can’t hide.”

  Tone drew a finger across his throat to tell the cameraman to stop taping, and he stomped out of the deli.<
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  Dan Phinney hadn’t been able to find a single guy who owed him a favor, still lived in town, and was someone he’d trust to work in his daughter’s house. The older guys, who knew their stuff and how to behave themselves, had all retired and moved to Florida or Arizona. The younger guys were still around, on the job, but Dan didn’t think much of their work ethic, their competence or their manners. You never knew how young guys today would treat a woman. They didn’t seem to have the same upbringing his generation had. He was uneasy that one of these young guys might make a crack about Robin’s appearance or something, hurt her feelings.

  Which, he had to admit, didn’t seem too likely if you ever saw the way she fielded the brickbats thrown her way at Mimi’s. But that was different. That was her job, and Dan was sure that it was an act. It was how Robin protected herself from people ... and from her memories.

  But Dan knew different.

  Robin was his little girl. He remembered her when she’d been young and lovely—before she’d been hurt—and she’d always be his angel. He took out his wallet and looked at the picture of Robin he kept there. She’d been eighteen when it was taken, a month after her graduation from high school. The image just about stopped his heart every time he looked at it, she’d been so lovely.

  Of course, given his medical history, stopping his heart wasn’t such a good idea. He folded up his wallet and stuck it back in his pocket.

  Dan Phinney still blamed himself for letting his little girl get hurt. He didn’t know how the hell he could have prevented it, it all happened so fast. But he should have been there for Robin, stopped that sonofabitch from ever getting close to his daughter. That’s what fathers were for, and it ate at him every day that he’d failed her.

  So, now he wouldn’t consider calling on anyone who would say so much as an unkind word to his daughter.

  What he’d do, since he had a key to her house, was go over to Robin’s place while she was at work, fix the furnace before she knew it, look around and see what else he could do and be back home before she could say a word about it.

  Dan Phinney had no idea as he left his house and got into his shiny new Camaro that Robin had hired a handyperson.