The Man on the Washing Machine

by Susan Cox

  “Great, Haruto. Thanks a lot. What? You think he’s gone home to find a machete?” I’d meant to be sarcastic, but I sounded frightened, even to myself.

  “Maybe the guy on your washing machine killed Nicole and came back to get us, too.”

  “It’s been so eventful around here lately I’d almost forgotten about him. It’s funny.”

  “What’s funny? Doesn’t seem so goddam funny to me.”

  “No, I meant Charlie O’Brien, the man on the washing machine. I don’t see him as a man of action. If I’d tried to grab him, I swear he’d have slipped through my fingers, he was sweating so much.”

  Haruto asked me something else, but I didn’t hear properly. I’d given myself an idea. I interrupted whatever he was saying.“Haruto—can you reach those bottles?”

  There was a short, offended silence, followed by a sandpapery sound as he shifted along the floor. “Yeah. What good are they?”

  “Can you roll one over?” A slithering noise was followed by a faint bump against my hip and the familiar feel of a plastic gallon jug in my free hand. “Some of these body lotions and shampoos might be enough lubricant to get me loose.”

  “I’ll be damned.” He sounded surprised. “Nat always says you’re smarter than you look.”

  “He means it as a joke.”

  “You’re a genius. I always knew it. Is that one any good?” He grunted. “I think I can reach another one with my feet.”

  I unscrewed the cap and sniffed gingerly. “Perfect. Hair conditioner. High oil content.”

  It took too long, and I left several layers of skin behind, but my well-conditioned and tormented hand finally slid out of the handcuff and I was free.

  I staggered over to the wall and felt for the light switch and the stuttering fluorescent light gave me a strobe-effect picture of Haruto leaning against the hot water heater intake pipe. He smiled at me a bit uncertainly and I grinned back. The grin faded as I looked around the garage. The neat stacks of cartons and Aromas merchandise were still there, but everything else—the wooden crates, the wood shavings, the rhinoceros horn—was gone. The thieves had even swept up the spilled rice.

  I found a box cutter and cut Haruto loose. He rubbed his wrists where the rope had made rough blue indentations in the flesh. Those gouges must have hurt like a bitch but he hadn’t complained. He walked around slapping his thighs to restore the circulation.

  I looked over at the metal pole jack my architect’s crew had installed to hold up the building. The handcuffs were puddled at the base.

  Neat to the last, I recapped the half-empty bottle of hair conditioner and returned it to its place. Something glinted on the floor and I bent over to pick it up.

  “What’s that?” Haruto said curiously as I poked it with my index finger in the palm of my hand. “Looks like a four-leaf clover.”

  I was beyond surprise. “It’s a shamrock lapel pin,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I needed to pee. I found the brass-handled cane on the floor in the garage and used it to hobble upstairs to call the police. Haruto left me outside his apartment because he wanted to take a hot shower to warm up.

  “Lock your door,” I said.

  “You, too. See you in a few.”

  I lay on my mattress, bruised and stiff, with my head pounding like a drum, listening to the soft city nighttime noises. My cell phone was dead. Hell. I needed to get up and tell Haruto to dial 911. In a minute. I blinked as sudden bright moonlight sent an ice pick through my brain and fell asleep before my eyes closed.

  Something woke me with a start and I wondered how I could possibly have drifted off to sleep. I wondered sleepily what had woken me. It was still pitch dark, and Lucy abruptly sat up in the other side of the bed with her ears pricked and a low grumbling noise coming from somewhere deep in her chest. My heart beat a little faster, even as I told myself that it couldn’t be—couldn’t possibly be—another break-in. I reached for Lucy and hugged her and whispered softly. “Hushhhh, it’s okay.”

  And then I heard an out-of-place noise so quiet and yet somehow so close, that I shot out of bed in one unthinking motion. I threw the covers over the pillows, snatched Lucy under one arm, and in two strides was across the room, behind the door, with my brass-handled walking stick raised over my head.

  The on-again, off-again moon had completely disappeared behind the clouds, and the room was so dark I couldn’t even see Lucy. I stood behind the door almost without breathing. I’d got to “one thousand and nineteen,” and was beginning to feel foolish as my heart rate returned to normal, when I heard a quiet footfall in the hallway beside me. On the other side of the door I could hear him—or her—breathing.

  Inches from my eyes, a gloved hand and the barrel of a gun peeked coyly at the edge of the door, pointed at the bed.

  The gun made two deafening lightning cracks and something on the bed exploded with a repulsive thud. The gun barrel drooped slightly, appearing almost alive in its apparent indecision.

  Fury made me reckless. A second’s thought would have made me hesitate, but in less time than it takes to tell I thrust my leg at the door, kicked it with all the strength I could muster, and jammed the hand with the gun in the door. I flailed at it with the cane. The gunman screamed and dropped the gun. Staggering footsteps, no longer bothering to keep quiet, stumbled along the hallway and through the kitchen and crashed out through the utility room door.

  I followed, but not quickly enough. My head hurt. I heard Haruto’s door open and I made my way shakily down the stairs.

  “Did you see him?” I grabbed his arm and he steadied me.

  “See who? Christ, have they come back?” He looked down the stairs and then at me.

  “Come up with me. Bring your phone.”

  The police dispatcher kept the line open until Haruto told me to open my front door; the officers had arrived, he said. In fact, there were five of them, loaded for bear, pounding up my front steps.

  Half an hour later, it felt as if the entire San Francisco police force, the SAS, and the Israeli Secret Service were all crawling around on the rooftops with Uzis.

  I was sitting on my front steps, wearing a raincoat over my shoulders and gripping my cane with Lucy on my knees when Lichlyter showed up.

  “Ms. Bogart, you have an incident-filled life,” she said.

  “Bitch!” I said, and bent my head and sobbed into Lucy’s fur.

  “Yes,” she agreed unexpectedly. “It’s the lack of sleep.”

  She had someone make a pot of coffee and Haruto and I drank some. So did half the Delta Force who arrived about then. She made a quick movement with her head and suddenly we were alone. She tugged gingerly at my sleeve, exposing the torn skin and welts. My hand looked as if I’d been chewed by a moray eel.

  “You said someone shot at you,” she said.

  “There was a sort of prelude.” I told her about my adventures, starting with the drinking party and ending with the gunman in my bedroom.

  “You called us after you escaped from the garage?”

  “I came up here and fell asleep.” I got up and plugged my phone into its charger. “My phone was dead.”

  “I see. Let’s take a look at this garage of yours,” she said. Suspicion was sticking out all over her like brass doorknobs. I took her downstairs to show her the garage. The handcuffs were still where Haruto and I had left them.

  “There’s a lot of stuff still here. What was taken?”

  “About a million dollars’ worth of rhinoceros horn,” I said, enjoying my triumph over “the knows one,” even though it could only mean more complications. “I telephoned to tell you I’d found it, but you weren’t in the office.”

  “I was given a message that you called. A paintbrush was mentioned,” she said faintly.

  “I also found this.” I handed her the lapel pin. “I saw one like it on Charlie O’Brien. I told you he works at a bookkeeping service called AcmeTax; I told you where he lives.”

  “We
haven’t been able to find him,” she said.

  We went back upstairs and I told her about the horn cache and the rest of my evening while my flat was being swarmed over by more police than I’d ever seen—and I’d seen a lot.

  “Let’s sit,” she said, and led the way into the dining room, where Ben’s card table and chairs still looked like orphans.

  She chewed her bottom lip meditatively. “Is there anyone you’d like me to call?”

  “Where’s Haruto?”

  “Mr. Miazaki is giving his statement. Is there anyone else?”

  “I’m fine.” I got up and found a bottle of dusty aspirin in the kitchen. I chewed several and swallowed them with a mouthful of coffee. I rubbed the palms of my hands on my jeans.

  She looked around the shadowy room and through the archway to the living room windows, where dawn was beginning to glow faintly. “Okay then. We have the particulars of the rhinoceros shipment. It’s possible that it was intended for a Chinatown distributor. We’ll look into Ms. Bartholomew’s possible connections with … with anything that seems likely to lead to contraband.” She looked frustrated. I didn’t blame her.

  “Mr. Turlough was with you when you discovered the horn. I’ll speak to him. He and Mr. Haruto Miazaki both live in this building, don’t they? Mr. Miazaki is in the flat under you and Mr. Turlough is in the studio behind the garage, is that right?” She somehow managed to make that sound sinister. “He didn’t hear any of this while it was happening?”

  “Ben Turlough’s not here. He’s in Los Angeles,” I said. “He took a flight yesterday evening and said he’d be back this afternoon.” And I wish to God he was here, I thought.

  And then I had to stop worrying about Ben and Haruto and tell her I’d probably been shot with my own gun. “It looks like mine, and I couldn’t find it earlier.”

  “Did you report it missing?”

  “I didn’t know it was missing.”

  “Will we find any fingerprints on it besides your own?”

  I sighed. “Probably. The gunman was wearing a glove, but just about everyone handled the gun recently.” I stopped. Suspicion was hardening again on her face like ice on a Vermont skating pond. I had a sudden mental image of her bringing my birthday presents to the state penitentiary.

  “Tell me about the paintbrush,” she said abruptly. “The message you left said something about a paintbrush.”

  I’d almost forgotten. “It was in one of the crates. The metal collar was bent—I think it had been used to pry open the crate originally. It had dried yellow paint on it.”

  “And of course it disappeared along with the crates from your garage.” She sighed.

  “Why do I get the feeling this isn’t a surprise?” I said slowly.

  She chewed her lip again. “We knew about the paintbrush in the crate,” she said finally. “We knew about the rhinoceros horn, too. We’ve been working with Fish and Wildlife out of Burlingame hoping the owners—you and Nicole—would take it out of the attic and we could trace your customers and the customs officials involved in the illegal importation. I left my notebook in your store hoping it would shake you loose. We’ve been following the rhino horn. We saw Mr. Turlough, Mr. David Rillera, and Mrs. AnaZee Williams moving the crates from the attic to your garage. It looked like a bold move at the time, but I guess it belongs to someone else”—she looked at me sharply—“unless you shot your own pillow. Still,” she leaned forward and passed a not-too-gentle hand over the back of my head where a lump was swelling nicely, “I guess you didn’t hit yourself over the head.”

  She glanced at her battered notebook. “And from what you say, anyone at the party this evening could have put two and two together, realized that the horn had been discovered, and decided to steal it back. Maybe they decided you knew too much—or suspected you were on the verge of discovering his or her identity.”

  My head throbbed. “You’ve known this all along and you suspected—me?”

  “It didn’t help that you’re living here under an assumed name,” she said sharply.

  I rubbed my aching forehead anxiously. I suppose I’d known they would find out, but I hated the exposure. “I only wanted to keep my past quiet,” I said.

  “That’s the usual reason,” she said dryly. She raised a tired hand when I began to explain. “I know who you are now, but it wasted time in the beginning.”

  I gulped. I couldn’t help it.

  “And of course there’s the crates of rhinoceros horn that Fish and Wildlife have had under observation since Nicole Bartholomew—not some random person, but your partner—picked them up at customs in Oakland.”

  “I see what you mean,” I said, shaken by the weight of the chain of suspicion. Then: “Wait! If you’ve had the place watched, you must have seen who stole it from my garage!”

  She bit off her reply through clenched teeth. “Where do you think those handcuffs came from? The officer we had on watch is in the ER.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Minestrone was my mother’s Saturday standby in the winters of my childhood when we’d spend a month in Switzerland. She’d make it on Friday night, leave it simmering all day Saturday, and we all helped ourselves whenever we felt like it. We had a fairly Bohemian style of living for that precious month each year. I’ve found the technique so practical that I still use it; I make large quantities of simple dishes, and reheat single portions until it’s all gone. Since I only cook what I enjoy eating, I don’t care if I eat the same thing for several days running. In the summer, I make a basil and tomato pasta salad or cold soups. I eat apples to make up the dearth of vegetables in my diet and somehow stay on my feet.

  My mother found the minestrone recipe in a magazine. It earned so many hosannas from me and my father that she and our succession of cooks and housekeepers kept making it even back at our home in Belgravia, although it never tasted quite as good as the version we ate from mismatched bowls on the side of a Swiss mountain. It’s probably not authentic minestrone, but it starts with a ham hock stock, skimmed and kept in the freezer. I toss in a mixed handful or so of lentils and various dried beans; some herbs—heavy on the oregano—a half cabbage, chopped; a couple of cans of Italian tomatoes; and as much sliced pepperoni as I feel like adding. This is heated until the beans and lentils more or less dissolve, and it’s ready. I began to cook it when the last of the police officers left at around eight that morning. “Don’t forget to lock your door,” he said, looking at the splintered doorjamb where my gunman had forced his way into the flat.

  Very funny.

  I took Lucy down into the garden, and used some picture wire and nails to jury-rig a back door fastener, promising myself to have a dead bolt installed as soon as the hardware store opened. I left the soup to simmer on the stove while I took a shower, swept up about two acres of feathers in the bedroom, put the phone on vibrate, and fell into bed. I didn’t wake up again until late in the afternoon.

  Antonio Carlos Jobim was a genius. Almost anything can be improved by listening to his recordings. “The Girl from Ipanema” was insinuating itself around the flat when I took a bowl of the minestrone to the empty fireplace and sat on the floor, tearing chunks off a French loaf for dipping. Lucy sat next to me gnawing a rawhide chew. As I was about to take my first taste, I heard a knock at the back door.

  I untangled my makeshift wire lock and found Ben leaning against the wall outside. Like everyone I knew lately, he looked tired. His eyes were shadowed with exhaustion. It was remarkably good to see him.

  “Quaint of you to knock,” I said.

  Lucy was squirming and wriggling with joy and he leaned down to scratch her. He inspected the picture-wire lock carefully. “May I come in? Hello, Lucy.”

  “Do you want some soup?” I said impulsively.

  “If it’s no trouble,” he said. “I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

  “Bowls in the cabinet over the sink. Spoons in the drawer to the right of the dishwasher. You’ll have to share my bread and sit o
n the floor.”

  “That’s starting to sound attractive,” he said, almost to himself.

  I reattached the wire after he was inside. When he joined me in the living room, holding his bowl and spoon, he sat down on the floor on the other side of the fireplace.

  I missed the first tremblings of the house.

  Ben didn’t though. “What’s that?” he said, and put the bowl on the floor. Out-of-staters are always more sensitive. We live with the earthquakes and it starts to feel like no big deal when the house shakes a little.

  “Earthquake,” I said. The tremor rattled the windows and shook the floor and we sat in that half-cautious, half-expectant way that people have in an earthquake waiting for it to stop, except that it didn’t. It matured in intensity until every beam and nail and window frame protested like live things at the stresses tearing them loose from their accustomed places. I snatched up Lucy and scrambled for the archway to the dining room, trying not to hear the snapping and cracking and the terrifying low rumbling noise.

  “Come on,” I shouted at him over the din. “You’re safer away from the fireplace!” I went back to grab his arm and pulled him over with me, and we stood in the archway with our backs to the walls on either side. With no fanfare, everything stopped shaking and the noise quieted and died. The house swayed languorously for a few more seconds, as if reluctant to give up the novelty. And then everything was impossibly, unreasonably mute.

  “Jesus.” Ben’s face looked strained.

  “I’ve felt worse,” I said, but I was rattled, too.

  “I haven’t.”

  “It was probably less than a 6.0 and not on the San Andreas.”

  He looked at me with respect and I was reminded how arcane the commonplace can seem to an outsider. “You can tell all that?”

  “More or less.” I smiled faintly. “You seem like a guy who prefers data to poetry. I don’t usually spout factoids.”

  He looked around the room as if to check on the devastation that such arrogant force had wrought, but I had no knickknacks to break and nothing on the walls, so everything looked the same.