Irish Eyes (25 page)

Ruby patted her hand. “I thought you looked a little peaked, hon. But you’re right as rain now. Eat up that carrot cake. It’s full of vitamins, you know.”

“That’s true,” Neva Jean said, shoveling in another forkful. “You can’t hardly get more vitamins than what’s in carrot cake.”

“Or calories,” I said, eyeing the slice of cake on my own plate.

Cheezer pinched off a bit of spice cake and tried it. “Great!” he enthused. “Did you use my new preservative?”

Our only male Mouse, Cheezer has a degree in chemical engineering from Georgia Tech. He’s always mixing up some top secret cleaning solvent or psychedelic baking mix. I shuddered to think what ingredients he might have included in a food preservative.

“With this swarm of locusts?” Edna said. “All of this cake will be gone before lunchtime. Don’t need preservatives when you’ve got an appreciative audience like I got.”

“I know that’s right,” Sister said. She was wrapping a slice of the red velvet cake in a piece of aluminum foil she’d gotten out of her pocketbook.

She saw us watching her. “Oh, this is not for me,” she said quickly. “Mr. Jerome, my friend over to the tower, he got a powerful sweet tooth.”

“Ain’t he the man been in a coma from a stroke since last month?” Baby asked. “Our prayer circle been praying right along for him. Don’t see how a man in a coma gonna be eatin’ no red velvet cake.”

“That’s all you know,” Sister sassed. “He was in a coma. But his neighbor lady up there on the eighth floor is some kind of root doctor. She come in his hospital room Friday
morning and rub his face and neck all over with some kind of bad-smelling root mashed up in Mercurochrome. And do you know, Saturday morning, Mr. Jerome come out of that coma?”

“I bet he raised hell when he saw his face painted red like Injun Joe,” Baby said.

“No, ma’am,” Sister said. “He sat right up in that bed and said hello and asked the nurse could he please have a Coca-Cola.”

“Praise the Lord!” said Ruby, the most devoutly religious of the House Mouse crew. She smiled beatifically. “That’s what I call the power of prayer.”

“What about the power of Coke?” I asked.

“Heathen,” Edna said.

“Never mind,” Ruby said soothingly. “Callahan, we all been praying at my church for the healing of your friend, Bucky. I just know there’s gonna be a miracle, if it’s the Lord’s will.”

The Lord’s will must have been what kept Ruby going all these years. In her early sixties, she’s worked for us since we bought the business. Although she never married or had children of her own, she raised half a dozen “godchildren” to responsible adulthood, all on the paycheck of a cleaning woman.

“Keep praying, please, Ruby,” I said. “I saw Bucky in the hospital this weekend. It looks like nothing short of a miracle is going to bring him out of this.”

“All right,” Edna said, slapping the table with the palm of her hand. “Now that everybody’s had a bite to eat, I want to call this meeting of the House Mouse to order. We got some new business to discuss this morning, so let’s get going with that.”

Cheezer raised his hand, a polite boy to the end. “Edna, what about the new vacuum cleaner we’re supposed to be getting? I’ve wired the plug back onto the cord on mine so many times it’s pathetic, and you know the last time you bought bags, they didn’t really fit, because that model is so old.”

“I know,” Edna said. “I been shopping around, comparing prices. There’s a Kirby looking real good, if I can get the saleswoman to come down on price a little.”

“They better come down quick before I get electrocuted,” Neva Jean said. “But what I want to know is when are you gonna get that vacation schedule fixed up? Swannelle and me wanna go over to Talladega for the big race coming up. We’re gonna rent us a motor home and take off on a Thursday and do the town up red.”

I wondered how much time it would take to “do” Talladega, Alabama, but I quickly dispelled the thought from my mind.

“We’ll have it put together by Friday,” I said.

The rest of the meeting was fairly mundane. We talked about raising rates—but only for new customers. Neva Jean wanted to charge anybody with a poodle double; Ruby was fairly outraged by the fact that she’d caught her standing Tuesday morning client in bed with her regular Wednesday morning client. “And both of ‘em married ladies!” she added indignantly.

Diplomat that she is, Edna managed to mollify Ruby by allowing Neva Jean to switch Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.

“I don’t mind lesbians one little bit,” Neva Jean said cheerfully. “At least they leave the seat down when they pee. Makes it lots easier to clean their bathrooms.”

When it came around to his turn, Cheezer handed me a list. “That’s all the chemicals I need to make our all-purpose kitchen spray,” he said. “Ammonia, stuff like that. I can stop by the wholesale supply house this morning, if you want to give me a check or something.”

“I think I’ve got cash,” I said, reaching for my purse. I took out my billfold, but found only a couple ones.

“I forgot I had to buy diapers and milk and McDonald’s hamburgers yesterday,” I said, looking at Edna.

“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I’m tapped out.”

“Never mind,” I said. “When we’re done here, I’ll run around the corner to the ATM machine in Little Five Points. You can follow me there and get the cash for the supply house.”

“Ooh, no, don’t be going to those cash machines,” Neva
Jean said. “You’re likely to get busted over the head and robbed. It ain’t safe.”

“It’s Little Five Points, and it’s the middle of the day,” I said, trying to reassure her. “And Cheezer will be right behind me. It’s perfectly safe.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Neva Jean said. “Why, a man I met down in Hapeville the other night, owns a bar down there called Earl’s Pearl. He thought he was safe Tuesday night, making a night deposit at his bank? He sure got a surprise when somebody stuck him up and nearly killed him.”

“What’s this?” I said. “How do you know about those ATM robberies?”

“Because I was right there in the jailhouse when they brought the man in,” Neva Jean said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell y’all. It’s a damn crime wave, and all the police want to do is arrest innocent bystanders who just happen to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Never mind the innocent bystander stuff, Neva Jean,” I said. “Tell me what you know about an ATM robbery in Hapeville.”

“That’s what I’m tryin’ to do,” she said plaintively. “See, y’all took forever to get down there to bail me out, and I was just sittin’ there in the hall, wishin’ I had something else to wear besides that awful blue jail jumpsuit—can you imagine? Me with green hair and a blue jumpsuit? Anyways, this fella come in with his head all bandaged up, and he was sittin’ in an office right by my holding cell, waiting to be questioned, and we struck up a conversation—even in as bad a shape as he was, he was wondering about my green hair and the gold glitter and all. And we got to talkin’ and he told me about the awful experience he had at one of them ATM machines.”

“You say the man owned a bar?” I said.

“Earl’s Pearl,” she said. “‘Cause his name is Earl. I never did catch his last name. Anyway, he was tellin’ me how he’d closed up Earl’s Pearl the night before, well, the morning, really, and he had about eleven hundred dollars in cash money.
So he went to make the night deposit like he usually did, at his bank in a shopping center around there. And he had the money in the bank bag and was fixin’ to drop it in the night deposit box when a masked man came right outta nowhere. This guy stuck a gun in his face and told him to hand it over.”

“Jesus, Lord,” Ruby said. “I never heard such wickedness.”

“It’s a damn crime wave,” Neva Jean repeated. “Pardon my French for saying so. Anyway this Earl, he’s a real feisty little fella, but he’s got big muscles from liftin’ weights. He said it made him crazy mad that he’d had to work so hard and put up with drunks and cleaning bathrooms, and here this punk wanted to take his eleven hundred dollars. So Earl acted real scared, like he was gonna faint or have a fit or something, and he fell down on the parking lot and was flopping around and carryin’ on, and when he thought the bad guy wasn’t looking, he reached down in his boot and pulled out this little twenty-two he had stuck down in there, because he runs a bar and all. And Earl said he brought the gun out and he yelled, excuse me, Ruby, but this is a direct quote, ‘I’ll see you in hell before I’ll give you a damn dime’ and right about then somebody hit him on the back of the head and he passed out cold. When he come to, the bank bag was gone, and the back of his head was busted nearly in two.”

She stopped her recitation and took a long swig of her ever-present Mountain Dew. “After all that, I figure, better safe than sorry. That’s why Swannelle’s gettin’ me a new gun for Easter,” she said. “An itty-bitty blue one. Won’t that be cute?”

“T
he man’s name was Earl? You’re sure of that?”

“Sure as my name is Neva Jean McCoomb,” she said. “And the bar was Earl’s Pearl.”

I looked it up in the phone book and was slightly shocked to find a listing. I called, but there was no answer, not surprising since it was only nine
A.M.

Edna handed out the day’s assignments and wrapped up some leftover cake for each of the girls.

Cheezer waved away the foil packet. “Not for me, thanks. I’m not really into processed flour and refined sugar.”

“I thought you loved chemicals,” I said.

“Just the really gnarly ones,” he said.

Edna put the cake away and handed me a piece of paper and a house key. “Baby and Sister have got it in their heads to work today,” she whispered. “But Cheezer’s got a real busy morning, and Neva Jean and Ruby have got jobs clear up on the Northside of town. Can I trust you to keep them safe for a couple hours? This here’s Ruth Matthews’s house. She’s neat as a pin, doesn’t really need much, but she’s having her bridge
club ladies over tomorrow, so I promised her I’d send somebody by to fluff the place up a little bit.”

“Ruth Matthews? Is she one of your LOLs?”

“Little old ladies?” Edna bristled. “She’s my age.”

“You know what I mean. Isn’t she the one who followed me around spritzing everything I touched with room deodorizer? And didn’t she call you after I left to complain that I’d forgotten to polish the silver tea service?”

“She didn’t realize you were my daughter,” Edna said. “And I straightened her out about silver polishing. She knows it’s extra now. And that’s why I thought Baby and Sister could go with you. You won’t have to worry about Ruth spritzing you, because she’s got a beauty parlor appointment this morning—God knows why. She’s just about bald, poor old thing.”

“All right,” I grumbled. “But make sure you put the phone on call forward to my cell phone. I’m expecting some calls today.”

“I can take a message, you know. I’m not totally senile—yet.”

“I know you’re not,” I said. “It’s just this one caller, he won’t leave a message.”

I shrugged myself into a pink cotton smock and loaded a cleaning cart with supplies. When I got out in the driveway, Baby and Sister were already sitting in the van.

Sister had belted herself into the front passenger seat and wore a smug expression on her face.

“Callahan,” Baby said from the backseat. “Tell that old fool I’m supposed to ride up front with you.”

“Are not,” Sister said loudly.

“She know I always ride shotgun with you,” Baby said. “She just being mean, is all. What she need to ride up there for anyway? Blind as a bat, she might as well sit in the back of the van with the groceries and the vacuum.”

“Tell that hussy to sit back and shut up her mouth, lessen she wants me to turn around and box her ears for her,” Sister whispered.

“What’s that? What she sayin’?” Baby yelled. “I can hear
what she said. And I don’t have to listen to that smut-mouth talk.” She unfastened her seat belt and with lightning speed was out of the van and trying to open Sister’s door, brandishing her window sash weight.

Just as quickly, Sister popped the power lock button on the door, leaving Baby pounding furiously on the window.

“Go on, Callahan, drive on. We don’t need that fool. Leave her right here,” Sister urged.

“Now, Miss Sister, you know I can’t do that. Unlock the door, please, so we can get going.”

“No, ma’am,” Sister said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Please?” I wheedled.

“Tell her to put her bony old booty right in that backseat where it belongs,” Sister said, loud enough for Baby to hear, which made her pound on the door even harder.

“How about this?” I said. “You ride up front this time, and on the way home, Baby gets to ride shotgun.”

“All right by me,” Sister said. “But you know I get carsick sometimes, riding in the back.”

“I’ll get you a barf bag,” I promised.

When I had finally negotiated a settlement on the shotgun issue, and persuaded Baby to put her truncheon away, I thought we could ride to Ruth Matthews’s house in peace.

“I ought to take the two of you back home,” I said teasingly. “Which one of you tattled to Edna about what happened in Memorial Oaks?”

“Not me,” Sister said loudly. “Probably that old fool in the back.”

“I ain’t never opened my mouth to Edna about that,” Baby said.

I turned to both of them. “You swear?”

They each held up a hand in oath.

“Then how did she find out about it?” I asked. “She knew even before I got home.”

“Jungle telegraph,” Sister said.

“I’ll ask her about it later,” I said.

Ruth Matthews lived on Huron Street, a quiet street near
downtown Decatur, in the Great Lakes area, a neighborhood of tidy postwar brick and frame bungalows and cottages set on neatly mowed postage-stamp–sized yards.

I recognized the house as soon as I saw it. Pink. All pink. I’d forgotten that was Ruth’s house.

“Ooh-wee,” Baby whistled when I pulled into the driveway. “Ain’t this the prettiest color you ever seen in your life?”

I unloaded the Easterbrooks sisters, and then the cleaning cart. “If you like the outside, you’ll love the inside,” I promised.