"No reason to. This is where I live. It never was home." Deciding that sounded a skosh shy of pitiful, he said, "Hey, I'm a guy. Four walls, a roof, indoor plumbing, TV, remote, a six-pack, a fifth and a recliner, and I'm happy. Everything else is just
stuff."
"Yes, but" She sighed. "I suppose I'm too sentimental about things. And people." She patted a classic Hitchcock DVD. "I don't even know you that well, but I'll think of you when I watch this."
Jack knelt and scratched the Maltese behind an ear. "Did you see the small camelback trunk I hauled out of here?"
She nodded. "A lovely piece. Though a good coat of beeswax and a buffing would bring out the grain."
Rather than debate the merits of linseed oil versus wax, he said, "My grandfather made it. A poor man's wedding present for his bride. Grandma gave it to my mother when she married Dad. Neither of my sisters wanted it when they got married, so it was passed on to me."
Ms. Pearl smiled, evidently relieved he attached value to something, other than the minimum bachelor requirements.
"It's like this, ma'am. I'm pretty sure if, God forbid, this building caught fire, or a tornado was bearing down and you had time to save only one thing, it'd be Sweetie Pie."
"Well, I should say so." Kissy noises beckoned the Maltese. She hugged the dog to her bosom. "It scares me just thinking about it. The family Bible, photographs, china, the silver tea setoh, my heart would absolutely break if I lost them."
"Except how many times have you seen newspaper photos, or footage of people whose homes have been destroyed, and they're clutching something they could replace at Wal-Mart for twenty bucks?"
Ms. Pearl frowned at the carpet a moment, then beamed at Jack. "Of course. Your grandfather's trunk. That's your Sweetie Pie, isn't it?"
It was the analogy he was going for, but in a manner of speaking, for crissake. "It and what's inside are worth saving. All I could save, if I had to make a run for it." Jack's arm swept the room. "Everything else is just stuff."
By her expression, she understood and maybe agreed in some respects. Neither was the same as approval. "To someone with one heirloom to his name, yes. I suppose it is."
Chuckling, he went into the kitchen to fill a carton with canned goods and perishables. There wasn't much to begin with and less worth salvaging. Two iron skillets and a lidded wok were crammed in on top.
The Maltese shadowed Jack's final inspection for anything he might have overlooked. Moving hadn't been on this week's to-do list, but shit happens and you deal with it. With Phil in the picture, he'd have had to find another place with a fenced yard, anyway. The right one at the right price and he might break his cardinal rule about separation of work space from living space.
That or install a shower at the office, and teach Phil how to use the toilet.
The apartment key was unhooked from the ring and given to Ms. Pearl. "You're sure you don't mind handling an indoor garage sale?"
"It was my idea," she reminded. "Paying someone to haul your castoffs to the dump is a waste of money and plain old wasteful. I know for a fact Renee Hunt in Building B will want your dinette set. I'll take bids on the washer and dryer. Any number of tenants spend their Sundays at the laundromat."
The pair, used, had cost Jack a hundred dollarsnot including spinal adjustments after dollying the heavy sons of bitches up a flight of stairs. He'd pay two hundred to avoid wrestling them down again.
He left Ms. Pearl believing whatever stuff she took was a fair exchange for womanning the sale, disposing of any leftovers and tidying his apartment. He'd deposit the check she'd mail to his office for the garage-sale proceeds, then write one to the landlord for her full month's rent.
"There's more than one way to skin a cat." The skillets clanked like cowbells as Jack slid the kitchen box alongside the camelback trunk. "Isn't that right, Gramps?"
The S-10 pickup with the lockable, steel-reinforced bedcover was demoted to secondary status when Jack bought the Taurus. The sedan was roomier, more comfortable and less conspicuous for stationary surveillance, but the truck had and still did serve a purpose. Among them, alternating vehicles made it more difficult to spot a tail, and in some venues, a pickup fit in, where a midsize sedan stood out like a vegetarian at a pig roast.
It was also registered to the agency as a commercial vehicle.
The distinction might not fly under Andy McGuire's radar. Then again, it just might. For a day or two, anyway.
* * *
Dina finished wiping down the spattered stove top.
Jack had insisted on cooking dinner, which was delicious, though its preparation had involved virtually every available pan and utensil, and the aftermath resembled a smallish food fight.
Earlier, he'd lugged in boxes of food, as well as cleaning and laundry supplies from his apartment. He'd also bought a giant sack of dog food, more groceries than the fridge and cabinets could hold and, to Harriet's delight, every cheeseball supermarket tabloid, plus the latest
People
magazine.
Office equipment and supplies were piled neatly in the corner of the dining room and table's far end. His clothes were hung on the overhead door tracks in the garage, and toiletries contained in a kit in the bathroom. At some point, he'd oiled the squeak out of Harriet's glider, even though it had been an early-warning system Dina had relied on for months.
Why,
no,
the perfect roommate didn't mind sleeping on the living-room floor with Phil. He wouldn't dream of uprooting Dina from the couch, since the second bedroom was a mishmash of Harriet's treasures, Randy's crap and Dina's few remaining worldly possessions.
Now Jack was laughing along with Harriet at a
Designing Women
rerun, just as he had the
Golden Girls
rerun preceding it. No doubt,
Kate & Allie
would soon have them both in stitches.
"What a great guy," Dina snarled under her breath. Mom had probably penciled his name in her will by now. The supposed rent, partial utilities and part-time assistant's wages he'd paid Dina almost filled the doughnut hole in Harriet's prescription coverage. And then some.
Jeepers, if it wasn't for the notes and that taped confession he'd hidden somewhere, life would be goodfreakin' marvelousuntil he got around to surrendering them and Dina to the police.
She flung the dishcloth at the sink, and stepped down off the wooden stool. "C'mon, Phil. You need to go out."
The mutt lying on the linoleum didn't seem to share that opinion. Squatting down, she lifted a mud-flap ear. "If it wasn't for me, you'd be at the pound scratching yourself bald. Now up and at 'em."
Phil scrambled up, as though her tone had triggered a major bladder spasm. Dina stalked past the TV and batted aside the drapes Jack had closed, along with the rest of the curtains. Had Harriet objected? Do donkeys fly?
She rolled the balky patio door shut behind her, and dragged an aluminum lawn chair to the farthest reaches of the pitted concrete slab. Heaven probably wasn't humid, rife with mosquitoes, gnats and hard-shelled brown bugs that clung to the screens like winged leeches. The patio was just the nearest thing to it, in a six-hundred-square-foot duplex whose population had doubled. And both new occupants were male.
Crickets tuned up in the mulberry tree. The moon hadn't yet crested the rooftops, and city lights washed out the stars. The air smelled like an Almighty steam iron pressing wrinkles from the yard. Phil's tags jingled as he whuffled along the perimeter of the warped board fence, having forgotten what his new world smelled like in less than an hour.
Cars passed on Spring Street, casting out brief musical interludes, snatches of conversation, laughter, beer cans and fast-food sacks. Ah, yes. Another enchanted evening in the 'hood.
A swath of light poured over the patio. Dina gritted her teeth, expecting her mother to inquire, "Is anything wrong?" then chide her for being unsociable.
The heavy glass door rumbled open and shut in its tracks. Jack said, "We need to talk."
Dina exhaled, amused to hear a man speak that immortal phrase. "I'll be in in a minute."
"Privately."
"Good luck with that. Fame is supposed to last fifteen minutes. Out here, privacy is barely fifteen seconds."
He moved to stand beside her chair. They'd both changed into shorts and flip-flops. The hairy thigh looming in Dina's peripheral vision was muscular, but Jack spent about as much time sunbathing as she did.
He said, "I'm not the least bit interested in jumping your bones."
"Really." She looked up, pretty much at the bent elbow crossed over the other arm at his chest. "Gosh, the better we get to know each other, the more we have in common."
"If circumstances were different, we'd be on our third date by now. But just in case that's what's bothered you since I got here, I don't have to blackmail women into sleeping with me."
Oddly, it took a moment for Dina to frame a response. His third-date supposition was ignorable. Yes, the possibility he'd use that audiotape as sexual extortion had occurred to her. So had driving him so wild with desire, he'd give her anything she wanted, including an orgasm, provided her critical components were still operational. Envisioning herself as Mata Hari was as hilarious as Jack morphing into the villain in a porno flick.
"Good to know," she said. "Not that I ruined my manicure worrying about it."
"I wouldn't blame you if you had, as fast as I moved in."
"I invited you."
"You invited Phil. I wasn't part of the original package." Jack shifted his weight. "Hard to believe what's happened in less than twenty-four hours. Or that you'd volunteer to help me disappear for a while."
It was also surprising the dog responded to the name given him almost as recently. Phil lumbered onto the patio and sprawled out as though his skeletal system had liquefied.
Dina gained her feet and looked Jack in the eye. "Your living here isn't a trade-off, either. I'm guilty. It's making me a little crazy not knowing when I'll say that to a judge, how long the sentence will be and that Mom" She shook her head. "Can't go there at all."
Jack reached out to take her arm. She sidestepped away. "You haven't done anything wrong," she said. "Much less killed your ex-wife."
"Trespassing on private property, abetting flight to avoid prosecution, obstructing justice"
"Hey, I'm on your side, okay? The point is, I'm not helping you out of a lot bigger jam than I got myself into, hoping you'll let me off the hook."
A corner of his mouth quirked into a half smile. "You're sure about that?"
A valid question, one he had an exclusive right to ask.
Dina hesitated, struck by the wonder of consistent honesty with someone else and with herself. Innumerable, well-meant white lies to preserve her one-sided marriage had become as unconscious as blinking. The habit made it easy, even natural to tell Harriet, "Yes, you're getting better every day," and presenting unpostmarked greeting cards with a "See, I told you Randy wouldn't forget your birthday." Or Mother's Day. Or Christmas.
But leveling with a private investigator in baggy-ass shorts and a ragged Budweiser T-shirt? For possibly the first time in her life, there were no illusions to uphold or manufacture.
"This afternoon, when you said you had to ditch your apartment and temporarily abandon the office, offering to let you stay here was pure, unadulterated Good Samaritanship." Dina's shoulder hitched. "It wasn't until after I'd sprung Phil from Merry Hills that I thought competing with him for your new best friend might help you forget where you hid that tape and your notes."
Jack laughed. "Looked for them, huh?"
"Not yet."
"Well, I'll save you the effort. They aren't here. And I duplicate everythingnotes, photos, reports
."
"Taking your money," Dina went on, "thinking you might give me a break I don't deserve was worse than suddenly backing out on a place for you to stay."
Through a slit in the drapes, Harriet was angling a tabloid inches away from the drugstore magnifying glasses she seldom wore even in front of her daughter. Her mother's vanity was outward. Dina's was directed inward.
"I don't want your money," she said, "but it's a godsend. I like having you around, but damned if I know why, and it bugs the crap outa me. And yeah, I want to help you, but not to score brownie points with you, or God, or anybody else. I'm doing it for Belle. A woman I'd have enviedhave
resented
if I'd passed her on the street, because her shoes cost more than my rent."
Jack nodded, then stared down at the concrete, as though translating a rune etched in the chips and cracks. Now it was Dina's hand rising to comfort him, then lowering, before he deflected it, as she had. Reining in emotions was tough enough without compassion butting in.
