The Man on the Washing Machine (7 page)

“You can trust me.”

“Why don't I believe you? You haven't said anythin',” he added in a different tone. “Don't you think it looks pretty on the lavender sweater?”

He waved the pendant under my nose. Interlocking double rings of gold were hung with fine gold rods set with tiny semiprecious stones. It sparkled and made a light, clear, metallic tinkle like a tiny wind chime dangling from his fingers. It was a gift from Nat's lover, Derek Linton. I had seen the pendant every day for two weeks.

“Do I have to compliment it every time I see you?” I grumbled.

“What are friends for?” He leaned over the counter and leafed idly through Lichlyter's notebook.

Derek is a Tiffany-trained jeweler and Nat could sell sand to the Saudis. Their Jewelry Studio, a couple of expensively decorated rooms with discreet and gleaming showcases, was on the second floor of a building on ritzy Union Square. Most of Derek's work is commissioned, but they also present the work of a few avant-garde young designers. I lifted the pendant from his fingers and rested it in my own. “How does it make that pretty sound, anyway?”

“The gold tubes are hollow,” Derek said from the doorway. He came over and squeezed Nat's shoulder. “Knew I'd find you here,” he said good-naturedly to Nat. “Anyone want another coffee? Tea, Theo?”

I shook my head and Nat waved his half-full mug. “I'm fine,” he said.

One of the kids in the neighborhood insists on calling them Beauty and the Beast, which is pretty astute. When he's not smiling, Derek looks like a giant version of the frog footman in Alice, and he makes Nat, who tops six feet, look delicate. He's a fairly high-maintenance kind of guy in some ways; touchy about certain subjects and, once he gets an idea in his head, stubborn as a mule. But he's generous and talented and Nat loves him, which is enough for me.

He was hollow-eyed from lack of sleep this morning. His jaws stretched in a cavernous yawn. “Sleeping on planes doesn't do it for me anymore.”

“How was Hong Kong?” I asked him.

“Full of pretty sailors in white shorts.”

Nat, who had wandered away to run his fingers through some potpourri, looked mock-indignant. “In Texas, them's fightin' words,” he growled.

“I've heard about those Texas boys and their cattle,” Derek said. Nat chuckled.

“Any good buys?” I asked Derek.

Derek smiled like a gourmet about to devour a particularly juicy morsel. “A couple of pieces of carved imperial jade—dark, dark green. Beautiful. I'm going to mount them as earrings. There was some ivory—”

“—but he was pure-minded and turned it down,” Nat interjected from over by the kimonos.

Derek sighed. “You can't bring it into the country anyway. Besides, my ladies would kill me. They all belong to the World Wildlife Fund.”

“I guess politically correct is good for business,” I said. “Which is the second time today I've had this conversation.” I grabbed a handful of the Gibney Brothers soaps—the rose scent because Nicole was right; the stuff sells—and busied myself with price labels.

“How's Helga doing?” Derek said, leaning back on his elbows at the counter, following Nat with his eyes. “She looked better today, I thought.”

“She's still on autopilot,” Nat said. “I took her another casserole yesterday. She said you went over at zero dark thirty on Tuesday to make croissants for hours, Theo.”

“She's exaggerating. I was only a pair of hands. Her day starts practically in the middle of the night and she usually does the whole thing by herself. Swear to God, a couple of hours lifting those heavy baking trays and I was ready to go back to bed. She lent me her heatproof gloves and I still managed to burn myself.” I twisted my arm to expose the angry red welt on my inner arm and frowned down at it.

Nat made a sympathetic face. “Poor baby,” he crooned. I snorted.

“I guess they were close, her and her father, but even if not, it must be hard to lose a parent,” Derek said.

As usual, when I received a casual reminder of my own history, I felt it to my bones and didn't have much to say.

He picked up a hand mirror and ran a hand over the silken smoothness of the wooden back. “This is nice work. New supplier?”

“Uh-huh. Turn it over. The mirror is beveled.”

“Better not. I might crack it,” he said with a wry grimace. “By the way, I want some natural sponges for my display cases—I've done some coral pieces—have any unusual ones?”

“I thought coral was endangered. What about the World Wildlife Fund ladies?”

“These are old carved pieces out of Mainland China, nothing new. One of them is a red coral chrysanthemum—probably a century old. I've mounted it as a brooch in a diamond and gold setting. Fabulous.”

“Don't you love the way he admires his own work?” Nat said slyly.

I picked out three large sea sponges from the display. “Take them,” I said, tossing them into one of our bags. “Bring 'em back when you're done. Those irregular ones don't sell as well as the simpler shapes.” Which is weird, right? I mean why pay the extra for something natural that looks artificial?

Derek thanked me with a grin that transformed his ugly face. “I wanted to pick some up in Hong Kong, but a two-day trip wasn't enough time to check out the wholesalers and get other shopping done.”

“I thought maybe you took the chance to pick up some herb medicines,” I said innocently. Nat gave me big eyes and a head-shaking grimace from behind Derek's back.

“Who told you about that?” Derek said with a scowl.

I hesitated, mostly because he looked so incensed. “Um, well, everyone takes herb medicines nowadays, and I thought—”

“I told her,” Nat sighed. “You know I tell Theo everythin'. Just because your hair's a little thin—and whose isn't?” he added hastily as Derek's heavy eyebrows drew even closer together. He deliberately caressed Derek's new crew cut. “Stylish,” he drawled. “And every little hair standin' right up on end.”

Derek finally smiled slowly and shook his head. “You bastard,” he said, pretending to shake Nat's hand off his shoulder, but holding it there with his own. “I said to keep it private. Have you told anyone else?” We both solemnly shook our heads.

“No, come on, you two. I'm embarrassed enough as it is.” And he looked it; his cheeks were even a little pink. Funny.

“Fine.” Nat raised his hand in a mock pledge. “I promise I won't tell anyone else except Theo that you are obsessed with findin' a cure for your thinnin' hair. Not that it's thinnin'!”

“And no mention of Chinese medicines! Theo?” Derek growled.

“I promise, too, mardy arse. What about Rogaine?”

Derek said: “What in hell is a mardy arse?”

At the same time Nat said: “He has an allergy to one of the ingredients so—”

Derek rolled his eyes. “Does no one know the meaning of the word ‘private'? Has there been anything new about the poor guy who took a nosedive off number twenty-three?” he added firmly to me. “What was his name; did we know him at all?”

Deciding he really was embarrassed, I went with the change of direction. “It was Tim Callahan; you knew him, right?”

“Huh. We went to school together. He was pretty much always a stoner. He and Nicole were married for about five minutes back in the day. Does she know?”

I was taken aback. “I had no idea. She said something about him, but never mentioned they were married! Honestly, she sounded pissed off at him. I thought her husband was a lawyer or CPA or something.”

“Husband number two. That didn't last long either,” Nat said waspishly. I looked at him in surprise. He wasn't often catty. He rolled his eyes at me.

“Maybe she didn't tell you about Tim because it's not a happy memory.” Derek looked at my expression and grinned. “Don't get weirded out, Theo. This is a small town in some ways. Half my eighth-grade class works in the Financial District and the other half belongs to my gym. I bump into guys I went to school with all the time. It's like kids who went to SI for high school—”

“—that's St. Ignatius,” Nat said helpfully.

“—they practically all go to USF for college and stay local. Seems like even the ones who go to the East Coast for school come back. Anyway, Nicole and I are going for a drink this evening. I'll take her pulse. My guess, she won't be too cut up about it.”

Nat frowned, started to say something, and closed his mouth.

“Okay then,” I said into the slightly awkward silence, feeling as if I should send Nicole flowers or bake her a pie or something. “By the way, the police have said we can have access to the attic again. People are supposed to be getting their stuff out.”

Derek frowned. “They closed it off? Did they treat it like a crime scene? I thought it was an accident.”

“So did everyone. You two coming to the meeting tonight?” I said after a pause during which I served three customers and managed to get a few more price labels stuck on some bottles of Gibney Brothers talc, and they held hands and sipped their coffees.

Derek snorted. “Those meetings make me nervous. Besides, everyone else goes; they don't need me. Nat's going. Right, big guy?”

“Wouldn't miss it.” Nat was telling the literal truth. He thoroughly enjoyed them.

“Tonight's meeting is making me nervous, too,” I said. “I know Haruto is planning to complain about dogs in the compost pile again—”

“That boy needs a hobby,” Nat interjected.

“—he's got a hobby, that's the trouble,” I said.

“And everyone wonders why I'm not going!” Derek said. “Compost. Ugh.”

“Apparently it's black gold. I also heard this morning that the group home is already moving into number twenty-three—”

A small crash came from the floor at Derek's feet. “Damn!” Derek said. “I'm sorry, Theo.” There was a small gash in his hand from the broken mirror and blood welled in it. “It broke in my hands,” he said. “Hell—”

“Cover it, quick!” I said hastily to Derek, who tried to hide his bleeding hand, but not quickly enough.

“Urgh,” Nat said. I looked over at him anxiously. His eyes rolled back in his head in slow-motion and he dropped like a stone into the rack of kimonos.

“Nat!” Derek yelped.

“Cover the blood!”

Derek patted Nat urgently on the cheek. Nat moaned faintly.

“Great,” Derek said as he wrapped the paper towels I handed him around his damaged hand. “Maybe you should call an ambulance to have us both hauled away.” There was an edge of fright in his voice.

I tried to reassure him, but I understood. All six feet of Nat in a dead faint was something I'd never forgotten since the first time I saw it happen. “All he needs is some rest. The kimonos broke his fall.” I looked at the tangled mess. “Take him home. He'll be fine.”

“Are you sure? He told me about the blood thing, but he never said it was so bad he fainted—he doesn't need a doctor or anything?” He tried to wrap his undamaged arm around Nat's shoulders as Nat slowly sat up and gave a convincing, if sheepish, portrait of recovery. I patched up Derek's hand in the office, out of Nat's sight, and they left holding hands. It all reminded me how long it had been since someone cared when I was hurting.

It was midday by then, and fog was starting to fly overhead and block out the sun. Davie came in to work and we were busy all day, but I still had time to wonder whether broken mirrors meant bad luck for seven years—and for which one of us?

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

The neighborhood association meeting was controlled chaos. No, check that; it was just chaos.

We meet monthly at the president's home, which is decorated with some of her family antiques—carved tables; silk rugs and rosewood chairs with no cushions; and souvenirs of her husband's African travels—Masai warrior spears, vicious-looking clubs carved to look like fists, and odd little stools. It's difficult to find somewhere comfortable to sit. If it weren't Fabian Gardens tradition to meet in the home of the president, I think we'd all welcome a change.

After the meetings, the secretary—me this year—sends notes to people telling them when they've been assigned in absentia to a committee. For that reason alone, I've always felt, the meetings are pretty well attended. It's easier to fight off the nominations in person. Anyone who lives or works in Fabian Gardens is a de facto member of the association, so we're an interesting mix of well-to-do property owners, professional people, merchants, and the waifs and strays who tend to inhabit the tiny studio apartments.

I arrived as we were called to order, so I had no chance to talk to anyone before things got lively. Nat was perched on an African milking stool in the bay window with his arms clasped around one knee, watching everyone with an engaged and interested expression. He winked at me and I rolled my eyes. Part of the meeting's entertainment value was the bare-knuckle jockeying between the president and her vice president. Both women were forced to make polite noises to each other in public while bitterly complaining later, and in deepest confidence, to their cronies who of course spread it all over the place. Nat loved every moment of every meeting and forwarded the latest e-mails to me with vulgar comments appended.

The first item on the agenda was Sunday's Open Garden, our annual show for the neighborhood. People bring their mothers in from Benicia and Concord to see the little townie miracle as if they didn't have gardens out in the country. I allowed myself to hope that it would occupy us all evening.

Someone meekly proposed that we delay the Open Garden this year because of Tim Callahan's death.

“Why?” Kurt snapped. “He had nothing to do with us.”

Maybe doctors develop a shell to protect themselves from emotional involvement, but Kurt was overdoing it. Several people agreed with him and two or three others lined up on the side of a postponement. They were voted down and we determined that the Open Garden would go ahead. However, in a sop to our finer feelings, we decided to print the information about Tim's funeral in our e-newsletter so anyone who wanted to could go to pay their respects. Haruto, resident compost fanatic, made a hot-tempered remark about dogs digging up the compost pile. A dog-owning resident took exception and they nearly came to blows. Haruto and his champions threw out random remarks about leash laws, while the pet owners muttered darkly about Nazis.