The Man on the Washing Machine (10 page)

“I think I ate it all. Nat, you don't have to do this.”

“Of course I do,” he said more seriously, and draped his spare arm loosely around my shoulders. “What did he look like? Maybe we could have a drawing of him done and e-mail it 'round. If You See This Man Call The Cops,” he said in obvious capital letters. “Was he young? White? Asian? Black? What was he wearin'?”

“He was fifty-ish. A white guy. Sort of fat and bald. In a suit and French cuffs for God's sake.”

Nat snorted into his mug and managed to splash coffee onto his sweater.

“Shit!” he said, and dabbed at it frantically with a wet sponge. “Dammit, Theo, don't make me laugh. Look at me!”

I grunted in amusement; I couldn't help it. He looked up ruefully. “All right. I'm shallow. But it's cashmere! Besides, no one has burglars who look like insurance salesmen! What else do you remember?”

I hesitated. “There was something about his pronunciation. He said ‘Jaysus,' as if he might be Irish. And he seemed mad—not crazy, but angry or upset.”

“A hot-tempered Irishman. He should be easy to find,” he said brightly.

I punched him lightly in the arm and he pretended it hurt him.

“What the hell could he have been doing? If he was after valuables, he came to the wrong place, the bastard,” I said.

“You're beginnin' to sound more like yourself,” Nat drawled.

I was beginning to feel more like myself, too. “Thanks to you,” I said.

He shrugged it off and blotted his sweater again. “I forgot to tell you earlier, did you hear Sabina is havin' collagen injections to make her lips fuller?” he asked innocently.

It was my turn to choke on my coffee. “Who told you that?”

“No one has to tell me; I'm very intuitive,” he said. “I'm thinkin' of giving her a nickname—um—Collie? That would remind her we shared a secret without tellin' everyone else.”

“Collie!” I spluttered. “You can't!”

He snickered. “I met her comin' out of 450 Sutter the other day. That temple to the medical profession—full of fashionable quacks. I took her to the Redwood Room for a drink afterward—Perrier for two, twenty-one dollars, honey—and she confessed and swore me to secrecy.” He twinkled at me.

“She'll kill you if she finds out you've told anyone.”

“I haven't told ‘anyone.' I've told you. Do you seriously think she'll get violent? All that black leather—” He shivered happily. “No one tells me things they expect to keep quiet anyway. Ask Derek. Although he did make a point of askin' me again to keep quiet about the hair thing. He'll probably never share anythin' ever again. Besides, you know you love it; you need someone like me to keep you up-to-date on the important things.” He yawned suddenly.

I was stricken. “You fainted this morning. I shouldn't have kept you out drinking, and then dragged you out of bed.”

“The danger in being hemophobic—as opposed, always, to homophobic—is that people don't often arrange soft surfaces for me to keel over on; the kimonos were a nice touch.” He yawned again and shook his head as if to clear it. “I'm going to be a wreck tomorrow. What time is it anyway?”

“It's past one. Go home, Nat. I'm okay. Truly.” He ignored me and began to unpack another of my cabinets. I took some of the dishes and began piling them in the cabinet he indicated.

“Come on, Nat. Enough is enough. I'm fine.”

Still with his back to me, he said in a completely different tone: “Can I ask you somethin'?”

“Anything.”

“Do you think Nicole is having an affair with Derek?” His voice cracked and I looked at his back, horrified and disbelieving.

“What! No, I don't, Nat. Derek is head over heels for you.”

He turned around. “They go way back to art school, and she was with Derek for the umpteenth time when I got home tonight and I lost it, Theo. I bitch-slapped her and threw her out of the flat. What the hell was I thinkin'?” He groaned and put his face in his hands. “Then Derek and I had this gigantic fight.”

“What did Derek say?”

“He said I was out of my mind, that he loved me, then he put me to bed in the guest room with an ice pack and a sleepin' pill. In the guest room, Theo!”

“Honey, I saw him today when you passed out in the kimonos. Believe me, the man loves you. Was the guest room his idea?”

Nat looked a little shamefaced. “I told him I wanted to sleep there. But he could have talked me out of it! You don't think he and Nicole…”

“Definitely, definitely not,” I said firmly. “Besides—”

Nat raised a hand. “I know what you're going to say, but Derek is bi—he's told me about a couple of other women.”

“Even so. Definitely, definitely not.”

“Okay then. I guess I owe both of them an apology,” he said gloomily. “That's goin' to go well.” He ran fresh water onto the sponge and pulled the sweater away from his chest to look at it with dismay. “If I soak it in cold water, do you think it will keep the stain from settin'?”

I smiled. “I bet it will. Thanks for coming, Nat. There's nothing wrong with being a little in love with your best friend, is there?”

“Nope. I love you, too. And I must, because I'm going to sleep here and I'll have to share that damn mattress with you and Lucy.”

“No. You're not staying.”

“I am.”

“No.” I shook my head.

“I know that look. I'm not winnin' this one, am I?” He didn't sound happy, but the last thing I wanted was to make too much of a minor incident. Or to rely too much on anyone, even Nat.

He insisted on washing up the mugs, then going around with me to all the windows and doors, and checking the closets and the bathrooms, to make sure the flat was empty of uninvited visitors. He did it before I asked, without making me feel ridiculous for wanting him to do it. He gave me a kiss on the cheek and another hug before he reluctantly started to leave.

I said: “Seriously, Nat. There's no chance that Derek is cheating on you with
anyone
.”

He nodded. “Yeah, okay. I trust your judgment, Theo. Thanks, sweetie.”

Lucy and I went to bed, but between the coffee and the excitement, I didn't sleep much. I decided as dawn broke that the man on the washing machine had done me a favor. For the past year I'd wondered if I'd have the courage to put into practice what the ex-policeman had taught me. Now I knew and I'd won a small victory.

 

CHAPTER TEN

Nicole didn't come in to work the next morning and Davie showed up with a split lip and a black eye, courtesy of his father. As always, he begged me not to interfere.

“It doesn't hurt,” he insisted as I clumsily bathed his mouth in warm water and peroxide and held a cold water compress gently on his eye. “He doesn't mean it.”

Fury made my voice shake. “Davie, it isn't right.”

“It's okay. It doesn't hurt. He needs me,” he said anxiously. “Don't tell anyone, okay? He'll be pissed if CPS gets in his face again.”

The first time Davie showed up with bruises, I flew at Mr. Rillera like a ballistic missile. It was like trying to reason with Jell-O. Hungover and remorseful, he sat with his head in his hands while my rage broke over him like a storm. When I gritted my teeth and called the police, they compared Mr. Rillera's 130 pounds against Davie's bulk and checked me off as an overprotective busybody. Child Protective Services did an investigation, but since Davie and his father both denied the abuse they did nothing.

Davie's mother opted out by hanging herself when Davie was six years old. A shelter like the one Turlough has opened might have saved the whole family.

I spent the time between customers fielding calls from friends who grilled me for more details than Nat had given them about my break-in, and who apparently wanted to be prepared in case the man on my washing machine broke into their places and started tap-dancing on their microwave ovens or something.

Sabina came in to pick up some body lotion and listened to my story without comment. Her hair was its usual tempestuous riot of red ringlets but her expression was sulky. Her black jeans were even tighter than usual, and I wondered how she breathed in them. I glanced furtively at her collagen-enhanced lips, but they looked the same to me.

“No work today?” I asked her as she wandered around the store running bubble bath beads through her fingers like gold pieces.

“I was offered an overnight to London. I turned it down. I thought of going to the health club for a workout.”

“I could use a session in a nice hot whirlpool myself,” I said, easing what felt like a permanent neck ache.

“Oh, I've given that up. Bad for the complexion,” she said. Then she added more warmly: “It's been a while since we did anything together.”

“Too long,” I said, surprised that it was true.

“How about, oh, lunch or something? My schedule's pretty flexible. I'm thinking of selling the bike and going into some other line of work. I'm tired of racing around the city breathing in other people's exhaust and spending half my time on airplanes.”

“How about brunch next Sunday? The shop is closed and … Sabina? Honey, what's wrong?” I added when she was silent.

She sniffed and said awkwardly: “Brunch on Sunday would be good. I'm nervous about your prowler, I guess. And Tim Callahan falling off the building. What's the third thing?”

“Third thing?”

“You know—bad luck comes in threes.”

I didn't want to think about the possibilities, so I didn't reply. “Tell your grandparents about the prowler, okay?” I said instead.

“I've bought a beautiful new knife,” she said abruptly. Sabina collected artisan-made knives. I found them disturbing, but I recognized that some were genuinely works of art. “I'll bring it to show you.”

“I'll look forward to it,” I lied.

I was putting her lotion, at her request, into a recycled paper bag when she said: “You know what, Theo?”

“What?”

“He sounds sort of familiar. The suit, and him being bald and everything, and looking like a bookkeeper or something.”

“Insurance salesman, but you've got the idea,” I said. “You think you've seen him before?”

“I caught a glimpse of some guy, you know? And I rolled over and went back to sleep because I thought I was dreaming. I mean it didn't make sense, right? A guy in a suit, with a gym bag—”

“A gym bag? What kind of a gym bag?”

“A kind of nylon barrel bag. Like you might carry workout clothes in. It was last month, remember when I was in bed with that bug? It was sort of early in the evening and I woke up and looked out the window and saw this guy walking around on the roof a few houses down. I fell back asleep so I thought I was dreaming or feverish or something.”

“A few houses down. Near my place?”

“It could have been,” she said slowly.

“What color was the bag?”

“Red, I think. Or orange. Like I said, I didn't think much of it. Weird, huh?”

So weird, I didn't want to think about it much either. After she left, I made myself a cup of tea and sat at my desk in the office while Davie blundered about in the shop. My head was already aching, so it wasn't long before I was making a hash of the month's work schedule for the fifth time. Nicole's nonappearances of late have added to the complexity of the task; I have to pretend that she's coming in, while still having Haruto or Davie available in case she doesn't. I vigorously applied my shrinking eraser to the schedule yet again.

An overcast sky delivered on the promise it had been making all morning and rain began drumming on the window. Davie, complete with his black eye and split lip, a brand-new lightning bolt shaved into his short bristly hair, and an amethyst stud in his nose, pushed through the piles of boxes into our crack-in-the-wall office and stood in the doorway.

“What's up?” I said.

“Did that asshole hurt you?”

Damn. He looked more worried than a kid his age should have to be. I wish I'd explained things to him before all those telephone calls from my neighbors. “No, honey. He got into the flat when I wasn't there and he ran away when I got home. Don't worry.”

His face cleared and he gave me a shy smile. He seems to feel I need protecting, which is one of life's little ironies. I tapped my papers into a neat pile. “I'm nearly finished,” I lied. “Everything okay out front?”

“Can I help with the customers today?” He didn't ask very often, and I loved him for wanting to help somehow.

“Sure, if you'd like to,” I said. He effortlessly picked up a forty-pound carton of soap dishes and carried it out to unpack.

I heard a customer come in and started to get up, but I heard Davie say: “May I help you?” in his politest voice, and I watched him through the two-way mirror. The customer's eyes flickered between Davie's lightning bolt—not to mention the split lip and black eye—and the lace and satin shower caps she was asking about. I went back to my scheduling, scowling at the calendar of classes Davie had given me at the start of the semester so his time with us wouldn't conflict. I was glad he was with me. The man on the washing machine had given me the creeps and revitalized some long-buried anxieties. I penciled in Davie's name with a query mark for Monday morning, too.

I heard the spring bell on the front door and looked out in time to see the customer leaving with an Aromas bag tucked under her arm.

“Good for you, Davie,” I said.

He was playing it cool, but he was delighted. “She bought three shower caps.”

“Three! I'll have to put you on commission,” I said. He grinned and went back to unpacking the soap dishes. Kidding aside, I was impressed. The shower caps cost nineteen dollars each.