Part 14 (1/2)
”Yes.”
”I can't come down for a while. I'm helping my mother with the curtains.”
”Was that your mother who answered the phone?”
”Yes.”
”She sounds very sweet.”
”Yes, she's a charmer,” Amelia said.
”What did you say you were helping her with?”
”The curtains. She made some new curtains, and we were putting them up.”
”Can't she do that alone?”
”No.” Amelia paused. ”I'll meet you later, if you like.”
”All right. When later?”
”An hour?”
”All right. Where?”
”Oh, gee, I don't know. How about the drugstore?”
”Okay, the drugstore,” Roger said. ”What time is it now?”
”It's about two-twenty, I guess. Let's say three-thirty, to be sure.”
”Okay, the drugstore at three-thirty,” Roger said.
”Yes. You know where it is, don't you?”
”Sure I do. Where is it?”
Amelia laughed. ”On the corner of Ainsley and North Eleventh.”
”Ainsley and North Eleventh, right,” Roger said.
”Three-thirty.”
”Three-thirty, right.” Roger paused. ”Who's Mr. Charlie?”
”You're Mr. Charlie.”
”I am?”
Amelia laughed again. ”I'll tell you all about it when I see you. I'll give you a course in black-white relations.”
”Oh, boy,” Roger said.
”And other things,” Amelia whispered.
”Okay,” Roger said. His heart was pounding. ”Three-thirty at the drugstore. I'll go home and put on a clean s.h.i.+rt.”
”Okay.”
”So long,” he said.
”So long,” she said.
A squad car was parked at the curb when he got back to the rooming house.
The car was empty. The window near the curb was lowered, and he could hear the police radio going inside. He looked up the steps leading to the front door. Through the gla.s.s panels on the door he could see Mrs. Dougherty in conversation with two uniformed policemen.
He was about to turn and walk off in the opposite direction when one of the cops looked through the gla.s.s-paneled door directly at him. He couldn't turn and walk away now that he'd been seen, so he walked casually up the steps and kicked snow from his feet on the top step and then opened the door and walked into the vestibule. A radiator was hissing behind the fat cop, who stood with his hands behind his back, the fingers spread toward the heat. Mrs. Dougherty was explaining something to the cops as Roger stepped into the vestibule. ”. . . only discovered it half an hour ago when I went down to the bas.e.m.e.nt to put in some laundry, so that was when I called you, h.e.l.lo, Mr. Broome.”
”h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Dougherty,” he said. ”Is something wrong?”
”Oh, nothing important,” she said, and turned back to the policemen as he went past. ”It's not that it was new or anything,” she said to the fat cop. Roger opened the inner vestibule door. ”But I suppose it was worth maybe fifty or sixty dollars, I don't know. What annoys me is that somebody could get into the bas.e.m.e.nt and . . .”
Roger closed the door and went up the steps to his room.
He had just taken off his coat when the knock sounded on his door.
”Who is it?” he said.
”Me. f.o.o.k.”
”Who?”
”f.o.o.k. f.o.o.k Shanahan. Open up.”
Roger went to the door and unlocked it. f.o.o.k was a small, bald, bright-eyed man of about forty-five, wearing a white s.h.i.+rt over which was an open brown cardigan sweater. He was grinning as Roger opened the door, and he stepped into the room with an air of conspiracy, and immediately closed and locked the door behind him.
”Did you see the cops downstairs?” he asked at once.
”Yes,” Roger said.
”Something, huh?” f.o.o.k said, his eyes gleaming.
”What do they want?”
”Don't you know what happened?”
”No. What?”