hesitates.
“You scared me.”
“Jacques is dead,” Jenny says.
“Jacques is dead? Jacques O’Mally?”
Thomas starts down the stairs. He hears Jenny speaking in a low voice, suddenly clear and normal, almost ingratiating. “Mrs. Krantz, have you heard any strange sounds coming from the apartment recently? It looks like it’s been burgled. Have you heard anything suspicious?”
“Burglars?” Mrs. Krantz stutters nervously. Jenny continues, “Yes, it’s awful. Have you heard anything? Can you remember seeing or hearing anything?” Thomas can’t stand Jenny constantly repeating herself. Mrs. Krantz, he notices, has come all the way out into the hallway. She’s wearing a hairnet over her wispy, curly hair.
“Have you heard anything coming from my father’s apartment?”
“I don’t hear so well,” Mrs. Krantz says, tugging on her long earlobes. “Everything gets worse over time, everything, everything. It’s hopeless . . .” She squints and points down the stairs at Thomas. “Is that your brother? I remember him.”
“But you haven’t heard anything?”
Mrs. Krantz shakes her head. Thomas’s legs itch. If Jenny says “have you heard anything” one more time he’ll scream. Then he’ll murder her.
“We need to go right now, we have things to do,” he says curtly. “C’mon, Jenny.”
“It was so nice to see you again,” Jenny says, offering her hand to the old woman.
At last Jenny totters down the stairs, the toaster under her arm. Mrs. Krantz waves her bony gray hand, and Jenny waves back. Thomas is already outside in the sunlight, his cigarette lit. His pulse gallops. A thin layer of cold sweat covers his back and belly. Instantly he’s drained. The sun hammers down through a blue sky, blinding them; they sit side by side on the stoop, overwhelmed by discouragement and exhaustion. Jenny steals the cigarette from Thomas and takes a deep drag. “You don’t smoke,” he says, grabbing it back. “Can you believe Mrs. Krantz is still alive?” Jenny says. “She was such a loathsome bitch, a mean, nasty, wicked bitch. Remember that time she claimed we’d tortured her ugly mutt?” Thomas nods, but Jenny continues, agitated. “Just because we were friendly enough to walk the dog when she was sick!”
“I remember, Jenny.”
“Remember how he beat us that night? And now here she is, being all nice to us. The loathsome bitch! I should have punched that pig right in her face.” Thomas looks at Jenny. She looks angry. Then comes a faint smile and a moment’s life in her green eyes. He smiles tiredly. She squeezes his arm. A bus drives past, spraying them with dirty gutter water, but they remain seated. The afternoon sun is getting lower. For some time, they are quiet. School’s out and kids are scurrying cheerfully down the street. The boys tease the girls, the girls tease the boys. Bodies hopping and dancing and running and jabbing and slapping and pinching and gesticulating. A red-haired girl leaps onto the back of a skinny boy. Thomas suddenly feels rinsed and cleansed by the loud and happy cries of laughter from the herd. Then he remembers they’re not allowed to be here. They don’t have access to the estate. When he stands, his left foot’s asleep and his knees are stiff. Only now does he notice how cold the air is. “Don’t tell anyone we were here,” he says, squeezing Jenny’s arm.
He walks with Jenny to the station and takes the bus back to the store. It’s almost completely dark now. Maloney’s done with the accounting. The shipment arrived today after all, and now it’s in place. The chandelier’s yellow light makes the store seem smaller and cozier. Annie’s on her knees sorting something in a cabinet, Peter’s leaning against the ladder blowing an enormous bubble with his chewing gum, then it pops in his face. He seems more stooped than usual. Thomas drops into a chair in the office, sighing. “Have a pastry,” Maloney says. He’s sitting with his legs propped up on the table and riffling through a catalog. He pushes a plate filled with cream cakes toward Thomas. Thomas pokes at a strawberry with his teaspoon, then sets the spoon down. “Someone was in the apartment. Everything was ransacked.”
Maloney peers up from his catalog. “Junkies?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe it was a while ago.”
“But it looked recent.”
“How could you tell?” Maloney sets his feet on the floor and inches closer. His gut bumps against the edge of the table.
“There was an apple core on the floor. It wasn’t dried up, it was fresh. Only a tiny bit of brown.”
Maloney leans all the way back in the boss’s chair: one long, fluid motion. “You sound like an amateur detective. Some kid could’ve tossed an apple core there, especially in that neighborhood. Don’t you think you should close the book on your father’s story?” A strip of Maloney’s stomach is visible between the elastic of his pants and his shirt, which has slid up.
“He never did a goddamn thing for you while he was alive, and I’m sure it’ll be the same now that he’s dead. You look like someone who needs a drink. We can ask Annie to lock up.”
They sit at the bar. The bar wraps around them in a very safe and inviting way. Thomas is on his second martini, while Maloney slurps the last of a piña colada. The girl behind the bar smiles at them under sharply trimmed, bleached bangs, and the music is just their style—as if she knew precisely what they liked. And now they’re acting kind of goofy, unrestrained. Thomas has nearly forgotten about the break-in and Jenny’s naked, frightened face. His glance lingers on the girl’s eyes, which are dolled up in black. Are they blue or gray? Maloney says, “Maybe Peter’s gay.” And Thomas says he thinks Peter’s a virgin. “But the kid’s twenty-two years old, for God’s sake.” And Thomas says, “You can’t talk about anything but sex.” “What about you?” Maloney answers, and then Thomas’s cell phone rings for the third time—he’s ignored it until now; it’s Patricia. “I need to take this,” he says, pushing the door open and stepping onto the sidewalk as he grapples with his cell. Cool wind whips at his face.
Patricia’s already home, she says, it’s past 8:00, and they’d agreed to have dinner. Did he buy wine? Bread? Chicken? Vegetables? Thomas stabilizes himself against the wall with his left arm. “I’m coming,” he says. “I’m taking a taxi right now. I’ll bring Chinese. And beer. I’m sorry, hon, I lost track of time.”
“I don’t want Chinese,” Patricia says angrily, “and you sound trashed.”
Maloney isn’t at all happy that Thomas needs to go, but he doesn’t even stand up when Thomas gathers his things and pays the bill. They say their goodbyes. Maloney calls out, “See you later!” Thomas trudges up and down the street, but there’s no available cab. Through the steamy glass door he can see Maloney seated among a group of younger men and women, whom he’s already begun to entertain with wild gesticulations. Out here it’s cold as hell. Thomas heads toward the wider boulevards, buys beer and cigarettes at a deli. He’s freezing and shivering, and finally a taxi pulls along the curb. It’s a pleasant ride through the city. I love the lights and the darkness, he thinks, lights and darkness, and just like that they’re at the door of his building. It’s all too quiet here, he thinks. And I haven’t bought any dinner, I can’t go home without any dinner. Thoughts like flies and stinging insects: Where are my keys? An apple core, the stench in the kitchen. If she doesn’t want Chinese, I need to go all the way down to the tapas place, it’ll take at least fifteen minutes.
