Part 21 (1/2)

He turned to see a young woman stepping out of the kitchen door of the house next door. She was wearing some kind of restaurant uniform and carried a childa”a little girl from the looks of the ribbons and curlsa”in her arms.

”I'm Mary Lou Starrett.” She introduced herself in that same thick southern accent he'd noticed on the phone. He moved closer, because she was hard to understand. ”I'm the one who called you. How's Donny?”

She was ridiculously young, hardly old enough to leave her own mother, let alone be one.

”Well, it's too soon to say that he's back on his medication, since he's only had one dose, but he has had that one. It's a start,” he told her. ”Thanks so much for looking out for him.”

”It's no trouble,” she told him. ”He's a friend.” Her cheeks dimpled as she smiled. ”An unusual friend, but ..: he's a good guy. I feel badly for not calling you as soon as I noticed he was acting strangelya”more strangely than usual, I should probably say.”

”It shouldn't have to fall on you,” Vince told her. ”We call Don every day, but he only wants us to visit once a week. I'd suspected he'd gone off his meds, but I didn't try to push it because disrupting his schedule sometimes makes things worse. Sometimes he just goes into a decline and comes back out on his own. I guess we were just doing a lot of wishful thinking.”

She opened the door of her car and put the baby into a car seat in the back, and he completely lost her reply.

”What's that?” he said.

She straightened up, smoothing down her s.h.i.+rt from where her daughter had grabbed hold of it. ”I said, that's understandable. I have to get to work, but please don't hesitate to call me anytimea”even for little things, like ... what to get him for Christmas.”

Vince had to smile at that. ”Well, thanks, but that's an easy one. Stock in an aluminum foil company.”

She laughed as she got into her car and said something that he didn't catch.

”What's that?” he asked, bending down to look into the pa.s.senger window.

”I said, it was nice meeting you. You have a nice day, now, Mr. DaCosta.”

”You, too, dear,” he said, stepping away from the car so she could back out of her driveway.

It was nahce meeting yew. Vince had to laugh. Of course. That was who this Mary Lou had reminded him of. Sally Slaggerty. Whatever little southern town Mary Lou had come from, he would bet big bucks that it wasn't too far from wherever Sally had been born more than eighty years ago.

Sally Slaggerty, who'd lived upstairs from Charlotte and Edna Fletcher, who'd entertained GIs and sailors in an intimate fas.h.i.+on on d.a.m.n close to a nightly basis.

Vince grew to dislike poor Sally pretty quickly, because whenever she came home in the evening, gentleman du jour in tow, Charlotte would make a fast exit from his room.

But then there was that one time.

It was latea”close to midnighta”when ol' Sal got home. Vince had been lying there in the dark for about an hour, thinking about how Charlie had smiled as he'd made his first triumphant trip down the hall to the bathroom just a few hours earlier, when suddenly Sally's radio went on.

He'd learned a h.e.l.l of a lot about s.e.xual relations over the week or so he'd been there. He'd learned that some men did the deed as if they were running the twenty-yard dash and trying to break the world record for speed. Othersa”and they tended to be the repeat performers, invited back for two or three nights until they s.h.i.+pped outa”kept the bedsprings squeaking and Sally moaning for close to an hour at a time.

An hour could be unbelievably long when there wasn't much else to do but listena”with the knowledge that Charlotte Fletcher was in the next room over, listening to the very same sounds.

Vince would lie there in that beda”her beda”and try not to remember that night that he'd found himself beneath the bed, with Charlie beneath him. He'd try not to remember the way she'd held him as he'd cried, or how sweet she'd smelled, or how soft her lips had felt as she'd kissed his forehead.

That night, Vince tried to focus on the fact that his trip to the bathroom had been a triumph. He was feeling much stronger. It wouldn't be long before he was up and out of bed for good. Which put him that much closer to the meeting Charlotte had set up for him with Senator Howard. It was still some time away, but he wanted to go in there looking strong and capable.

He'd barely recognized his reflection in the bathroom mirror, he was so pale and wan.

He tried to block the murmur of voices coming from Sally's room upstairs, but the cras.h.i.+ng sound of breaking gla.s.s made him sit up in bed.

It was nothing entirely new. There'd be giddy laughter now ... Except there wasn't. Just that murmur of voices. Sally's low and intense, her words indiscernible, the man's louder, suddenly clear.

”If you're not going to give it back, I'll leave when I'm G.o.dd.a.m.n ready to leave.”

Another crash. And this time Sally cried out in pain or fear, it was hard to tell which.

Vince was up and out of the bed, standing on wobbly legs that hadn't made it farther than the bathroom and back in over a week.

Another crash and another. Jesus, this guy was beating her! Where the h.e.l.l were his pants? ”Charlotte!”

The light went on in the hallway, and Charlie pushed open his door, her mouth grim. ”I'm calling the police.” Wrapping her robe around her, she vanished toward the stairs.

Upstairs, it sounded as if Sally had locked herself in her bathroom. Her ”friend” was now beating on the door instead of her, thank G.o.d, but Sally was sobbing, begging for someone, anyone, to help her.

To h.e.l.l with his pants. To h.e.l.l with the police, tooa”they weren't going to get here in time to help at all.

Vince took the stairs down to the front door faster than he should have and fell the last few steps. Charlie was beside him then, all soft flannel and sweet-smelling hair.

”Don't,” she said. ”Don't, Vincea”I'll go!”

”Like h.e.l.l you will!” He somehow pushed himself up and toward the door. ”Call the police and stay here!”

The night air was cold and bracing. Sally's door was around the side of the house and up a rickety flight of outside stairs. It had a wooden railing on both sides, and he was able to pull himself up mostly using his arms, two steps at a time.

By the time he reached the top, Charlie was behind him again, pus.h.i.+ng something into his hands.

A baseball bat.

James's, no doubt. Thank you, James, you old son of a b.i.t.c.h.

”Stay back,” he told her again as he hobbled toward Sally's door.

But she didn't. She followed him.

The d.a.m.ned door was locked.

He could see through its window, through a gauzy curtain, into Sally's living room. It was a homey, tidy little room with a rocking chair knocked over from its place next to the radio, a braided rug, and a crocheted blanket thrown over the back of the sofa.

The man pounding on the bathroom door was a behemoth, but a behemoth with a swollen, b.l.o.o.d.y lipa”good job, Sal!

”Go back downstairs,” he said, trying one more time to convince Charlie. If he was going to have to fight with this giant, he wasn't going to be able to fight fair, and he didn't want her to watch.

She shook her head. ”I'm not leaving you, Vincent.”

It was a moment he would have liked to savora”with her genuine concern for him filling her eyes, her face scrubbed clean of all makeup, her usually tidy hah- a golden cloud around her staunchly squared shoulders.

But d.a.m.n, that bathroom door wasn't going to stand much more abuse.