At Gus’s, the week before, after a diligent search through the chest of drawers in one of the spare bedrooms, she’d found some jewelry that must have belonged to his wife. Most of it was cheap, but Mrs. Vronsky’s engagement ring was mounted with a good-sized diamond and her watch was a Cartier. Solana had moved those to a hiding place in her room until she could get to a jeweler’s and have them appraised. She didn’t want to try a pawnshop because she knew she would net only a small percentage of their value. Items in pawnshops were easily traced and that would never do. Really, she was losing hope of unearthing assets beyond those in hand.
She crept to the closet, lifting the knob as she opened the door. She’d learned the hard way that the hinges screeched like someone stepping on a dog’s tail. That had happened the second night she’d spent in the house. Gus had sat up in bed, demanding to know what she was doing in his room. She’d said the first thing that had come into her head. “I heard you yelling and I thought something was wrong. You must have had a bad dream. Why don’t I warm you some milk?”
She’d laced the milk with cherry cough syrup, telling him it was a special drink mix for kids, full of vitamins and minerals. He’d swallowed it right down, and she’d made a point of oiling the hinges before she tried again. Now she went back through his jacket pockets, testing his raincoat, his only sports coat, and the robe he’d left hanging on the closet door. Nothing, nothing, nothing, she thought irritably. If the old man was worthless, there was no way she could put up with him. He could go on for years, and what was the point of helping if it netted her nothing? She was a trained professional, not a volunteer.
She gave up the search for the night and returned to bed, frustrated and out of sorts. She lay there, sleepless, roaming the house in her mind, trying to determine how he’d outwitted her. Nobody could live as long as he had without having a substantial sum of money somewhere. She’d obsessed about the subject from day one of her employment when she’d been certain of success. She’d quizzed him about his insurance policies, pretending that she was pondering the issue of whole life versus term. Almost gleefully he’d told her he’d let his policies lapse. She’d been sorely disappointed, though she’d discovered through Mr. Ebersole how difficult it was to insinuate oneself as a beneficiary. She’d done better with Mrs. Prent, though she wasn’t at all sure the lesson she’d learned there would apply to this situation. Surely Gus had a will, which might provide another possibility. She hadn’t found a copy, but she’d come across a safe-deposit key, which suggested he kept his valuables at the bank.
All the worrying was exhausting. At 4:00 A.M. she rose, put on her clothes, and made her bed neatly. She let herself out the front door and walked the half block to her car. It was dark and cold, and she couldn’t shake the sour mood he’d put her in. She drove to Colgate. In long stretches, the highway was deserted, as wide and empty as a river. She pulled into the carport at her apartment complex, her gaze moving across the line of windows to see who was awake. She loved the sense of power she experienced, knowing she was up and about while so many others were dead to the world.
She let herself in and checked to make sure Tiny was home. He seldom went out, but when he did, she might not see him for days. She opened his door with the same stealth she employed in searching Gus’s closets. The room was dark, dense with his body smells. He kept his heavy curtains closed because the morning light bothered him, nudging him awake hours before he was ready to get out of bed. He stayed up late at night watching television and he couldn’t face life before noon, he said. The soft wash of daylight from the hallway revealed his bulky outline in the bed, one beefy arm on top of the quilt. She closed the door.
She poured a tot of vodka in a jelly glass and sat down at the dining room table, which was piled high with junk mail and unopened bills, among them her new driver’s license, which she was thrilled to have in her possession. On top of the closest stack was a blank envelope with her name scrawled across the front. She recognized her landlord’s nearly illegible scrawl. He was actually the manager, a position he enjoyed because he paid no rent. The note inside was short and to the point, informing her of a two-hundred-dollar-a-month increase, effective immediately. Two months previously she’d been told the building had been sold. Now the new owner was systematically jacking up the rents, which automatically raised the value of the property. At the same time, he was making a few improvements, if that’s what you wanted to call them. He’d taken credit for having the mailboxes repaired when it was actually a post office regulation. The mailman wouldn’t deliver to any address where there wasn’t a clearly marked box. The dead bushes had been pulled away from the front of the building and left at the curb, where the trash collectors had ignored them for weeks. He’d also installed coin-operated washers and dryers in the communal laundry room, which had been abandoned for years and had served as a storage space for bicycles, many of which were stolen. She knew most of the tenants would ignore the washing machines.
Across the back alleyway from her apartment there was another complex he’d bought-twenty-four units in four buildings, each with its own unlocked laundry room, where a washer and dryer were available without charge. There were only twenty apartments in her building, and many of her fellow tenants took advantage of the free facilities. Small boxes of detergent were available from a vending machine, but it was easy enough to jimmy the mechanism and take what you needed. She wondered what the new owner was up to, probably snapping up properties right and left. Greedy people were like that, squeezing the last penny out of those like herself, who struggled to survive.
Solana had no intention of paying two hundred more a month for a furnished apartment that was barely habitable as it was. For a while Tiny had kept a cat, a big old white male that he’d named after himself. He was too lazy to get up and let the cat in and out, so the animal had taken to pissing on the carpet and using the heat registers to relieve itself in more serious ways. She was used to the smell by now, but she knew if she left the place, the manager would raise hell. She hadn’t paid a pet deposit because when the two of them moved in, they didn’t have a pet. Now she couldn’t see why she should be held responsible when the cat had died of old age. She wasn’t even going to think about the medicine cabinet Tiny had ripped out of the bathroom wall or the scorch mark on the laminate counter where he’d set a hot skillet some months before. She decided to hold off on paying the rent while she considered her alternatives.
She went back to Gus’s house at 3:00 that afternoon and found him awake and cross as a bear. He knew she’d been sleeping in the house three or four nights a week and he expected to have her at his beck and call. He said he’d been banging and thumping on the wall for hours. The very idea put her in a fury.
“Mr. Vronsky, I told you I was leaving at eleven o’clock last night just as I always do. I made a point of coming into your room to tell you I was on my way home and you agreed.”
“Someone was here.”
“It wasn’t me. If you doubt me, go in my room and look at the bed. You’ll see it hasn’t been slept in.”
She went on in this vein, insistent on her version of events. She could see how befuddled he was, convinced of one thing when she was standing there telling him the opposite.
He blinked rapidly and his face took on the stubborn cast she knew so well. She put a hand on his arm. “It’s not your fault. You’re overly emotional, that’s all. It happens with people your age. You might be having a series of small strokes. The effect would be much the same.”