Lawrence Block - The Girl With the Deep Blue Eyes

Schloss Otterbein. Meaning castle, palace, chateau, manor house, or stately home. Perfect, he thought, and the phone rang, the Lisa phone.

“Schloss Otterbein,” he said.

And heard nothing but silence. Oh, Jesus, he thought. What did he get, a wrong number? Or worse, if someone had picked up her phone and tried to see what it was programmed to call.

Then, tentatively, she said, “Now what.”

“It’s me.”

“I figured that out, but it gave me a turn. What was that word you said before my name?”

“Schloss,” he said, and explained its meaning. “It was no way to answer the phone, and I apologize, but I was sitting here congratulating myself for finding the right word, and right at that minute the phone rang, and, well...”

“I was expecting voicemail, and instead I heard my name. It was so unexpected it didn’t register that it was your voice. You’re home?”

“At the computer, looking up the name of your house. My name for it, that is. Does it have a name? Like The Breakers or, I don’t know—”

“Dunrovin? Always a popular favorite. No, it doesn’t have a name. That’s the one thing about George’s rock pile that’s not pretentious.”

“I guess you wouldn’t mistake it for a Fleetwood DoubleWide.”

“You’ve seen it?”

“From the street, at twenty miles an hour. A few hours ago.”

“Was that—”

“Safe? I didn’t ring the doorbell. I didn’t even hit the brakes. I was just doing a little light reconnaissance. Then I set out on an important mission.”

“Oh?”

“I rented us a love nest.”

“Seriously?”

“It’ll remind you of Tourist Court, with a little less in the way of rustic charm. But we’re paid in advance for the next two weeks, with nobody near us to see us or hear us.”

“Where is it?”

“You know where Cross City is?”

“I think I’ve driven through it.”

“If you drove south on 19 you’d hit it, and you’d probably drive through it, because there’s no reason to stop. Or at least there wasn’t until now.”

“Right. That’s from a song, isn’t it? Nobody near us.”

“To see us or hear us. ‘Tea for Two’.”

“I wasn’t paying attention, but it must have stuck in my mind and I was hearing the music. Honey, I can’t go there now. Another late night’s not gonna work for me.”

“I wasn’t about to suggest it.”

“Oh, that’s good, because right now all I want to do is go home.”

“Understood.”

“I mean, that’s not what I want to do, but it’s what I’d really better do.”

“I was thinking daytime,” he said. “Late morning or early afternoon, when you’d naturally be out shopping or doing wifey-type things.”

“Wifey-type things.”

“Maybe not the best way to put it, but—”

“No, I was just thinking how day after day of wifey-type things made my old job look real good to me. Wifey-type things got me back to work.”

“And made you cut your hair.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “You know my hair used to be long.”

“Radburn mentioned it. And Google Images has pictures of you with long hair.”

“Really? On the internet?”

“You and George at a benefit for some disease I never heard of.”

“Oh, I know the one you mean, and I can’t think of the name of it. Very rare, but this couple had a kid that died of it, so that became their cause. And everybody supports everybody else’s cause, so that everybody’ll have something to do on a Saturday night. Of course I had to buy a dress for the occasion. You always do, and then you’re sort of committed to donate at least as much as you spent on the dress.”

“You were wearing your hair down.”

“Yes,” she said. “And now it’s short, and I’m going to tell you why I cut it, but not now.”

“Okay.”

“I want very much to tell you, darling, but not over the phone. Because I might need your arms around me, either while I’m telling you or afterward.”

“Both, if you want.”

“Both arms? Oh, both as in both during and after. I’m a little brain dead, I want to get my body under a shower and then into bed. My head on a pillow, and if I’m lucky I’ll dream about you. Will you dream about me?”

“It’ll be wasted if I do. I never remember my dreams.”

“Never? I’d be glad to miss some of my dreams, but the good ones are sweet. I’ll have a sweet dream about you and tomorrow — oh, shit .”

“Tomorrow’s a problem?”

“Tomorrow’s what, Friday? It’s not a problem, it’s just purely impossible. But Saturday’s good. The whole morning’s free and half of the afternoon, until my shift starts at the restaurant. Can we wait until then?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll call you Saturday morning. What I won’t do is call you tomorrow, unless there’s a major problem. And don’t call me, either. Tomorrow your assignment is to get into some mischief with one of your girlfriends, the pregnant one or the married one. Except the pregnant one is married, too, isn’t she?”

“And so are you.”

“I was just about to say that. What is it with Doak and married ladies? The one who’s not pregnant, she’s the one who sold you your house, right? Am I remembering correctly?”

“You are.”

“On Osprey Drive. I don’t care which one you fuck tomorrow, just so you show up at our little love nest with a story to tell me.”

“And you’ll tell me about the haircut.”

“Oh, I will,” she said. “That may not be quite as much fun, but I’ll tell you.”

In the morning he called Bob Newhouser and caught him at his desk. “I’m putting my report in the mail,” he said. “If there’s anything wrong with Raymond Fred Gartner, it flew under my radar. He comes up lily-white on all my databases, and the neighbor lady gives him a clean bill of health.”

“I’m not surprised. I’ve played golf with him, and you get a pretty good sense of a fellow when you’re out in the sun for eighteen holes. Oh, here’s one you’ll like.”

It was a golf story, and one Newhouser had already told him, but it was no great hardship to hear it again. Doak furnished the requisite laugh, and Newhouser asked if the neighbor lady was anybody he might know.

“Probably,” he said. “Is there anybody in Gallatin County you don’t know?”

“Oh, there’s a few.”

“This one’s a nice proper suburban mommy. Name’s in the report, along with being on the tip of my tongue.”

“Hell of a place for it.”

“Roberta,” he said. “Roberta Ellison.”

“Roberta Ellison. Roberta Ellison.” Then the penny dropped. “Oh, Jesus,” Newhouser said. “Bobbie Jondahl. She married a guy named Ellison, and I could probably come up with his first name if I had to, but I can’t think of a reason to waste any of my remaining brain cells on it.”

“You want to hang on to the ones you’ve got left.”

“Amen to that, brother Doak. He’s from somewhere up in the Panhandle, came down to go to work at Zebulon Industries. Knocked up Bobbie Jondahl and married her, and I gather he’s had the good sense to keep her barefoot and pregnant ever since.”

“She’s pregnant even as we speak.”

“Little Bobbie. Looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, and you can finish that sentence on your own.”

Well, that was interesting.

He weighed his options. One, he could pick up his clipboard and try to time his visit to the young Master Ellison’s nap time, whenever that might be. Two, he could take a proactive approach to his Friendship with Benefits and call Barb. Three, he could stay at his computer and do a little more research, because you never knew what you might need to know.