Sue Grafton - L is for Lawless

"Thanks, but I may try to eat quick and catch an early movie."

"Well, we'll be over there if you should change your mind." They sauntered off to the bar.

Meanwhile, Rosie appeared from the kitchen and I watched her draw two beers before she came over to me. She had already pulled out her pencil and order pad and was scribbling away. "I got perfect dish for you," she said as she snatched my dinner menu. "Is slices pork liver with sausage and garlic pickles, cook with bacon. Also, I'm making you apple-and-savoy-cabbage salad with crackling biscuits."

"Sounds inspired," I said. I didn't say by what.

"You gonna have this with beer. Is better than wine, which don't mix good with garlic pickles."

"I should say not."

I ate, I must say, with a hearty appetite, though I'd probably have indigestion later. The place was beginning to fill up with the Happy Hour crowd, people from the neighborhood and singles getting off work. Rosie's had become a favorite hangout among the local sporting set, thus ruining it for those of us in search of peace and quiet. If it weren't for my fondness for Rosie and the close proximity to my apartment, I might have moved on to some new eatery. I saw Bucky and Babe move over to a table. Chester came in moments later, and the three conferred before ordering supper. By then the place was so noisy that it didn't seem tactful to join them and launch into talk about Johnny's past history.

At 6:35 I paid my check and headed out the front door. I was already losing interest in the movie, but there was always a chance I could generate enthusiasm from "the sibs."

When I got home, I crossed the back patio and knocked at the frame. I heard a muffled "Yoohoo!" I peered in through the screen and spotted Nell sitting in a wooden kitchen chair pulled up close to the stove. She was peering in my direction, and when she saw me she motioned me in.

I opened the door and stuck my head in. "Hi, Nell. How are you?" The stove had been dismantled – the oven door open, oven racks removed – apparently in preparation for a thorough cleaning. The counter was lined with newspaper on which the oven racks were laid, still seething with oven cleaner.

"Fine and dandy. Come on in, Kinsey. It's good to see you." Ordinarily she wore her thick silver hair pulled back in an elaborate arrangement of tortoise-shell combs, but today she'd tied her hair into the folds of a scarf, which made her look like an ancient Cinderella.

"You're industrious," I said. "You just got here and already you're hard at work."

"Well, I'm not happy until I can take a stove apart and really clean in there good. Henry's extremely able when it comes to household chores, but a stove is the sort of thing needs a woman's touch. I know that sounds sexist, but it's the truth," she said.

"You need help?"

"I could sure use the company." Nell was wearing a pinafore-style apron over her cotton housedress, her long sleeves protected by cuffs of paper toweling that she'd secured with rubber bands. She was a big woman, probably close to six feet tall in her prune. Wide shouldered, heavy breasted, she had good-size feet and hands, though her knuckles were now as knotted as ropes beneath the skin. Her face was long and bony, nearly sexless in its character, sparse white brows, electric blue eyes, her skin vertically draped with seams and folds.

All the shelves had been emptied from the refrigerator, the countertops crowded with leftovers in covered bowls, olive and pickle jars, condiments, raw vegetables. The storage drawers had been removed and one was sitting in a sink full of soapy water. She'd tossed a number of items in the kitchen wastebasket, and I could see that she'd dumped something gloppy in the disposal.

"Don't look at that. I think it's still alive," she said. She was wringing out the cloth she was using to wipe down the shelves. "Once I finish this, I intend to take a bubble bath and then I'll get into my robe and slippers. I have some reading to catch up on. I keep thinking any day now my eyes are going out on me and I want to get in as much as possible." She had unscrewed a jar lid and was peering in. She sniffed, unable to identify the contents. "What in heaven's name is this?" She held it up to the light. The liquid was bright red and syrupy.

"I think it's the glaze for the cherry tart Henry makes. You know he cleaned the refrigerator just two days ago."

She screwed the lid back on and put the jar on the counter. "That's what he said. As it happens, cleaning refrigerators is one of my specialties. I taught Henry how to do it back in 1912. His problem is he isn't sufficiently rigorous. Most of us aren't when it comes to our own trash. As long as I'm here I might as well get everything shipshape."

"Was that your lot in life, teaching all the boys how to do things around the house?"

"More or less. I helped Mother raise and educate all ten of us at home. After Father died, I felt obliged to stay on until she recovered her spirits, which took close to thirty years. She was heartsick when she lost him, though as I recollect, the two of them never got along that well. My, my. How she did grieve for the man. It occurred to me later she was putting on a bit just to keep me underfoot."

"Ten kids? I thought there were only five. You, Charlie, Lewis, William, and Henry."

She shook her head. "We were the five surviving children. We took after the Tilmanns, on our mother's side. In our family, there was a distinct division among the children she bore. Half took after her side of the family and the other half took after the Pitts on Father's side. Line us up for a photograph and you could see it plain as day. Now this is a fact. All Father's people up and died. It was a pitiful genetic line when you stop and calculate. They were small people with tiny heads, so they didn't have the brains our side of the family did and they had no physical stamina whatsoever. Our father's mother was a 'Mauritz' by birth. The name translates as 'Moorish,' which suggests a bunch of blackamoors somewhere up the line. They were swarthy, all of them, and just as feeble as could be. Our grandmother Mauritz died of the influenza, and so did two brothers above me. It was a mess. She went and he went and the other one went. Our sister, Alice, was another one we lost. Dark skinned, tiny head, she died of the influenza within a day of taking sick. Four cousins, an aunt. Sometimes two would go on the same day and we'd have a double funeral. That entire line was wiped out in a five-month period between November and March. Those of us who took after Mother are the only ones left, and we expect to go on for years. Mother lived to be a hundred and three. Right about the time she turned ninety, she got so crabby we threatened to withhold her sour mash whiskey if she didn't straighten up. She only required six tablespoons a day, but she believed it was absolutely essential to life. We put the bottle right up on the shelf where she could see it but couldn't reach. That settled her right down, and she went on for another thirteen years just as gentle as a lamb."

She closed the refrigerator door temporarily and returned to the sink, where the dishwater was now cool enough to allow her to wash the meat bin. She opened the cabinet under the sink, and I saw a frown cross her face.

"What's the matter?"

"Henry's out of the oven cleaner I like to use on these racks." She peered in the cabinet again. "Well, I'll just have to use a little elbow grease."

"You want me to make a quick run to the market? I can pick some up. It won't take ten minutes."

"No, that's all right. I can always use a scrub pad. It'll clean up in a jiffy. You have other things to do."

"I don't mind a bit. I was thinking about a movie, but I've lost interest, to tell the truth."

"Are you sure you don't mind?"