Naked Justice

Chapter 5

BEN PULLED HIS AGING ’82 Honda Accord onto the side of the street. The brakes squeaked and squealed, but they did manage to stop the car. This time, anyway. He patted the dash affectionately. Two hundred thousand miles and still ticking. What more could you ask for?

He scooped Joey out of his car seat and carried him across the street to the boardinghouse where Ben had one of the second-story apartments. As he approached, he saw Mrs. Marmelstein out front. She was on her knees, facing away from them, puttering in her garden.

“How are the tulips doing?” Ben asked.

Mrs. Marmelstein brushed a straggling strand of steel-gray hair out of her face. “Well, they’re doing their best, but that late frost didn’t do them any favors. How’s my favorite boy?”

Ben held no illusions that she might be talking about him. She pushed herself creakily to her feet, drawing herself up to her full five-feet-four height, and tweaked Joey on the nose. He batted her hand away.

Mrs. Marmelstein leaned into his tiny face. “Are you my little pumpkey-wumpkey?”

Joey looked off into the distance.

Ben gave Joey a gentle shake. “Joey, say hello to Mrs. Marmelstein.”

Joey didn’t.

“C’mon, Joey. If you’re rude to the landlady, we could end up sleeping under the Eighth Street bridge.”

“That’s all right.” Mrs. Marmelstein pinched Joey on the cheek. “We’re just not very sociable today, are we?”

Or any other day, Ben thought. “Well, we’d best go on in. I expect Joni is waiting—”

“That reminds me. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you, Benjamin.”

“Really?” he said, fearing the worst. A few months before, he had taken her to a doctor’s appointment, and the man had pronounced the word they had been dreading—Alzheimer’s. Mrs. Marmelstein had always been a bit dotty, but that diagnosis had put her occasional eccentricities in an entirely new light. Sometimes, she was totally lucid. But at others … “What is it?”

“Well …” She glanced at Joey, then back at Ben. “It’s an adult matter.”

That piqued his curiosity. He spotted Joni, the teenager who watched Joey when he wasn’t at school and Ben couldn’t be at home. She was standing in the front vestibule of the house. He dropped Joey to the ground. “Okay, pardner. Joni will take you upstairs. I’ll be in to start dinner in just a few minutes. Okay?”

Joey waddled up the front porch where Joni was waiting for him.

“Okay,” Ben said after Joey was inside. “What’s this adult matter?”

“Well …” Her voice dropped to hushed tones. “… it’s about Joni.”

“I thought you liked Joni.”

“I adore Joni. You know that. And goodness how she has matured since you asked her to be Joey’s nanny. But I do believe she’s been having”—Mrs. Marmelstein rocked forward on her toes and whispered—“gentleman callers.”

Ben suppressed his grin. “You mean Booker?”

She fidgeted with her trowel. “I mean the black gentleman, yes.”

Ben placed his hand on her shoulder. “Booker’s okay, Mrs. Marmelstein. I have the utmost confidence in him.”

“You don’t think he … consorts with the wrong element?”

Well, there was that minor business of being a member of a North Side gang, but he seemed to have extricated himself from that mistake. “I think he’s fine. And he’s a great playmate for Joey. Very energetic.”

“But that’s just it. Having him around so much …” She turned to one side and stared down at the grass. “Mind you, I don’t want to be the kind of landlady who’s always interfering in her tenants’ business.”

“Oh, heaven forbid,” Ben said with a straight face.

“At the same time, I can’t help but worry that, with the two of them together in your apartment so much”—her voice dropped to the point of near inaudibility—“people will think there’s something romantic going on.”

In fact, there had been something romantic going on for the past six months, but Ben suspected that this was not the time to bring Mrs. Marmelstein up-to-date. “You know, Joni’s parents have the apartment just next door to mine. And she and Booker are both eighteen now.”

“I don’t care if they’re eighteen or eighty. I don’t allow any hanky-panky in my house. You know that, Benjamin!”

“Yes, yes, I know. But I think it will be okay. And you know how I depend on Joni. I would never have been able to keep Joey without her.”

“Well, yes …”

“And you like having Joey around, don’t you?”

“You know I do. He’s such a sweet little thing. Such a mind of his own.”

“And you wouldn’t want me to lose him, would you?” Being just a tad manipulative, Ben told himself, but any port in a storm.

“Of course I wouldn’t.”

“Good. So let’s not bother Joni and Booker. I promise I’ll personally police the situation and ensure that nothing untoward occurs.”

She hesitated a moment. “I suppose it might be all right then.”

“Good. I’d better get dinner going.” He started toward the porch.

“Oh, Benjamin, today was my baking day. I put a nice fresh fruitcake on your kitchen counter.”

“Thanks …”

“Don’t ear it all yourself. Give some to Joey, too. Little boys love cake.”

“Actually, I think it’s a choking hazard.” Ben wondered if he could use the same excuse for himself.