No Cure for Death

FOURTEEN

She pulled her white Mustang along the curb in front of Lange’s Sporting Goods, and I edged the Rambler into the space directly behind hers. Though the sidewalks and streets of downtown Rock Island were all but deserted, Rita moved as though she were afraid of being seen: she got out of the Mustang and walked quickly to a doorway that separated the sports shop from its record store neighbor, and she opened the door, stepping inside, and held it open for me. All of this she’d done before I had the keys out of the dash.

I humored her by getting over there and inside with her as fast as possible, and followed her up old wooden steps that weren’t too crazy about being walked on. Then I stood while she worked her key in the door, which had white paint flaking off it like the hall around, and that door too she held open for me and we were inside.

The walls were purple. Deep purple like her sweater. That is, they were three-quarters purple, with the bottom quarter white. The rug was a rich, thick shag, also purple. Light, like her pantsuit.

The apartment was one medium-sized room, with no furniture proper, only things. Things like sizes and shapes and colors of pillows scattered about; a transparent inflatable chair; a homemade desk of cement blocks supporting a slab of dark wood, with typewriter and papers and books on it; a stool for the desk; a portable TV; a component stereo with stack of albums; a bookcase, also homemade with cement blocks, running the length of and a third up the wall opposite the doorway. The adjacent wall was taken up by the door to the bathroom and to my immediate left as I stood in the entryway was what might be described as a kitchenette-ette: a single cabinet over a small refrigerator and smaller stove, obviously very old, huddling in the corner like two squat midgets. On the other side of the entryway, part of the wall jutted out a foot or so and had on it a rectangular outline which meant the pregnant wall was bearing a Murphy bed. On it were posters of Paul Newman and Malcolm X.

“Some odd couple,” I said, a little wryly, nodding at the posters.

“Not really,” she said, mildly defensive, sitting on the fluffy carpet and leaning catlike against a red pillow. “Paul Newman’s very political, too.”

I glanced around the purple room. “Who’s your interior decorator? Welch’s?”

She smiled. Her teeth were small and white, maybe a bit too small-thank God, an imperfection at last.

“Ghastly, isn’t it?” she said, gesturing with a long-nailed hand. “Well, there’s a reason for this purple pad, outside of that being a pet color of mine. It’s hard to find decent apartments, you know? And the only teaching job I was able to land was part-time English instructor at a junior high, because even though I have my four years of college, I didn’t take enough education courses, and now I’m on temporary teaching certificate, and they’re making me take some classes at Augustana College to pick up the hours I lack. That’s why that twenty bucks of yours looked good to me, incidentally.”

When she didn’t go on, I said, “Just how does that explain your purple passion?”

“Oh. Well, anyway, I wanted something cheap in an apartment to tide me over till I could find and afford a nice place. So I ran across this place, and it was horrible-all of it peeling paint like the halls out there-but it was cheap for downtown so I took it anyway and got permission from the landlord to have it debugged and repainted and carpeted. At my expense, of course, but, I figured if I made it look nice, in a conventional way, you know, painted it some standard pastel and wall-to-wall carpet, my bastard landlord’d up the rent on me. Ever had that done to you, Mallory? Where you put money into fixing up an apartment and then get your rent hiked on you for your trouble?”

I nodded. “The way this place is now,” I said, “your landlord’s probably afraid you’ll move out and saddle him with this purple elephant.”

She laughed gently and started unbuttoning the top part of her pantsuit. She slipped out of the coat and folded it in half and tossed it over on another big pillow. She straightened her sweater, pulling it down, and I did my best not to look at her breasts as she did, and I failed. She didn’t seem to mind. She patted the pillow next to her and motioned for me to sit down and I did.

“So you’re a mystery writer?”

“Trying to be. Selling a few short stories.”

“That’s really exciting. Where do you…” She stopped, smiled. “I was about to ask you where you get your ideas. Listen, are you in a hurry? Got some big Thanksgiving spread to get back to Port City for?”

“No.”

“That’s where you’re from, isn’t it? Port City? Or do you just go to Jack Masters’s school down there?”

“Both.”

“So your family isn’t having a big deal or anything?”

“My folks died a while back.”

“Oh.”

“And, unlike you, I’m an only child.”

She ignored my graceless attempt to get back on the subject and stared at me with big unblinking brown eyes and said, “Thanksgiving isn’t Thanksgiving without a turkey dinner.”

“Let me write that down.”

She threw a pillow at me.

“All right,” she said. “So maybe I do sound childish, maybe it is a cliche, but man, that’s how it is with me. If you’d had a big family, you’d know. Now my old man, no matter how tough things were, and they were plenty tough sometimes, he’d make sure there was a bird on the table Thanksgiving. Always.”

“No family get-together today for you either, Rita?”

“Well, that much we got in common, Mallory. My folks are dead, too. I was the youngest of seven kids, and, well, we kind of drifted apart and we just never get together.”

“How about you and your brother?”

“Listen, if you think I’m not aware of the direction in which you are trying to swing this conversation, you better check out of this hotel now. I’m thinking about talking to you about that, but I’m not sure yet. Let it work itself out, will you?”

“Rita.”

“What?”

“How about I take you out for a turkey dinner? Surely there’s a restaurant around here somewhere serving a Thanksgiving buffet or something. What do you say?”

“That’s a sweet bribe, Mal, but…”

She called me Mal instead of Mallory. A good sign. “Hey, come on, Rita, what do you say? Had any better offers?”

“It’s just that it isn’t necessary, Mal. I can fix us turkey right here.”

“Here?”

“Sure.”

“That’s a lot of trouble, isn’t it? I mean, can you do that?”

She got up and said, “Stay put,” and walked over to the kitchenette-ette. She bent down and opened up the little refrigerator. She took out two packages and held them up for me to see: Turkey TV dinners.

I grinned and nodded my approval.

A few minutes later, after she put the dinners in the oven, she came back and lay down against the pillows, facing me.

“Why’d you ask me up here, Rita?”

She shrugged.

“You still think I’m trying to hustle you out of your clothes?”

“No,” she said, “but you wouldn’t mind it if it happened.”

“I wouldn’t. How ’bout you?”

“Don’t know yet. Too early.”

“You aren’t hustling me now, are you, Rita? Just a little?”

“Oh sure. I’m hustling you.”

“It’s possible.”

“I know. I’m hot just lookin’ at you.”

“Come on. How do I know you aren’t covering for your brother? Maybe he’s in trouble up to his butt, and you want to help him by getting me distracted. Maybe any minute now you’re going to start pumping me for information.”

“If that’s what you think,” she said, her voice a little cold now, “try laying one of those white paws on me and see what happens.” She ran a long fingernail gently down my cheek.

“Rita, if we’re neither one of us hustling each other, if we maybe kind of like each other a little, couldn’t we just talk about your brother now and get it out of the way?”

“You know, I’m beginning to wish those guys back at the Filet O’Soul wouldn’t’ve helped you out.”

“Look, this isn’t a game with me. A young woman’s dead and nobody cares.”

“Nobody but you. The white knight.”

“Damnit, are you going to help me or not, Rita?”

“Sure, Mallory, sure. I’ll help you out, a total stranger. I’ll dump on my brother for you, ’cause you seem like a nice guy and I like your looks and you tell a mean story.”

“Rita.”

“What?”

“Why’d you ask me up here?”

“I wish I knew,” she said. And she turned away, the pouty look of her lips growing poutier. Then she slid around and brought her face up to me and pressed her mouth against mine.

The kiss lasted quite a while for a first kiss, but it was soft and tentative, not hot and bothered. Her lips were full and rich and sweet and the sensation was both gentle and heady.

When the kiss was over, I leaned forward to kiss her again, but she moved away and smiled. It wasn’t a bitch smile, either, not a tease: she was saying, let’s not rush this, let’s take our time, please.

She let me take her in my arms and hold her, and we lay like that on the floor, resting against the pillows, Paul Newman and Malcolm X watching us, and we stayed that way, not saying a word, not even kissing again, until somewhere a sharp little bell rang and she bounced up.

“What the hell was that?” I said.

She was over by the stove. “Turkey time,” she said.

A couple minutes later we were sitting like Indians, eating out of the aluminum TV dinner trays and sipping cold beers.

“You’re a great little cook,” I said.

“Aw shut up.”

“No really, it’s good.”

“It’s hot anyway.”

“It’s turkey.”

“It’s Thanksgiving.”

She smiled. “It’s Thanksgiving.”

We toasted beer cans.

We ate in silence for a few moments, then she said, “This, uh, thing ’bout the, uh, dead chick…”

“Yeah?”

“You were trying to tie in a guy named Norman?”

“Several guys named Norman. There’s old man Norman-that’s Simon Harrison Norman-and there’s his son Richard-he’s the dead one who was a senator-and there’s Stefan Norman-he’s the nephew who’s running the Norman Fund, whatever that is. How’s that for confusing?”

“My brother works for the Normans.”

“What? What did you say?”

“My brother Harold works for the Normans. Harold has one eye and he’s very big and for the last ten years or so he’s worked for the Normans. In Port City.”

“The hell you say.”

“One of the guys he works for is this Stefan Norman. He lives across the river in Davenport. You want me to take you to see him?”