Painted Ladies

37

Susan had early appointments, and I left her to them and went home at about seven-thirty. In the Back Bay all the streets have a public alley behind them, and the alleys are numbered. The one behind my building was number 21. I pulled into it off Arlington Street and parked in my spot behind my building. There was a back entrance, but I always liked to walk around and go in the front door. It was a good-looking street, and I liked that I lived there. I’d gotten the place when it was far cheaper than it would be now, and I’d worked on it during slow moments in the sleuthing business, so it was pretty much just the way I liked it. Actually, it was probably more the way Susan liked it, and I didn’t mind.

One of the collateral benefits of having someone try to kill you is that it makes you alert... unless they succeed. And as I walked to my door, I noticed a maroon Lexus sedan parked across the street from my building. The passenger-side window went down as I walked up Marlborough Street, and a cigarette flipped into the street. It was cold, but the motor wasn’t running. So somebody in there was sitting in a cold car. It could be that he didn’t want to attract my attention to the white exhaust that would tail up from the car if the motor was running. Might be that he was waiting for someone and didn’t want to waste gas, or pollute the atmosphere by letting his car idle.

If he was waiting for me, he probably expected me to come out of my building in front of him, and not walk up the street behind him. Or he might be killing time until a meeting that he didn’t want to be early for. The car had tinted windows, and I couldn’t see in. So I paid it no apparent attention and turned into my front walk and up the low stairs. The entry to my building had a glass door, and I could see the Lexus reflected in it. There was no movement. I opened the door and went in and looked back out covertly. Nothing.

I shrugged and went to my apartment. The door seemed as always. Still, no sense being careless. I put my overnight bag on the floor and took out my gun while I unlocked the door. I felt a little paranoid, but that was quite a bit better than feeling a little dead.

My apartment was undisturbed. No one was in it. I retrieved my overnight bag and locked my front door and headed to the front windows to see if anything was shaking down below. As I passed the open door to my bedroom I tossed my suitcase on the bed and was a step past the doorway when it landed and the bed exploded.

Scraps of mattress and bed frame surged through my door and scattered on my living-room floor. I stepped back a little and peeked around the doorjamb. The bed was gone. Beyond that, there was surprisingly little damage. The bomb had been intended to kill only me. It must have been under the mattress, which had muffled its force and sound. I went to my living-room window and looked down.

The Lexus had pulled out of its parking spot and was approaching Berkeley Street. I got the license-plate number. Then I called the cops and walked back into my bedroom and looked at the wreckage.