“Benjie?”
Quinn knew how he hated to be touched when he was upset, so she stood behind him within touching distance and said again softly, “Benjie? Listen, I’m sorry. I forgot all about the little Hyatt girl when I said that word. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”
“Yes. You can finish packing your laundry and take it over to your mother’s and stay there.”
“I can’t believe you’re serious, Benjie.”
“Force yourself.”
“It’s not reasonable. Why should one mistake, in fact why should a little girl I’ve never even seen come between me and a guy I really like? I really like you, Benjie. We suit each other, we fit, we’re exactly the right size for each other. You can’t imagine how awkward it is sometimes when you get a really big guy—”
“I’ll try.”
“I mean, you and me, we fit together so great I could drop off to sleep while we’re, you know, together, except I always have to go potty afterward.”
“Will you for God’s sake stop using expressions like go potty? You’re a grown woman.”
“My mom still says it and she’s nearly fifty. She taught me never to use obscene language and I never ever do. Kindly remember that I didn’t say those words I heard on the discussion program, I spelled them.”
“I see. It’s all right to spell them.”
“It’s not really all right, it’s just not quite so wrong… This woman you took to the concert tonight because her husband was busy, is she as old as my mom?”
“No.”
“Well?”
“What do you mean, well?”
“Well, don’t you want to tell me how old she is?”
“I don’t want to and I’m not going to.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Yes.”
“As pretty as I am?”
“Yes.”
“But she’s a lot older.”
“She’s a lot smarter,” Ben said. “Too smart to ask the kind of questions you’ve been asking.”
“If she’s a friend of the family like you claim, I don’t see why you should be so secretive about her. Anyway, you told me you never had a mother so how can you have a family? I think you’re lying to me, Benjie, and lying is wrongful like bad language.”
“Right now I feel like doing something more wrongful than either of them.” He turned and grabbed her by the shoulder. “So I suggest you get the h-e-l-l out of here before I knock the s-h-i-t out of you.”
“Who are you trying to scare anyway? I don’t scare that easy. Another one of the things my mom taught me is how to knee a guy in exactly the right place.”
“Your mother must be a mine of information.”
“You’re d-a-m tootin she is.”
Shrugging off his hand she walked back into the living room and rearranged herself in the lounge chair and turned the radio on again. The program had changed. A man was discussing musical terms and it wasn’t nearly as interesting so she went to bed.
After a while Benjie came to bed too, and Quinn, who was a kindhearted girl, welcomed him. She still didn’t understand why he had reacted so violently and she decided she would ask her mother when she took the laundry over. Because her mother liked to set a good example to her offspring by spelling out certain words, it probably would be a long conversation.
One thing was for sure: Benjie was no p-e-d-o-p-h-i-l-e.
Chapter Six
That night Michael Dunlop lay awake for a long time planning how and when he should approach Miss Firenze in her villa. He finally decided on early morning because in his rather wide experience with disturbed people he’d found this was when they were most rational and alert.
But in the morning the old Buick wouldn’t start. Lorna said he knew nothing about cars (true), that he’d forgotten to have the oil changed (probably true), and that she could and would start it herself (not true). When the tow truck finally arrived he hitched a ride with the driver as far as Howard’s house.
Howard, who always went to the office at six, had been gone for hours but Kay was backing her station wagon out of the garage with Chizzy in the front seat and the two dogs in the back.
All four looked happy to see him, although only the German shepherd indicated it vocally.
“What are you doing here?” Kay said when Shep’s greeting had subsided.
“I thought I’d take a walk.”
“A walk? Where?”
“Oh, through your avocado grove.”
“Well, make sure your shoes aren’t carrying root rot,” Chizzy said.
Michael glanced at his shoes. They didn’t appear to have any root rot, whatever that was. “I’m clean.”
“Where did you leave your car?” Kay asked him.
“At the garage.”
“And you came all the way over here to walk through our avocado grove?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“A number of reasons.”
“I told you,” Chizzy said to Kay. “Didn’t I tell you? He and Mr. Howard are playing detective. Like a couple of kids who’ve been watching too much television. It wasn’t hard to figure out, what with them staying up till all hours and having a secret telephone installed.”
“It’s not a secret telephone,” Michael said. “It has an unlisted number, that’s all.”
“Same difference.”
Kay was watching him somberly. “Why are you wearing your collar?”
“I thought it might be useful.”
“For walking through an avocado grove?”
“That too.”
“You don’t intend to answer any of my questions, do you?”
“I’d rather not.”
“It’s a sneaky business, if you ask me,” Chizzy said.
“Nobody asked you,” Kay told her, and turned back to Michael. “Whatever you and Howard are up to, please be careful.”
“There’s no danger.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to either of you.”
“There’s no danger,” Michael repeated.
It had never even occurred to him that there could be. He was merely going to visit a crazy old lady.
The villa was surrounded by a white stucco wall and its entrance guarded by an eight-foot iron-grillwork gate. On one side of the gate there was a voice box connected to the main house but Michael saw little point in trying to use it. No human voice could have been heard over the noise of the gasoline-powered blower being operated by one of the gardeners. He wore the gas tank on his back like a hump, a strange new mutation in a strange new world of splitting atoms and eardrums.
The blower was scattering leaves and dirt from one side of the driveway to the other and back again. The operator, wearing earphones to protect his hearing, seemed to be enjoying the game. He looked disappointed when he had to acknowledge Michael’s presence, turn off the motor and remove his earphones.
“Good morning,” Michael said.
The man’s perfunctory nod indicated that this might or might not be true.
“I’d like to see Miss Firenze.”
“She don’t see a whole bunch of people but you can try if you want. Press the button on the voice box and wait for someone to answer, then tell them who you are and what you’re after. I see you’re a man of the cloth.”
“Yes.”
“First one to come here that I can recall. Is the old lady dying?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Must be close to it. Ninety if she’s a day.”