I decided she was probably unlisted. What the hell, she wasn’t an actress. Why should she have a listed phone?
I turned on the television set for company, put up a pot of coffee, and went back and looked at the phone some more. I decided to dial my own number to see if there were any cops in the place at the moment. I picked up the phone, then put it down when I realized I wasn’t sure of my number. It was one I never called, since when I was out there was never anybody home. This sort of surprised me; I mean, even if you never call your own number you have to know it to give it out to people. But I guess that doesn’t happen often in my case. Anyway, I looked it up and there it was, and I’m happy to say I recognized it once I saw it. I dialed and nobody answered, which stood to reason, and I put the phone back in its cradle.
I was on my second cup of coffee when I heard footsteps ascending the staircase and approaching the door. She knocked but I let her use her keys. She came in, all bright-eyed and buoyant, carrying a small grocery bag and explaining that she’d brought bacon and eggs. “And you’ve already got coffee made,” she said. “Great. Here’s this morning’s Times. There’s not really anything in it.”
“I didn’t think there would be.”
“I suppose I could have bought the Daily News too but I never do. I figure if anything really important happens the Times will tell me about it. Is this the only frying pan he owns?”
“Unless he took the others on tour with him.”
“He’s not very domestic at all. Well, we’ll have to deal with the material at hand. I’m relatively new at harboring fugitives but I’ll do my best to harbor you in the style to which you are accustomed. Is it called harboring a fugitive if you do it in somebody else’s apartment?”
“It’s called accessory after the fact to homicide,” I said.
“That sounds serious.”
“It ought to.”
“Bernie-”
I took her arm. “I was thinking about that earlier, Ruth. Maybe you ought to bail out.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You could wind up buying a lot of trouble.”
“That’s crazy,” she said. “You’re innocent, aren’t you?”
“The cops don’t think so.”
“They will when we find the real killer for them. Hey, c’mon, Bern! I’ve seen all the old movies, remember? I know the good guys always come through in the end. We’re the good guys, aren’t we?”
“I’d certainly like to think so.”
“Then we’ve got nothing to worry about. Now just tell me how you like your eggs and then get the hell out of here, huh? There’s room for me and the roaches in this kitchen and that’s about all. What are you doing, Bernie?”
“Kissing your neck.”
“Oh. Well, that’s okay, I guess. Actually you could do it some more if you’d like. Hmmmm. You know, that’s sort of nice, Bernie. I could learn to like that.”
We were polishing off the eggs when the phone rang. The service was on the ball and picked up midway through the fourth ring.
Which reminded me. “I tried to call you earlier,” I said, “but your number’s unlisted. Unless you’ve got it listed in your husband’s name or something like that.”
“Oh,” she said. “No, it’s unlisted. Why were you trying to call?”
“Because I need a shave.”
“I noticed. Your face is all scratchy. Actually I sort of like it, but I can see where you’d want to shave.”
I told her about the lack of shaving cream and the state of Rod’s razor. “I thought you could pick them up on your way over here.”
“I’ll go get them now. It’s no trouble.”
“If I’d had your number I could have saved you a trip.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” she said. “I don’t mind. Is there anything else you need?”
I thought of a few things and she made a small list. I took a ten out of my wallet and made her take it. “There’s really no rush,” I said.
“I’d just as soon go now. I was just thinking, Bernie. Maybe it’s not a good idea to use the telephone.”
“Why not?”
“Well, couldn’t the people at the service tell if it was off the hook or if you were talking to someone? I think they could even listen in, couldn’t they?”
“Gee, I don’t know. I’ve never understood just how those things work.”
“And they know Rod’s out of town, and if they knew someone was in his apartment-”
“Ruth, they usually let the phone ring twenty times before they get around to answering it. That’s how efficient they are. The only time they pay attention to a subscriber’s line is when it’s ringing, and even then their attention isn’t too terribly keen.”
“The last time it rang they got it right away.”
“Well, accidents happen, I suppose. But you don’t really think there’s any risk in using the phone, do you?”
“Well-”
“There can’t be.”
But when she went out I found myself standing next to the phone and staring at it as if it were a potential menace. I picked up the receiver and started dialing my own apartment-I remembered the number this time-but halfway through I decided the hell with it and hung up.
While she shopped I did up the breakfast dishes and read the paper. All the Times had to tell me was that I was still at large and I already knew that.
This time I hadn’t bothered locking the door, and when she knocked I went over and opened it for her. She handed me a paper bag containing a razor, a small package of blades, shaving cream, a toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste. She also gave me forty-seven cents change from my ten-dollar bill. Every once in a while something like that comes along to demonstrate that all this talk about inflation is not entirely unwarranted.
“I’ll be going out in a few minutes,” she said. “You can shave then.”
“Out? You just got here.”
“I know. I want to go to the library. And check the Times Index-we talked about that last night. I don’t know how else we’re going to learn anything about Flaxford unless I go track down his ex-wife and talk to her.”
“That sounds like more trouble than it’s likely to be worth.”
“The Times? I just go to Forty-second and Fifth-”
“I know where the library is. I mean the ex-wife.”
“Well, it might not be any trouble at all, actually. Do ex-wives come to memorial services for their ex-husbands? Because that’s where I’m going this afternoon. There’s a memorial service for him at two-thirty. What’s the difference between a memorial service and a funeral?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think it’s whether or not you have the body around. I guess the police are probably hanging onto the body for an autopsy or something. To make sure he’s really dead.”
“They already established cause and time of death.”
“Well, maybe they just aren’t releasing the body, or maybe it’s being shipped somewhere. I don’t know. But that’s the difference, isn’t it? You can’t have a funeral without a corpse, can you?”
“Tell that to Tom Sawyer.”
“Funny. Maybe I’ll go over to that bar. Pandora’s Box.”
“Just Pandora’s. Why would you go there?”
“I don’t know. The same reason I’m going to the memorial service, I suppose. On the chance that I might run into the little man who wasn’t there.”