This morning, though, Fleck had other things on his mind. Things to do. A decision to make. He examined the street through habit. The cars were familiar. So was the bakery truck making its delivery to the coffee shop. The old man limping down the sidewalk had limped there before. The skinny woman was another regular walking her familiar dog. Only the white Corvette convertible parked beside the Texaco station down the street and the dark green Ford sedan immediately across from the entrance to the apartments were strangers. The Corvette was not the sort of car that interested Fleck. The Ford he would check and remember. It was one of those nondescript models that cops liked to use.
Fleck glanced down at the top of the head of the shoeshine man. The hair was a thick mass of tight gray curls. Darky hair, Fleck thought. “How you doing there, Captain?”
“About got ’em.”
“You notice that green Ford yonder? Across the street there? You know who belongs to that?”
The man glanced up, found the Ford, examined it. Once his face had been a shiny, coffee black. Age had grayed it, broken it into a wilderness of lines. “I don’t know it,” the Captain said. “Never noticed it before.”
“I’ll get a check on the license number down at headquarters,” Fleck said. “You tell me if you see it around here again.”
“Sure,” the Captain said. He whipped his shine cloth across the tip of Fleck’s right shoe. Snapped it. Stood up and stepped back. “Done,” he said.
Fleck handed him a ten-dollar bill. The Captain folded it into his shirt pocket.
“See if you can get a look at who gets into it,” Fleck said.
“Your man, maybe?” the Captain said, his expression somewhere between skeptical and sardonic. “You think it’s that dope dealer you been after?”
“Maybe,” Fleck said.
He walked the five blocks down to the telephone booth he was using today, thinking about that expression on the Captain’s face, and about Mama, and about what he was going to tell The Client. The Captain’s expression made it clear that he didn’t really believe Fleck was an undercover cop. The old man had seemed convinced enough last summer when Fleck had first taken this job and moved into the apartment. He’d shown the Captain his District of Columbia police detective credentials the third morning he had his shoes shined. The man had seemed properly impressed then. But weeks ago—how many weeks Fleck couldn’t quite decide—Fleck’s subconscious began registering some peculiarities. Now he was pretty sure the old man didn’t believe Fleck was a cop. But he was also fairly sure the Captain didn’t give a damn. The old man was playing lookout partly because he enjoyed the game and partly because of the money. The Captain was a neutral. He didn’t give a damn whether Fleck was part of the law, or outside it, or the Man from Mars.
At that point, Fleck had even considered talking to the Captain about Mama. He was a nigger, but he was old and he knew a lot about people. Maybe he’d have some ideas. But talking about Mama was complicated. And painful. He didn’t know what to do about her. What could he do? She hadn’t been happy out there at Bluewater Home outside Cleveland, and she wasn’t happy at this place he’d put her when he came to D.C.—Eldercare Manor. Maybe she wouldn’t be happy anywhere. But that wasn’t the point right now. The point was Eldercare wanted to be shut of her. And right away.
“We just simply can’t put up with it,” the Fat Man had told him. “Simply cannot tolerate it. We have to think of our other clients. Look after their welfare. We can’t have that woman harassing them.“
“Doing what?” Fleck had asked. But he knew what Mama was doing. Mama was getting even.
“Well,” the Fat Man had said, trying to think how to put it. “Well, yesterday she put out her hand and tripped Mrs. Oliver. She fell right on the floor. Might have broken her bones.” The Fat Man’s hands twisted together at the thought, anxiously. “Old bones break easily, you know. Especially old ladies’.”
“Mrs. Oliver has done something to Mama,” Fleck said. “I can tell you that right now for dead certain.” But he knew he was wasting his breath when he said it.
“No,” Fat Man said. “Mrs. Oliver is a most gentle person.”
“She did something,” Fleck had insisted.
“Well,” Fat Man said. “Well, I hadn’t meant to say anything about this because old people do funny things and this isn’t serious and it’s easy to deal with. But your mother steals the silverware at the table. Puts the knives and forks and such things up her sleeve, and in her robe, and slips them into her room.” Fat Man smiled a depreciatory smile to tell Fleck this wasn’t serious. “Somebody collects them and brings them back when she’s asleep, so it doesn’t matter. But Mrs. Oliver doesn’t know that. She tells us about it. Maybe that was it.”
“Mama don’t steal,” Fleck had said, thinking that would be it all right. Mama must have heard the old woman telling on her. She would never tolerate anybody snitching on her, or on anybody in the family. Snitching was not to be tolerated. That was something you needed to get even for.
“Mrs. Oliver fell down just yesterday,” Fleck had said. “You called me before then.”
“Well,” Fat Man said. “That was extra. I told you on the phone about her pulling out Mr. Riccobeni’s hair?”
“She never did no such thing,” Fleck had said, wearily, wondering what Mr. Riccobeni had done to warrant such retribution, wondering if pulling out the old man’s hair would be enough to satisfy Mama’s instinct for evening the score.
But there was no use remembering all that now. Now he had to think of what he could do with Mama, because the Fat Man had been stubborn about it. Get Mama out of there by the end of next week or he would lock her out on the porch. The Fat Man had meant it, and he had gotten that much time out of the son of a bitch only by doing a little very quiet, very mean talking. The kind of talk where you don’t say a lot, and you don’t say it loud, but the other fellow knows he’s about to get his balls cut off.
With the phone booth in view ahead, Fleck slowed his brisk walk to a stroll, inspecting everything. He glanced at his watch. A little early, which was the way he liked it. The booth was outside a neighborhood movie theater. There was a single car in the lot, an old Chevy which Fleck had noticed before and presumed was owned by the morning cleanup man. Nothing unusual on the street, either. Fleck went into the booth, felt under the stand, found nothing more sinister than dried chewing gum wads. He checked the telephone itself. Then he sat and waited. He was thinking he would just have to be realistic about Mama. There was simply no way he could keep her with him. He’d have to just give up on that idea. He’d tried it and tried it, and each time Mama had gotten even with somebody or other, things had gone to hell, and he’d had to move her. The last time, the police had come before he’d gotten her out, and if he hadn’t skipped they probably would have committed her.
The phone rang. Fleck picked it up.
“This is me,” he said, and gave The Client his code name. He felt silly doing it—like kids playing with their Little Orphan Annie code rings.
“Stone,” the voice said. It was an accented voice which to Fleck’s ear didn’t match an American name like Stone. A Spanish accent. “What do you have for me today?”
“Nothing much,” Fleck said. “You gotta remember, there’s one of me and seven of them.” He paused, chuckled. “I should say six now.”
“We’re interested in more than just six,” the voice said. “We’re interested in who they’re dealing with. You understand that?”
Fleck didn’t like the tone of voice. It was arrogant. The tone of a man used to giving orders to underlings. Mama would call The Client one of Them.
“Well,” Fleck said. “I’m doing the best I can, just being one man and all. I haven’t seen nothing interesting though. Not that I know of.”