"You're no dumbbell. Why only until last week?"
"We were living in the cottages in back, until the big house was finished. Then Gene wanted me to be the housekeeper, and I couldn't do both. Now, take your time, but tell me if you want it. He'll pay you twice what you're worth. What would you say you're worth?"
"Oh -- I don't know. Ten dollars an hour?"
"Okay, twenty then, and he'll pay you for a full week no matter how much you work, so that's eight hundred."
"Eight hundred a week? That's too much!"
"I know it, but he doesn't care. Deal?"
"Okay."
"All right, now. about transportation. You haven't got a car?"
"No."
"Pongo can take you back and forth until you get some wheels of your own. Don't know where he is now, though. I'll try his cottage." She leaned back to the intercom, pushed a button. "Pongo?"
"Yeah."
"You want to run Miss Morrow back into town?"
There was a perceptible pause. "Okay. Five minutes."
"Mrs. Hartz; I can just as well get a taxi -- "
"It would take half an hour to get out here. Where are you living, in town?"
"No, on the beach, at Indian Rocks."
"Well, that's a forty-dollar fare. Relax, Pongo can do it -- he likes to drive."
Margaret was waiting at the kitchen door when the Lincoln pulled up, looking dustier than ever. Pongo grinned at her around his cigar when she got in. "Make out okay?"
"I got the job."
"All right." The gate opened for them and they wheeled onto the long dusty road. "Surprised when you met the boss?"
She smiled. "Yes."
He glanced at her to see her expression. "He's not a bad guy to work for."
"Have you known him long?" she asked.
"Ten years, on Sea Sprite. She's decommissioned now, over in Tampa. Needs new rigging and some work on the engines. We went all over the world in her. Australia, India, Japan, everywhere. He says he's all done cruising now. Maybe he is."
Pongo let her out at the entrance to the cottages and asked what time she wanted to be picked up in the morning.
"Mrs. Hartz said she'd like me to start around ten, but please don't come. Honestly. I'm going to rent a car -- you have so much to do already."
"Aw, that's all right," he said, but she could tell he was pleased.
Chapter Eighteen
When she arrived at the house the next morning, she found the gate open. Up by the kitchen door three black women in maids' uniforms were getting into a station wagon, and beyond that was a huge delivery van. Margaret pulled over to make room for the station wagon; the driver, a black man, gave her an expressionless glance as he drove past.
She parked her rented Mazda in the garage; Pongo's Lincoln was not there, but there were two other cars, a black Mercedes and a green BMW station wagon, plus a vast cream-colored motor home.
At the back of the house, two men in blue work clothes were carrying a crate from the moving van through an open doorway. A metallic screech came from somewhere inside, then another. She peered in and saw Anderson, bare-chested as before, surrounded by crates, with a wrecking bar in his hand. He waved when he saw her. "Margaret, I've got my hands full this morning. If you can go on and get started by yourself, I'll be able to talk to you later."
"That'll be fine," she said, and retreated around the corner to the kitchen door.
Irma Hartz covered the telephone mouthpiece with her hand when Margaret went in. "Can't talk now," she said. "Go on in, honey, and if you have any problems, punch number five on the intercom." As Margaret left, she was saying in a steady voice, "I understand all that, Mr. Galloway, but Mr. Anderson prefers to handle his business affairs through an agent."
Margaret put her bag on the desk and sat down. The intercom on the wall had a great many buttons. There was a whisper of air conditioning; she felt the sweat drying on her forearms.
The disk was still in the machine. She rolled paper and carbons into the typewriter and began the first letter. Like the one she had typed yesterday, it was an order for items from a catalog, and so was the next. The third was a personal letter to someone named Justin, full of names she was not sure how to spell. She looked them all up in the rotary file, found only one. The fourth was a business letter about investments, and that was all. She turned the disk over, but got nothing but a hiss.
In the basket behind the dictation machine there was a disorderly stack of papers. Margaret lifted them out and began to sort them. There was a click from the intercom, and Mrs. Hartz's voice said, "Maggie, everything okay?"
"Yes," she answered, startled. "Good," said the voice, and the intercom clicked off.
The file folders in the drawers were neatly labeled, but there did not seem to be files for about a third of the letters she had. She filed what she could, put the others aside, and began to make a list of the file headings. She was typing it when the intercom clicked again and Mrs. Hartz's voice said, "Lunch in fifteen minutes, Maggie. In the kitchen."
"All right, thank you." She looked at her watch; it was a quarter after twelve. She finished the list, combed her hair, and put the finished letters into a folder.
Mrs. Hartz was sitting at the kitchen table; Pongo was doing something at the counter beside the stove. "Sit here, honey," said Mrs. Hartz. "Do you like this kitchen?"
"It's beautiful," said Margaret, and in fact, whether it was because the table was set with napkins and china, or because she had got the job and felt she was not quite a stranger here any longer, the room had a quiet beauty that she had not noticed before. The floor was red Spanish tile with a dull sheen, the walls cream-colored; black hand-hewn beams supported the ceiling. Copper and iron pots hung on either side of the stoves -- two of them, side by side, each bigger than any kitchen range Margaret had ever seen before. Gadgets were lined up at one end of the counter -- a Cuisinart, an espresso machine, two little convection ovens, and others that she did not recognize.
"I always wanted a big kitchen," said Irma Hartz. "It you knew how many meals I've cooked in the back of a trailer."
"Not enough cabinets," said Pongo. He put a little pastry shell filled with something pink at each place, sat down, and picked up his fork.
"Mm, this is great," said Irma with her mouth full. "What's in it?"
Margaret tried a bite; it was shrimp in some kind of sauce, meltingly delicious; the pastry was light as air.
"Shrimp," said Pongo, "truffles, shrimp butter." He swallowed a mouthful and looked meditative. "Could use more tarragon."
Gene Anderson came in quietly and sat down at the end of the table. He was wearing a short-sleeved white cotton shirt and white trousers. The plate and silverware in front of him looked of ordinary size until Margaret compared them with the others, and then she saw that they were a third again as large; the heavy silver knife was almost a foot long.
Pongo, who had got up when Anderson came in, put down a much bigger pastry in front of him. He poured wine from a chilled bottle and slipped away again; in a moment Margaret heard the sizzle of meat on the grill.
Anderson had already finished half his pastry. "Maggie, did you have any problems?" He pointed with his fork to the folder beside her on the table.
"Yes, a few. There's one letter that has names in it I'm not sure how to spell. I typed it anyhow, and I thought you could look it over -- "
"Okay, let's do that right after lunch."
Pongo was up again, turning the meat on the grill, then collecting their plates. He put fresh ones down, went to the oven and came back with a steaming platter. "Red snapper," he said. "Irma, you want to serve it?"