Rita Lakin_Gladdy Gold_01 (4 page)

5

Going into Town, Or
Trying to

G
lad, can we please get going?
I'm dying from the heat already." Evvie has a right to complain. We've
been waiting forever, or so it seems, for everyone to get into my car.
The pavement is burning our feet.

First, Bella, terrified of forgetting anything, left her
shopping list on the kitchen table, so she went scampering back for it.
Then Sophie, who would never let anyone break her record for lateness,
went back for her sunblock even though we'd only be walking outside
from the parking lot into the market.

"We can always leave them behind," I say.

"Then let's do it. Heckle and Jeckle are driving me up
one wall and down the other," agrees Evvie, the impatient organizer.

"Bella! Sophie! Get down here already," screeches Ida,
who has less patience than anyone.

Sophie waves gaily out her window. "I'm almost ready. I
got my head together, but the rest of me is falling apart."

Ida is in a bad mood anyway. As usual, her mailbox was
empty this morning. She mailed an expensive birthday gift to one of her
grandchildren. (She'd never admit it's bribery.) No one has bothered to
thank her or even acknowledge receiving it.

I try not to open my mailbox when she is around. I feel
guilty when I get so many wonderful letters from my grandchildren in
New York. I'm truly blessed. And genuinely sorry for Ida.

Evvie is tapping her foot, a very bad sign. "I promised
Meyer I'd get my copy over to the newspaper before noon. Now, he won't
be there when I get there. I'm going to kill those two
shmegeggies
!"

She's furious; she's never late with her copy.

I've pulled the sunshade off the windshield, I've got all
the windows and doors open, and I'll put the air on as soon as I see
them coming. The car should be bearable enough to get in now. And we're
still waiting.

Ida, trying to keep her temper in check, is now reading
the notices on the bulletin board next to the elevator. "Did you see
this, girls?" We turn.

"There's another flyer warning us about this guy who's
killing older women. They say we should never go out alone at night, or
go into bad neighborhoods."

"Well, we don't have to be concerned," Evvie says. "We're
always asleep by nine o'clock and, anyway, we never leave our
neighborhood."

"They're worried about us being followed home," I comment
as I read over her shoulder. "This guy manages to get into women's
apartments without breaking in."

"How can he do that?" Evvie asks. "You have to be pretty
stupid to let in someone you don't know."

"Well, it happens all the time. My murder mysteries come
up with tons of different ways. A guy carrying flowers poses as a
delivery man. You'd open the door, wouldn't you? Or a telegram. Or
someone in a cop's uniform? Or someone says your kids were in an
accident and he's the good Samaritan they sent to get you. . . ."

Ida and Evvie are silent for a moment. "I see what you
mean," Ida says. "Who'd ever question any of those?"

I suddenly feel my blood run cold. "Is it possible," I
say, thinking about Selma yet again, "maybe it wasn't a heart attack or
an accident--?"

"Hey, dolls! Up here!"

Ida jumps, startled. We look up, to the second floor.

And guess who? It's our favorite pain-in-the-ass, Hy
Binder, heading for the laundry room with a basket load of wash.

"We almost got away," Evvie moans.

"Didja hear this one?" he calls out to us. "What's the
difference between a wife and a girlfriend?" Not bothering to wait for
a response, he tells us. "Forty-five pounds."

"Get lost, Hy," Ida yells.

"What's it called when a woman is paralyzed from the
waist down?" Pause, then a guffaw. "Marriage!"

There's no stopping him.

Evvie shrieks at him. "Why don't you go soak your head in
the dryer?"

"Don't you mean washer?" Ida asks.

"Washer. Dryer. Who cares. Just get rid of him!"

Evvie starts to get into the car. "I'd rather melt than
listen to his dreck!"

"Wait, but didja hear what happened real early this
morning? No joke."

Lola comes out of their apartment with another basket of
laundry. She continues it for Hy. "Guess who crazy Kronk got this time?"

"Who, now?" Evvie asks, changing her mind about the car
in the face of a choice piece of gossip.

Greta and Armand Kronk lived here for many years. She was
Spanish, he German. They hinted vaguely at being in "showbiz" and they
would have nothing to do with any of us, although one year they did
offer classes in flamenco. But they were so unpleasant, and their
prices so expensive, very few people took their classes. Eventually
Armand died and just about no one has seen Greta since. Food and liquor
are delivered to her door. Especially liquor. A few years ago she
started getting creepy, prowling the Dumpsters at night. First, she
would smear garbage all over people's cars and front doors. Then she
began scrawling juvenile kinds of poems on our front doors in
greasepaint. Very short. To the point. And scary in their accuracy. No
one can figure out how she knows so much about all of us. No one ever
admits how close she comes to nailing us.

"The Muellers over us?" Hy comments. "I could hear them
early this morning when John went out to pick up the newspaper. He woke
us up with his yelling and Mary trying to quiet him. I looked out and
he was pounding on Kronk's door, screaming, daring she should come out.
So he can kill her!"

By now the two prima donnas have managed to come
downstairs. And they want to know what's going on. Evvie shushes them.

"Wow!" says Ida. "What did she write this time?"

"Well, you wouldn't believe--" Lola begins.

Hy interrupts. "He got some soap and wiped it off the
door real fast."

Sophie, the queen of pastels, tugs on Evvie, insists on
knowing what she and Bella missed by being a teeny-weeny bit late.
Evvie, annoyed, fills her in quickly.

"But before he finished wiping," Lola continues, "Mrs.
Feder already read what Greta wrote."

"Wait just a minute," I say. "How did Esther Feder see
from across the way on the first floor at the other end of the building
to the Mueller's top floor at this end? What did she do, wheel her
chair down the sidewalk?"

"She has binoculars," Hy announces, grinning. Hy is
really getting a charge out of all this. "Well, old Feder told her
darling Harriet. Harriet told Lola. Natch, Lola told me."

"I can't believe nobody blabbed about it by the pool this
morning," Ida says, amazed.

"Not in front of the Canadians," says Lola.

We are always on our best behavior with our northern
visitors.

Sophie, who reads the end of every novel first because
she can't stand the suspense, pushes forward. "So, alright already,
what did Kronk write?"

Hy beams from ear to ear, emoting dramatically. "'Mary,
Mary, quite contrary. Kick him out. Your John's a fairy.'"

Conversation comes to an immediate halt.

Bella is the first to recover. In her own inimitable way
of thinking, she's gleefully made a connection. She delicately wiggles
her hand to get our attention. "Is that why he always wears pink?"

Back to my car. I jump in and quickly crank up the air.
Ida gets in, and I wait to hear what she will say. She never
disappoints me. "Glad, turn down the air! You want me to freeze?"

"Get in already," Evvie says. "I'm melting out here."

"Now where are you beauties off to?" a melodious voice
wafts down the sidewalk towards us.

Oh, oh. From Hy's frying pan into Leo's fire. It's Mr.
Leo Slezak, aka Mr. Sleaze, waving at us. That's mine and Evvie's name
for this real-estate entrepreneur and slimeball. A not-too-bad-looking
man, fifty-ish, if you like his type. Dapper in an oily sort of way. He
favors creased white linen suits, Panama hats angled rakishly across
his forehead. And a lot of gold chains.

He's standing with Tessie Hoffman, a hefty
two-hundred-fifty-pounder, best friend of the deceased Selma Beller,
and fellow Weight Watchers dropout. We all like Tessie because she can
make fun of herself. If we ask what she's had for lunch, she'll say
Shamu and fries. Like that. Selma's sudden death has devastated her.

Like a shot, the girls are out of the car again, ready to
melt once more, but this time from Leo's baloney. Evvie and I cannot
stand this man, but most of the other females in Phase Two think he is
God's gift to women.

"Why are you here today, Leo?" Sophie gurgles.

"You, of course, know about Selma Beller. So sad. Well,
her children gave me the listing and Tessie, here, is giving me the key
to her apartment."

At the mention of Selma's name, Tessie's eyes tear up.
She shakes her head and repeats her familiar litany. "She never even
got to open her birthday present."

Smarmy Slezak pats her on the shoulder. "There, there,"
he says with his usual phony sentiment. He beams back at us. "I have a
couple of hot prospects coming this afternoon."

I wonder how he gets those listings. Leo hasn't sold a
condo in over a year. More than a dozen units just stand empty. He
keeps moaning that business is bad. The snowbirds aren't buying much
anymore. There are bigger and fancier condos going up all over the
place, like the Wynmore or Hamilton House. If this keeps up, eventually
we'll all have our choice of graveyards--Beth Israel, across town, or
stay right here in our own apartments.

I swear if I didn't know better, I'd think he stands near
the ambulance exit at the hospital and follows them when the sirens go
off. One of us dies and that embossed card is out of his pocket and
into the hands of a grieving relative faster than you can say "Escrow
is closed."

"How do you ladies do it?" he says with that simpering
lisp. "How do you keep so fresh and beautiful in all this heat?"

You don't want to hear their nauseatingly sweet answers.
It would make your stomach turn.

Evvie leans over and honks the horn. "We have to go,
girls."

Almost sighing, the three little twits begin backing away
from Leo, the lady-killer. Like a magician, Leo whips a hand into his
pocket and his cards instantly appear. His greatest fans take them
lovingly. Evvie and I keep our hands folded. He reaches toward us.

"No, thanks. We already have a few dozen," Evvie says
with ice in her voice. My sister does sarcasm very well.

Leo taps at the brim of his Panama and says what he
always says: "Don't buy out the stores, ladies."

And we are off. Thank God. I have such a headache
already. But as I drive through the wrought-iron gates out onto Oakland
Park Boulevard, I think once more about Selma's death. It's the way she
died that's beginning to nag at me. It reminds me of something. Someone
I've seen before? But I can't drag it out of the cobwebs in my mind.
Damn getting old and what it does to your memory!