“About my apartment, Craig.”
“Right. No, we didn’t get home till after eleven. But, wait, I did hear someone talking outside after that. I was just about to listen to my motivation tapes—I fall asleep to them every night, and—”
“After eleven it was me. And the cops.”
“Cops! Gosh! What did they take? TV? VCR? Microwave? CDs?”
Jane thought she ought to start taking notes on what people said when she told them the burglar took only her clothes.
*
“Sam! Darlin’, come on in. It’s wonderful to see you again.” Then Senator Loudermilk dropped his voice a full octave, one of his favorite tricks. “You look fabulous. But then you always do.”
Sam smiled. Wasn’t it nice that some things never changed? Like Dick Loudermilk’s flirtatiousness. On the other hand, while she was holding her own, due to good genes, long legs, and hard sweaty walks, she was hardly the girl she was when she and Dick were in school.
Now the senator loped around the side of his massive mahogany desk, enveloping her in a well-tailored hug that smelled of expensive aftershave.
“Looking good yourself, Dick,” she said. And he was. Richard P. Loudermilk was of the clean-limbed great big old boy school. With lots of white teeth and an athlete’s grace. Could he scale a balcony in one leap?
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Now he was pouring her a glass of iced tea from a crystal pitcher. Holding small silver tongs above a dish of sugar cubes. “One or two?”
She held up two fingers. “Just a social call.”
“Bullshit. We haven’t had a social engagement since you shoved me out of a boat in the middle of Lake Lanier for trying to get my hand down your swimsuit. That must have been—” and then he winked—“well, we don’t know how to count that high, slow-witted Southerners, do we?”
“You home for the Fourth, Dick? You all are still in session, aren’t you?”
“Oh yeah. Making the world safe for democracy. Couple of days here, wave the flag, shake some hands, eat some pig, had a little brushfire I had to attend to.” He gave her a big wink.
“Really? Anyone I know?”
“Nawh. Nawh.” The ice in his glass tinkled. “Not what you think. Bid’nis. Utilities bid’nis. Your innuendo, guess that means you haven’t heard my big news.”
“You’re getting married.”
His blue eyes, which after all the years of horsetrading he could still make guileless, opened wide. “Then you do know!?”
“You
are
getting married?”
“Yep.” Dick stuck a soon-to-be-elder-statesman pose. “To Mandy Overhiser.”
“As in Senator Overhiser’s daughter?” Overhiser being the most powerful, not to mention most conservative, Democrat in the Senate. And from the West. “That’s not a marriage, that’s a geographical and philosophical merger.”
“Wow, Sam. Such cynicism is not becoming to a lady.”
“I’m no lady, and neither is my friend Jane Wildwood.”
At that, Dick blanched.
Ah-ha, thought Sam, for it was a major hit when the wily poker face even moved.
“Now, Sam, Jane is a wonderful girl, and you know, we all have our little indiscretions we’d just as soon forget. As I remember you used to keep company with that Dr. Talbot who’s now the state’s chief medical—.”
“Forget it, Dick. All I want to know is did you steal all Jane Wildwood’s clothes?”
“Did I—do you th—did I wha—?”
Dick Loudermilk’s laugh was one of the best things about him. Now it bounced off the walls of his office, ricocheting so long and loud that when the good senator’s secretary peeked in to see if they were alright, both Sam and Dick were both wiping their tears, limp on the sofa.
*
“You go first.”
So Jane did, filling Sam in on what Craig said.
“So zilch. Nada. He didn’t hear or see a thing. He said Patti had dropped home to pick up something about six, before they went to their meeting, and she didn’t see anyone either—except Miss Bitsie, the landlady, who dropped by to deliver in person, can you believe it, a rent increase for them. I bet I’m next. I saw her too, but she just waved at me with her big fake smile as I was going out. Craig was so pissed. After all, they are moving. Have put in a bid on a house.”
“Good for them, Jane, but let’s stick to what’s important. The other tenants?”
“What do you mean?”
“You questioned all the other tenants in the building?”
“You didn’t say to do that. You just said to talk to Craig because he has keys.”
“Jane, Jane.”
“Don’t
Jane, Jane
me. You sound like my mother. You’re off visiting with Dick Loudermilk, doing God knows what, and now it occurs to you I should talk with everybody in my building?”
“Well, sweetie, they’re your clothes.”
*
Jane stomped into her apartment. Slammed the door. Switched on the A/C. Threw herself down on the sofa.
She was pooped. And hot. And sweaty.
It had been a hard day of ringing doorbells, punching in numbers on phones.
And what’d she have?
Not a damned thing. Only eight apartments in the building, but most of the tenants were out of town for the holiday, had left yesterday, which meant they couldn’t have seen anything, and even if they had, wouldn’t be back till day after tomorrow.
Old Mrs. Pettigrew in the front said she thought she’d seen the gas man, but that may have been the day before. Besides, Mrs. Pettigrew sometimes saw General Sherman riding down Piedmont on his horse.
Bobby LaRue was in jail. He and his brother had bit off a job bigger than they could chew. So Bobby hadn’t bothered to say goodbye, but then there was no real reason to. The last time they had spoken, Jane made it clear she’d have a pot of boiling Crisco ready to pour on his head if he stormed her battlements again. He actually had come over her balcony once. Pole-vaulted. Just showing off. At the time, she’d thought it was kind of cute.
Anyway, scratch Bobby.
What she needed right now was a glass of ice water.
But first she needed to get out of these stinky clothes. Why the hell hadn’t she taken Sam up on her offer, the Rich’s credit card? She was getting pretty ripe in the good old Atlanta summertime. She stripped, threw her duds in a pile on the floor. She’d rinse them out later. Started naked into the kitchen, when suddenly her eye caught a pile of magazines and catalogues on the floor. A Victoria’s Secret catalogue on top. They belonged in a wicker wastebasket.
Jane froze.
Somebody had been here. Could be here now. All of a sudden everything seemed to be outlined in halos. There was something funny in the air. The faint odor of cigar smoke.
Jane’s heart pounded. “Hello?” she called. “Hello?”
* * *
Sam knew she could just as easily talk with Jane’s weird friend Sally on the phone, but this was a chance to see her apartment. Sam never got enough of seeing how people lived. And once inside, she couldn’t stay out of their medicine cabinets.
Staring now into Sally’s, she found among the deodorant, depilatories, and toothpaste twelve fresh packs of single-edged razor blades, six vials of prescription sleeping pills, and a Colt .38 Super. Given Sally’s history as a girl who attempted suicide with the regularity that most people floss their teeth, there were no surprises. Except for the gun.
From her living room, Sally, a tiny peroxide blonde, was talking around a wad of chewing gum almost bigger than she was.
“It’s funny you should call. I was just thinking about you.”
“Oh, really? Thanks for the use of your john.” Sam came out of the bathroom fluffing up her dark curls. She looked around the living room, which was strewn with half-filled cardboard boxes and suitcases. Somehow she didn’t have the feeling it had been any neater before Sally started packing. “Why would you be thinking of me?”
“Well, you know that story you wrote about the men who were killed by that crazy woman who met them through personal ads?”
“Right.” Sam nodded at Sally while trying to sneak a peek at the clothes tumbling out of the boxes. None of those looked like Jane’s. But then, who could be sure? Sally had a thing for spandex too. Though whereas Jane pretty much stuck to basic black, Sally’s taste covered the rainbow. A model/actress/exercise instructor, this was her professional wardrobe. “So, you liked the story, or you answered a personal ad?”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m moving.”
Sally was moving. Craig and Patti were moving. Dick was in town for a minute, then out again. Was there a trend here?
“To be with your new fellow?”
“Right.” Sally’s little blonde head bobbed up and down. “That’s right. I’m going to be near him. To wait for him.” Coming from Sally’s mouth the words sounded like pop lyrics.
“Why wait?”
“Well, it’ll be a while before he gets out. But I thought if I moved to New Orleans, I’ve always loved New Orleans, and I could live in the Quarter, he’s about an hour away.”
“And where exactly is he?”
“In Angola.”
“The prison Angola?”
“Yeah.” Sally blew a big bubble. It was turquoise—which matched the earrings she was wearing—until it popped. “It’s the funniest thing.”
“His being in prison?”
“No. My meeting him. That’s the part about the ads—I was telling you. I answered one of those ads from a guy, you know, in jail wanting to be a pen pal with somebody, and guess who it was?”
“I give.”
“Bobby LaRue. Jane’s old boyfriend. Isn’t that the funniest thing you ever heard?”
“That’s quite a coincidence. Did you know him through Jane?”
“Oh, sure. I went with her more than once to bail him out. For, you know, little stuff.”
“Does Jane know?”
“Oh, no.” Sally’s eyes widened. “And you have to cross your heart and hope to die you won’t tell her. She’s been so good to me, got me out of Tight Squeeze after she left, helped me get my job at Shake Your Bootie, that’s the exercise studio. I feel so bad—”
“Do you think she’d care?”
“Well, I would. I’d be mad as hell. Do you want a beer?”
“No, thanks.”
“Didn’t you say you wanted to talk with me about something about Jane?”
“I do. Somebody stole all her clothes last night. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Her clothes! How awful! No way! You don’t suspect me, do you? We’re not even the same size. She’s a lot bigger than me.”
“No. It’s just that you have keys to her apartment—”
“No. No, I don’t.”
“You don’t?”
“No. About a month ago somebody broke into my apartment and took everything that wasn’t nailed down. Including Jane’s keys.”
“Was that before or after Bobby went to jail?”
Sally just stared at her, hands on her hips. Then, “I don’t know what you mean. Are you inferring that Bobby took her keys? I’ll have you know Bobby was safely in jail long before that.”
“Were they labeled?”
“What? Her keys? Sure, they said, Jane’s keys.”
“With her address?”
“No. I don’t think so. Why?”
Well, that was that. Sam shook her head. “Never mind. So, you’re moving today?”
At that, Sally got down off her huff. “Tomorrow.” She smiled at the thought. “Bobby’s mom is helping me. She thinks it’s neat I’m moving near Bobby. And her other son too, Jimmy. They both got arrested together on that job in New Orleans. So she can come and stay with me and visit them. You know, she did the sweetest thing after I got robbed.”
“Really?” Sam was already halfway out the door. “What’s that?”
“She gave me Bobby’s gun.”
*
Jane was sitting on the sofa in Sam’s apartment in her Uncle George’s big house when Sam got home.
“Peaches let me in,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mi casa, su casa, sweetie. You look like something’s definitely up. Am I right?”
“Positivo.” Then she told Sam about being frozen stock-still and naked in her apartment. Knowing someone had been there. Was there.
“My God! And then what?”
“Well, I kept hollering and hollering, and nothing happened, so finally I said screw it, went on into the kitchen and got a glass of ice water and a butcher knife and I marched back into the bathroom. No one there, not even behind the shower curtain. Bedroom. Zilch. Threw open the closet.”
“Jesus! Braver woman that I, Wildwood. All of this naked?”
“What the hell, it didn’t seem like an occasion to get dressed up for—and, let us remember, I didn’t have any fresh clothes.”
It was then Sam noticed that Jane had changed. These weren’t the same things she was wearing this morning.
“Guess what was in my closet?”
“The boogie man?”
“My clothes.”
“You’re kidding!”
Jane threw her hands up, shrugged. “Why would I lie?”
“All of them?”
“Well—almost all. The things I’m sure are missing are a long black lacy robe Dick gave me. A few pieces of underwear—the sexiest kind of stuff—you know. A white chiffon blouse with pockets over the bazooms. But it’s hard to remember everything I had.”