So maybe Trixie didn't list herself in the yellow pages. Maybe it was a word-of-mouth thing. Or maybe clients were referred to her. The bottom line was, I wasn't going to be able to phone her at the moment.
I stepped out the front door and far enough into the yard to see Trixie's place. Her Acura was in the driveway, plus a new, small Lexus, in black. So she had a client. I didn't want to bother her when she was in the middle of doing somebody else's books. I could wait until they left.
Down the other way, the housecoat lady was out watering her driveway again. I hadn't forgotten her first or last name, because we'd never been formally introduced. I would nod hello as I walked by, and that was good enough for me. I'm not sure what kind of conversation you can expect to have with someone whose only goal in life is owning a driveway clear of microscopic debris.
Nothing doing across the street at Earl's house, although even from here I could see that he was probably adding his name to the list of those who were unhappy with the work done by Valley Forest Estates. His windows remained cloudy, no doubt condensation trapped within the center of the glass. In our old house, we had windows that had been put in about twenty years ago, and peering outside was akin to looking through a pair of dirty eyeglasses. You might expect that sort of thing with an older place, but it was a real surprise to see it in a house as new as Earl's. I looked back at our own home, scanning my eye across the first-and second-story windows, wondering when I could expect the same thing might happen to them.
I couldn't get a very good view, standing as close to the house as I was, so I went out to the curb to take in the whole picture, and while I couldn't see anything wrong with the windows, I noticed for the first time that the framing around the front bay window was slightly crooked, and that the house numbers over the double garage were not centered properly. Honestly.
The front door of Trixie's house opened and a well-dressed man, mid-fifties I'd guess, came out. He was a bit tentative about it, glancing out to the street as he did so. He reached into his pocket for his keys, unlocked the Lexus with his remote, then strode quickly from the front door to the car. As he did so, his eyes happened to lock on mine.
"Hi!" I said. I may have my faults, but I'll always say hello to people.
He looked as though I'd just shot him with a dart. He quickly got into the car, where he was obscured by heavily tinted windows, backed out onto Greenway, then headed down the street, the Lexus making a deep, throaty roar the whole way.
The guy looked rattled, no doubt about it. Maybe Trixie'd told him he was going to have to pay a lot more in taxes than he'd budgeted for. Maybe he'd have to turn in the Lexus.
If he was rattled, maybe Trixie was, too. Maybe this was a bad time. I went back into the house.
I swung by Kenny'S Hobby shop to see whether a model I'd ordered, of the dropship the Marines use to fly from the mother ship to the planet's surface in the movie Aliens, had come in. I could have phoned, but going in person to check gave me an excuse to wander the shop and see whether any other new things had arrived. Kenny catered to a variety of hobbyists - model railroaders, slot car fans, fliers of radio-control airplanes - but his selection of SF-related kits was fairly extensive for a full-range hobby store.
My model hadn't shown up. "Maybe next week," said Kenny, who was leaning over the counter, mini-screwdriver in hand, trying to reattach a wheel to a metal reproduction of an old Ford Thunderbird. "You ever wonder," Kenny asked, not taking his eyes from his work, "why men have nipples?"
I thought about that for a moment. Not about the question itself, but at the sorts of things that preoccupied Kenny. "Not really."
Kenny bit his lip and held his breath, not wanting the tiny screw to slip from its hole. "It just doesn't make any sense at all. They don't do anything, they serve no purpose." Then: "How's the house?"
"Shower's still leaking into the ceiling in the kitchen, drywall's falling into the kitchen. The tub taps drip, the wind whistles sometimes around the sliding glass doors. The caulking around our bedroom window is useless. I don't even bother to take down the ladder. I'm squeezing caulking in every couple of weeks."
"There's another guy, lives in your neighborhood, says he's had trouble with his windows, and wiring problems, you know? Breakers popping, that kind of thing."
"We haven't had that. Yet."