Tears welled in her faded blue eyes and coursed through deep furrows to her neck. “I hadn’t gone to sleep yet and I just had time to stuff my thing into a suitcase and get down the fire escape. Some people couldn’t even do that much. Poor Marty Holman had to leave his false teeth behind,” The tears stopped as abruptly as they began, to be replaced by a high-pitched giggle. “You should have seen him, Vicki, my God, you should have seen what the old geezer looked like with his cheeks all sunk in and his eyes popping out and him shouting in this mumbly kind of way, ‘My teeth, I’ve lost my teeth.’”
“It must have been hilarious,” I said dryly. “You cannot live with me, Elena. It would drive me to homicide within forty-eight hours. Maybe less.”
Her lower lip started to tremble again and she said in a terrible parody of baby talk, “Don’t be mean to me, Vicki, don’t be mean to poor old Elena, who got burned out of her house in the middle of the nights. You’re my own goddamn flesh and blood, my favorite brother’s little girl. You can’t toss poor old Elena out on the street like some worn-out mattress.”
A door slammed sharply behind us. The banker who had just moved into the first-floor-north apartment erupted into the stairwell, his hands on his hips, his jaw sticking out pugnaciously. He was wearing navy-striped cotton pajamas; despite the bleary sleep in his face, his hair was perfectly combed.
“What the hell is going on out here? You may not have to work for a living—God knows what you do all day long up there—but I do. If you have to conduct your business in the middle of the night, show some consideration for your neighbors and don’t do it out in the hall. If you don’t shut up and get the hell out of here, I’m calling the cops.”
I stared at him coldly. “I run a crack house upstairs. This is my supplier. You could be arrested for complicity if you’re found hanging around out here when the police arrive.”
Elena giggled, but said, “Don’t be rude to him, Victoria— you never know when you may want a boy with fabulous eyes like that to do something for you.” She added to the banker, “Don’t worry, sweetie, I’m just coming in. We’ll let you get your beauty sleep.”
Behind the closed door to one-south a dog began to bark. I ground my teeth some more and hustled Elena inside, snatching her duffel bag from her when she began wobbling under its weight.
The banker watched us through narrowed eyes. When Elena lurched against him he made a face of pure horror and retreated hastily to his apartment, fumbling with the lock. I tried moving Elena upstairs, but she wanted to stop and talk about the banker, demanding to know why I hadn’t asked him to carry her bag.
“It would have been a perfect way for you two to get acquainted, make things up a little.”
I was close to screaming with frustration when the door to one-south opened. Mr. Contreras came out, a staggering sight in a crimson dressing gown. The golden retriever I share with him straining against her collar, but when she saw me her low-throated growls changed to whimpers of excitement.
“Oh, it’s you, doll,” the old man said with relief. “The princess here woke me up and then I heard all the noise and thought, Oh my God, the worst is happening, someone’s breaking in in the middle of the night. You oughta be more considerate, doll—it’s hard for people who have to work to get up in the middle of the night like this.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed brightly. “And contrary to public opinion, I am one of those working people. And believe me, I had no more desire to get out of bed at three A.M. than you did.”
Elena put on her warmest smile and stuck out her hand to Mr. Contreras like Princess Diana greeting a soldier. “Elena Warshawski,” she said. “Charmed to meet you. This little girl is my niece, and she’s the prettiest, sweetest niece anybody could hope for.”
Mr. Contreras shook her hand, blinking at her like an owl with a flashlight in its face. “Pleased to meet you,” he said automatically if unenthusiastically. “Look, doll, you oughta get this lady—your aunt, you say?—you oughta get her up to bed. She ain’t doing too great.”
The sour yeast smell had swept over him too. “Yep, that’s just what I’ll do. Come on, Elena, Let’s get upstairs. Beddy-bye time.”
Mr. Contreras headed back to his apartment. The dog was annoyed—if we were all having a party she wanted to join in.
“That wasn’t very polite of him,” Elena sniffed as Mr. Contreras’s door closed behind us. “Didn’t even tell me his own name when I went out of my way to introduce myself.”
She grumbled all the way up the stairs. I didn’t say anything, just kept a hand in the small of her back to propel her in the right direction, urging her on when she tried to stop for a breather at the second-floor landing.
Back in my apartment she wanted to ooh and aah over all my possessions. I ignored her and moved the coffee table so I could pull the bed out of the couch. I made it up and showed her where the bathroom was.
“Now listen, Elena. You are not staying here more that one night. Don’t even think I’m going to waffle on this because I won’t.”