I looked over at Oliver. Oliver couldn’t hold back his laughter, and that put me in an even worse mood.
“What do you mean, you can’t reach the fridge? How the hell do you wait on customers?”
“It’s just . . .” He wiped his forehead with the rag. The guy was a disaster. “My wife is the one who gets things from the fridge,” he said.
“And . . . ?” I felt like punching him.
“She’s on the floor. She fell and she’s—”
“What do you mean, ‘on the floor’?” interrupted Oliver.
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t know . . .” he repeated, shrugging his shoulders, the palms of his hands turned upward.
“Where is she?” asked Oliver.
The guy pointed to the kitchen. The only thing I wanted was to drink something cool, and when I saw Oliver stand up, all my hopes were dashed.
“Where?” Oliver asked again.
The guy pointed to the kitchen once more and Oliver moved off in that direction, turning back to look at us a few times, as though distrustful. It was strange when he disappeared behind the curtain and left me alone, face-to-face, with an idiot like that.
I had to sidestep around him when Oliver called me into the kitchen. I walked slowly because I could tell something was wrong. I opened the curtain and peeked in. The kitchen was small and overflowing with casserole dishes, saucepans, plates, and things piled up on shelves or hanging from hooks.
Lying on the floor a few feet from the wall, the woman looked like a marine beast washed up by the tide. She was huge, and she clutched a big plastic spoon in her left hand. The fridge hung above her, flush with the cupboards. It was one of those kiosk refrigerators with a transparent lid, the kind that stands on the floor and slides open on top, only this one had ridiculously been tacked to the wall with brackets, following the line of the cupboards, its doors facing outward. Oliver was looking at me.
“Well,” I told him, “you came back here, now do something.”
I heard the plastic curtain move, and the man came and stood next to me. He was much shorter than he’d looked before, now that we were both standing. I think I had almost three heads on him. Oliver knelt down next to the fat woman, but couldn’t seem to bring himself to touch her. I thought she could wake up at any moment and start shouting. He brushed the hair from her face. Her eyes were closed.
“Help me turn her over,” said Oliver.
The guy didn’t even blink. I went over and knelt down on the other side, but between the two of us, we could barely move her.
“Aren’t you going to help?” I asked the man.
“I’m . . . ahhh . . . suspect . . .” babbled the moron, “she’s dead.”
We immediately let go of the fat woman and sat there looking at her.
“What do you mean, dead? Why didn’t you say she was dead?”
“I’m not sure, it’s just a suspicion.”
“He said he’s a suspect,” said Oliver, “not that he suspects.”
“I also suspect my suspicion.”
Oliver looked at me; his face was saying something like Any second now I’ll beat the shit out of this guy.
I lifted the hand with the spoon to check for a pulse. When Oliver got tired of waiting for me, he put two fingers under the woman’s nose and mouth and said: “She’s a goner. Let’s get out of here.”
And then the damned little guy got desperate.
“What do you mean, ‘get out of here’? No, please. I can’t deal with her alone.”
Oliver opened the fridge, took out two sodas and handed one to me, and took a few steps away, cursing. I followed him. I opened my bottle and I thought its mouth would never meet mine. I had forgotten how thirsty I was.
“So? What do you think?” asked Oliver. I breathed in relief. Suddenly I felt ten years younger and in a better mood. “Did she fall or did he take her out?” he asked. We were still pretty close to the short guy and Oliver didn’t lower his voice.
“I don’t think it was him,” I said in a low voice. “He needs her to reach the fridge, doesn’t he?”
“He could reach . . .”
“You really think he killed her?”
“He could use a ladder, get up on the table, he’s got fifty bar stools . . .” he said, motioning around us. It seemed to me he was talking loudly on purpose, so I lowered my voice even more: “Maybe he really is just a poor guy. Maybe he really is that stupid, and now he’s all alone with his fat wife dead in the kitchen.”