But Polly knows a thing or two about cops. She knows how they close ranks, even behind the worst of the worst. Her husband was a dirty cop and his colleagues had to have suspected as much. There was a pattern, if anyone cared to find it. Beyond his own criminal activities, he was just a lousy guy. He hit her, threatened horrible things. His coworkers had to have known that was true as well. But he was one of theirs and she had killed him, and that wasn’t allowed. Killing was a perk that cops kept for themselves. Themselves and maybe little old ladies, shooting blindly toward an intruder in the middle of the night.
“What do you want to talk about?” She stops, but doesn’t get in the car, which is clearly his intent. She doesn’t want to be in a confined space with him. Then again, she’s not going to let him follow her inside, where Adam is already at work, prepping for lunch.
“What really happened that night.”
“Only she knows for sure. I wasn’t there.”
“Why wasn’t your door locked?”
“I never locked the door. No one locks their doors here. It’s Belleville.”
“We could bring a lawsuit against you, you know.”
That gets her attention. “For what?”
“Liability. You knew that stove wasn’t safe.”
“That’s on the landlord.”
“He says you didn’t report it.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure that trespassers have any right to be assured that the appliances they use are in perfect condition.” She goes inside the High-Ho, not in the least bit of a hurry or a fluster.
Still, he has needled her, and she mulls what he has said as she moves on autopilot through the steps of readying for the lunch service. Could Cath’s family really sue her? Can she be held accountable? She has heard about cases where people claim civil damages even when criminal liability is unproven. She should ask a lawyer, but no one knows better than she does that you can’t even say how-are-you to a lawyer without starting the clock.
There’s a famous old saying, He who steals my purse steals trash, he who steals my good name, etc., etc. People can do whatever they want to her name, but Polly likes her purse, thank you very much.
“What did he want?” Adam asks. So he, too, saw the car, saw Cath’s brother-in-law.
“He’s just being a jerk probably to appease that crazy wife of his. Tried to scare me by saying they could sue because I knew that old stove was dangerous. Can someone really sue me? For that?”
“People can sue for anything,” Adam says.
She had expected a more comforting reply from him. She stews about Jim’s threat the rest of the day, is snappish with Max and Ernest when they come in, not that they notice or care. No matter how she treats them, each man leaves a lone dollar at the end, usually a soft limp one that looks as if it’s been dug out of a back pocket. Never more, never less, as if her actions don’t matter. Polly is so tired of men deciding how much money she deserves—Ditmars, who kept her on a strict allowance. Gregg, ditto. Even her landlord, who seemed like such a sweetheart, stated flatly how long he was willing to stake her to a motel room while she tried to find a new place. Maybe she should sue him. No, better to let that go if she’s going to stay in Belleville. The town has been remarkably forgiving of the newcomer whose faulty stove killed one of their own. This is the time to live and let live. For the landlord, if not for poor Cath.
If she and Adam stay together, will he police her money? Will she be asked to show her receipts, to account for every cent? Show me a man’s wallet and I’ll show you his soul, she thinks as she pockets Max and Ernest’s sad little dollars. Was that a famous saying? It should be.
24
Irving Lowenstein has no voice mail. If someone wants to leave a message for him, Susie takes it down, writes it on one of those pink while you were out slips. This morning there are three, all from the same number, which he recognizes immediately. A tenant. That means money going out instead of in.
Irving owns only a few properties now, mainly on the northwest side. He once had more than forty, thirty-six apartments and ten houses, some commercial in the mix. But it was too much work, and all he ever got for his trouble was labels. Slumlord, as if he were the one who made the places slums. They started out nice, his units. Now he’s down to one commercial property and three residential ones. He’d like to get rid of those, but he has a soft spot for the tenants, elderly women, good people, if prone to neediness.
Today, it’s Mrs. Macalester on Oakley Road, says the hot-water heater is acting up. It’s a pretty new heater, so he’s not sure what could be wrong. Turns out the pilot blew out, something he can fix, although anything with gas makes him a little nervous. He’s in and out in less than fifteen minutes and the day is so nice, the first real fallish day of September, even if the calendar says there are ten more days to autumn. He decides to eat an early lunch in a diner on Garrison Boulevard.
But when he comes out at noon, it’s hot again, the day’s promises broken. Noon on the dot, he notices on the dashboard clock.
High noon. Yes, it’s coming on high noon in more ways than one.
They think he’s stupid, those two. Why not? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice—but she hasn’t fooled him twice. He has been onto her for a very long time. Maybe she’s like one of those diseases you get as a kid. Once you’ve had it, you’re immune. He had a little case of the Pauline Ditmars blues, but once she cheated him, he was over it. There are a lot of women in the world, only so many dollars. Irving likes having money, although he permits himself few indulgences. The nice things, such as the house, were for his wife, and Birdy’s gone. Irving likes having his money in the bank, in brokerage accounts, in retirement funds. His account balances are proof that everyone was wrong about him—his parents, who wouldn’t support him past the age of sixteen, forcing him to drop out of high school. The teachers who gave him Cs and Ds, when he knew he was the sharpest in the class. The insurance agents with whom he works, who put so much stock into appearances, with their expensive cars and suits and haircuts.
“I don’t waste money on luxuries,” Irving tells new clients when they visit his office. “You see a fancy office, you’re looking at waste. I don’t have a big nut, so I have no incentive into getting you to bite off more than you can chew. And I’m a broker—I find the best policy for you. I work for you.”
Ninety percent of the time, every word was true. Ninety, ninety-five percent of his customers paid their premiums, and the policies were there when they needed them. People in insurance sell something that everyone resents paying for—until they need it, and then it’s never as good as they think it should be. Doesn’t make for popularity. Yet he’s the one who’s there for them, time and time again. Irving has helped families bury people, send children to college, survive natural disasters. He has consoled survivors and widows.
Helped to create a few widows, too. But that wasn’t his fault, not really.
It started in the early 1980s, when he still had properties in the county. He had a tenant in Dundalk, just over the city line. She was okay, but her kids were trouble. Moved in, basically turned the house into a shooting gallery. Place was trashed. But—she paid the rent. Somehow, every month, the rent was paid. He couldn’t evict them without cause and he couldn’t prove they were selling drugs out of the house. Maybe he should have let it go—they were paying on time—but once they vacated, it was going to cost him a year’s rent to get the place back into shape. They let metal men scavenge the appliances, then claimed they had been burglarized. Their hot-water heater was stolen, or so they said. He needed them gone.