Shakespeare's Landlord Part 12

"I'll make it," I told him grimly, and reached out to pull my keys from the gra.s.s. To my dismay, the little chain had snapped and the keys had scattered under our feet. I could find only one, but at least that one was my house key. I hobbled into the house, making my way to my bedroom. I called the police station first. After I hung up, my hand stayed wrapped around the receiver. I had no idea what I'd said to the dispatcher, the unseen Lottie. It was now 1:30 in the morning.

Marshall had made me promise to call him if I had trouble.

I checked the little piece of paper he'd scrawled his new phone number on, and I punched it in.

"Yes?" Marshall asked, a little groggy but conscious.

"I'm at home, Marshall," I said.

"I knew you'd left," he said curtly.

"I had a fight."

"Are you all right?"

"Not entirely. But not as bad off as he is."

"I'm out the door."

And suddenly, I was talking to a dial tone.

I wanted more than anything else to lie down on the bed. But I knew I could not. I forced myself to get to my feet again, to move slowly back out to where Claude Friedrich was still holding a gun on "the whiner," who had covered his now-blood-soaked ski mask with both hands.

I still didn't know the ident.i.ty of my attacker.

"I guess you get to pull off his mask, Lily," Friedrich said. "He can't seem to manage."

I bent painfully over, said, "Put your d.a.m.n hands down," and was instantly obeyed. I grasped the edge of the ski mask with my right hand and pulled it up. It couldn't come off entirely because the back of his head pinned it down, but enough of the knit front slid up for me to recognize its wearer.

Blood slid from Norvel Whitbread's nostrils. "You done broke my nose, you b.i.t.c.h," he said hoa.r.s.ely, and my hand snapped back to strike. Norvel cringed.

"Cut it out!" barked the chief of police, no trace of comforting rumble in his official voice, and with an effort of will, I relaxed and stepped away.

"I can smell the bourbon from here," Friedrich said disgustedly. "What were you doing when he came at you, Lily?"

"I was walking up to my own house in my own yard, minding my own business," I said pointedly.

"Oh. Like that, huh?"

"Like that," I agreed.

"Norvel, you are the stupidest son of a b.i.t.c.h who ever drew breath," the chief of police said conversationally.

Norvel did some moaning and groaning and then he vomited.

"Good G.o.d Almighty, man!" exclaimed Friedrich. He looked over at me. "Why you think he did this, Lily?"

"He gave me some trouble at the church the other day when I was working there, so I thumped him," I said flatly. "This is his idea of revenge, I guess." Norvel seemed to stick to tools of his trade when he planned an a.s.sault. I was willing to bet the staff was the same broom he'd tried to hit me with at the church, with the straw sawed off.

A city police car came around the corner, lights rotating but siren silent, which was something to be thankful for.

A thought struck me and I squatted a few feet away from Norvel, who now smelled of many unpleasant things. "Listen, Norvel, did you leave that doll on my car tonight?" I asked.

Norvel Whitbread responded with a stream of abuse and obscenity, the burden of which was that he didn't know what I meant.

"What's that about?" asked Friedrich.

"Okay, let's try again, Norvel," I said, struck by a sudden inspiration. I held up a wait-a-minute hand to Friedrich. "Why did Tom O'Hagen go upstairs to see you the day Pardon was killed?"

"Because he couldn't keep his d.i.c.k in his pants," snarled Norvel, in no mood to keep anyone else's potentially lucrative secret any longer. "He gave me sixty lousy bucks not to tell his wife he's been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g Deedra."

Claude Friedrich was standing closer now. He'd moved in imperceptibly when he heard my question. Now he exploded in a cold kind of anger. "Little something you forgot to mention to me, Norvel?" he asked furiously. "When we get you into a cell after a side trip to the hospital, we're going to have a serious conversation." He nodded to the deputy who'd trotted over from the patrol car, a young man I mentally cla.s.sified as a boy.

While the deputy handcuffed Norvel and inserted him into the patrol car, Claude Friedrich stood by my side and stared down at me. I was still squatting, just because I knew getting up was going to hurt pretty bad. Tucking his gun in his waistband, Friedrich extended a hand. After a moment's hesitation, I reached up to grasp it, and he pulled hard. I rose with a gasp.

"No point asking you where you've been-well, maybe I don't need to," he said, eyeing Marshall's car as it pulled in behind the patrol car. He let go of my hand, which he'd retained.

Marshall launched himself out of his car with gratifying speed. He did not grab me or hug me; he looked me over carefully, as if he was scrutinizing a piece of sale furniture for scratches and dents.

"We need to go inside," he muttered. "I can't see well enough out here."

Claude Friedrich stirred. "Mr. Sedaka, good evenin'," he said.

Marshall looked at him for the first time. "Chief," he acknowledged, with a brief nod, before going back to his scrutiny of my facial scratches. "Her face is bleeding," he informed Friedrich, "and I need to take her in and clean the cuts up so I can see their depth."

I felt a sudden urge to giggle. I hadn't been examined this carefully since my mother had gotten a letter from the school about head lice.

"Norvel Whitbread attacked Lily," observed the older man, who was beginning to feel the cool air against his bare chest, judging from the goose pimples I could see popping up. Friedrich seemed determined to push Marshall into acting like a proper boyfriend, perhaps consoling me on my ordeal and threatening death to Norvel.

"I'm a.s.suming you whipped his b.u.t.t," Marshall told me.

"Yes, sensei," I said, and suddenly the giggle burst out.

Both men stared at me in such complete amazement that I giggled all the harder, and then shook with laughter.

"Maybe she should go to the hospital along with Norvel?"

"Oh, he has to go to the hospital?" Marshall was as proud as if his much-coached Little Leaguer had hit a home run.

"Broke his nose," I confirmed between the sporadic giggles that marked the wind-down of my fit.

"He armed?"

"Broomstick, I think," I said. "It's over there." The staff had landed in the low shrubs around my front porch.

Friedrich went over to retrieve it. Evidence, I a.s.sumed.

"Lily," he rumbled, carrying the wood gingerly by one end, "you're gonna have to come in tomorrow and make a statement. I won't make you come in tonight. It's late and you need some attention. I'm prepared to take you to the hospital if you want."

"No thank you," I said soberly, completely over my mirth. "I really want to go into my house." More than anything, I was realizing, I wanted a shower. I'd had my usual workday, then karate cla.s.s, two longish walks, s.e.x, and a fight. I felt, and surely was, pretty gamy.

"Then I'll leave you to it," Friedrich said quietly. "I'm glad you came out on the good side. And I'm a.s.suming when I go into the station I'll find out what this is about a doll left on your car?"

I could not forbear raising my eyebrows significantly in Marshall's direction. It was lucky my good sense had propelled me to the police station earlier in the evening. Marshall glared at me. I smiled back. "Yes, sir," I said, trying not to sound smug. "I reported it earlier, to Tom David Meiklejohn. He wanted me to come in tomorrow and make a statement, too."

"You got jobs on Sat.u.r.day morning?"

"Yes, I do, but I'll be in at noon, anyway."

"I'll see you then. Good night to you both." And the policeman strode off, carrying the broom handle.

With his departure, my exhaustion hit me in the face.

"Let's go in," I said. I scanned the gra.s.s, dimly lit by the streetlights at the corners of the arboretum. My key ring had broken. Luckily, the broken key ring was my personal one, with only my house, car, and lockbox key on it. I spotted a gleam of metal in the gra.s.s-my car key. Without thinking, I bent to retrieve it and felt a ripple of pain in the side that had taken the brunt of the first blow. I gave a little hiss of shock, and Marshall, who'd been staring after the departing lawman, helped me straighten.

I spotted my lockbox key on the way to the porch, and Marshall retrieved it for me. He helped me up the steps and into the house. Until I saw him look around, I had forgotten he'd never been in it.

He said, "We need the bathroom," and waved me into preceding him. Marshall undressed me quite . . . clinically. First, he cleaned the scratches on my face, put antibiotic ointment on them, and then he turned his attention to my ribs. He ran his fingers over each rib, gently but firmly, asking me questions as his fingers evaluated my injury.

"Take two aspirin and call me in the morning," he said finally. "I don't think anything's broken. But you'll have a bad bruise and you'll be sore. I'll tape you. It's lucky he's a sedentary alcoholic, or you'd be in the hospital now. How much warning did you have?"

"Not as much as I should have," I admitted. "He was waiting for me in the carport, with the mask and dark clothes on. But still ..." and my voice trailed off, as I found I could not put one coherent thought together. He got my first-aid kit from the little linen closet and worked on me for a while.

"I have to shower," I said. "Out."

"Keep the tape dry. Turn that side away from the water."

"Yes, sensei."

"I'm sleeping on your couch tonight."

"It's a love seat. You'll get cramped."

"Sleeping bag?"

"Nope. Don't like camping."

"Floor."

"You can sleep with me. It's queen-sized."

I could tell he wanted to ask me why I'd left his bed earlier in the night. I was glad he was too decent to badger me when I was so exhausted. He helped me off with the rest of my clothes and then just left, without saying a word. I felt immense grat.i.tude and relief. I turned on the shower and as soon as the water ran warm enough, I stepped in, pulled the curtain closed, and just let the water run over me. After a few seconds, I got the soap and shampoo and made as thorough a job of it as I could with Marshall's strictures. I even shaved under my arms, though bending over for my legs was too difficult.

When I stepped out into the steamy room and brushed my teeth, I felt much more like myself. My nightgown was hanging on the hook on the back of the door, and I pulled it over my head after my automatic deodorant, skin cream, and cuticle remover routine. I'd almost forgotten Marshall was there until I went in my bedroom. It was a shock to see the black hair on the pillow next to mine. He'd civilly taken the inside of the bed and left me the outside by the night table, and he'd left the bedside lamp switched on. He was sound asleep, on his left side, turned away from me.

Moving as silently as I could, I checked the front and back doors and all the windows-my nightly routine-and turned off the lamp. I slid into bed cautiously, turned on my right side, my unbandaged side, so my back was to his, and despite the strangeness of having someone in my house and bed, I was sucked down into sleep like water circling around the drain in my sink.

My eyes flew open at eight o'clock. The digital clock on the bedside table was right in front of me. I tried to think what was so different. . . . Then I remembered the night before. My back felt very warm; it was pressed against Marshall's. Then I felt him move behind me, and his arm wrapped around my chest. My nightgown was thin and I could feel him pressing against me.

"How are you?" he asked quietly.

"Haven't moved yet," I murmured back.

"Want to move some?"

"You have something specific in mind?" I asked as I felt his body respond to contact with me.

"Only if it won't hurt you. ..."

I arched harder against him and felt him press against me fiercely in response.

"We'll just have to try it out, see if it hurts," I whispered.

"You sure?"

I turned over to face him. "Sure," I said.

His strength enabled him to hold his weight off me, and his eyes showed nothing but pleasure. In view of my scratched face and the black bruises on my side, I found this touching and amazing. I realized I'd already gotten used to his acceptance of the scars. So it was doubly dismaying to me, after we had finished lovemaking and were lying side by side holding hands, when he said, "Lily, I've got to talk to you about something." His voice was serious, too serious.

I felt my heart shrivel.

"What?" I asked, trying to sound casual. I pulled the sheet up.

"It's your quads, Lily."

"My . . . quadriceps?" quadriceps?" I said incredulously. I said incredulously.

"You really need to work on them," Marshall told me.

I turned to stare at him. "I have scars all over my abdomen, I have scratches across my face, I have a huge bruise on my ribs, and your only remark about my body is that I need to work on my quads?"

"You're perfect except for your quads."

"You . . . jerk!" Torn between amus.e.m.e.nt and disbelief, I pulled the pillow from under my head and hit him with it, which immediately activated the pain. I couldn't hold back my exclamation of dismay, and clapped my hand to my side.

"Lean back," Marshall urged me, sitting up to help. "Lean back, slowly . . . there. Raise your head a little." He slid my pillow back under my head.

"Lily," he said when he could tell the worst had pa.s.sed. "Lily, I was teasing."

"Oh." I felt abruptly and totally like a fool.

"Well, I guess I'm hardly social anymore," I said after a moment.

"Lily. Why'd you leave last night?"

"I just felt restless. I'm not used to sharing time, or s.p.a.ce, with anyone. I'm not used to visiting people's homes as a guest. You're still married. You're used to having someone else around. Probably you and Thea were invited places, right? But I'm not. I don't date. I'm just..." I hesitated, not sure how to characterize my life of the past few years.

"Coasting?"