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He chuckled and stretched out in the worn blue plush armchair, his feet up on the equally worn stool. He closed his eyes.
“Wouldn’t you rest better up on your bed or something? I’m—I’m going to be working in here. Making a lot of noise.”
“Mercy, Miss Gilly, I can rest in heaven. In the meantime, it is human company that I treasure. It won’t bother you if I just sit here, will it? I promise not to make suggestions.”
“Why don’t I come back later? I don’t want to bother you.”
“Bother me? I’m delighted.”
She kept her eyes on the little man as she carefully set up the stepladder at the far end of the bookcase wall. The blue plush chair was exactly where she’d shoved it two days earlier, cater-cornered three feet from the place she’d have to set up the ladder in order to reach “Sarsaparilla to Sorcery.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Randolph.” Her voice barely squeaked out. She cleared her throat. “Mr. Randolph!” Now she was yelling. “I’m going to have to move your chair.”
He got up like an obedient child. Gilly shoved and pushed and tugged the heavy chair to a p
lace opposite the red encyclopedia. She arranged the chair and then the stool, and then took Mr. Randolph’s elbow and led him to them.
“Now your chair’s just opposite from where it was before.”
“I hope you haven’t strained yourself, Miss Gilly.”
“Right between the end of the couch and the corner of the desk. Couple of feet on either side, OK?”
“Fine, fine.” He sat down and stretched out again.
Gilly went back to the stepladder, climbed the first step, and then backed down.
“I guess I’ll begin with the windows over the desk.”
He smiled his funny little blank-eyed smile. “You’re the doctor, Miss Gilly.”
She did the windows and the desk, then moved the ladder around Mr. Randolph to the smaller of the two giant bookcases. She went back and dusted the picture over the couch, which was of fancily dressed white people in another century having an elaborate picnic in a woods. She kept looking over her shoulder at Mr. Randolph, who lay motionless with his eyes closed. Since he’d been known to sleep on Trotter’s couch with his eyes wide open, there was no way under heaven to tell if he were wide awake or dead asleep. But he wasn’t snoring. That was worrisome.
But, hell. The man was blind and half deaf. Why should it matter in the least that he was sitting right there in the room while she robbed him of money he was too old to remember having? Still—the closer she got to “Sarsaparilla” the more her heart carried on like the entire percussion section of a marching band doing “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”
At last she moved the stepladder directly in front of the place and took a step up, glancing sideways at Mr. Randolph. He didn’t move. She eased up the ladder trying not to make any noise, but it creaked and swayed under her weight. From the next to the top step she could reach “Sarsaparilla to Sorcery” without stretching. She braced her left leg hard against the cold metal of the ladder, took out the now familiar volume, and laid it gently on the ladder top.
Nothing was visible except dust. She took out books on either side, dusting each one with a kind of fury. Still nothing.
Mr. Randolph was shifting in his chair across the room. She looked into his blank white eyes. Oh, god. Maybe he could really see. Maybe it was all a trick to fool people. She froze.
“You certainly are doing a beautiful job. So careful. My, my, I don’t know when this room has been so thoroughly cleaned before.”
“I—I—I’m sort of straightening up the book shelves.”
“Fine, fine.” He was bobbing his head. “Now if there were just some way you could straighten up this old brain of mine as well….”
She was not going to panic. He couldn’t see. Of course, he couldn’t see. It was really better that he was in the room. Nobody would suspect her of stealing right from under his nose. She dusted the space and then moved “Sarsaparilla” down to the shelf that held the rest of the encyclopedia set. On the shelf from which it had come, she proceeded to remove, one by one, all the other books, wiping carefully behind each one to the dark-stained wood at the back of the case. With every book her hope rose and fell, rising a little less and falling a little more each time. At last she knew that her lie to Agnes had proved all too true. There was no more money.
Fear and anticipation curdled in her stomach. She wanted to throw up.
Mr. Randolph was chatting away happily. She couldn’t seem to tune in the words, just the maddeningly cheerful tone of his high-pitched voice. She wanted to throw a book at the noise—kick over the stepladder—crash a chair through the window—at the very least scream out her frustration.
But, of course, she didn’t. Wrapped in a silent, frozen rage, she folded the stepladder and carried it to the basement.
“You going now, Miss Gilly?” The voice followed her down and up the steps and out of the house. “Thank you, thank you. Come back for another little visit, won’t you? Be sure to tell Mrs. Trotter what a lovely help you’ve been.”
She made no attempt to answer him. It didn’t matter what he thought. He was of no use to her. Thirty-nine stinking dollars.
