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Fourteen
We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills
To bruise them dearer. Yet the rebellious wills
Of us we do bid God bend to him even so.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins,
from “Patience, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray!”
Sally was leaning against his door when Roman got back to his apartment. Her stance was provocative, her dress becoming, her eyes inviting—and her lip busted and swollen. Roman frowned as he unlocked his door. “What happened to you?”
She shrugged, following him inside. “Ran into a door.”
“Yeah?” He dropped his keys onto a small table. “This door got a name?”
Sally snorted. “Sure. Al Capone.” She shut the door behind her and looked around his apartment. “Champ, you need to either learn to pick up after yourself or put up the dough for a cleaning service.”
Roman didn’t spare his untidy living space a glance. “Marking up his own merchandise? Seems like bad business to me.” At her wince, he sighed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean—”
“Yeah. You did. But you’re right, so who am I to argue?” Shaking her head at the room, she reached out and picked up an old newspaper, folding it back into a neat rectangle. “And this time, that was his point. He was waiting for me when I got back from my shopping trip this morning and didn’t much care for me spending all of your money without giving him his cut. Said he wanted to make sure you knew how stupid I was before you invested any more in me.”
“Sounds like a real nice guy.”
“Oh sure, he’s the cat’s pajamas.” She shuffled a few other newspapers into a neat stack as she rolled her eyes, then moved on to gathering the dirty dishes strewn around the apartment. “But the trip was a success. Ava and I had a good time, and she invited me to look through her jewelry once we got back. No Czech necklace.”
Roman pumped a fist in the air in victory. “I knew it. And you managed to look without raising her suspicions?”
Sally laughed and carried an armload of plates to his minuscule kitchen. “Are you kidding? I came right out and told her you were paying me to pump her—made her think I just wanted to get what I could out of you and that I’d only tell you what she wanted you to know.”
That dampened his joy considerably. “That’s not how we agreed—”
“She trusts me now.” Dishes in sink, she headed back to the living room and began rearranging pillows. “And this way if someone sees us together, she won’t think anything of it. Trust me, champ. I know how to work Ava. By the time I was through, she was offering me a room at her place as soon as one of her older girls retires this fall.”
“Hm. Of course, by this fall her place will be under new management.”
Her tight-lipped grin disappeared behind the blanket she snapped open and began to fold. “A development I’ll certainly take into consideration before accepting her offer.”
He surrendered the point. “Fine, do it your way. As long as it gets me what I need. So what else did she say?”
“That I should steer clear of you because you’re going to be collecting enemies like Aunt Nellie does porcelain dolls—and that if Manny doesn’t bump you off for your questions, someone else probably will.” She offered him a sunny smile and picked up the sack of laundry he had never gotten around to putting away. “Bedroom back here?” Not waiting for an answer, she spun toward the corner and the only place a bedroom could possibly be.
Roman trailed behind. “That’s a familiar refrain today.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm.” He leaned his shoulder into the doorframe as she stopped inside his bedroom and made a disapproving noise at the mess. He followed her progress as she abandoned his clothes for now, heading instead to his bed and its rumpled covers. “Manny’s lawyer said the same thing. Of course, Mr. Capecce isn’t all that fond of me, given that I stole his girl. You make that look so easy.”
Sally chuckled as she adeptly tucked the sheet around the mattress. “Ain’t hard, champ, just takes a little practice.” She smoothed out a wrinkle and reached for the bedspread. “Stole his girl—as in, Manny’s daughter?”
“That’d be the one.”
Sally shook her head and plumped his pillow. “Ava mentioned him, too, I think. Said the only reason you were alive was because his daughter’s fiancé asked him to spare you. Must be a heck of a guy—no offense, but I wouldn’t be so merciful to someone who went behind my back with the person I intended to marry.”
His bed was a picture of neatness now, so she picked up the laundry again and began emptying the contents onto the mattress, sorting it by type. Studying her seemed a far better idea than dwelling on thoughts of Lorenzo Capecce. He had spent the entire trip back from the Loop drawing comparisons between the lawyer and his buddy from the war. Thinking about Brent, though, just made him aware that his friend would disapprove of him now. Cliff had nothing on Brent’s high standards, and those standards had gotten him through the war. Brent’s teaching had made him stand tall and straight before Ma and Da when he got home and let him put his crisp blue uniform on again, knowing he’d lived up to the promise on the brass badge. What would Brent say if he saw him now?
Nothing good.
