Matt was still worrying about it when he reached the bus stop. “It’s not that I don’t want to eat with you,” he said to himself and/or Carleton Nairn. “But I have an appointment.”
People eased out of the bus shelter as he walked in. They did not hurry, nor did they dawdle. Tall men talking to themselves were unnerving, but not uncommon, sights at bus stops.
Matt clamped his lips shut and watched his breath float up from his nose into the ice-blue sky. Would that he had just one ounce of Ada Silberwetter’s confidence, her self-satisfaction. Not that this would give him a way out. He would very likely be dead soon, his novel unfinished, his life just lines in City records, a footnote in a biography of Felicia Lowe.
A 151 pulled up; Matt forced himself forward. It would not have been his first choice, but it was pointed in the right direction, and anything was better than standing here, frozen with fear, until he froze for real.
It was a mistake, of course. This far north on its route, the 151 was packed full. Matt had expected to have to stand, but hadn’t reckoned on having to stand so close to everybody else. The people along the aisles bobbed back and forth as the bus started up again while a pack of small boys, completely uninhibited by the crush, the approach of the holiday, or anything else, pushed and shoved each other, pointing to things they spotted outside.
“Looka at Ka’alak limo!”
“Assa grayun!”
“Limosant gray!”
“Too! M’relatiff has un!”
“Y’reltiff!”
“Duss!”
“Dussen!”
Duss abet! Ruddinut wunsen dennay cubberdim up!”
A slightly older girl in charge tried to shush them in a dignified manner, but none of the boys even looked at her and she was trying too hard to look sophisticated to deal with the in coin they understood.
Matt did not precisely relax. He was still watching for the knife he fully expected to slide into him at any moment. But Matt-the-Writer was thinking of a boy named Georgia O’Malley, who figured prominently in “Ascent of the Ruby Slippers”. Always unhelpful, Matt-the-Writer was blending the boys with Matt’s terror for Georgia’s activities in the “Green” section of the book. The boy saw a forest for the first time and got lost immediately, not being able to tell one tree from another. The dialogue might make a page of the book. If “Ascent” remained that sort of book. He had been giving serious consideration to adapting it into a comic book script and marketing it as a graphic novel.
“Hey, Matt! Hold this just a second?”
A large square box, not a little heavy, practically jumped into his arms. Peering over it, Matt saw the top of Maryann’s head. She shifted to one side, smiling at him and the driver impartialy, and letting people who had their tokens or dollars ready pass around her while she found her transfer.
Matt hadn’t thought of Maryann as a suspect. But she’d been at Down in Jerry Silberwetter’s day too. Surely she was born at Down, wearing some neat, immaculate suit, sitting behind that neat immaculate desk. Silly to leave her lout of consideration just because she was a secretary, and above all the political backstabbing. But Geegee had been a womanizer, of course, and no doubt always took his camera along.
And while Matt was considering all this, he was also realizing that his hands and arms were completely occupied with the big box, with no way to avoid that knife. Maryann’s purse could hold, besides a bus transfer, a good-sized knife.
“Thanks!” Maryann held up her transfer as the driver clicked something below the fare bx.
Matt pushed past her to the door, releasing the box onto her at the same time. “Sorry,” he said, as she got her arms under it just in time. “Er, my stop. Apartment. See you!”
The closing doors nipped at his heels. The bus roared off. Looking around, Matt found that he had traveled four blocks for his dollar. “Just as well have bought the chestnuts,” he growled.
He checked the Fannie Mae bag to make sure no sweet-toothed pickpocket had passed. Chocolates were hard to hide until Christmas: they had to go somewhere they wouldn’t be squashed or melted. Not that his mother would come hunting; good hiding places were traditional in the Benz household. Sometimes she hid presents so well she didn’t find them again until the following April. This was not a side effect of advancing age; she’d always been like that.
A 3 came by. Matt didn’t want a 3; this time he was holding out for a good old 11, if he froze for it.
Stamping his feet to warm them, he stamped them a second time in fury. The Number 11 didn’t run this far south on the weekend; how much of his life had he wasted on Saturdays and Sundays waiting for it? It would have to be another 151, and then a 66, and probably a 22. He kicked at the corner of the bus shelter. Three people eased away down the sidewalk.
For all he knew, his mother had tried to cook something for lunch. Mat wouldn’t mind so much if it weren’t for Mrs. Andrews, down the hall, who was always frightened by the sound and called the police. Of course, there was Miss Skull: either the case or the novel based on it might be preoccupying her to the point that she skipped lunch. She wouldn’t even answer the phone when she was intent on her work. She wouldn’t even come to the door when Matt….
What if someone else had come to the door? Someone who found out about Felicia Lowe and tracked her real name to the apartment, someone who wanted to know why an author was looking into the secrets of civic government? She wouldn’t understand the questions. They’d apply pressure. The strength drained from Matt’s arms; he nearly dropped his chocolates. He shook himself and cleared his throat, covering it by walking to the curb as if looking down the street for the next bus. He could walk to the next bus shelter: better than standing here amid paranoid scenarios. It would drive him mad, if he wasn’t already….
He spotted a miracle in the traffic. Bracing his backbone, he threw an arm in the air. “Taxi!”
Mere minutes and more dollars than he liked to think about later, he unlocked all the locks, swung inside, and went limp against the door to shut it. He was home, he was safe, and the weary world could be locked out for another day.
“I like chocolate Easter bunnies myself. Palmer.”
“You eat the ears first, of course.”
“Oh, of course. Well now. Sometimes I start with the feet. You wouldn’t want him running away from you.”
Matt unsagged, and marched down the hall, pausing only a moment to toss the Fannie Mae bag into his room. He stalked into the dining nook.
“Well, golly Jehosapaht,” drawled Ada Silberwetter. “Look who’s here!”
“My mother didn’t give you a key to this place, did she?”
Ada’s nose went down and she peered up at him through long lashes. “And don’t lower your eyes to me!” he snapped.
“Matt?” His mother leaned forward to peer at him. “Are you home?”
“No,” he said.
“Then you’d better go see who was at the door,” she told him.
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