Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 01 - Lickety-Split (2 page)

Technically, she’d lived for another six months in what the doctors called a permanent vegetative state. She needed constant care, the kind that ate up your savings and made you go to bed praying that the next day would be her last. When the end finally did come, he’d sold the house six weeks later. No point staying there with Nellie gone.

The Fountain of Youth was home now. Saltines or sometimes a Baby Ruth served for his snack. He hadn’t planned it this way.

He walked slowly out of the dining room into the sunlit lobby, the newspaper tucked carefully under his arm. He sat down in one of the green wicker armchairs in the lobby window, away from the mottled giant house plant whose leathery tendrils threatened to take over the whole room. His plan was to finish
doping
out his picks. After that, he’d be at loose ends again.

All the years he’d been with the Associated Press, starting as a cub reporter, then chief correspondent, assistant bureau chief, and then bureau chief, he’d talked about his retirement. “When I retire,” he’d say. And there were plans for trips, books he’d read, articles he’d write, hobbies he’d take up, maybe woodworking or boat-building. He was good with his hands.

“Next month,” he kept telling himself. And then next month was here and he couldn’t say what he’d done with the time.

No sooner had he settled himself with his newspaper than a crew of workmen arrived in the lobby.

There were two men. He watched while they brought large canvas dropcloths from the white van they’d parked out front and spread them over the terrazzo tile floor of the lobby. They brought in big plastic buckets of paint, long-handled brushes, rollers, and paint pans.

It took the two of them together to move the heavy concrete urn with the potted plant. That done, they opened the paint cans and started applying cream-colored latex to the wall nearest the front door.

Truman got up and wandered over to the reception desk. Cookie Jeffcote sat there motionless, her eyes glued to the page in front of her. It was funny, her being there. He wondered where Yvonne Sweatt, the receptionist, was. Cookie was the leasing agent and spent most of her time in her glass-walled office, talking on the telephone or fingers racing over her calculator.

He cleared his throat. Startled, she slid a magazine across the page.

“Yes?” She gave him that condescending smile. It was the same patronizing smirk he got from other people who assumed that everybody over the age of sixty was senile or incontinent, or both.

He tossed his head toward the painters. “Company coming?” he shot the smile right back at her.

Her cheeks flushed a little. She was pretty in a brassy way, long auburn hair, milky-colored skin, large breasts that jutted aggressively from everything she wore.

“Why do you ask?” she said, fluttering the eyelashes just a little.

Truman snorted. “I’ve lived here six months. Not that the place is a dump or anything, but it’s the first time I’ve seen anybody as much as change a light-bulb. Old man Mandelbaum isn’t known for spending money when he doesn’t have to. What gives?”

She straightened the magazine so it covered the typewritten page precisely.

“Regularly scheduled maintenance,” she said, shrugging her shoulders so that her bosoms jiggled ever so slightly. “I hope the paint smell won’t bother you.”

What bothered him was the smell of old boiled cabbage that clung to the carpet in the dining room, the pine cleaner they used to mop the terrazzo, and that cheap flowery perfume Sonya Hoffmayer drenched herself in.

He knit his eyebrows a little. They were a surprising color, sort of a foxy gray-red. He took some pains with those eyebrows, touching them up with a toothbrush whenever he saw a white hair springing out. His hair really had been red once, long past his fiftieth birthday. Red, they’d called him during his days as a reporter for the AP. Red Kicklighter. He’d started borrowing Nellie’s Nice ‘n Easy on the sly sometime after he turned sixty. She’d never mentioned the fact that now their hair had turned the same shade of auburn. Just like Nellie—she wasn’t one to throw things in somebody’s face. She just started buying an extra bottle every month when she went to Rite-Aid for their toothpaste and shoe polish and such.

Now, of course, he bought the Nice ‘n Easy himself, at the Rexall drugstore two blocks away. Had a senior citizen discount card to get it cheaper.

“While they’re maintaining things, could somebody do something about the light fixtures in the rooms?” he groused. “I’ve seen better-lit caves in my day.”

She picked up a pencil and scribbled something. “I’ll make a note,” she said brightly.

“You do that,” he said, knowing what would happen to the note.

He rolled the newspaper up and tucked it under his arm. It was only half-past one; he had the whole afternoon ahead of him.

The painters had moved the furniture out of the lobby area now. He stood in the window and watched them outside, unloading ladders from their truck.

“Rroww-roww-roww.” He looked down. KoKo, Mrs. Hoffmayer’s dog, came tearing across the lobby floor, nails clicking on the terrazzo. The dog flung itself against the glass, barking furiously but ineffectively at the men outside.

“Aw, shut up,” Truman told KoKo.

“Ahrrrrr.” The dog turned and snarled, baring a set of long ratlike teeth. It darted toward Truman. “Rroww- roww.” The dog was snapping at his ankles, nipping at his pant leg.

“Hey. Get away.”

KoKo backed away a few inches and bared his teeth again.

Truman didn’t have to think long about his course of action. The open bucket of white paint was right there on the floor, the paintbrush balanced on top of it.

“Arrrp-arrrp-arrrp.” White paint dripped from KoKo’s quivering, shocked-looking face. The stripe extended from his muzzle all the way to his stub of a tail.

KoKo tucked tail and ran, skidding around the corner toward the dining room.

Truman set the brush down with a sigh of satisfaction. He glanced at the dining room door. Maybe it was time for a walk. He could stroll over to the open-air post office. Check his mail, wander over to Chet’s Newsstand. See who else was in town, pick up a race program for tonight. He patted his right front shirt pocket. Two cigars left. Maybe he’d pick up a pack of
HavaTampas
.

“KoKo!” he heard a woman shriek. “My precious! What’s happened to you?”

He moved quickly out the front door and onto the sidewalk.

It was warm even for march, high eighties. First Avenue was crowded. Big Lincolns, Buicks, and Chryslers took up every available parking space as far as he could see. The license plates told you what time of year it was: Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio. The snowbirds had landed.

It was high season in the Sunshine State. Outside the hotel the Fountain of Youth sign was lit up at night again now, along with a No Vacancy sign. They’d cleaned out the old stucco and tile fountain in the lobby and turned the water back on again, and they’d planted bright red geraniums in the window boxes outside.

He checked his post office box at the open-air. Nothing but a bank statement and something from the hotel. Probably another notice about not using electrical appliances in the rooms. He had a hot plate and a toaster and he used them any damn time he liked.

The newsstand was tiny; three people made it seem crowded and there were two women inside already, studying the postcard rack.

Truman plucked a box of
HavaTampas
from the counter display and looked around for the Derby Lane racing programs.

“Excuse me,” he said, trying to wedge himself between the two muumuu-clad women. “You got any racing programs, Ollie?”

The dwarf behind the counter tried to peer around the woman who was pushing for the Silver Springs postcard. “Oh hi, Truman,” he said. “Got ‘em back here. Ain’t even untied the bundle yet. The truck just dropped them off.”

While Ollie rang up the women’s purchases, Truman turned around to examine the magazine rack beside the glass-doored drink cooler.

“Going to the track tonight, Truman?” Ollie asked, sliding the race program across the worn wooden counter- top.

“What?”

“The dog track,” Ollie repeated. “You know, Derby Lane.”

“Oh, yeah,” Truman said, reluctantly turning from the rack. “Yeah.” He put the cigars on the counter, then added a pack of Doublemint chewing gum. Pearl had made Mel quit smoking last winter, so he was a prodigious gum chewer these days. A little present for his pal.

Truman fished a worn dollar bill and some silver from his change purse. “You wanna go with us? There’s a free bus.”

Ollie’s face brightened momentarily and then fell. He was probably Truman’s age, but his diminutive size made people treat him like a child. A sweat-stained St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap covered his thin brown hair, and the thick-lensed glasses made his eyes look outsized for his head. The Vandyke beard was a recent addition, to make people treat him with respect. He thought it made him look intellectual. Truman thought it made him look like the mayor of Munchkinland.

“Can’t,” Ollie said. “Promised my sister I’d come over for supper.”

“Another time.”

“Sure,” Ollie said.

Truman tucked the cigars in his breast pocket and the gum in his trouser pocket.

“You get the notice about the church?” Truman was studying the latest issue of True Caper, one of those crime magazines he used to read in the barbershop. Twin redheads dressed in white fur bikinis were posed on the hood of a red Ferrari, each with a pistol pointed right at the viewing public. Those girls had some lungs all right. He decided right then and there that now was the time to start catching up on his reading about current law enforcement matters. The magazine was three dollars, though. That would cut into his dog-track money.

“What?” he said, reluctantly putting the magazine back. “I’m not a churchgoer. Never have been.”

“Yeah well, this is one church you better find out about,” Ollie warned. “Seein’ as how they’re fixing to put you and me and everybody else over there at the Fountain of Youth out in the street.”

“What are you talking about, taking over the Fountain of Youth?” he demanded. Ollie was bad to gossip. Every week he had some cockamamie new rumor about some pro sports team that was coming to town. Most of the time he was talking through his hat. “The Mandelbaums own the hotel. Always have,” Truman pointed out. “I saw young Seymour just last week, in the business office. He didn’t say anything about a church to me.”

Ollie licked his upper lip excitedly. His tongue was huge for so small a guy. Truman wondered why he’d never noticed it before.

“Maybe old man Mandelbaum ain’t told the kid yet,” Ollie said. “All I know is, I got my notice in the mail this morning. Felt like I’d been kicked in the gut when I read it.”

Ollie lived in what the hotel called a studio apartment just off the hotel lobby. It had actually once been a card room years ago. Now it had a toilet and a sink, and Ollie had his color television, a bowl of goldfish, and his adult tricycle in there.

Truman pulled the letter from the hotel out of his pocket and ripped it open. It was written on the hotel stationery.

“Tenant Notice” the top line said. Truman frowned. Notices never meant anything good.

Ownership has recently concluded negotiations for the sale of this property to the Church of Cosmic Unity. The church plans to convert the hotel into a retirement home for its elderly members. Representatives will contact tenants soon to discuss ownership options. Tenants who do not purchase their units must terminate

residency by no later

than June 1.

The notice was signed by Arthur Mandelbaum, D.D.S. “Regular maintenance, my ass,” Truman said bitterly. “They’re fixing the place up to sell it. Giving us three months to get out,” Truman said in disbelief. “Three months.”

He looked sharply at Ollie. “You got one of these?”

“Sure as I’m standing here,” Ollie said. “I showed it to Howard Seabold when he come in today. Howie Jr., you know, is a lawyer. He promised to have the kid look into it for me.”

“Says here tenants can purchase their units,” Truman said. “Wonder how much? Not that I can afford it.”

Ollie’s tongue worked his upper lip. “What about me?” he said. “You got a pension, and a kid. All I got’s this job here. Two-hundred-sixty-two dollars and fifty cents a week. I got two-hundred-fifty bucks I been savin’ up in case of an emergency. My rathole money. I guess I’ll be having a change of address pretty soon.”

Truman felt for Ollie. He really did. His own pension from the wire service wasn’t anything grand, but it was enough, if he was careful. And Truman was the careful kind. As for having a kid, well, Cheryl was having a rough enough time raising Chip by herself. He couldn’t ask her for help.

He stood in the doorway of the newsstand and blinked in the bright sunlight. He shoved the notice into his pants pocket. Church of Cosmic Unity. Christ. What next? “Hey, Truman,” Ollie called. Truman turned around slowly.

Ollie held out the racing program. “You don’t want to forget this. Maybe you’ll win big tonight. Buy the Fountain of Youth yourself. Take the penthouse apartment. Maybe a trip to Hawaii.”