Dead by Wednesday

He kicked the bottom of the door with the toe of his shoe, then stepped back so that he could be seen through the peephole. He smiled and held up the loot. The door opened. A young Hispanic boy, dark and fine-boned like his sister, stood there. He was holding a fat orange cat.

“I’m Robert,” he said. “You must be Raoul.”

The boy didn’t say yes or no. He simply stepped aside and motioned him in. “Carmen’s changing her clothes.”

“No problem. Where should I put this?”

Raoul pointed to the counter. The cat squirmed in his arms and he immediately bent down and placed her gently on the floor.

Robert bent down to scratch her head but she skirted away. Okay. The cat and the kid had the same sort of attitude.

Robert watched the boy walk over to the stove, immediately noting the limp, as though his right leg might be just a bit shorter than his left.

“I hear you play the trombone.” Robert leaned against the counter.

“That’s right,” Raoul said. The kid took tongs and dug a spoon out of the sauce.

“Where do you go to school?”

“Mahoney High.”

“Really? That’s pretty far from here. How come you don’t go to a neighborhood school?”

“Because I won’t let him.”

Robert whirled around. Carmen stood in the doorway. She wore a white sweater and a black skirt. It wasn’t short, but tight enough to be very interesting. Her hair was piled up on top of her head in a haphazard sort of fashion.

He was struck again by how small she was. She couldn’t have been more than five-three and a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. Not his type at all.

Why was his heart pounding as if he was at the end of a 5K?

“Mahoney High School,” she said, as she walked over to the stove and sniffed the sauce, “graduates more than eighty percent of the students who start there as freshman. That’s almost twice as good as some of the neighborhood schools.”

“Did you go there?” Robert asked, handing her the wine.

She shook her head. “No. I did the neighborhood thing.”

“Looks like you turned out okay.”

She shrugged. “Looks can be deceiving.”

He started to make some quip about liking bad girls, but in deference to Raoul, he kept it to himself. “Should I slice the bread?” he asked.

She nodded, handed him a knife and pointed toward a wooden cutting board on the counter. “The flowers are beautiful,” she said. “Thank you.”

Her tone was almost wary, and he wondered if he’d gone too far. “It’s January,” he said. “We should grasp on to every sign of spring we can.”

She smiled. “You’re right. At lunch today, Liz and I sneaked out and bought spring soap. We put some in every bathroom at OCM.”

“Spring soap?” he repeated. He put the bread that he’d sliced into the basket that she passed to him.

“Yeah, you know. There are winter soaps, like cranberry-apple or peppermint-spice. Spring soaps are totally different. When you wash your hands, you can almost image that you’re somewhere tropical.”

“I never gave that much thought before,” he said.

She laughed. “Perhaps you could buy some for the police station?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think I want to be known as the spring soap guy.”

“Perhaps not,” she admitted. She drained the pasta and motioned for Raoul to set the table.

“I didn’t know you had a cat,” he said.

“Lucy is low-energy but high-strung,” Carmen explained. “We got her from a shelter. She spends a lot of time hiding under the bed.” She set a big bowl of spaghetti on the table. “Let’s eat.”

“Food’s great,” he said ten minutes later, meaning every word of it.

“Spaghetti is easy,” Carmen said, pulling at the neckline of her sweater.

She was cute when she blushed. Robert smiled at her and then shifted his attention to Raoul. “So band keeps you pretty busy?”

“I guess.”

“Your friends play instruments, too?”

“My best friend, Jacob, plays the drums.”

Robert took another bite and took his time chewing. “Mahoney’s got a good football team. They went to state tournaments last year.”

“Yeah,” Raoul said. For the first time, Robert heard the bitterness. “If you’re an athlete, you’ve got it made.”

“No special treatment for the band?”

That just got him a look. Didn’t mean anything, but Robert filed the information away. “What’s the gang situation like there?”

Raoul shrugged. “I’m sort of busy with my classes. I wouldn’t know.”

“I was just curious. I know they mix it up every once in a while in that neighborhood. I suppose drugs are a problem?”

“Not for me.”

“Have you ever had anyone try to sell you something?” Carmen asked.

Raoul shook his head. “Trombone players don’t get a lot of attention from the drug dealers.” He stood up. “I’ve got a lot of homework.” He carried his plate over to the sink and rinsed it.

“How are your classes going?” Carmen said.

“Fine.” Raoul grabbed his backpack off the kitchen counter and walked out of the kitchen. Seconds later, a door at the back of the apartment slammed.