Round Robin Read online

  She was filling her lungs for one last yell — for help this time — when he stood her up, steadied her and asked if she was all right. He had a German accent.

  “What do you want?” Robin asked, shaken.

  He gave her a small bow. The guy was a real foreigner. Americans didn’t bow.

  “I am here about the handyperson job.”

  With that, he bowed again, turned and continued on his way to the back of the building.

  “What?” Robin asked in disbelief.

  The behemoth didn’t answer. Robin had to hobble after him.

  He had gone up the back stairs to the first floor landing. He was looking in the rear window at her park. She couldn’t believe the nerve of this guy.

  “Hey, what the heck do you think you’re doing?” Robin asked, looking up at him. She wasn’t going to go charging up the steps after him, not the way her ankle was throbbing.

  He saw how she was favoring it.

  He said, “Rice.”

  “What?” Robin asked, more confused than ever.

  “Rest, ice, compression and elevation. That’s what your ankle needs, and quickly.”

  “Thank you, doctor.”

  He missed the sarcasm. Or ignored it.

  “Would you like me to carry you to your apartment?”

  Suddenly the fear was back, and it must have shown on her face. The tiniest hint of a smile played on the giant’s lips.

  “I do not bite ... unless requested. I am here about the job.”

  Robin had good reason not to yield all of her suspicions.

  “How did you know where to come? The address wasn’t listed.”

  The guy shrugged. “It isn’t hard if you know how. I wanted to look at the building. Check the apartment. See if it is a fair trade.”

  She couldn’t believe this man’s gall. Intruding on her privacy. She wanted to tell him off so bad it hurt. Worse than her ankle. Which was killing her. And that was his fault, too. But looking at him, one flight up, so massive, with that deadpan mug, it’d be like insulting the side of a mountain.

  Robin was about to find her voice when he beat her to the punch.

  “You have a very nice space in there.” He nodded over his shoulder to the park. “The plantings are lovely. But they look like they’re withering. Are you having problems with your heating?”

  The guy stabbed her in the heart with that one.

  He walked down the stairs to stand next to Robin.

  “You will show me the garden apartment?”

  Phrased as a command—in that damn German accent—with just a hint of intonation to make it a question. Robin gnashed her teeth and hobbled down the outside stairs to the basement. The guy blotted out the sun behind her.

  She opened the door and they stepped into the back of the basement, the working area with the furnace, the circuit breakers for the electricity, the water main, and the laundry facilities.

  The giant noticed that the face-plate of the furnace had been removed.

  Robin saw him looking at it.

  “May I see the apartment please?”

  “Can you fix that furnace?” Robin countered.

  Ja.

  “Can you do wiring?”

  Ja.

  “Plumbing?”

  Ja, he could do that, too.

  Robin stared at him hard, trying to make him crack if he was BS-ing her. All she got for her trouble was that infuriating little smile again. She turned gingerly and opened the rear door to the basement apartment.

  There were only half the rooms of her own apartment, but they weren’t tiny spaces. Still, with the two of them there, with their combined sizes, she thought there was hardly room to breathe. And Robin realized she hadn’t been this physically close to a man in a private setting for a very long time. Her face turned a bright red.

  He saw her discomfort, of course, probably guessed what she was thinking, but Robin had to give him credit for not saying anything or even smirking. Which made her even angrier, because she didn’t want to give him credit for anything.

  Robin said, “As you can see, there’s a living room, a bedroom ...” She opened the door so he could look in. “... a dining-L and kitchenette and a bathroom.” He looked at this, too.

  Robin had furnished the apartment over the years with her castoffs. She hadn’t ever expected to rent the space. She just used it as a place to crash when she was doing yard work or had several loads of laundry to do. Now, she watched this monstrous schnitzel sit on the sofa, click the TV on and off, check the bed’s firmness with his hand.

  She felt as if she was losing control of her home.

  “I will take the job,” the giant announced.

  “I don’t think so,” Robin replied, shaking her head. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  The guy looked at her, not trying to be intimidating in any way. Just looking to see what he could see. He shrugged and walked toward the open door at the rear of the building. He stopped in the doorway and looked back at her.

  “So, tonight the cold will come and all your plants will die.”

  “Damn,” Robin said.

  He was right and she was right back where she’d started.

  “A pity,” the giant agreed and started up the stairs.

  “Wait!”

  He turned and waited for Robin to hobble over to him. This time she did her best to see what was inside of him.

  “You married?”

  Nein.

  “Girlfriend?”

  Nein.

  “Boyfriend?”

  The giant just gave her a look.

  “Pets?”

  Nein.

  “No drugs.”

  Nein. No drugs. This time with the smile.

  “Noise?”

  He said, “I’m told I snore.”

  “Thanks for sharing, but down here, I don’t think I’d notice.”

  The giant shrugged.

  “You’re not an illegal alien?”

  “I’m a resident alien.”

  He showed her a green card.

  Just when Robin thought it might work, at least for a little while, he added, “I was sponsored by the CIA.”

  “What?”

  “I was a political prisoner in East Germany.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  He shook his head.

  “I was a spy.”

  “That does it,” Robin said. “Get out of here.”

  Instead of leaving, he stepped over to the furnace, reached in and did something Robin couldn’t see. Then there was a click, a thump and the furnace came on. The giant turned toward Robin like a magician waiting to see how his trick had been received.

  Robin beamed with joy.

  Until he turned and shut the furnace off.

  “I’ll leave now,” he said.

  “That CIA stuff was real? You’re not just some crazy?”

  “My wife denounced me to the state. While I was in prison, she divorced me and took my daughter from me. My daughter was a baby at the time. Would you like to see her picture?”

  Robin shook her head.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Manfred Welk.” He pronounced his last name Velk.

  Robin sighed. Cursed under her breath. Then gave in.

  “You’re hired, Manfred. Don’t let my plants die tonight.”

  Manfred clicked his heels.

  Gave her his little smile.

  And turned on the furnace.

  Chapter 6

  Robin woke the next morning feeling as warm as oven-fresh bread: the heat was on. Her park had been saved. The glow of physical comfort and psychological relief lasted only until she remembered the price at which they had been purchased. Had the giant already moved in?

  She’d given him the keys he’d need before he’d left yesterday.

  She started to swing her feet out of bed to go find out, but she stopped. She flipped back the covers and looked at her injured ankle. It was tightly wrapped in an
elastic bandage. The giant — then she remembered his name — Manfred had done it for her. He’d gotten the bandage from his car, an ancient but well kept diesel Mercedes. He’d again offered to carry her to her apartment, but as far as Robin was concerned Manfred was her moat monster, never to be allowed into the upper reaches of her castle. Robin let him wrap her foot and ankle outside on the front step.

  He’d been deft and impersonal about it, as if this were something he’d done a million times. Even so, having a man touch her in any way at all had been enough that she’d had to fight to keep from trembling. Manfred had pretended not to notice. He’d just looked at the job he’d done and told her to keep her weight off the ankle as much as possible. Then he’d bowed and said he’d be back with his belongings tomorrow.

  Today.

  Robin got out of bed carefully, testing the ankle. Not bad. Tender but not painful. She’d remembered what Manfred had said about icing the injury, but she hadn’t wanted to undo the tight, clean wrapping job he’d done with the bandage and had skipped the ice. She still didn’t want to unwrap it. She’d just take a sponge bath this morning and leave it on. This afternoon, after work, she’d come home and ice it.

  As she hip-hopped through her ablutions, tip-toed into her clothes and ate breakfast with her foot up on a chair, Robin kept wondering: Was he down there? Was this going to work? And how in God’s name could a guy that big ever have been a spy? What kind of crowd could he possibly blend into?

  The phone rang and Robin jumped.

  It was him, Manfred.

  Had he known she’d been thinking about him? Did the CIA teach mindreading?

  He said, “You have a two-car garage in back. Does our agreement permit me to use one-half of it?”

  Robin had to think. This whole deal had been Mimi’s idea. She hadn’t even thought about the garage. She, herself, had no car. She walked, took the CTA or got a ride from her dad when she wanted to go someplace. Other than housing a few garden tools, the garage was empty. And Manfred had his nice old car. Still...

  Robin said, “I suppose. If you do enough around here to justify it.”

  Without pause, he replied, “I am sure you would let me do no less.”

  Not even moved in yet, and he was busting her chops. She had a good mind to ... No, she didn’t. Not yet. The furnace might be only temporarily fixed. She wanted her house to be in perfect running order before she dumped Herr Manfred Welk.

  So she said, “You bet I won’t.”

  Robin treated herself to a taxi that morning to get to work. She didn’t know how this situation was going to work out long term, but for the moment she felt as if a tremendous financial burden had been lifted from her so she decided to splurge. And since the cabbie was silent, drove safely and took the most direct route, she even gave him a good tip.

  Mimi noticed her injury as soon as Robin hobbled through the door.

  “What happened?”

  “I hurt myself chasing a burglar. At my house.”

  Mimi almost popped her emerald green contact lenses.

  “My God! Are you serious? Are you crazy? You could’ve been killed.”

  Robin sat down at one of the tables.

  “It worked out all right. Turns out he wasn’t a burglar at all.”

  “What was he?”

  “A handyperson.”

  Suddenly, Mimi had the uneasy feeling she’d just fallen into one of Robin’s traps.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. He’d come about the job.”

  “But how did he find out where you live?”

  “He said it was no problem. He’d been a spy.”

  “Robin, now really.”

  “For the CIA,” she added.

  Mimi stared at Robin to see what kind of morbid joke she was playing. But, for the life of her, Mimi couldn’t find the least bit of deception in Robin’s bland expression.

  “His name’s Manfred. He’s German. He moves in today,” Robin said, “I gave him the keys.”

  That was all Mimi needed to hear: spies, CIA, German.

  “Absolutely not! I forbid it!” Mimi admonished. “You need some money, fine, you just got a bonus. You let me know much you need and—”

  Robin took Mimi’s hands in hers.

  “It’s all right. Maybe you did the right thing for me. I’m going to give it a try.”

  “But what if this man ... this Manfred ...”

  Mimi couldn’t bring herself to mention any of the awful fates that could be visited upon Robin by a stranger living in her house. She hadn’t thought of that when she’d placed the ad. For her part, Robin wasn’t worried. Not about her safety, anyway. If Manfred had been a nutbag, he’d had all the opportunity he’d ever needed yesterday. That was when he could have run her through a meat grinder and nobody would ever have known who did it.

  “Mimi, I’ll be okay.”

  “But if anything happened to you, I’d feel ...”

  Mimi couldn’t complete that thought, either.

  So Robin helped her.

  “Eaten with guilt ‘til your dying day,” she said with a wicked grin. “As of course you should, getting me into this fix.”

  Mimi gave her a sour look.

  “There is something you could do to make amends, or at least start to,” Robin said.

  “What?” Mimi asked warily.

  “Switch jobs with me today? You take the counter, let me sit at the register?”

  Mimi had never let anyone else handle the deli’s cash. That was why she never worried about any of her employees stealing from her; nobody ever had the chance. She knew this was Robin’s way of getting back at her for trying to give her back that buyout check. But more than that it was Robin’s way of asking if she was still Mimi’s partner, somebody she could trust completely.

  And what could Mimi say to that?

  “Well,” she said, grudgingly, “I suppose it’d be better for you to rest your ankle.”

  “Thank you, Mimi.”

  Mimi melted. She loved the way Robin could say her name, when she wanted, so it sounded just like Mama. At least to her ears.

  “Of course,” Mimi added, remembering her place in the universe, “I know how much we take in on Wednesdays to the last penny. And if the total’s not right...”

  Continuing her theme of the morning, Mimi let that thought dangle, too.

  Robin replied, “Heck, Mimi, I know that any good crook has got to establish trust before she makes her move.”

  She said it with a smile. But then she wondered if that was what Manfred “The Giant” Welk was doing. Gaining her trust. Before he made his move.

  She couldn’t help but have her suspicions. Life had taught her not to trust men.

  David Solomonovich, however, was still a boy. And one that Robin thought she might be able to use.

  “What’re you doing over here?” David asked, bringing his carryout sandwich to the register.

  Robin extended her gimpy leg.

  Everybody had been surprised to see Robin behind the register. They weren’t sure if the move was a promotion, a demotion or a flanking maneuver to attack them from a new angle. Robin had told everyone she’d injured herself and shown them her ankle without going into all of the details.

  More than one wit had opined that it was a good thing the injury was just a sprain and not a break or Mimi would have had to call a vet to put her down. Robin had parried with thrusts to her patrons’ intellects, physiques, grooming or ancestry, as appropriate.

  David, however, responded only with concern, which made Robin reconsider the wisdom of what she was about to ask of him.

  The young genius asked, “Have you had an MRI? They’re expensive, but it’s really the only way to go when diagnosing a soft-tissue injury.” He slapped his forehead. “What am I thinking? Do you even have health insurance? Most foodservice places don’t provide it for their workers.”

  For the very first time, Mimi gave David a dirty look.

  Robin no
ticed. David didn’t.

  He plowed right on. “Look, my family has connections with the U of C hospitals. Let me call a cab and we’ll get right over...”

  Robin shushed him before Mimi decided to ban the kid.

  “David, it’s just a sprain. But if it makes you happy, I’ll go see my family doctor.”

  He started to insist that what she needed was an orthopedic specialist. Which was when Robin finally stopped him cold. “I’d like to ask you a favor,” she said.

  The implied intimacy of her words made David grin like an idiot not a genius.

  “Sure. What? Anything.”

  Robin made sure that no one was about to approach the register and then motioned David forward. The moment was so delicious for the boy that he shivered. What a femme fatale she was, Robin thought sarcastically.

  “David,” Robin said softly, “forgive me if I’m indulging in an unpardonable stereotype, but is it true most of you smart young guys are computer whizzes?”

  “Us nerds, you mean?” He said it with a grin, not offended, just getting in his shot.

  “Yeah, you nerds,” Robin said, playing along.

  David nodded. “It’s true. We like to go around bragging, ‘My hard disk’s bigger than yours.’ ”

  Robin laughed, which made David glow.

  “So,” Robin asked, dropping her voice even lower, “do you ever do any of that illegal hacking stuff?”

  David almost took a step backward, until Robin put a hand on his arm.

  “That’s the favor,” David whispered, incredulous, “you want me to commit a crime?”

  “Just listen to what I have to tell you, then decide if you can help me.”

  Robin took her hand off his arm. David put it back on.

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  “A man is moving into my building. His name is Manfred Welk. He told me he was a political prisoner until last year in East Germany. He said he was a spy. He said he worked for the CIA.”

  David took Robin’s hand off his arm, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. But he kept his voice low. “This is a trick, right? You’re setting me up for something.”