Too Close to the Edge Page 4

  I extended a slice. “I’m keeping on them at the department. This is to show you I haven’t forgotten.”

  His pale brown eyes narrowed. He stared at the pizza like it was a letter bomb.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  “Two slices? What do you want, Smith?”

  “Only one’s for you. But you can eat it, no strings attached.”

  “Smith, I don’t have time to chat, particularly with a cop who owes me.”

  I took a bite of my own piece. It tasted as good as it smelled. Holding the other slice out, I said, “It’s getting cold, Ott.”

  “Two hundred bucks, Smith. You should have gotten it to me three weeks ago. I don’t deal like MasterCard.”

  “I’m doing my best. I’ve written three reports justifying your two hundred dollars. It’s bugging me more than it is you. Now, are you going to eat this pizza or not?”

  “Okay.” He reached for the proffered slice and stuffed the end in his small mouth, leaving red ellipses at the corners.

  Through the adjoining door I could see the room he slept in. It looked like a nest, with heaps of clothes, blankets, and books completely obscuring the floor and any furniture that might be in there. I had never been here when it hadn’t been in that shape. I was sure Ott hadn’t seen the floor in the last decade.

  But his office was the work place of a professional. No file was ever left out, no book was turned face down. No errant sheet of paper marred the surface of his mahogany desk. And there had never been a time when Herman Ott had had to look in two places for the fact he had deigned to give me. I wondered what metamorphosis occurred when Herman Ott crossed the threshold from his bedroom.

  As he stepped back to let me in, his movements seemed tense, even for him. I glanced at his desk. It was covered with papers. This, for Herman Ott, was akin to the Pope leaving his mail on the altar. I looked more closely. Suddenly I realized why Ott was so tetchy. The papers on his desk were tax forms.

  “It’s good I brought you something to eat,” I said, “it looks like you’ll be here all night.”

  “Till tomorrow night. Today’s the fourteenth. I’ll tell you, Smith, every time I do taxes, I wonder if I should have stayed in school and gotten some job with a salary, like yours.” He took a bite of the pizza. “I’m eating this, Smith,” he said through a mouth of cheese and tomato sauce, “but I’m not going to tell you anything.”

  My own mouth was full. I nodded. I almost told him the information wasn’t for me, but that wouldn’t make any difference. In Ott’s code, the favor was toted against the asker. Instead I picked up the thread of his complaint. “Even we cops have to pay taxes, you know.”

  He shoved a pepperoni-filled corner of pizza into his mouth. “Not the same. Not hardly, Smith. It’s self-employment forms that kill you.”

  “It’s only one form.”

  “That’s what they let you believe.” A piece of pepperoni slithered across his lip. He herded it back with his upper teeth.

  I have something of an iron stomach, but Ott’s eating habits were beginning to get to me. I was caught between a strong desire to look away and a fascination with what he would do next.

  I didn’t have time to decide. He crammed the remaining pizza, a full third, into his mouth. Tomato sauce ran out both sides, down his cheeks, across the cleft of his chin to the center, and down from there. He slurped, sucking back a string of cheese. Wiping his hands on his chinos, he got up and grabbed a form from his desk. “Schedule C. Look at this. See here, ‘depreciation.’ Well, there are things I have to depreciate. But do I do them for three years, for five years, or for ten years?”

  “Doesn’t it tell you?”

  “It does if I get form forty-five sixty-two.”

  “Can’t you get that from the IRS?”

  “I called them. They’ll send it in ten working days. Ten working days! Smith, it’s a government conspiracy. How many people do you know who allot three weeks to their taxes so they can wait two of those weeks for the government to send them a form? And then when they do get that form”—he grabbed a 4562—“it refers you to a thirty-four sixty-eight, for chrissakes.”

  “Ott,” I said slowly. “You’ve got a problem here. I can’t help you with it.”

  “I didn’t think …”

  I held up my hand. “I can’t, but I’ve got a friend who knows everything there is to know about finances. For her this would be a snap. She could get you your thirty-whatever, fill it out, and have your desk clear in half an hour.”

  He wiped his sleeve slowly across his chin. The tomato sauce spread around the cuff. “You’re in a generous mood tonight,” he said warily.

  I didn’t have him yet. “She’s done capital gains, investment tax credits, and even overseas investments. She’s the best, Ott. She’ll do it fast, and it’ll be right. If you do it yourself, you won’t even get the forms before the deadline.”

  “What do you want?”

  “The running shoe thief.”

  “I don’t know who’s behind that.”

  “Maybe, but Ott, you could find out. It would take you a lot less time to check that out than to do these forms.”

  He hesitated.

  “And you won’t get audited for that.”

  Still he said nothing.

  “He’s not your client. He’s ripping off people with influence. The department’s already getting heat on this. If we don’t get this guy soon, the taxpayers are going to start grumbling about the Avenue. Why aren’t we monitoring the regulars, where are these addicts getting their money? I don’t have to spell it out for you.”

  The ridges above his nose deepened. He was weighing the sense of my argument against his aversion to dealing with the police. Finally he shook his head. “No.”

  “Ott.”

  “No.” His face flushed orange against the residue of tomato sauce on his chin.

  “Ott, listen …”

  He stood up. “Beat it, Smith. I had a gut full of frustration already before you came.”

  “I’ve offered …”

  He pulled open the door. “How many times do I have to tell you—No. The only reason I let you in when you haven’t paid up is because I saw you pushing Liz’s chair. I figured you couldn’t be all bad. But I’m changing my mind. So, Smith, don’t bug me till you come with money.”

  “You’ve got pizza on your chin,” I said as I turned and headed out. His mention of Liz reminded me of his message on her phone machine. I was still curious about that.

  The couple near the head of the stairs had quieted; the laugh track was clearer in their silence. As I started down the stairs, I smiled. Despite Herman Ott’s performance, I was willing to bet when Pereira showed up tomorrow morning with the 4562 and 3468 in hand, he’d be chirping a different tune.

  CHAPTER 5

  IT WAS QUARTER AFTER seven when I got to the pool. I grabbed the day pack with cap, goggles, suit, and towel from the boot of the car and loped across the street. In the lobby I dialed the pay phone. When Pereira answered, I said, “Good news. Ott didn’t say yes, but I made him an offer he finds very tempting. If you stop by tomorrow, he’ll be even more ready for the plucking.”

  “What am I giving him, my body?”

  “Better than that, Connie, your mind. More precisely, your expertise on taxes. He’s going crazy with his Schedule C’s. I told him you were the all-time expert.”

  “Why did you tell him that?” Connie demanded, “I don’t know anything about taxes.”

  I stared blankly at the coin slot. “You, the financial expert of the department? I thought there was nothing you didn’t know about money.”

  “I’m interested in investing, sure. Expert, hardly.”

  “Matter of opinion. But how can you say you don’t know anything about taxes? Filling out tax forms must be child’s play compared to making money in the commodities market.”

  “Maybe. But the thing is, Jill, I haven’t made money in commodities. I would have
made money—my plan was good—but, Patrick, my younger brother, had to pay back a guy who loaned him money to buy those government surplus rafts he got to take tourists down the Delta.”

  “The Delta! There are no rapids there.”

  She sighed. “Patrick didn’t think about that when he bought his flotilla. That’s why he never had the money to pay back his debt. By the time he hit me up, things were getting pretty nasty. So this has been one more year I haven’t had anything but my salary to declare on my ten-forty. Jill, I don’t have enough money in the bank to declare interest. Some people have assets; I have relatives.”

  I took a breath. I could feel my face turning the same color as Herman Ott’s. “Ott doesn’t know that. I told him you were the all-time expert.”

  “Jill …”

  “Listen, with all your financial friends, you must have someone who can teach you about two or three forms. You’ve got all night to learn.”

  “It’s not so easy.” She sighed again. “Thanks for what you did. I owe you.”

  “Hey, wait! I just spent an hour on this. It was hard enough dealing with Ott when the discretionary fund hasn’t come through. But I really put my credibility on the line here. You can’t just let it drop.”

  I could hear Connie breathing. Behind me a couple walked in, kissed, agreed to meet inside at the pool, and kissed again. I wondered how long they planned to spend undressing. Connie said, “Ott turned down the offer, right?”

  “For the moment, but—”

  “So, if I don’t pursue it, it’ll just die.”

  “Unless Ott changes his mind. If he decides to give up on his taxes tonight because he can call you in the morning … if he finds out I’ve conned him on this, I’ll never get another thing out of him no matter what I offer.”

  She sighed.

  “Whether you go to see Ott tomorrow is up to you. But by eight A.M. you need to be an expert on the Schedule C, form thirty-four sixty-eight, and form forty-five sixty-two.”

  “Okay, okay. But for this Herman Ott better give me the thief strung up by his laces.” She hung up.

  Connie will come through, I assured myself. It won’t take her that long to figure out the forms, if Patrick doesn’t have another crisis with his inflatable armada and call on Connie to bail him out. Or if her parents don’t have one of their semimonthly battles that ends with Connie rescuing the loser and devoting the night to soothing his or her psychological bruises. Or if her older brother Kiernan … How could intelligent, meticulous Connie Pereira have sprouted from this tribe? I’d asked her that after her father had spent a week sulking in her apartment. “Catholic school,” she had replied with a sigh. In it she had learned responsibility, ambition, and daughterly guilt.

  But I had done all I could now. My only choice was to worry or not. I turned and headed into the changing room. The steamy warmth and the familiar smell of chlorine—the fragrance of summer vacations—greeted me at the door.

  The pale green walls never completely dried in here, and splotches of mold filled the corners. From the showers on both sides the reedy sound of water striking the tiles mixed with the relaxed voices of women showering. The picture of my father’s cousin’s house, of the green-walled staircase that led to his room, flashed with dull familiarity in my mind, as it did every time I came here. I felt the same dread I had every time I’d been forced to climb those stairs to the room where he lay unable to move, barely able to speak.

  I pushed that childhood memory back, replacing it with the thought of Howard. Would he be in the pool? I hadn’t noticed his Land Rover outside.

  I stuck my clothes in a pool bag, pulled on my suit, and stepped briefly into the communal shower.

  The pool was still crowded, but there was no six-foot-six redhead in either of the fast lanes. But I hadn’t really expected him to be here. Knowing Howard, his sudden preoccupation meant a new lady. He wouldn’t tell me about her now, not until she became old and he needed a friend to confide in. It was a system we both used, but one with which neither of us was comfortable.

  I slipped in the shallow end. As I pushed off, the cool water flowed over my face and down the sides of my body. I reached, stretching my fingertips to the farthest forward point, pulling the water back, forming an S with my hand, feeling the bubbles against my chin, feeling the emptiness of my lungs, and the roll up and the breath, looking down at the pale green water, at the lines on the pool bottom, pulling, kicking, feeling the water flow over my breasts, along my sides, down the insides of my legs. I turned, pushing off harder, concentrating on the length of my strokes, the evenness of the kick. I pulled harder, feeling the water moving more swiftly under my body.

  When I climbed out of the pool an hour later, my arms were leaden, my legs tingling. I stood under a spigot in the main shower, knowing that my body would smell as strongly of chlorine each time I showered for the next twenty-four hours. Brad Butz and his altercation at Rainbow Village seemed long ago. Even Herman Ott and Pereira’s tax cramming seemed slightly unreal. I put on my clothes, strolled to the car, and headed for Vivoli’s for a pint of Bittersweet Orange for dinner.

  Five minutes later, I pulled up in front of my flat and got out. My wet hair dripped on my neck. The bag of Bittersweet Orange hung from my hand. I glanced at the window of Mr. Kepple’s house, willing it to be dark. A seam of blue light from the television showed through the curtains. I could deal with him now, but I was tired. It had been a long day. After dealing with Brad Butz, Liz Goldenstern, and Herman Ott, I deserved a pleasant evening. And Mr. Kepple, his electric mower, his electric blower, his electric edger that never started on the first eight pulls would be there tomorrow or whenever I got around to making him stop mowing, blowing, or edging long enough to tell him he’d have to garden more quietly or … Definitely, not tonight.

  I ran across the manicured lawn toward the unlit cement walkway beside the house. Installing a light there was another thing I would have to tell him about. Swinging the ice cream bag, I jumped from the driveway to the path and fell face down!

  There was no walkway! He’d taken the cement out. I was lying in the dirt.

  As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could make out a stick just inches to the right of my nose—a stick with a string attached to it.

  “Damn!” I pushed myself up and shook out each leg slowly. “Damn him!” I ran across the lawn, up the stairs to the front door of Mr. Kepple’s house and pounded.

  Through the curtain I could see the blue light from his television and hear the fast-paced background music from a chase sequence. But there was no thump of his own footsteps. I pounded again—the police knock.

  I brushed the dirt off the front of my pants. Vaguely I recalled him telling me, one rain-free afternoon last week as he weeded the back lawn, that cement paths were pedestrian (a play on words that escaped him) and redwood burls made a “more aesthetically pleasing entryway to a garden.” He had recounted, in detail, the aesthetic concepts espoused by his latest landscape design teacher in the community college. He had gone on about the beauty and durability of redwood. He’d explained, at length, how the new path would fit into his planned treatment of the strip of garden beside it. What he hadn’t told me in that half an hour, while I was trying to balance tenantly consideration against the need to extricate myself, was that he planned to dig out the cement walkway today.

  Where was he? He should be getting ready for bed. He had to be tired. He had been up at six, trimming the hedge with his electric clippers. I rapped on the door again, but I knew it would do no good. Leaving the television on was Mr. Kepple’s idea of burglar-proofing. While I had been finishing up the reports on the Brad Butz incident this afternoon, Mr. Kepple doubtless had been napping, and now he was off at the junior college, entranced with windbreaks or ground covers.

  I stomped down the steps, rescued my Bittersweet Orange, and walked carefully on around back.

  My flat, originally the back porch of Mr. Kepple’s house, ran the full forty-foot width. The
interior wall had aluminum siding, one of Mr. Kepple’s earlier aesthetic inspirations, and the three outer ones had jalousie windows that leaked every time it rained. Mr. Kepple had installed them himself thirty years ago, when the idea of building a porch had struck him. Then there had been a Mrs. Kepple who, doubtless, had complained about their failings as a shield from the elements. But her words must have fallen on the same deaf ear I frequently encountered. And, knowing what I did of my landlord, I felt sure he had never lighted long enough on the porch to consider its discomforts. For him the porch would have been solely a boundary to his back garden. Eventually, Mrs. Kepple (and her complaints) died, and he had eyed his jalousied boundary one day and seen the possibility of it bringing in money for fertilizer, and mulch, and a self-turning compost box with drawers that slid out individually. So, with the addition of indoor-outdoor carpet, a bath and a kitchen, Mr. Kepple had created my flat. He assured me, it would someday have a view of one of the loveliest gardens in Berkeley. I could sit with the jalousies open and see the gardenias in the spring, the lilies in summer, the holly berries at Christmas. In the warm spring afternoons I could sunbathe on his proposed deck.

  But now, two years later, the deck was still in the planning stages and the back garden a patch of dirt. Each year Mr. Kepple showed me his garden plans, where the gardenia would be, the shady spot suitable for cineraria, the full sun for the roses. Weekly the sketches changed. Sometimes six packs of baby plants appeared on trays along the edges of the yard. Once or twice the plants made it into the soil, only to be yanked out days later when the master plan changed.

  I pushed the door open and stalked across the ten feet of indoor-outdoor carpet to the kitchen. Briefly I considered scooping the ice cream into a dish. Who was I kidding? I grabbed a spoon from the pile of stainless in the sink, rinsed it off, and dug into the carton. I had lived in this flat since my divorce—almost two years. The jalousie windows still functioned more like screens than glass. In winter they let in the cold and the rain. And in summer, half the time I kept them closed to cut the smell of manure or the sound of the electric hedge clipper.