Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [135]
He made good time through the Newharts’—neglecting the guest room, but it seemed untouched since last week—and he had the Bradfords’ house next, where he was sure he’d find something for Marilyn. Mrs. Bradford’s mother, Priscilla, lived in the bedroom above the garage. The old coot didn’t even know her name anymore but she had a drawer full of jewelry organized in little decorative boxes and grouped by type (rings, earrings, necklaces) and on top of this dresser was a multishelved glass box full of odd knickknacks: a silver fish whose mouth was a locket that opened, a ring with a secret compartment behind the stone, a delicate watch with a black face and gold hour and minute hands. The key to taking anything from here was putting Mrs. Bradford at ease about the old lady. “Mrs. Bradford, did you want me to bring some tea up to your mother?” Or, “Mrs. Bradford, maybe you should come up there with me when I clean, in case your mother gets upset at the sight of a stranger.” And she’d touch his shoulder—a horny old girl herself—and say, “Dickie, for all she knows you’re the son she never had,” then light one of her thin little cigarettes and laugh.
When Eberling went up, Priscilla was sitting in the corner, her chair turned toward the back window that overlooked the lake. At first he made a big to-do, rattling his pail and mops, cleaning the toilet and tub energetically, letting the seat slam, waiting for the screen door to clap shut and to see Mrs. Bradford, whiskey sour in hand, slink down to the beach. And then he went up to Priscilla, standing so close he could see his reflection in her creamy eyes, and studied the jewelry she had on (Mrs. Bradford dressed her every morning) and once he got a fix on the rings and earrings and necklace—the hag tilting her head at him unknowingly and expectantly, like a friendly dog—he sifted through the drawers to match it all as best he could, the pearl earrings, say, or the gold locket, then held each piece up to its closest twin as if Priscilla were a mute model. Then he swapped them out and dropped her jewelry in his murky pail, the old bird helping him, in fact, turning her earrings toward him or even lifting her arm slightly when he took her hand to look at the rings.
Thinking of Marilyn, he mouthed: I want to tell you my secret.
Eberling had been cleaning the Bradfords’ large house for two years now and had yet to meet Mr. Bradford himself. He knew he was around, though, because sometimes in the room off the master the bed was unmade, and a suit matching those in the closet was laid out across a wingback chair. Eberling often felt the breast and pants pockets of the suit and found surprising treasure: good cigars wrapped in cellophane, monogrammed golf tees, a silver business-card holder, an engraved money clip. The key, here too, was never to take everything opportunity presented you, to abstain from the most obvious valuables, because these easy catches could be traps, trust’s pop quizzes and employers’ ambushes that he always left right where he found them. No, the true gifts were to be discovered beneath dressers and bedside tables, in boxes stuffed in closets marked PICTURES but with that label crossed out and therefore written off as forgotten, hidden in places where their discovery would come only during a move—or by a child or spouse rummaging through them after a loved one’s death.
“Dickie?” Mrs. Bradford called. “Come upstairs, Dickie, and take a break.”
Oh, she was horny, all right. She’d be waiting for him in bed, both arms outstretched against the high headboard, resting her high mound of silver hair against it too, a set of wings carved into the wood that seemed to spread from her shoulders, her drink always perfectly refreshed, the glass frosted and a cherry trapped beneath the ice like a red iris in a brown eye, her cigarette burning