The Fury - Jason Pinter [93]
"I love you, too."
When I arrived at Clarence's building I rang the
buzzer. I expected him to simply unlock the door, but
within a minute I saw a man coming down the stairs
toward me. He was wearing a bathrobe, loosely tied,
with white briefs and blue slippers. A paunchy stomach
hung over the elastic band of the briefs. It was a comical
look, and it was safe to say he was coming to greet me
rather than go for a stroll.
He opened the door, and I extended my hand.
"Henry Parker, nice to meet you, Clar..."
Clarence was ignoring me. My hand sat there
unshook, a lonely hitchhiker. Clarence wasn't even
looking at me, he was too busy looking down the street,
both sides, behind me, as though expecting a boogey
man or a ninja to jump out and kill him. His eyes flick
ered back and forth, widening and then closing. He
squeezed them shut hard, then opened them again.
Perhaps this allowed him to see better, or give him some
extrasensory perception.
When he seemed content that nobody was waiting
to jump out at him, he said, "You come alone?"
"Of course I did."
"You sure about that?"
"Um...yeah. Pretty sure."
"You a cop?"
I snorted out a laugh. "Are you serious? I said I was
a reporter."
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Jason Pinter
"Cops lie. I don't believe that BS about cops having
to declare themselves. If someone's recording this, I'm
calling entrapment on your ass."
I turned out all my pockets. Showed him I was
carrying nothing.
His brow furrowed. "That's not an answer."
"No. I'm not a cop, I'm a reporter." I showed him my
business card.
"What'choo got in there?" he said, pointing to my
bag.
"Tape recorder, notepad."
"You can't bring that to my place."
"What do you mean?"
"Nobody records or writes down what I say. You
can't deal with that, you can leave."
I didn't have much choice, so I said, "What do you
want me to do with my stuff then?"
"Bernita down the hall will watch it."
"Bernita?"
"You can trust her. She got a plasma TV. Anytime
you have something you need stored safely, Bernita's
your woman."
I wasn't quite sure how that was supposed to
convince me to leave my equipment with her. I guess I
didn't have much of a choice but to trust Clarence's
sterling recommendation of Bernita's safe-deposit
skills.
"Okay, whatever you say."
"All right. Come on."
Clarence led me into the hallway, past a row of rusty
mailboxes and up the first flight of stairs. The building
smelled of mold, and the paint was chipping on the
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staircase railing. Clarence took a left and knocked on
the first door. A scraggly woman wearing a pink
bathrobe and smoking an unfiltered cigarette opened it.
I wondered if this was actually some sort of spa.
"Bernita," he said. "This is Henry. He's gonna be
leaving his bag with you for a while."
Bernita's apartment beyond her looked rather
massive, with a hallway splintering off to several dif
ferent rooms. The floors were scrubbed clean, and a
single dining table sat in the middle, uncluttered with
the exception of a pair of crystal candlesticks. It seemed
like quite a lot of space. Bernita wasn't wearing a
wedding ring. The fact that she had at least three or four
rooms for what looked like herself made me all the
more conscious of my own dwelling.
"How long?" she said.
Clarence looked at me. "How long you need?"
"Hour. Two, tops."
Clarence said, "Forty-five minutes."
"Whatever," she replied. Then she looked at me, her
upper lip curled back. "Henry. Ain't never met a young
boy named Henry."
Bernita closed the door before I could reply.
With my belongings safely--hopefully--squared
away, Clarence led me to the fourth floor. He lived in
apartment 4J. When we got to the door, Clarence stuck
his hand into his bathrobe pocket, pulling out a key
ring with at least thirty keys on it. I marveled at the
man's security methods. Then he went to work unlock
ing the half a dozen dead bolts on his front door.
Once Fort Knox was fully unlocked, he opened the
door and beckoned me inside.
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Jason Pinter
For the life of me I couldn't figure out why he