“Oh, good idea! No, he hasn’t been here that long,” she said. “Funny, that apartment usually sits vacant. Back when we first moved in, I think some guy was using it to have affairs, but he has to be my age now.”
I opened my mouth to ask more questions, but from the television in the living room came three words that let me know I’d been dismissed: “Wheel. Of. Fortune.”
Mrs. Q stood.
“At least let me help with dishes?”
She shook her head and patted my hand before gesturing toward the door with her head. “Gives me something to do later.”
I thanked her for supper and made my retreat.
“How’d your first set of meetings go?” Havisham asked later, at our Waffle House confab.
“Great,” I said as I stirred my coffee. “At least, I think it went great. These are uncharted waters.”
“Did our biggest fish at least put down a deposit?” asked Salcedo, who’d opted for a burger rather than breakfast this time. Jasper had refused to drop fries, though, so she was having hashbrowns with her burger.
“Half down now, and half upon completion of three ‘petty’ tasks, complete with photo and video evidence. I’m working on a few ideas, and I installed a doorbell camera outside my apartment in some spare time I had between meeting the client and coming here. I even bought a spy camera that’s hidden in a shirt button. All that and got my paralegal online homework done, too.”
“Look at you! Next glass of Malbec is on me,” Havisham said.
“That shirt button camera should be a good investment because I have more potential clients for you,” Salcedo added.
“I hope so because I spent a chunk of the deposit money on the camera. I used to have one, but ...”
I left the sentence unfinished because that camera, along with so many other things, was still with Ken.
“No need to dwell on such things,” Havisham said. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find you enough clients to make the money you need to get back afloat.”
“I got another gig serving papers and doing a few other odd jobs for a law firm this weekend, too,” I said as I lifted my coffee mug.
We ate in silence for a few minutes, eventually pushing away our plates and bowls.
Betty shuffled over to take our dishes. “Y’all gonna make a habit of coming in here like this?”
“Maybe.”
“Fine with me. At least y’all tip,” she said. “But seems to me you’d want to be at home in bed.”
“That’s where I’m headed next,” Havisham said. “But running a bar means keeping late hours.”
“College student,” said Salcedo, complete with a yawn to undercut her argument.
“I’m just here for the hashbrowns,” I said.
“Well, I’ve worked the night shift now for ten years,” Betty said. “Don’t ever be too good at a job, that’s what I’ll tell you. That and don’t take the night shift because you figure you were waking up at oh dark thirty with night sweats anyway. Those will eventually go away, but the night shift will haunt you for the rest of your life.”
Salcedo’s eyes bugged out. When Betty turned her back on us to take the dishes away, she mouthed, “Night sweats?”
Havisham mouthed back, “Don’t ask.”
“It’s awfully late for you women to be out and about,” Betty yelled from her spot behind the counter. “Don’t you have any burly boyfriends? Someone to improve the scenery around here?”
“I’m here,” said Jasper.
“You’re a string bean of a man with spiderweb tattoos on your elbows. I want toimprovethe scenery.”
Naturally, Jasper took issue with Betty’s words, and the two began their nightly argument. It had to get dull working the wee hours of the morning, so I could hardly begrudge them. In two visits, I’d seen only two other customers in the Waffle House at the same time we were there. Betty and Jasper had to amuse themselves somehow.
