on mine.
“Well, not exactly. I told the police we’d handle it ourselves. But I can still file a complaint.”
“Look,” she said, “I don’t care what happens to Eddie. Just don’t get me involved, okay?”
Surprised, I waited for more.
“I’m on probation. If I get another violation I could lose my job.” “Another violation?”
Her composure slipped. Her eyes got wet, but I could see she was determined not to cry. “Look, please don’t make a complaint, or say Eddie has anything to do with me, OK? He’s big trouble. If my P.O. finds out I’ve been ‘associating’ with him, I’m screwed.”
“Well. I don’t know about all that, but there is this little problem of the destroyed fence—our ‘damaged property.’ What do you think should be done about that?”
“I can’t pay for it, if that’s what you mean. I can barely make my rent.” “I wasn’t thinking about money.”
Her face got hard and her eyes narrowed. “You prick. You fucking prick.” She looked past me into the space of the room. “I should’ve figured.”
“Whoa there, hold on. I was only thinking about who’ll clean up the mess, that’s all. I’m certainly not going to do it.”
“Yeah, right, that’s all you were thinking about.” She straightened up, folded her arms across her chest and took a breath. “Ok,” she said, “here’s the deal. You don’t make trouble for me and I won’t make trouble for you.”
“And just what, exactly, does that mean?” I was beginning to get very annoyed. First Eddie the drywall hanger and now Roxie the cocktail waitress was leaning on me.
“You watch me,” she said.
“Watch you what? What do you think you’re going to do?”
“You watch me in my apartment. You pretend you’re watering your stupid flowers but you watch me getting ready for work.”
“What? Now just you wait one minute. I water my ‘stupid flowers’ standing in my own front yard and you run around half naked with the blinds open. No one would blame me for noticing.”
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t make it right, does it?”
Again I had that sinking feeling in my stomach. Somehow this conversation had gotten way off track.
“Look,” I said. “If that mess down there just gets cleaned up, I’m done with the whole damn thing—like it never happened. And I won’t need to file a complaint.”
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