Flowering Judas by Jane Haddam Page B

“I’m meeting Donna. I keep telling her I don’t like wallpaper, I really much prefer paint, but she has some samples for me to see. She’s going to bring them and then if I hate them she’ll bring them back. I’ll probably hate them.”
    â€œWe don’t have room in this apartment for wallpaper samples,” Gregor said.
    â€œGo see about old George. I don’t like the way he’s been looking lately. He looks like kindergarten paste.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œGo,” Bennis said.
    Gregor went.
    2
    Outside on the landing, Grace’s playing was clear, not exercises now, but a recognizable piece. Gregor thought she had to have her door open up there. She did that sometimes when she was sure everybody in the building was awake. Gregor didn’t mind. Bennis didn’t mind. Old George was too far away to be bothered by it if he didn’t want to be.
    Gregor thought about going upstairs for a minute and asking her what she was playing. Then he decided that would be rude. Grace was always rehearsing for something, and besides, she might think he was actually bothered by her playing and being polite about it. It never ceased to amaze him how complicated people were, in their relationships with each other. Here they were, empowered by speech, and they were always looking for clues and hints and signs and omens. Maybe that was why so many people loved things like The Da Vinci Code.
    The landing was clear of debris of any kind, which made him feel better. He went downstairs a flight and found that that landing was not. There were two tall stacks of what appeared to be plumbing fixtures—the faucets for a bathroom, maybe, or for a kitchen. Some of the faucets were brass, so Gregor opted for a bathroom. Or maybe many bathrooms. There were a lot of bathrooms in the house he and Bennis had bought at the other end of the street.
    â€œIt’ll be fine,” Bennis had said when they did it. “We’ll fix it up a little and then we’ll be practically next door to Donna and Rush.”
    â€œRight now we’re right across the street from Lida and Tibor.”
    â€œWe’re not exactly moving to California, Gregor. We’re still going to be on Cavanaugh Street.”
    Gregor went down another flight, and that was the ground floor. He could see the line of mailboxes in the little vestibule between the inner and outer doors. He could see the rub of faded paint against the blank wall that was on the far side of the stairway. That was the problem with condominiums. You needed everything to go right, or they didn’t get kept up.
    He thought about that sentence for a moment, and then decided that he wasn’t ever really awake until he had made it to the Ararat. Then he went around behind the stairs and knocked on old George Tekemanian’s door.
    â€œIt’s open,” old George said.
    Gregor pushed at it. It wasn’t only not locked. It was not latched.
    Old George was sitting up in the enormous leather lounger chair that took up the middle of his living room, pounding away on a laptop he had placed on a tray table. The laptop, the lounge chair, and the table—all the way across the living room—that the laptop was supposed to go on had all been given to him by his nephew Martin, and they were all so expensive, they looked like if you scratched them, they would bleed money.
    Old George looked up as Gregor walked in.
    â€œYou shouldn’t leave your door unlocked like that,” Gregor said. “I keep telling you, you only think it’s perfectly safe here.”
    â€œIt’s perfectly safe here, Gregor. Nothing ever happens on Cavanaugh Street, except when Sheila Kashinian has one of her fits and throws Howard out into the street, and then he goes over to the church and wants Father Tibor to give sermons on the sanctity of Christian marriage. I remember Howard Kashinian when he was a boy, just like I remember you. He was an