“What am I supposed to look for?”
“Check out his profile and maybe you’ll recognize him. I want to know why he keeps coming back.”
I wait on the line as Lorelei turns off lights and goes to the window.
“I have no idea who that is,” she says. “Let me ask Larry. Hey, Larry!” she yells.
Over the phone I hear her husband grumbling as he comes into the room. “Why are the lights off in here? What are you doing?”
“Angela called to say the white van’s parked outside. Do you know who that is?”
A moment’s silence. Then he says, “No. Why should I care?”
“Because it’s been here three times this week,” I tell Lorelei.
“Angela says it’s been here three times this week. That seems strange, doesn’t it? Do you think he’s spying on someone in the neighborhood? Maybe he’s a private detective or something.”
There’s another silence. Larry is thinking about this, and I fully expect him to make some denigrating remark about silly women and their silly imaginations. I’m sure that’s what he thinks about me, because he truly believes he’s far more intelligent than I am. When it comes to Scrabble, he’s right. But that’s only Scrabble.
It doesn’t make me wrong about this particular matter.
To my surprise, I hear him say simply: “I’m going to find out who the hell that is spying on me.”
“What? Larry!” his wife calls out. “What if he’s dangerous?”
“I want this to stop here and now” is the last thing I hear him say.
Through my window I see the porch lights come on and Larry comes charging out his front door.
“Hey!” he shouts. “Who the hell hired you?”
The engine lights suddenly come on and the van lurches away from the curb and shoots off into the night.
“Leave me the hell alone!” Larry yells after it.
Well, this is unexpected. I’d assumed the van was here to watch the Greens. After all, they’re the ones who’ve been acting suspiciously, who seem to be hiding something. Now I wonder if I’ve been completely wrong. Maybe it’s not about the Greens.
Maybe it’s all about Larry Leopold.
I don’t dare talk to Lorelei about this. After Larry goes back into his house, I head across the street and knock on Jonas’s door. I know he’s home because I saw him in the window, lifting weights. After dinner, he always lifts weights. He answers my knock dressed in his usual skimpy workout gear, his shirt steamed to his skin with sweat.
“Angie baby! You finally ready for that martini?”
I ignore the offer and charge straight into his house. “I need to ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“It’s about Larry Leopold. What do you know about him?”
“You’ve lived on this street longer than I have. You should know more than I do.”
“Yeah, but you’re a man.”
“How nice that you noticed.”
“Men share things with one another that they don’t share with women.”
“This is true.”
“So why would someone in a white van be spying on Larry? What’s he been up to?”
Jonas lets out a deep sigh. “Oh boy.”
“You know something.”
“I know nothing. Nothing that I can confirm.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.”
He gestures to the sofa. “Have a seat, Angie. Make yourself comfortable while I get us some rehydration.”
He heads into the kitchen and I sit down on his sofa. Through the window facing my house, I notice movement in my neighbor’s house. It’s my nemesis, Agnes Kaminsky, and she’s standing at her living room window, smoking a cigarette and looking right at me. While people may think I’m the neighborhood snoop, Agnes is the real deal, and now she probably assumes Jonas and I have a thing going on. I can’t blame her for assuming the worst. I’ve been guilty of the same. I simply wave at her, to let her know that I see her and I don’t care what she thinks. It’s less suspicious to be blatant rather than sneaky.
She glowers at me and walks away from the window, no doubt with one of her usual harrumphs of disgust.
From the kitchen comes the merry sound of ice jingling in the cocktail shaker. Oh no, he’s going to rehydrate with booze, and I suppose I’ll have to sip some too if I hope to get any information out of him. Jonas comes back into the living room deftly carrying two very full martini glasses, each with an olive bobbing inside, and he hands me a drink.