She left the room with an averted gaze and clenched hands, and pulled the door closed behind her. But when he turned out the lamp and climbed into his bed, no longer tired and longing for things he thought he’d moved beyond, he remembered the cat beneath it.
“Damn it, Charlie,” he sighed. But he rose once more and, padding to the door, left it ajar for the first time.
13
Malone came to breakfast the morning following his return, but he ignored Dani so thoroughly she wished he’d stayed away. Lenka beamed and Zuzana scowled, and Michael apologized to the women for any worry he’d caused. He included Dani in his comments, though he never looked directly at her.
“I confess I’m not accustomed to logging my whereabouts with anyone, but I should have mentioned that my work would lead to frequent and sometimes prolonged absences,” he began.
“Surely your wife minded you flitting off for days without a word,” Zuzana said, slathering butter on a bit of toast, her tone as crusty as the bread.
“My wife and I were estranged for many years. So no. She did not mind,” Michael said, voice equally dry.
“I can’t say I am surprised,” Zuzana retorted, blotting at the crumbs on her lips. “You’re a very difficult man to live with.”
“Tetka,” Dani cautioned. “He is not.”
“I have never seen you fret the way you fretted,” Zuzana argued. “It was very rude of Mr. Malone to gallivant off like that.”
“I will try to be more courteous in the future,” Michael said stiffly. He swallowed his orange juice in a single gulp, cleared his plate with the focus of a starving, harried man, and pushed back from the table.
“Daniela called Eliot Ness,” Lenka chirped, not ready to let him go. “Did he find you?”
“No. He did not. I did not need to be found, as I’m sure he was aware. But I will call Mr. Ness right away and reassure him that I am quite all right. And I will be in and out all week, so don’t expect me at meals.”
“We will have Margaret leave something for you in the icebox,” Lenka said cheerily, and smiled at him like she was thrilled to have him back. He strode from the room without a backward glance.
He’d told her it was too soon, and Dani had no choice but to believe him. But as the week passed and another began with Malone keeping his distance, she became more and more embarrassed. She liked him too much, and she was humiliated by her response to him and his avoidance of her. By the end of the next week, she’d worked herself into a lather over his dismissiveness, making her mission all the easier to perform.
The boots he’d worn to wherever he’d gone were sitting on the back porch, the thin soles and battered leather calling to her like sea sirens. If he was not going to talk to her like he’d promised, she was not going to respect his privacy.
She strode out onto the porch, shoved her hands into his boots, and banged them together to dislodge the dried mud from their treads. Then she sank down on the step, raised her chin to the cold spring sun, closed her eyes to the glare, and listened. She immediately heard the roar of a train, the clatter of wheels, and the burr of soft voices. Cigarettes. Sweat. A man named Chester who insisted “the Butcher isn’t one of us,” and Malone’s musings about a hungry man named Emil Fronek.
“What are you doing to my boots?” Malone asked, his voice mild, but she jerked and yelped like he’d yelled in her ear. He’d returned without her hearing him and stood looking at her, his hands in his pockets, his eyes shaded by the brim of his hat. Spring was here. She should urge him to buy a straw one. The dark homburg was too warm for summer.
“I was c-cleaning them,” she said. She banged them together once more, quite convincingly, she thought, and set them beside her on the step. “I thought they could use a shine as well.”
“Part of the room and board?”
“I just noticed they were worn.”
“Yes. They are. Very worn, which is why they don’t need to be shined.”
“Have you h-had these ones long?” she stammered. His voice was hard, and she wasn’t wearing her glasses, so she pulled them from her pocket and sat them on her nose, needing protection from his disapproval.
“Years.”
She scrambled to her feet, but not before scooping up his boots again. “I’ll have them looking brand new . . . and I’ll bring them back when I’m done.”
“Leave them. They have a hole in the sole. Polish won’t fix that. I wear them for dirty work. Nothing more.”