Round Robin (19 page)

“Thanks,” he said. “You going to tell him not to put the CIA on me, too?”

“Yeah.”

“I appreciate it.”

David got up to go.

“We’re not done here,” Robin said.

David sat back down. Uneasily. Now knowing the worst was yet to come.

“Manfred has a daughter. Bianca. She’s new in this country. She needs someone to show her the ropes.”

David was agog. Was Robin setting him up with a girl?

“How old is she?”

“Eight.”

“Eight?”

“That’s not a problem, is it? She’s closer to your age than you are to mine.”

What could he say to that?

“No, it’s not a problem,” David said tightly.

He realized then that Robin was too wily for him. He didn’t care how smart he was, how smart he’d ever be, she’d always be able to lay out traps for him that he’d walk right into. She was teaching him a lesson and, given her threat of blackmail, he had no choice but to learn it.

Robin kept any hint of glee off her face, but she thought the idea was terrific. She’d sell Manfred on what a great kid David was and let him take some of the weight for caring for the little blue-haired imp off of Nancy. It’d be good for David to see a May-December relationship from the other side of the coin. The more she thought about it, the more she was sure David and Bianca deserved each other.

Who knew, maybe something good would even come of it.

“One thing, David. Manfred is very protective of his daughter. Fathers are like that. Your behavior with her will have to be impeccable.”

More than just a shot, Robin was making a point that David would have to remember when he finally started dating girls of his own age.

Cure him of that stolen-kiss crap right now.

The snow started an hour before closing time. Within minutes, it was coming down so hard you couldn’t see the other side of the street from the deli. Two minutes after that, you couldn’t see past the curb on the near side of the street. Snow had not been predicted that day.

But that was winter in Chicago. What were you going to do?

Mimi decided that what she’d do was close early.

There was only one customer in the place. He’d intended to eat there, but Mimi bagged his sandwich, slice of carrot cake and cup of coffee, told him it was on the house and sent him on his way. The staff had the place cleaned in fifteen minutes, Stan Prozanksi got there early to escort Mimi to the bank, and they were all out the door.

And into the blizzard.

Stan offered Robin a ride home in his patrol unit, but there was no room in front with him and Mimi, and she knew what the back of a cop car smelled like from a once-in-a-lifetime juvenile misadventure. She declined and said she’d brave the storm.

Which basically meant she’d have to mush home through the snow drifts on foot. Everybody else in town had gotten off early, too. The CTA buses were packed, everyone jammed in cheek-to-jowl, smelling each other’s breath and wet clothing, pressed together so intimately in a crowd of strangers that if it hadn’t been for all those damp layers of nylon, wool and cotton it would have been one huge cluster —

The subway trains were even worse.

So Robin mushed. Head bowed. Snow sticking to her hair and eyelashes and shoulders. Trusting to some primitive part of her brain that it would lead her home without conscious awareness, like a saddle horse or a homing pigeon. Her one consolation was that her labored march proceeded at a pace faster than that of the cars, trucks and buses stuck in the doomsday traffic jam that seemed to grip the whole city.

Leaving her body to make its way home on autopilot, Robin thought about how hard she’d hit David. Hard enough to make her hand sting. She hadn’t regretted it at the time; she still thought she’d had the right to do what she’d done, but upon reflection she knew she hadn’t had to put as much muscle behind the blow. She thought about banging that wonderful brain around inside its skull and she cringed. She felt even worse when she thought about hitting Manfred, too. She was lashing out at people, literally striking them. That wasn’t her. She hated bullies. What was happening to her?

Sure, her circumstance had changed. She had less privacy — but she had more company. And, as much as she hated to admit it, that wasn’t such a bad thing. Then there was her house, it was in better shape than it had been for years. And after only a couple of workouts, she was in better shape than she’d been in years. She was back on the job. She was continuing her buyout plan with Mimi. Everything was going pretty well.

So why did she feel as if a piano was going to fall on her head, instead of just half of the snow in creation?

Robin heard a car horn honk. Of course, she’d been hearing horns all along; that’s what people did when they got stuck in traffic. They vented their feelings with the palms of their hands, or, if they were reckless, with their middle fingers. But this horn seemed to be directed specifically at her. She wondered how people could distinguish that “Hey, you!” quality when someone wanted to get their particular attention.

She looked up and pierced the curtain of white crystals to see Manfred’s old Mercedes. The kid was with him. Robin realized that she’d already walked halfway home. Manfred popped open the back door of the car on the driver’s side for her. The car was in traffic, but traffic continued at a crawl so Robin had no problem stepping right into it.

Manfred said hello. The kid just gave Robin a look.

“Thanks,” Robin said.

“Es steht Ihnen frei, zu,”
he said. Then he shook his head with a smile. “Ah, I am sorry, Bianca and I were speaking German. It is our pleasure to give you a ride.”

The kid didn’t look like it pleased her any, Robin thought.

Manfred didn’t appear to notice.

“I have not seen snow like this since I visited the Alps,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s winter in Chicago for you. The Alps without the mountains.”

Manfred gave her a puzzled look in the rear-view mirror. Then he got the joke and laughed.
“Sehr gut,”
he said.

When they got to Menominee Street it was predictably parked in, and the way the snow kept coming it looked like all those cars would be snowed in, too, until the spring thaw. Manfred offered to drop off Robin and Bianca in front while he found parking, but Robin knew he’d probably have to drive to St. Louis to find an open spot.

“Just put it in the garage,” she said. “Save yourself some trouble.”

“Danke.”

He steered the heavy car into the alley. The snow here was even deeper because there had been no traffic to compress it. Manfred kept the car moving, but as they approached the garage, Robin saw an odd look cross his face, almost as if he were embarrassed.

“I hope you will not mind, but I have installed an automatic opener. I fear if I stop to open the door manually the car will become stuck.”

“You don’t think you could push it free?”

“Ja,
of course, I could. I only mean...”

Manfred got this joke, too. He used the automatic opener.

Even though it still rankled her a little to have him trifling with her house, Robin told herself not to be such a hard-ass. And when Manfred grinned at her she grinned back.

Bianca was the only one not smiling as the Mercedes entered the garage and escaped the storm.

Manfred was not one to let a continuing blizzard keep him from shoveling the walkways around the house. Indeed, with Teutonic precision, he had a plan to lay out for Robin’s consideration as they all stood in the shelter of the garage.

“I will shovel,
ja?
You will follow behind with the broom and sweep the concrete bare. And Bianca will spread the salt to keep the snow from accumulating again.”

Since they had all the necessary personnel, equipment and salt, it seemed a reasonable plan even in the face of nature’s ongoing assault — except one member of the team wasn’t on the same page in the playbook.

“I do not wish to help,” Bianca said. “This is laborer’s work.”

Manfred frowned. Bit back an impulse to use the parental imperative. Looked for a way to reason with his daughter.

“We need your help,” he said. “Without you, the snow will just pile up even higher.”

“Let it,” Bianca said stubbornly.

“Please,” Manfred said, framing his plea with a bit of iron.

A shrewd look came into Bianca’s eyes.

“How much will you pay me?”

“I will pay you a warm home, good food, and a snug bed.”

There was no room for bargaining in his tone, but Bianca blithely ignored it.

“I make two dollars an hour at my new job,” she said. “Can you do better?”

Negotiations got serious at that point because Manfred switched to his native tongue. Robin decided it was time for her to slip away, but Manfred spotted her, held up a hand and asked her to please stay.

She did, with great reluctance. The kid was shooting daggers at her, obviously preferring that there’d be no witness to whatever was to follow.

Manfred went down on one knee in front of his daughter. Continuing in German, he seemed to Robin to be giving the little brat a quiet but firm lecture on the necessities of meeting one’s responsibilities.

Bianca sneered.

Robin caught the word “television” as the kid launched into a tirade, also in German, and then pointed first to Robin and then to the weight bench that sat not ten feet from where they all stood. Whatever the kid said, it made Manfred blush. Set him back on his heels.

Then Robin realized that she’d heard a word, a cognate, that she understood.

Shtup.

And now the kid was doing a burlesque turn on a series of moans and groans. Sexual sounds. Obscene sounds coming from such a young girl.

The light dawned on Robin. The kid had heard them out here this morning ... and she’d thought Robin’s exertions had been —

“Oh, my God,” she said.

Manfred saw that she understood. He rose and started to apologize, but Bianca reclaimed his attention, still speaking their mother tongue.

She craned her neck to look up at her huge father and gave him a searing earful.

And got more of a reaction than she’d ever bargained for.

Manfred seized her with one hand as easily as if he’d picked a grape off a vine. He held the dangling, wide-eyed child even with his face and drew his free hand back as if to strike her. Robin was horrified. Even a slap from this man would kill the girl, snap her neck like the thinnest of reeds.

“Stop!” Robin screamed.

She leaped at Manfred, grabbed his arm and hung on it, but even her weight didn’t drag it down an inch. She realized immediately that if Manfred wanted to hit Bianca, she wouldn’t be able to stop him. But Robin’s intervention shattered the moment, shifted his focus, made him think about what he’d intended to do. A violent shudder surged through the man.

He set Bianca down, and Robin released his arm. Manfred took a step back and looked at each of them. He seemed as if he might break down and cry. Then he grabbed a snow shovel off its hook on the wall and plunged out into the snow.

Robin and Bianca looked at each other ... and listened to the harsh clang of the metal shovel striking the pavement beneath the snow as Manfred fought the storm.

Robin took Bianca into the park.

The little girl immediately ran and hid behind a palm. Robin thought she’d just leave her there. Let her work it all out for herself. But she reconsidered.

She said, “I don’t know what you said to your father, but it must’ve been truly awful ... because you made him do something he’ll probably regret the rest of his life. And I’d bet my life no one has ever treated you better than he has.”

The kid didn’t say a word.

Robin could have told her she wasn’t having sex with Manfred, but she didn’t. Why the hell should she have to explain herself?