Round Robin (4 page)

Chapter 4

When Robin got home her phone was ringing. She was sure who was calling. Some pot-bellied, tattooed simian with dandruff, tufts of hair growing out of his nose and body odor that would gag an alley-cat, somebody who’d had the ad read to him and was eager to knuckle-walk right over and see if he might find a new lair. Well, no thank you. Robin would just let the phone machine handle that little chore.

Except it didn’t. The tape was full.

Robin had to wait until the phone stopped ringing.

It started again thirty seconds later.

“What?” she asked harshly, picking up the phone.

“You the one with the ad in the paper for the handyman?” a male voice asked.

“Handyperson,” Robin corrected.

The guy laughed. “Yeah, right. Well, I’m a man and I’m a person and I’m handy. What I want to know, is it you I’d be workin’ for?”

“I’d be very surprised if it was.”

“Yeah, me too. ‘Cause I got one ball-buster at home already. I don’t need another.”

The guy called Robin a dike and hung up.

It made her pause and think. She was a master at face-to-face confrontation, but the telephone was a different medium. On the phone, she was either familiar with family or businesslike with business calls. With phone solicitors, she didn’t waste her breath and simply hung up on them. If she was going to make this interview thing work, she’d have to see these people in person.

But not at her house.

Nobody was getting that close until she’d had a chance to screen them. What she’d do was listen to the tape. If there was anyone who sounded remotely acceptable she’d invite them down to Mimi’s early, before the morning rush got going, buy them a cup of coffee and look them over.

That seemed a safe way to do it.

Robin listened to twenty-two messages. Seventeen callers were male, five were female. Six of the calls were obscene, including four in which the creeps were dumb enough to leave their phone numbers, and who’d be hearing soon from Stan Prozanski. Of the remaining calls, Robin picked the two men and two women who most closely sounded as if they’d been raised indoors by actual human beings.

The two men, however, were chosen strictly to provide legal cover. Mimi had told her that the term “handyperson” had been mandated by the newspaper to avoid charges of sex discrimination. So, Mimi had said, while Robin might be excluding half the world’s population in her own mind, it wouldn’t be a bad idea if she gave herself a fig leaf to hide behind publicly.

Robin made her four calls and set up two meetings, one man and one woman, on each of the next two mornings. Who could argue with such an equitable arrangement? Over the phone, one of the men had sounded African-American, and one of the women had a Hispanic surname. More politically correct cover. She only hoped that one of these two broads knew her stuff, was quiet, clean and generally invisible any time Robin was at home.

That night, the cheery TV meteorologist said the cold weather would be back in three days.

Lupe Ayala showed up right on time the next morning and Robin almost hired her on the spot. She was tiny, soft spoken and, from the way she talked, could really do the job. She’d apprenticed in plant maintenance at Procter & Gamble, had been there four years, showed glowing letters of recommendation from all of her superiors, everyone from her immediate supervisor on up to the plant superintendent. She was looking for a new situation because the plant where she worked would be closing.

To each question Robin asked about heating, plumbing and wiring, Lupe shrugged nonchalantly and said, “Oh, suuure. I can do that.”

There was no boastfulness in her manner, just a calm certainty, indeed a sense of polite forbearance, as if Robin had asked if she could tie her shoelaces by herself. Feeling a bit surprised, Robin thought that she might actually like having this little pixie in her basement. Lupe would work her magic, solve Robin’s problems, and she was so small and quiet she probably slept in a matchbox. Just what Robin wanted.

Robin was about to offer her the job when Lupe mentioned Chuey.

“Chuey?” Robin asked. “Is that your boyfriend?”

Lupe giggled.

“He’s my frien’, but no is a boy. Is a pet.”

Not a dog, please, Robin thought. She couldn’t handle barking.

“Chuey’s not a dog, is he? A chihuahua, or something.”

Lupe laughed.

“Oh, no, not a chihuahua. Chuey, he’d eat chihuahuas.”

“What?”

“Chuey a python.”

“A snake?” Robin asked incredulously.

“Only little one,” Lupe said. “Twelve feet. Supposed to be eighteen, but I think Chee-cago too cold for him, stunt his growth.”

Twelve feet seemed plenty big to Robin; she’d heard more than one horror story about exotic snakes that had slithered away from their owners. She imagined going into her park and lurking there in the foliage ... Well, no, that definitely wouldn’t do.

Still, she asked, “Do you keep him in some sort of glass cage, or something?”

Lupe dismissed that notion with a wave of her hand.

“Oh, no. Chuey, he sleep with me.”

Robin tried hard not to cringe.

“Very good for security,” Lupe confided. “Nobody break in, nobody sneak into my bed, they know I got Chuey there.”

Robin didn’t doubt it for a minute.

“Tell you something else, too.” Lupe looked around, leaned forward and dropped her quiet voice to an even more intimate level. “You got boyfrien’? He come on all macho. Say,
‘Mira, Mami,
look what I got for you,’ and whip out his thing. I show him Chuey, say, ‘Lookit what I got already.’ Boyfrien’, unless he hung twelve feet, know he have his work cut out for him.”

Lupe giggled and nodded at the undoubtedly fond memories running through her head. Then she added philosophically, “Ones who run away not real men anyway.”

She said she was going to take her severance pay and open a snake shop. She thought there’d be a big market among the women in town. She also said Chuey was getting lonely with her away all day and could use another snake for company.

Robin thanked Lupe for coming in and said she’d let her know what she’d decided in a few days.

Roger M’Beneka Kikume came into Mimi’s two minutes later. He looked like a smiling ebony god. Six-four and solid muscle, his face chiseled into planes that Rodin would have admired. He would have been an intimidating figure except for the smile, the sparkle in his eyes and the darling little boy he held in his arms.

He politely asked if he might have tea instead of the coffee that Robin offered. He also declined the offer of milk for his son, accepting instead a small glass of ginger ale.

“A lot of people, other than Northern Europeans, are lactose intolerant,” he explained sitting across a table from Robin.

He went on to explain that he’d earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of California.

“UCLA?” Robin asked.

Roger smiled indulgently. “Berkeley.”

“The place where that guy goes to school naked?”

“Yeah, that’s the place,” Roger smiled, gently tilting the glass of soda so his son could drink. “Home of the free speech movement, political correctness and some of the smartest people you’ll ever find anywhere.”

Roger showed Robin several snapshots.

“These are buildings I’ve bought since I returned to Chicago. I was born here, and I want to make my mark here.”

The pictures were of three buildings. Each was immaculately kept inside and out. Roger explained that he and his family did all the work on the properties and while he was self taught he knew everything there was to know about maintaining a building.

Robin was impressed, but the pictures Roger had shown her and the stories he’d related raised an obvious question in her mind.

“If you have all these nice places,” she asked, “and all that education, why would you want a little basement apartment?”

Roger looked her in the eye.

“Right here’s where I need to ask you a delicate question,” he said. “I need to know if you’re prejudiced.”

Robin bristled, and her body language was enough to make Roger raise a hand.

“I don’t mean about the color thing.”

“Then what?”

Roger held up his son. He said, “I never introduced you. This is Patrick Three-Two Kikume.”

Robin sighed. She knew when she was supposed to pick up on a cue.

“Okay, what’s the middle name mean?”

“Wife number three, child number two.”

“You’ve been married three times, and this is the way you keep track?”

“I have three wives, and I’m engaged to number four. That’s who I want the apartment for. I’ll do the work, but she’ll live there.”

“You have three wives ... and you’re about to make it four?” Robin repeated, making sure she had it right.

“Yeah, that’s why I need a fourth home. You keep them under one roof, they start to cycle together, and let me tell you that ain’t pretty. So, Miriam, my fiance, she’ll stay in your apartment until her second pregnancy and by then I should have another building of my own ready for her.”

“Sure,” Robin nodded, “makes perfect sense.”

Roger smiled, happy that she understood.

“Except polygamy’s illegal!”
Robin hissed venomously.

She would have shouted it at the guy if he hadn’t had a little kid in his arms. As it was, Patrick Three-Two suddenly viewed her with alarm. Roger tried explaining he was already suing in federal court, claiming that laws mandating monogamy violated his Constitutional right to practice his ancestral religion. He was sure he would win. In fact, a landlord who denied him occupancy based on cultural bias might herself be subject to legal —

Roger bit his tongue because, at that moment, he looked into Robin’s eyes and recognized what his two-year-old boy had already perceived. This woman was dangerous. Furthermore, they were in her habitat. Best to leave while leave-taking was possible.

Roger M’Beneka Kikume got up, thanked Robin for the tea and ginger ale and quickly carried his second son by his third wife away to safety.

Robin shook her head and got ready for a day of work.

After that start to her morning, Robin was extra snappish with the breakfast crowd, and having heard a weather forecast on the radio that the cold might be back sooner than expected, she was feeling borderline vicious by lunchtime.

Matters weren’t helped when Tone Morello showed up that day with reinforcements. Of the ego variety.

Actually able to read several simple sentences aloud, Tone was a sportscaster for a local network affiliate. His specialty was punctuating his news scripts with appropriate grunts and groans. Whenever any jock in the highlights he narrated suffered a blunt trauma, Tone was on the money with just the right empathetic
aaaargh
or
ooooh
. Blows to the groin were his specialty. He made his viewers feel the pain. For this, Tone was handsomely paid, and, of course, enjoyed numerous fringe benefits. Such as all the cheerleaders — strictly over eighteen years of age, mind you — he could eat.

Of course, being a sports guy, Tone was also highly competitive. He couldn’t let Robin get away with her slander of him. Otherwise, word would get around fast that she’d called him a dinky-dick and he’d never be able to show his face in another locker room or to another camera.

So, today Tone showed up at Mimi’s with two cheerleaders from Chicago’s pro basketball team, a blonde and a redhead, each dressed in skimpy black spandex and featuring T&A from here to there. Given the brevity of their costumes and the relative chill in the air, they displayed endless goose bumps and other points of interest. They clung to Tone’s arms like they’d been sutured there.

Predictably, all the men in the deli enjoyed the spectacle while all the women did not. Feminist Judy Kuykendahl sneered openly. Everybody, however, expected a good show when Tone and friends stepped up to the counter in front of Robin.