Lyle's intruder

October 15, 1922 Sunday

Lyle sat up groggily and reached for his cell phone. His hand came back from the chair by his bed with a silver plated pocket watch that he couldn’t read in the dark. "I need a bedside table and a lamp" he mumbled He got up and stumbled towards the bathroom, he could hear someone moving around in there, in his sleepy state he thought of Vicky. The light over the tub was on and a woman was sitting in his tub. “Vicky? What are you . . . ?” A scream interrupted him, and brought him fully awake.

“Who are you?!” What are you doing here?!” A woman with a towel around her hair and some sort of mask on her face looked up at him wide eyed from a tub full of soapy bubbles.”

“I am Lyle, this is my apartment. What are YOU doing?”

“This is Claude's apartment and I am Daisy, his girlfriend. Get out!!.”

Lyle stared at the woman for a few seconds then turned toward the door. “Get dressed and get out here, I have questions.”

“You have questions!!” Daisy sputtered. Lyle closed the door and turned on the kitchen light, he saw a key laying on the table. He picked it up on his way to the bedroom. He turned that light on too. If anyone else was lurking about he wanted to see them. He was just fastening his pants when the bedroom door opened. Daisy walked in wrapped in a towel. Her face without the beauty mask was pink with a line of freckles across her nose and cheeks, reddish blonde hair peeked from under the towel still wrapping her head.

“What do you think you are doing?!” Lyle almost shouted at her. She ignored him and opened the wardrobe.

“I need clean clothes.” she stopped and stared into the wardrobe, all that was there was Lyle’s three extra shirts and two pairs of pants and his jacket. She turned slowly to face Lyle, a look of total confusion on her face. “Where are my clothes? And where is Claude?” she clenched her jaw as tears formed in her eyes.

Lyle felt a kinship with her, she just had her world shift abruptly. He spoke softly. “Go put on the clothes you were wearing when you came in. I’ll make some coffee, we can talk.” She nodded mutely and returned to the bathroom, closing the door firmly.

Lyle plugged in the hot plate and sat the coffee pot on it. He was glad he had filled it with water the night before, because the only sink was in the bathroom.

When she came out wearing a rumbled, stained, sleeveless dress he had coffee ready and a couple of potatoes peeled, he went to the bathroom sink to rinse them off, while daisy looked through the jumble of mismatched cups and found one familiar to her, she filled it with fresh coffee and sat down at the table. Lyle quickly sliced the potatoes into the skillet and set them on the hot plate. He chose one of the cups, poured himself a cup, sat down across from Daisy, and added honey to his coffee. He waited a few more moments to give her plenty of time to gather herself, when she finally looked up at him he asked “Do you want some milk? I don’t have any cream.”

“Yes please” She sighed deeply. Lyle poured some milk into another mug and slid it over to her, and dug around for a spoon. She gave him a half smile when he sat back down. “Where’s Claude?”

“I don’t know, I just arrived in St. Louis yesterday and rented this apartment.”

“Who gave you reference to Mrs. Smith?”

“Bobby Barone, we met at the train station in Cincinnati, and he hired me to drive a car home from the station here.”

“Bobby Barone, uh, Did they say anything about Claude?”

“No, I was just told that their regular driver was unavailable and that Porter Jones recommended me so I helped them out.” Lyle sipped his coffee and added more honey, he was becoming more wary of the way people referred to Claude and wondering what he was getting himself into. “Was Claude their driver?”

“He was, he started working with them around 1913, and was pretty tight with Bobby, until about six months ago they had a serious falling out. Lenny even threatened Claude. Then it seemed to blow over and he was back to his old fun loving self again until last week.”

“What happened last week?”

“He came back from a day of working with Lenny and Bobby all jumpy and sober. He suggested that I go spend some time with my mother and sister across the river in Illinois, and seemed nervous when he took me to the bus station. I was going to stay another week but When I called to talk to him on Friday Mrs. Smith said he wasn’t here and she didn’t know when he was coming back. He didn’t call back by Saturday afternoon so I got a bus ticket and came back. I looked for him at his favorite club but he wasn’t there and no one had seen him, but Eugene said he should be back early this morning so I decided to just come here, get cleaned up and wait for him.”

“I don’t think that Mrs. Smith would rent out his apartment if she thought he was coming back, do you?”

Daisy stirred more milk into her coffee and took a long sip. Then simply stared off into space, when she spoke again Lyle could barely hear her. “No I don’t think she would.” tears formed again in her eyes and this time they spilled over. Lyle refilled their cups and left her alone with her thoughts.

Lyle placed a plate of eggs and fried potatoes in front of Daisy, “Eat, decisions are more easily made on a full stomach.” Daisy started out of her revelry, wiped her eyes, smiled wanly, and reached for the pepper shaker, the bottom fell out of it. The next thing Lyle knew was there was a cloud of pepper in his nose and he was sneezing profusely. He stumbled into the bathroom and grabbed some toilet paper blowing his nose.

“What are you doing? That’s not a good idea!” Daisy turned in her chair and called after him.

Lyle rubbed a wad of toilet paper across his nostrils. “Ouch” he rubbed again. It hurt worse and he thought that his nose might be bleeding.

“Stop! Don’t rub only dab,” Daisy yelled at him, “You are going to get splinters in your nose!”

“Splinters!!” Lyle gingerly touched his nose and it was bleeding. How did one get splinters from toilet paper? He looked down at the wad in his hand. It did indeed have little pieces of wood stuck in it. He frowned and started to rub his nose again. Daisy handed him a washcloth and he held that to his nose until the bleeding stopped.

“Come on, let's eat, just don’t rub it any more.” Lyle washed his hands and went to the table. They ate in silence, Lyle's nose twitching and hurting. Someone knocked on the door. Lyle opened the door to Willy standing there looking uncomfortable and shifting from foot to foot.

“I need to talk to you.” he said slowly

“Ok, come in.” Lyle opened the door wider and stepped to the side.

“Daisy, I thought you left with Claude!” Willy stared at Lyle’s guest, “I can come back later if you want.”

“No, stay, what did you mean, you thought I left with Claude? Where did he go?” Daisy turned in her chair and faced the boy.

“I don’t know, I heard Mr. Lenny tell him to disappear before it was permanent, and Paul saw you both at the bus station last Monday and nobody has seen him or you since.”

Daisy’s face paled, “Where did he go?” she said softly into the room. Lyle figited and rubbed his nose.

“Your nose is bleeding. What did you do to it? It’s all red too.”

“I blew it on some toilet paper and got some splinters in it, I think.” Lyle sat down on the couch, his shoulders slumped. “Do you know anybody that has some tweezers?”

“Ida has some, she pulls out her eyebrows with them, I’ll go get her.” Willy ran out the door and down the stairs.

Daisy stood, “I guess if Ida is up I’ll go get some clean clothes.”

Lyle shook his head, then regretted it when the throbbing in his nose increased. He thought over the last few days and all the changes that he had gone through. “I didn’t sign up for this," he said aloud to the empty room. He lay back and put his head on one arm of the couch and feet on the other and waited for Ida to come help him out again. He didn’t want to be dependent on her or any one else really but he was at a disadvantage with splinters up his nose.

Lyle opened his eyes when he heard footsteps coming towards him. Ida walked over to him carrying a pair of tweezers and a flashlight. “Would you like me to help you or do you want to try to get them yourself?”

“THEM, how many are there?”

Ida shone the light in his face and he closed his eyes again. “I don’t think that there are more than three.”

“Ok, just get them out.”

“At least they're not in your bum.” Willy leaned against the couch at his feet. Lyle laughed and was rewarded with a jab of the tweezers.

“Hold still, Willy, go find something else to do for a while.”

“I can’t, Daisy is using the room right now.”

“Go buy me a newspaper or two.” Lyle held out some change and felt the boy take a coin from his hand, and heard his footsteps fade down the stairs. Lyle attempted to put the change back in his pocket without moving his head but dropped most of it onto the floor.

“Wait there is only one more.” Lyle held his breath while Ida pulled the last of the offensive pieces of wood out of his nose.

“Thank you again, I seem to be in your debt ever since I arrived here. Do you know Daisy?”

“Yes, she is our roommate, but the last few months she has been spending a lot of time up here with Claude. When Mrs. Smith started cleaning out his stuff, I snuck in and got her clothes and things. Some people said they moved but she only took a few things and I don’t think Claude took anything at all. It doesn't feel right.” Ida picked up the dirty dishes and stacked them on the counter.

“You don’t have to do that, I’ll get it later, I’m sure you have other things to do today.”

“I do, I need to finish up some ironing so Willy can deliver it this afternoon.” Ida walked through the doorway, then turned back, opened her mouth to say something else then changed her mind and closed the door. Lyle sat back on the couch. He was still dazed over all that had happened over the past few days, suddenly he was very tired. There was a knock on the door and Willy walked in closing the door behind him.

“I got you two papers.” Willy handed him his papers. “Can I read the cartoons?”

“Sure, let’s spread them out on the table and see what we’ve got.” Lyle opened the first paper, it covered nearly all of the table. He turned to the icebox, “would you like a coke?”

“Yeah, I mean, yes please.” Willy settled himself in the other chair at the table and started looking for the cartoon page.” Lyle smiled at the boy, he was glad that their paths crossed. He dug around in the wash basin full of utensils for a bottle opener. “There’s an opener on the wall over there.”

“Thank you Willy,” Lyle opened two bottles of coke and handed one to Willy and sat down. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Oh, you land on your feet.”

Lyle grinned, he felt like he was still staggering. “When you first arrived this morning you said that you wanted to talk to me. What about?”

Will took a big drink, and set the bottle on the table, and turned it in his fingers, staring at it for a few seconds then sighed. “Mr. Carter: You know yesterday when you handed me two coins to get ice.”

“Yes, you said you needed fifty cents, so I gave you two quarters.”

Willy squirmed a little then reached into his pocket and brought out three coins one was a little larger than the other two, and laid them on the table. “Actually you gave me two silver dollars, I thought about keeping it but I felt terrible every time I thought about it, so I came to give the change back.” Lyle looked at the coins then intently into the boy’s eyes. He couldn’t be more than nine or ten, and yet he was more solid than men three times his age.

“That is real manly of you, why don’t you call me Lyle, that’s what my friends call me.”

The boy sighed with relief and grinned widely, “Thank you so much Lyle.” He finished his coke, “Where do you want me to put the bottle?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet. We’ll just put it on the counter for now. Do you have deliveries to do today?”

“Yes, I better go.” he jumped up from the table spilling papers all over the floor”

“Don’t worry about it, go on before Ida comes looking for you.”

He ran out of the door calling out, “see you later Lyle”.

Lyle’s stomach growled, he looked up from the paper he was reading and noticed the angle of the light coming in the window. He reached for his cellphone and picked up his watch and sighed. It was 2:00 in the afternoon, he had been reading for hours. He didn’t feel like cooking and thought it would be good to walk down the street alone to get a feel of the neighborhood. He started down the hall and almost ran into an elderly woman coming down the stairs from the third floor. “Young man, will you put this in the mail box on the counter for me? It needs to go out in tomorrow's mail.” Lyle took the envelope and headed down the stairs. He carefully read the return address before placing it in the outgoing box on the counter. He stepped out to the sidewalk, traffic was light, his house was on the edge of a residential area, he could see store fronts a few blocks away, confident that he would get lost, he headed downtown. He got a sandwich and soup with iced tea for eighty cents at the lunch counter of a large department store. Among other things he bought some locks for the inside of his door, just to be safe he bought three, one for each door. He was not going to wake up with someone else in his bathroom tomorrow.