“I haven’t seen him,” I told her. I don’t lie a lot, no reason to, and it grated on me. “How’s the leg?”
Maddy seemed happy with the progress she was making, but bored as hell with only getting up to be taken in a wheelchair to the bathroom. “And these women are awful,” she said, trying to whisper, which was not natural for Maddy. “They treat me like I got a social disease.”
I handed her some things I’d bought at the drugstore: two magazines with pictures of Hollywood actors and Russian royalty and their doings, and a bag of candy. She said she was glad to get ’em. “Not much of a reader,” Maddy confessed, which didn’t surprise me. “But anything’s better than staring at the walls, watching the nurses, and listening to that woman over there.” Maddy inclined her head to her right. “She bitches nonstop.”
I glanced over to see a gray-haired woman with her arm in a sling and bruises all over her face. Her mouth was drawn tight with either ill humor or pain or both.
“Does anyone come to see her?”
“No, and no wonder.” Maddy’s voice had started to rise.
I shook my head, and she looked contrite. “Well, it’s true,” she muttered.
No point in a range war, with the two beds side by side. “Give her your magazines when you’re through with ’em.”
“That’ll keep her quiet for a while. Listen, that Harriet Ritter came by this morning.”
“What did she want?”
“She told me Iron Hand is picking up my hospital bill,” Maddy said. “So I asked the nurse today, and she checked, and sure enough, it’s taken care of.”
We looked at each other with matching expressions of huge relief.
“I’m really glad,” I said from my heart.
“Me too. And she wanted to know where Rogelio was. She said she’d stopped by his lodging, but he’d left early this morning after breakfast.”
“I guess she’s out looking. Maybe wants to pay his doctor bill, too.”
“So, that’s good!” Maddy was glad for their good fortune.
“It is.” They’d save money on Rogelio.
I couldn’t think of any other chitchat to share with Maddy, and now that she was rid of the worst of her anxiety, she was much more cheerful about the world in general. I left her as she opened the first magazine.
Eli had been to the telegraph office and was back in our room when I unlocked the door. He had had a shower, and that seemed like such a good idea after the hard morning spent in the heat with Rogelio. I pulled off my sweaty, stained clothes and tossed them in a corner. Maybe the maid could take the blouse and skirt to the laundry. Eli smiled at me before I vanished into the bathroom. I marveled every time at the luxury of having it, a private bathroom in a hotel.
I wondered if he might join me, but as I toweled myself dry I peeked into the bedroom to see he was fast asleep. Torturing Rogelio had probably drained him. A nap seemed like a very good idea. I stretched out beside him.
When I woke, it was two hours later by the little clock on the bedside table. Eli was still asleep, and I carefully rolled onto my side to look at him. While he slept, his mouth fell open just a little. I admired his white, even teeth. He needed to shave again; there were tiny bristles showing on his cheeks and chin.
This was a good moment. I added it to my little room of good moments.
* * *
It was time to eat, and since (again) we’d only had ice cream for lunch, I was very hungry. I gathered together my soiled clothes, intending to stop at the desk on our way out and ask that they be laundered. I was sullen, I admit, at having to put on the clean blouse and skirt and the damn hose.
Eli was stirring by the time I brushed my hair. He got dressed in about half the time. He added his dirty clothes to my bundle, and we set it in the middle of the bed. “Are you as hungry as I am?” he said, and I nodded.
Nellie Mercer was on duty at the desk, which made me want to walk right by, but Eli was made of sterner stuff. The woman actually jumped when he spoke to her. “Miss Mercer, we left some clothes that need laundering on our bed. Can you send one of the maids to pick them up? And if we could have them back by late tomorrow, that would be most welcome.” Eli didn’t smile.
“I don’t know why Daddy lets you stay here,” Nellie hissed. “After what you done to me, and to Harvey. He was just trying to…”
Harvey must be Intended.
“Make a fool out of himself,” I said in a real low voice. “Miss Mercer, you need to learn something. If you’re smart, you leave grigoris alone.” Of course, she wasn’t smart, or she’d never have touched Eli’s vest. Had she been told to spy? Or was she simply curious about something unknown and forbidden? Either way, she’d paid for it in humiliation.
Nellie Mercer gave me a look that would have made my hair fall out, if she’d had any magical ability at all.
As we walked out of the hotel, I said, “I hope our clothes don’t come back with holes all in them.”
Eli and I went out to the closest café, the one where we’d seen the Iron Hand people with Rogelio. We were led to a booth, and he slid in beside me, not across as I’d expected. We were both facing the door that way.
The menu offered a choice between two meats and a long list of vegetables. I got speckled butter beans and squash and chicken-fried steak, and Eli ordered corn and snap beans and fried chicken. Our orders came with a basket of corn bread and a lot of butter, which the waitress brought before the food. It was great. Hard to eat corn bread neatly, but I tried.
Eli’s eyes closed in happiness as he chewed. “Can you make this?”
“I can.”
“This good?”
“Yes.”
He got ready to say something else, but then he didn’t.
I didn’t coax Eli to speak, but I did wonder what he was thinking.
Then Harriet Ritter and Travis Seeley came in and headed right for our booth, though the restaurant was only scattered with diners. Were they going to interrupt every meal we had?
The answer was yes. Without asking, the two Iron Hand employees scooted opposite us. “You seen Rogelio anywhere?” Harriet asked.
“No, not in a while.” The red-haired waitress slid my plate over to me and put Eli’s in front of him, moving real quick and light. I looked up at her to say thanks. She gave me a stiff nod back, but when Eli thanked her also, the waitress hurried away as fast as she could scoot.
“Did you need Rogelio for something?” I asked, cutting up my chicken-fried steak. I hardly needed a knife, it was so tender. Yum. Though a lot of things in Dixie disgusted me, the food was just this side of divine.
“He hinted he had some things to tell us,” Travis said. He sure had a level voice. You couldn’t tell how he was feeling. I kind of liked that.
“Like what?” Eli said, after he’d had his first bite of fried chicken with gravy.
“Like why the chest got stolen and who might have it.”
I could have told them he didn’t know, or only suspected—but that information was for us, because we’d done the work to get it.
“We have a meeting tonight with an unknown subject,” Eli told them.
If I was surprised, and I was—a little warning would have been welcome—Harriet and Travis were just about dumb with shock. “Why are you telling us this?” Harriet said. “Do you want us to do something about it?”