The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell Read Free Book Online

lowly and as dull as Bernard Crenshaw.
    “Oh, but I meant to ask . . . you didn’t go and blab about your job to Lenny, did you, Rose?”
    “No,” I replied cautiously. I knew where this tack was going. The friendly feeling I’d had just seconds before was already passing, as though a tiny sun had come out to warm my skin and was now tucking itself back away behind some clouds, leaving me colder than before.
    “Good. You can’t expect to charm a fella much by talking about typing in a police precinct! You might bend his ear a bit with the gruesome bits, but it’s not exactly
feminine,
you know, all that business. Gotta always remember to guard your feminine mystique, or what have you.” She paused as if deciding to hold her tongue, but the desire to restrain herself crumbled away quickly (as it so often did for Helen), and she pressed on with the terrible tirade of what she often liked to call
kind-spirited advice
. “And I wouldn’t take it personally if Lenny didn’t fancy you; his brother says he’s very particular. Likes his girls to look like Mae Murray and all that.” I heard her sigh again and roll over. “Don’t worry, Rose. You’re a sweet girl, and I’m sure there’s plentya fellas that go for that sorta line, too.” I knew she was succumbing to sleep as her true Brooklyn accent—an accent I rarely heard—was beginning to present itself. Her face went into the pillow and the next part was a bit muffled, but I think it was, “Next time we’ll just have to gussy you up good an’ right.”
    My only reply to Helen was an indignant silence that she utterly failed to register as she dropped almost instantly into a deep sleep and began snoring with surprising guttural force. The warm feeling I’d had toward Helen was definitely gone, along with any trace notion of sisterhood that still lingered stupidly in my head. Of course, it was easy to have thought as much at the time. By that very next Monday Odalie had arrived in my life, swathed in all her fashionable clothes and dark mystery. And unlike Helen, Odalie’s influence turned out to be much more difficult to get out from under.

3
    O ur precinct is located in a very dank and humid old brick building. I am told that it is one of a small handful of buildings still standing in Manhattan that date from the time of the Dutch settlement and was originally intended to serve as some sort of storehouse for grain and cattle. I do not know whether this alleged architectural history of the building is accurate, but I do know that the brick walls are often wet with condensation and it is filled with the kind of humidity that does very little to keep a body warm. None of its windows receive the benefit of direct sunlight; instead they are filled with the kind of steady indirect light particular to dense urban spaces. As a result, the whole precinct is filled all day long with a somewhat eerie greenish glow, deepening the initial impression that you are either immersed in one great fish tank or else caught between several walls of them.
    There is also a distinctly heady, air-thickening odor that pervades the place. In all my time working at the precinct and observing its characteristics, I have arrived at the conclusion that this odor is the scent of alcohol perspiring through the body’s many pores. There is something very unique about the smell of whiskey or gin or whatnot souring on a person’s breath, hair, and skin. You would think, perhaps, that this odor would come and go along with the varieties and quantities of men who import it, like a tide washing in and out. And indeed, the potency of the scent does wax and wane to some extent, but there is always a certain trace of it—however faint—that remains in our presence on a permanent basis.
    Don’t misunderstand me. I am actually quite fond of my job, and I have come to develop a sense of familiarity and loyalty for the precinct’s environs. But usually when an outsider arrives, we are, all of