Tight Lines by William G. Tapply Read Free Book Online

eyes in Donald’s direction. “Can we talk somewhere?”
    “Sure. I guess. Come on.”
    She turned and I followed her into a corridor. She stopped where it opened into a stairwell. She fumbled a pack of cigarettes from her shirt pocket, got one lit, blew a plume of smoke at the ceiling, and said, “Look. I’m sorry about that back there. I’m behind in my studies, everybody’s air conditioners are on the blink, and Johnny Costello is on my case. Okay?”
    I smiled. “No problem.”
    “So you wanted to talk to me?”
    I nodded. “I’m trying to contact Mary Ellen Ames. She lives in this building. I’m her mother’s attorney. Susan Ames. She’s got cancer. They give her maybe a month. She and her daughter have been estranged for eleven years, and Susan is very anxious to see Mary Ellen. There’s the matter of the estate, which is substantial and complex. And mainly, I think Susan just wants to give her daughter a hug before she goes.”
    As I spoke I watched the angry tension drain away from Jill Costello’s face. Her mouth softened, and a glisten of tears doused the angry flames in her pale blue eyes.
    “Ah, shit,” she mumbled. “Ah, that sucks. Damn.”
    I touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry if…”
    She wiped her wrist across her eyes. “No, see…” She snuffled into her shirtsleeve. “Ah, nuts.” She looked up at me. “I’m just kinda strung out these days.” She cleared her throat. “Actually, the truth is, my mom died a little over a year ago. She had a stroke. The doctors said she was gonna be okay, and I was in the middle of exams, preoccupied with Johnny, and so when—when she died, here I was in Boston, and her in some crummy hospital in Philadelphia, and I—I never even got to say good-bye to her.”
    Then the tears spilled out of her eyes. “Ah, dammit. Jeez,” she muttered. She leaned her forehead against my chest. I patted her back awkwardly. Her arms snaked around my waist and she pressed herself against me. I could feel her shaking and shuddering. I hugged her against me and let her cry.
    After a minute or two she snorted and stood back from me. “Thanks for the hug,” she said huskily. “Boy, it’s been a long time since I had one of them.”
    “My pleasure.”
    “I thought I was all over that.”
    “It speaks well for you that you’re not.”
    “You touched a nerve. Pretty obviously. God, I wouldn’t wish something like that on anybody. You live with the guilt forever, I guess. You know, I keep thinking if I’d only gotten there, maybe she wouldn’t have died. Or at least she wouldn’t have died alone. And your friend. Not seeing her daughter all these years, and knowing she’s going to die…”
    “Do you know her?”
    “Miz Ames?” She looked up at the ceiling. “I guess I’d recognize her. I’ve fixed a couple things in her place, but not when she was there. No, I couldn’t say I knew her.”
    “Well, I really need to talk to her. I’ve been calling, and all I get is her machine. The post office has stopped leaving her mail because she hasn’t been taking it from her box. Neither of your security men has seen her for over a week.” I reached for her and touched her arm. “Can you help me?”
    She looked up at me. Her blue eyes were not icy now. “You want to go up, check out her place, is that it?”
    “Yes. Can we?”
    She narrowed her eyes for a moment. Then she said, “Screw the rules. Let’s go.”
    She took a final drag on her cigarette then ground it out under her sneaker on the marble floor. She took my hand and led me back toward the lobby. Suddenly she stopped. “God,” she said. “I just had this awful thought.”
    “What?”
    “What if—what if there’s a body up there?”
    I smiled at her. “Don’t be silly,” I said.
    But I’d been having the same thought myself.

7
    W E GOT INTO THE elevator at the back of the lobby. It was one of the old-fashioned kind, with accordion barred doors that had to be opened and closed