Rachel Alexander 03 - A Hell of a Dog

but it didn’t work out. The reconciliation was a flop.”
    I sat there saying nothing, just looking at him long enough for human beings to crawl out of the sea, stand upright, and invent no-iron cotton.
    “Why didn’t you just say so?” I finally asked.
    “I’ve been trying to, Rachel, since Sunday. You kept interrupting me or running away. Three months after the divorce, I moved back in. But it was all wrong. We both knew it. Ellen’s thinking of moving back to California, to be near her family. That’s why I took this job, so that I could give her the money to help her with the move. Sometimes—” he whispered, “whenever I saw you, Rachel, I—”
    I reached out to pull him close. It seems I’d waited forever for this moment.
    That’s when I heard the knock. Well, it was more like banging. Only it wasn’t on Chip’s door. It was on mine, next door. It was Sam. I could hear her calling my name.
    We jumped up and ran to the door, pulling it open at the same moment my door opened.
    “What? What is it? Why you wake Boris?” He stood there scratching his hairy stomach, which was sticking out of his open shirt.
    Woody was already in the hallway, standing next to Sam.
    But his hair was wet. And he wasn’t wearing what he’d worn at the poker game.
    I walked into the hall and looked past Boris to see if Bucky were there, but it was only Boris. He was the only rat that hadn’t deserted the stinking ship.
    Sam looked at me, then at Chip, then back at me.
    “What is it?” I asked her.
    But she didn’t answer me. What the hell was going on? I wondered. Had she made all this fuss just to tell me she’d finally found Mr. Wright?
    But her cheeks weren’t flushed. Even with makeup on, she looked as if she needed a transfusion.
    “Someone else is dead.” Her voice was barely above a whisper now. “They’ve just found the body.”
    “Who? Who’s dead?”
    Sam turned away. I saw her shoulders shaking.
    Woody reached out and took my hand in both of his.
    “It’s Martyn,” he said.
    I pulled away and began to shake my head, as if saying no could make this nightmare go away.
    “How?” Chip asked.
    “Suicide.”
    “No way,” I said. “You can’t be serious.”
    “Unfortunately, I am. The porter found him on the sidewalk as he was coming in a little while ago.”
    “Why he do that?” Boris asked.
    Sam faced us again, wiping her eyes with the heels of her hands, smearing her mascara onto her temples. “The police are on the way. Let’s get downstairs. I’m sure they’ll have questions, particularly for those of you who were at the poker game.”
    She turned and headed for the elevator, Woody on one side, Boris on the other in his stocking feet.
    I started to pull Chip’s door closed, but he stopped me, pointing to his bare feet. We stood for a moment in the hallway, looking into each other’s eyes, neither of us saying a word. Then he went inside for his shoes, and we headed downstairs to wait for the police.



KEEP YOUR DAY JOB, I TOLD HIM

    W ho had opened her door when I was coming back with the ice? Had that been Cathy, hoping it was Martyn, even though she knew there was another baby on the way at home in England? Had he managed to explain that away too, the way he’d explained away Graeme and Sheila and his wife, sitting with Cathy during Rick’s last talk and laying it on with a steam shovel?
    Sam, Woody, and Boris were nowhere in sight. I heard a siren in the distance, but I couldn’t be sure if it was coming our way. There were so many accidents in the city.
    I grabbed Chip’s hand as he reached for the elevator button.
    “I need a favor. I need the key to Martyn’s room, or better yet, a passkey. The passkey would be in the office. I have a feeling that the old man won’t be at his post, but out front where all the excitement is. Just have a lie ready, in case the old coot should come back and catch you in the office, which he probably won’t.”
    Chip was looking at me as if he’d never seen me before, as if I were some stranger who had grabbed his hand in the hallway of a hotel and was in the middle of telling him some fantastic tale.
    “Don’t get too fancy. He’s really gullible. You can tell him you were looking for a phone, to call the police. Tell him anything. Just get me the key and meet me at Martyn’s room. I have something I have to do first.”
    I started for the stairs and then remembered something else. “403I said. “If you get there first,