Fred was being consoled by Mrs. Abernathy or some other of his lady friends so Dean spent the evening alone with the sound of a little early Nat King Cole trio, vintage forties. It was a sweet instrumental sound, recorded long before the popular velvet voice replaced Cole's beautiful jazz. He munched on a leftover casserole some thoughtful neighbor had donated to poor hero Fred and was about to doze when the telephone startled Mrs. Lincoln from his lap.
"Mr. O'Connor there?" It was an elderly woman. Dean didn't recognize the voice.
"I'm sorry, he's out," Dean answered, feeling like a social secretary.
"Well, tell him Mrs. Glass called." She started to hang up before Dean fairly yelled for her to wait.
"I didn't realize it was you, Mrs. Glass. I'm the other man who was with Mr. O'Connor."
"What?" she asked. Dean repeated at a higher volume.
"Oh." She sounded disappointed. "Well, you told me to call if Mr. Cleary came back."
"And he did?"
"Yes. I didn't see him but he telephoned...to tell me he was finished with the apartment. He said he mailed me the key to the new lock."
"Did he give you his forwarding address?" Dean found himself yelling.
"No. We were sort of cut off before I could ask for one."
"Did he say anything else?"
She paused. "Well, he surely was surprised people were asking for him."
"You told him we came by?"
"Certainly. Why not?"
"Shit!" Dean said, not caring if she heard him or not. He added, "You said yes when I asked if he came back but you didn't see him?"
"I saw his motor home when I went to lunch with Rose O'Brien. She and I always go out on Friday. That's 20 percent off day for seniors."
Dean asked her about the motor home but she could give little information except to say it was boxy looking and blue...or white...or light colored. "How do you know it belonged to Mr. Cleary?" Dean asked.
"I don't know who else," she replied, as if that made perfect sense.
Beautiful, thought Dean. Just beautiful. If Cleary didn't want to be located, any chance of Dean doing so now he knew someone was looking for him would be next to impossible.
"When did he call?" he asked, trying to salvage something from the conversation.
"This afternoon. To tell the truth, I didn't think I'd ever hear from him. I thought he might want a refund on his unused rent, not that I'd have given it to him, but he didn't even ask."
Dean thanked her and was about to hang up but she insisted he tell that nice Mr. O'Connor she had called and would hold him to his promise to stop by and see her.