Sequence of Events (part ten)

Sequence of Events

Chapter Two

Mud in Your Eye

ii.

Following her down Mrs. Chamberlain’s stairs, had come a voice.

“Why don’t you forget this place and take a walk with me? It’s a public street.” The echo of his shoes died, and he was next to her, adding with a compressed little smile, “You can always call a cop.”

And as they had walked and talked, Freda began to take Martin Bruner up. He was young, yet premature in world-weariness, shabby in things costing little of trouble: his shoes unshined, his shirt sagging over his belt. He had an appealing habit of looking at her sideways, tipping up his hat brim, as though she might have darted off.

She read these signs, and found herself believing in him. She tore her address from an electric bill, in arrears, the company regretting to inform her that she must settle matters in person at their downtown office…

“I’m alone right now, so come get me when you like.”

She saw him blink, embarrassed.

Good. She kicked herself for such words escaping, and on a half-turn blurted: “Well, chin to the grindstone! Ta-ta!”

“There is a shabby chap, behind the wheel of a motor-car, tootling at the curb. Is this your boyfriend, Freda?”

“Mr. Bruner has hired me to do a job.”

“Tsk,” Phillip said.

She threw on her coat, swinging fists left and right through the sleeves. No time for the fixing of her hat…or why delay leaving Phillip to the mercy of Mrs. Ruald, by taking it? With the barest of clearances between herself and the door, she tried to efface Phillip from sight.

He reached over her head, pulled the door wide, and came out on her heels. Bruner with reluctant body language stood holding the passenger door.

“Mrs. Murchison has a husband. That would be the present speaker. I hope you don’t find your plans disarranged by the news.”

In a rooted silence, they bumped down outer streets of brick and bungalows, until Bruner sat up, addressed her as “ma’am”, and began Freda’s training.

“They don’t have to say why,” he told her, of his clients. “If they need something taken out of a room, let’s say. They want me to follow someone, get a picture of him going in a hotel, maybe. I don’t stick on manners… I hope you get me. I won’t ask you to break the law.”

Is that what we’re doing? Because I will, for the money. As long as you’re good and we don’t get caught.

He stopped and laid on the horn, taking his eyes from her face a moment late. A lorry was moving towards them, rear first. A workman riding a crate winged a banana peel, splat onto Bruner’s windscreen.

10

A Personal Choice

Sequence of Events (part one)

(Stephanie Foster, 2017, 2021, 2026)