Read The Devil Met a Lady for Free Online

eggs.”
    “Dropping bombs?” I guessed.
    She nodded in confirmation. I hadn’t gone to UCLA for two years for nothing.
    “Can I put these in your kitchen?” I asked.
    “Just put those in the kitchen,” she said. “I’m making gumbatz. I can’t stop or it’ll close up.”
    “I wouldn’t want that to happen,” I said, and managed to get a hand loose to open the door.
    “Don’t let Dexter see the box of b-i-r-d-s-e-e-d,” she spelled in a whisper.
    Mrs. Plaut was a firm believer in the secrecy of spelling. It kept not only children and birds from understanding you, but also adults who seemed to turn into children or birds in the presence of Mrs. Plaut. She had been known to engage in secret spelling in the presence of my friend and fellow boarder, Gunther Wherthman. Now, Gunther may be less than a yard high, but he is over forty and speaks six languages fluently.
    “I won’t,” I whispered, and headed through the open door to Mrs. Plaut’s downstairs rooms.
    Mrs. Plaut’s living room, which she called her sitting room, was overstuffed and doilied. A bird cage holding Dexter stood near the window. Dexter hopped around a little, looked in my direction with his head cocked—probably to be sure I didn’t have Dash with me—and began chirping to himself.
    In Mrs. Plaut’s kitchen I placed the bags on the table, fished out my milk, coffee, bananas, Rice Krispies, Wheaties, and Hydrox cream-filled cookies. I cradled them awkwardly in my arms and set back out for the hallway in the hope that I could make it up the stairs and to my room before Mrs. Plaut completed mashing her gumbatz and came up with another chore for me.
    I didn’t make it. I almost never make it. She stood blocking her doorway, bowl in one hand, wooden spoon in the other. The spoon pointed at me, accusingly.
    “You have not returned my last chapter,” she said. “The one about Grandma Teller and the peddler.”
    “I’ll have it back soon,” I said. “I’m on a very important job, government, top secret.”
    “Tomorrow will be fine,” she said. “I have removed your rent from the shoe in your closet.”
    “You are a considerate woman,” I said, feeling the bottle of milk starting to slide through my fingers. “Now, if—”
    “And I’ve taken the milk bottles you were hoarding.”
    “Thanks.”
    “But not your pennies.”
    “Thank you.”
    “I suggest you stop chatting and get up to your room before you drop that milk.”
    She stepped out of the way and let me pass. I made my way up the stairs, moving slowly, fearing the shattering loss of milk. No milk, no cereal, nothing to dip my Hydrox cookies in.
    I made it to my room and pushed open the door. It wasn’t locked. There was no point in locking it against Mrs. Plaut, who had a passkey and to whom privacy was a sin. I trusted the other tenants. At the moment, there were just three of us: me, Mr. Hill the mailman who got drunk every New Year’s and sang at Mrs. Plaut’s party, and Gunther. Gunther had the room next to mine where he worked translating technical documents, reports, and occasionally fiction into English from the languages he spoke and read.
    Gunther was the best-dressed man of any size I have ever met. Gunther was the essence of dignity. Gunther was now also in love and seldom in the room next to mine, where he should have been working.
    The object of Gunther’s affection was a toothpick of a graduate student in art history from San Francisco. Her name was Gwen. Gwen was serious, scholarly, and almost two feet taller than Gunther. They were inseparable. Since it made Gunther happy, I hoped they stayed that way.
    I dropped my groceries on the bed in the corner. Each night, when I slept at home, I pulled the mattress to the floor to keep it firm under my tender back. The first time my back had gone out had been at a movie premiere when a large Negro gentleman had given me an unfriendly hug. I was moonlighting for M.G.M., trying to protect Mickey Rooney from