There was an Old Woman Read Online Free Page A

goes down to the library to have a nap. He’s got an office around the corner on King, but I guess they don’t let him sleep there.” I looked around at a few of the other customers, who appeared to be close to that happy state.
    There was a fug of warmth and cigarette smoke in the air that both cheered and relaxed me. I didn’t blame old Rupe either. Even staring into his last glass, at least he knew where he stood and that was something. Rupe looked like he’d just told himself a joke.
    Over behind the bar, a woman with red curls baked into her head was filling glasses from the draft tap for the solitary waiter, dangling a cigarette and squinting over her glasses at the Toronto paper. Wherever you lit up in this pub was the “Smoking Area.” A nice arrangement for everybody except a few of us reformed sinners.
    â€œI ain’t seen you in here before, Mr. Cooperman,” the waiter said, looking over my head at the door. “You celebrating the death of a rich relative?”
    â€œDoes it take a death to get customers in here?”
    â€œAw, we got enough business. You stay and see the lunch-hour traffic. We get the overflow from the Mansion House. And the nights! You wouldn’t believe.” The waiter’s flushed and pock-marked face was familiar. I’d seen that blowzy nose on St. Andrew Street for years, without ever knowing where it belonged. He should have worn a plaque on his chest that read: “I’ve been serving drinks to the thirsty and taking no guff since1952.”
    â€œI’ll remember that,” I said, returning to the here and now.
    â€œBut to hear Ev talk, you’d swear we hadn’t had a customer for peanuts since Easter.” I glanced at the redhead reading her paper behind the bar. She had the concentration of a proofreader.
    â€œNaw,” the waiter continued, as though I was giving him an argument, “I’ve seen pubs of all sorts and this is making a living. What I meant before, Mr. Cooperman, is you must be off your trap-line. Never saw you in here,like I said.” He placed a third draft in the centre of my collection of beer rings on the Formica table.
    â€œI was doing some exploring in the alley,” I said. “Wanted to see where Liz Oldridge lived. I was at the inquest over at the court-house.”
    â€œOld Liz?” he said, the grin showing his fillings. “She was a real ringa-dang-doo in her day, was Liz.”
    â€œHow do you mean?”
    â€œWhen she was younger, she used to keep a bunch of young boys on her place, looking after it and all. Orphans, some of ’em, and nobody looked too close at what was happening besides spring cleaning.”
    â€œThat must have been a long time ago. I just saw inside the house.”
    â€œOh, yeah. Police had to put a stop to her. Never got in the papers on account of her father being an alderman and her grandfather a judge. Liz went funny after that, though. Well, I mean, you can see by the look of her house, can’t you? ‘Funny,’ you know what I mean?”
    I had settled in my chair to hear more about the late Liz Oldridge, when an attractive woman in her early forties came into the pub. Without letting her eyes get accustomed to the gloom, she walked directly to Rupe McLay’s table, where she hovered, observing him without saying anything. From where I sat, she looked worth Rupe’s time. In his place, I would have looked up from the empty glasses. She was wearing expensive clothes, a steel blue suit that hadn’t been made on this continent, but the effect was untidy. She had the look of a womanwho had thrown herself together in a hurry. Her jacket hung unfastened and the blouse had been buttoned wrong: I could see a glimpse of white and a pucker of flesh through the gap. She was breathing hard. The waiter winked at the woman behind the bar. To me he said: “Antonia Wishart,” as though that explained