Check Mate: KNOCK IT TO ME

The store window in a run-down neighborhood has only a globe and a handwritten sign on display, ‘FORTUNES TOLD.’ It is daylight and I am able to see one lady inside sitting on a black wooden chair, her back to the street. A colorful shawl with long fringe is over her head and shoulders. It is my duty to evict her. The owner of the down-trodden building has notified the police that she is trespassing and is illegally there. On his report, he added, ‘She may be illegal in the States too. Check her out.’

 

I knock on the door but she makes no move to get up or turn around.  I knock louder. No movement. Could she be unconscious, dead? Nah, I think. The door is locked. A black cat walks across the bare floor and settles down next to its mistress. Before I left the station house I had checked. There is no phone listed for 405 Cinder Lane. My only alternative is to check the alley, a job I don’t relish. I’ve walked this block before and others like it, kicking garbage, hearing rats squeak.
Somebody or something kicks a tin can and I jump. I’ve faced guns, covered bloody bodies but this assignment is creepy.

 

I haven’t liked gypsies since my dad told me years ago they are conniving, dirty thieves who carry big curved knives in their loose, colorful clothes. Being prejudiced is not what I want to be yet am about gypsies. Go do me something.

 

The gate to 405 is hanging by a few rusting screws. One running rat can send it clattering to the ground. I am very careful, don’t touch it and squeeze in with no mishap. Six wooden steps are warped. What must have been brown shellac is almost gone. Why hasn’t the owner fixed this house and the three others he owns on this one street? The way they are why should he give a damn who has taken shelter inside?

 

From the step I peer into the dirty window and see a rusty sink. There is a range that no charity would accept as a donation. Suddenly my eyes pop open wide. In the corner is a brand new shiny stainless steel GE refrigerator with freezer. This makes no sense at all. I use my billy club and tap on the window. A single light bulb hangs on a chain from the ceiling. The lady comes to the window and looks at me. I look at her and see one of Macbeth’s witches. Her nose is long and sharp. What looks like a large wart is on her chin. My eyes move up and meet hers. They are a radiant blue with yellow circles around them. The shawl she had on is now tied around her hips. Long, blond softly waved hair bowls me over. With lips like sweet cherries I no longer see the wart. Her hand goes to her chin and she touches it lightly. A small Band-aid falls to the floor. The woman is no gypsy. They have unkempt black hair my father told me.

 

She motions to her ears, covers them. Her fingers move too fast for me to read them. No wonder she didn’t answer my rapping. All I can do is use the small note book I have in my jacket  pocket. I put my name and Police Officer Ed Sims on it. You have to move out of here now or go to jail.’ Tearing off my note, she writes on the back ‘No place to go.’

I take her hand, lead her to my car and drive her to the Women’s Shelter, stay with her long enough to give them the little info I have and start to leave. With her rosy ruby lips she mouths, ‘Thank you.’

Both doors to 405 were left unlocked so I go back to be sure she hadn’t left anything there and intended contacting the owner from the station house. In the kitchen everything is the same except the shiny new GE refrigerator/freezer is missing. That fast it must have been stolen. The captain sends me to one of the newest high rise condos in Philly where a suite has been burglarized. He assigns me a new partner and I vow to him we will catch the bastard and we do eventually.

 

In the meantime I often wonder if one of the deaf/mutes gypsy friends stole the refrigerator.