Free The Case of the Lady in Apartment 308 by Lass Small

drink. She asked, “Don’t you drink booze?”
    “On occasion.”
    She nodded thoughtfully. And finally they went to gamble.
    Ed stopped at a wire cage where he bought and gave her chips. And he watched her play.
    She asked, “Aren’t you going to play?”
    He repeated, “I don’t gamble.” Of course, he was doing that in looking for a job. He was even gambling with knowing this puzzling woman. She was a painter who painted so gently and precisely that she’d never make a living on her own.
    He asked, “Have you been living at home?”
    Her eyes concentrated on the machine in front of her, she replied, “How did you know?”
    “I was trying to figure how you could afford an apartment. Have you been living with somebody?”
    “No. Just at home, as you guessed.”
    “Never been married?” Why had he asked again?
    She replied, “No.”
    What a final word. Why hadn’t she said, “Not yet” instead?
    Ed looked at her playing the slots. She was so intense, pitted against a programmed machine that way. Why couldn’t she be that intense with him?
    He was jobless and leaving town.
    She didn’t know that.
    She thought he was employed as the rent collector.
    *   *   *
    Well, she hadn’t realized he was seeing to the renovation of two places. She only knew he was involved in one. The apartment building.
    Once he got all the apartments in shape, he’d be able to get them all rented. Then he’d have a real outfit monitor the rent mailed to them or find out why it wasn’t mailed.
    It had been a shame the previous, absentee owner hadn’t kept the property up. Of course, if it had been, Ed wouldn’t have gotten such a good deal on buying it. He’d used the building’s deterioration as a lever.
    The absentee owner had used it as a tax break.
    Ed’s dad had helped Ed with the dickering. His dad’s helping had made Ed wonder if he’d ever be as smart as his dad.
    Of course, there’d been a time—some years back— when he’d thought his father was really out of step and blank.
    It was amazing how much the old man had learned in the relatively short time since then. That old saw. But it had seemed true at the time.
    Ed looked at the intense female slot player putting in coins and punching the button. Why was she so interesting to him? Why was it she who caught his eye and stirred his sex? Why did he feel the need to cosset her, to protect and guard her?
    Really? He did? Yeah.
    Well, what it really meant was that he’d like to get her into bed. There wasn’t anything awesome going onthere, it was just sex. He wanted her. He wanted her naked and breathy and squirming under his body, clawing at his back and trying to get him closer.
    And he just might get her. She was proving that she was a gambler.
    In some surprise, he noticed that she was piling up quite a lot of the boat’s gambling coins.
    Then she took out a wisp of a scarf from her purse. She scooped all the collected fake coins into the scarf and gave the small bundle to Ed.
    She said to Ed, “Here, hold this. Don’t give me any more than twenty-five. Keep count.”
    But her good luck continued.
    And the amazing thing was, she called the halt! She said, “That’s enough for now. I have only one more of their coins.”
    She put it into the slot and pushed the button… and hit the jackpot!
    She went wild! She hugged herself, she laughed, she hugged Ed and she shook her head and just laughed.
    The people around her watched, frozen-faced or smiling, depending on their attitude.
    Ed grinned and willingly hugged her back and helped her scoop up the pile. Then with some prissiness and elaborate indication of good sportswoman-ship, Marcia put in one coin to get the one-armed bandit back into business.
    They took the cache to the wired cage of the boat cashier, and she was given the choice of a check or the cash. Marcia took the cash. With what she’d alreadywon and the jackpot, she had over three hundred dollars.
    She turned her back and put it down,