Bridegoon
The bell over the door jingled, advertising the fact that someone had entered the building.
“Right with you!” Conrad yelled from his back office, cursing Debbie under his breath. Debbie was the receptionist, and she was sick again—pushing fifty and coming apart like a lemon-toned Dodge Aspen. Conrad slammed the filing cabinet shut, stubbed out his cigarette, and walked heavily down the short, linoleum-tiled hall. He halted briefly at Ovide’s open door. “Doin’ anything besides trolling for porn?” he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer.
Ovide snapped his laptop shut and followed after Conrad.
There was a man standing at the front counter. He was dressed in a white polo shirt, tan Dockers, and white running shoes. He had a pair of sunglasses clinging to the open neck of his shirt. He looked like a lab-bound chemistry teacher playing it cool for the teen creme crowd. He was small for his age, which looked to be early-forties. Blonde fuzz covered his head. He had a pale, round face, with long, red, almost-scabbed-over scratches running parallel to each other on his right cheek. His eyes were blue, watery, and rimmed with red.
“Hi,” Conrad said. He stuck out a huge, freckled hand and the little guy pulled a damp mitt out of his pocket and shook.
“Hi,” he said back. “How’re you doing?”
Conrad studied him a moment. He looked familiar. The little guy piled on another layer of sweat during the tight silence. “Dwight Zoledowski,” Conrad finally stated, satisfied.
Zoledowski bobbed his head up and down like a bench seat hooker. “You remember.”
Ovide crowded in behind Conrad. The tiny reception area was packed.
“Sure,” Conrad replied. He was a man of few words, but plenty of memories. He turned around, partially exposing Ovide standing in the shadow of his bulk. “This is my associate, Ovide Lambert.” Conrad pointed a nicotine-stained digit at Zoledowski. “Dwight Zoledowski. I posted a surety bond on him about six months ago.”
“Hello,” Ovide said, reaching past Conrad’s enormous stomach and grabbing Zoledowski’s hand for a brief arm pump. He normally liked to do it two-handed, to inspire trust, but there wasn’t room.
Zoledowski’s face jiggled slightly. “Hello,” he said back.
“How’d things work out?” Conrad asked.
“The charge?” Zoledowski giggled. “Aw, no problem. The judge gave me thirty days in jail. I was out in fifteen. No big deal.” He grinned nervously at the two men. His breath was like stale beer and his eyes were sharp with panic.
“Domestic disturbance,” Conrad rumbled, filling in the details for his associate. He frowned significantly.
“Oh, yes?” Ovide remarked casually. “Tough.”
Zoledowski rubbed his pudgy, little hands together—they were covered with red blotches; some kind of rash. “Zero tolerance. You know.”
“Sure, I—”
“You here on business?” Conrad interrupted. “Or just filing a progress report?” He coughed harshly into his hand, wiped the remainders on his pants. He didn’t like bailees hanging around the office, thinking they had a friend.
Zoledowski giggled again. “Yes, business. That’s what you guys call it, I guess.” He looked down suddenly. The sunny disposition was gone, and a tear shower was on the way.
Conrad hastily pointed down the hall, almost taking out Ovide’s eye. “Let’s talk in my office,” he barked.
The floor creaked as they walked single-file down the narrow hallway. The small, stand-alone, corrugated metal building was located in the middle of a warehouse district, three blocks down from the Law Courts building. The traffic in the area was mainly tractor-trailers, loading and unloading. At night, the area was as dead as an actuary’s personality—guard dogs and night watchmen eyed each other suspiciously.
Conrad fell back into his black, leather chair, air whistling out the sides. Ovide grabbed a couple of padded folding chairs for himself and Zoledowski. File folders, letters, bills, forms, and other sundry paperwork was scattered all over the top of Conrad’s massive maple desk, some of it in piles, some of it loose. Cigarette butts boiled out of an upside-down GI’s helmet. The faux-wood-paneled walls of the office were sparsely furnished—a couple of framed pictures of Conrad’s Vietnam gunship unit, and his various licenses. Sun drifted through a dirty window, torn into stripes by the dusty, wooden blinds.
“You mind?” Conrad asked rhetorically. He chuckled and lit a cigarette.
“Coffee, Mr. Zoledowski?” Ovide asked, a courteous smile on his face. He liked to keep things professional. A two-year diploma in criminology from the local community college had taught him that much. He was a smooth-faced, handsome kid of twenty-two. He was medium height, with a medium build. He had slick, black hair, combed straight back. He wore a black, silk, short-sleeved shirt, a pair of sharply-creased, black slacks, and polished, black shoes with no socks. He had pushed around a tow-truck for six months after graduating from high school, then worked a year for a parking lot company—handing out tickets to unimpressed cars with tardy owners. He had read Conrad’s ad in the paper, Conrad had been desperate, and Ovide had been hired.
Ovide handed Zoledowski a cup with the logo ‘California Bail Agents Association’ on it, and filled it with coffee. Conrad picked up his mug, blew in it, and shoved it at Ovide. Ovide filled it to the rim, and smiled pleasantly at Conrad. Conrad’s hand got shaky, and he spilled some of the hot brew as he brought the mug up to his lips. Ovide filled a paper cup with water for himself.
Conrad used a bail application to mop up the spilled beverage, and asked: “What’s up?”
Zoledowski grinned sheepishly. His teeth were small and stubby like his fingers, only cleaner. “Well, uh, you guys do private investigations, don’t you?” He looked from one man to the other. “I mean, you’re P.I.s as well as bail bondsmen, aren’t you?”
Conrad blew a blue stream of smoke into the air.
“We offer many services, Mr. Zolewdoski,” Ovide replied. “My associate and I,” he gestured absently at Conrad, who frowned, “are both licensed private investigators in the state of California, as well as licensed bail agents. So, how can we be of assistance?”
Conrad chugged his coffee and slammed the mug down on his desk. “This about your wife again, Zoledowski?”
Zoledowski nodded, and shunted to the edge of his chair. “Yes, it is. She’s been missing for ten and a half days now, and the police can’t seem to find her. I’m sure they’re trying,” he pointed out democratically, “but I don’t know how hard.” He clenched his hands together and stared down at the floor. “She took our daughter with her,” he added, in a broken voice.
A fly buzzed against the window, trapped in the smoke-heavy air. It wasn’t going to find much better outside.
“I don’t do domestics,” Conrad stated brusquely. “I handle most of the bonding business and insurance investigations. You better talk to Mr. Lambert—he’s our domestic man.” He grinned at Ovide.
“Yes,” Ovide said, rising smoothly. “Come into my office, Mr. Zoledowski, and we’ll discuss your situation.”
The two men filed out of Conrad’s office. Zoledowski threw a disappointed look back over his shoulder. Conrad stared at him with unblinking, frog-like eyes, grunted, then spat into a waste paper basket labeled ’suggestions’ next to his desk. He ground out his cigarette in the helmet, pulled out another, and lit it. The screen saver on his computer shoved against the back wall blinked ‘Uzi does it.’ He opened a thick file, hit the handsfree button on the phone, and punched in a number. “Mrs. Johnston?” he asked gruffly. “Where the hell is your boy?” He listened to the plaintive wailings for a moment, then said: “He’s got a court appearance in half an hour. He said he was coming to see me fifteen minutes ago.” He listened again. “Yeah, well, get his ass down here—you hear!?”
Conrad shoved his way out of the Law Courts building and trudged back to his office. The sun beat down on his blistered neck. The sun was too damn close to the Earth at this latitude, he thought. Made everyone just a little nuts; fried people’s brains—like in the Middle East. He was used to cooler climes. Like St. Paul, Minnesota, where he had banked fifteen years as a police officer before a pedophile with matching black eyes and a split nose had forced him to resign.
Johnston had been neatly squared away for two years less a day, but Conrad wasn’t wasting anymore time thinking about him. He was thinking about Dwight Zoledowski and his pale, sweaty face and his pudgy, nervous hands. He pushed open the office door and the bell tinkled its welcome and warning. He waited for fifteen seconds, but Ovide didn’t make an appearance. He banged his knuckles against Ovide’s closed door.
Ovide shouted: “Come in!”
Conrad pushed the door open. It got stuck halfway on a strategically-placed wooden doorstop lying on the floor. Conrad shoved the door so hard it almost broke free of its hinges. “Debbie’s away, you know, recovering from some imaginary illness. So when I’m gone, you gotta answer the bell.”
Ovide mumbled something into the phone like, “See you tonight,” and hung up. “Huh? Yeah, sure, won’t happen again.” He smiled, and all was forgiven.
Conrad sank into a chair. There wasn’t enough room to even cross his legs in the tiny office. “You file your license renewal education form?”
“Just about to do that,” Ovide replied. “What’s the deadline again?”
“Beginning of this month.” Conrad lit up a smoke. “What did Zoledowski tell you? Something that should be accompanied by violins, no doubt.”
Ovide gave Conrad an oral summary of the information Zoledowski had provided. Roxanne Zoledowski, wife, disappeared 10.5 days previous with a thousand dollars and change from the Zoledowski joint bank account and the fruit of their loins—one year old Lydia Zoledowski. Dwight had no idea where the pair had gone, and such an occurrence had never occurred before in the couple’s one and a half year old marriage; a marriage, according to Dwight, that was chock full of the kind of bliss you only read about in human ecology textbooks from the 1950’s. Roxanne had originally met Dwight through an international marriage broker, and had emigrated from the worker’s paradise of Kazakhstan to tie the knot. Dwight had phoned the broker as soon as Roxanne had gone missing, thinking that the guy might know where she could have gone, but, like any good after-sale salesman, the line was disconnected and the internet site only listed a post office box. Roxanne didn’t know a lot of English, but she had worked at a coffee shop on Laurel Canyon Boulevard until her sudden and unexplained departure. She was twenty-five years old and Dwight was forty-two. Dwight worked at the Department of Motor Vehicles, Long Beach office. He had a clean record except for the domestic assault incident six months previous, in which his wife had alleged that he had used her face as a toilet brush—then subsequently dropped the charges. The benevolent, dead hand of the State, nevertheless, guided Dwight to a prison cell despite his wife’s retraction. He was currently on full-pay family leave from the DMV, and had a couple of unrelated grievances pending.
“A real servant of the taxpayer, huh?” Conrad remarked. He was impressed with Ovide’s presentation. “Does he have any idea where his Kazakhstani wife with the pidgin-English and the bawling spitball could possibly go?”
“He thinks another man,” Ovide replied, smoothing his hair back with both hands.
Conrad grunted. “Good looking?”
“You make the call.” Ovide held up a photo. It was a wedding picture. The wedding party consisted of Dwight, Roxanne, and a heavily-sideburned minister ensconced in a rhinestone frock and a six-string. Viva Las Vegas! Roxanne was wearing a simple, green, sleeveless dress. She had long, blonde hair, big, brown eyes, slightly crooked teeth, a slim waist, and heavy-caliber breasts. “Not bad, eh?”
Conrad took a long pull on his cigarette and exhaled through his nose. “Cops got any leads?”
“Just the Dear Dwight letter that Roxanne left behind.” He held up a photocopy. The writing on the page was sloppy, and there wasn’t much of it. “She says that she and her daughter can’t take anymore of his ‘abute,’ so they’re leaving.” He paused. “Dwight claims it’s synthetic hogwash, the kind of stuff Pravda used to print, but admits that it is her writing. Cops aren’t so sure it’s hogwash.”
“You talk to Quigley?”
“That I did. The ancient veteran cracked open the file for me—after I promised to introduce him to Debbie. He says that his flat-footed comrades aren’t looking too hard. They think that the evidence points to a mail-order marriage gone past due—return to sender.”
Conrad nodded. He squinted. “Don’t blame ‘em.” He pointed meaningfully at Ovide. “You never know who the hell is telling the truth in a domestic.”
Ovide revealed his gleaming teeth in a smile, then waved his hand in front of his face to dissipate some of the blue haze. “You never know, you’re right. However, all I have to do is find Mrs. Z and the little Z.”
Conrad stood up. He dug around in his left ear with a sausage-like finger. “You find them and bring them back, or you tell Dwight where they are, and he’ll probably buy a gun, draft a woe-is-me confessional, murder the pair, and then kill himself—so they can all be together forever in the Promised Land outside Waco, Texas.”
“Not much of a romantic are you?”
“I could be the last of the red-hot lovers for all you know, but I’m first and foremost a realist.”
“Well, they’re going to have to meet eventually,” Ovide responded, picking up the phone. “Like Gorbachev and Reagan. I’m just helping things along—at two hundred and fifty a day, plus expenses. Remember?”
“Excuse me, please, but you’re from the what again?”
Ovide smiled. He adjusted his tie with his long, smooth fingers. “I work for the California Payroll Association. I just started there a month ago, actually. Fresh out of the auditing program at Redondo College, you know.” He grinned sheepishly. “And Hava Java was my first assignment.”
“And a Mrs. Roxanne Zoledowski is owed five hundred dollars? I just want to make sure that I understand you. You said it all so quickly.”
Ovide nodded. “Sorry. I’m a little bit nervous.”
The man smiled warmly, seeking a connection. “That’s quite all right,” he said. “But why have you come here—this I do not understand?”
“Well, we know that Mrs. Zoledowski is a landed immigrant from Kazakhstan, awaiting U.S. citizenship, and since there is no Kazakhstan-American Association that we know of, we thought we’d try the Russian-American Association. And you, Mr. Krutov, are the California branch President. So here I am!”
Krutov nodded. “You are indeed. But, please, call me Sergei.”
Sergei Krutov was a thick, middle-aged man, short, with a pencil-thin, black mustache. He was dressed in a yellow jacket, green pants, and a white shirt. A mocha-colored puff cascaded out of the breast pocket of his jacket. “Let’s reconvene on the couch, shall we?” he said. “It’s far more comfortable.”
Ovide smiled his agreement and they sat down together on the small, cream-colored couch. It was more love-seat than couch.
“Why don’t you try to relax, Mr. Lambert, and we shall discuss your request,” Krutov said soothingly, drawing Ovide closer towards him.
The office door suddenly banged opened and the receptionist briskly waddled in. She was carrying a gun-metal teapot and two bone-china cups upon a silver tray.
Krutov looked up, annoyed. “Set it down on the desk, please, Mrs. Garenko. Thank you.”
Mrs. Garenko was a heavy-set woman, with a slight hunchback and the trace of a Stalinist mustache on her flabby upper lip. She looked sourly at the two men sitting side by side on the couch. “Ah, a couch meeting,” she snorted indignantly through a thick Ukrainian brogue. “You will be in good hands, Mr. Lambert,” she added, looking at Krutov and grinning harshly. Her teeth were green and spaced far apart, like the Russian pickets at the Battle of Tannenberg.
Krutov stamped his foot impatiently on the thick shag carpet, making a sound akin to someone’s bottom being whacked with a velvet banana. “That will be all, Mrs. Garenko!”
Mrs. Garenko sniffed grimly and exited the room. She left the door slightly ajar.
Krutov quickly jumped to his feet, shut the door, and returned to the couch in one flowing motion. It left him a little breathless. “A good woman, Mrs. Garenko,” he remarked bitterly. His eyes rapidly filled with Ovide again, who was looking young and fresh in his off-the-rack blue business suit.
“So you deduced that I might have some information regarding Mrs. Zoledowski,” Krutov stated. “Very clever. The California Payroll—”
“The CPA,” Ovide said.
Krutov smiled, and patted Ovide’s leg, up around the quadriceps. “Yes, the CPA. They seem to go to great lengths in their work.”
Ovide nodded. He moistened his lips with his thick, pink tongue. “Money owed is money due.”
Krutov frowned. “How’s that?”
“That’s our motto. And, like I said, I was assigned to do the payroll audit of the Hava Java chain. They have three stores in Orange County, you know.”
“Do they?”
“Oh yes. And I found out that they owed a number of employees retroactive pay as a result of the change in minimum wage rates on January 1. A lot of companies, especially smaller ones, weren’t even aware of the change. Or chose to ignore it.” He concluded: “It was an error, either way, and a correctable one.”
Krutov solemnly nodded his head. “Yes, now I see. It comes clear. You did a very good job of explaining it, Ovide.” He clapped his hands together, then put them down flat on the couch, his right hand sliding gracefully under Ovide’s left buttock. “Ovide Lambert,” he murmured, looking deep into Ovide’s shallow eyes. “What a lovely name. Tell me, have you ever been to Europe, Ovide?”
Ovide shook his head, and a sad frown blossomed on his crimson lips. “No, I haven’t. But I do love all things European.”
Krutov smiled. “What a coincidence! I love all European things.” His laugh tinkled.
Krutov’s enveloping aftershave, applied by the gallon drum, apparently doubled as a muscle relaxant, because Ovide found that his eyelids were drooping. “Roxanne Zoledowski,” he said finally, breaking the spell.
Krutov shuddered. “Oh yes, of course. I only met Mrs. Zoledowski once, you understand, and I have no idea where she is living presently, but I do know of a Russian gentleman who, uh, helps women such as Mrs. Zoledowski emigrate from foreign lands and achieve U.S. citizenship. I believe that he performed such a service for Mrs. Zoledowski.”
Ovide grinned. “That’s great! I can mail the cheque to him, if you think that’d be all right, and get it off our books. The other employees at Hava Java told me that Mrs. Zoledowski has been having some, uh, marital troubles, so we don’t want the cheque to fall into the wrong hands.”
“Very wise,” Krutov agreed. “Domestic problems can be very unpleasant for the well-intentioned outsider.”
Silence fell across the room like a chenille bed curtain. Krutov studied Ovide’s mouth.
“Uh, could you give me the address of this Russian gentleman you mentioned, Mr. Krutov?”
Krutov considered the request. “Well, Ovide, that really is confidential information, you know.” He crossed his legs and his left foot touched Ovide’s knee. “I normally only give that type of information to people with whom I am on a more intimate basis. Do you understand?”
Ovide pretended to look confused, yet eager to learn.
Conrad pounded the brake pedal and the van stopped with a jolt—two houses short of 1046 Shasta Street. He turned off the engine, pocketed the keys, and glanced over at Ovide. The rented van’s heavily-tinted windows kept the sun’s hot glare out and the interior impenetrable. “You’re sure Roxanne and the kid are in there?”
“Almost positive,” Ovide responded immediately. He took a sip from his bottle of water. “I’ve been here on and off for three days and the only person to come or go has been Teldov.”
“The marriage broker?”
“Right.”
“So?”
“Well, yesterday it was garbage day.”
Conrad waited, then grunted angrily. “What day was it on the school cycle?”
Ovide smiled. “So, when Teldov went out, I casually dug through the garbage bins in the back lane and found an empty box of tampons and a bag full of used diapers.”
Conrad snorted. “Maybe there’s an old broad in there with retarded menopause and a weak bladder.”
“Or, maybe your girlfriend isn’t staying there, and in fact there is a woman and a baby inside—being the ones we are looking for.”
Conrad frowned. He stared out the windshield at the faded, yellow bungalow. The blinds were drawn tightly shut in every window, including the basement ones. Most people didn’t even have blinds on their basement windows. A dog barked lazily somewhere down the street.
“How’s the pucker, by the way?”
Ovide smiled sarcastically. “Very funny. You could do stand-up—if they let you sit down. For your information, my session with Krutov didn’t go any further than some hand-slapping and an exchange of home phone numbers. Yours, by the by.”
Conrad set fire to a cigarette, took a sip from a styrofoam cup filled with cold coffee. “Teldov not around right now?”
“His car’s not in the driveway or the back lane.”
“Where does he usually park?”
“Driveway.”
“What does he drive?”
“Volkswagon Jetta.”
Conrad squinted. “Okay, Mom P.I., enough babysitting. We can sit here on our frightfully sore asses until we get a visit from the welcome wagon, or we can do something?”
Ovide nodded grimly. “Let’s roll.”
The two men climbed out of the van and walked normal-speed to the back of the house. Ovide was about to knock on the door, when Conrad grabbed his arm. “Why don’t you blow reveille on my skin-bugle while you’re at it,” he whispered fiercely. “Don’t tarnish your knuckles and let her know you’re coming.”
Conrad pulled a leather pouch out of his jacket pocket and went to work on the door.
Ovide groaned. “Oh, great,” he said. “Now we can get busted for b&e.”
“No one who’s got something to hide is going to complain about a little thing like forcible entry. They’re going to expect it.”
Conrad had the back door open in an L.A. minute. The two men cautiously stepped across the threshold.
It was hot as a furnace inside the starter house. They walked softly through the tiny kitchen and into the living room. The house was spotlessly clean for a Russian bachelor pad. The furniture was nondescript, but new. A half-empty baby bottle was partially buried under a cushion on the couch. Ovide stealthily opened a couple of closet doors, peered inside, then jiggled the knob of a door that was locked. He motioned to Conrad.
Conrad nodded. He padded over, like an elephant tiptoeing through the Mouseketeer family cemetery, pulled his leather pouch out again, and popped the door open. They heard a woman’s voice coming from down below, speaking softly in a foreign language. The way she exaggerated certain words made it sound like she was reading something to a baby, or a smoke-engorged member of the Marijuana Party.
“Mrs. Zoledowski!” Conrad called down the stairs.
The woman’s voice stopped instantly. The only sound was the ticking of a clock in the kitchen, and a car driving down the back lane. Then a baby began to cry. It sounded hungry.
Conrad shoved Ovide down the stairs first. He held the baby bottle out in front of him like a live grenade.
“We’ll have to tell your husband where you are, Roxanne,” Ovide stated matter-of-factly. The baby grabbed his finger, squeezed it, and giggled.
Roxanne and Lydia were sitting on the couch. Ovide was sitting in a chair next to the couch. Conrad was standing by the front window, cracking the blinds every now and then to check the street.
“Why you have to tell Dwight?” Roxanne asked, her eyes brimming with liquid sadness. “I no want him involved!”
Conrad chuckled.
Ovide ignored him and said: “He has to be involved, Roxanne. Lydia is as much his daughter as yours.” Lydia giggled again and smiled at Ovide, saliva bubbles popping out of her little mouth. “If you’re worried that he’s going to hurt you or the baby, then you should talk to the police. You should have done that in the first—”
“Dwight will no hurt me! He never hurt me!” she yelled indignantly. “Dwight is good husband and father!”
Conrad grunted. He turned around and looked at Roxanne. “How about that domestic abuse beef six-twelfths ago? Dwight served fifteen days in the county rest home for the privilege of flushing your head down the crapper.”
Roxanne angrily met Conrad’s eyes. “He did nothing! I make up complaint because I am mad at him. I take back complaint when I calm down, but your justice system put him in jail anyway! Remind me of days of Andropov!”
“Vaht a country!” Ovide remarked, tickling the baby.
Conrad frowned and lit a cigarette.
“No smoking in front of baby!” Roxanne objected.
“I do it all the time—he doesn’t mind,” Conrad replied. “Oh, your baby.” He ground the coffin nail out on the hardwood floor. “So what are you doing here, Mrs. Zoledowski?”
She sighed. “Yuri Teldov make me come here. He want to sell me as foreign bride again.”
“Again?”
“Yes. Dwight is third husband for me. Yuri sets things up, collects money, I marry, then I leave, go back to Kazakhstan, and Yuri re-sell me all over again. Different name, different hair color, different eye color—it good scam. Make me and Yuri lots of money. Good money—American dollars. Former husbands too embarrassed to do anything. They think I just get fed up with them and return home. No money-back guarantee, you know?”
“But this time you didn’t want to leave, did you, Roxanne?” Ovide asked sympathetically.
Conrad made a face at him.
Roxanne nodded, squeezed Ovide’s hand. “You are very nice man,” she said. “Your friend have personality of constipated Brezhnev, but you are nice man. Yes, you are right. I am happy with Dwight and baby.” She kissed the back of Lydia’s head. “Yuri very upset I have baby. Lowers property value, he say.” She thrust out her chest. “Frontage still good, but—”
“So what are you doing here, Mrs. Zoledowski?” Conrad reiterated.
She looked up at him. “Yuri threaten to hurt baby unless I go with him! He take me and lock me inside this house! What can I do? My English is not so good and—”
“You stupid, loud-mouthed bitch!”
A man had snuck in the back door. He had a Glock 9 mm hanging loose in his right hand, and anger and frustration boiled out all over his fat, greasy face. “You stupid, loud-mouthed bitch slut!” he screamed.
“Yuri!” Roxanne cried. “No!”
Teldov brought the gun up and three explosions rocked the small house. Stuffing was blasted out of the couch and into the air.
Right away, another gun ferociously answered back. Teldov’s body jerked around a couple of times, slammed back against the wall, then slowly sunk to the floor like the Soviet empire. His chest was thick with blood.
Conrad advanced, the .38 rigid in front of him. He kicked the smoking gun out of Teldov’s pasty, limp hand.
Ovide cradled the stunned baby in his arms. The silence was thunderous after the gun play. Roxanne lay sprawled backwards on the couch, a ragged, red hole leaking blood on the left side of her forehead.
“Domestics,” Conrad muttered to himself disgustedly.