Peter hurried back to the unit, going straight to the cupboard where he’d last seen the big beach towels from their trip. They weren’t there. Hans must have moved them, go figure. Exasperation growing, he searched in the next most likely place and then in the next. He knew he hadn’t taken them. Glancing in at the bathroom door, he saw them hanging, dry but apparently used, from the shower 
bar.
‘Rusty will never know – not in his condition.’ he thought. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to fluff them up a bit and deliver them toasty warm – he loved a cozy towel. He stuffed them into the dryer and turned the dial. Five minutes should do the trick.
Five delicious minutes to snoop around and find out where Hans had moved things, or if there was anything new. No signs of a new occupant anyway, that was something. Hans was beginning to look good to him again. Pleasantly engaged, he was startled by the dryer buzzer. The towels were hot and smelled of Hans. He lingered over them, then folded them into a large kitchen bag and headed once more for the stairs.
“Here we are Rusty, all lovely and warm.” he was trilling as he waltzed through the pool door. Peter shrieked. Rusty was floating face down in the pool, apparently drowned, now far past the help of any towel to warm him. Why on earth hadn’t Rusty waited for him to come back? How stupid could he be to get in the water alone when he couldn’t swim? It was all Rusty’s fault, nothing at all to do with him. He hadn’t even been there when it happened. This whole hopeless affair was now just that – beyond even hope. Vexed, Peter petulantly reached for the remote and switched to his favorite cooking channel. They were making soup. As an afterthought, he wiped the TV cart handles and the remote.
He knew he had to think now. It was going to be hard. He kicked the now empty beer cans into the pool, turned on his heels and bounded back upstairs. He ran into the bedroom, dumping out the towels. He tried to imagine what Rusty might have touched when he was in this room changing. He ran a towel over the dresser and the door knobs. The towel was still warm. He hung both towels back exactly as he’d found them. Whipping off his swim trunks, he folded those back into the drawer. Retrieving his clothes from the couch where he’d tossed them, he quickly got dressed, stuffed the empty plastic bag into his pocket and pulled out another bag from under the sink. Back in the bedroom, he picked up Rusty’s shoes and socks and dropped them into the new bag. He emptied the trouser pockets out onto the bed. Removing the stash of bills from the money clip he briefly considered, ‘He won’t be wanting it’ before slipping the sizable wad and the few coins into his own pocket. He threw in the rest of Rusty’s clothes, stooping to look under the bed, just in case he’d missed anything.
Turning again to the living area, he plumped up the cushions where they had been sitting, and methodically, using the kitchen towel, picked up the empties and stuffed those into the bag with the clothing. He washed and dried out his snifter and returned it to the cupboard. Sighing, he paused over the stemware. ‘Maybe not this time’ he reckoned. He figured that if his fingerprints were all over the place inside the unit or the building, that would be OK. He had lived here after all. No-one, especially Hans, would ever know that he had been in the unit tonight, much less have brought Rusty along as well. As he rarely ever drank it, Hans would likely never even notice the missing beer. Peter was pretty sure it really was still left over from their last party. He could take Hans up on his invitation to come over on Monday night and hear about his boring conference and, while he was visiting, be sure to touch as much as he could. Maybe even Hans. Reconciliation was good; sometimes it led to harder stuff.
Peter reasoned that he could still come back one more time before Hans returned, if he had to, if he remembered something else. But best not; he wasn’t even out of the building yet. Taking a last and thorough look around, he adroitly inserted his wrist under the plastic bag handles and pulled the unit door behind him. He tiptoed along the corridor with the empty bag still in his pocket to the garbage chute, tipped open the bin and let go the full bag. From there it was only a few steps along the hallway and back to the stairs and the garage. He thought he heard something, froze momentarily, then realized it was not somebody coming but just the bag going through the chute, probably the shoes clunking on their way down. Dead man’s shoes. ‘Who would gain by this death,’ Peter allowed himself to wonder, ‘other than me with his money in my pocket?’
Pulling himself to attention, and suddenly fearful that he would be blamed, stealthily, silently, he reached his car and squeezed in, throwing the empty bag on the floor. The garage door opened and a sporty car drove in. It was that awful woman from their floor, the one who used to always stare at him. He wouldn’t have wanted to meet her again at the best of times. Slinking down in the seat and out of sight as far as he could, he waited as she parked. Her spot was only a few spaces away. In the rear view, he watched her get out and remove some luggage from the trunk then, mercifully, wheel it away towards the elevator. The elevator was agonizingly long in coming. She was pounding on the door with her fist and screaming obscenities but at least not looking back his way. His leg was in a painful cramp.
When she had finally gone, he stretched his leg out as best he could and started the engine. Slouching down, he slowly negotiated the ramp. Turning north and into the street, he began to crow “Olly-olly, in free”.