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wrapped.”
    “Okay.”
    “Perhaps, from now on, I wear sweat clothes when I lift.”
    “That would be a good idea.”
    “Oh ... I bought part needed to complete the furnace repair. I have installed it. You have no more problems with furnace.”
    “I’m happy to hear that.”
    “Ja,” Manfred said. “I left bill for part. Also on kitchen table.”
    Business concluded for the moment, he rang off.
    Robin slumped back on the sofa and stuck her throbbing ankle back into the ice bucket.
     
    The part Manfred had bought for the furnace had cost $47, tax included. It was a rebuilt part, but Robin had Manfred’s stamp of approval that it was as good as new. A note he’d left said that he’d checked it thoroughly before buying it.
    Robin had smiled to herself.
    She had no doubt that Manfred had examined the part closely, and she couldn’t conceive of a retail clerk in the world who’d dare try to pull a fast one on him. She’d also found the instructions he’d left on how to wrap her ankle. She’d been pleased that she’d been able to follow them closely and had done pretty much as good a job as he had at binding the injury.
    After she’d done that and popped an analgesic, the throb had been barely perceptible. She’d been able to fix herself some dinner and stare at the TV from her bed, even though she had no idea of what she’d watched.
    Now, as she turned the set off and the lights out, Robin lay in bed and tried to enjoy the warmth of her gloriously heated home ... but she couldn’t keep her mind from drifting downward. He was down there in her basement. That huge pink German. What was he doing right now? He’d been unfailingly polite and even considerate, but she kept wondering whether she was a fool to put any trust in him. He was so big and so strong. It was like taking King Kong in as a pet.
    She smiled again.
    Her neighborhood, like any enclave for yuppies and their toys, was a target for burglars. And her building, unique on the block, had neither an alarm system nor a sign out front that warned of guard dogs or private cops. But now, Robin thought, she could plant a sign that warned of Manfred.
    Premises protected by German powerlifter.
    With a silhouette of him in his spandex and boots.
    And the legend, “Ve haff vays of making you sorry.”
    That ought to scare off the creeps, she thought and giggled to herself.
    The thing was, she had to get over being frightened of him herself. She was ashamed to admit it but she’d swooned out there in the backyard. Her. Round Robin Phinney. If anyone at the deli ever found out, she’d be finished. Laughed right out of the joint.
    And she hadn’t even gone down to the park tonight, not because she didn’t want to try the stairs on her sore ankle, but because she hadn’t wanted to be so close to him, have only one floor separating them. Which was ridiculous. She’d let the guy into her house in the first place to save the park. Now, she wasn’t going to let him keep her out of it. She’d go down there tomorrow right after work, no two ways about it.
    Having resolved that issue, Robin closed her eyes to go to sleep ... and that was when she heard it. The sound. A deep, sharp buzzing roar, like a hundred-foot pine tree going through a sawmill. She tried to place the noise and came up with the only possible interpretation. Manfred was snoring.
    So loudly she could hear it two floors away.
    God!
    Maybe the guy’s wife had ratted him out to the Commies just to get away from that.
    Robin put a pillow over her head and began drifting into unconsciousness on a tide of mixed emotions, asking herself over and over what she had done, who she’d let into her home, her life, her...
    Sleep claimed Robin before she could find any answers.
     

Chapter 7
    Tone Morello returned to Screaming Mimi’s on the third day following his cheerleader fiasco. This time he brought a cameraman with him. Tone wore a look of grim determination on his face. There was no way he was