After about five minutes, I watched Gail hang up the pay phone, but she continued to sit in the booth for another few minutes, even though her conversation was obviously over. Then she opened the door and went to the pharmacist’s counter to have a few words with a druggist whose hair was as white as his uniform. She shaded her eyes as if the sun were shining into them. The druggist fetched her a squarish tin with a black-and-tan label, offered a few words of counsel, and rang up her purchase. She gave him a dollar and he made a great silliness of counting out her change. Men.

I had no idea how Gail had gotten into the store without me seeing her, but if it was all quite innocent, she would certainly walk right out the front door over to where she expected me to be waiting on the sidewalk.

It was not all quite innocent.

She slipped out the back of the store, where clearly there was also a nearby rear entrance to the Berkeley Women’s Independent Collegiate Club.

Once she left, I moved quickly to the pharmacist’s station. I picked out a pack of Beeman’s gum and casually commented, “Funny thing. I heard what the young lady was ordering and that’s exactly what my wife told me to pick up, too.”

He nodded and went to his shelves. “We get a lot of call for it this time of year. Between allergies and infestation.” This last phrase was an odd one. He put a black-and-tan tin into a paper bag for me. “Make sure it doesn’t come in contact with your skin. Diluted it’s fine. Unless you drink it, of course. That wouldn’t be a good idea.”

I looked into the bag. “Boric acid,” I said. “Sounds dangerous.”

“It is, to pests, but it’s safe for humans as long as you don’t do something foolish like eat it straight out of the container. Keep it away from baby, if you have one.”

I said I would, if I did. He counseled, “Your wife’s eyes are irritated, I assume?”

“Allergies,” I said.

He nodded. “Mix half a teaspoon with two cups warm water. Bathe each eye for about a minute. If she doesn’t have an eye bath, an eggcup or shot glass will do just fine.”

“Do most people buy it for allergies, like that girl who was just in here?”

He smiled sadly. “Well, she either wanted to poison the man who broke her heart or to soothe her eyes from the tears he caused her to cry.”

I looked at him, not understanding.

He said, with some pride, “A pharmacist is trained to be observant. That girl had clearly just been crying.”

Chapter 12

12

Berkeley Square

Outside the Rexall, I stuck a stick of gum in my mouth and tossed the bag containing the tin of boric acid into a trash can.