Phone or no phone, I still had her address.
It was still daylight when I got out of the cab, and I had a chance for a good look at the house. It was a handsome place by day; the size of the huge white stucco wall didn't fit the uninsurable notation on Rena's claim. That wall enclosed a garden; the garden could hardly hold less than an AA house. And Class-Es were ordinarily either sent to public hostels—at the Company's expense, to be sure—or existed on the charity of friends or relatives. And Class-Es seldom had friends in Class-AA houses.
I knocked at the gate. A fat woman, age uncertain but extreme, opened a little panel and peered at me. I asked politely, "Miss dell'Angela?"
The woman scowled. "Che dice?"
I repeated: "May I see Miss dell'Angela? I'm a Claims Adjuster for the Company. I have some business with her in connection with her policies."
"Ha!" said the woman. She left it at that for a moment, pursing her lips and regarding me thoughtfully. Then she shrugged apathetically. "Momento," she said wearily, and left me standing outside the gate.
From inside there was a muttering of unfamiliar voices. I thought I heard a door open, and the sound of steps, but when the fat woman came back she was alone.
Silently she opened the door and nodded me in. I started automatically up the courtyard toward the enclosed house, but she caught my arm and motioned me toward another path. It led down a flowered lane through a grape arbor to what might, at one time, have been a caretaker's hut.
I knocked on the door of the hut, comprehending where Rena dell'Angela lived as a Class-E uninsurable.
Rena herself opened it, her face flushed, her expression surprised—apprehensive, almost, I thought at first. It was the first time I had seen her by daylight. She was—oh, there was no other word. She was lovely.