Until Death

by Alicia Rasley

  I covered up the card with a manila envelope. “Yeah, no problem.” When she went back to her office, I stuck the card and envelope in the file that held the divorce decree and the negatives of every picture of Tommy, in case the house burned down with all our photo albums.

  It doesn’t matter, I told myself fiercely. No matter what he meant, it doesn’t matter. It’s all over. He’s dead. He’s screwed us over, and he’s not ever coming back to make it right.

  I got through the day. My work is great for that. Not to mention my clients, the reckless sorts who get into all sorts of trouble before they decide to hire a professional, just before the SEC or IRS comes knocking. So every day is an adventure into the sort of accounting they never taught me about in college.

  The twenty-something president of Bilbo Videoware, for instance, flunked out of law school, and his former classmates all wanted to invest their bonuses in his little startup. He was glad to oblige, selling ten percent here, and nine percent there, whenever he needed cash.

  Now he wanted a public offering and came to us, Lynn and O’Brian, with a Nike box of scrap paper–the records of his stockholders. As of today, he’d sold 145% of his company.

  Like an old firedog, I felt a stirring of adrenaline. Maybe this was how my own midlife crisis manifested: After nearly two decades of finance on the straight-and-narrow, I was getting to party down in the fast lane. I just hoped the fast lane didn’t lead to the pokey.

  For an hour or more, I didn’t even steal a glance towards the folder where I’d stuck Don’s card. But once I’d put the stock ownership figures into a nice orderly spreadsheet, I got up to make tea. That was my undoing. I passed the file cabinet and opened the drawer.

  I was looking at the postmark when Barb looked in. “Hey, I’ve got to drop Dane at his dad’s.”

  Guiltily, I stuffed the card into the folder. “Great. See you.”

  I heard her lock the front door as she left. We single women are security-conscious, even in the afternoon. I reopened the file drawer and started studying the postscript again. I missed you. Past tense. What did that mean? That he used to miss me but didn’t any longer? Or that he’d stopped by, but I was gone? Why would he bother to send a flowery card with a message like that? Why did I want to know after vowing to Dr. Warren I didn’t care if Don cared?

  Then, as I started to replace the card in the envelope, I felt it catch on something. I extracted a little square of white cardboard. I took it towards the light to read the small print. Three Sons Loan. A stamped number in black underneath. On the back, in print too small to read even with my reading glasses. So I fumbled in the desk drawer, pulled out a magnifying glass, and peered at the square of cardboard. The fine print was just legalese, but I deciphered that it was a pawn ticket. Wednesday’s date was stamped on the back. The address was there under the boilerplate, and it was a part of town I wouldn’t usually go to, certainly not in the evening. I slid the card and the pawn ticket into my purse.

  My curiosity eventually won out over my caution. So the next morning, as the sun was glaring down, I gathered up the evidence of my innocence in the lawsuit against Will, and shoved the folder into my briefcase and my briefcase into the car. I dropped Tommy off at computer camp and started toward the 40th Street Bridge. I had every intention of heading across the river to Netmore and Will. But I found myself turning south, towards the dodgy area on the edge of downtown, where the quick-loan companies and pawnshops catered to poor people and dotcom millionaires who just saw their stock options go underwater. It didn’t make sense that Don, of all people, would be pawning his valuables. He was more the eBay type, wasn’t he? And why would, having pawned it, he send the ticket to me? Secret messages, pawned objects. Why not hand them over to Wanda?

  On Indiana Blvd, there were two pawn shops, one gleaming like a new bank branch and the other a small storefront with a rather enticing Gibson guitar in the dirty window. The new store, I imagined, would give out a computerized page with all sorts of information, but this storefront looked to be more traditional, handing out a perforated ticket like the one in Don’s envelope.

  I pulled up to the front and went in, clutching the ticket in one hand. What if they wanted identification? Did I still have my old driver’s license with my married name? Would I have to produce the death certificate and prove somehow that the property pawned here belonged to me? Well, I couldn’t do that. The official widow got the entire estate, including, presumably, whatever Don pawned.

  Maybe I should turn this over to the lawyer? No. Don sent this to me. He wanted me to have it. For some reason, he wanted me to have it. And he didn’t want Wanda to have it.

  The pawnshop was as old-fashioned inside as out. Along the walls were dusty shelves filled with, I presumed, unclaimed items, and on the counter was a brass cash register but no computer.

  I strode forward to the scarred oak counter and looked straight at the old man behind it. One of the three sons of the shop name, I guessed, now the age of a grandfather. “I want to redeem this,” I declared, and gave him the ticket.

  My militantly efficient manner worked yet again, as he didn’t check to see if I was the one who pawned the item. Or maybe the guy didn’t care who I was as long as I had the ticket. And the cash. He checked an ink-stained ledger. “$50.”

  “That’s all?” I said, but dug into my wallet and handed over a few bills. He disappeared into the back and returned a moment later with a box enclosing another box. He drew out the silver filigree box about the size of a hardback book, yanked off the sticker and checked the number, then gave it to me.

  As I stared down at it, he growled. “Key taped underneath.”

  I flipped it over to see the little key. Slowly, I walked out to my car, turning the box this way and that. Something metallic rattled inside, but I waited until I was in a safer area before I pulled over into a McDonald’s parking lot and unlocked the box.

  There were a couple of folded sheets of paper, but I tossed them aside and looked for whatever made the ping. There in the corner was a gold ring.

  I didn’t have to pick it up to know what it was. We’d been poor when we got married, and our rings were cheap, just 14 carat gold-plate. Mine was so worthless it didn’t hurt at all when I flung it into the river on the day the divorce was final. (Well, maybe it hurt a little.)

  But Don had kept his. Why? And why send it to me in this roundabout way? Maybe he was saying, hang onto this for me.

  Thoughtfully, I opened the first folded page. It was a reduction copy of a survey, the sort we might have framed and put on our wall years ago as a “before” picture of our projects. The type and plan were too small now to make much sense of, and all I could decipher was a curve along the left side, which I thought was probably the river.

  Briskly, refusing to look at the gold ring in the silver box, I opened the other page. It was another reduction, again too tiny to read right now. It looked like the printout of a bill, and all I could make out was the familiar “Verizon” logo. Here I was, getting eyestrain and brain strain, trying to figure out why this Don would want me to have some cell phone bill. I wished he would have just typed out his reason and sent it to me in email. Or stayed alive long enough for me to demand an answer.

  I sat there until I remembered the appointment with Will. As I put the car in gear, I imagined calling Dr. Warren and asking him. Riddle me this. Why would my ex send me his wedding ring?

  I could hear Dr. Warren in my head. This imaginary Dr. Warren wasn’t any more congenial than the real one. “What do you think?”

  He wanted me to have the ring. Because he wanted me to keep it for him. That and the two tiny-print pages. I was supposed to hold it all for him until—when? He must have planned to come collect the box from me, maybe this week. Maybe the purpose was to keep it all from Wanda. He didn’t trust her.

  Well, made sense to me. I didn’t
trust her either. But it was all starting to sound like, well, there was trouble in paradise. Sounded like maybe he was thinking ahead. A life beyond Wanda.

  I had to stop thinking about this. It was all about the past, and now I had think of the present. I had an appointment with Will Bowie. But the past was still with me, as I approached the Netmore campus, around the back way.

  I’d seen this hundred acres of riverfront in every incarnation, from Uncle Stu’s hardscrabble soybean farm, to the funky collection of sheds that served as Netmore’s first headquarters, to the sopping mess of a springtime construction site, to this industrial campus. All around were steel and glass low-rise offices hidden among the groves of no-longer-new trees, and a single high-rise ascending into the very blue prairie sky, the tallest building between Chicago and Indianapolis.

  As I left my car, I shoved the silver box into my capacious purse, then went into the Netmore Spike. Will’s office was at the top of the phallic symbol. I rose in the glass elevator, surveying the changes since the last stock offering: carpet on the floor and neon art on the walls. But the employees still thought every day was Casual Friday. These guys—they were mostly guys; network systems were testosterone zone—looked pretty casual. It was an illusion; they’d be sitting here at midnight, tossing paper wads at the trashcans, and then exploding in a burst of code on their terminals. But now they looked like typing-class slackers waiting for the lunch bell to ring.

  I was still distracted by Don’s last gift, or commission, or whatever it was. Absently, I gave my name to the receptionist and got ushered right in to Will’s big corner office. He didn’t bother to rise when I entered, only gesturing me into a chair next to his mountain bike. He looked about the same. His hair was grayer in front, but the ponytail was just as long, and his mustache still drooped at each mouth corner. “Meggie.”

  It wasn’t the most welcoming welcome, but I took it as an invitation to smile. “Hi, Will.”

  He leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on his black granite desk. I could see the gold foil sticker on the bottom of his flip-flops: Walgreens Value, Size 11, $2.99.

  I gathered we weren’t going anywhere formal for lunch.

  He didn’t bother with small talk. “So what did you find out?”

  I passed the papers over. He looked at my bona fides and handed them back. He did put his feet down so I saw his face and not his rubber soles. He said, “What about the lawsuit?”

  “From what I can tell, it hasn’t much to do with you. Someone is disputing the land’s title.” I added, “Probably just a nuisance suit from someone who sold at a price he now thinks was too low. Don wouldn’t alienate you by selling you land when he didn’t have clear title.”

  “You sure? I hear Don was into some strange shit.”

  “He was?” This I didn’t want to hear. Drugs? Would Don get into something like that? Would counterculture Will think of drugs as strange shit? “Like what?”

  “Like ecological building. Green development.”

  Relief. “Okay, that wasn’t his usual interest, but there are tax advantages. And that has nothing to do with this litigation. Anyone can file a lawsuit.”

  Will gave me a suspicious look. “You say you’re not involved, but you’re defending him.”

  I took a deep breath. He was right, of course. It shouldn’t be my problem, no matter what Don put in that silver box. “I’m just saying don’t worry too much about this, because it’ll probably be thrown out. Don didn’t buy disputed land. That wasn’t his way of doing business.”

  “Not when you and Society Brad were around. Maybe things changed. Anyway, it’s left me in a goddamn mess. The contractor stopped work as soon as the lawsuit was filed. So I got a disputed title and a half-built building, and I’m out ten million so far. And if it doesn’t resolve, I’ll be suing the hell out of Don’s company.”

  I couldn’t blame him. His plans would be on hold. He couldn’t keep funding a building on land that might be snatched back at any time. “It probably won’t come to anything.”

  His face brightened. “Maybe I can ignore this, now Don’s dead. It’s sure to be dismissed.”

  Reluctantly, I shook my head. “His company’s named too. And the estate will be liable for judgments.” The estate wasn’t liable for child support, but hey, a business deal was a deal. “Why not let your attorney file some response and wait to see what happens?” But I knew the answer. He wanted to finish this building, before the long Midwest winter set in.

  “I’ll call her,” he said. “The real widow. What’s her number?”

  “I don’t know.” I was lying through my teeth. I just didn’t want to hear him talking to her. If there was any good of Don’s death, it was I wouldn’t have to hear that scratchy voice again.

  “Come on, didn’t you ever call Don there?”

  “Not if I could help it.” It was a point of pride never to call Don. I’d use email, as it was easier to control my voice then. I’d promise myself a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food if I went through a month without calling him. When I was dieting, that was incentive enough, combined with avoiding the potential humiliation of my replacement answering the phone.

  “Damn. Well, I’ll call his office then and get the number. Maybe I can persuade her to get me dropped from the lawsuit.”

  “Good luck.” I did wish him well. But in a title dispute, there was no helping it. The new owner of the land had to be sued too, so that the sale could be nullified. “The good thing is, if the other guy wins, the title company will be on the hook for what you paid.” Then, I thought with glee, the title company would come after Wanda. “You’ll get your money no matter what.”

  “I don’t want the money back. I want the land. And my building. Finished.” He sounded sullen. “I’m going to check out this widow, and get her to get me off that damned lawsuit.”

  I didn’t think it would be that easy, but the image of him and his high-priced lawyers badgering Wanda made me smile. I shoved that thought back into my subconscious, back into that swampy id where all my demons fermented. “Well, now that’s all settled, maybe we can talk about the programmer coming to my son’s computer camp to talk about careers.”

  “I remember. Good kid. Likes basketball. About eight, right?”

  “Fifteen. Anyway—”

  “Fifteen? Good grief, when did that happen? I remember coming over for that barbecue at your house and beating him at Slam Jam on that old Play Station 2. Yeah, I guess it was a while ago. No one’s used a PS2 for years. You said it was today?”

  Wow. “If you can free a programmer up.”

  “Nope. We’re behind schedule as per usual on the upgrade. But I’ll come along instead.”

  “You? Yourself?”

  “Sure. I’m not much of a programmer. That was always Joe’s territory. They ask me about coding, I’ll be busted. But I can tell them about the careers.”

  The founder of Netmore, the local billion-dollar baby. Wow. Tommy would owe me big time. More important, this was Will saying we were okay again. “That’s really great of you.”

  “Let’s get going. You can drive us, and we can pick up some fast food on the way back.”

  As we waited for the elevator, I asked something that had been nagging at me. “So you personally bought the land from Don? And you’re going to own the building?”

  “Yeah. It’s good business.” He said this defiantly, as if I might challenge the suitability of real estate as an investment. “Netmore’s going to lease most of it. We’ve got to expand now we’ve bought Micronetware, and my land is closest.”

  The elevator arrived and we stepped in, and I punched the button. I wanted to change the subject, but our relationship was still so fragile that I didn’t try. “I remember when there was a farm there across the ditch. Bottomland, with rolling hills and a great view
of the river. We’d looked into buying it years ago, but it was mostly floodway, so it wasn’t worth developing for residence or business.”

  “That’s old news,” Will said scornfully. “You think I’d buy land I couldn’t use?”

  “Oh, right. A lot of this bank has been rezoned, hasn’t it?”

  The year before, I remembered all too well, a snowy December gave way to Christmas rain, leading to The Great New Year’s Eve flood. Vince and Hal insisted we evacuate with them in case the river broke over the levee. We spent the night at Barb’s and returned to find the house safe. The worst flood in a century . . . and yet the river had stayed within its banks, and later in the year, the floodplain was redrawn to just the lowest places on the river. Cautious old me didn’t drop my flood insurance, but there was no doubt the flood and its aftermath occasioned widespread rejoicing among the real estate community. More waterfront lots!

  Suddenly, I realized why a previous owner might sue for the return of Will’s new land. If it got rezoned out of the floodway, it was worth much more than the two thousand dollars an acre periodically flooded farmland brought. “So when did you buy the land?”

  Will gave me a crafty look. “Awhile after that guy sold it to Don.”

  “Before or after it was declared out of the floodway?”

  “After. I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t have bought it then, if Don hadn’t promised I could build immediately.”

  Wow. Don really had been partying down in the fast lane, buying floodplain property and hoping it would be rezoned before he re-sold it to Will. Making promises like that. “So this is all buildable land now?”

  “It’s okay now.” He gestured south, but there was a stand of woods in between, and all I could see was the silver curve of the river heading downtown. Maybe that was the project outlined in that survey in Don’s box, with the river to the east. “Don got that building started, soon as the snow quit in the winter. It’s all framed, but now the construction’s stopped. Because of that frigging lawsuit. We can drive by it, you want to see it. They got the glass up on the lower floors—sort of silver skin, like on a smartphone. Or a Cylon. Awesome.”