Hot Ticket

by Janice Weber

  “Never better. I’ve just got a bad back. Excuse me if I don’t get up.”

  “No problem.” Finstein appeared relieved to find his client coherent: in the eyes of the law, weddings were only one step removed from last wills and testaments. With a doting smile, he sent his daughters into the hall for a few moments. “Are you two sure you want to go ahead with this?” he asked sternly when the three of us were alone. The question was not addressed to me, but Finstein probably didn’t realize how much money I had of my own.

  “Ask the lady, not me,” Fausto replied.

  I smiled at the judge. “I let you in, didn’t I?”

  Finstein reached into his briefcase. “Right. Well. I took the liberty of bringing over a brief prenuptial agreement.”

  The papers in his hand had more fine print than the nuclear test ban treaty. Fausto didn’t even look over. “You may now take the liberty of tearing it in half.”

  Finstein cleared his throat and put the papers back in his satchel. “Is either of you presently married?” No reply. “I take it that’s a no. Obviously you’re both above the age of consent. No problem with the blood tests?” Silence. “No one under duress? You’re both sound of mind and body?”

  “Cut the shit, Peter,” Fausto interrupted. “It’s late.”

  The justice bowed to the inexorable. “Girls! Would you come here, please?”

  Brittany and Carolina tumbled in. This time they paid more attention to the bride. “Would you like me to hold the rings?” one of them asked.

  “We forgot them,” I replied, moving closer to Fausto’s Hawaiian shirt. “Just the no-frills version, Peter.”

  He arranged a daughter on either side and opened a red velvet booklet. The three Finsteins looked as if they were the ones getting married, not us. “Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?” he asked Fausto.

  Fausto squeezed my hand. “Now and forever.”

  “Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?” he asked me.

  “I do.” Three letters, two fabled words: how simply began the most complex treaty of all.

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

  I kissed my second spouse. “Don’t bore me now.”

  “That’s it, Dad?” one of the girls finally asked. No flowers, no gown, aisle, music, maid of honor, cake, presents, photographers, dancing, rings? What a joke!

  “That’s it, honey.” Finstein got a gold pen from his coat. “Just sign on this line. You and your sister are the witnesses. That’s a very important job.”

  As Fausto added his name to the document, I opened the champagne. “May I ask a favor? We’d like to keep this secret for a while.”

  “You mean you just eloped?” the daughter with more mascara asked.

  “You heard Mrs. Kiss, girls. Not a word leaves this room until we get the okay.” Finstein knew his fee depended on it. “When might that be?”

  “Maybe never,” I said.

  “What? Fausto! This is a major social event!”

  “That doesn’t mean anyone has to know about it,” my husband replied.

  I escorted the wedding party out and shut off the lights. When I returned upstairs, Fausto was sitting at the foot of the bed pressing a handkerchief to his torn tongue. “Come here,” he said, patting the mattress. Looked exhausted. Before speaking, he studied my face, as if to find a few answers to many unasked questions. Finally he said, “I suppose I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering why you said yes.”

  “I might do the same wondering why you asked.”

  “That’s easy. I have an overwhelming desire to protect you.”

  “Against what?”

  “Evil spirits. Bad men. Indigestion. Despair.” Fausto kissed my hand. “Any champagne left in that bottle?” He watched me divide the last of it. “May all nights be as unpredictable—and as happy—as this one.” We drank. “Are you sure you don’t want a little ring? Just to remind you whose property you are now? I’ve got one in that drawer over there.”

  An inconspicuous little nothing, I was sure. “I think I can remember.”

  Fausto put down his glass. “May I ask a favor? Go back to your hotel and get a good night’s sleep. I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot.”

  I was stunned. “What wrong foot?”

  “I’m going to take some medicine that will make me appear dead for quite a while. You’ve seen enough of that for one evening, I think.”

  Don’t leave him alone, Smith. I kissed his hand. Tonight, and only tonight, I’d be a submissive wife. “I’ll call when I get back to the hotel.”

  “I won’t swallow anything until I hear from you.” He winced. “God, I think I’m happy.”

  “Some philosopher you are.”

  Dead leaves rushed at my ankles as I walked to the Corvette. I was understanding their language better by the hour.

  Chapter Twelve

  DUNCAN POUNDED on the door as I was on the phone. “Open up!” he shouted. “I know you’re in there!”

  “It’s Duncan,” I told the bridegroom. “Any plans for tomorrow?”

  “None until I wake up, sweet. It might be late afternoon. Just go about your usual business. Drop by a clinic if you have time. I’ll call as soon as I come to.”

  “I suppose I should put off returning to Berlin.”

  “Open up!” Duncan shouted again.

  “See you tomorrow,” I told Fausto. “Maybe this is all a dream.”

  “Good night, love. Thanks for jumping off the cliff with me.”

  I opened the door. Duncan smelled like a distillery. His face was a blast of angry reds. “I’ve been waiting for hours,” he screeched, marching in. “I almost went to Fausto’s to get you.”

  “Good thing you didn’t,” I replied, locking my minibar. “What’s the problem?”

  “Justine’s not coming to Cleveland with me this weekend. I bought nonrefundable tickets. It’s the last straw! I’ve had it!”

  “Did something come up?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me! After we swore never to keep any secrets!” Duncan threw himself across the bed. “There’s someone else! I know it! It’s the guy on the pager! Oh God, I’m a fool!”

  “What was the official excuse?”

  “She and Marvel have a sudden dinner meeting with the French ambassador.”

  “Sounds legit to me.”

  “I called the French embassy. The ambassador’s in Morocco.” Duncan punched the pillow with his good fist. “Bitch! I’m going back to Berlin!”

  “Good idea. This town is not your speed.”

  “You think it’s your speed?” He wobbled to his feet. “Are you really screwing Bobby Marvel?”

  “Get serious, Duncan. You know I can’t stand cornet players. I wish Justine would check the facts before feeding you her drugged-out fantasies.”

  He picked up the phone, dialed, listened. “She’s still not home! I’ve been calling all night!”

  “Forget her and get some sleep, would you?”

  “You think I can just go to sleep after all I’ve been through?”

  I pointed to the other bed. “You can always stay here. That should give your friend something to think about.”

  He paused. “No, too risky.” At the door he turned. “Are you all right?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “You haven’t stopped smiling since I came in.”

  I didn’t sleep much after he left: that low laughter kept me awake for long, glimmering stretches. When the alarm buzzed at seven, I wasn’t at all tired. After a second, I realized why: last night I had won a round. Wanted to call my co-conspirator, but he was asleep. So I drove to his house with a basket of roses.

  No one there but the usual breakfast scoundrels. I crept upstairs. Fausto lay flat on his back exactly as I had left him. On the night table stood an empty glass with brownish residue. Smelled vile. Fausto’s heart was barely moving. He looked gray as a pigeon. Hands clay. That frightened me so I opened the night tab
le drawer. Fausto owned a beautiful Colt .45—loaded. Inside a small velvet case was a ring with a diamond bigger than my thumbnail. Garish, camp … pure Kiss. I put it on and felt better. Left the roses on his pillow.

  Justine saw me coming down the stairs. She didn’t look her usual hyper-made-up self. For the first time, I noticed the fifty-year hollows beneath her eyes. Even her butt couldn’t iron out all the wrinkles in her skintight linen skirt. High on something, as usual. Beneath the smile, I smelled fear: whatever Fausto wanted, she was having difficulty delivering. “Is the old boy sleeping it off?” she asked pleasantly.

  “No, we had breakfast in bed. Duncan tells me you’re dining French tonight. He just can’t figure out how the ambassador’s getting back from Morocco in time.”

  Took her a moment to figure out what I was really saying, but Justine wasn’t in the first tier of Washington jackals. She was more like a groundhog. “He’s been spying on me!”

  “He thinks you’re seeing someone. Keeps talking about a pager.”

  Her Etonian accent vanished. “Christ Almighty! He told you that?”

  “Why not? He’s beside himself. Thinking of breaking off your engagement.”

  “What engagement?” Justine laughed hysterically. “He’s out of his mind!”

  “That’s what I keep telling him.”

  The sunlight caught my ring. Justine nearly fell down the stairs. “Fausto’s mother used to wear that,” she cried, as if I had stolen it.

  “You don’t say. Now that’s interesting.” As I was flashing sunbeams over the hallway, Chickering opened the door. Seeing me, she froze. Her thick shoes desecrated the spot where Fausto had taken me last night. “Chick! Good to see you,” I called fearlessly. My husband would protect me. “Is that luscious roommate of yours still practicing cello?”

  She tried the blowfish offense. “Perhaps you didn’t understand my last message.”

  “Hey, don’t blame me if you can’t choose between wife and career. Why don’t you stay home in Annapolis? Play a few duets with Rhoby instead of slumming it with Paula every night.”

  I left her sputtering with Justine. Drove the Corvette to the Beltway, wondering what had become of my friend in the Chevy. Today I could challenge him to a pretty wild drag race. From a rest stop I called Betty-Lou Beasley, the jailbird. “Did you get a copy of the warden’s orders?”

  “Yes, yes! I just want this over with!”

  “Good. Listen. During your lunch hour, walk to the cemetery next to the jail. Go to the chapel in the middle and take a right. Walk a little bit up to John Philip Sousa’s grave.”

  “John Flip Sousa?”

  Oh Christ! Didn’t these people know anything? “The bandleader. Stars and Stripes Forever. You’ll see a stone bench at his grave. I’ll leave an envelope on top. Your instructions and money will be inside. You’d better be alone because we’ll be watching through telescopic lenses. Good luck.”

  Actually, I’d be the one needing luck. Daffy Duck was more reliable than a water balloon like Beasley. But today I felt invincible, kissed by the gods. Bought myself a new dress and my husband a ring. Got a blood test. A little before noon I entered the Congressional Cemetery. As usual, it was empty. I didn’t even see the old gentleman straightening headstones at the bottom of the hill. Dropped an empty Coke can and an envelope containing three thousand bucks on Sousa’s bench. Then I climbed a dogwood a little way down the path.

  Ten minutes later, wearing a fluorescent jogging suit visible from Mars, Beasley came puffing up the dirt road. As she passed the dogwood, I saw that she was also carrying Mace and a small baseball bat. She jogged to Sousa’s grave, tore open the envelope, and read the very simple instructions, Leave your paper in the Coke can. Go quickly.

  First Betty-Lou’s zipper got snagged on her T-shirt. Then she got all tangled up in her Walkman wire. She dropped the Mace at about the same time a black Lexus rolled into the cemetery. I almost jumped out of the tree as the car slowed at the chapel then took a gentle right toward Sousa’s grave. Beasley ripped open her jogging suit and stuffed her contraband into the Coke can just as the vehicle halted at her side. A smoked window rolled down. “Hot day for jogging.”

  What the hell was Vicky Chickering doing here?

  “Oh yes,” Beasley nearly screamed. “It’s my lunch hour.” She stomped on the Coke can in her haste to leave. “Have a nice one!”

  Betty-Lou ran away, forsaking Mace and baseball bat. Chickering put the Lexus into reverse and crawled back to the chapel. There, she got out and circled the ruin once, very slowly, as if searching for pennies in the grass. But she kept looking back at Sousa’s grave. Maybe she scented me up in the tree. I cringed as she walked back to the bandleader’s plot. As her madras tent fluttered in the wind, Chickering inspected the detritus that Beasley had left behind. I hardly breathed: one glance at the dogwood during the wrong gust and I was finished. Fortunately her eyesight, like her imagination, remained earthbound. Chickering was about to leave when the wind scraped the Coke can across Sousa’s headstone. It sounded like a rock slide. Leave it there, Chickie! I prayed to evaporate as she picked up the litter and walked toward the overflowing bin beneath my tree.

  Not six feet away, she shook the can of Mace. Kept that for herself but the bat got heaved. Chickering was about to toss the Coke can when she noticed the paper inside. I went cold as she hunted it with an inquisitive finger. Thank God the aluminum bit back. “Shit!” she snapped. Trashed the can and returned to the chapel.

  A black man on a bicycle rode into the cemetery. At first I thought it was the volunteer custodian. When I saw the gold chains, I recognized Tanqueray Tougaw. He and Chickering talked briefly before Tougaw gave her a few items for her purse. Then, with a laugh, he rode away. Lexus followed.

  I jumped to the grass. Too damn popular, this cemetery. Retrieved Coke and returned to the Corvette, humbled by my own stupidity: at Aurilla’s dinner, Fausto had hinted that Tougaw was something other than he seemed. I had let the remark pass. Sloppy work. I zipped the top off the can and removed a soggy paper. Transfer orders all right. For reasons of national security, Figgis Cole was to be moved to Lorton immediately. Signed by Ralphine Preston, Deputy Attorney General, Justice Department. The seal looked authentic. The D.C. warden would have no cause, and probably no time, to question the order. It was just one of a thousand turds lost in the daily bilge.

  Called Maxine from the nearby hospital. “Beasley got the transfer papers.” I recited them. “That covers the warden’s ass. I think something’s going down tonight.”

  “So you’ll keep an eye on Marvel?” the Queen asked.

  “No, I thought I’d stick with Fausto.”

  “Marvel’s your boy,” she insisted.

  “Check up on a Tanqueray Tougaw for me, would you?” I tried to spell his name. “I think he’s Belizean. He keeps coming back like mildew after a flood.” I held up my left hand. At Fausto’s house the diamonds had looked like liquid fire. Under the fluorescent lights here they looked like something I had bought in a joke shop. “Remember James the mercenary? He’s coming to Washington tonight.”

  “Coming? What makes you think he’s not already there?”

  Good point. Why hadn’t I thought of that. “I saw a fax from him at Fausto’s. It said that everything was all clear for Dulles tonight.”

  “Okay, be sharp,” the Queen sighed. “I’ll check incoming flights from Belize. Follow your head. Not that other thing.”

  My feelings of invincibility began to fade as I drove to Fausto’s. They cinderized completely when I saw that his bed was empty. Maybe he had finally gone to the doctor. That little bubble burst when I returned to the hotel and found zero phone messages but another enormous bouquet of orchids. See you soon. Damn! The phone rang.

  “Hey there.”

  Shit, Maxine was always right. “Hi.”

  “What’s the matter, sugar?”

  “Nothing.” I swallowed thickly. “What’s on your mind?”

&nb
sp; “Meet me at the summer house,” Bobby said. “I have things to say to you.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “In person. I’ll send a driver at eight.”

  “I’ll drive myself. I have things to say to you, too.”

  “Now that’s more like it.”

  “I can’t stay long.”

  Bobby chuckled. “I was only expecting an hour. I know that’s my allowance.”

  Three hours later, still no call from my husband. I inched through rush-hour traffic back to his place. Fausto had left an envelope on the bed.

  My sweet, something urgent has come up. I don’t know when I’ll see you next. Thanks for wearing the ring. It was my mother’s. Your adoring F

  Miraculous invention, the nervous system: mere seconds after I read the note, my hands began to shake and my stomach charred. Dark blood hammered my forehead: stage fright was never like this. I fell onto the bed, my body so flooded with toxins that I half expected to go into convulsions. I had been outfoxed but how how how? What had Fausto gained by marrying me? And where the hell had he gone? Should have listened to Maxine: follow the head, never the heart, not even for one evening. I had been seduced by ten fingers and a tongue. Ancillary villains Brahms, dead leaves, soul-withering solitude … bah, I was such easy prey for a clever man.

  I lay there like a kicked dog. When the headache only got worse, I went down to the music room: once, a few lifetimes ago, I had been happy here. Now it was time to get my violin and clear out. But it had disappeared along with my husband. I went to the piano. Brahms no longer rested on the music stand. Instead I saw a Schubert duet, the same one that Fausto had been playing one night with Bobby Marvel, before Tuna dropped in. I thought my head would crack open and a thousand reptiles, each a writhing newborn suspicion, spill out. Get a grip, Smith. Presidents didn’t disappear in the middle of the day to play duets … did they? Bah, what did I know. Maybe Bobby had called me from here, with Fausto coaching.

  I rushed to the zoo. Called Maxine from the parking lot, a mess of strollers, vans, and sloppy families. “Find anything?” I asked. “I’m in a rush.”