“Well, Sparky, like I was just saying to Lexy here, your uncle was a proud man.”
“I told myself it was because I was so busy. A busy executive that doesn’t have time to call her only uncle and tell him she’s getting married and she’s had a Eureka moment about California fire codes.”
“I know, dear,” said Visalia. “Cousin Clovis was just the same. No time for anything.”
I would have turned and stared at her with my mouth hanging open—Clovis had “time” for a racetrack habit, a weekday afternoon poker game, and, well, marriage guidance counselling—but I was too busy following the path of what Sparky was saying.
“He would have what?” I asked her. “Your uncle—if he had known about your wedding and all your plans—he would have what?”
Sparky put down her soup spoon and sniffed. “He would have been a third opinion on it all,” she said.
There was more going on there than triangulating business opinions, I knew. That sniff was the start of a crying jag, not just hot soup after a sweaty golf round. I would have asked more, but now I was too busy working out how to warn Todd there was someone else in the house. Someone who, judging by the dark patches on her golf clothes, would definitely want a shower quite soon. Especially after a bowl of chicken soup and some pretty snottery tears as a chaser.
“Vi,” I said, “if you don’t mind, I might just go and see if Todd’s okay. Take him a glass of water.”
“Who?” said Sparky.
“My boyfriend,” I said. “He wasn’t feeling very well and he just popped to the powder room.”
“He’s not in there now,” Sparky said. “I threw my cleats in on the way past.”
“He must have gone upstairs,” I said. “Well, if you’re feeling volcanic, you do want to step away, don’t you?” I ran a glass of water and started edging towards the door.
“Don’t take that nasty Cuento tap,” Visalia said. “I’ll get a bottle from the refrigerator in the pantry.”
“Oh, this’ll be fine,” I said and sidled a bit more.
“But it’s probably the tap water that made him sick,” Sparky said. “Is he over from Ireland?”
“Scotland,” I said, before I could help it. I’d been trying to stop being so picky. “No. He’s Cuento born and bred. He was raised on this.” I lifted the glass and looked at the cloudy swirl with specks of God knows what.
“Bring him a Tums,” said Vi, standing and rummaging through that same junk drawer with the cable ties and stumps of candle.
“Oh, I think I hear him calling for me,” I said. “You won’t come and embarrass him, will you?” Then I turned and scooted along the passage, across the foyer, up the stairs, and in past the urns and columns as fast as my legs would carry me without slopping the water.
“Todd!” I whispered as soon as the door was closed at my back. “Abort! Serpentina’s back.” My voice died to a croak and the words sank back down into me.
Todd was standing frozen in the middle of the floor in one of Visalia’s dresses, with one of Visalia’s handbags hooked over his arm and with his feet jammed into a pair of Visalia’s peep-toe slingbacks.
I worked my mouth but nothing came out.
“Are you alone?” he hissed.
I managed a nod.
“Phe-ew,” he said. Then, quick as a whip, he shucked off the dress and fired the shoes straight off his feet into the open closet. He lobbed the bag in after them and turned to where his shorts and t-shirt were puddled on the rug beside him.
He threw the dress at me and I caught it. On my face. I batted it out of the way. Todd was hopping about getting his shorts on and chasing his flip-flops at the same time.
“Shake it, Lexy,” he said. “Hang that up and tidy the purse and pumps. C’mon, c’mon.”
“I … ” I said. Quite an achievement.
“Oh, for fuck sake!” said Todd. He pulled his t-shirt on, grabbed the dress back again, and disappeared into the closet. When he came back out he yanked me after him and we exited the room together. He dodged into a door three along, which was a bathroom. He flushed the toilet, took a great bale of toilet paper and stuffed it into the back of his waistband. Then he sprayed the air freshener that sat on the cistern, walked through it as though it was perfume, and yanked me back out onto the landing again.
“Jesus, Lexy,” he muttered as we trotted down the stairs. “It’s Snoopers’ 101. Put on a dress and you’ve got an out for when they come and find you. It’s so goddam embarrassing no one ever questions you and they can’t get you out fast enough.”
“Oh,” I said. “Oh!” We were almost at the kitchen corridor, but I just had time to ask, “Did you get into the safe?”
“Duh,” said Todd. We turned the last corner. “Mizz Visalia, I am just beside myself. I just want to die. I need to go. I have to stop at CVS and pick up some … Well, let’s not be nasty. But I’m mortified! I—Oh God!” He pretended to see Serpentina for the first time. “Hi,” he said. “I won’t shake hands. I’m pretty sure it was my breakfast burrito, but just in case it’s the stomach flu.”
“You’re Lexy’s boyfriend,” said Serpentina. She took in every inch of him from his perfect, half-inch ruffle cut, through his manscaped stubble, his sculpted biceps, his dull pink citi-shorts, his Adonis-esque calves, his diamonds (ear studs, nose stud, and wedding ring) and—oh yes—his Stonewall t-shirt. “As in … for a green card?”
“You know,” said Todd, “I get that a lot from straight women. Never from gay men. They see the lipstick on the pig.”
“What are you talking about?” said Visalia.
“Nothing, Auntie,” Sparky said. “I think I’ve been in Texas too long, is all.”
We said our goodbyes and scuttled out of there like roaches when the lights come on.
Once we were back in the car, Todd started laughing. “Your face!” he said. “And then when I threw the dress and you just stood there and let it smother you!”
“Ha ha,” I said. “Yes, I’m a comedy turn. Partly it was because you look better in a dress than I do. You look much better out of a dress than I do. When I get back to Dundee, I’m going to join a gym.”
“Oh please!” Todd said. “Honey, you know what they say: you spend enough time in a barbershop, you’re gonna get a haircut. How long did it take California to make you hate your body?”
“A week,” I said. “Yeah, okay, I thought you were a creeper. After what Roger said about boundaries and all that, you know. So what did you find in the safe?”
“What did I find in the safe?” said Todd. He was giddy with it, teasing me. “What did I find? In the safe? Where are we going, by the way? Where should I take you?”
“Golf course to try to meet Bang-Bang Dolshikov. He’s beginning to change his tune about things. I couldn’t get much out of Serpentina, but I’d love to know more.”
“Are we going to go out on the course and track him down?”
“Why?”
Todd tapped the dashboard thermometer. “Cos it’s ninety-nine now. It’s gonna get warm.”
“We’ll play it by ear,” I said. “Hey, Todd?”
“Ma’am?”
“What did you find in the fucking safe?”
“Receipts for airline tickets to the Caymans,” he said. “Airline tickets for Rome with a connection to Palermo.”
“Hedging his bets,” I said. “Wait. You found the Rome tickets? Or a receipt.”
“Tickets,” said Todd. “Well, you know—a print-out of the confirmation number. And what else? Oh, yes. Receipt for a rental agreement on a beach cottage.” He had joined what passes for a main road through Cuento and he scooted across all three lanes in one go. “Quick way to the golf club if you don’t mind coming at it from the dumpsters,” he said. “I worked there one summer of middle school until they fired me for knocking over the clubhouse. Now,
where was I? House deeds for the gilded monstrosity we’ve just left. Ancient old house deeds for something called the Creek House.”
“But no house deeds for Sicily?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “I mean, no. The cops took the house deeds for Sicily, but left a receipt. There was a realtor’s brochure. What a slice of heaven! Did you ever see that old Merchant Ivory movie with all the naked men?”
“I saw A Room with a View with two minutes of naked men and two hours of Edwardian fashion.”
“Yeah, well the house in Trapani makes that look like … ”
“Trainspotting?” I said. “Mizz Vi gave me the impression that the place they bought in Trapani was a condo.”
“This was no condo,” said Todd.
“Huh. So the cops took the paperwork—flight and house—for the Caymans trip and they took the house paperwork for the Sicily trip. But they left the Sicily plane tickets? Is it me or is that weird?”
“They left a lo-ho-hot of financial papers too. I photographed them. I’ll ask Nolly what they are and what they say about the Bombaros’ net worth. But I can tell you this: that old gal is not going to end her days on a corner with a cup out.”
We were rattling along a gravel track that looked like a dead end, but at the last minute Todd swerved left and found an opening between two industrial dumpsters. “Jesus, memories,” he said, peering out of the side window. “I lost my virginity in these shrubs.”
“While you were in middle school?” I asked him. “How old are kids in middle school here?”
“Old enough,” he said. “And he taught me a lot. He was a doctor and now I’m a doctor. And he put me off golf clothes for life.”
“I’m going to get you on the couch one day if it kills me,” I said. “Gangs, creepy doctors at the golf club, and cleptopar—”
“I do not have that ridiculous fictitious so-called disease,” said Todd.
“It’s a disorder, not a disease,” I said.
“It’s a crock,” he snapped, as we swung around the last corner into a parking lot. “And here we are,” said Todd. “Playground of the great and the g—Je-sus! There he is.” He ducked down in his seat.
“Dolshikov?” I said, scrunching down too.
“My first doctor!” said Todd. “Well, of course. It’s Wednesday afternoon. It’s twenty years later but it’s still Wednesday afternoon and there he is.”
Strolling across the car park, dragging a wheeled golf trolley, was one of those American Men. I had been familiar with them for years before I ever came here, because they’re the men who take cruises on the North Sea. They’ve got moustaches but never beards, they’ve never met a V-neck they didn’t love, and when roughing it through St. Andrews or Virginia Water they wear their worldly goods lashed to their bellies in bumbags that they lock to their belt loops with security chains.
This one was a doozy. He had bright brown hair combed carefully over his ruddy scalp and wore a V-neck argyle sweater in a coral pink that clashed with his boozer’s tan, over eau-de-nil slacks and white golf shoes with yellow laces.
“At least he’s learned to dress a little better,” Todd said, peering over the dashboard.
But I couldn’t laugh, because I had just noticed his golfing buddy.
It was Branston.
Of course it was.
“Todd,” I said, “you know how you lot always call vets and dentists doctors as well as real doctors? What was your shrubbery guy?”
“Hm?” said Todd. “He’s a dermatologist. Why?”
“Cos that fine specimen in the mustard Ralph Lauren is my ex-husband.”
“Really?” said Todd, sitting bolt upright and lifting his sunglasses for a better look. “Real-ly?” His voice was getting sepulchral. “Well, well, well. Wanna have some fun?”
“I want to find Bang-Bang,” I said. “Officially. But yes. If you do too.”
We climbed down and Todd draped a casual arm around my shoulders before we sauntered over to where Bran and the pink sensation were standing, braying at one another like bull walruses.
“Yo!” said Todd, his voice had dropped an octave. Out of the corner of his mouth he added, “Put your shades on and pout, Lexy.”
Bran was thunderstruck. I gave him the Oliver Hardy fingertip wave.
“Well, well, well,” said Todd again, as we drew close. “Look at this, Lexy. Your old squeeze meets your new one. Are you tempted? Am I gonna lose you?”
“Teodor?” said the dermatologist. As the recognition took hold, his ruddy face drained to a colour that clashed with his coral sweater worse than ever.
“That’s me,” Todd said. “And my best girl. What a small world. One ex-husband and one ex-…”
“Dermatologist!” spluttered the dermatologist.
“I’ve heard so much about you, Doctor,” I said to him.
“I never mentioned Carl’s name,” said Bran.
“Not from you,” I said. “From Toddles here.”
“Me ’n’ Carl go way back, Bran,” Todd said. “Way, way back into the rough. Huh, Carlos?”
Carl was silent for a long, strained moment and then he put his hand to his hip. “Pager,” he said hoarsely.
“Never figured you for a vibrate kinda guy,” said Todd.
Bran looked from one to the other of us, outfoxed as ever. His golf buddy put his phone to his ear and bustled off, having one half of the lamest fake phone conversation I had ever heard.
“I thought you’d gone, Lexy,” Bran said.
“Oh, she has,” said Todd. “She’s good and gone. So don’t start getting any ideas, dude. You let her go and she is gone.” He pulled me closer to him and gave Bran a look that could freeze a wart off.
Bran tried to sneer but spoiled it by taking a shaky step back when Todd took one forward. He knew he was beaten and left, walking so fast over to his Acura that his golf trolley overtook him on the slight slope and he had to run to catch it.
“Oh, that was good,” I said, looking up into Todd’s eyes. “Will you be my real boyfriend, please? I’m sure Roger wouldn’t mind. And if he does, I think I can take him.”
Todd laughed and let me go. I was surprised to find that my shoulder was damp where I’d been tucked under his arm.
“Take him?” he said. “Honey! You think I’ve got a checkered past. You don’t want to see Roger when he channels his roots. He’s got a wormhole to Stockton he can snap open like that.” He clicked his fingers in my face.
“I don’t know what that means, but I believe you,” I said. “Can I ask you one last question before we finally start thinking about Bang-Bang?”
“Shoot.”
“How come you don’t know that guy? Socially? I mean if he’s a doctor and you and Roger are too, how come you don’t run into each other at benefits and things?”
“Benefits?” said Todd.
“Friends of the Library,” I said, thinking of Dorabelle.
“Because the kind of benefits Zit-boy and Mrs. Zit-boy go to don’t invite brothers and Chicanos who work at public hospitals.”
“Even in California?” I said. “I mean, I knew about Louisiana and all that down there, but—”
“You know what?” said Todd. “You’re so right. I forgot we were in lovely liberal California! I just feel so dumb now. Thank you, Lexy. I’m going to call Roger this minute and tell him the good news.”
“And I’m going to kill myself,” I said. “Sorry.”
Todd just smirked at me and rolled his eyes. “Now, for God’s sake, focus!” he said. “Being a sleuth is not all cross-dressing and fucking with old flames. It’s a hundred degrees out here, Lexy. It’s too hot to dick around.”
We squared up and faced the clubhouse. Then, without any clue as to how we were going to blag our way in, we started walking, because the tarmac was beginning to burn our feet rig
ht through our flip-flops.
“Oh wait, though,” said Todd, stopping. “There’s just one thing. Never call me Toddles again.”
Nineteen
God almighty, it was hot. I had thought they were all crazy, but I got it now: if you start whining at ninety there’s nowhere to go when a hundred draws its fist back and socks you. A hundred degrees is just too damn hot. As we toiled across the car park of the Cuento Golf Club, I felt the sweat begin to gather between my shoulder blades. I felt my thighs begin to slip and slide inside my shorts and my hair soften and darken on my head. I felt drips begin to form along my jawline and my feet begin to squish from side to side on my rubber soles. I felt my lubricated buttocks begin to work independently instead of as a team and start to chew my knickers up into a sodden wad in between them.
“God, it’s hot,” said Todd.
I pulled open the door to the clubhouse foyer and felt the much-more-delicious-than-it-sounds sensation of my puddle of back sweat cooling in the frigid air, the rivulets coursing down my arms and legs, evaporating into no more than little stinky trails through the dust on my skin. I also felt my hair frizz. Nothing’s free in this life. I plucked the wad of wet knickers out of my bum crack in as ladylike a way as I could manage and headed for the hostess desk cum cloakroom.
“Are you members, sir? Madam?” said the child, one of those spending the summer, as Todd had once, earning peanuts and losing cherries to lecherous doctors in vomit-themed golf attire.
“We’re not,” I said. “We’ve come to meet someone who’s playing a guest round today.” I could feel Todd start to gather steam to take over. I had just pegged us at the lowest rung of the clubhouse pecking order. Hangers-on of fly-by-nights. “Mr. Dolshikov. His wife left him here about an hour ago and set off on her own. I’m afraid we’ve got some very bad news for him.”
The child scratched a badly covered spot at the side of her mouth and pondered all of this. “I can send a cart out to find him,” she said. “It’s too hot for you to walk.”
Scot Free Page 19
