“Money. Lots and lots of money.”
Elaine’s mind raced. How much was too much? What if she lowballed it? She thought about her half of Gus’s house, which, if she was lucky, would be $250,000 sometime in the future, possibly years, before the house could be sold. She straightened her shoulders and said, “I think three hundred seventy-five thousand dollars plus my retainer back will do nicely. What I want you to do is call your bank, your broker, or whomever you have to call, and tell them to wire the money into an account whose number I will give you when you’re ready.”
“That’s blackmail!” Isaac blustered.
“Yes it is.”
“You’re insane! I’m not paying you four hundred thousand dollars for a roll in the sack.”
“Sure you are. Because if you don’t, I’ll send copies of your performance to your partners, to the Bar Association, and to every judge in Sycamore Springs and in this part of Virginia. And I’ll send it to the newspapers. I’m going to count to five, and if you don’t already have the phone in your hand by the time I get to one, I’m walking out of here. And there are no second chances.”
“Bitch!”
“Bastard. I’m going to start counting now.”
“Wait just a damned minute. If I do what you want, how do I know you won’t come back again and again? That’s what blackmailers do. They try to suck you dry.”
“Guess that’s a chance you have to take. What’s it going to be, Isaac?”
“Give me that thing,” Isaac gestured toward the recorder.
“After you make the call, and I’m sure the money is in my account. Not one second before.”
“How many copies have you made?”
“Enough to carry me through till the day you die, you son of a bitch. Do I start counting, or do you want to man up and pay for what you did to me?”
“Give me the damned phone.”
An orderly opened the door and said, “Time for rehab, Mr. Diamond.”
“Ooooh, can you wait just a few minutes? Grandpa needs to make a phone call first. It will take just a minute.”
The orderly ogled Elaine and backed out of the room. “Five minutes, Mr. Diamond. Your time is reserved with the therapist.”
“Guess you better make it snappy, Isaac.” Elaine handed the phone to the lawyer. She stood close enough so she could hear every word on both ends of the line. She held up her account number and the routing numbers.
Elaine could barely breathe as she listened to Isaac transfer $400,000 into her account. When he broke the connection, Elaine took one long, deep breath. She turned around just as the orderly came back into the room.
“Time to go, Mr. Diamond.”
Elaine always prided herself on being able to think on her feet. She knew instantly what she had to do. “I’ll just sit here and wait for you, Grandpa. I brought a book with me. Now, you do what they tell you to do so you can get out of here and back home to all of us. I’ll just sit here and wait for you,” she said playfully as she wagged a finger in Isaac’s direction. Just for good measure, she winked at the orderly, who got so flustered he pushed Isaac’s wheelchair into the door. She laughed when she heard Isaac curse.
Isaac Diamond glared at Elaine, but said nothing as the orderly helped him out of bed and into the waiting wheelchair.
Elaine waited until she heard the ping of the elevator before she got up to close the door. She moved lightning fast, checking the closet and the drawers of the night chest. She almost laughed out loud when she saw Isaac’s car keys and wallet. What a fool he was to leave things like this in a hospital room. She helped herself to the $400 in the wallet, and to the Visa card. Four hundred dollars, another sign. She removed the car key. Time to go.
“Four, four, four,” Elaine kept mumbling as she made her way out of the hospital. She headed straight for the parking garage, where she pressed the key to give her some idea of where Isaac’s pride and joy, his favorite toy, a Mercedes Maybach worth $450,000, had been parked. She listened, heard the chirp coming from the upper level. She looked around to where she’d parked her VW to get her bearings. She walked over to her car and took a screwdriver out of her trunk, removed the license plate, and stuck it in her purse. She was glad she’d backed the little car into the parking slot. She then made her way up the ramp to the next level as she searched out the Maybach. She looked around for security cameras, but didn’t see any. Nor did she see any people looking for their cars. She quickly removed the license plate and screwed the VW’s plate onto the Maybach.
Elaine raced back down to the lower level and fixed the plate from the Maybach onto the VW, then back up to the next level, where she opened the car door with the remote, got in, and drove out of the parking garage. She was now $850,000 richer.
Time to get the hell out of Dodge.
Elaine drove the silver Maybach like she was born to do it. As she ate up the miles, a smile stayed on her face all the way home. She swerved into her driveway, bolted out of the car, and ran up to the deck. She checked the duct tape and saw that everything was the way she had left it.
Inside, she went to the front door, checked it, too, then backed into the house. All was well. She ran upstairs and changed into jeans and a tee shirt. Her heels were replaced with Gucci sneakers. She moved then, faster than she’d ever moved in her life. She carried boxes and boxes out to the cavernous trunk in the Maybach. Back inside, she packed all her designer clothes into her designer luggage and carried it all out to the car and jammed it to the ceiling in the car, being careful to leave the driver’s side of the rear window free. She stacked the last of her things in the passenger seat and on the floor.
Back in the house, Elaine sat down at the table and typed out a text to Gus’s cell phone. It was short and sweet.
Gus,
I’m leaving town. You can have your house back. When I get to where I’m going, I’ll sign a Quit Claim deed for my half of the house and send it on to the courthouse. It’s all yours, Gus. Check in with the courts to be sure it gets filed. With Mr. Diamond being incapacitated, it will be up to you to file for divorce. I’ll be in touch at some point so you can send me the papers to sign. I will lock all the doors and leave the new key above the doorframe on the deck, since I had the locks changed.
Sorry things didn’t work out. For whatever it’s worth, you’re an okay guy.
Elaine
Elaine hit the SEND button and powered down. She slipped the phone into her already loaded shoulder bag. First chance she got, she would ditch the phone and get a new one.
Elaine walked through the house to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything and wasn’t leaving something behind. Satisfied, she walked out of Gus’s house for the last time. She kept her word and placed the key above the doorframe.
Where to go? Maybe south, the Carolinas. Time to take a few years off to recharge her batteries before going out to find a good old boy with a southern drawl who knew how to treat a lady.
Yeah, time to head south.
Little did Elaine know, as she tooled down the interstate, that the next mark she chose, one Beauregard Levi Mac-Namara, would turn out to be a Bernie Madoff wannabe, and that for years after getting involved with him, she would be back to driving a lemon yellow Beetle.
While Elaine was tooling down the interstate in Isaac Diamond’s $450,000 Maybach, Gus and Barney were listening to the seniors’ vote of confidence. The vote to go with Gus and Barney’s plan was a hundred percent unanimous. Even Oscar, who had wanted to kill Gus, was in total agreement.
Gus and Barney walked among the group to shake each man’s hand and to receive a motherly hug from the ladies, including the Blossom sisters.
Fresh fortune cookies and lemonade were served.
At the end of what Violet called the social hour to cement their new plan, the seniors dispersed, and Gus and Barney were left with each senior’s résumé.
“Listen, Barney, we have to really read these so we get a clear idea of each person here. When we call the
m by name, that means we know them and their stories. And each of them has a story. I don’t want either of us to think they’re just a bunch of old people. I want each one of them to be my friend, and I want us to do what’s best for our friends. Do you agree with me?”
“Hell, yes, and I couldn’t have said it better. So let’s get started. I’m glad it all worked out, Gus.”
“Yeah, me, too. Hold on, I’m getting a text. It might be Jill or it might be my office.” Barney stared off into space while Gus checked his text. His friend’s joyful-sounding whoop almost toppled him off his chair. “Well, damn, take a look at this, Barney.”
Barney’s eyes popped wide. “Wow! Do you think this is another scam of hers? Or maybe she’s trying to set you up for something or other?”
“Damned if I know. Want to take a break and ride out to the house to see if it’s true? If she left the key, then I guess she’s on the level. Give me five minutes to tell Granny, and I’ll meet you out front.”
Rose, Violet, and Iris behind her viewed the message. All three asked the same question at the same time. “Do you believe this?”
“It follows her pattern according to all the detective reports I’ve seen. But she’s leaving without a payout. She’s never done that before, so, yes, maybe it is a setup of some sort. Guess I won’t know till I check out the house. Barney and I are going there now to do just that. We won’t be gone long, if it’s okay with you ladies.”
“Go!” the sisters said in unison.
Gus felt detached when he walked up the steps to the deck that led to the back door. He was surprised when the key was precisely where Elaine had said it would be. He opened the door, expecting the alarm to go off. It didn’t. He looked at Barney and shrugged. In the kitchen, he looked around. All was neat and tidy. There was nothing in the refrigerator.
The two old friends walked from room to room and couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. It just looked like a house that no one was living in. They walked upstairs and checked out the master bedroom. The bed was unmade, but that was the only thing to offset the impression of an unoccupied house. The closets were bare, the dresser drawers empty. The tons of makeup that used to dot the vanity in the bathroom were gone. Wet towels were hung over the shower stall.
“She’s gone! Everything is gone. She had tons of stuff. I only had one small closet, and she had stuff in all the others. Tons of stuff, Barney.”
“What do you make of this?”
Gus shrugged. “I honest to God don’t know, Barney. If all her stuff is gone, I guess that means she has no plans to come back. She told me to go ahead with the divorce. I have to assume she’ll be in touch. I’m going to put the house up for sale and give the money back to Granny. I don’t need a house like this. I’m selling my car, too. I have my eye on a Mustang convertible. If I sell the Porsche, pay off what’s owed on it—which isn’t much—I can pay cash for the Mustang and have no car payment. The high taxes on this house were killing me, not to mention the homeowner’s insurance. That will be a big load off my shoulders. And, no, Barney, you are not going to lend or give me any money, so get that stupid look off your face.”
“But you love that Porsche.”
“Well, guess what? I love my grandmother and aunts more than I could ever love some damned car. I’ll learn to love the Mustang.”
Barney wrapped his arms around his old friend. “You’re one hell of a guy, Gus Hollister. You put me to shame.”
“Nah. Hey, you’re the guy who is going to buy a big yellow bus to help a bunch of new friends. I envy you being able to do that without blinking. So, Barney Beezer, you’re a hell of a guy yourself.”
The old friends left the house, their arms around each other’s shoulders.
“You think we’re making a difference, Barney?”
“Yeah, I do, Gus.”
“Then let’s head back to Blossom Farm and make all those dreams of those new friends of ours come true.”
“How about heading for the DMV first, so I can pick up the application and manual for bus driving?”
“Okay.”
Fifteen minutes later, Barney climbed back into the car and waved the manual under Gus’s nose. “Guess what? I have a date tomorrow night!”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, they were out of manuals, so the young lady had to send someone to fetch one. We got to talking, and I asked her out. She said yes.”
“Did you tell her who you were?” Gus laughed.
“I think she thinks I’m going to be driving a bus. I told her my name is Barney, and she didn’t ask any questions.”
“Well, you better hurry up and get that bus.”
They were ten years old again as they laughed all the way back to Blossom Farm to work on making dreams come true for some wonderful people.
Epilogue
Two years later
THE SUN WASN’T UP YET, THE SKY JUST STARTING TO PINK UP when Gus and Barney, followed by Wilson, walked through the sliding doors and out to the deck for their first cup of coffee of the day.
Wilson wandered off to water the bushes as the two old friends sat down at the table.
“Today’s the day, Gus. You ready for it?”
Gus took so long to answer the question, Barney had to prod him.
“As hard as I try to stop them, Barney, my thoughts keep going back to the day I married Elaine. I was so excited, I actually threw up. I don’t feel like that today. I feel . . . anxious. I think I’m afraid to unleash my feelings. I don’t want to make another mistake. And yet I can’t wait to marry Jill. I feel like she’s my life partner. We don’t have secrets. We talk out everything. I see us growing old together, like the seniors, and loving every minute of it. I guess I’m ready, but I am scared; I won’t lie to you.”
“I think that’s normal, Gus, not that I’m any kind of authority.”
“Well, that’s for sure. You’re still dating Priscilla from the DMV. Two years is a long time not to make a commitment. What’s your game plan, Barney?”
“I don’t have a game plan, Gus. Priscilla loves me, I love her, but she can’t come to terms with who I am. My money scares her. She’d marry me in a heartbeat if I drove a bus. She said she would never fit in with the kind of people I hang out with. With the exception of you and the seniors. When I showed her my house, which is sitting empty, she started to cry and ran out to the car. She’s been on her own for a very long time. She deals with a mortgage payment, a car payment, and one credit card she pays off every month. She shops at discount stores and doesn’t recognize designer labels. She’s honest, she’s frugal, and she allocates a portion of her yearly salary to donate to various causes, what she can comfortably afford. In my eyes, she’s as perfect as you can get. I am not perfect in her eyes. Oh, and one other thing. She wants a man who comes home for a supper that she cooks. And a paycheck that goes into a joint bank account. I’ve asked her to marry me a hundred times and, each time, she says no. Let’s not talk about me; this is your day. For whatever it’s worth, Gus, you did it all the right way. You found your path, and you stayed on it. I’ll find mine, but it may take a little longer.”
“Jill really likes Priscilla; they turned out to be great friends. The seniors love her, too. She’s what Granny calls good people. We both know what that means.”
“I’m happy for you, Gus.”
“I know you are, and I have you to thank for it all.”
“Nah, you should thank Elaine in a crazy kind of way. If she hadn’t demanded a divorce, you never would have met Jill. By the way, have you heard from Elaine?”
“The last time I heard from her was more than a year ago, when I sent the divorce papers to a box number in Alabama. They came back in overnight mail. No note, no nothing. She must be moving around, because when she sent the Quit Claim deed to the house, it was mailed from North Carolina. That was almost two years ago. Elaine is nothing more than a bad memory these days.”
“Did the nibble you had on the house come to anyt
hing?”
“It was a lowball offer. I’m holding out because I want to return the money to Granny. The market is still bad, but I would at least like to get back the price Granny paid for it, so I’m going to wait as long as I can.”
Barney shrugged. “I’m glad you and Jill agreed to get married at Shady Pines. You guys made the seniors so happy. They’ve been working like beavers to make sure the garden is shipshape. And asking Albert to perform the ceremony put them all over the moon.”
“Well, Al is a notary, and he casually said he could marry us if we wanted him to. I talked it over with Jill, and it seemed perfect to us. I hope he remembers the words.”
“He’s been rehearsing by pretending to marry Iris and Oscar six times a day. I think he has it down pat.” Barney laughed.
Wilson trotted up to the deck, looked at Gus and Barney, and let loose with a bark that meant, Where’s my breakfast?
“Did you make the bed, Wilson? Did you take the trash out? You need to work in this house, or you don’t eat. Hop to it, buddy.”
Wilson dropped to the deck and put his head between his paws. Gus shrugged.
Barney grabbed his own coffee cup and reached across the table for Gus’s. He carried them into the house for refills. When he returned, he also had a Pop-Tart for Wilson.
“I closed on the house across the street yesterday, Gus. We’re going to be neighbors. I bought a John Deere tractor, and they’re going to deliver it later today.”
“On my wedding day!”
“Yeah. I told them to put it in the garage. No big deal. Next week, Priscilla and I are going to shop for furniture, and, no, she is not moving in. She just offered to help me, so I don’t get ripped off.”
“Barney, what are you going to do about your business?”
“I’m not giving it up. It’s what I do. I am cutting back on my travel, but I can’t give it up entirely. I’m good at what I do, and people depend on me. If I can’t get Priscilla to see my side, then she and I are not meant to be. I have to be true to myself. Granny taught us that, Gus.”
The Blossom Sisters Page 23
