The Bentleys Buy a Buick

by Pamela Morsi

  “Why don’t you buy her yourself?” Melvin asked.

  Tom shook his head. “You know better than that, Melvin,” he said. “This is a rich man’s hobby. I’m a regular family guy with a small business and a lot of obligations.”

  “It could be an investment.”

  “Collectibles are not like other investments, they are not money in the bank. You can only get out of them what someone is willing to pay,” Tom said.

  Melvin chuckled. “Have you looked at money in the bank lately?” he said. “It’s not that much of an investment, either.”

  Tom laughed along with him, which was all a guy could do these days with the uncertainty of the current recession.

  “The most sage advice from brokers and speculation experts is to put your money into commodities that you understand,” Melvin told him. “Classic cars are your business. You’re involved in that market much more closely than the average guy.”

  “Maybe so,” Tom agreed. “But a guy would have to be able to view the car as little different than cold, hard cash on the hoof. He couldn’t be emotionally involved with it. I am so…so nuts about this car. It reminds me of something I just want to hold on to. That makes it not an investment, but an expensive souvenir.”

  Melvin tutted disapprovingly. “You are too hard on yourself, Tom,” he said. “I own the apartment building where my parents lived, where I grew up. That old brick place has a million memories of family and holidays and I think of it every time I remember my father, my mother or my brother, all long dead. It’s a piece of investment real estate that I just happen to care about, and it is something I want to keep.”

  Tom nodded thoughtfully, then answered. “I have a great kid and a woman I love. I’d never jinx that by being greedy for more.”

  “It’s not greedy to try and look ahead,” Melvin said. “It’s smart. Anybody who buys that car is going to be looking at it more or less the same way you are. They’re wanting to enjoy it while driving it around, with hopes that it will rise in value as time goes on.”

  “Right,” Tom agreed. “But that buyer will likely have a lot more disposable income than I do.”

  “Maybe so,” Melvin agreed. “But he won’t have as much control of his asset as you would. Every hiccup in the engine, every minute of road wear, every scratch that gets on the door panel adds to the cost of his investment. Most likely he’ll have to pay somebody to keep it running, pay somebody to keep it looking good, maybe even pay somebody to safely store it.”

  Tom nodded. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said. “Even those collectors who have big warehouse garages mostly hire help to keep the cars maintained and driven on a regular basis.”

  “All of that you’d be able to do yourself,” Melvin pointed out. “You’re not just able to do it, you’re eager to do it. There is value to that. And I’m not just talking intangible value, which is a lot, but actual dollars and cents.”

  “Still, it’s buying and owning a classic car,” Tom said. “That’s not something a working man should do.”

  Melvin shrugged. “Unless maybe a working man can figure a way to make it pay.”

  Chapter 17

  CALLIE RETURNED FROM sick leave and either Mrs. Converse didn’t know or didn’t care about the rumored cause of her absence. The mood in the department returned to normal. Or perhaps even better than normal. Callie seemed a little full of herself and a bit condescending to Erica. Deliberately Erica decided not to notice.

  At the noon lunch table almost nothing had changed.

  “Did you hear the one about the guy who got a call from the lawyer?” Rayliss asked.

  Erica glanced up, as did everyone at the table.

  “The lawyer told him, ‘I’ve got some good news and some bad news.’”

  Rayliss was grinning broadly. She had the attention of the whole table. “The good news is that your wife found a picture that’s worth at least a million dollars. ‘Wow, that’s great,’ the guy says. ‘What’s the bad news?’ ‘The bad news is, it’s a photo of you screwing her best friend.’”

  Everybody laughed as they were expected to. Everybody except Melody, of course. The woman haughtily looked down her nose at her coworker. “Why on earth would you people think that is funny?” she asked. “It is mean-spirited and slightly sick.”

  “It’s a joke,” Callie explained with deliberate coldness. “Humor is good for people. It’s good for us.”

  “Taking delight in other people’s misery is not humor,” Melody said. “My husband, Gabe, says that it’s evidence of low intellect and I should avoid it.”

  “By all means, avoid it,” Rayliss said.

  “Yeah,” Callie agreed. “Avoid it, avoid us. In fact, I think I’d prefer that. You’ve really been pretty high on yourself since you got me bounced from the EMR workshop. But the truth is, I don’t care. Teaming up with you has become a pain. Erica is welcome to it.”

  Callie’s annoyance proved that Melody had been partially right about her. She was not happy about Erica taking her place. And if Melody was right about that, maybe her other suppositions about Callie weren’t quite as wild as they seemed. Erica felt herself being drawn back into the fear and doubt. She couldn’t just sit there and let that happen. She couldn’t listen to another word.

  “Excuse me,” Erica said, rising to her feet. “I think I’ll take this food back to my desk.”

  She didn’t wait for reactions. She left the table and walked back to the Medical Records department.

  Mrs. Converse was in her office, thumbing through a professional journal and munching on a sandwich. She glanced up but didn’t invite Erica in. Perfect. Erica decided Mrs. Converse had the right idea. Better to eat lunch alone than to get drawn into the gossip and petty office politics that could so easily turn on anyone.

  At her cubicle, Erica spread her napkin across her lap and surveyed her salad. She couldn’t quite shake the fears she fought against. She needed reassurance and decided to get it from the one person who really had it to offer. She dug her cell phone out of her purse and called Tom.

  “Hey, babe,” he answered on the third ring. “I love hearing the sound of your voice.”

  “That’s why I called,” she told him. “So you could hear the sound of my voice when I wasn’t scolding my son or arguing with my mother.”

  “Ann Marie only wants the best for you,” he answered.

  “Which I think can be summed up as marrying a wealthy doctor and taking him for all he’s worth,” Erica replied.

  Tom feigned a long-suffering sigh. “I’m not a doctor, but I can play one when we get home.”

  “Are you requesting a V72.3?”

  “I’m like an art illiterate,” he said. “I don’t know the codes, I just know what I like.”

  Erica laughed. “I wish we could just go home and play all afternoon.”

  Tom tutted. “Now, now, we’re got to keep up our working class work ethic so we can pass it on to our son.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she answered. “What do you want for supper? Do you think you’ll be home on time.”

  “No, I’ll probably be pretty late. Go ahead and fix Quint something he likes.”

  Erica hesitated. Her pulse began pounding in her throat.

  “Is Hector out again today?” she asked.

  “Oh, no,” Tom answered. “You know how he is. Once he’d dried out it’s months, maybe years, before he messes up again.”

  “You just have a lot of extra work?”

  “Not too much,” he said. “Mostly I’m slow because I’m training Briscoe.”

  “I thought he was supposed to make it better, not worse,” Erica said.

  “He is. And he will. But not quite yet.”

  “Okay. I understand,” she said. “Maybe I should fix a plate and bring something up there for you.”

  “No, don’t bother. I’ll get something. Besides, I have to go out and see a customer.”

  A hard knot formed in Erica’s stomach. It made her a bit queasy.


  “What kind of customer do you have to see after hours?” she asked.

  “Oh, I don’t have to see her after hours. I could go to see her during the day,” Tom replied. “But it’s hard to get away. And I hate to leave these guys unsupervised.”

  “Let Cliff take charge, he’s the one to do that when you go to pick up Quint.”

  Erica heard it then. Her husband didn’t say one word, but the lie that came through the phone receiver was loud and clear. There was definitely something he was not telling. Something he was keeping from her. And whatever it was, it was not good.

  “Cliff’s not really that good at taking charge,” he man aged finally. There was not one syllable of conviction in his statement. Erica wanted to call him on it, but she was too afraid.

  “Okay, then,” she said. “I’ll see you when I pick up Quint and then…well, I’ll see you when I see you.”

  “Right.”

  “Guess I’ve got to go,” she said.

  “Okay, love you,” he said.

  “I love you, too,” she told him before clicking the end button.

  Erica sat there for a long moment, staring at the plate of food on her desk. A million thoughts were scrambling in her brain all at once and she didn’t want to focus on any of them.

  Her husband was meeting a customer after work. The customer was a she. Her husband was lying to her about something. And apparently he would rather spend the evening with somebody else than with her.

  She took the plate of food and dumped it into her trash can. Then she stared at her empty desk. Was this how her mother had felt? This sense of disconnection with the world around you. Was that what had kept her mother so distant?

  Erica picked up her phone. For a long moment she actually considered calling her mother. But she managed to resist the impulse. She called Letty instead.

  When her sister picked up, she was obviously eating lunch as well and in a place that was busy and noisy.

  “Could you babysit for me tonight?”

  “Tonight’s not the best,” her sister said. “I was going to work on my nanowire transistors project.”

  “The nanowires will have to wait,” Erica insisted. “I’ve… I’ve got something critical I have to do.”

  “Oh, okay.” Letty’s voice was hesitant, curious.

  “Come over to my house this afternoon as soon as you can,” Erica said. “Wait, go by and borrow a car from Mr. Schoenleber.”

  “Borrow a car from Melvin?”

  “Tell him…tell him that your car is messing up and that Tom can’t work on it until tomorrow, but that you need to go somewhere tonight. He’ll be okay with that.”

  “What is going on?”

  “Don’t ask a lot of questions, Letty. Just do what I ask you. I need a car that won’t be recognized. You know I’d do it for you.”

  “Oh my God, you are having a Mom incarnation.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “You are. I know you are. What are you planning? Are you going to stake out Tom’s workplace or follow him?”

  “A little of both.”

  “Don’t do it, Erica. He loves you. You’ve got to trust him. Don’t do it.”

  “I have to. I can’t not know. I just have to.”

  Erica could hear other women returning to the department. “I can’t talk now,” she said. “Just get the car and be there.”

  Her sister reluctantly agreed and, in fact, when Erica and Quint arrived home, Letty was standing in the driveway next to a gray minivan that Melvin’s business used for cargo.

  “You didn’t tell me Aunt Letty was coming to play with me,” Quint said excitedly.

  “It’s a surprise. Just promise me you won’t drive her crazy and that you’ll go to bed on time.”

  Her son promised sincerely, but she was pretty sure he’d completely forgotten about it by the time they got into the house.

  He and Letty were playing in his room, while Erica picked out a dinner menu of frozen fish sticks, spinach and mac and cheese. While the water was boiling, she went into the bedroom and changed into what she hoped could be described as nondescript clothing. She wore dark jeans, a black knit shirt and a jacket. Erica put her hair into a knot on the top of her head and then covered it with a San Antonio Spurs ballcap. She put on sunglasses and looked at herself in the mirror. She could have been anybody, she decided. She also might as well have been blind. The dark glasses were too dark for indoors. They’d be even worse at night. She took them off then looked through the drawer until she found a pair she didn’t like as well. With the help of a rattail comb and some nail clippers she managed to break out the lenses. Then she put the empty frames on her face and looked in the mirror again.

  “Harry Potter,” she said aloud. “Now what I really need is my invisibility cloak.”

  It was then that her sister came into the bedroom. “Oh, wow, this is totally serious, isn’t it? You’ve turned into Mom.”

  “No, I’m still me. I’m just me being careful and not being stupid,” Erica said.

  Letty shook her head. “You are not this person,” she insisted. “You do not stalk the people you love, trying to get dirt on them.”

  “I’m not looking for dirt,” Erica assured her. “I’m looking for truth. That’s it. I know that he’s lying to me and I can’t stand it. I have to find out the truth.”

  Her sister shook her head. “What’s that Lincoln quote?” Letty said. “If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it you surely will.”

  “I’m going to do this,” Erica said. “Making me feel guilty about it is not helpful.”

  “I really wish you wouldn’t,” her sister said.

  “I don’t know what time I’ll be back. Thanks for doing this and for getting the car.”

  “I picked it out deliberately,” Letty said. “Melvin wanted me to take the BMW, but I thought this thing looked a lot more like something a stalker would drive.”

  It did. And despite her sister’s sarcasm, it was exactly the vehicle Erica needed. Letty was not happy. But Erica didn’t have time for her disapproval. She hurried out to the driveway.

  Her plan, as much as there was of it at least, was to watch the shop until Tom left and then follow him to see where he went. Beyond that, she didn’t let her mind wander. She just needed to see where he went after work.

  She drove the gray minivan to the shop and just as she got close she lost her nerve and drove right by. Two blocks later she turned around in a parking lot and went back. She passed by once more, but this time more slowly. Tom always parked his truck in the back, so she couldn’t know for certain that he was still inside. But there was obvious activity going on, with two of the bay doors open.

  She needed a place to park which would be close enough to see, but far enough away that no one would notice her. She found it across the street and fifty feet south of the Bentley entrance, directly in front of an aguas frescas stand. The site was perfect for easy access and line of sight. It wasn’t so perfect if one were trying to be discreet. A half-dozen Hispanic guys sipped tamarindos or sandías in the chairs or on the benches in front of the tiny building. A lone gringa sitting in a minivan wouldn’t go unnoticed.

  At first Erica thought she would simply ignore them. After more than few curious looks, she decided to become just another customer. She got out of the car and went up to the screened serving window to order. As she waited, she worried that Tom might suddenly drive away from the shop and she’d be unable to catch up with him. Nervously she stood on one foot and then another as the slowest Mexican woman on earth moved around in a space no larger than a good-size closet.

  Erica was about to just say Forget it and leave, when the old lady lifted the screen and slid a cold, wet bottle of horchata and a slurpy straw in her direction. Erica paid for the drink, carefully counting out the correct change so she wouldn’t have to wait and then hurried back to the minivan.

  She caught the sight of movement at the shop’s entrance and her hea
rt was in her throat. Gus was leaving. When he turned his car toward her, she kept her head down, not wanting to be recognized.

  Cliff took off next. Erica expected him to pass by as well, since that was the direction that took him home. But he turned up the street instead and she was glad there was no chance for him to catch sight of her.

  Erica sipped her drink. She was jittery. The SUV belonging to the new guy, Briscoe, came out next. And then Hector.

  Erica’s heart was racing.

  She watched the Bentley entrance, expecting at any moment to see her husband’s truck emerge.

  The afternoon sun was pouring down on the metal roof of the minivan, making it hot. Erica started up the engine just long enough to lower windows, hoping to catch a breeze floating by. Her drink, a kind of cinnamon-flavored rice milk, was rich and tasty, but she was wishing she’d made a lighter, cooler choice.

  She was beginning to think Tom had left early. Maybe he’d been gone before she even got there. Then she reminded herself that he would not leave the gate open like that. If he were gone, the business would be locked up and secure. It was not, so he must be there. She sipped her drink.

  Erica hadn’t taken her eyes off the place, yet when her husband pulled out of the driveway onto West Avenue, she was caught up short. She jerked into action, spilling the last of her horchata on her jeans. Her immediate reaction was to try to clean it up, which got the sticky substance on her hands, which then got it on the steering wheel.

  She glanced up the street. He was going to get away. Quickly she put the minivan in Reverse and stepped on the gas. A horn blared and she braked, as a fast-moving low-to-the-ground vehicle swerved around her. She heard someone yell out a rude female epithet.

  “Sorry,” she answered to the universe in general.

  A minute later she was racing in traffic, trying not to be left behind. Erica was praying she would not get delayed by a red light. At the first two intersections her luck held, then she ran through on a yellow.

  Then she got trapped behind a poky old grandma in an aging Crown Vic, and decided she had to pass on the right. But just as she successfully got in that lane to pass, she saw Tom’s truck a half block ahead of her turning left onto the freeway.