Fancy Dancer

by Fern Michaels

  The Symon brothers had no idea what Alex was talking about, so they just nodded sagely.

  Alex watched the two lawyers walk away. His head was still spinning, so he walked back into Starbucks and ordered a straight-up black coffee. He carried it back to the table and sat down. He unfolded the papers and stared down at the numbers until his vision blurred. Son of a gun!

  Alex burned his tongue on the coffee, but he barely noticed. He looked down at his watch. Lunch would be almost over at Rosario’s Bistro. It was just five blocks from where he was sitting. He folded the papers and jammed them into his pocket. Carrying his coffee and spilling half of it, Alex started to sprint to the bistro.

  When his mother saw the expression on her son’s face, she dropped a platter of pizza and ran to him.

  “It’s okay, Mom. Come with me, out back. I have to talk to you. Now!”

  Sophia Rosario blindly followed her son as her help swooped in to clean up the spilled pizza and apologize to the customer, who just laughed.

  “Listen, Mom, don’t say anything until I’m finished. Remember now, I’m a lawyer, so what I’m telling you is true. And there’s no way out. We have to accept this.”

  “Just tell me, Alex.”

  So he did. Alex was glad he had his hand on her arm, or his mother would have had the same reaction he’d had, and he told her so.

  “Sixty-seven million dollars! And it’s all ours?”

  “Yes, Mom. But that’s only half of it. Look at the back of the paper. That shows what we now have an interest in; that’s almost a hundred million more.”

  Sophia closed her eyes and nearly swooned a second time. “This can’t be happening to us, Alex. We didn’t do anything to deserve this.”

  “Mom, I tried telling them that. It doesn’t matter. And Jake wanted to give it all to us. We can talk about it tonight when I get home. I want to go out to see Jake. I need to talk to him.”

  “Yes, honey, you do need to talk to your brother. Alex, does this mean I can tell my employees we can now give them health insurance and give them a bonus for their hard work and loyalty and maybe give something to Abby for her new baby, maybe help her out with her day-care bills?”

  “That’s what it means, Mom. It also means you can give Father John and the parish a big check for the building fund. Might be nice if you gave it in Jake’s mom’s name.”

  “Oh, you are such a smart son,” Sophia said, pinching Alex’s cheeks. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”

  “No, Mom. You do realize this is going to change our lives, don’t you?”

  “No, Alex, it won’t. We won’t let it. No, no, no. We are who we are. I will not allow anything to change our lives. Well, maybe our lives will change if you ever get married and have children. That is the only change I will allow. All this money will do is make things easier, but it won’t change us. Go now, go see your brother and give him a hug for me.”

  “Now, that’s over the line. Do I have to?” Sophia cocked her head. She didn’t need to do anything else.

  “Okay, Mom. One hug coming up, but if he decks me, it’s your fault.”

  Sophia laughed. Alex loved the sound; it made him think of the beach, weenie roasts, and raking leaves—all at the same time. In a word, joyous.

  Chapter 6

  It was three o’clock in the morning according to Jonah St. Cloud’s spiffy Rolex watch—coincidentally, a duplicate of the one he’d seen on his son’s wrist—which was sitting on the bathroom vanity. The bathroom smelled like crude oil, and he knew he’d probably clogged up the drain. As if that really mattered just then. Stark naked, water dripping from his body, he stared down at his oil-drenched clothes and work boots. Maybe he should have stripped down by the back door and left everything there to be thrown out. Too late. Too late for a lot of things. He closed his eyes. Murphy’s Law. What could go wrong would go wrong. And it had, in spades.

  Jonah looked in the mirror. Jesus, who the hell was this guy staring back at him? He looked like some grizzly Neanderthal who would scare not only little children but adults as well. To shave, or not to shave the five-day growth on his face? No time to shave. He dressed quickly, knowing full well he still reeked of oil. He could have stood in the shower for hours, soaping up and rinsing off for hours on end, and he’d still smell the same. No time. That was the bottom line.

  The story of his life, no time for anything but himself. No time for regrets. That’s assuming he had any regrets. He really didn’t. Liar, he chided himself.

  Jonah stomped his way down the magnificent staircase, reminiscent of the one in the movie Gone with the Wind. Everything in the St. Cloud mansion was reminiscent of something or other. Just another way of saying Hey, look at me and what I have. It’s all about me. The story of his life. He didn’t see one damn thing wrong with that at all. You only go this way once. Life was to be enjoyed, so when those gray-black days called the aging years crept up, one could say been there, done that, and I’d damn well do it again. No regrets. Not one. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  In the kitchen, Jonah yanked open one of the cupboards and reached for a cup. He’d made coffee before he’d stumbled up the stairs to take a shower. He had to get back to the platform as soon as possible, but he had two stops to make first, middle of the night or not. He looked down at the mess he’d created when he made the coffee. He’d spilled the grounds everywhere. He was even standing in a mess of them. His housekeeper would clean it up. That’s what he paid her to do, clean up after him. He gulped down the first cup of coffee, then poured another cup to take with him. He stomped his way out of the house and climbed into his monster truck. He tore down the roads, his destination Judge Porter Spindler’s house on Mockingbird Court. Such a stupid name for a street, but that was Porter Spindler for you. He’d read somewhere that the judge’s wife, years ago, had petitioned the authorities to change the street name because she was into bird-watching.

  Jonah left the engine running in the truck when he climbed out and sprinted to the old Spindler mansion. He pressed the doorbell, keeping his thumb on it while he kicked and pounded on the massive mahogany door. Then he bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Come on, Porter, get your fat ass out of bed and open the damn door!” Finally, he saw lights go on in the mansion, then the door was being opened. Jonah shouldered his way past the overweight judge, whose sparse hair was standing on end.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Jonah? It’s the middle of the night, for God’s sake!”

  “I’m here to collect on your marker! Look, I don’t have a lot of time here, so get that fat ass of yours in gear and head for your office. I need a subpoena and a court order rescinding Nathan’s decision regarding my son, Jake.”

  Judge Porter Spindler started to squawk, but he did as Jonah said and headed for his home office. “Just like that, you expect me to do what you want.”

  “Yeah, just like that. Just you remember who helped you when things got out of hand. You want this whole goddamn town knowing you have a thing for young boys? Also remember how you got on the bench in the first place. Now, let’s make this all come out right. We both know Nathan did what he did because he thought he was getting back at me. That son of a bitch deserves his Alzheimer’s.”

  Spindler gasped. “You know about that! How . . . ?”

  “It doesn’t matter how I know; I know. That’s the bottom line. Look, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t an emergency. I need Jake out on the platform. We have an oil spill. You read the papers—this place revolves around oil. Half the population works for us. Jake is to oil what Steve Jobs was to Apple. C’mon, move it, Porter. Give me the court order and the subpoena in case those dance ladies get huffy with me. Let them keep the fifty grand Jake gave them. The ankle monitor comes off ASAP, and Jake’s new probation is time spent out at the platform, the rigs, or until I say he’s no longer needed, at which point his probation is over. Also, while you’re at it, reinstate his driver’s license. Just do it, Porter.”

  Porter Spindler look
ed up at his old friend and grimaced. “We’re way behind at the courthouse, so nothing has been filed yet. It’s only been eight days, nine at the most—I lost count. How bad is the spill, Jonah?” he asked uneasily.

  “Bad. Don’t go opening your yap about this, either, or I’ll be back here, and you won’t like that.”

  “Your son has a lawyer, Jonah.”

  “When I leave here, you call him and set him straight. I don’t want him sticking his nose in company business. You hear me, Porter? Threaten him with disbarment if he gives you any crap. We both know I can make that happen. Make sure he understands that.”

  “That bad, eh?” Spindler said, signing his name with a flourish and stamping the papers with his own seal. “How much oil are you losing?”

  “Twenty-two thousand gallons a day. Six days now. I cut all leave, but my people have cell phones. I’ve heard that a few reporters are nosing around. The Coast Guard is on us like fleas on a dog. Like I said, bad.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “A crack. We missed it. That’s all you need to know. Are we done here?”

  “One thing,” Spindler said, following Jonah to the front door. “How did you find out about Nathan’s medical condition?”

  “The same way I find out everything. I pay for information. Every damn case that came before him in the last ten years will be suspect if word gets out. So, Porter, be very careful what you say and do from here on in. Do we understand each other?”

  “We do, Jonah. I’ll make sure everything is contained, so there will be no blowback.”

  “See that you do,” Jonah said as he walked off into the night.

  Thirty minutes later, Jonah St. Cloud was ringing the doorbell of the Dancer plantation house. He thought about kicking the door the way he had at Spindler’s but decided to wait. Lights went on almost immediately. He could see a young woman running to the front door. She opened it, her eyes wild with fright. “Please, stop ringing the doorbell. You’ll wake all the children. What is it? What do you want?”

  “Where’s Jake St. Cloud? He’s supposed to be here.”

  “He is... was, but he refused to take my mother’s room after that fiasco when he first showed up. He’s sleeping in the schoolroom. Why? What has he done now?”

  “He hasn’t done anything, you stupid female. When something goes wrong, why do you women immediately think any male in the vicinity is automatically the culprit? Here, this is for your reading pleasure. Where is the damn schoolroom?”

  Fancy scanned the papers she was holding. Her hands started to shake. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  “Ask me if I care, lady. Now, where is the schoolroom? This is the second time I’m asking you. If I ask you a third time, I will have this place shut down in the blink of an eye,” Jonah threatened. He was pleased at the fear he saw in the young woman’s eyes. He just dearly loved putting the fear of God into people. Simply because he could. Jonah St. Cloud was every bit the nasty character Jake had him pegged to be.

  Fancy turned when she heard the soft whir of her mother’s wheelchair.

  “What’s going on, Fancy?”

  Fancy straightened her shoulders. “Mr. St. Cloud has just served papers on us—a subpoena and a court order. It seems he will be taking Jake, his son, with him, and Jake will no longer be doing his probation service with us. All of that has been done away with.”

  “Don’t you mean slavery?” Jonah barked.

  “At four o’clock in the morning?” Angelica Dancer exclaimed.

  “Yes, at four o’clock in the morning,” Jonah said. “That should give you some idea that this is not fun and games. Now, where the hell is the schoolroom? If I have to ask you again, I will have the entire police force here within ten minutes to carry through on my threat.”

  “Show him, Fancy, so that this rich, rude, obnoxious oaf leaves our house and never returns.”

  Jonah was tempted to let loose with a tirade but thought better of it. He followed Fancy, who was running through the house in her pajamas and bare feet, turning on lights, her long mane of dark hair flying out behind her.

  Outside, she paused to catch her breath and pointed to the building at the far end of the path. The dogs, sensing something out of the norm, started to bark. When the floodlights came on, the two roosters in the chicken coop started to crow.

  “This place is a nuthouse,” Jonah grumbled as he loped along behind Fancy.

  “And, of course, you’re the biggest nut of all, is that what you’re trying not to say?” Fancy said boldly. At the door to the schoolroom, Fancy opened it and called out, “Mr. St. Cloud, there’s someone here to see you.”

  A light went on. Fancy flinched when she saw Jake roll off the skimpy cot that, along with his sleeping bag, he used for a bed.

  “Get dressed, son. You’re coming with me!” Jonah said.

  Jake was instantly wide-awake. Jesus, am I having a nightmare? “Like hell I am. I can’t leave here. I’m on probation. I don’t have to do what you say, you vicious old man. Why are you terrorizing these people?”

  Fancy held out the papers Jonah had given her up at the house. “I’m afraid you have to do what he says, Jake.”

  Jake looked at the young woman in her pajamas and bare feet. She’d just called him Jake. Until then, it had been “Hey you,” or “Mister St. Cloud.” She’d almost belted him when he absolutely refused to move into her mother’s bedroom. She’d tried offering her own room, but he’d refused that, too. While he didn’t like sleeping on a flimsy cot with a sleeping bag, he was doing it, all the while cursing that corrupt judge’s ban on using his own money to upgrade his accommodations. At the end of the day, he was more tired working at the Dancer Foundation than he had been when he used to work on the oil rigs. He reached for the papers she was holding out to him. He scanned them, then looked up at his father. “You really are a son of a bitch, you know that!”

  “Save the endearments for later, Jake. Get dressed. I’ll cut that monitor off you when you get in the truck. And your driver’s license has been reinstated.”

  Jake didn’t move. He looked at Fancy and said, “Will you please call my attorney? His name is Alex Rosario. I’m not going anywhere until he gets here.”

  “Won’t do you any good. His wings have been clipped. Get dressed, Jake. You want him to lose his license to practice law? Keep this shit up, and it will happen. I will make it happen. I’m waiting, son.”

  Jake took a deep breath and held it. He wondered if he would turn blue if he held it long enough. He finally expelled it when his father tossed him his clothes. He was beaten, and he knew it.

  Outside, in the early-morning air, Jake looked at Fancy and said, “I apologize for my father’s boorish behavior.” He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw tears in her eyes. He turned away and climbed into the truck. His thoughts were everywhere as his father went to work on the ankle monitor with a box cutter. He watched it sail off into the darkness. He knew one of the dogs would find it and probably chew it to pieces.

  “So, it happened, didn’t it? I warned you three years ago to take care of that crack. How much oil is leaking out?”

  “Somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-two thousand gallons a day.”

  “That means around thirty thousand. We both know that you don’t know how to tell the truth. You’re never going to learn, are you? You’re way past due for an explosion.”

  “Well, wonder boy, you’re going to fix all that now, aren’t you?” Jonah snarled.

  Jake wisely kept silent. All he could really think about was the awful look on Fancy Dancer’s face and how the scar on her face looked in the moonlight.

  Back at the house, Fancy limped her way up the back steps to the back porch and on into the kitchen, where her mother was making coffee. “What happened, Fancy?”

  “I don’t know, but whatever it is, it must be serious because Jake went with him. He told me at first to call his lawyer. And then his father said not to bother, that hi
s wings had been clipped. I take that to mean whatever the attorney would try to do wouldn’t work. I saw on the news a couple of days ago that Judge Porter Spindler is now the St. Tammany Parish judge. He’s the one who signed those papers at three o’clock in the morning. Favors called in. Blackmail. Something, Mom. I’m going to call that lawyer anyway.”

  “Honey, it’s four twenty in the morning. Wait at least until six.”

  “We’re not sleeping, so why should he sleep? He left his card, Mom. Do you know where I put it?”

  “In the kitchen drawer where you throw all your junk. Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Probably not, but I’m going to do it anyway.” And she did. When she heard the sleepy voice on the other end of the phone, she shrilled, “Wake up, Mr. Rosario, your client asked me to call you.”

  “What client? Who is this? Do you know what time it is?”

  “Your client, Jake St. Cloud. This is Fancy Dancer, and it is exactly four twenty-two. Are you sufficiently awake to hear me out?”

  “Spit it out! What did he do now?”

  “He didn’t do anything. It’s his father.” She quickly related what had just transpired. “He went with his father.”

  “Well, we’ll just see about that!”

  “His father said your wings had been clipped. I take that to mean anything you try to do for your client will be ineffectual.”

  “And the judge was who?”

  “Judge Porter Spindler.”

  “Oh shit! Okay, I’m getting dressed. I’ll be out there in thirty minutes. You still have the papers, right?”

  “I still have them. Jake threw them on the floor when his father showed them to him. I guess I’ll see you when I see you.”

  The connection broken, Fancy turned to her mother. “He’s coming out here.”

  “Company at four thirty in the morning! What is this world coming to? I think we should get dressed, don’t you, Fancy?” Angel said, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth.