“Hoovel,” Carlos butted in.
I sighed and put my hands on my hips. “Yes, Mrs. Vandenhoovel, as I was saying, will enjoy a visit from a couple of handsome, strapping men this evening.”
“I’m busy,” Carlos said.
“Me, too,” Mike chimed in.
I chuckled. “I said handsome, guys. That automatically excludes the likes of you two cretins.”
“Cretins?” Carlos asked.
“Google it,” I said.
Surprisingly, Carlos did. He pulled out his phone and then typed a few keys.
“Cretin,” he read aloud. “A person that is brainless, stupid, childlike, and full of pointless information that makes no sense and appeals only to other cretins. See also, Stripper.”
I guffawed at the last bit which he’d obviously made up as a dig at my expense. But then I found myself turning a deep shade of crimson. I shot Carlos a look. As far as I knew, Mike didn’t know I was a stripper. We’d been working together for months, but I’d never had the heart to let him in on my sordid, little secret life. He seemed too honest and decent of a guy, naive almost. If he’d found out on his own, he hadn’t mentioned anything about it to me.
Carlos seemed to take the hint because he dropped the subject. The stripper reference was vague enough that it wouldn’t have tipped Mike off, I reasoned.
“So are we going or what?” Mike asked, sounding unusually eager. It occurred to me that Mike really had nowhere to be and was probably bored.
Carlos’s competitive juices were flowing, apparently. “I’ll drive,” he announced as he stood up.
“Is there food involved?” Mike asked.
“She’s buying,” Carlos said, reaching for the doorknob. He opened the door and held it open for us, virtually shooing us out of our own office.
Mike locked up, and the three of us headed down the stairs. We followed Carlos to his car, that shiny black Mustang GT of which he was so enamored. He probably hoped Mike would be impressed with this masculine display of muscle car, but I guessed that Mike, who drove an old Buick, was probably oblivious.
I climbed into the tiny back seat to give Mike room to stretch out his six-two frame in the front passenger seat. Carlos, true to form, revved the engine a couple thousand RPM more than was necessary, and then the car bolted out of its spot and made a U-turn to head towards Green Valley nursing home. Sorry, senior residences.
“So what the hell is she going to think when three strangers show up at her door unannounced?” Mike asked.
He was right, I knew. There were some jobs that cried out for backup, especially muscular backup, but this wasn’t one of them. It was quite possible that bringing Mike and Carlos along was overkill. But still. I liked having company, especially the company of two guys that most women would drool over.
“She’ll think it’s her lucky day,” Carlos said.
“Maybe it is,” I chimed in.
We were stuck at an interminable light, and Carlos was fidgeting and picking at the steering wheel. Mike seemed lost in thought, probably wondering why he was wasting his evening with a couple of morons working a no-fee case.
When the light turned green, Carlos gunned it, and we were out of the gate like an angry thoroughbred, which made it all the more frustrating when we hit the red light just two blocks down the road.
Carlos cursed, embarrassed, as the slower cars caught up to us to wait for the light. He’d just wasted fifty cents’ worth of gasoline, I figured. From then on he took it slower and accepted my directions to the home without comment or protest.
When we pulled into the parking lot, Mike seemed to arouse out of his stupor. “This place is a dive,” he muttered.
He was being kind. Green Valley stood four stories high of dilapidated siding topped with a green metal roof that was speckled with brown patches of rust and debris from nearby trees. The sign out front was so old that I was surprised it was written in English rather than Latin or even hieroglyphics. Visiting hours, the sign helpfully informed us, were to end in about forty-five minutes.
We walked up to the glass door where Carlos pressed the bell. No response. Carlos shrugged and tested the door, which opened. He grabbed the handle and ushered us inside where a large, dingy reception area awaited us.
“Whoever designed this place must also have designed our office, eh, Mike?” I asked, elbowing him in the ribs.
He didn’t seem amused. “No, this is much worse. Plus, there’s that smell.”
Carlos made a face and nodded. “Old people smell. That’s just a sad fact.”
“No, it’s more than that,” Mike protested. “It’s a chemical of some kind.”
“Yeah, formaldehyde,” I quipped. No one laughed.
“Let’s find her and get out of here,” Carlos said.
Since there was no one manning the reception desk, we had the run of the place. On the wall near the elevators was a building directory that may or may not have been up to date. I wasn’t expecting to find her, but there she was right under V. Esther Vandenhoovel, Room 220.
The three of us squeezed into the tiny elevator and waited about a day and a half for it to take us up to the second floor, a delay that produced a predictable sigh from Carlos, the man who was always in a hurry.
We paused outside Room 220.
“Do you smell that?” I asked.
Mike nodded. “Smoke.”
“They can’t allow smoking in a place like this, can they?” Carlos asked.
“Nope,” Mike said. “Not in fifteen years.”
I shrugged and knocked on the door. We waited about ten seconds, but Carlos was already getting antsy. He pounded on the door, causing it to reverberate against the jamb.
Soon after, we saw a shift in the light emanating from underneath the door. Someone was on the other side, probably inspecting us through the peephole. I tried to give my friendliest smile.
Finally the door opened as far as the chain lock would allow, which was about two inches. A curious bloodshot eye peered up at us.
“Yes?” the woman asked.
I was about to say something, but Mike cut me off. “We’re investigating your car, ma’am,” Mike said matter-of-factly.
“My car?” she asked, confused.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, still sounding officious like a cop. “There is a 2015 coupe registered to your name, and we wondered what you could tell us about it.”
She thought about it for a minute, and that’s when I noticed the plume of smoke waft up through the crack in the door.
“Come in,” she said, fumbling with the chain. When she finally had it, she opened the door wide and showed us inside.
I wasn’t quite prepared for what was now standing in front of me. Mrs. Vandenhoovel stood, if that’s what you called it, about four feet tall and had the translucent and smooth complexion of some sort of deep-sea creature, like a jellyfish. Her face was bleach white, and the whites of her eyes were pink with little circles of blue suggesting an intelligence behind them that was not to be overlooked. Her large arched eyebrows gave her a look of being perpetually shocked. On her pale gray blouse was a large red button that read Make America Great Again. Her most distinctive feature, however, was the seven-inch cigar protruding from her mouth. Its tip glowed bright orange as she puffed it and inhaled the heavy smoke deep into her lungs. I wanted to gag from all the smoke, and here she was inhaling the stuff.
“Is that a Churchill?” Carlos asked.
She winked at him. “Good man,” she said, touching his forearm. “Want one?”
Carlos looked at me. I mouthed no to him. “I’d love one,” he said and then turned to smirk at me. She had immediately taken a shine to Carlos, and the two of them ambled off into some back room.
I looked around the place. It was dim, as expected, but not terrible. She had an electric easy chair that was perched in a kind of half-raised position, allowing her to get in and out easily. The TV was tuned to Fox News, and perched on the coffee table in front of her
was a tall glass of amber liquid with a dying cube of ice. I went over to sniff it.
“Whiskey,” I whispered to Mike. “Canadian, I think.”
He looked at me. “How can you tell?”
“The smell,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “Well, duh,” he said. “Obviously I saw you smell it. What about the smell makes you think it’s…oh, never mind,” he said, flustered.
I smiled. “It has a hint of honey about it, if you must know. It has to do with how they age it in casks—”
Mike looked up at the ceiling and sighed loudly. He was obviously bored by the topic.
“Well, if that’s truly how you feel…” I muttered.
Mike was shaking his head at me when Carlos emerged from the back rooms. His face bore the look of a Roman general enjoying his triumph, and his chest was puffed out as though he’d just returned from interstellar orbit. He was sucking away on his stogie, spewing up a trail of smoke that would have made the Union Pacific proud.
“You find this amusing, Carlos?” I whispered.
He was still all smiles. “She likes me,” he announced. And I mean likes.”
“That’s disgusting,” Mike muttered.
“How do you know?” I asked Carlos, unable to help myself.
“She groped me,” he said proudly.
“Like…how?” I wondered.
Carlos looked at me with a confused expression.
“She means, did she grope you in front or back?” Mike added helpfully.
“Oh, back,” he said, taking another long drag on his cigar.
“And where is your new friend right now?” I asked.
“Oh, she had to use the bathroom. Something about too many prunes, or something like that,” Carlos explained.
I snorted. “What a life we three lead,” I muttered. I began eyeing the whiskey in the woman’s glass. “She won’t miss this, will she?”
Mike was looking at me in horror. I winked at him and then helped myself to a healthy chug of her drink.
“Raven, that’s gross,” he said. “Even for you.”
Carlos chuckled. “Naw, the alcohol will kill any germs. Give me some of that. It’ll go with my cigar.”
“Disgusting,” Mike announced, thoroughly scandalized.
I smiled in satisfaction, having accomplished my dual mission of catching a tiny buzz and scandalizing Mike. It helped pass the time anyway.
We were standing there like idiots, watching Carlos smoke his cigar, when we heard the toilet flush. A minute later, Mrs. Vandenhoovel rejoined us, her cigar still in hand. I wondered for a moment whether she’d taken it into the john with her. Of course she did.
“Now, what was it I could help you with?” she asked, sidling up next to Carlos.
Poor Carlos. Here he went and dressed up all nice just to take me out to dinner, and now it had backfired on him. Our eyes met, and I tried to look sympathetic. But he seemed to be enjoying the attention a little more than I might have imagined.
“We’re here,” Mike began, “about your car. We’re wondering if you knew you had a red BMW coupe registered to your name.”
She looked confused for a few seconds and then began scanning the room for something. When her eye settled on her drink, she issued a satisfied smile and began moving in that direction. She moved with ease, despite her age, which I pegged at about ninety. She took a double swig of her whiskey and then turned to face us.
“It’s for my heart,” she announced. Luckily, she hadn’t noticed that we’d helped ourselves to half her glass.
“Of course,” I said. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that line. I had a great-grandfather who never went anywhere without his beloved flask. The man managed to live to be ninety-eight, too. And, as far as anyone knew, he’d never had any trouble with his heart.
“Anyway, now that you mention it,” she said, “that sounds kind of familiar. I have a nephew, Steven, who comes by once in a while, helps me with my paperwork, that kind of thing. He mentioned something about a car, and I think I signed something not too long ago.”
“Like a license application or a registration?” Mike asked.
“Heavens, I don’t remember. He was by here a few days ago, actually. Dropped something off, now that I think of it.”
She pursed her lips and then began ambling toward her kitchen.
“Here, hold this, honey,” she said to me and handed me her cigar. She moved around the kitchen examining the countertops which were cluttered with dishes, mail, and newspapers. From the look of it, she had an affinity for celebrity gossip magazines and cake decorating catalogs.
I examined the cigar, which actually smelled quite good up close. For a moment I considered helping myself to a draw, if only to freak Mike out, but decided against it.
“Here it is,” she announced proudly. She was holding up a large tan envelope, which she then had trouble opening.
Carlos, ever the white knight, stepped in to help. He untied the red string that had secured the envelope and then opened it up. He took a peek inside, and then his eyes got big. He handed the envelope back to Mrs. Vandenhoovel for her to inspect. She pulled out a single piece of paper.
“Would you mind reading this to me?” she asked. “I don’t have my reading glasses on me.”
Carlos took the letter from her and then read aloud. “Dear Aunt Esther,” he began. “Please consider this a gift in recognition of all you have done for me over the years. As of today’s date, your rent and utilities and other fees are hereby paid up for the remainder of your lifetime. Green Meadows will have the paperwork. Also, enclosed in this envelope is some extra spending money you may use to buy food and anything else you might need. Love, Steven.”
“Wow,” Mike said.
“What’s it mean?” Mrs. Vandenhoovel asked.
“If this is true, your nephew Steven has covered all of your living expenses for the rest of your life,” I explained.
“What else is in there?” Mike said, asking the question we were all wondering.
Mrs. Vandenhoovel, her face now flushed a deep purple, looked inside and then flipped the envelope upside down to dump it out. She was breathing heavily.
Onto the countertop she dumped about twenty half-inch thick stacks of hundred-dollar bills. It was more money than I’d ever seen.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The four of us were speechless at the sight of all that money on Mrs. Vandenhoovel’s countertop. Finally, Carlos, who had been staring intently at the money, broke the silence.
“Two hundred G’s, baby,” he said.
“Really?” I asked. “How can you be sure?”
He shrugged, as though it was nothing. “Each stack is ten. There are twenty stacks. That equals two hundred thousand bucks. Do I need to do the math slower for you, Raven?”
Mrs. Vandenhoovel shot him a look. “Now, now, let’s not squabble,” she said, turning to make eye contact with me for the first time. And then she motioned for me to give her back her cigar. Her eyes were kindly, although the cigar now dangling from her mouth made her look a touch crazy, too. All in all, she seemed somewhat unfazed by the fact that she had two hundred thousand dollars in cash lying on her counter.
Mike chimed in, picking up on the same vibe I was getting. “Is this a common occurrence? I mean, does your nephew often bring you money like this?”
She thought about it for a second, taking another long drag of smoke into her lungs. “First time, as far as I know. But then again, my memory’s going. I’m almost ninety, you know!”
“Do you know what it’s for?” I asked.
She shrugged, seeming for the first time to be a bit befuddled by the whole thing. “He did say he was going away for a while. Somewhere warm. But I don’t know why he’d give me all this money, to be honest.”
Carlos pounced. “Somewhere warm? Did he say where?”
She thought about it. A halo of smoke was forming over her head, illuminated in suspension by the light on the ceiling. “No,
I don’t think so.”
“Does he speak any other languages?” Mike asked.
She took the cigar out of her mouth. “Spanish, and he speaks it pretty well,” she said. “He lived in Mexico for several years. He was trying to sell properties down there to rich Americans, I think, but the market went bust, just like everywhere else.”
“You mean like Cozumel or Cancun? Somewhere touristy like that?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Those don’t ring a bell. Keep going.”
“Playa del Carmen? Riviera Maya?” Carlos suggested.
“Um, I don’t think so. I’d recognize it, though, if you said it,” she said.
“Puerto Vallarta?” Mike asked. “Acapulco?”
She kept shaking her head.
I was wracking my brain trying to come up with some other Mexican resort towns.
“Cabo San Lucas?” I suggested.
She perked up immediately. “That’s the one! Down on the point, right?”
“The Baja,” Carlos corrected her.
She looked at him blankly, and then she began frowning ever so slightly, as though she sensed something was awry.
“Who did you people say you were with again?” she asked.
Mike stepped forward and pulled out his private investigator’s ID. “We were asking about your car,” he explained, using his most businesslike tone of voice. His voice and the official-looking photo ID seemed to mollify her.
“Um hmm,” she said noncommittally. “You’re not those people I saw on TV then?”
I was confused. “Which people are those?”
“Oh, there were a few folks who’d go around in places like this and knock on doors just to see who’d answer. And then, before you know it, they’d be written into the poor old lady’s will or writing checks to themselves. That kind of thing. We always have to watch out, you know.” Mrs. Vandenhoovel made me hope I was as cogent when I was pushing ninety. If I made it that long, which I wouldn’t.
I didn’t want to lose her confidence since she had been so helpful already. And I also suspected that part of the money on her countertop was my money. Eventually, I knew she might start asking questions, but for now I wanted everything to be cool and breezy like we were all old pals.
Even Money Page 14
