A Hard Light

by Wendy Hornsby

  “I missed you at the Nguyens’ this afternoon. Sheila said you had just left,” he said. “Poor Sam looked like hell, didn’t he?”

  “I thought he looked like a man whose wife had been murdered.”

  Scotty tsk’ed. “What is this world coming to?”

  Looking at him, really looking at him up close, for the first time in about four years, I saw that the attractive lines in his face were etched more deeply than I had realized. The last four years had been hard ones for him. Gone was the young man I carried in my mind’s eye.

  The maître d’ glided up. “Are you ready to be seated, Mr. MacGowen?”

  “I believe we are.” Scotty took my arm. Apparently no one expected me to speak.

  “Nice to have you back, Mr. MacGowen.” The maître d’ preened for Scotty as he guided us across the dining room.

  “Nice to be back, Philip.”

  Heads turned, people stared, then pivoted back to their companions to share some tidbit. I overheard scraps of their conversation as we crossed the room, “first wife,” “together?” “so surprised.” Surprise was the general current among vaguely familiar faces. Gossip was the undertow.

  Philip seated us at a booth in a quiet corner, near the French doors that overlooked the golf course. Floodlights on the lawn created an irregular strip of green against the black, moonless night.

  Philip pulled out my chair for me, so he must have known I was present. He had yet to acknowledge me or speak directly to me, never took his full attention from Scotty. As I sat down, he spoke over my head to Scotty. “Martini with an onion and a Kir Royale, am I right?”

  “Thank you, Philip.” Scotty sat down and Philip vaporized.

  “You’re having two cocktails?” I asked.

  “It hasn’t been so long that I don’t remember what you like. I ordered for us.”

  “Maybe tonight I feel like sherry.”

  “You hate sherry, Maggie.” He wove his fingers together and rested his chin on them, vaguely amused and superior. Condescending. “But if you want sherry, I’ll tell Philip when he comes back.”

  Scotty made me feel like a tongue-tied adolescent. I remembered why I hated him.

  “Drinks aren’t the issue.” I sat back in my chair and spoke softly, forcing him to lean my way, to do all the work. “In truth, there is no issue. We have a little business to discuss, so let’s get to it. There is a solid offer to buy the house at home waiting for my signature. I’m willing to hear your counterproposal if it reaches the criteria I gave you.”

  Drinks appeared, Kir in front of me, martini in front of Scotty. And a silver basket of rolls in the middle of the table.

  “Let’s eat first.” Scotty put a roll on my bread plate before he served himself.

  “Why wait? I’m ready to hear your pitch right now. Shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to tell me whether you can better the offer on the table.”

  A pale radicchio salad with pine nuts and tiny pink shrimp was placed in front of me by an ancient silver-haired waiter. The plate was a pastel work of art. I said to the waiter, “I believe this belongs to another table. We haven’t seen the menu yet.”

  The waiter looked at Scotty for guidance. Scotty said, “Thank you,” to the man. When the waiter was gone, he said to me, “I ordered off the menu. The chef is making us something special.”

  “Scotty, for God’s sake.” I moved the salad, the bread, and the cocktail to the side of the table and smoothed the space in front of me. “Either you have it, or you don’t. If you don’t, you can’t buy me off with a meal, so quit stalling and lay out your offer.”

  Scotty pressed his napkin to his lips as if he were stanching a hemorrhage of words. He knew that he had to proceed with caution or I would walk right out. With some effort, he reassembled his smile. He reached down for his attaché, pulled out a legal-size manila file folder, and placed it on the table in front of him. There were several sets of documents. After some thought, he chose one.

  “College for Casey, if she goes to a private school, will cost around twenty-five thousand per year. I have opened a trust account for her, with you as the sole trustee.” He slipped a printed three-by-five card from inside the stapled document. “This is proof to you that I have arranged monthly direct electronic transfer from my checking account to the trust account in the amount recorded. The first deposit has been made.” There was a receipt.

  “You can understand the tax advantage to you, of course. By the time Casey graduates, a total of one hundred thousand dollars will have been made available.”

  “What protection does Casey have if something happens to you and you can’t keep up the payments?”

  He handed me a paid-up term policy on his life, in an amount sufficient to cover Casey’s college if Scotty died, and a second policy that covered the same amount if he should be unable to earn a living because of disability.

  I said, “You’re coming up short, Scotty.”

  He handed me a couple of computer-generated pages of figures and two thick legal documents. “I am assigning to you the equity in my Colorado home. Conservatively, this figure.” He circled a number at the bottom of a page.

  “Colorado is a community property state,” I said. “Half the equity belongs to Linda.”

  He shook his head. “The house was excluded in the prenup.”

  “The two of you have kids. What’s their share?”

  “Maggie.” He said this through clenched teeth. “I don’t need you to worry about my family.”

  “Equity is too nebulous for me. Potentially risky. I prefer cash.”

  “Capital gains on cash will kill you.” His paper tower was moving from his side of the table to mine, one stack at a time. “And I’m asking you to carry back a second mortgage on the San Francisco house in this amount.” Another circled figure.

  “You can see the tax advantages this offer gives you over a cash deal, Maggie. If you accept, I will ask you to quitclaim your title to me—a simple legal transfer. We’ll label it final disposition of community property, and you will not be liable for capital gains penalties nor will you have re-portable income as a result of the transaction.”

  “I see the tax advantages to me. I can’t miss the advantage to you if you’re cash poor right now, Scotty, but there is just one problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re short by half.”

  Under the table, I felt him tap my knee and I heard paper crinkle. I reached under and touched the sharp corner of a large envelope. I took it, felt it, brought it up to my lap.

  Scotty snapped my napkin open and handed it to me, clearly intending that I should use it to cover the envelope on my lap.

  “The envelope isn’t going to explode, is it?” I asked.

  “Take a look, but don’t put it on the table.”

  I opened the envelope, saw that it was currency, a lot of currency. “I don’t like the way this deal feels. I would prefer a nice tidy cashier’s check.”

  “I’m willing to pay for your qualms.” The last sheet he handed me was a tally, figures only. A person who hadn’t heard our conversation wouldn’t know what the numbers meant. The amount of tuition, the total income from a second mortgage at eleven percent with a five-year payoff, his calculation of the value of the equity in his new home, and a last, large number. I touched that last number with the tip of my bread knife.

  “Is this what I’m holding in my lap?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did the money come from?”

  “Bonuses. Scottish thrift. Luck at the track. Don’t worry about it.” He finished his martini. “Money doesn’t smell.”

  “But this deal does. Tell you what, if you get to me an affidavit that I can show the IRS explaining where the cash came from, then I’ll give the rest of your package to Uncle Max and see what he thinks.”

  “How soon do you want it?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Give me two weeks, Maggie. If I can’t pull the de
al together by then, you can go back to the other buyer.”

  “The other offer expires close of business Monday.”

  “I’m sure they’ll wait.”

  “I’m just as sure they won’t.” I took a sip of water. “Look, the other offer is clean. Yours has strings attached for the next five years. I think we should shake hands right now and say good-bye.”

  “I want the house, Maggie.” A few heads nearby turned. He leaned in closer to me. “The house means a great deal to me. My little girl grew up there. How can you sell it out from under her?”

  “Nice touch. Not convincing, but creative.” I stacked all the papers together, tidied their corners, and handed them back to Scotty. “The answer to your offer is no.”

  Under the table, hidden by the long, starched cloth, I extended the cash back toward him.

  Scotty kept his hands folded on top of the table, refusing to accept the proffer. “I’m sure we can find a way to make us both happy. Is the cash the only hang-up?”

  “The hang-up is, I feel like the patsy in a shell game. I’m not a gambler like you are, Scotty. I have a sure thing in my hand, and I’m going to accept it. Now, reach under and take this envelope back.”

  “Don’t be in too big a hurry to say no, Maggie. You can fax the documents to Max tonight and have an answer right away. Max is a quick study. He’ll see the merit here.”

  I dropped the envelope. It bounced off Scotty’s knee and hit the floor. His face turned red. I felt relieved, as if some enormous, hairy beast had just climbed off my lap.

  “Salmon étouffée.” The ancient waiter, with a flourish, set dinner in front of us.

  Scotty made a show of dropping his napkin and dove down to retrieve it from the floor. I heard the crackle of paper before he came back up.

  I would never have admitted so to Scotty, but the meal looked beautiful and smelled like heaven. All day our meeting had hung like doom over me, and now that it was finished I felt a whole lot better. It occurred to me that I hadn’t eaten since Uncle Max’s breakfast pancakes. The drive-through burger I would have after I called a cab to take me back to the van, and after the triple A had fixed the tire, would simply not equal this meal I intended to walk out on.

  I caught the waiter’s eye as he refilled my water glass. “Please take my meal back to the kitchen and box it for me. I’m leaving now.”

  The waiter seemed confused. “But there is dessert ordered. Chocolate-raspberry flan. The pastry chef just took it out of the oven.”

  “Put my dessert in the box, too.” I pushed my chair back to stand. “Leave it with the maître d’, please. I’ll pick it up on my way out.”

  The waiter looked to Scotty for advice, but got nothing. Scotty’s head was bent over something he was writing.

  “Do you want the dessert in a separate box?” The waiter was nonplussed, reluctant to go away. “Maybe we should use three boxes: salad, entrée, dessert.”

  “Whatever you think is best.”

  I couldn’t decide whether the waiter was upset because I had dared to speak, or because I was leaving. It didn’t matter, because in the end he picked up my meal and went away.

  Scotty handed me a sheet of his letterhead: a promissory note for an amount equal to what he said was in the envelope, to be paid by cashier’s check within ten working days.

  “Do this, at least.” Scotty stuffed all of his documents back into the attaché, added the promissory note, and offered it all to me. “Fax these documents to Max tonight. I’ll be at the Four Seasons. Call me there tomorrow.”

  “Max will get back to you.” I accepted the attaché from him.

  “One more thing.” I took a picture of Dowd and the man he called Bowles out of my purse and showed it to him. “Do you know these men?”

  He said, “No,” but I knew he was lying.

  “They approached your daughter at school. If you do know them, I suggest you call them off.”

  He furrowed his handsome brow. “You saw them?”

  “I saw them. Talked to them. Reported them. The police investigating Khanh’s murder put them at the top of their most-wanted list. If you know them, you might want to steer clear.”

  “I told you, I don’t know them.”

  “Then, that’s it.” I offered him my hand. “Good-bye, Scotty.”

  Standing straight, trying to seem haughty, I walked out through the gauntlet of curious eyes. Passing a table of four, I heard, “She didn’t even have her dinner.”

  My bravado began to slip before I reached the ladies’ room, the emotional letdown from a horrendous day accumulating all at once. Khanh, Oscar, a face-off with Scotty. All of it together was too much. I wanted to go straight home, climb into bed, and pull the covers over my head, and stay there until Mike got home to pat me on the back until I fell asleep. The best I could manage was to lock myself into a stall until I could breathe regularly. After about five minutes, I blew my nose and walked out.

  If Leon was correct about the schedule of the one-ten bus, then the next bus wasn’t due for another twenty-five minutes. I called a cab company from the phone in the ladies’ lounge, and was told that a cab would arrive within twenty minutes. Either way, I had a bit of a wait, and I didn’t want to run into Scotty while I waited. I told the dispatcher that I would be at the street, told myself I would get into the first conveyance that arrived.

  I spent maybe ten minutes more in the ladies’ room, hiding out. When I thought it was nearly time to start looking for my ride, I went out, gathered my dinner from the maître d’, whose comment was, “Hope you enjoyed your meal,” and walked out into the chill night air.

  On the far side of the oleander hedge, the lighted bus shelter was the only bright patch against the dark beyond the driveway. I headed for it, hearing men’s voices, some laughter, coming from outside the kitchen service area. When I passed the men, workers in white smocks speaking together in the melodic singsong of Vietnamese, they grew quiet, but resumed again, even louder, when they saw I was no one they needed to worry about. I could still hear them when I reached the street.

  The rain had stopped for a while, but the feathery eucalyptus trees overhead still dripped water. As I walked toward the bus shelter, two waitresses wearing the uniform of the golf course grill room, short black skirts and white blouses visible under their open coats, stared at me.

  I doubted whether many paying customers at Gabrieleno took the bus unless something had happened, like a fight with a spouse or too much booze. I suspected the waitresses were hoping I had a good story for them. They scooted over to make room for me on the bench, the smoke from their cigarettes hanging like cartoon balloons over their heads, waiting for the punch line to appear.

  I said, “Hi.”

  They smiled politely in response, one a big blonde, the other a young Hispanic woman.

  “Are you waiting for the one-ten?” I asked.

  “No. The three-oh-five,” the blonde said. “It should be here about now.”

  “Where does the three-oh-five go?”

  “Highland Park.”

  I said, “Oh,” in a way that must have shown my disappointment. Highland Park was in the opposite direction to where I was headed.

  “Your bus comes right after,” the Hispanic woman said, trying to sound reassuring. Then they turned back to their conversation about someone who always left a big mess when it was her turn to refill the catsup bottles.

  The evening was quiet. There was nothing at this end of the street except the restaurant, the golf course—now closed—and the freeway above. The few cars that approached turned into the Gabrieleno lot. All was quiet for a moment, the three of us sitting in the bus shelter, water dripping from the trees onto the roof.

  A noisy argument spilled out the front door of the restaurant and into the lot. We turned in unison.

  “The Harrigans depart.” The blonde held her arm up to the light to read her watch. “He was loaded already when the golf course grill closed. And he’s been in the bar
at Gabe’s for over an hour.”

  The second waitress put her hand in her pocket and pulled out a quarter. “Who’s going to win the war of the keys tonight?”

  “Quarter on her.” The blonde fished in her purse and matched the quarter.

  “You’re on. He’s beat her two nights out of the last three.”

  “But he’s really, really drunk.”

  The lights of an approaching bus appeared at the far end of the street.

  “Dang,” the blonde laughed. “The bus is early tonight. Bet’s off if it gets here before the fight’s over.”

  The two of them stood up and moved toward the curb, all eyes on the Harrigans as they tussled with each other. There was a car behind the bus; I hoped it was the cab.

  The volume from the parking lot argument swelled as the Harrigans reached a red Jaguar parked across two spaces at the end of a nearby row. There was a brief scuffle—pushing and pulling, no blows landed—hands and arms flailing, then the woman shouted in triumph:

  “You sorry son-of-a-bitch.” She had the car keys held aloft as she staggered to the driver’s side of the Jag. She got the key in the lock, climbed in, turned over the motor, and had the car rolling before the man had both feet inside.

  “Shouldn’t take this from you.” The blonde held out her hand for the payoff. “He was too far gone tonight to put up a decent fight.”

  As I watched the Jaguar speed toward the exit, its headlights picked out a lone man walking from the restaurant toward the street. Scotty, his movements jerky as if he were tense, as if he were looking for a fight.

  I stood right up and joined the waitresses at the curb, thinking that my white blouse and black skirt, showing when the wind blew my coat, were enough like the other two women that I would blend in. If Scotty were looking for a fight, chances were I was the target. The whole scene reminded me of a very bad night Guido and I spent in the jungle of El Salvador during the civil war, hoping transport out reached us before a group of right-wing guerrillas found us.