Trail of the Spellmans: Document #5

by Lisa Lutz

  “I’m not picking that up either.”

  “Then maybe you want to put it on mute.”

  “Milo used to have a no-cell policy, but I don’t see any signs,” I said.

  “It’s just basic courtesy,” Bernie said.

  “And you’re an expert on that,” I replied.

  My phone rang again. This time, I muted the sound on the first ring. Ten minutes passed and the phone rang again. This call was from David, so I picked up.

  “Hello.”

  “He’s angry,” David said.

  “I expected that,” I replied.

  “He’s making threats, serious threats,” David said.

  “He’s bluffing,” I said, unconvinced.

  “I would be genuinely concerned, if I were you,” David said. “I hope you have a plan.”

  “I do,” I replied. “But I was hoping I wouldn’t have to implement it.”

  “Care to enlighten me?”

  “Not just yet.”

  I disconnected the call and ordered a beer. Bernie pulled the pint and handed me the sports section of the newspaper he was reading. This was his version of a peace offering, since that’s the only part of the newspaper he even glances at. Then the bar phone rang. It had one of those regular rings and a cord that doesn’t let you wander. I found something oddly comforting about the relic.

  Bernie answered. “Hello . . . Yep. I see. I don’t know about that. Okay. Okay. Uh-huh. Yes, sir. We serve beer here. Talk to you later.”

  “What was that about?” I asked.

  “Guy wasn’t sure if we were a bar or a think tank.”

  “Aren’t you listed under ‘bars’ in the yellow pages?”

  “Taverns,” Bernie said, correcting me. “But I think he saw the sign and didn’t have time to check.”

  “Huh,” I replied. If my mind hadn’t been otherwise occupied, I would have realized that Bernie was covering.

  Twenty minutes later, my father entered the bar. It would have been easy if he were merely angry, but there was another expression that I couldn’t put my finger on—one I hadn’t seen before. In my father’s eyes I hadn’t just crossed an imaginary line, I was Fredo in The Godfather. My punishment, however, wouldn’t be so steep. Unlike Fredo, I knew what my family was capable of.

  Dad sat down next to me. He took several deep breaths to control his anger. I spoke first.

  “I understand that you’re angry. But I don’t regret what I did.”

  “My company, my rules,” Dad replied.

  “My case, my decision.”

  “When I tell you to do something, I need to trust that you’ll do it.”

  “Have you ever been able to do that?” I asked.

  “You make an excellent point.”

  “Why don’t you give me a week off without pay and we’ll call it even,” I suggested.

  “No, that won’t do it.”

  “Two?”

  “You’re fired, sweetie,” Dad said. He kissed me on the forehead and left the bar.

  I sat stunned for a few minutes. Then Bernie cautiously approached.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied. “The glass is empty.”

  PROPOSITIONS

  I slept late since I was officially jobless. Or, as they say in England, made redundant, which always struck me as a particularly brutal way of putting it.

  In the morning, I drank David’s coffee and once again watched, slack jawed, his breakfast ritual with Sydney. He must have found the oatmeal I hid in the closet because there it was again, bubbling on the stove.

  “Don’t you learn from your mistakes?” I asked.

  “It’s good for her,” David flatly replied.

  My brother had the front page of the newspaper open while he read Sydney the headlines in the singsong voice he uses for children’s books. He used that same voice to provide a summary of the news in plain English. Not plain enough for Sydney—she was entirely uninterested in the lesson plan; instead she made herself busy trying to put as many grapes as possible in her mouth without chewing them—but at least I was getting schooled on current events.

  “Let’s see,” David said. “Oil prices are on the rise again. Sydney, it’s very important that we reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Remember the war we were talking about last week? It’s all about oil. What else? Once again, another congressman tweeted inappropriate photos of himself to a coed. Senator [redacted] was caught with a prostitute. I’ll explain prostitutes to you in a few years.”

  “You know, maybe if you had some breaking news about Elmo she’d be more invested in this conversation,” I said.

  That was apparently a mistake.

  “Elmo. Elmo. Elmo,” Sydney shouted.

  “Elmo later,” David replied. “Thanks a lot, Izzy.”

  “Elmo. Elmo. Elmo.”

  “Is there any way to stop this?” I asked.

  David, frustrated, tossed the newspaper on the kitchen table, turned on a small television in the corner of the kitchen, and tuned it in to Sesame Street. “That is the only way.”

  This program has been brought to you by the letter B.

  “Sydney, what words begin with B?” David asked.

  “Elmo,” she said.

  “No, that’s E,” said David. “What words begin with B?”

  David held up a Dr. Seuss tome. I think he was hoping she’d say “book.”

  “Elmo,” Sydney said again, with rapt attention on the TV.

  “I know, I know,” I said, raising my hand. Then I mouthed “banana.”

  “I will throw you out the window if you say that word,” he said. So I didn’t say “banana.” But it was really, really hard.

  David stirred the oatmeal on the stove and spooned it into a small bowl. He added milk and blueberries and stirred that up as well. Then he placed the bowl in front of Sydney.

  “I’m not cleaning it up this time,” I said.

  The telephone rang.

  David picked up. “Hello. Who is this? Yes, that name sounds familiar. Um, what can I do for you? One moment, please.” David covered the receiver and turned to me. “Can you watch her? I need to take this.”

  David stepped into the other room. I watched Sydney grab fistfuls of oatmeal and shove the cholesterol-reducing whole grain into her mouth. After ten minutes or so had passed, my brother finished his phone call and returned to the kitchen. He was about to say something to me. Something important, I suspect, but he became distracted by Sydney’s eating method.

  “Izzy, there’s a spoon right in front of her.”

  “Tell her that. I was just glad that she was eating it and not throwing it. Besides, where does it say that you have to eat oatmeal with a spoon? She eats practically everything else with her hands.”

  David soaked a dish towel in water and wiped Sydney’s hands clean. Then he placed the spoon in her tiny fingers and said, “Look at Mr. Spoon. He is your friend.”

  “Mr. Spoon, Twitter porn, and senatorial liaisons, all in the scope of one morning. This intellectual whiplash cannot be healthy.”

  Once the spoon was firmly set in Sydney’s hand and she was using it (to bang on her food tray), David turned to me. “I just got a very interesting phone call from a man named Ritz Naygrow.”

  “Ritz and I go way back.”

  “So you know the nature of our conversation?” David said.

  “I do,” I replied.

  “What’s going on, Isabel?”

  “The choice is yours. I don’t want to influence it. I will only say this: You can argue about how I live my life and it would be fair to say that for a thirty-four-year-old, I may not be the most evolved human being. However, I like my job and I do it well and what I did on that case may not have been good business, but it was right.”

  “What do you want me to do?” David asked.

  “I want you to do what you think is right. Thanks for the coffee,” I said.

  I kissed Sydney on the forehead, said a few encouraging
words about Mr. Spoon, and left.

  As I was unlocking the door to my temporary abode, I got a text message from Margaret Slayter.

  We need to meet. Immediately.

  Where?

  My house.

  I didn’t have anything better to do, so I figured it was best to know what she was plotting.

  I can be there in 20.

  Margaret, with her hair pulled into a tight bun and her face scrubbed of its usual mask, led me into her house. While I had never been in the Slayter home before, I suspect that it was usually tidier. Clothes were strewn about, mail was piled up on the dining room table, empty cocktail glasses were littered across the living room, and coffee cups filled the kitchen sink.

  “Marta is on strike,” Margaret said as she watched me take in the scene.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked as I sat down on a plush suede couch.

  “I called your office and your father told me that you no longer work there.”

  “I’m taking a sabbatical,” I replied.

  “I asked if I could hire them to continue working on my husband’s case. Your father said that there were not enough employees to meet the workload and turned me down.” Margaret pulled on the collar of her shirt as if it was choking her. “So I contacted you directly. My husband has just filed for divorce. He apparently has evidence of an affair.”

  “He does?” I innocently asked.

  “Yes. And with that evidence, I get virtually nothing in the divorce, unless I can prove that he was also having an affair. I need your help.”

  “What can I do?”

  “You can help me prove that he was seeing someone.”

  “But he wasn’t,” I said.

  “What about the woman in the bar?” Margaret asked.

  “She was no one,” I replied. “He sat with her for a bit and talked. That was it. There was nothing intimate in their encounter.”

  Margaret suddenly took in a few nervous breaths and began pacing. “There has to be something you can do.”

  “I don’t see what,” I said.

  “He wouldn’t actually have to be unfaithful. Certainly there are ways to make it appear so.”

  “I’ve heard of that sort of thing,” I said.

  “Can you make it happen? I don’t care what the cost is.”

  I got to my feet.

  “I’m afraid that’s not really my area of expertise. Good luck with everything. And don’t worry about paying your final bill. I understand money is tight right now.” I let myself out, got into my car, and checked that my recording device had gotten everything. Then I went to the movies. Alas, not a single Morgan Freeman1 film was playing.

  That night I slept as soundly as I had in weeks. Until, of course, I was awakened by an intruder. There’s a window over the kitchen sink that can be accessed along the side of the house. My intruder dislodged a mug from the dish rack, which dove to the floor and broke into three neat chunks. I was startled by the sharp noise and looked in the direction of my intruder, who was slithering through the window headfirst. Then I recognized the silhouette and watched it collapse on the kitchen floor.

  “I have a door, Rae.”

  “I know,” she replied. Then she held up a flashlight and shone it in my eyes. “I was going to wake you up with this.”

  I squinted and turned away. “I’m awake. What do you want?”

  Rae approached the bed and sat down on my legs. I turned on the reading lamp and confiscated the flashlight. Then I looked at the clock. One thirty A.M. “Couldn’t this have waited until morning?” I asked.

  “Most things can wait until morning, but I felt like talking now. I brought you a brownie in case you were hungry,” Rae said, passing me a brown square in plastic wrap.

  “Regular brownie?” I asked.

  “That’s your bag,” Rae said. “I eat the straight stuff.”

  I was kind of hungry. So I took a bite.

  Then Rae took the brownie from me and split it in half.

  “I worked up an appetite on my way over.”

  “Is there something I can do for you?” I asked.

  “I got a very interesting phone call this afternoon.”

  “Did you?”

  “What game are you playing?”

  “It’s not a game, Rae. It’s my life.”

  “It’s a good offer. I don’t know what to do.”

  “I think this is the question you need to ask yourself: What do you see yourself doing in five years?”

  Rae thought about it for a moment and replied, “I really don’t know.”

  “Will you be working for Spellman Investigations?”

  This question she didn’t have to think about. “No. That, I’m sure of.”

  I was startled by the certainty of the response. She had never mentioned this before, to me or my parents. I had definitely noticed my sister’s general workplace apathy, but I chalked that up to the stresses of mingling school, work, and a thriving social life. It hadn’t occurred to me that she had completely checked-out.

  “I used to think that one day it would just be you and me running the business,” I said.

  “I used to think that too,” Rae replied.

  “What happened?”

  “We’re just watching people do things,” Rae said. “I want to do my own things.”

  There was a time when my sister’s ambition would have served only to remind me of my lack thereof. But she was right, my work is about sitting back and observing and, for me, that’s enough.

  “You should be clear with the unit, even though I think they’ve figured it out. All that yawning during Friday summits.”

  “I’ve been trying the subtle approach,” Rae replied. She finished her half of the brownie and then took what was left of mine and ate it. “Now, what do I do about this other thing?” she asked.

  “I want you to make the decision,” I said. “Just know that the business will be in good hands, no matter what you choose. But if you take the deal, there will be some backlash. Be prepared.”

  Rae poured herself a glass of milk and downed it in a quick gulp.

  “I’m going to need a ride home now. Remember, I don’t have a car.”

  “How’d you get here?”

  “I was at a party in the neighborhood. Got a ride.”

  “Sleep on the couch. I’m tired.”

  Rae removed her shoes and socks and got into bed with me. After an hour of being abused by a somnolent thrasher, I got out of bed and slept on the couch. By the time I woke the next morning, Rae was gone. She must have used the window, since the door was still locked.

  She left me a note on my nightstand.

  Let’s do lunch.

  THE COUP

  Two days into my retirement, Mr. Slayter phoned. “I have the paperwork for you. Drop by my office anytime.”

  I took the California 1 bus downtown to Slayter’s office. As I approached the building I caught a glimpse of Charlie and his newish yellow sweater on the cement steps. I waved. He waved back.

  Then I had an idea; I walked over to him and took a seat. “How you doing, Charlie?”

  “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  The air was thick with fog. Charlie was a true San Franciscan.

  “Why don’t you have a job, Charlie?”

  “I used to work. For the city. In the recorder’s office, for twenty years. Then they asked me to retire and I couldn’t find another job. I don’t need much to live on. My sister helps too.”

  “You know the city well, don’t you?”

  “Like the back of my hand. Though, that’s just a saying. I don’t look at the back of my hand all that much. I probably know the layout of San Francisco better than that.”

  “You don’t get lost, do you?”

  “Never.”

  I gave Charlie a fifty-dollar bill.

  “What’s this for?” he asked.

  “I’d like you to go to the shopping mall at Powell and buy a wool sweater in gray.” />
  “Why?”

  “I think you’d look good in gray. And I might have a job for you and I think that’s a good color for a job interview.”

  “A job? What kind of job?”

  “As a navigational consultant. I’ll know more later. Take my phone,” I said.

  I gave Charlie my burner phone and reminded him how to answer calls and end them. Then I said good-bye and headed into 101 Market.

  Mr. Slayter and Ritz were seated in his office. The paperwork had been drawn up and awaited my signature.

  “I don’t know how you managed it,” I said.

  “Your brother was easy,” Slayter said. “Your sister, however—she might be the most brutal negotiator I’ve encountered. Let me know when she graduates college.”

  “I suppose I should have warned you about her,” I said.

  “That’s all right,” Edward said. “It keeps me sharp.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “A steep discount on all investigative services, until my days are over, will do.”

  “A deal is a deal.”

  I kept the pen poised upon the signature line for a long moment. This was the point of no return.

  “What are you waiting for?” Slayter asked.

  “I hope they’ll forgive me,” I said.

  “From what you’ve told me, they’re the forgiving sort, considering your previous exploits. I think they’ll come to understand. I’m happy to speak to them anytime and put their minds at ease.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Slayter,” I said. Then I signed the paperwork and slid it into the envelope.

  Before I departed, I left behind the digital recorder with the audio file from my last meeting with the soon-to-be-ex–Mrs. Slayter.

  “This might come in handy,” I said.

  “If there’s anything else I can do to help you, say the word,” Edward replied.

  “I think I know someone who might be able to help you,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  I wrote down the cell number on the back of my card along with Charlie Black’s name.

  “You’ve played chess with Charlie. He knows his way around the city. His days are free. He’d work for cheap and in his company you’d never get lost. And I know for a fact that he’s trustworthy. He might be the most guileless person I’ve ever met.”