Gail called out for Miriam, who stuck her head out of the extra office, where she had been working on the books. "I want you to write a check to Lynn for whatever her salary is for the week, and give her two extra weeks'severance pay."
Miriam's eyes widened.
"She's firing me," Lynn said with a tight smile. She continued to glare back at Gail as she followed Miriam into the office. She came out again a minute later, folding a check. Her feet thudded on the carpet in their flat, laced shoes, and her hair swung side to side. Passing Gail, she said, "My husband is going to have something to say about this. We might hire a lawyer and sue you."
Seated at the other desk, Gail watched her from under the hand arched over her forehead. She watched Lynn take down her children's crayon drawings, the snapshots, the clippings. Lynn cleaned out the drawers in her desk and put everything into a box. Her lips moved, but Gail could not hear what she was saying.
"Lynn, I'm sorry about this."
"No, you aren't. You're such a bitch. You really are. You don't care what you do to people. I've got two kids at home to feed and clothe, but you couldn't care less."
The door slammed behind her.
Miriam looked around. "Oh, my God."
Gail said, "Miriam, I need to make a phone call. Then I might be out the rest of the day. Can you handle it?"
"Of course. Gail?" She caught up to her in the hall. "I didn't know about the message from Mr. Barlow. It's not good news, is it?" Gail shook her head, then felt Miriam's small hand grip her wrist. Miriam said, "Should I call Ms. Zimmerman and say not to expect the check? Or . . . wait till she calls?"
Gail opened her mouth, then said, "I don't know. If she cans—and she will—tell her tomorrow. She'll get it tomorrow."
Rain was spitting on Gail's windshield when she reached Coconut Grove, and coming down in fat, intermittent drops when she pulled into the parking lot of the Old Island Club. At nearly two o'clock, the lunchtime crowd was gone, but locals still were lingering with their beer under the umbrellas on the deck, ignoring the rain.
Gail went inside and shivered in a blast of chilled air. Busboys were clearing the wooden tables, and reggae pounded from the speakers. Stuffed parrots in fake banana trees jerkily turned their heads and squawked at random intervals. An overhang made to look like a tin roof ran along the food-prep area, and Gail spotted someone she knew behind the cash register—Vicki, wearing her usual little shorts and flowered Island Club shirt. She was tapping at the multicolored squares on a computer screen.
"Hi. I need to speak to Dave. Could you tell me where I can find him?"
Vicki looked around, and her tilted, black-penciled eyes flicked over Gail in a quick, dismissive appraisal. "And you are—oh, hi. Is he expecting you?"
Gail wanted to slap her. "Just tell him I'm here." She smiled. "Thank you."
"I'll be right with you." Vicki finished what she was doing. "Would you mind waiting over there? I'll see if he's available." She turned and walked into the back, the muscles in her calves bunching under sleekly tanned skin.
The rain was falling harder, obscuring the mangrove islands around the marina. It seemed to move in a curtain across the parking lot, finally reaching the deck, where it coursed off the umbrellas and made people pick up their feet to keep dry. A few of them ran inside, laughing and brushing the rain out of their hair.
"Gail?" She turned around. Dave had called to her from a doorway behind the phony storefront of a Caribbean market. When she got there, he said, "I tried to call your office just now. Miriam said you'd left."
"We need to talk."
The grimness of her expression took the smile off his face. "Sure. Come on." He led her down a short hallway stacked with boxes of napkins, cups, and toilet paper, then into his office, a small room just as cluttered. He closed the door.
"I know what you're going to say, and I'm sorry, I don't know exactly what's going on, but Jeff Barlow says it's just a matter of a few days. The general counsel at the head office wants to look at it again." He extended his arm toward a chair. "Do you want something to drink?"
"No. I talked to Jeff. He is not nearly as optimistic as you are."
Dave held up his hands. "I talked to the man too. It's fine. Would you relax?"
"Where's the money I gave you?"
"Where? Gail, I wire-transferred it on Friday to Armand Dubois." He tugged on her arm. "Honey, come on, sit down. You look like you're about to snap into pieces."
"Do not call me honey."
"Okay. Sorry."
"What is going on, Dave? Jeff was in the middle of a meeting and he couldn't talk."
"It's just. . . some crap about the name. They want to make sure Armand had the right to sell it to me, something like that. And he did. We signed a contract." Dave's hand smacked his palm, accenting his words. "Armand's lawyer drew it up, Armand signed it, I paid the money, and I own the name, the logo, the look—everything. It's like . . . owning the name 'Hard Rock Cafe.'"
Gail's mouth was dry as sand. "But . . . nobody knows the Old Island Club."
"Oh, you're wrong. The place is a legend."
"To anyone with a boat maybe, who sails in the Caribbean. But I'd never heard of the Old Island Club. Marriott won't get involved in a dispute over the name. They will just ... forget it."
"They paid me eighty thousand dollars already!"
"A cost of doing business."
Dave was pacing around his small office. "If they try to back out, we'll sue them."
Gail laughed. "You can be sure they put an escape clause in their contract with you. I didn't even think to ask Jeff Barlow for a copy before I wrote the check. There wasn't time. I was so worried about Karen. I wasn't thinking. I must have been out of my mind."
"You're making this into a big problem," Dave said. "I really don't think it will be."
"How long did Barlow say it would take them to decide?"
"A couple of weeks, maybe more. They have to get in touch with Armand, and he's usually sailing this time of year."
Gail sank into the chair. Dave crouched beside her. "Gail? Honey, are you all right? Your skin is so cold. Here, put your head between your knees. Take a couple of deep breaths. Come on."
She raised her head. "I took the money from my trust account."
"Your trust account." He looked at her blankly. "Well . . . can't you transfer some money over?"
"From where? I have nothing to cover the shortage with. My checks will start bouncing. I will be sued. I could be disbarred from the practice of law. Do you understand?''
"Gail, calm down."
"How could I have done this?"
"Please don't blame me."
"No. I blame myself. I let myself forget that every business venture you have ever touched has turned to shit!"
"I'll . . . give you whatever cash I have on hand."
"I need forty thousand dollars."
He stood up and spun to face the wall. "I don't have that much."
"How much do you have?"
"About five grand."
"I want it."
"Gail, it's for payroll and rent."
"I don't care."
"I can give you a thousand. Ask your mother to spot you the money for a couple of weeks. Ask Quintana."
She stared at him. "I deserved this. I must have deserved it for something wicked I have done. It's all coming back."
"Gail, stop talking crazy."
Someone knocked at the door, which slowly came open. A woman with short, dark hair stuck her head through. Gail focused.
Vicki gave her a smile. "Hi." Then she turned to Dave. "Mr. Metzger? You're wanted out front."
"Who is it?"
"It's somebody about catering." A lie. Of course a lie. And Dave knew it. She was rescuing her boss from his ex-wife, this screaming bitch.
"Tell him I'll be right there." When Vicki was gone, he turned to Gail. She could see the panic starting to creep in at the corners, like slowly rising water in a leaking hull, too far from
shore. "Barlow said to wait. He didn't say it was off. Something is going on. Armand is pulling some shit. I'll straighten it out. It's going to be all right." He reached for his wallet and thumbed through the bills. "Here's about five hundred dollars. Take it. Take it."
He unlocked a drawer in his desk and took out a heavy metal box. "I've got two thousand in cash. You can have it."
Gail put the bills on the desk. "It's no use," she said. "Five hundred, five thousand."
"I swear to you, it isn't my fault. Please. It's going to be all right. It will. In a couple of weeks . . . Don't leave like this. Honey, please."
Dave followed her out of the office. At the door to the restaurant she glanced back and caught a glimpse of him standing under the tin roof of the Caribbean marketplace. She put her jacket over her head and dashed for her car.
TWENTY-ONE
Irene came out of her house with a bright yellow umbrella, a spot of color bobbing toward her Chrysler sedan in the driveway. As Gail's headlights swept over the yard, the umbrella paused, turned, and came toward the driver's side. Gail got out and huddled under it with her mother.
Hello, darling. Was I expecting you?" Irene asked.
"I should have called."
"It's just a little meeting with Friends of the Opera, but I have to go, since I'm presenting . . ." Irene looked more closely into Gail's face and took a breath. "Oh, my. Something happened. What is it? You're scaring me."
"Mom, I'm in trouble. If you have some time, just a little—"
"Come on, let's go inside."
Irene propped her umbrella in the stand in the foyer, then told Gail to start some tea while she made a phone call. Evelyn, I'm so sorry, but I've run into a little situation. They took their cups into the living room, Irene curling up on the end of the sofa, Gail in a floral-print wing chair. Nothing in this room had changed since Gail could remember. Her mother reupholstered the furniture from time to time or repainted the walls, but the pieces were in the same positions they had always been. The leg of the coffee table was dented where Gail had run into it with her skates twenty-five years ago. Grandmother Strickland's mantel clock ticked from the sideboard in the dining room. Sliding glass doors gave a view of the screened porch and the pool, and as Gail spoke, she saw the rain gradually come to a stop. Occasionally water would drip from the screen into the pool, making circles that widened outward.
"I've never done anything like this before. I can't explain it."
"Your motives were unselfish."
"That's no justification."
"Haven't you ever made a mistake?"
"I feel so embarrassed, asking you for money."
"Gail! Don't hurt my feelings by saying that." Irene smiled at her. "It will be yours anyway, yours and Karen's. Let me think. Forty thousand. I only keep about ten in my savings account. If I gave you a check off my money-market account, it would take a few days for it to clear. I bet I could raise at least eighteen thousand for Ms. Zimmerman with some phone calls tonight. Yes. I'd give them checks on my account, and they'd give me the cash. Would that work?"
"I don't want anyone to know about this."
"Heavens, no. I'd say it's for an emergency. No one will demand explanations."
"Mother, I'm so sorry."
Irene took her hand. "May I suggest something to you? And this isn't because I don't want to help you. Tell Anthony."
"Oh, God."
"Don't you think you're underestimating him?"
"We had a horrible fight about sending Karen to Nonna and Poppa's house. He thinks Dave had ulterior motives in suggesting it. If he knew that I lent Dave a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars—"
"Listen to me. Let's say that he does become angry and unpleasant. Say he punishes you by withholding his affections, or he even calls off your engagement. Well, I say good. That's right. Good. You should be happy to find out something in advance that many women don't discover until it's too late."
"Mother, things just aren't that simple!"
"Excuse me, but yes, they are. If this is all it takes to lose a man who supposedly loves you, then was he worth having?" Irene drew herself up. "Do you want a relationship where you can't confess the mistakes you've made? Trust me, darling, he will make his share, and you must be just as forgiving. Your father had his faults, heaven knows, but on that point I had absolute confidence in him. I could tell him the worst thing I'd done, ask him to forgive me, and he would."
Gail laughed softly. "Mother, you are such a contradiction. You once said that women can't tell men everything."
"I was referring to trivial matters. Little annoyances. This is far different. This goes to the foundation. No, I won't refuse to help you. I will not force you into a corner with Anthony, because I see that you are in no state of mind to think clearly about it. I'm going to go out and speak to my friends, collect what I can, and unless you say not to, I'll be at your office tomorrow morning, bright and early. I'll bring some coffee cake for the girls."
"There's only Miriam. I fired Lynn today. I went crazy, I think. I'd gotten another call from Bozo, who is now calling himself Mr. Death."
"At your office?"
"He got through by pretending to be Anthony's law partner. He said, 'Hell is waiting.' Hell couldn't be much worse than this, could it?"
"Yes, darling. Much worse. Karen is safe."
Gail went to sit beside her mother, and for several minutes, she rested her head on Irene's shoulder, unable to speak.
In the morning Anthony would have opening arguments in an attempted murder case at the criminal courthouse. This meant staying late at his office with his associate and the client. Gail was more or less expected for dinner with the Pedrosas, but she called to say she had errands to run. Karen needed some things from their old house, and Gail had to pick up a few pieces of clothing for herself as well.
Gail was aware of her reasons for leaving most of her clothes where they were—a stubborn protest against the inevitable. Soon enough the house would be sold and everything she owned would be shipped to Malagueña Avenue, behind the gates of la Casa Pedrosa. Outside the domain of her law practice, modest and stumbling as it currently was, the house on Clematis Street retained the last vestiges of the person she had been.
The street was overgrown, foliage brushing the sides of her car, dripping rain, when she arrived just before sunset. The roofs and treetops were touched with gold.
Turning into her driveway, Gail noticed the new alamanda bush that she and her mother had planted two weeks ago. She got out and went to look at it. A branch was snapped off, and tire tracks had been left in the soggy grass.
She heard a young voice. "I didn't run over it." Payton Cunningham was circling on his bicycle.
"Hi, Payton. I know you didn't. It was a car."
"I think it was a van." He circled closer. "I saw a van in your driveway."
"Did you see who it was?"
"It was that man who works for you? I passed by here and saw his van."
"His name is Charlie Jenkins." Gail stared at the house. "When did you see him?"
"About ... six o'clock? I rode over to the park, and when I came back he was gone." Payton rolled to a stop, big sneakers on the driveway. He flipped his curly blond bangs out of his eyes.
"How long have you been here?" Gail asked.
"I got back about fifteen minutes ago."
She looked at her watch, which said 7:35. Charlie Jenkins had been here around six o'clock, but why? "Did you speak to him?"
"I didn't see him. I only saw his van."
"Was he inside it?"
"I don't know." Payton spun the pedal with the toe of his sneaker. "Well, I have to go. Mom said to be home for supper."
Gail said, "I'm sorry I yelled at you in the backyard. Remember that?"
"Oh, yeah. I don't smoke a lot. I mean, I tried it, that's all. Too bad about Karen's cat. Did they find whoever did it?"
"Not yet."
"You don't live here anymore, right?"
"We've been staying with my fiancé’s family."
"Are you going to move back?"
She smiled and shook her head. "I don't think so."
"Tell Karen I said hello. She's a nice girl."
"I'll tell her. Bye, Payton." He did a wheelie on the street, shirt flapping open behind him. The bicycle skidded, swerved into the driveway of the Cunningham house, and disappeared behind the hedges.
Gail took an empty suitcase and a garment bag out of the trunk and set them on the front porch. All normal explanations would have Charlie Jenkins knocking on her door, waiting a minute or two for someone to open it, and when no one did, getting back in his van, clipping the alamanda bush as he backed out of the driveway. That he had come here in broad daylight, at a time when the occupants were likely to be home, made her wonder if the police were right in suspecting him.
There were no notes stuck in the door. She opened the mailbox and found the usual junk mail and bills. The key turned smoothly in the lock. She pushed open the door and stood on the threshold, listening. She flipped the switch for the lamp at the end of the sofa.
"Scaredy cat," she said under her breath. She dropped the bags in the hall and checked the back door, which was secure as well. The sun had gone behind the trees, leaving the yard in shadow. The swing set was still there. No one had come yet to take it out. The police had taken the rope.
In the kitchen the old fluorescent tubes in the ceiling came on with their familiar annoying buzz. Dropping her keys in her shoulder bag, Gail walked back to the hall and turned that light on too. A yellowish glow from the old sconces lit her way up the stairs.
She paused at the top to shift the strap of the garment bag on her shoulder and saw as if for the first time how narrow and cramped this house really was. Anthony had been right—minor fix-ups would never have been enough.
The wheels on the suitcase rolled smoothly over the carpet past Karen's room. Karen had asked for her tennis racquets, more shorts and shirts, extra sneakers. Karen wanted all her Beanie Babies. She wanted her diary, and Gail had promised not to read it. But someone had gone into that room, aimed his camera, and captured a piece of her daughter's life. So easily. Click click click.
Suspicion of Betrayal Page 29
