“When I got back from the Meeting, I wanted to make Numenon into a corporation based on Love. Like your grandfather talks about. Love, respect. Caring for the people and the planet. I sound like a bleeding heart? Don’t I? You know why? I am! I always have been. But I was too chicken to come out and be who I really was.
Will looked at him, face haggard again. “Ric Chao and Frank Sauvage will be monsters wearing human flesh by next year. They’ll make my Numenon into an economic rape and pillage machine.
“They’ll discredit everything I’ve done. That’s what I’ll get to live with in my golden years.
“And then Cass on top of it …” He threw up his hands with a hopeless chuckle. “She’s my only family.”
Leroy moved forward. He was going to try to heal him, Will could see. But he wouldn’t let him. He deserved to suffer. Will held up his hand, a stiff smile on his face.
“Hey. I’ll have Doug or someone put an itinerary together for you. Go on a trip, Leroy. Have fun. Someone needs to. And who knows, next trip, maybe it will be you and me and Cass. A family.
“Go.” Will waved him away before Leroy could lessen his pain.
“Will, dear,” the raspy voice of one of his dearest and oldest—in every way—friends assailed Will’s ears through his phone.
“You’re always the harbinger of good news, Vanessa. What do you want to blame me for now?” She could not have chosen a worse time to call.
“Oh, my, aren’t we touchy?”
“I just finished discussing the demise of my professional career with an almost stranger. A cowboy, or Indian. The man who saved Cass. All I needed was a vampire attack”
“I’m not a vampire, Will. My family has never had anything to do with vampires. But tell me about Cass. I heard that young man and your other people have found Cass. That’s wonderful.”
“It was nothing short of miraculous, Vanessa. She’s in terrible condition. I’ve put her in a hospital to gain weight and stabilize her physical condition. When she’s healthy enough, I’m moving her to the Havertin Institute in New York to handle her addiction and mental health problems.”
“Why send her so far away, Will? My hospital is at your disposal, both for her physical and mental needs. Do you know how well our facility is rated? My hospital is top rated in every dimension. And we’re thirty minutes from your house. I’ll see that she gets well.”
Will’s jaws clenched. “Vanessa, I put her in your hospital years ago. You know what happened. I walked into your barn three days after she got there and found her fucking my horse trainer and doing coke.
“You can’t handle her. You don’t have the security and you don’t have the experience to deal with someone like Cass. Your nicey-nicey staff, Rudy and the rest of them, don’t know what to do with someone who attacks when she’s threatened and can con you faster than shake your hand.
“What diseases do you treat, anyway?”
“You know what illnesses I treat at our clinic,” Vanessa said stiffly. “My children are bipolar and schizophrenic. You know that. You also know that, in addition to caring for my family, I take other interesting psychiatric cases to keep my psychiatrists busy and myself alive intellectually.”
“What’s your cure rate?”
She bridled. “The diseases we treat are incurable. They are treatable. People with the disorders can live healthy, fully functioning lives.”
“How many of your patients have jobs and marriages when you’re done?”
“That’s cruel, Will. You know how ill my family is. The other patients we take are the most difficult cases that exist. Other institutions have not been able to help them. When they leave here, they’re better.” The old lady’s voice was tight with anger.
“Will, I think you’re making a terrible mistake that you’ll regret forever. Why a hospital so far away?
“I’m satisfied with my investigation and …” He depressed the lever on his phone while he was speaking. He smiled. She’d never know he hung up on her.
Will sat at his desk in his home office. He stared at the fine wooden surface spreading out in front of him. The draperies were closed, but he wouldn’t have been distracted by the priceless view of the rolling golden hills of Woodside, one of the most affluent towns in the world.
Why did Vanessa think she had the right to talk to him like that? Cass was his daughter. He had the right to decide what was best for her. He squirmed in his chair. He’d been uneasy since Leroy had come back. She would get well, and they would have the father-daughter relationship he’d dreamed of all of her life.
Leroy had found her, but he would save her. He and the hundreds of thousands it would cost to get her through the hospitals. He’d done it so many times before, and he would this time. He would save his daughter as long as she was alive. He would do that.
She would not run off with some penniless cowboy whose spelling didn’t make fifth grade. Leroy had written him an email from New York. The man was barely literate. Cass was his. His muscles tensed: jaws, shoulders, arms. Thighs, feet. Will didn’t notice.
He was back there again. What had happened last Christmas was live for a moment: his Montana ranch’s log walls glowed. The lights on the pine garlands festooning the great hall twinkled. The tree touched the three story high ceiling, branches weighed down by ornaments.
Cass’s head was half shaved. The dragon tattoo her hair had covered looked like it would come alive from her scalp. She screamed at him, “You are a shit! You use people. You use me. You want everyone to think you’re such a good father, but you’re not. People feel sorry for you because I’m such a burden, but they don’t know…”
She’d gone on like that, cursing and screaming, her sweater’s shoulder falling down to show her skeletal form.
He ran out of the house and called his pilots to take him back to the Bay Area. He’d cried all the way home, wiping away tears of pain and truth. She hurt him, almost mortally. He hated Cass. She was too smart and too sick and knew it was his fault. He hadn’t kept her safe. He hated her for being so smart. She saw through anything. Deeper inside, some part wanted to get back at her for the pain she’d caused him.
This time, he’d do it right. Havertin was right. Will was sure of it. Fuck Vanessa, fuck Leroy. Maybe that clodhopper cowboy would learn something where he was sending him. If he didn’t, see where he got with Cass. She wasn’t the tender flower he thought she was.
Cass was as snobby as the best of them when she was clean and sober. Dressed like a model in a fashion magazine and spoke like an English professor. She didn’t talk like a stevedore when she wasn’t on drugs, but she wasn’t a sweet thing that was so grateful, y’all. Leroy would get a big surprise, if her treatment worked.
Will picked up a crystal paperweight on his desk. For an instant, he wanted to throw it. He wouldn’t. He didn’t want Cass savaging Leroy over his manners. He wanted a family that worked. More than anything, Will wanted to do the right thing. This was it.
Two weeks later, when Leroy and Doug were flying across the Atlantic, Leroy had to admit that Mr. Duane was the most powerful and effective man he knew. He got a psychologist to hypnotize him. Leroy thought hypnosis would be like in the movies; he’d go to a creepy old house with cobwebs and spiders. A weird lady in robes would say, “Watch the shining ball.”
It wasn’t that way. A young man with a short beard had him sit down in a bright office. Then he gave him instructions. “Remember a time when you felt very strong.” Leroy did. Somehow the guy added in an airplane, then imagining sitting in one. Imagining it taking off. Took a few sessions.
After hypnotizing him so he wasn’t afraid thinking about getting on an airplane, the psychologist took Leroy to the San Jose airport. There, he had him climbing in and out of Will’s planes, from really big ones to itty bitty ones.
7
Jolly Olde England
Outside of Will’s home in Woodside, the condo in London was the most amazing place Leroy had seen, bigger and more luxu
rious than the one in New York. The apartment in New York had been all slick leather and straight lines, with artwork that looked like kids did it using duct tape and finger-paints.
This place was furnished with huge chairs and sofas covered with fabrics like the ones he’d seen on Hermitage Estate: Upstairs and Down. The pictures on the walls were of things you could recognize—people and horses and trees. Everything wooden was carved and polished and velvet draperies hung at the windows. Only the splendor of Will’s house in Woodside surpassed this urban palace.
Leroy stalked around, looking in the rooms’ doorways and peeking out the windows at the dark streets. They were shiny, wet with rain.
“You know what this trip is about?” Doug said, following him like a shadow.
“Oh, yeah. ‘Welcome to Will’s world.’” He couldn’t stop pacing. The nervousness he’d felt since he set foot on that plane to rescue Cass had caught up with him. “Will’s makin’ sure that if Cass and me get married, I won’t embarrass him.”
Leroy went back to pacing. He would have sworn, if he had been a swearing man. What was so wrong with him? Back home, he felt just fine in his skin, and his world. Step into Will Duane’s world and he had to be remodeled like a rundown house. Maybe get indoor plumbing for the first time. He kept moving, wanting to kick something.
He thought to himself, Hold on, Leroy, if you want Cass, this is what you have to do. You have to fit into her world. Her world, not yours. Nothin’ wrong with you that these folks won’t find and make worse. Eat humble pie. Maybe you’ll like it.
Doug opened his mouth to say something, but the telephone rang. He grabbed it and scooted into his bedroom. Leroy could hear the strain in his voice through wooden panels.
“Baby, I will be home as soon as I can.” Doug burst out of the bedroom. He held the phone against his ear with his shoulder, partially covering the mouthpiece with his hand. As though that kept Leroy from hearing everything. “You’re OK. You’re at Will’s. Everyone cares about you. I’ll be home in a week, tops. You’re fine, sweetheart.”
Leroy followed Doug’s movements and words, becoming concerned.
“Don’t worry, baby. I love you. Can I talk to Carl?” Doug turned around as though he was heading back into the bedroom then stopped. “Carl? Is she OK?” He listened. “I need to be there. I’ll come home tomorrow.” A deep voice resounded from the phone, but Leroy couldn’t hear what he said, other than what the tone of his voice said, “No. You need to stay.”
“Can you take care of her for me?” Tough, worldly Doug had tears in his eyes. “Thank you, man. I owe you big time.”
He hung up the phone and looked at Leroy, desperate.
“Janice?”
“Yeah. She’s freaking out. It’s all too much,” he waved his hand around the room. Will’s world. “Do you know anything about Janice?”
Leroy knew all about Janice. He and Grandfather had rescued her from a situation similar to Cass’s. Too similar. She’d become an exemplary warrior, recovering from what life had thrust on her and her alcoholism. But Leroy sensed that Janice needed Doug and needed him now. All the work she’d done since meeting Grandfather was in jeopardy.
“Go home. I can take care of myself. I’m a spirit warrior.”
“No! You need me as much as Janice does. That’s why Carl told me to stay. You don’t know what you’re in for. Sit down, Leroy. I’m going to tell you the facts of life.” Doug indicated one of the overstuffed chairs. He sat on the adjoining sofa.
“You’re in charm school.” Doug’s mouth tightened. “Will is giving you this trip because he needs to stash you somewhere until we see if Cass is going to make it. She’s been hospitalized a bunch of times before. You know that. You don’t know that I was there for her a couple of them.” Leroy’s jaw fell open.
“Yeah. I was in love with her. I fell out of love with her the first time she got mad at me. Have you heard about Will’s temper?” Leroy shook his head. “No? If he blows up at you, you’ll never forget it. Cass is off the scale. She attacks.” He pulled up his sleeve and showed Leroy half-circle scars on his forearm, top and bottom. The scars bore tooth marks. “Cass. Thirty-six stitches.
“Most likely she won’t make it out of rehab clean. But if she does, Will wants you ready to take her off his hands.” Leroy slumped, brow furrowing. “If you asked Will what he was doing, he wouldn’t say that, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.
“He wants you to fit in his world, which is also Cass’s world. She was raised like this.” He waved his hand, indicating the luxurious room.
“But what if she doesn’t make it and you don’t end up married? You’re Grandfather’s grandson. Whatever Grandfather has is in you too; anybody can feel it. You’re a valuable corporate asset. But Will needs a man he can send anywhere.”
Leroy stood up. “I’m not good enough for him?”
“No, you’re not. Not now.”
“Why didn’t he tell me that to my face?”
“Will doesn’t work like that. You know some things about him. What does he do if he want’s something fixed?”
Leroy was silent for a moment. “Sends a fixer.”
“And what am I?”
“You’re Will’s fixer.” Leroy wanted to head to his room and get his bags. “Are you fixing me?”
“What I can see that needs it. But there’s fixing and there’s fixing. There’s what we did to save Cass, and there’s me dealing with some lying motherfucker that needs his head kicked in. I don’t do that, but I do the legal equivalent.”
“What are you doing now?”
“I’m helping a friend. Will should have talked to you and said something like, ‘I need to have you more polished if you’re going to be going places with Cass or working for me.’ He didn’t; he sent me. Will’s an asshole, Leroy. I knew that before the Meeting, and I really know it now. But that’s not all of him. You’ve lived at his house. What do you notice about Will?”
Leroy was ready to leave. “He’s rich. He gets his way. He’s …”
“Not a bad guy. Sit down. What did you notice about the people he took to the Meeting? The people at his house?”
Leroy thought back to the retreat. He was only there a little while, but he remembered that the executives were an Asian guy, Melissa, and Doug. Some of the drivers died in the massacre, but they were white, Latino, and African American. His chef was gay. Living at his house now? Maybe fifteen people from the Meeting, Indians, all of them.
“Did he mind that Melissa, who everyone considers Will’s real daughter, married Wesley, the most Indian Indian on the planet?”
Leroy shook his head.
“That’s right. Will is color blind. Race does not matter to him. Neither does sex, sexual preference, or religion. He’s a really good person in that respect. What he cares about is performance. Get the deal done. Win the prize, no matter who gets hurt. And he cares about his favorites. He will back them—us—up beyond what you can imagine. As long as we come through and don’t betray him. The problem isn’t Will. Do you understand?”
“No.”
Doug blew out a breath. “Will wants you to fit in his world and make it with Cass. I want that too, Leroy, really a lot. I’m one of you; I’m a spirit warrior. I’ve never been around people like you. You love each other. And I feel you like me … love me.” Doug’s face worked like he was trying to spit out a poison toad. “You deserve to be the man you could be—not just the really nice, country guy. You could be master of the universe.” Doug seemed to be fighting with himself.
“What are you trying to say?”
“Oh, shit, Leroy. Some of the people you’re going to meet would make hamburger out of you for the fun of it. They’ll try to humiliate you. They’ll break you if they can. Why?”
“To get back at Will?”
“Yeah. But mostly, because you’re black.”
Leroy jerked.
“Will’s color blind, but some people you’re going to m
eet and have to charm are just plain racist sons of bitches. Not just racist. They think they’re descended from God because their ancestors got named Lord this or Earl that, most likely for doing shitty things to peasants living in the mud.
“If you don’t get the stuff Will has lined up for you right, they’ll keep you out of their world forever. And wreck your value to Will. They’ll do it so slick, you won’t know what happened.
“I know this, because they tried it with me. I was raised in Beverly Hills and my dad’s a CEO. I can play their games. But you’re a nice guy. They’ll cut you to ribbons. That’s why I need to stay here.”
Leroy stared at Doug, speechless. “Where do you think I’ve been, Doug?” he finally choked out. “You think the neighbors love my dad and me because we’re so nice? No. I heal every person and animal that can get to me for free. The neighbors love that. My dad’s a famous rodeo clown. A celebrity. Neighbors like that too. But not all of them.
“Back when my long-ago grandpa got the place, they wanted to shoot us Watches back to Africa. We didn’t get run off or killed because my daddy’s people had always had a mojo going. Juju. I got an African juju and Native juju.
“You’re so afraid for me that you won’t go home to take care of Janice? That’s crazy, man.” Leroy shook his head. But Doug kept scratching at his head like Leroy was in terrible danger and couldn’t see it.
“The Rez was worse. I lived there from when I was six ‘til I was twenty. Do you think the reservation was nice?
“if we stepped one foot off the Rez, nobody liked us. Everyone wanted to humiliate us and ruin our chances. Especially me, because I was Grandfather’s grandson and had African blood.
“You’re afraid I can’t handle people hatin’ me because of my skin?” Leroy shook his head in amazement.
In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance Page 6
