The Last Word

by Lisa Lutz

  “How was it being back at the Big Q?” I said.

  “Excuse me?” D said.

  “San Quentin State Prison. The Big Q. We should use the right lingo, don’t you think?”

  D ignored my suggestion and said, “I need to do some follow-up interviews after I finish transcribing the tapes.”

  “Do you want me to help?” I asked.

  “With what?”

  “With the typing,” I said. “No offense, you’re still using two fingers.”

  “Won’t get any faster if you do it for me, right?”

  “Right,” I said. Only there was something I was missing. “He’s innocent, right?”

  “His alibi was another convict but seems legit. And the witness identification was certainly suspect.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t like the guy,” D said as he donned his headphones and put his index fingers to work.

  • • •

  After one of the better workdays I’d had in weeks,1 which was subpar for any other workday in the last year, I decided to celebrate by going to my usual watering hole, which is also below its former standards. I blame the proprietor, Bernie Peterson. He’s a retired cop who was friendly with my uncle, if friendly to you means having an intimate knowledge of a person’s most gluttonous, avaricious, or salacious self. In the “good old days,” as Bernie would call them, I had to extract the men from the grimiest establishments. At times it seemed they were hell-bent on shrugging off the usual habits of retirees. I think they played golf together once, more as a drinking game than any other kind of pastime. One beer per hole.2 They lasted eight holes, until it took Bernie fourteen shots to sink a ball already on the green, causing a traffic jam on the links. Security finally removed them after they climbed into a golf cart and tried to engage the other players in a game of chicken.

  Uncle Ray has been gone for years, but I always forgave him because I knew his debauchery masked his pain. With Bernie I always got the feeling he was having a good time and couldn’t have cared less if it screwed up anybody else’s good time. Even if their idea of a good time was playing golf.

  Now that I’ve mentioned Bernie, you might as well meet him.

  I entered the Philosopher’s Club and Bernie shot out from behind the bar and tried to pin me into a bear hug. This dance usually involves a minor contortion act as I dodge his embrace. Bernie had to settle for a solid pat on the back. He thinks we’re like family; I don’t even think we’re like friends.

  “Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he said. He said it because it had been a while since he’d seen me and that’s the way he talks. Work and all has cut into my drinking.

  I sat down on a bar stool.

  “What’ll it be?”

  “Whiskey and a beer back and not too much chitchat,” I said.

  “That kind of day,” Bernie said, not taking the request personally. It was personal.

  I picked up a leftover newspaper and held it in front of my face, reading attentively. Bernie served my drink and started reading the other side of the paper, commenting aloud.

  “It looks like we got some rain coming. Tuesday. Maybe a little drizzle on Friday. It’s blazing in Arizona. Fifty percent off at Macy’s on Saturday.”

  I put the paper down to get him to stop reading.

  “There’s that pretty face,” Bernie said.

  “How’s Gerty?” I asked since Bernie wasn’t going anywhere. Gerty is3 Bernie’s girlfriend. She also happens to be the mother of my ex-boyfriend Henry Stone. When I came to the bar, I had half-hoped to see Gerty. But this wasn’t my day. Neither was yesterday, come to think of it, or the day before.

  I managed snippets of peace and quiet while Bernie tended to the other patrons. I finished my drink and Bernie served up another beer without my asking.

  “On the house,” he said.

  Just when I was done with the on-the-house beer, Henry Stone arrived. This was no coincidence.

  Henry took the seat next to mine.

  “I thought I might find you here,” he said.

  “Why? Because some buffoon told you I was here?”

  “I prefer gentleman to buffoon,” Bernie said.

  “So do I,” I said. “I didn’t see you make a phone call.”

  Bernie pulled his smart phone out of his breast pocket and flashed it in front of me. “I text now. And sometimes I sext.”

  Henry cleared his throat.

  “Sorry,” Bernie said, and then he poured me a whiskey and Henry a light beer.

  “I’m not paying for that,” I said to Bernie.

  “We’re all family here,” Bernie said, this time more to Henry than me.

  Henry swiveled around on the bar stool, leaned over, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. He smelled like soap. In a good way. I tried to breathe through my mouth.

  “How have you been?” he asked.

  “Great,” I said. “I think being the boss really suits me. It probably would suit me more if my employees showed up for work.”

  “It’ll get better,” he said.

  “When? I’d like an exact date.”

  “About our phone call the other day.”

  “Hang on,” I said, downing the shot of whiskey and smacking my hand on the bar for Bernie to pour another.

  This time I paid.

  “Haven’t slowed down,” Henry said, “have you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I broke up with you, remember?” I said.

  “It was unplanned,” he said.

  “I’m happy for you. I know that’s what you wanted. I hope she’s nice and can handle nine months without a drink. God, that sounds unbearable.”

  “Maybe you can meet her sometime.”

  “Sometime,” I said. “Been busy working and I’m seeing someone.”

  “Who?”

  “You don’t know him.”

  “I didn’t think I did. Who is he?”

  “He’s, um, the new chief counsel for Edward.”

  “A lawyer? Your mother must be so proud.”

  “Yes.”

  “We should double-date.”

  When a telephone rings at such an opportune moment, it is certainly hard to believe. But, really, my cell phone rang just then. It was Edward.

  “Isabel. Edward.”

  “Hello, Edward. What’s up?”

  “We have a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “My brother just lost five grand at an illegal poker game in Oakland.”

  “Sounds like your brother has a problem.”

  “I need you to take care of it.”

  “How?”

  “Take the five grand from the safe, drive to Oakland, pay his debt, and bring him back to my house.”

  “I don’t think driving is recommended in my current condition.”

  “And that is?”

  “Drunk.”

  “Then I’ll call my driver and have him pick you up.”

  “Wouldn’t it make more sense for your driver to pick you up?”

  “It would.”

  “Then why don’t you get your brother from the game?”

  “Because if news gets out that Ethan is related to me, he’ll be invited to every game in town.”

  • • •

  Henry offered to drive me. And since Slayter wasn’t sure when or from where he might rouse his driver, it seemed the most expedient solution. First we drove to the Spellman offices, where I could extract the money from the safe. It was all making sense now. I saw the flickering light of the television in the living room, and I wanted to avoid engaging in a lengthy explanation of my evening’s plans and fielding questions such as:

  We had five thousand dollars in our safe?

  Are you driving drunk?

  Henry’s in the car outside? Invite him in; it’s been ages.

  I realize, for you grammar-conscious readers, that last part wasn’t a question. My point is, enteri
ng the house through the front door would have caused more hassle than necessary. I used the slim jim I keep in my purse to pry open the window, hoisted myself inside, extracted the money from the safe, and was back in Henry’s car in five minutes.

  “Still door-averse, I see,” he said.

  “More parent-averse, these days.”

  For the record, I’ve made a drastic reduction in my window entries and exits in the past year. I’d like to say it was a result of maturity, but really, I’m just too old for it.

  At eleven P.M. on a weeknight, the drive to the East Bay was blessedly brief.4 Henry tried to talk about things, like feelings, closure, the passage of time, and all that bullshit. I interrupted him and told him a story about when I was in the fifth grade and sent to sleepaway camp, more for my parents’ benefit than mine. I used to break into the camp director’s office at night and make crank calls and rearrange his office supplies. I’d study him each day to see how well my gaslight games were working.

  “I used to follow him around with a notebook,” I said. “Kind of like the way anthropologists study gorillas. If things had gone differently, maybe I would have been an anthropologist.”

  “I’m sorry,” Henry said. “I think I’m missing the point.”

  “No point. I just wanted you to stop talking.”5

  We arrived at the address provided, which was a house on stilts embedded deep in the Oakland hills up a narrow canyon road. One had to wonder about men filled with drink traversing this terrain. The two-story rustic home was dim, but I could see lights beyond the driveway in what appeared to be a guesthouse.

  Henry parked.

  “Wait here,” I said.

  “I’m going in,” he said.

  “You can’t. If you see things you shouldn’t see you might be inclined to arrest people, which could make matters worse for my boss’s brother.”

  Henry picked up his phone and pressed number three on speed dial. My phone rang.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Leave your phone on,” he said.

  I rang the doorbell to the guest bungalow in back. A middle-aged man—and when I say middle-aged I always mean at least fifteen years older than I am,6 which would make him about fifty—with dark circles under his eyes and matching sweat stains opened the door. His work shirt, probably once a nicely pressed pinstripe, was as wrinkled as his brow and untucked, draping lightly over his protruding belly. There were five other men in the room, all approximately the same age, some dressed more casually than others, some booze soaked, and two aerating the room with dueling cigar smoke.

  Then there was the guy wearing an ascot. While his clothing had endured the same twenty-hour marathon as his cohorts, he still tried to strike the pose of a man in control. He was beefier and shorter than Edward but had the same icy blue eyes and deep parenthetical creases around his mouth. I’d expected a man on his last legs, barely able to sit upright and perhaps groveling for another loan to play another hand. That was not the case.

  “Darling, what took you so long?” Ethan said with a crisp British accent as he got to his feet, circled the table, and pulled me into an embrace.

  “Tell me you have the money,” he whispered in my ear.

  “Tell me why you have an English accent,” I whispered back.

  “I will never hear the end of this when I get home,” Ethan said to the group. I’m not sure anyone was believing that a) Ethan and I were an item and b) I held the purse strings in the relationship. Then again, I had arrived with five grand in cash.

  “How much does he owe you?” I asked the room.

  “Forty-five hundred,” said one man. That one had eyes like a ferret and the jowls of a turkey. His look of amusement sparked in me a deep sense of discomfort. Guys like that like to help people become their worst selves. I got the feeling these games were his idea and he encouraged the players who were short on cash to return, because when a man owes you money, you have him on the ropes. I’d have bet the five grand that Ferret Eyes had had a lot of men on the ropes in his day.

  I turned to Ethan. “How much did you come in with?”

  The guy who answered the door, Pit Stains, responded for him. “Three grand.”

  I took the five grand from my purse and put it on the table.

  “Here’s a little extra. You don’t let him back here again.”

  “Anyone who’s paid up is welcome back.”

  I reached for the stack of bills on the table. Ferret Eyes gripped my hand over the cash, gluing me to the table.

  “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” I said. “I’m Isabel. And you are?”

  “Bob.”

  “What an unusual name,” I said. “How do you spell that?”

  My free hand reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.

  “Bob, I have a friend who’d like to talk to you.”

  I passed the phone to Bob. He listened and then released his grip on my hand. Bob passed the phone back to me, took the five-hundred-dollar tip off the top, and slapped it on the table in front of me.

  “We’re even,” he said to me. Then he turned to Ethan and said, “Don’t show your face around here again.”

  “It has been a pleasure,” I said.

  On the drive back to the city questions darted back and forth like Ping-Pong balls. Ethan wanted to know who Henry was. Henry wanted to know who Bob was. And all I really wanted to know was why Ethan had a British accent. The only benefit of being the third wheel in the car was that I didn’t have to engage in any serious conversation with Henry.

  “So you’re my brother’s consigliere,” Ethan said.

  I turned to Henry to translate.

  “A confidante, usually in the context of organized crime. But it can be used more casually,” Henry said.

  “I’m his jogging partner,” I said. “And I do some other work for him.”

  “Edward’s jogging partner has always been his consigliere,” Ethan said.

  “Who was his last jogging partner you met?”

  “Oh, it was a few years ago. A Glen somebody.”

  “What happened to him?” I asked.

  “Died, I think.”

  “See,” I said, jabbing Henry in the ribs. “Jogging isn’t good for you.”

  Henry pulled the car in front of Slayter’s Nob Hill mansion. Maybe it’s not quite a mansion, but it’s a pretty big house that stands on its own, which is unusual for San Francisco.

  “Should I wait for you?” Henry asked.

  “Your work here is done,” I said.

  “Will I see you around?” he asked.

  “Until I find a new designated driver,” I said.

  Slayter was in his pajamas and robe, poring over every last word of The Wall Street Journal, when I delivered his brother to him. Before Edward could toss out any kind of admonishment, Ethan said, “I will pay back every penny. I assure you.”

  “I would prefer it if you didn’t lose money in the first place.”

  “So would I,” Ethan lightly replied.

  “Why is your brother English?”

  “He’s not.”

  “I spent several years abroad,” said Ethan.

  “Four,” said Edward.

  “And I simply couldn’t shake the accent.”

  “Like Madonna?” I asked.

  Ethan ignored the question, went to the bar, and poured himself a brandy. “I’m knackered,” he said. “Off to bed.”

  When the guest room door shut, Edward said, “Thank you.”

  “I think I got him kicked out of that game. But there are always other games.”

  “Indeed.”

  “He seems like quite a handful,” I said. “Why do you put up with it?”

  “I’m sure your parents asked themselves that question more times than they can count,” he said.

  • • •

  I boycotted jogging Monday morning and arrived early at the office. On my desk was a photocopy of a sexual harassment complaint referencing a date from 2001.
The plaintiff was named Sheila Givens and the defendants were Brad Gillman and Bryan Lincoln. I’d heard the defendants’ names before and racked my brain for an answer. D always writes a note when he leaves any documents on my desk. I assumed it could be only one of my two disgruntled employees who’d left this for me. I climbed the stairs and knocked on the door.

  “We’re sleeping,” Mom said, not sounding sleepy at all.

  “I’m coming in,” I said, counting to five, to give them time to cover up.

  I opened the door to find the unit in bed drinking coffee and sharing the newspaper.

  “We should get a lock on the door,” Mom said to Dad.

  “I’m on it,” he said.

  “Which one of you left the complaint on my desk?”

  “That would be me,” Mom said.

  “Why do these names sound familiar?” I asked.

  “They’re two of the executives at Divine Strategies.”

  “How did D miss this in his research?”

  “Notice how the complaint isn’t stamped?” Mom said. “It was never filed.”

  “Then how did you get it?”

  “I have my ways.”

  My mother has amassed a galaxy of sources throughout the years. With an almost prescient understanding that a day like this might come, she has never shared these sources with me. In fact, some of these sources she hasn’t even shared with Dad.

  “Well, um, thanks. I appreciate it,” I said.

  “No problem.”

  “Are you guys coming into work today?”

  “I don’t know,” Dad said, shrugging his shoulders. “There’s something at the museum we’re thinking about seeing.”

  There was nothing at the museum they were thinking about seeing. If there were ever two people who cared less about art, I hadn’t met them. Still, my mother had given me evidence on a case that I wouldn’t otherwise have had. I considered it progress.

  “Have a nice day,” I said.

  I returned to the office and searched for anyone named Sheila Givens who lived in San Francisco, Contra Costa, or Marin County during the time of the complaint. I narrowed the search to women who would now be no older than fifty-five or younger than thirty-two. I had five names left and I ran a credit check on each one, hoping the employment history would go back far enough to reference Divine Strategies. I found the plaintiff Sheila Givens living in Tiburon. I phoned her home line and got her answering machine. Since the complaint was never filed, I had to assume it wasn’t a subject she wished to discuss, so I left a message claiming to be from an asset recovery firm and waited for her call.