The Last Word

by Lisa Lutz

  * * *

  1. Vallejo is a lot hotter than San Francisco.

  2. In our family, Alcatraz is the equivalent of Disneyland.

  SMOKED OUT

  Vivien surveilled Lowell Frank for two days. It seemed like four to me, because she called me every hour on the hour to tell me that he was still at work and that she needed to pee. Sometimes I, or Rae, or the Spellman of the hour who needed a break from the hospital, would meet Vivien outside of her stakeout location on Battery Street and relieve her of her duties so she could relieve herself, but more times than not, we’d just tell her to risk it and find a bar or café. Vivien made more money those two days than she ever had in a two-week period, but sadly, I think it permanently cured her of any notion of becoming a PI.

  Most of our conversations went something like this:

  VIVIEN: Do you know what’s more boring than surveillance?

  ME: What?

  VIVIEN: Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  Demetrius had better luck with his subject. Or worse, depending on how you look at it.

  Connor Glenn had a life. And Demetrius followed him as he went about it. Connor became paranoid and began doing things to evade the black man who he assumed was following him to steal his wallet. Connor got into a car accident and Demetrius promptly quit the assignment. I made the greatest executive decision of my life and asked Demetrius and Vivien to switch subjects.

  Demetrius had a delightful time sitting on a stoop catching up on his reading and coffee (and didn’t even bother calling in to request bathroom breaks, since he understood that Lowell Frank was not going anywhere).

  Vivien stopped consuming beverages when she discovered that she had a subject who was at least marginally entertaining. Connor Glenn never noticed the cute, twentysomething coed who was on his heels sixteen hours a day. He didn’t notice her when he dropped by his fiancée’s apartment and he didn’t notice her as she was snapping shots of him at Boulevard with his future father-in-law, Willard Slavinsky. The father-in-law status had to be confirmed with a few pretext calls, but that was ridiculously easy.

  Vivien had no idea when we were flipping through her camera phone that she had the money shot. I immediately called D and relieved him of his responsibilities. I sent Viv straight home and told her to take a shower, a twelve-hour nap, and the next day off. And then I went straight to Edward’s house, where I found him engrossed in a perfectly tedious game of chess with Charlie.

  “I’ve got the who and the why, but not the what, otherwise known as evidence,” I said.

  I showed Edward the photos. This was the kind of news that probably required a bit of delicacy, but I was all out. While I should have been consoling Edward, I was kicking myself for being so taken in by Willard. I should have known the moment I caught him with Lenore.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s Willard and he’s angling for Connor Glenn.”

  Edward stared at the photo of his friend, the recognition of the betrayal showing itself in a look of anger I’d never seen in my boss. The universe had disappointed him lately. I think he believed that a friend wouldn’t. Slavinsky had sold out a man he’d known for forty years for a son-in-law with bad job prospects.

  “What do you know about Glenn?”

  “I guess he needs a job,” Edward said.

  “Now we need proof.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Edward asked.

  “Relax, I’m a detective,” I said with the enthusiasm of the first runner-up for Miss America.

  I had no idea how I was going to get that proof.

  • • •

  Linking Willard to his son-in-law was easy, but convincing the shareholders or the board of directors that something untoward was happening required proving that Willard was behind Edward’s scrapes with sanity. I had no brilliant ideas beyond twenty-four-hour surveillance of our primary suspect, and the damage was already done. And surveillance is expensive.

  I had delivered the Slayter Industries funds from my bank account back to Slayter Industries and not only was I broke, but my parents were broke and my company was broke. I could postpone paychecks to anyone with a last name starting with S, but once I paid Vivien and D and the vendors that our livelihood depended on, we had less than a thousand in the bank.

  The only good thing about a life-threatening illness in the family is that it puts your dire financial situation in perspective. I simply managed to put it out of my mind.

  • • •

  Monday was a nail-biter for Mom; she knew Dad’s latest tests would be in, which would determine the course of treatment and whether Dad could go home. He had been in the hospital four weeks now.

  Dr. Chang allowed the immediate family into the room while she debriefed us.

  “The hope with the four-week induction chemo is to induce remission. I’m happy to report that Albert’s tests look good.”

  The room exploded in celebration.

  “Wait,” Dr. Chang said. “It’s too soon for that. Now you need to go home and rest for a week, and then consolidated chemotherapy is the protocol for this type of leukemia. Often we do chemotherapy with a bone marrow transplant or stem cell transplant. I’d like everyone to get tested and then we can decide what to do next. But I’m releasing Albert tomorrow. He should remain on bed rest. His immune system is still compromised. Please limit visitors and I’ll see you in a week.”

  “I started drinking the green stuff in David’s kitchen last week,” Rae said. “So my bone marrow would be at its best.”

  “Rae, that algae shake mix is like two years old. You should stop,” said Dad.

  “Should I take up exercise now?” Rae asked. “Or will that just weaken my immune system since I’m not accustomed to it?”

  Tralina walked into the room to say good-bye. “I heard you were leavin’ me. I’ll miss ya, Albert.” She turned to all of us and said, “Behave yourselves. I saw you all stealing other people’s food. I let it slide. Next time, I’ll turn you in. You have a beautiful family, Albert. I tink they could use more discipline.”

  • • •

  Dad came home. Other than Dad not looking like Dad and spending most of his time in bed, you could almost pretend he wasn’t sick. My father had always been a popular man, and news traveled fast. Gift baskets arrived at an alarming rate. Most were sent through a delivery service since we had asked for no visitors, but there were always exceptions to the rule.

  Max dropped by to pick up Princess Banana. It’s a general rule that grandparents cannot get enough of their grandchildren, but Banana is an iconoclast. Anyway, when Max visited he had Claire with him, of course. I had forgiven him for trying to shrink me.

  “Claire wants you to take her to the Big Q,” Max said. “What is it? She couldn’t explain that to me.”

  “Wow, children really are sponges.”

  I pulled Claire aside and said, “We don’t want to go to the Big Q. It’s not a nice place.”

  Max looked at me suspiciously and then said, “Claire asked if she could have a playdate with you.”

  “What is that?” I asked. “Free babysitting?”

  “No. I would be there. You think I’d leave you alone with my child again?”

  “Have fun with the princess,” I said, ushering the trio out the door.

  Speaking of the Big Q, I caught a glimpse of Rae chatting amiably with that ex-con, the one with the neck tattoos, who sent prison telegrams. He was sitting in his truck; she passed him a Tupperware container full of baked goods. When they were done chatting, they shook hands and Rae returned to the house.

  “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “Skip looked hungry and we’re swimming in stale gift basket crap.”

  “Skip? When did you two get on a first-name basis?”

  “It’s always good to have some muscle on your side and since D doesn’t like getting his hands dirty . . .”

  “Should you really be consorting with a known felon, Rae?”

  “One of
us has to,” Rae said as she breezed out of the room.

  • • •

  Agent Bledsoe dropped by after Dad came home. Bledsoe made the house call to bring me the good news that the case was closed, our name was cleared, and he had come to a settlement1 with Evelyn Glade.

  “She’s not going to do any time, is she?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “It was her boyfriend’s idea, anyway.”

  I didn’t condone what Evelyn did, and I couldn’t for the moment pretend I understood her, but the last thing I’d wanted was to see her go to prison.

  Before Bledsoe left, he said the strangest thing to me.

  “I should have given you more credit,” he said. “If you were going to pull something, it wouldn’t have been that stupid.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I like to think I could’ve come up with a decent embezzlement scheme.”

  • • •

  There was only one other visitor to speak of. We weren’t expecting anyone. The doorbell rang in the middle of the afternoon. I looked through the peephole and saw a woman standing with a large gift basket blocking her face. She didn’t seem dangerous, so I opened the door.

  “Petra, what are you doing here?”

  Perhaps you recall the name. It’s come up a few times, mostly in reference to crimes from my past. I don’t think I’d seen her in more than two years. We had been inseparable for years. Then she married my brother, cheated on him, and they divorced. I suppose that was the beginning of the end. If you think about it, that was also a good thing. If they hadn’t divorced, he wouldn’t have met Maggie and they wouldn’t have had . . . Well, let’s just leave it at he wouldn’t have met Maggie. Since I’d last seen Petra, she’d had a child, grown out her hair, and started wearing clothes that served more to conceal than reveal her collection of tattoos. She still had her nose piercing, though. I always knew she’d be that kind of mom.

  “I heard,” Petra said as she stood nervously in the doorway. “Len and Chris told me and I thought about calling, but then they told me that he was home and I thought on a hunch I’d bring this by. You can just throw it out, if he doesn’t want it.”

  Petra offered up a homemade gift box with brownies and lollipops and other confectionary items infused with the cannabis crop.

  “I got it from High Heals,2 that medical marijuana dispensary in the Castro. There’s lollipops and cookies and I made the brownies myself, so you know they’re good. Also, I left a little bit of the weed in the canister, if your dad wants to smoke. I hear it helps. But if you think this is a bad idea . . .”

  “No, it’s a great idea,” I said. In truth, I had no idea if Dad genuinely wanted the ganja or if he just wanted to know he could have it. Either way, I knew he’d appreciate the gift. “That was really nice of you,” I said.

  “It was nothing,” she said. “Your dad meant a lot to me for a long time, and he bailed me out of jail once. I miss him. I miss all of you. It’s been strange not being around the Spellmans, you know?”

  “I do. I haven’t even met your son.”

  “Let me show you a picture.”

  Petra dug through her overstuffed bag and eventually found her wallet. She plucked a snapshot of a two-year-old boy in skateboarding gear with dark hair, devilish eyes, and a Mohawk. I desperately wanted him to meet and torment Princess Banana.

  “He looks just like I thought he would,” I said. “Hey, do you want to come in? Have some coffee?”

  “I have to run,” Petra said. “But maybe I can call you sometime and we can do something. I don’t know what. Break into the school cafeteria. Or just get a drink somewhere.”

  “That sounds great,” I said.

  We hugged awkwardly and Petra left, but I knew that a shift had happened, and I wasn’t saying good-bye to her for another year or two. I’d see her again, sometime soon.

  I brought the gift basket upstairs to Dad, who looked like, well, a kid in a candy store. He immediately asked for a lollipop, which Mom immediately confiscated.

  “This is not for recreational use, Al. When you’re sick as a dog, we’ll revisit this conversation.”

  Dad turned to me for sympathy and said, “Your mother is such a square.”

  * * *

  1. Like I was saying, white-collar criminals can get away with murder. Well, not exactly.

  2. It’s closed now. So don’t Google it.

  REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

  Dad returned to the hospital for the consolidation chemo and Dr. Chang had the results of the antigen test.

  “Good news,” Dr. Chang said. “We have a match.”

  Rae pumped her fist into the air.

  “It’s Isabel,” Dr. Chang said. “She’s a six-out-of-six antigen match.”

  “What was I?” Rae asked.

  “A half match,” Dr. Chang said.

  “Is it possible they accidentally got the samples crossed?”

  “No,” Dr. Chang said.

  Rae was visibly disappointed. My mother sank into the chair next to Dad, breathing a sigh of relief. Dad winked at me.

  “The next step,” said Dr. Chang, “is DNA cross-matching, to test for the antigen compatibility.”

  “I’m sure our antigens are compatible,” Dad said, as if all we needed to do was have a friendly chat with them.

  “We take white blood cells from Isabel and mix them with your blood, Albert. Hopefully there’s a negative cross-match, which is a good thing.”

  “Assuming Dad’s blood doesn’t attack Isabel’s white blood cells, when would this happen?” David asked.

  “In about a week, after we finish the consolidation chemo,” Dr. Chang said. “Isabel, here’s some literature about what to expect. If you have any questions or concerns, let me know.”

  Rae followed Dr. Chang out of the hospital room with a question or concern. Mom and David went across the street to get coffee, leaving me and Dad alone.

  “I knew it would be you,” Dad said.

  • • •

  Late that night, when I had just fallen asleep, Rae knocked at my back door. She was carrying that ridiculous briefcase she’d brought to the job interview she did for Mom. Although, this time, her attire was decidedly less professional. I believe she had pajamas on under her raincoat.

  “Isn’t it past your bedtime? I know you like to rise with the stock market,” I said.

  “I have a proposition for you. Where can we discuss it?”

  “Wherever you can find a place to plant your ass.”

  “This needs to be a professional conversation,” Rae said.

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t have worn pants with anthropomorphized peanut butter sandwiches on them.”

  Rae sat down on my easy chair; I took the bed.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “As you know, the business continues to have some financial difficulties.”

  “Yes, Rae. I am aware of that.”

  “You haven’t paid me the money you owe me. We currently have over five grand in outstanding bills and we need more clients. I believe I’ve come to a sound conclusion.”

  “Things could be better,” I conceded.

  “What you need is a legal cash infusion,” Rae said.

  “I am aware of that. Can I go to bed now? You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”

  Rae opened her briefcase and withdrew several formal-looking documents along with a bank check for a sizable amount.

  “I want to buy back in,” she said. “Right now you own sixty percent of the company and Mom and Dad own forty percent. I want to buy fifty percent of your shares. You can take that money and then give the business a low-interest loan until we’re back on our feet.”

  “If I give you thirty percent, then Mom and Dad are back to having the majority share.”

  “True,” Rae said. “But if we promise to have each other’s back, we can work together and no one can steer the ship off course.”

  “I thought you were done with this business,” I said. “Wha
t’s changed?”

  “Have you seen a newspaper lately? The economy is sunk. The job prospects for someone with just an undergraduate degree are dismal. I’m not sure about graduate school yet and I don’t want some crappy entry-level job working for the man when I can be the boss of me. I think this new business venture of mine has some traction.”

  “Are you referring to the business that involves you spraying whipped cream on cars?”

  “I’m referring to the business that has fifteen potential clients ready to hand over retainer checks. In fact, right now we don’t have the personnel to handle all these cases, so I’m going to have to cherry-pick my favorites. Can you say that about your caseload?”

  “I’m concerned about your loose ethics. Is there a line you won’t cross?”

  “Of course,” Rae said.

  “What is it?”

  “The line shifts on a case-by-case basis.”

  “That’s the part I don’t like.”

  “Let me remind you of something. I let the air out of Marcus Lorre’s tires. You slashed them and then let Vivien have at it. Can I be blunt?” Rae asked.

  “Please,” I said.

  “You and I both know that I have more restraint than you. So if you’re worried about ethical boundaries, maybe you should just keep an eye on yourself.”

  “I need to know what you’re doing,” I said. “All cases should be run by me.”

  “I will you keep informed, but I work autonomously.”

  “Shit,” I said.

  “That’s a yes?” Rae said.