“Not that I can think of,” I told him instead. “Paul’s taking care of the legal side of things.”
“He should.” George hesitated. Then he said, “All right. I suppose it’s good night.”
“So how’s Natalie?” I asked.
“Natalie’s fine.”
“Good.”
I couldn’t bring myself to ask about the baby.
“Can we have dinner one night?” George asked.
“No, we can’t.”
“Robin, I’m so sorry.”
“I wish you’d stop saying that. It doesn’t help.”
“I don’t know what else to do.”
“You’ve already done it.”
I pressed the off button on my phone. I punched my pillow up and turned onto my side. Zsa Zsa turned over on her back and made the low-pitched growling noises she does when she wants me to rub her belly.
“How would you like a puppy?” I asked as I complied.
She growled some more.
“Okay. Okay.”
Still. A little golden puppy would be nice. I could bring it to the store. I wondered how badly Zsa Zsa would take it. Eventually she’d get used to the idea. She might even like it. It would give her someone to play with. And it would make me feel less guilty about leaving her. There are perks to not being an “only.” Eventually, I fell asleep to the accompaniment of the wind moaning through the trees.
In the dream I had, George and I were wandering through a long, narrow room that seemed to go on forever.
“I have to go now,” he told me.
“Wait. I have to give you your clippers.”
He didn’t say anything. Suddenly I noticed that the walls of the room were full of doors. Some had mirrors. Some were painted red; others were painted gold and purple. Somehow I hadn’t seen that before. When I looked back, George was gone. My heart started beating faster. I knew something terrible was going to happen if I didn’t find him. I went over and opened the door on my left. A black wind whooshed out and threatened to suck me in. I just barely managed to close it and turned to the door on my right.
“No, no, no,” a voice from somewhere said.
But I knew I had to. I had no choice. I grasped the clear glass handle and turned. The door slowly swung open. I looked down. Blood was running out of it. It trickled around my bare feet and began to grow. There was more and more.
First the blood was around my ankles; then it came up to my calves and my knees. I tried to close the door, but now I couldn’t reach the knob. It was an inch too far away. I tried to move, but I couldn’t take a step. I woke up when the blood was reaching my mouth.
I bolted upright and turned on the lamp. My heart was beating so hard, I was having trouble catching my breath. It was as quiet as death in my bedroom. Zsa Zsa licked my hand. I gave her an automatic pat, put on a T-shirt and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, and went downstairs.
The television was still playing. Manuel must have forgotten to turn it off when he and Bethany went upstairs. I poured myself a small Scotch, lay down on the sofa, got the remote, and clicked on to the Weather Channel and watched pictures of the clouds floating overhead in the sky with the sound off and read the little white letters that came across the screen. In Cairo it was in the 80s. In Syracuse it was fourteen degrees with a wind chill factor of five below zero. Snow storms and squalls were predicted for Onondaga County through tomorrow night. Why I lived here I didn’t know.
At some point I must have fallen asleep again because I woke up to Manuel standing over me.
“Have a bad night?” he asked.
“Nightmare.”
“Bummer. Are you opening this morning? Because I got some errands I have to do.”
“No problem.” I sat up and put my head in my hands. My back hurt from sleeping on the sofa, and my eyes itched from lack of sleep.
“You shouldn’t do this kind of stuff anymore,” Manuel observed.
“Look for people?”
He nodded.
“It usually doesn’t turn out this way.”
“Seeing something like that. Once would be too much for me.”
“I think it might be too much for me too.”
“People who do things like that . . .” Manuel hesitated a second while he searched for the right phrase. “You don’t want to get in their line of sight.”
“You don’t want to get within a hundred miles of them.”
I thought about what George had said about Paul as I got up and peered through the living room blinds. It was snowing again. It was the kind of day that made you want to stay in bed curled up with a good book.
Did Paul have a handle on what was going on? I really wanted to believe George was wrong.
“You think the cops are going to get whoever did Wilcox?” asked Manuel, interrupting my thoughts.
I watched my neighbor come out and start up his car. He was bundled up so that only his nose showed.
“I certainly hope so.”
And I dropped the slat down and got ready to go to work.
Chapter Twenty-One
Aside from a couple of calls from a reporter on the local paper, to whom I refused to speak, and a visit from the detective, the rest of the day went by uneventfully. I’d made three sales, one of them a big one, repaired a water filter, cleaned out the gerbil and hamster cages, swept out the bird room, fed the reptiles, and had almost figured out why the crickets kept escaping when Manuel walked through the door at one-thirty in the afternoon.
I pointed to the fifty-gallon aquarium sitting on the floor next to the counter.
“A woman named Mrs. Brown is going to come by and pick this up in about an hour.”
Manuel nodded. “Where are you going to be?”
“I thought I’d go down to Paul’s office and finish things up.”
“Good idea.”
I had to give him my bill, plus refund the expense money I was carrying around. I was afraid that if I kept it any longer, I’d spend it.
“The roads are bad,” Manuel cautioned as he went into the back. “Be careful driving.”
“What are you, my mother?”
“You need one. How about the puppies?”
“Calli and I had an argument.”
“So?”
“So we’re not talking to each other.”
“That’s means I can’t get a puppy?”
“You can get one from someplace else. I’m not asking her.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Go ahead.”
Manuel muttered something under his breath and went to check on the boas.
The snow on the streets was greasy, and I slid all the way down to the State Tower Building. This time I put my car in the garage attached to the building. I figured it was easier to pay the four bucks than to have to clean my car off when I came back outside.
Paul glanced up from his computer screen when I came through the door of his office. Today the place smelled of cheap Chinese food. I noticed the plant was gone.
“First step in redecorating,” I said, pointing to where it had been.
“Call me Miss Stewart. I was just trying to phone you,” he said, clicking the computer off.
“And here I am.”
“You’re not answering your cell.”
“That’s because I left it at home.”
“What’s the point of having it if you don’t carry it with you?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes, I’m just not in the mood to be reached. Like you weren’t when I was down in the City,” I added pointedly.
“I already explained I had a medical emergency.” And he gave me his tough-guy frown.
“I didn’t think tough guys got kidney stones.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing. You’re not tough when you get ’em.”
I crossed over to his desk and handed him an envelope.
“Here’s my bill and the expense money I didn’t use.” Despite Calli’s suggestion, I was giving it all back.
I carefully placed the envelope on top of a pile of manila folders. Paul pretended not to see it.
“Thanks for the offer, but I think I’m done playing Nancy Drew, girl detective, for a while.”
Paul indicated the chair by the side of the desk. “Sit down.”
“Another time. I told Manuel I’d be right back.”
“Fuck Manuel.”
“You can try, but I don’t think he’d agree. You’re not his type.”
“I’ll try not to be hurt”
“I always thought you went for the tall blondes anyway.”
Paul drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “We need to talk.”
“You may need to, but I don’t.”
He spun his chair around to face me. “Robin, for God’s sake. For once, can you not play games?”
“I could, but why wouldn’t I want to? Or have you considered the possibility that I don’t want to hear what you have to say?”
“You don’t know what I have to say,” Paul said.
“And I’d like to keep it that way,” I replied.
“Why?”
“Because I’ve had enough. I’m on overload.”
“Aren’t we all.”
Paul sat up straight, opened the bottom drawer of his desk, got out the bottle of Scotch and two glasses, and poured each of us a shot.
“It’s a little early,” he said. “But what the hell.”
“What the hell indeed.”
I pulled up a chair and sat down in it. Something on Paul’s face told me this wasn’t going to be good.
“Aren’t you going to take off your jacket?”
“No. I won’t be staying that long.”
“Suit yourself.”
Paul handed me my glass. I noticed that his hand shook slightly when he did. I took a sip of Scotch and watched the snowflakes swirling past the window. In the outside corridor, a woman wearing heels tapped her way by. I wondered if I could still walk in them without breaking my ankle as I waited for Paul to speak.
Finally I said, “I’m listening.”
Paul took a swallow from his glass, grimaced slightly, and rolled it between the palms of his hands.
“What I want you to do will be a piece of cake,” he said. “You’ve done most of the work already.”
“The only thing I’ve been working on is Wilcox, and Wilcox is, as you very well know, dead.”
Paul finished his drink, put the glass down, and poured himself another shot.
“But his wife isn’t. I want you to find her.”
“Haven’t you heard what I’ve been saying to you?”
Evidently he hadn’t, because Paul went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “She’s changed residences. The police haven’t been able to locate her.”
“Well, that’s their problem, not mine.”
“Robin, listen . . .”
I held up my hand. “Forget it.”
“Robin . . .”
“You want to find her, you go. Or get someone else.”
“Listen . . .”
“No way. No how.” I drained my glass. “Thanks for the drink, but I’m out of here.”
I was starting to stand up when Paul slammed his hand down on his desk. The thud resonated in the silence of the office.
“Will you please do me the favor of shutting up . . .”
The edge of fear in his voice made me sit back down. I don’t think I ever heard him scared before. The radiator clanked as I leaned forward in my chair and studied Paul’s face.
“This isn’t about Janet Wilcox, is it? It’s about you.”
He turned away and got busy studying the view out the window, not that there was much to study. We weren’t talking tropical island here.
“How bad is it? How bad?” I repeated when he didn’t answer.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I watched Paul’s shoulders rise and fall as he took a deep breath and let it out.
“Bad enough,” he admitted. He still wasn’t looking at me. “And there’s something else you need to know.”
I remembered the call I’d gotten at the store. The one I’d thought had been from George and wasn’t.
“I’m involved too, aren’t I?”
“In a peripheral way.”
“How peripheral?”
Paul swiveled his chair around, reached out, and took my hands in his. “I really didn’t mean for this to happen. You have to believe that.”
It occurred to me that he sounded like George. One excuse after another.
Manuel’s comment about not wanting to be in the line of sight of certain people floated through my head. Well, it looked as if that was exactly where I was.
“I think you’d better tell me what’s going on.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do.”
He let go of my hands, filled my glass again, screwed the top of the bottle back on, and put it back in the drawer.
“You know the expression, there’s no fool like an old fool? Well, it’s true.”
I waited.
“Wilcox was a fool.”
“Alima,” I guessed.
Paul nodded.
“And his wife found out.”
Paul nodded again.
“And that other story, the one Wilcox told about his wife being suicidal? That wasn’t true?”
“Not to my knowledge.” Paul cracked a knuckle. “Janet was just very, very pissed.”
“That doesn’t seem unreasonable given the circumstances. Most women would be.”
I know I had been. I’d tried to brain Murphy with a heavy pot when I found out he’d been sleeping with one of my friends. Unfortunately, my aim had been bad.
“Actually,” Paul continued, “I don’t think she really gave a shit about Walter. I think she didn’t like the fact that he was spending money on his girlfriend. Plus it was a pride thing. Her husband taking up with a lap dancer.”
“Would she have felt better if he had taken up with a Supreme Court judge?”
“Maybe. With Janet, status always counts.” Paul fiddled with his sleeve. “The problem is that when she took off, she took some of Walter’s property with her.”
“Okay.”
“But this property really wasn’t Walter’s.”
“Whose is it?”
“That’s not important.”
“I think it is.”
Paul ran his finger over the edge of the desk and brushed a speck of dust away.
“These are not nice people, I take it?” I said.
“Well, they’re not winning the citizenship award of the year.”
“And now they want their property back.”
Paul nodded.
I always stun myself with my brilliance.
“Which is why Wilcox was so anxious for me to find his wife.”
Paul nodded again.
“Were they the ones that did Wilcox?”
Paul slumped down in his chair and swiveled from side to side. He looked profoundly tired.
“I doubt if they did it. But I’m sure they hired the people who did.”
“So why aren’t you telling this to the police?”
“I don’t have any proof.” He sat up and spread his hands out in front of him. “Just lots of suppositions.”
“Oh, I think you have a little bit more than that.”
Paul went back to studying the window. The view looked bleak. Mostly gray skies, gray sidewalk, empty streets. Everyone was staying in. They’d probably caught a case of the winter blahs. There was a lot of that going around Syracuse these days.
He kept his eyes glued to the outside. “They think I helped Wilcox steal the money.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Then why do they think that?”
“They said that Wilcox told them.”
Paul and I were both silent for a moment. I knew we were both thinking the sa
me thing. In Wilcox’s circumstances, we both would have rolled in our mothers to make the pain stop. Contrary to what some people say, pain does not ennoble, pain degrades.
“I got a call,” Paul said. “They told me I’d better get their stuff back. Or else.”
“Why don’t you go to the police?”
Paul gave me a contemptuous look. “Get real. People like that want you, they get you.”
“You could leave town for a while.”
“And do what?”
“Sit on the beach. Sightsee. Climb Mount Everest. Learn the accordion. Take swing dancing. Whatever.”
“With what money? I have five dollars in my checking account.”
“I thought you were doing well. What about the big security contract you’ve been working on?”
Paul got the bottle back out and poured himself another drink. He didn’t pour one for me and I didn’t ask. He was busy wiping a drop off the rim of his glass—Mr. Neat—when he spoke.
“I made some bad investments.”
“What kind?”
“The double-down kind.”
“Jeez.” Paul was one of those guys with a system. “I thought you always told me you don’t gamble when you can’t afford to lose.”
“Everything was going well. I was raking it in . . .”
“And then you weren’t.”
“Exactly.” Paul gulped his Scotch down. At this rate, he’d be through the bottle before dinner. “I should have left the table.”
“And the guys you owe want you to recover the money for them.”
“We’d be even.”
“And if you don’t?”
“Let’s just say, you and I wouldn’t be having any more fun.”
I rested my hands on my knees and watched a seagull land on the roof of the building across the way. They seemed to be everywhere these days. Them and the crows and the pigeons. They were taking over the friggin’ city.
“Maybe you’d better start at the beginning.”
Paul put his glass down. “It’s simple. Walter Wilcox was the lawyer for two numbnuts Russian mobsters.”
“We have Russians in Syracuse?”
“Direct from Moscow via Brighton Beach.”
“I thought we had the Mafia.”
“No, dear. They were in Utica and Buffalo, maybe thirty years ago. Now we have the Russians and the gang-bangers.” Paul took a paper clip off his desk and absentmindedly began straightening the bends out. “I think they came up here because they couldn’t make it in the City. Anyway, Walter had a small lapse in judgment and decided to skim about two hundred fifty thousand dollars in cash from them.”
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