Godsend

by Barry Knister

  “What a detail like that tells you isn’t about shirts,” Rivera said. “People here want things a certain way. It’s not a do-your-own-thing kind of place. They have money, this is a gated community. They’re old, they have health problems. Their families are often trying to get them to do things they don’t want to do.”

  Listening at first, Stuckey was fading again. Hands once more in his hip pockets, he looked from furniture, to the overhead sculpture, to the abstract paintings on the walls. Rivera snapped his fingers, and Stuckey’s eyes swung back.

  “Right,” he said. “Shirts with collars.”

  “What’s on your tee shirt?”

  Stuckey looked down. “See?” he said. “I chose it on purpose. I remembered you said these people are all Republicans.” He looked up, nodding agreement with himself. “Fine, I’m thinking 9/11, the American flag. Everybody’s still flying the flag, off their cars, gas stations, McDonald’s. Fine, I wear my flag shirt. I’m a George W kind of guy.”

  “Except the flag on your shirt is hanging from the nipples of a girl in a bikini. And below the girl it says ‘Osama Sucks.’”

  “So?”

  “Never mind,” Rivera said. “Just wear all white. No words, no pictures. And if you have to talk to people about someone who died, don’t eat.”

  As Brenda closed the front door, the noise echoed.

  She stood a moment to get the feel of Mrs. Krause’s villa. Quiet and cool, almost like a tomb. She opened the door on her right. The glossy bulk of a large, vintage white Buick loomed in the darkness. Like a hearse, she thought.

  She closed the door, stepped across the foyer and glanced in the guest bedroom. Then the den. Her pumps clicked over ceramic tile as she moved toward the living room. At the far end, a glass door wall revealed a concrete deck and small swimming pool. All of it was covered by a screen cage.

  An open door led to the master bedroom. She went in, flopped her suitcase and laptop on the king-size bed, then looked in the bathroom. Floor-to-ceiling travertine marble, a walk-in shower, lots of old-lady doodads arranged around the Jacuzzi tub.

  When she returned to the living room, the stark white walls made Brenda think again of her condo in Michigan.

  Before Thanksgiving, her own walls had been gray. That’s when Charlie made his third visit. How long since you painted? he asked. Never, Brenda told him. It was this way when I moved in seven years ago. Hands in his hip pockets, Charlie had surveyed the living room’s battleship-gray ceiling. In her whole life, she had never given paint a thought, but watching him made her feel defensive. Fine, he said. I’m here to see you, not your walls.

  Brenda stepped to the glass door wall and looked at the swimming pool. That November afternoon, she had all at once realized something both simple and profound: you revealed yourself, not just by what you wore and read and did for a living, but also by what color walls you lived with. That meant she must think of herself as a nun. Or a crewmember on a nuclear sub.

  The following day, she dragged Charlie off to Home Depot, bringing home paint chips and brochures. There, on the Saturday afternoon following Thanksgiving, she had realized for the first time that you could actually choose the colors you lived with. She kept asking him what he thought, holding up Banana Republic Beige against the ugly wall, Mellow Mauve, Lemon Frappé. Looking resigned, Charlie gave her neutral answers. It’s for you to decide, he said. Yes, but what was his opinion? Staring down at the paint chips on the rug, finally he pointed. Pink? Why was pink good? I’m not sure, he said, but they use it in jails. It’s supposed to be calming.

  That was pure Charlie Schmidt. A perfect, quiet zinger.

  The memory made her feel awful. She pulled open the sliding door and stepped down to the pool. It was glittery and smooth, the water crystal clear. She knelt and stroked the surface. It was warm to the touch, dancing with sunlight.

  The phone rang inside. She stood and ran back in, found the phone in the kitchen and snatched it up before the third ring.

  “There you are,” Marion Ross said. “I tried earlier. How do you like it?”

  “Hi, Marion.” Brenda swallowed her disappointment, stuck in her throat like food. “It’s good,” she said. “Perfect. I love it.”

  “What do you think of Mom’s new ceiling fans?”

  Brenda looked up. A fan was slowly turning above her. It meant nothing to her, but it was new, and she should say something. “Very impressive,” she said. “The blades look like real palm fronds.”

  “Mom got them last winter. All Hands on Deck installed them. Did they pick you up?”

  “Right on time.”

  “And the crazy silk flowers in the corner.” Brenda looked to the living room and saw them. “I think the tropical climate down there gives you permission to try things,” Marion said.

  “I like the white walls,” Brenda said. “They work.” It was a lie. White made her think of hospitals.

  Marion cleared her throat. “Pardon me? Did I hear you say they work?”

  “People change, Marion. Time marches on.”

  “True. Except for personal boundaries. Deep-seated attributes. You’re a fine journalist and a great friend, but you are not qualified to say they work. Not about home decorating after the Neolithic period.”

  “You haven’t seen my place lately,” Brenda said. “It’s pink.” Nothing followed. “Dusty Rose to be exact.”

  “You painted your condo? Pink? I don’t believe it.”

  “I helped. Charlie did most of it.” A mistake, she thought. Now would come questions.

  “Ah.” Marion let it out slowly for effect. “I think I understand. The enigma wrapped in a mystery is starting to come clear.”

  Brenda said nothing. But her clever lawyer friend would pick up on the silence.

  “I see,” Marion said finally. “Well, I’m sure you have more important things on your mind than home decorating. Just don’t go overboard with a whole new change of direction, you have to…”

  She stopped talking, and silence descended on both ends. Overboard. Like in spades, the word had opened a sudden black hole. Overboard. May, June, July—Brenda counted the months. August, September, October. She was holding her friend steady in the jittery, brilliant circle of a rifle sight. A hundred yards away, Marion sat on a dock, on a bench, wearing a white sweater spattered with blood. She was holding herself, looking over her shoulder at Kettle Falls.

  November, December, January. In those nine months, there had been four or five such moments. A glossy black speedboat just like Charlie Schmidt’s on a trailer parked in front of an Eddie Bauer store. A man with bleached hair working behind the counter at Starbucks. Hair like the man she’d killed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “No, Bren.” Marion sighed. “Please don’t say that. This will happen. It’s bound to. We just have to live with it, that’s all.”

  Marion was a good friend. But she did not know all that had happened. Only Charlie Schmidt knew all. And Tina Bostwick.

  “I think Tina would like this place,” Brenda said.

  “Have you talked to her lately?”

  It was how they always scrambled out of the black hole, by seizing on whatever came to mind. “I called her just before leaving,” Brenda said. “Charlie’s taking her to dinner sometime this week.”

  “You didn’t ask him to come with you?”

  “He had painting to do in one of his buildings.”

  Another silence. Like Patrick Sweeney, Marion Ross had heard more than just words. She sighed again. “Ain’t life grand,” she said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, Bren. Go take a swim, enjoy the weather. Eat some stone crab, and write your boomer piece. Time waits for no one. In Naples, you’ll soon see how true that is.”

  Immokalee Road, eastbound

  6:50 p.m.

  “Mr. Kleinman, hello.”

  “Jimmy. This is good timing. How’s business?”

  “Busy, sir.�
�

  Kleinman laughed. “I love it,” he said. “Busy business. Hold on, let me close the door.”

  As he drove, Rivera saw two riders ahead on horseback. It was dark now, and they were walking their mounts along the shoulder. Hilda Frieslander had loved horses.

  He heard the door close to Kleinman’s office. It was at the Sans Souci Nursing Home, south of Boca Raton. The Sans Souci was the largest facility in the Kleinman Group. All of Arnold’s nursing home and assisted-living facilities were on the east coast, but he had urged Rivera to go to southwestern Florida. It’s the future, Kleinman had said. You want to hit a home run? Go to Naples.

  “OK, I’m back,” he said. “You’re my boy, Jimmy, my protégé. You know that one?”

  “It means I’m your student,” Rivera said. “Your apprentice. You told me.”

  “I told you, of course. And so you are, the best I ever saw. Like a sponge how you pick up everything. How’s Ray?”

  “Like a rock. I’m on my way to see him right now.”

  “There you go, Jimmy.” Kleinman spoke in a low voice, serious now. “Like a rock, exactly. Every business needs one. You have your idea people, your showroom people, the snappy dressers. But you need a rock, young man, this is fundamental. Someone you can count on absolutely. I told you this I’m sure.”

  “You did, sir. You said, ‘Just like the Disney brothers.’”

  “You and Ray, exactly the same thing,” Kleinman said. “Believe me, no Roy Disney, no Walt, simple as that. Ray’s your rock, Jimmy. Family’s always best. When you took my advice, I said to myself, he’s a go-getter, but maybe a little too go-go-go. He’s gotta have Ray, he needs the cousin. He goes over there alone, watch out. I don’t care how smart the kid is, he needs an anchor.”

  “You were right,” Rivera said. “You always are.”

  Kleinman clucked his tongue. “Always the pitchman,” he said. “The schmoozer. Even on the phone with me.”

  “I owe you, that’s all,” Rivera said.

  “All Hands on Deck, how long’s it been?”

  “Two years in March.”

  “Two years, amazing. Seems like the day before yesterday I saw you cutting grass right here. Talking to some patients. Remember how I stopped? You thought I was mad you weren’t working. I wasn’t mad at all. I’m hearing this good-looking Mexican kid planting flowers, he sounds like he just came from Harvard. What was your gross revenue last month?”

  “It’s hard to say.”

  “That’s good, Jimmy. You know the saying. ‘Know what you’re worth, you’re not worth much.’”

  “It’s the gifts,” Rivera told him. “The annual gross before taxes is running about three hundred K, but the resale value on furniture and collectibles is growing percentage-wise.”

  “See? What did I tell you? Are you still watching Antiques Roadshow on PBS?”

  “I record it.”

  “Exactly. Keep up, stay current. Know what they’re giving you. You have a basically WASP demographic where you are. Lots of antiques, jewelry.”

  “I do everything you told me, Mr. K.” Rivera had entered Immokalee and was now nearing the light at Main Street. “With the gifts, I keep everything six months before selling. Just in case.”

  “Exactly, James. What’s the rush? Six months and no questions, you’re home free. Very smart. Probably, if you know what’s what, you have things in the jewelry area and art it makes sense to hold on to. For appreciation.”

  Rivera stopped for the red light and listened as Kleinman talked about an estate sale in Pompano Beach. He had purchased beautiful Empire chests and marble-top console tables for peanuts. They would be perfect for the ornate lobby of his new Maison d’Or assisted-living complex in Bal Harbour. Eighty-one next November, Arnold Kleinman showed no signs of slowing down. Deals and money kept him going. And chutzpa. That’s Yiddish for having balls, he explained. Cojones you call it, blacks say “attitude.” Arnold Kleinman didn’t care about a person’s race or where they came from. Just so long as they helped him make money. If Kleinman lived to be a hundred—think George Burns, he liked to say—making money would be the reason.

  The traffic light turned green. Rivera swung left and accelerated. Single-story bodegas and restaurants lined both sides of the street. “I’m getting into what we talked about,” he said. “Not a lot, just starting.” Kleinman said nothing. “I’m taking it slow. And alone. Ray’s not in this with me. You know him, he’s conservative. He might understand, but he wouldn’t—”

  Kleinman cleared his throat. “Jim?”

  “Okay, I know. We can’t talk about it.”

  “Even your pay phones aren’t safe now,” Kleinman said. “It’s that bad. With the cells they can pick up everything, just with a scanner. Even the President, I saw some story. The guy doesn’t use email, Jimmy. Do you believe it? He can’t even send an email to his old man. Incredible, two presidents. Absolutely no privacy left, it’s terrible.”

  “I understand.”

  “Of course you understand, you’re my protégé.”

  “Goodbye, sir.”

  “Listen, next time you send furniture to Miami, bring it yourself. And you call, promise? We’ll go out on the boat, totally private. We’ll eat, talk.”

  Rivera said goodbye and placed the phone on the passenger seat. Kleinman was cautious. He’d been sued many times over claims of neglect and fraud, but he had always managed to settle without going to court. Lawsuits are just part of the big picture, he said. They go with the territory.

  After Marion’s call, Brenda had been in the den. She was looking over Mrs. Krause’s bookshelves and came across a Ruth Rendell novel. When she pulled it free, an envelope fell to the floor. She picked it up—a promotional invitation addressed to “occupant.” It was from The Neptune Society and under the name “America’s most trusted cremation services.” The envelope had never been opened, but Mrs. Krause had kept it, either as a bookmark or for future reference.

  Then the phone had rung again. Brenda put back the book. A clean break, she told herself, and walked slowly to the kitchen. She cleared her throat before picking up the handset.

  “Brenda Contay?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Honey, this is Noelle Harmon, James Rivera’s real estate friend? He told me you’re down here to write about boomers.”

  “That’s right, I am.” The woman had a lilting southern accent.

  “Well, if you’re into crazy, you came to the right place,” Harmon said. “Property appreciates so fast down here, sometimes it gets flipped twice before the closing.”

  “So I heard.”

  “I mean before the current downturn,” Noelle said. “It’s always a gamble, but you can leverage your money a long way. Listen, I’m free tomorrow morning, and I could use some plain old girl-talk. How’s nine sound?”

  “It sounds good, Noelle. Thank you.”

  She hung up. Normally, an insider’s offer of help led to a sense of expectation and interest. Brenda felt none. Sweeney had gotten it right: the boomer article was just an escape.

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  While she was in the pool swimming laps, the sun set. By using racing turns, you could get exercise in a small pool. Twenty-five, thirty-five. As Brenda swam, she felt the night air grow cool on her back. The pool bottom shone brightly with sub-surface light.

  She climbed out, dried off, and went inside to finish unpacking. Her suitcase lay open on the bed. In her Speedo, she lifted out white and black cotton sweaters, shorts and skirts, a fleece jacket, several blouses. At the bottom lay a man’s shirt, accidentally taken from her dresser drawer with the blouses.

  Accidentally like hell, Brenda thought. The shirt was blue Oxford cloth, Brooks Brothers. It had been professionally laundered, with a paper band to keep it neat. Except when doing chores, Charlie always wore Brooks Brothers, and she thought that must have to do with his wife Lillie. He cleaned up for her after work, Brenda thought. And then for me.

  The shirt w
as beautiful to her, the neat buttonholes stitched on the button-down collar, the center seam orderly and straight. She raised the shirt to her face and breathed in. The smell was fresh and held something of the steam odor from the pressing machine. Under this she smelled Charlie.

  She put everything in the dresser, zipped closed the suitcase and set it in the walk-in closet.

  On the kitchen counter lay the folder James Rivera had mentioned. Hello! Welcome to 1107 Paisley Court! Inside she found Do’s and Don’ts, what to wear, dining room and cocktail lounge hours. There were rules for watering lawns, when to set out the trash. The Donegal restaurant was open every night until eight. Shirts with collars, please. No jeans, caps or short shorts.

  A map printed on the back displayed the Donegal course and its communities. All the roads came to an end at the edge of the folder, and the effect was that of a colony in the middle of nowhere. Whatever might happen elsewhere, Brenda felt life at Donegal would proceed like a toy train on a track.

  Carnarvon Court—that was the street Patrick Sweeney had given to Rivera. She found it on the map, then her own address.

  She changed into a black silk blouse and off-white linen skirt, then got the keys to the Buick from the kitchen’s pegboard. Out in the garage, Brenda pushed the button for the door opener. She backed the Buick out and started up the street.

  It made sense first to see where Pat Sweeney lived. In case of an emergency or for advice on restaurants. Why the sudden change on the way to Naples? One minute, Sweeney had been a smooth-talking lobbyist with a left hook. Minutes later in the van, a lost soul.

  With Charlie, there’d been small, sudden hints of all she didn’t know about him. The way he sat forward for certain pieces of music—he loved jazz as her father had. And he often saw things in movies she missed completely. But the absence of surprise, that was the thing about Charlie Schmidt. And that, too, was like her father.

  Guiding Mrs. Krause’s leather-scented old car, Brenda realized she was thinking in the past tense. It pained her. You’re hard at work on the clean break, she thought. Doing what you do when things go wrong with a man.