by Tinnean
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And?”
“Thank you. I’ll be happy to have dinner with you.”
“Splendid. Now, we usually have rack of lamb with a mustard, breadcrumbs, and herb topping, orzo with olives and pepper sauce, roasted asparagus, roasted potatoes with rosemary, and steamed broccoli.”
“Sounds good to me.” I had to swallow, my mouth was watering so much.
“Good. We generally have dinner around three, and we can open presents over dessert.”
Dessert? “Mrs. Mann, would you mind if I brought dessert?” I knew a place in Cambridge that made excellent desserts, and I had plenty of time to order it and have it delivered, even though generally they refused to send certain of their cakes through the mail.
“Why, no, Mark. That would be so sweet of you.”
“Sweet” was another word that was never used in conjunction with me, but I was kind of pleased she saw me that way. “Would you care for more wine?”
VIII
IT WAS a good thing I’d left the table with the extra leaf in that gave it room to seat eight, because there was so much food, we needed all that space.
“How are things in LA?” I asked as I sliced off some breast meat and put it on Quinn’s plate. I’d already served his mother.
“Cara Mia and Sunday are safe. Adam ’Nme has gone to ground.”
“You sure you don’t want me to—”
“No, Mark. Thank you.”
I shrugged.
Mrs. Mann passed the candied yams. “They’ll all be at Shadow Brook for the New Year. You’ll get to meet them then.”
“Uh—” Before I could think up a good excuse, I realized Quinn was watching me steadily.
“It will be good to expand your circle of acquaintances.” He smiled, that expression that turned his eyes almost green, no matter what the color of his clothes.
“I’ll look forward to it.” And damned if I didn’t find myself meaning it.
IX
BLACK FRIDAY was the day everyone shopped to get the best buys they could before Christmas, and the stores were madhouses. Not that I knew this from personal experience, since if it happened to be one of those rare occasions when I was in the country, I still wasn’t dumb enough to go out on the roads that day. I’d heard Ms. Parker talking about it afterward, about the asshole drivers who’d tried to steal her parking spots, and the fantastic buys she’d scored.
I had better things to do, and so did Quinn.
We were in my kitchen. I was frying bacon and eggs for our breakfast while he brewed the coffee and toasted some whole wheat bread he’d insisted we buy. I didn’t see anything wrong with Wonder Bread—it built strong bones twelve ways, didn’t it?—but I’d been overruled.
Quinn’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the LCD screen and flipped it open. “Good morning, Mother.”
He listened for a minute before handing the phone to me.
“Good morning, Mrs. Mann. Do you need our help with anything?” Novotny would be out of town until late Sunday evening.
“Good morning, Mark. No, everything is fine. Allison and I are having a lovely time and plan to go out for lunch and then visit the Renwick Gallery.”
“Watch the traffic.”
“Of course.” There was amusement in her voice. “I hope I haven’t called at an inopportune time?”
“No, ma’am. We were just making breakfast.”
“Are you ever going to stop calling me ‘ma’am’?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I was afraid of that.” She chuckled. “We’ll get into that another time. I don’t want to keep you. I just wanted to thank you for the lovely dinner you prepared yesterday.”
“All I did was heat everything up.”
“Yes, I’m sure. Well, Gregor will be preparing Christmas dinner.”
I covered the mouthpiece. “Why didn’t you remind me Novotny was cooking? He’s going to put something in my portion that will make me sick as a dog!”
“He didn’t poison you when you had lunch with us that first time we went riding.”
I winced. “Don’t remind me. I was so sore from that damned horse I could barely sit through the meal. If Novotny’d wanted to put me out of my misery, I’d have thanked him on my knees.”
“Y’know, Mark, I’d really prefer you on your knees for me.”
“Jesus, Mann! I’m on the phone with your mother!”
The bastard laughed.
“Mark, are you still there?”
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry. I was just telling Quinn how much I was looking forward to seeing Novotny again.”
“Of course. Well, thank you again for being such a gracious host.”
“Thank you. Do you want to talk to Quinn again?”
“Yes, please. Good-bye, Mark. It was nice speaking with you.”
“Uh, same here, Mrs. Mann. Take care of yourself. Quinn.” I gave the phone back to him.
“Hello again, Mother.” I listened in on his side of the conversation. “No, you’re right, the ground is too hard to go riding on Sunday. Do you want me to—Oh, you are? Well, tell Aunt Allison hello from me. Excuse me? Oh, yes, I will.” He glanced at me. “I’ll make a point of it. Yes, I love you too, Mother. Bye.” He switched off his phone and put it away.
“That was easy.” I leaned against the counter. Quinn had been worrying over how to get out of that ride without injuring her pride. In spite of what she might think, her hip wasn’t up to a gentle walk on horseback, even if she rode sidesaddle.
“Yes. I should have thought to bring up the welfare of our horses.” He grinned, went to the cupboard that held the coffee mugs, and took two down. “She’s going to spend the weekend with my godmother.”
“So what are you going to make a point of?” I turned and picked up the egg turner, and slid the eggs onto a couple of plates. Strips of bacon that had been draining on paper towels joined them.
“Hmm?” He filled the mugs with the freshly brewed coffee.
“Don’t go all CIA on me, Mann. You told your mother you’d make a point of it. A point of what?”
“You aren’t going to let this go, are you? No, I didn’t think so.” He came to stand before me, cradling my cheek in his hand. “My father died on New Year’s Day in 1978.” When an Air India Boeing 747 crashed near Bombay. I nodded. “He’d been away for three weeks, and we hadn’t had the chance to spend that last Christmas together. Ever since then, Mother has made a point of spending some time on Christmas day at Arlington.”
“With your father.” I knew that he did also, if he was in the country.
“Yes.” He turned away, blinking rapidly, and I pretended I hadn’t seen. “I want you to be there with us.”
“I imagine Novotny is going to be there too.”
“No, he’ll be doing the cooking, remember? However….” He cleared his throat. “Uncle Jeff and his partner, Ludovic Rivenhall, will be there this year.”
“This year?”
“My uncles take turns every year.”
“Nice family.”
“I’ve always been fond of them. Do you have any objections to meeting them?” The toast popped up, and Quinn took the slices out of the toaster and set to work buttering them.
“You sure you want them to meet me?”
“Well, of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“The CIA thinks I’m certifiable, and your uncle is CIA.”
“Was CIA, and why am I not surprised you’re aware of that?” The question must have been rhetorical, because he didn’t wait for me to answer it, just put the plate with the buttered toast on the table in the nook off the kitchen. “He knows what you did, Mark, after Mother’s ‘accident’. They all do.”
“Don’t know what you mean, Mann. I didn’t do anything.” I picked up the plates with the bacon and eggs and carried them to the table.
“No. Of course not. It was some strange woman who beat on Mrs. Wexler’s face….” Quinn brought the coffee mugs and set them do
wn beside each plate.
“Well, it was.” Folana Fournaise, an old friend of Portia Mann’s, had still been at the scene, although I hadn’t known. Hell, the woman was supposed to be dead. She’d given me a small bouquet of violets to give to Quinn’s mother while she was still in the hospital.
“… and Peter Lapin’s neck was broken by a freak twist of fate when his car overturned that night.”
I shrugged. “There’s a reason why wearing seat belts is the law.”
“Mark….” I kept my expression bland, inquiring. He sighed and let it go. “We’d better eat before this gets cold. There’s nothing as unappetizing as congealed eggs.” He closed his fingers around my forearm. “You’ll come?”
“Don’t I always come?”
“On Christmas.” His mouth tightened, and he gave my arm a shake, and I realized how much this meant to him.
“Didn’t I already tell you yes? Yeah, baby, I’ll be there with you.”
“Thank you.” He leaned toward me and brushed his lips across mine. Before I could pull him closer and deepen the kiss, he drew back. “Now, let’s eat. Then we can discuss how you’ll be decorating your condo. I understand your condo association is having a ‘best-decorated unit’ contest.”
How the fuck did he know that? The flyer had been slipped into my mailbox just the other day.
“You’ve got a great terrace, and the wrought iron railing will be perfect. We can get lights and garland and a blow-up Santa and Rudolph. And how about a wreath for your door? Ornaments-R-Us is sure to have everything you’ll need, and of course I’ll go with you.”
“Ornaments-R-Us? There’s no such….” He was fighting to keep a grin off his face. “You’re fucking yanking my chain!”
“I’m sorry.” No, he wasn’t. “I couldn’t resist.”
“Yeah, well, that terrace looks out over the golf course, and no one is golfing this time of year.”
“All right, Mark. We can go pick up a tree for your living room instead.”
“I have one. And don’t look so disbelieving. I do.” I sat down opposite him and picked up my fork. “I’ll take the tree out of its box, put it on top of the television…. Well, no, I can’t do that this year.” I’d bought a large flat screen TV, and Matheson had cut through the wall above the gas fireplace, mounting the TV so it could be turned and viewed not only from the living room but from the bedroom as well. So, no tree on the TV. I shrugged. “I’ll put it on the window seat in the bay window, and I’m done.”
“On the window seat?”
I shrugged. “The tree’s a foot tall.”
“And that’s all there is to it?”
“The ornaments and garland and shit come attached. Besides, that will give us plenty of time to go back to bed.” He arched his eyebrow. “Listen, Mann, if it’s a choice between putting up decorations or sleeping with you, sleeping with you wins hands down. Don’t you know that by now?”
He reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Then let’s get started. The sooner we finish eating and get the tree up, the sooner we can go on to more interesting things.”
Usually I had no reason to celebrate the holidays; I’d be out in the field or putting in extra time at WBIS headquarters.
This year it looked like I did.
“Is something wrong, babe?”
I liked him calling me “babe,” something he’d been doing more and more often. Startled, I expected to hear that little voice laughing at me: Feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, tough guy? Oh, how the mighty are fallen!
And actually, it would have a point.
Only at this point, I didn’t fucking care.
“No.” Maybe it was the holiday season, maybe it was because I’d found someone I could let into my life. I grinned at my lover, dipped a corner of the whole wheat toast into my egg yolk, and bit off the end. “Not a single little thing.”
X
I ALWAYS sent out a few Christmas cards—the rent boys, Romero and Smitty, the support staff at the WBIS, even my fuckup of a partner when he’d still been alive—but this year Mr. Wallace had informed me that since I was acting Director of Interior Affairs, I’d not only have to send cards to the men who worked under me, but I’d need to include the heads of the various departments as well.
The Boss’s orders weren’t ignored with impunity, so I went to Sears and bought a box of the most saccharine cards I could find. I’d already been to Hallmark for the people who mattered to me.
One evening while Quinn was out doing CIA shit, I sat down and got busy addressing the cards. I mailed them out the next day. I could have hand delivered the cards to the WBIS people, but, hey, the raise I’d gotten with my promotion made that an unnecessary economy.
As Christmas grew closer, the cards began coming in, and I put them up on the mantel.
I recognized the address on the envelope of the first one. I’d lived there before I’d moved to my apartment in Forest Heights, and again after that apartment had been damaged in an explosion. Theo and the other rent boys who lived on the floor below had sent me a card every year. Depending on who chose the cards, some had been silly—Theo’s doing—and some had been sappy—Paul’s. This one was decidedly silly. I hadn’t expected any this year, since they’d all retired from the profession and Paul and Spike had gone to the West Coast, while Theo had stayed behind in DC. I opened it and started to laugh. Clever Theo. I was surprised to see Matheson’s name included with his. Well, he had been living with Theo since late spring.
The sappy card arrived from L.A. a day or so later, from Paul and Spike—lonely footprints in the snow, heading toward a village that was so quaint, it almost made me toss my cookies. However, Paul was a friend, so I sucked it up.
His almost illegible scrawl filled me in on what had been happening in their lives. He was working the night shift in Labor and Delivery, and Spike had actually been “discovered” waiting tables at a trendy restaurant and offered a screen test. I laughed and shook my head, wondering if I’d need to take a trip to the coast to make sure that was on the up-and-up.
A card from my Uncle Steve and his wife Lily turned up on my desk at the WBIS with my office mail. The envelope had the Boston address of Huntingdon Corporation on it, and had been forwarded by Human Resources to WBIS headquarters. For a moment, I considered leaving it unopened. Against my better judgment, I slit the envelope open and withdrew the card, then wished I’d gone with my gut instinct. It was one of those cards that had a picture on the front of the entire family gathered before the fireplace, and they all looked so fucking happy. Stockings hung from the mantel, and in the corner was a tree so covered with ornaments the green could hardly be seen. Inside, it wished me peace and love for the coming year. Now he fucking decided to stay in touch? On top of that, he’d included a note: We didn’t know what you’d like, so we got you a subscription to Playboy. Merry Christmas! Sweet Jesus and all the saints; that was fucked up! I’d bring the card home and tuck it away in a drawer. I wouldn’t throw it away, but neither would I display it.
The one from Romero, head of R&D, also had a photo on the front, but rather than making me want to tear it into pieces, as my family’s card had, this one just made me grin. The photo was of his son, Nips, sitting on Santa’s lap. The kid had a big smile on his face and a death grip on Santa’s beard. Inside, Romero had scribbled, Looking forward to a New Year filled with Big Macs, and I’d known his wife, who insisted that he watch his cholesterol, hadn’t seen it.
And maybe I’d give him the issues of Playboy as they came in.
There was one from Smitty, the pathologist, which was surprisingly secular, and one in French from Max Futé, the little doctor who’d kept Browne alive and protected Quinn as much as he could when they’d all been involuntary guests of Prinzip.
Granger’s had me laughing until I couldn’t catch my breath—Santa with his pants down around his ankles, his red jacket strategically covering his thighs, and a shit-eating grin on his face. Yeah, I guessed oral sex was
a great last-minute gift.
The white card with a thumbnail-sized picture of a cardinal on the limb of a pine tree in the upper middle was from Mr. Wallace. Along with the announcement that I was now officially Director of Interior Affairs—yeah, yeah. But it wasn’t as if there’d be any surprises; I knew what I was like to work with—it also contained my yearly bonus. I could use it to pay off six months’ worth of mortgage on my condo and still have enough left over to put in that offshore F.Y. account.
“And a little something extra, Mark.” “Little” was the wrong word. It was about a foot and a half by two feet, a coffee table book of art to replace the one that had been destroyed in the explosion of my apartment.
“Thank you, sir,” I’d said gruffly, pleased by it. Aside from my father’s copy of Hondo, the loss of the book The Boss had given me had bothered me most.
I’d handed him the package that contained the gift I’d gotten him: the six copies of The All-Story magazine that contained Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Under the Moons of Mars.
He opened it with polite interest, and then caught his breath. “Mark!” And his voice was just as gruff as mine had been as he thanked me.
Portia Mann’s card had an image of a house, the sort only seen in paintings or on the rich side of town. Its windows were lit with a warm, yellow glow, pristine snow covered its gabled roof, smoke from numerous chimneys curled up into the night sky, and people were gathered on the veranda that encircled the first floor. She’d signed it, in her elegant handwriting, With warmest regards, Portia.
And then there was Quinn’s card. It was another one that hadn’t come in the mail. I’d found it in my suit pocket the previous Monday, after I’d spent the weekend with him. It was a snowy forest scene, trees decorated with glittering snowflakes. Moonlight, the only source of illumination, spilled down upon it. I’d opened it, and there had been no cute phrase, no trite sentiments, simply, Yours, Quinn.
The rest of the cards were on the mantel, but I kept his in my bedroom.
