by TG Wolff
I snorted. “When have I ever been accused of being a girl? Appreciate the offer, but I’m going to hang here. I have work to do.”
Ian looked at his watch. “Come on, kid. We should hit it.”
Dixon bound to his feet, snatched the keys from Ian’s hand, and ran out the back door.
“You want a bulletproof vest,” I asked. “Helps with impact.”
Ian chortled. “He’s getting better.”
I put a hand on his arm as he passed. “You’re a good friend. You were to Gavriil and me. You are to Dixon.”
The fucker blushed. “Yeah. Thanks. You, too.”
Alone in my castle, I cleaned up after dinner. There were no leftovers to put away, just a few plates and a couple glasses to wash, a box to throw away. No point leaving a mess.
I did one last walk through to be sure I didn’t forget anything. I stuck a Post-it to my “special” utility drawer with Ian’s name. Papers were also in there. Ian and Dixon were now president and CEO of Diamond Cut Enterprises.
There was a time when I thought the world was better off because I was a part of it. That time had passed. I was nothing more than a shadow. A memory. It was time I was forgotten.
The day was overcast, the clouds heavy with a rain that would soon fall. Black birds swooped past my windows, racing tree to tree like frantic addicts looking for a fix.
Everything was just as it should be.
In my bedroom, I took off my boots. The hardwood floors were cold on my heated feet. I picked up the silver-plated frame with my wedding photo. I touched the face of the man smiling out at me. I picked up my gun. The three of us went into the bathroom where we all climbed into the bathtub.
No burning down the house this time.
It was just me and a bullet. Diamond and lead.
Ian knew how to take care of a body. I wished I could have figured out a way to get into my coffin. I wanted to be buried next to Gavriil. I knew it didn’t matter where my body was. Six feet deep, bottom of the river, burned to ash, it was all the same. I was going to meet him where bodies didn’t matter. Still, it would have been nice.
This time I wore my favorite sweatshirt, the one with the holes at the wrist cuffs my thumbs fit through. My favorite yoga pants in the soft, comfortable cotton. The bullet was for my heart. Broken as it was, it would still bleed while it beat. The blood would wash down the drain. That’s why I didn’t go for a head shot. Big mess. I didn’t want Dixon to see me like that.
I touched my husband’s face, remembering how his stubble tickled the palm of my hand. “I hope you put a good word in for me.” My voice broke. “You know I—”
The back-gate buzzer sounded like a National Weather Service warning. I jumped, smacking my head on the spigot. Fuckin’ A that hurt. The buzzer sounded again, and I fumbled Gavriil’s picture. He fell out of the tub and landed with a smash on the white tile floor.
“What kind of world is this coming too when a person can’t get fifteen minutes of peace and quiet!” I climbed out of the bathtub and shoved the narrow window as high as it would go. “What! What could possibly be important enough to lay on that buzzer like a whore on a broken mattress?”
“I? What? I’m not a whore!” The blond outside my gate clucked like a hen, then pushed the damn button again.
“Bitch!” I elbowed the screen until it popped out, then shoved my gun hand out. “Do it again. I dare you.” The screen hit the pavement with a crash. Her hand reached for the damn buzzer. “What do you want?”
“I’m looking for Diamond. Please tell me you’re not her.” She wore designer black pants and an elegant white shirt. Her hair was wild in the breeze, her face one I’d never seen before.
“In the flesh. Doesn’t tell me what you want.”
“I have a problem.” Her gaze swept around the parking lot.
“Welcome to the club. Try Jack on the rocks.” I started to pull back.
“I got a note,” she said hastily.
“Good for you. I’m sure your mommy’s proud.”
“He…he said you had to read it.”
This was getting old. “Who?”
“His name is O’Rourke.” Her voice drifted. “He wants to help.”
“Then go lay on his doorbell.”
There was bite in her voice this time. “He told me you could help me.”
“He was wrong,” I said, showing bite of my own. She tore open the letter. “Did you say that was addressed to me? You can’t open it. It’s against federal law!”
“Arrest me.” She held the paper between both hands, her brows tightening. “This doesn’t make sense.”
Don’t ask.
Don’t ask.
“Well, what the fuck does it say?”
“It’s an IOU from you to someone named Sam Irish. Good for, and I quote, ‘One favor you can call in anytime, except the hours of two a.m. to four a.m., anyplace, except Malta, the Yucatan Peninsula, and Gary, Indiana, for any reason, unless it’s stupid.’” She looked up at me. “It’s only seven, we’re in Washington, DC, and it’s not stupid.”
“Ha! Of course, it is.” I waved the gun triumphantly, knowing I caught her in an ipso-facto. “It’s all stupid!”
“My husband’s been kidnapped,” she shouted, her voice breaking on the last word. “He’s been missing for two days. The police don’t believe me. They think he’s run off with a mistress.”
I froze, my arm, head, and shoulder out the window. “Fucking Irish,” I muttered, looking to the sky. A crow circled overhead, swooping lower on each turn. “We’re not going to let him mess this up, are we?” A maniac robin appeared out of nowhere. The streak of orange raced between the buildings, banked right, hung left, and crapped on my gun hand. “Fucking karma.”
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This one was for fun, but as always, no story is a work of imagination alone. First, my thanks to those who made Diamond into the woman you read today. Chris Rhatigan, editor extraordinary, my thanks for all your hard work, advice, and conversation. Thank you to Matt, Karen, Denny, Kristen, Jane, Traci and Johnny, my reading team, for suffering through the typos to make Diamond sharper. And deepest thanks to Eric Campbell and everyone at Down & Out for being great to work with.
Many websites were utilized in the research on quinoa. Two of my favorites were the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (1) and The World’s Healthiest Foods (2). The research on Rome and the Italian countryside was during a first-hand experience called “vacation.” The hotels, streets, people, Vespas, countryside, etc. Diamond encountered were the souvenirs I brought home, infused with imagination. The lighting hitting the plane and being re-routed through Minneapolis was true, though. No elaboration needed.
Finally, thank you, dear reader. As I said, this story was written for fun. Mine in writing, yours in reading. I know you have many choices of where to spend you free time and appreciate you spending a little with me, Diamond, Ian, Dixon, and Irish.
Until we meet again, TG Wolff.
(1) https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/food-features/quinoa/
(2) http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=142
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TG WOLFF writes thrillers and mysteries that play within the gray area between good and bad, right and wrong. Cause and effect drive the stories, drawing from twenty-plus years’ experience in civil engineering, where “cause” is more often a symptom of a bigger, more challenging problem. Diverse characters mirror the complexities of real life and real people, balanced with a healthy dose of entertainment. TG Wolff holds a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering and is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime.
tgwolff.com
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BOOKS BY TG WOLFF
The De La Cruz Case Files
Exacting Justice
Driving Reign (*)
Widow’s Run
(*) Comin
g Soon
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Here is a preview from Swann’s Down, the fifth Henry Swann mystery by Charles Salzberg.
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1
The Age of Aquarius
“We’re partners, right?”
Nothing good can come from that question when it comes from the mouth of Goldblatt.
“I mean, all for one and one for all, am I right?” he quickly added in an attempt, I was sure, to seal the deal.
“I think you’re confusing us with the three musketeers. May I point out there are only two of us, and I’m afraid that’s not the only fallacy in your declaration. But you might as well finish what you’ve started.”
We were having our weekly Friday lunchtime sit-down to discuss what Goldblatt likes to refer to as “business.” I have another name for it: waste of time.
Our venue changes from week to week but the concept is always pretty much the same: a cheap diner-slash-coffee shop somewhere on the island of Manhattan. Today’s eatery of choice (Goldblatt’s choice, my destiny) is the Utopia Diner, on Amsterdam, near Seventy-second Street. And as for the business we’d just finished discussing, well, to be honest, there never is much actual business to discuss and today was no exception.
At this particular moment, we were going through a bit of a dry spell, which always makes me a little nervous because no matter how much I banish it from my mind, the rent is due the first of every month and at least three times a day I seem to develop a hunger that must be quenched. Still, a good fifteen, twenty years away from Social Security, and with precious little dough in the bank—okay, let’s be honest, no dough in the bank—and no 401(k) to fall back on, I need to keep working. And, as much as I don’t like to admit it, lately it’s been my “partner,” as he likes to refer to himself, as opposed to my preferred “albatross,” who’s brought in the bulk of our clients.
We’d already finished eating—though technically, Goldblatt never actually finishes eating which means a meal can easily turn into an all-day affair if I don’t apply the brakes—and we were just waiting for the check to arrive. This is a crucial point of any meal with Goldblatt because it is the opening gambit in what has become our weekly routine of watching the check sit there in no-man’s land somewhere between us until I inevitably give in, pick it up, and pay. Otherwise, I risk one of two things: either we’d be there all afternoon or, worst-case scenario, Goldblatt will decide he’s still hungry and threaten to order something else. Neither of these options is the least bit appealing.
“I’ll get right to the point,” he said.
Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the waiter, like a white knight, approaching with our check in hand. If I acted quick enough I might be able to get out of there before being sucked into something I don’t want to have anything to do with.
“That would be nice,” I said, reaching for my wallet. “What is your point?”
“I need to hire you.”
I was stopped in my tracks before I got my wallet halfway out of my back pocket.
“Really? To do what?”
“I want you to find someone for me. Well, to be more precise, it’s not really for me. It’s for my ex-wife.”
Wait a minute! Goldblatt married? Goldblatt with a wife? Goldblatt a husband? This was a new one on me, something I’d never even considered.
“You…you’ve been married?” I stammered.
Truth is, I never pictured Goldblatt being in any relationship other than with, yes, as irritating as it might be, me. I mean the guy isn’t exactly anyone’s idea of Don Juan, although I suppose in theory there are women who might find him if not attractive in the conventional way, at least interesting in a specimen-under-glass way. Or maybe as a project. Women love a project. They love a challenge. They love the idea that they have the opportunity to remake a man in their image. Maybe that was it. But whatever it was, my world was shaken to the core. And what would shake it even more would be to find that he was a father, too. But one shock per meal is more than enough, so there was no chance I was going to pursue that line of questioning.
“Unfortunately, the answer is yes. More than once, in fact.”
“Holy cow,” I blurted out, channeling the Scooter. “You’re kidding me?”
At this point the same bald, squat waiter who seemed to serve us in every diner we patronized, reached our table and dropped the check right in front of me.
“This is not something a man usually kids about.”
“How many times?”
He held up three fingers.
“Three times! You’ve been married three times?”
“Yeah.”
I gulped.
“Are you married now?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I’m kinda between wives. Giving it a rest, if you know what I mean. But chances are I’ll be back in the saddle again soon enough.”
“Okay, so let me get this straight. You’ve been married three times and now you’re single but you would consider getting married again?”
“Man is not meant to be alone, Swannie. You might consider the possibility that your life would be enriched if you found your soul mate.”
You’re fortunate if you find one soul mate in life and I’d already had mine. She was yanked from my life as a result of a freak accident, a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t know if Goldblatt knew the circumstances of her bizarre accidental death, but I wouldn’t have been surprised because he seemed to know a lot of things he had no business knowing.
“Some men are meant to be alone, Goldblatt. I’m one of them and after three failed marriages, maybe you should consider the possibility you are, too.”
He smiled and puffed out his chest. “What can I say, Swann? I’m a friggin’ babe magnet.”
I would have laughed, should have laughed, but I was still processing the scary fact that he’d been married three times. That meant there were three women in the world who not only were willing to marry him but did marry him. I wanted to know more. Much more. Everything, in fact. But this was not the time and certainly not the place to delve into Goldblatt’s mysterious, sordid past. Nevertheless, I promised myself I would revisit this topic in the not too distant future.
Still in shock, I avoided our weekly “who’s paying for this meal” tango, grabbed the check and reached for my wallet…again.
“So, wanna know the story?” he asked.
“Which story would that be?”
“The story of why I want to hire you?”
“Desperately.”
“It’s for Rachel. She was my second wife. The best of the lot, actually. Sweet kid. We had our problems, that’s for sure, and maybe I should’ve stuck with it. You know, like given it more of a chance.”
“It’s a little late for regrets, isn’t it?” I said, but Goldblatt wasn’t listening. His head was cocked to one side and his eyes rolled up in their sockets. It was obvious his mind was off in the ether somewhere, strolling down Memory Lane, I assumed.
“How long were you married?”
“Let’s see.” He closed his eyes and started counting on his fingers. His eyes snapped open. “Technically, I guess it was a little more than six months.”
“Six months? You call that a marriage?”
“It was legal, if that’s what you mean.”
“And exactly what do you mean by ‘technically’?”
“I mean we were together for a few months before we actually got hitched, and then we were legally married for maybe three months before the annulment…”
“You got an annulment?”
“Not me. Her. I woulda stuck it out a while longer. You know, I’m really a traditional kind of guy. But she needed an annulment. Something to do with the church. It woulda looked bad on her record if she got a divorce. I guess Jesus don’t much like the idea of d
ivorce. Mumbo jumbo, as far as I’m concerned. But I went along with the annulment thing. What’d I care? Remember, I’m a lawyer. I know all about legal fictions.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why’d she dump you?”
“I’m really not fond of the word ‘dump.’ I prefer, parting of the ways. Or, better yet, we had different priorities. It’s complicated and kind of personal.”
“Of course, it’s personal. That’s why I want to know.”
“Yeah, well, maybe some other time.”
“Man, this is a little too much to digest all at once, so we might as well skip to the part where you need to hire me.”
“Yeah, right. None of the rest is important. Anyway, Rachel, that’s her name. Did I already say that?”
I nodded.
“She’s a real sweet kid, but she’s always been kinda, shall we say, naïve…you know, trusting. Too trusting, if you ask me. And she’s also a bit woo-woo, you know, out there.” He waved his hands and rolled his eyes, aiming them up toward the ceiling that was blocking the way to heaven, which I presume was what he was shooting for.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know, like what do they call it?” He snapped his fingers. “New Agey. That’s it. She believes in all that bullshit like astrology, tarot cards, tea leaves, all that spiritual garbage. She wouldn’t marry me while Mercury was in retrograde. I don’t even know what the hell that means but hey, it wasn’t like I was in a hurry to tie the knot.”
“I thought you were a traditionalist?”
“That doesn’t mean I was stupid. You gotta get to really know a person before you take a step like that.”
“You took it three times.”
“No one’s perfect, Swann.”
I’m sure we could have gone on like this all afternoon, but I had better things to do, which meant just about anything else.
