EQMM, August 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Nick's. Signed by Dusty."

  She had, of course, already seen the signature, but now her eyes flashed to it once again. “No,” she said. “It's not his. That's not the way he writes. Besides, he's gay. He could care less what I do."

  She knew how to pick them, give her that. “Not that I don't take your word—” She waved me to a stack of papers on the desk and let the silent tears fall in earnest.

  Something about a person crying makes you want to reach out and embrace them, assure them that better times lie ahead. A beautiful woman crying is perhaps the saddest sight, because not only does the agony surface, but the beauty withers into something pitiful. I was not good at watching women cry. She was an actor, but if this was acting it was Academy caliber. I lifted the letter from her hand and compared it to some of Dusty's correspondence, then said, “I'll let myself out."

  * * * *

  I checked messages; Charity had returned my call. She lived at a tony address, in an upscale house—red brick, pillars, enough lawn to keep a dozen sheep from starvation. Unlike Desirée, Charity was dressed in the style of the common folk: torn, off-the-rack jeans, sweatshirt, worn docksiders and red socks down below. It's a look that only goes with very small or very large amounts of money. Charity, in addition to family money, had worked her way through a cou-ple of lucrative marriages, and was, at the moment, very rich indeed.

  "You found it?” she said, assuming the purpose of my visit was to discharge the obligation she'd placed on me.

  "Not quite,” I said. “Any chance I could see the note, the one Nick gave you?"

  She brought it to me, and I compared it to the one I'd taken from Nick's. A quick glance showed me that both mentioned the crucial points of the half-million and the insurance policy as security in the unlikely event of his death. They seemed identical.

  "How'd you happen to give Nick the money?"

  She gave me a knowing smile. “You mean, did he gigolo me? No, afraid not. It was just something that seemed right at the time, a way to make a little more than I was making in bonds."

  I looked at the note again, but the interest hadn't changed, two under prime.

  "It was more of an investment than a loan. The interest was there to save me from the tax man."

  It didn't sound like any tax advice I'd ever heard, but I let it pass. What interested me was whether the deal she had going, backed by an insurance policy, was motive enough to do in old Nick. “Tell me about you and him,” I said.

  "Not much to tell. We were friends."

  "Intimate friends?"

  Her back stiffened and a hardness fell upon her face. “I'm not sure that's any of your business."

  It wasn't, but that was no reason not to ask. “Call it quid pro quo for me going in and searching the place. So, what about it?"

  Her hard gaze wavered, dropped, then came back. “Yes,” she said, “we were lovers."

  "That it? No thoughts of filing joint returns?"

  Again the eyes wavered. She'd make a lousy negotiator the way she broadcasted her position. “Well, maybe. We'd talked about it, but neither of us was ready."

  "All the eligibles around, why him?"

  This time she didn't do the wavering eye thing. Instead, she snorted. “Where've you been? Nobody's eligible. Actually, Nick was, but that wasn't his attraction. If he'd been married, I'd have tried to snare him anyway. He had such a fine mind. He could spot an opportunity that most people would breeze over. One time, I remember, he saw a weather report on TV, cold front heading toward Colombia. While we were sitting there, he picked up the phone and bought all the coffee futures he could find. It was wonderful to watch him. Not a drop of sweat and he was risking more than I'd made in a lifetime. It was as if he'd been born in the crucible. A week later, after the frost hit, he dumped them and pocketed half a million. It sent a thrill through me just to watch him. That's the kind of man he was: strong, decisive, savvy. You don't find ‘em like that anymore."

  I didn't mention that the little speculation might have caused some low-rent folks to go without caffeine, but I think the sentiment would have been lost in the glow of her admiration. “Sort of swept you off your feet?"

  "You might say that."

  I had said it, but that didn't make me believe it. “So why all the worry about the note?"

  "If Nick were alive, I'd have no worry. With him dead, who's to say what happens to my money?"

  "It's been awhile since you've seen him, right?"

  The eyes wavered. “Not that long."

  "How long?"

  "We'd sort of drifted lately."

  "Lately was about two months ago, I'd guess, just before the holidays.” A not-so-wild guess on my part. That's when Nick usually broke it off, said Christmas depressed him. I always thought it an excuse for getting a new present, one wrapped in soft, female flesh. “I don't want to be indelicate, but you knew Nick was seeing other women?” Actually, delicacy was less a concern than seeing how'd she'd react, but if I was looking for surprise or hurt, or shock, I'd have to look under a different rock.

  "I'd be surprised if he wasn't. Nick was not a monk. A man as worldly as he must have had many relationships. But I'm not sure where this is going."

  "Nowhere, actually, but seems to me, if he was as savvy as you say, there'd be no need for collateral like the life-insurance policy."

  She signaled again. I'd come close to a nerve.

  "It was something my grandfather taught me. Always get collateral."

  "You never did answer about the deal, the one he was going to put you on to."

  "Oh, that.” I waited, knowing silence is a cure for stuck tongues.

  "It had something to do with the Internet."

  "You pretty good on a computer, surf the ‘Net and all that?"

  "Good as anybody, I guess. There's a lot of financial stuff out there.” Now that we seemed to be off Nick, she relaxed a little and the charm she'd inherited from her father seeped through the granite composure. “I don't spend more than an hour or two a day at it. Why?"

  "That much? This deal Nick was getting you into, have to do with hard-core porn? So much a call? Something like that?” Wild shot, but if Nick was into the Internet, sleaze made sense.

  "You'd better be going,” she said, and I knew I'd hit the mark.

  "Wasn't really love between you, was it? Just a business deal."

  She stood up, intent on seeing me out. Our little tête-à-tête was definitely over, but I could still dazzle her.

  "Mind if I show you a little trick?” I didn't care if she minded, so I took the note I'd brought from Nick's over to the table lamp and held the bottom of the page near the bulb. “Consider this a bonus."

  She walked over to see what I was talking about, and just as she got there the heat began to have its effect.

  "I'll be damned,” she said. “It's signed.” She took the paper and studied it. “It's his signature. How'd you...?” The ink was already fading.

  "Nick had a bad habit of pulling little tricks on people. As you said, he was one of those who liked turning up the heat, so when you told me you'd seen him sign it, I just figured. You want that one, you can have it, too."

  * * * *

  Connie had spent the afternoon previewing the tapes. By the time I got there she was spaced out on buttered corn.

  "How'd it go?” I asked.

  "Sister Gracie is hot stuff,” she said. “I think I learned some new moves. We have five tapes of her and six of assorted others. Want to see?"

  "I'll take your word. I have an appointment with her after she finishes this week's version of the Lord according to Gracie Hathor."

  "Funny thing, all these tapes, you never see Nick's face, as if he was incognito. The camera's stationary, but there must be a bunch of them and they pan all around getting some pretty explicit shots, but never, not once, does he show up."

  "Maybe it's not him."

  "No, it is."

  I gave her a questioning look. It's okay for me to
be able to tell Nick from body parts, but Connie, well, that's another matter.

  "It's just something about the way he moves and the build that says it's him. You know, like you can tell a person from behind just by the way they walk. Well that's the way it is on the tapes, you know it's him, couldn't be anyone else, but prove it in court, no way. Gracie, she's another matter. It's like she was born to the camera, smiles, waves, little faces, all the tricks they use on porno flicks to make it seem like you're having a ball.” She smiled. “I set that up nicely, didn't I?"

  "Wonderfully. Which five are Gracie's?” She handed them to me.

  "I made dupes,” she said. “Just in case."

  "In case what?"

  "A lightning bolt strikes or the ground opens and swallows you up, something like that. You know how it is with Nick."

  On the way over to Hathor's apartment, we swung by Nick's office to drop off the keys. Sadie was still there.

  "Find what you were looking for?"

  "Most of it,” I admitted.

  "Which one sent you?"

  "Actually, there were three. Let me ask you something: You ever read Stephen Crane, the guy who wrote Red Badge of Courage? Not his book, the poetry?"

  She screwed up her face. “What kind of question is that?” Connie gave me a look, too, the eyeball-rolling kind that signaled I was off the deep end.

  "Do something for me, will you? Write this down."

  "You kidding?"

  "No. How about it? Just a few lines.” I took out my pen and notebook and handed it to her. “Sit down, make yourself comfortable,” I said, then started a slow recitation of a poem that had always fascinated me.

  "In the desert

  I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

  Who, squatting upon the ground,

  Held his heart in his hands,

  And ate of it."

  She started writing, but at the last phrase, stopped and looked at me. “What kind of poem is that? It's sick."

  "Is it? Isn't that how it was with you and Nick?” I picked up what she had written and handed it to Connie. “You, here, taking care of all his business, him romping around with almost any passing skirt. All, except you. Wasn't that a lot like being in the desert, eating your heart out?"

  "It's a job. He had his life. I had mine. What's the deal?"

  "Way I figure it, he was your man. In this office, nobody could take care of him the way you could. But you wanted more, wanted to take him home at night, give him what other women couldn't."

  "I get what I need.” Defiant but not a denial.

  "Sure, but not what I'm talking about. You loving him, him ignoring you as a woman, that felt almost as good as his taking you home, mentally you could whip both of you, imagine what he was missing, will pain on him, yet never, ever let on what you were thinking. That how it went?"

  "He treated me like shit,” she said.

  "And you loved it. You loved him. And, you hated him."

  "No way I loved him,” she said, but her eyes, the mirror to the soul, took on a glaze that belied the words. “No way."

  "Sadie,” I said gently, “this is Gabe. I know. You don't have to put me on. I know. Why I read the poem. Why I had you write it, so you could get a feel for the words, not just hear them, but feel what they mean."

  "He was such a shit,” she said, “but I knew in the end he would realize all the rest were nothing.” The tears were streaming now. Emotion had broken the resolve she'd held for so long. “That's why I went out with the others. I'd tell him all about them. He'd laugh, but I knew I was hurting him."

  "I know,” I said. Then I put Dusty Starr's letter on the desk next to her scribbling. Confusion helped dam the trickle of tears for an instant. “Read it,” I said.

  "Desirée's husband? He did it?” she asked after finishing the letter.

  "Don't think so,” I said. “Jamison over at Homicide gave me a Xerox of a fragment of the bomb's envelope. You could still read some of the address. Not much, but enough. I talked with Desirée; she gave me some of Dusty's writing. Completely different. So is yours."

  "How do you know the Dusty letter isn't disguised?” Connie asked.

  "I don't. But an expert could tell. Me, I just rely on the eyeball and gut feel. You want to know how the poem ends?"

  "Wasn't that the end?” Sadie asked.

  I shook my head and recited:

  "I said, ‘Is it good, friend?’

  'It is bitter—bitter,’ he answered;

  'But I like it

  Because it is bitter,

  And because it is my heart.’”

  "That's how I knew it wasn't you. You do Nick, and it's the end of your pleasure. No more heart-eating—yours or his."

  * * * *

  The doorman-butler-manservant-attendant—or whatever the politically correct term is for someone who schleps for a living—let us in, introducing himself as Michael. Sister Gracie's place, with its marble floor and postmodern décor, was sleek. The newly made maple and rosewood furniture had the glow of hundred-year-old Biedermeier. The art, filling walls rather than spots, tended toward abstract with an undercurrent of realism. Michael offered us a drink, which we refused; the décor and penthouse view were intoxicating enough.

  "Been with Ms. Hathor long?” I asked.

  "Since the beginning,” he said, not indicating whether that was a year or eternity.

  "TV business must be good,” I said with the air of a conspirator.

  "Yes, very, but not as good as the Internet,” he replied in the spirit of sharing confidences.

  I looked surprised. “Your idea?"

  He guffawed, “Oh no, oh no. I'm not at all electronic. Sister Hathor's the one, she's a whiz on the computer."

  "Am I?” Gracie said in her gentle TV voice. “Michael, you must be humble and allow me to be.” Then turning her charm on us, she apologized for not making the greeting herself and invited us to sit. Michael silently left.

  Gracie Hathor had removed her makeup and was wearing flame-red silk pajamas and robe. Even sans pancake, she was good-looking. I guess to be on TV you need the bone structure, all else is cosmetic. Her hair was tied in a ponytail. No pretense here, the all-American girl. I handed her the five tapes. “This what you wanted?"

  "You got them?” The surprise seemed genuine. “How...?"

  "Friends in high places,” I said.

  Concern covered her classic face. “I said it was confidential, you didn't...?"

  She had a way of not finishing sentences, letting you fill in the blanks and answer whatever you imagined the question to be. I guess in the religion business, that's the way you get people to open up and reveal their souls. “Didn't what?"

  The question seemed to fluster her. “Well, whatever. Talk about them, see them, anything that would breathe a word of their existence."

  "Just to Connie, here, and she already knew."

  "Classy flicks,” Connie said.

  "You watched them?"

  "I tried holding one to my head and letting the images flow through, but it didn't work, so I asked Connie to screen them, make sure we hadn't swiped some old tapes of Boy Scouts around a campfire."

  "No Boy Scouts on those tapes,” Connie offered.

  "How much?” Gracie Hathor asked. The tone was not gentle, and I had the impression that she wanted rid of us.

  "You said something about three times my fee.” She reached over to a checkbook conveniently waiting on a nearby table. “Call it three thousand."

  Without question, she wrote the check and handed it to me. I glanced at it and passed it to Connie.

  "Thank you,” Gracie Hathor said. “Michael will let you out."

  I took the check from Connie, printed VOID across the signature, and held it up for Sister Hathor to see. “I lied about the three thousand. This case, my fee is candor, as if you'd sworn three oaths on a Bible."

  "I paid you, what you do with the check is your business. Besides, I don't lie."

  "You may be inte
rested to know that Connie made dupes, sort of blackmail."

  The look she gave Connie would have turned Lot's wife to salt. “What is it you want?"

  "When did you find out about the other women?"

  She closed her eyes and seemed to stop breathing. Were it not for the slight twitch in her jaw, I could have mistaken her for alabaster—cold, beautiful, never changing, corroded only by the elements, and then only if exposed.

  For those of metaphysical bent, meditation is a balm to the soul. So often we castigate those of faith by railing at their lack of logic, when of course the logic we expect of them is our logic, the logic of science, the logic of proofs, the logic of Thomas fingering Jesus’ wound. We ascribe the conclusions they draw from faith to irrational emotion when, in fact, faith requires little or no emotion. So as Gracie Hathor sat there with her eyes closed, barely moving, I knew she was not contemplating the rational, but searching her reservoir of faith for a response that would send me on my way. Without opening her eyes, she said, “I watched the tapes. Not these, other tapes. Ones that I found."

  "Careless of him, don't you think?” Connie asked.

  She shook her head. “He left them where they were easy for me to find."

  "Why do you think he did that?” I asked.

  The eyes opened now. For the first time I felt some emotion from the priestess, as if she had become human. “He knew I loved him."

  "You had faith in him, and he betrayed you? Something like that?"

  "He never betrayed me. It was who he was; I should have known, but I was too arrogant. There were signs, even when I first met him, but the power of his faith in himself was so strong that I ignored what I knew and just gave myself to him.” There was a calmness about her. None of the preacher lady, no fire, no brimstone, no ecstasy, no hallelujah, just quiet talk, as if I were her confessor. “I guess I thought if he loved me as much as I loved him, I could change him.” Her head lifted and the preacher jaw thrust itself forward. “I'm good at that, changing people. I can make them see the light, make them believe in things they can never feel, or smell, or taste, or see. Most of the time I do it with words, but with Nick, words were useless, he'd heard them all and laughed them away. I knew that if I were to change him, I would need to give myself to him fully and completely, to trust in my faith.” She shook her head. “I know. It sounds silly, even to me, but that's the way it was. There were signs it was working, and in the end, I thought he was mine, I thought I had him, I thought he loved me as much as I loved him."