don’t care what Barlowe does with the map. I could use
the money. Call me when you get this. I need you to tell
me what to do.”
Chapter 9
Music filled the room like a throbbing physical presence, Mick Jagger whooping about “Brown Sugar,” as Rhonda Barlowe rode the high of her
endorphins. For twenty-six minutes she had been pumping the StairMaster, and she felt like she could go for hours. Her Pekingese, Zhou-Zhou, gazed at her from his sheepskin nest by the window.
Rhonda was watching the driveway below, where a movement had caught her eye. A motorcycle sped between the rows of palm trees, trailing a long afternoon shadow. Tom Fairchild was leaving the house.
She expected Stuart to come upstairs soon. He would tell her how a mediocre graphic artist with a criminal record was going to save him from ruination. She expected to be asked her opinion, not that Stuart would listen. He rarely listened to anything she said. Her husband pretended to, then went into his study, made himself a drink, and thumbed the TV remote for hours. He could tell her the recipe for crème caramel or the number of German airplanes shot down by the RAF in 1940. He fell asleep in his clothes; he didn’t fall asleep at all; he worked crossword puzzles at dawn; he rarely came to her bedroom anymore.
In the floor-to-ceiling mirrors Rhonda watched the smooth, hard muscles moving in her legs. Trails of sweat glistened on her chest. She wore running shorts and a sports bra, and her hair was pulled up into a turquoise headband. Her new personal trainer had told her she had the body of a thirty-year-old. He guaranteed she’d be in top shape for the cruise around Hawaii next week. She had a suitcase full of swimsuits and matching sarongs. Stuart was looking for excuses not to go; Rhonda almost hoped he found one.
She closed her eyes and sucked in air, timing her steps to the beat of “Gimme Shelter,” feeling the burn in her glutes.
The music went off.
Zhou-Zhou lifted his head and let out a sharp yap, then saw who it was. Stuart’s reflection in the mirror put down the stereo remote and walked past the row of machines to the windows. A shadow in pleated slacks and a black pullover. He was too thin, Rhonda thought. He was a wraith.
The steps hissed down to eye level. Rhonda patted her face with a towel. “How was your meeting?”
Stuart kept walking to the thermostat, where he repeatedly jabbed a button on the digital display. “I know you’re working out, but for the love of God, it’s like the Arctic Circle in here.”
“I like it. Tell me what Tom Fairchild had to say.”
Gazing past her out the windows, Stuart ran his fingers over his beard. The sun had gone down; the sky was fading. “He said that all things being equal, he’d rather not get involved. It’s a risk, given his situation with the law, so if I really want the Corelli, I’ll have to make it worth his while.” Stuart left a pause into which he dropped a faint smile. “Fifty thousand dollars.”
Rhonda couldn’t prevent a burst of laughter. “That’s insane.”
“Fifty plus his expenses, which he estimates will run another twenty.”
“Good lord. What expenses?”
Sitting on a weight bench, Stuart extended his legs. “There are the artist’s supplies, of course. A digital camera. Food and lodging. Travel. He says he can’t get to Europe by the normal routes because his passport is flagged, so we arranged that he start his journey by taking a private boat to Nassau. From there he will fly to Jamaica, then direct to London.”
“Why London?”
“There are some Corelli sea charts in the National Maritime Museum. He wants to take photographs and study the details. I’m to write a letter of introduction to the curators informing them that Tom Fairchild is doing research for the Caribbean collection in the museum here. After London, he will see more Corellis in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence, Italy. This will require another letter of introduction.” Stuart rolled a fifteen-pound free weight with the toe of his shoe. “He says he has a source for antique paper. Not one piece, several. At least a dozen. Trial and error could burn up several attempts. He wants to finish the job over there. I told him to ship the map to Miami by bonded courier. We wouldn’t want him caught with it on the way back.”
“What a lovely vacation,” Rhonda muttered. “What makes you so sure the map will be any good?”
“All we can do is hope. No, I think it will be very good—if Tom Fairchild wants his final payment.”
“The man is a felon. Surely there’s someone else who could do it.”
“Is there? Give me a name. Please.”
“How is he going to simulate a copperplate engraving?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Marvelous. And if he keeps the money and doesn’t come back?”
“It’s only fifty thousand dollars, Rhonda. He has family here. If he doesn’t make his next appointment with his probation officer, the state of Florida will issue an arrest warrant. He was very candid about what he faces: six years in prison. He doesn’t want that hanging over him. He’ll be back.” Stuart rolled the weight in the other direction. “I wouldn’t give him all the money at once. It would be doled out, depending on his progress.”
“But you won’t be there to monitor his progress, will you?” Standing over her husband, she brushed his straight, lank hair off his forehead. “We’re leaving for Hawaii on Saturday, darling.”
“That’s true. I’ll think of something.” He pressed his fingers against her thigh, testing the muscle. “You’re getting very buff, my sweet.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I do. You’re perfect.” He stroked her knee, then his mustache was tickling her skin. She hated being kissed on her legs, had told him, and he still did it.
“Stuart, this isn’t going to work.”
He pulled away. “I could send Allison.”
“With Tom Fairchild, you mean?”
“Why not? She knows maps. And she knows Fairchild. She warned me against him. I don’t think he could pull anything over on her. She’s too smart for him.”
“Yes, why don’t you do that?” Rhonda crossed to the watercooler and held her bottle under the spigot. It would be lovely if Allison were gone for a while. Having failed to get a partnership in Boston, she had slunk home to a family she had despised for fifteen years. Dropping in at any hour as if this were her house. Undermining Stuart’s relationship with Larry. Rhonda knew what she was after.
She poured some water into Zhou-Zhou’s dish. “Allison can’t just walk out of her new job. Besides, isn’t she studying for the bar exam?”
“Ah. That’s right,” he said.
“You see how impossible this is.”
“Maybe I should go,” he said. “You wouldn’t miss me, would you, my pet? You have friends on the cruise, and God knows I can’t keep up with you on the dance floor.” When she didn’t reply his eyebrows slanted quizzically. “What’s the matter? Not a good idea?”
“Going to London? I think not.”
“Rhonda.” He looked at her with mild reproach, which she didn’t deserve. He said softly, “I don’t know where she is. I don’t care where she is. You needn’t worry.”
Rhonda had tried, really tried, to ignore his occasional lapses of fidelity, which she had to admit rarely ever happened anymore, but the last one had sent her into a rage. The girl had been young and black, one of Larry’s employees, a whore, not to put too fine a point on it. Stuart had confessed after he’d already called it off; he’d come to Rhonda’s room in tears, on his knees with remorse. He didn’t think the girl would make trouble; he’d given her some money and told her not to contact him again. Over brunch Sunday Larry mentioned that the girl had quit without a word, gone back to England was his guess. Stuart had folded his newspaper the other way and kept reading.
“If you don’t want me to go, I won’t,” he said.
“Have you heard from her?”
Stuart’s smile was brittle. “No, I haven’t.”
> What could she believe anymore? She sat beside him. “What I really want is for you to tell Tom Fairchild you’ve changed your mind. Let him keep the money you gave him, but just ...forget it.”
“I promised Leo his map,” Stuart said.
“He can’t have his map; it’s done for. Offer to buy him another one, whatever he wants.”
“The map is the crowning jewel of Gaetano Corelli’s only atlas. Leo’s grandfather owned it.”
“Listen to me, Stuart. Leo is a reasonable man. Tell him it was accidentally destroyed, and you’re sorry, but there’s nothing you can do.”
Stuart rolled the weight with his foot parallel to the weave in the carpet. “You don’t want to be around when he hears that.”
“You’re not afraid of Leo, surely.” Rhonda smiled in disbelief. Last summer they had spent several days at his villa on the Dalmatian coast, their own guest quarters with a maid and a terrace where they were served breakfast overlooking the sea. Leo Zurin played cello. He collected fine art and antiques. But Stuart’s grim expression made her ask, “What would he do, have you shot?”
A slight smile tugged at his mouth. “Dismembered, perhaps. No, I’m joking. It would be painful enough if he pulled out of the investment group. Let me handle it. All right?”
Thirty-one years ago, seeing this man for the first time, Rhonda had felt an electric sizzle that had pushed waves of heat through her body. He had been handsome, but it was more than that. He had been quietly powerful in a way that nobody had recognized at the time, eclipsing his brother or even his father, such plodding creatures they’d been. But as the years passed, he’d become more like them—stiff and conservative, afraid of what people might say. He had to know it, and to despise the weakness in himself, because he would do such foolish things to prove otherwise, like sleeping with a girl less than half his age. Or taking credit for a rare map that wasn’t his.
“Did Leo know that his map was going to be put in an exhibit?”
Stuart’s silence gave her the answer.
“You never told him! You sneak!” Rhonda laughed. “You just had to prove something to Royce Herron, didn’t you?”
“I lent him the map because Allison asked me to.”
“Bullshit, darling. You could have said no, but you wanted to strut and show off at the map fair. You needed the Corelli, but you didn’t dare ask Leo, because he would have said no.”
“Correct, my love. I can’t put one over on you, can I? I let his map out of my hands knowing he would have me flayed alive if he ever found out.”
“He would not. Don’t be ridiculous! It would be difficult, I grant you, if Leo refused to invest in The Metropolis out of spite, but the alternative is so much worse. He would tell everyone what you’d done—tried to defraud him with a forgery! We’d be in a fix then, wouldn’t we?”
During this, Stuart’s face had become red, and now he exploded. “We’re already there, idiot woman! I’m nearly broke, and your profligacy doesn’t help! That goddamned soiree you threw cost me sixty thousand dollars!” He shot up from the bench and walked away with his head in his hands. “I pay twenty thousand dollars a month in tax on this house. Larry just cost me two million in guarantees for that fucking restaurant. Stop buying me Glenfiddich, Rhonda, I can do with Chivas. We don’t need another vacation. I’m bleeding to death!” Stuart’s laugh cracked. “And you want me to tell Leo Zurin he can’t have his map?”
During this outburst, Zhou-Zhou began to bark and run in circles.
“Shut up!” Stuart yelled.
Rhonda stared up at her husband.
He sat beside her. “Rhonda... does it ever cross your mind that we ought to chuck it? This insanity. The parties, the hypocrisy. This life. This fiction we’ve created—”
“Oh, yes, let’s give it all up, why not? Let’s buy a little house in the suburbs and shop at the discount malls. We’ll go to church on Sundays. An honest, simple life. Do I ever think of it? No, Stuart. I don’t.”
“I do. Sometimes I do,” he said.
She looked at him closely. “Are you taking your pills?”
“Maybe I should take more of them. The entire bottle.”
“Stop it!”
“Je suis désolé.” He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Forgive me. You know I adore you. Darling, dearest Rhonda. She who has traversed the darkest corners of my soul.”
“I’m starting to worry about you.”
“Don’t. I’m quite all right. Just ...you know... things on my mind.”
“Stuart, please don’t give Leo a forgery.”
“It isn’t a forgery. It’s a duplicate. Don’t argue with me. I’ve made my decision.”
Rhonda saw their reflection, sitting side by side, she in turquoise and yellow workout clothes, Stuart in black and gray. She felt that she was the one who should be wearing black. She exhaled and closed her eyes. “Oh, God. That’s it, then.”
He put his arm around her. “We’ll get through this.”
“Do you want Larry to take him to Nassau? Tom Fairchild.”
Stuart didn’t answer for a while, then said, “You didn’t tell Larry about the map, did you?”
“Of course I didn’t tell him.”
“If he slipped and said something to Marek Vuksinic, we’d have a problem.”
“Larry is more intelligent than that, Stuart.”
“All right,” he said. “Larry can take him. I’ll say I’m sending Tom Fairchild to Nassau to meet a collector about some maps. A man I spoke to at the map fair. Will that do?”
Grabbing up beer bottles, a beach towel, somebody’s thong panties, and a pack of rolling papers, Laurence Gerard opened a drawer in the entertainment center and dropped everything inside, then slammed it. The big plasma screen showed a golfer teeing off at Pinehurst. Marek had been watching this shit for an hour, making himself at home, chain-smoking Marlboros.
He was already packed, had his bags by the door of his room. At seven-o-fucking-clock in the morning they would drive up to Orlando. Marek wanted to do Disney World before flying back to Albania or wherever the hell he was going.
Larry was ready for Marek to leave. It wasn’t just the smoking; having Marek around was getting on his nerves. Marek took no shit off anyone, which was admirable to an extent, but Larry was starting to feel like he’d walked into a Balkan version of The Sopranos.
A knock came at the door, three quick raps. Three more. His mother’s pattern.
Marek’s head turned toward the sound. Alert as a Rottweiler.
Rhonda had called to let Larry know she was coming. He’d had to stall her to get everyone out of here, put away some things, change his shirt, spray air freshener. He grabbed the remote and turned down the volume on the TV before he went to the door.
He stood back to let her in. “Hello, Mother.”
After lifting her cheek to be kissed, she walked past him in her fringed, silver leather jacket and tight jeans. When she spotted Marek, an eyebrow lifted. Marek stared back at her, cigarette smoke curling from the fingers of one hand, arms spread across the back of the sofa.
“Why, it’s Mr. Vuksinic. You’re still in Miami, then.”
“Hallo, Missus Barlowe.” His mouth was hidden behind the mustache. “I love Miami.”
“I wish we could chat, but I need to talk to Larry. Would you excuse us?”
“It’s okay. I’ll go outside.” Marek went out on the terrace and leaned against the railing, the breeze whipping his pink-and-green Tommy Bahama shirt. It had to be below sixty degrees out there. Larry’s blood had thinned, living in the tropics. If he ever moved back north, he would freeze to death.
His mother was heading toward the kitchen, and Larry followed. He had wiped down the black granite countertops, pitched the liquor bottles into the trash, and dimmed the halogen lights. His mother sat on one of the stools and crossed her legs. She wore high-heeled cowboy boots with silver toe caps.
“I thought your guest would have left by now.”
; “He was supposed to.” Larry gestured toward the espresso machine. “Can I make you a cappuccino? Get you a glass of wine? Anything?”
“No, thanks.”
“Well. What’s up?”
She placed her bag on the counter. “Could you take a day or two off this week?”
“I don’t think so,” Larry said. “Marek wants to see Disney World before he heads home. I’m babysitting. I mean, unless I have a reason not to.”
“Stuart needs someone taken to Nassau by boat. You’ll be reimbursed for the fuel and docking charge, naturally.”
“Who’s the passenger?”
“His name is Tom Fairchild. You might know him. He was in Allison’s class in high school. He sells maps now.”
“Fairchild.” Larry smiled. “I remember him.”
Larry had lost a brand-new Mustang GT to Tom Fairchild on a two-lane road in the western part of the county, weekend entertainment if you had some money and didn’t mind risking the title to your car. Give the referee an extra ignition key and the papers, line up, and hit the gas. Allison had gotten him into this. Your Mustang isn’t as fast as Tom’s Camaro. Tom had jumped the signal. Larry had objected and ended up with a broken tooth and a cracked rib. He had thought seriously about having Tom turned into fish chum, but he’d cooled off. And then Tom Fairchild had moved to New York, failed out of college, and accumulated a string of felony arrests. Funny, a guy like that ending up as a map geek.
“Why am I taking him to Nassau?”
His mother looked toward the sliding doors that led to the terrace. Nothing out there but the lights of a building farther up South Beach. “The fact is, you aren’t.” Her sea-blue eyes, outlined in black, shifted to him. “You’re going to help me save Stuart from a very bad decision.”
After she left, Marek came back in with his cigarette. The place was stinking of smoke. Larry didn’t know if he could get the smell out of the carpet and leather furniture. He lifted a sofa cushion and found the pills he’d stuffed under there earlier. After what his mother had told him, he needed one. Maybe two.
Marek exhaled smoke. “That stuff messes your head.”
The Perfect Fake Page 10