by Lex Lander
Richard phoned from Houston. Maura reassured him all was well. At my behest she didn’t speak of our imminent departure for Europe.
‘It’s not about trusting Richard, it’s a principle of security,’ I explained, when I had warned her to keep quiet about our plans the previous day. ‘The more people you tell, the more potential for leaks. Not only that, his phone line might be bugged.’
‘You know best,’ she sighed, not sounding convinced that I did.
So Richard was led to believe we were going to be in Vegas for a while, working on our future.
We were booked on a United Airlines flight to Miami, leaving at forty-one minutes after midnight. Disruptive for Lindy’s sleep, but the business class seats made up into beds and the flight was of seven hours duration.
Rather than leave Maura’s Maserati at the airport for an indeterminate period we took a cab – three adults and fourteen items of baggage, only two of which were mine.
‘I bet the Queen of England takes less luggage than you,’ I grumbled as we loaded the last into the back of the MPV. The driver slammed the door, muttering under his breath. He would expect a generous tip.
Maura’s giggly laugh told me she hadn’t taken me seriously.
‘As far as I’m concerned, Drew darling, I’m leaving for good. A girl needs a few shoes.’
Her quota of footwear had fitted into a single overnight bag, so I couldn’t really complain.
‘Mommy’s forgotten her boots,’ Lindy informed me as we bowled along the Summerlin Parkway. She was sitting between us in the rear seat.
I patted her little blonde head.
‘She’ll be able to buy some over the pond, sweetheart,’ I said.
‘Which pond?’
‘The pond we’re going to fly over, of course.’
‘That’s not a pond.’ She sounded indignant. I half-expected her to add ‘you ignoramus’. ‘It’s the Atlantic Ocean. It’s ’normous.’ She spread her arms to demonstrate its normousness. ‘Isn’t it, Basset?’ The hound, tucked securely under her arm, was induced to nod its lugubrious head.
At the airport, after checking in, I parted with an old friend. Wiped clean of prints, the Ruger and sound suppressor went in a trash can in a wash room. It wasn’t that I had no more need of it, but it would never get through the airport control system, even in pieces.
We had an hour and a half to kill. Ninety interminable minutes in which Heider’s errand boys could come hunting, and here I was with no means of defence beyond my fists.
It didn’t happen. For whatever reason, Carl Heider was letting us go about our business without let or hindrance. It was too much to hope that he was done with us for good. Enough that he was done with us for now. Later could take care of itself.
Stretched out across our two laps, Lindy soon fell asleep. Conversation lapsed for a while until the call came to go to our gate.
At midnight plus a few minutes we boarded our flight, Lindy continuing to doze in my arms, her head on my shoulder. With the aid of a flight attendant we converted her seat into a bed and Maura settled her in. Her goodnight kiss went unappreciated.
At 0.56am our Airbus A320 lifted into the air and thus began the first phase of our new life together and a goodbye to the old life, with no regrets.
It was late afternoon and a weak winter sun was setting over Coma Pedrosa, at just under three thousand metres Andorra’s highest peak. I piloted the Hertz BMW X5 around the final hairpin of the road that led to the driveway to the house. I steered onto the grass verge and stopped to give Maura and Lindy a first sighting of their new home.
‘There it is,’ I announced, pointing unnecessarily at it.
It stood rather grandly on its hummock of land, split level with two floors front and back, the yard rising behind it and blending into the mountainside. With pretensions to be more just a modest pile of bricks, timber, glass, and tiles.
‘It’s lovely,’ Maura gushed, whether sincerely or not I couldn’t tell. It was a matter of indifference to me. If she didn’t care for it, we’d move. It was just a building lot with a building on it. It contained some memories that were dear to me, but I was not attached to nostalgia. I never clung to the past. Well, not often.
‘Is this where we’re going to live, Mommy?’ Lindy asked from the back seat.
‘Yes, honey. This is André’s house.’
‘Your house too,’ I said gruffly. ‘Your home.’
A welter of emotions were swirling around inside my head. Too many to deal with for now.
‘I love the Mediterranean style,’ Maura said, and caressed my neck with teasing fingers. I blew out air and images of her undressed body swam before me.
‘Grrr,’ I said, and she knew exactly what I meant.
‘Later,’ she murmured. ‘We’ll christen it memorably.’
I drove on, into the driveway, scattering gravel. Up around the curve, past the kidney-shaped pool, glimmering in the dying light, to the veranda that shielded the entrance door. I depressed the ignition button and the engine died.
‘Journey’s end,’ I said.
‘Journey’s beginning,’ Maura demurred.
‘Yeah. That’s what I meant. How is it you always know the right thing to say?’
She just smiled, and it was enough.
While I unloaded the luggage and stacked it beside the potted tiger palm in the entrance hall, Maura and Lindy roamed the house, Maura hobbling on her cast, Lindy dashing from room to room. Inside smelled as fresh as if I had never been away. My housekeeper, Señora Sist, had been here the previous day to open windows, dust, vacuum. Also to scent the air the natural way by distributing bunches of flowers about the place. A thoughtful touch on the Señora’s part, recognition of my changed status from single to item, and even surrogate father. She would, without doubt, approve my choice.
‘It’s gorgeous,’ Maura enthused as she rejoined me in the hallway. ‘The furniture, the paintings, the views, the kitchen ...’
‘All that was missing is you and Lindy. Before, it was just a place to lay my head, now it’s starting to feel like a place to raise a family in.’
On the counter of the kitchen island, seven weeks’ mail formed a neat stack. I flipped through it while Maura inspected the cabinets and drawers. Three letters in Lizzy’s handwriting. I might read them, I might consign them to the garbage. The garbage option would be easier. It would also make me feel disloyal.
Her kitchen survey done, Maura approached and threw her spare arm around my neck.
‘I love it, and I love you. So much, I could explode from it.’
Lindy charged in, did a circuit, and charged out again. We heard her clumping up the wooden stairs.
‘Where’s my room?’ she yelled, not waiting for directions as she thundered along the landing.
Maura and I seized the opportunity to catch up on physical stuff, somewhat rationed the past twenty four hours.
‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ she breathed in my ear, her cheek against mine, our bodies melding as one.
‘I’m almost convinced.’
She landed a mock punch on my shoulder. ‘Only almost?’
‘Okay, okay, I’m convinced. Don’t hit me again.’
‘Oh, Drew, it’s all so perfect. You, me, Lindy, all together in this marvellous house.’
‘Do you really like it?’ I asked, still unsure about her true feelings.
‘I told you, I love it.’ As always she read my thoughts down to the last period and pulled back to scrutinize my face. ‘No, I’m not just being polite, cretin.’
‘You haven’t seen the upstairs yet.’ I wriggled my eyebrows suggestively. ‘Our bedroom.’
Our move towards the staircase coincided with Lindy’s peremptory, ‘Mommy, Mommy, come and see my bedroom.’
It wasn’t hard to guess which room she had chosen as hers. We ascended to the second floor, Maura refusing my offer to carry her. I steered her left, to the only door that stood open.
Lindy was
sitting on the king-size bed, bouncing up and down, her face split by the huge grin I had first seen in the photograph on the bureau at Maura’s Vegas home, the night I killed Jeff Heider.
‘It looks as if someone’s already in residence,’ Maura commented, pointing to the trio of fluffy animals on the pillow. She crossed the room to the walk-in closet and opened the door.
‘Female too, to judge from the wardrobe. Either that or a cross-dresser.’
‘Her name is Lizzy. She stayed here awhile.’
‘Lizzy looks to be fairly grown up,’ Maura said, gesturing at the slinky, skimpy evening gown that had been Lizzy’s only concession to formal dress.
‘Sixteen at the time.’
‘Sixteen,’ Maura mused, and I could almost hear the cogs meshing inside her head. She backed out of the closet and went to the window with its view down towards La Massana. The sun was gone now and the landscape in deep shadow. Lights twinkled in the village.
I made no attempt to dispel any suspicions Maura might have been entertaining. Let her ask the questions, I would provide the answers, straight without prevarication. Whether she would believe me was not for me to predict.
She turned from the window and favoured me with a searching look.
‘Some sixteen year old girls are still children. And some are full-blown women.’
‘Are you asking me something?’ I teased.
Lindy quit bouncing on the bed and joined her mother at the window.
‘Look – sheeps!’ She pointed down the valley. ‘Lots and lots of them.’
Sheep are ubiquitous in Andorra.
‘Yes, sweetheart, I see them.’ To me, Maura said, ‘No, darling, I’m not asking any questions about your past love life. It doesn’t concern me.’ Her tone bordered on chilly, belying her insouciance.
I stifled a chuckle. ‘Nice of you to say so. But if I read you correctly you would prefer that I hadn’t had a sleeping arrangement with a nymphet.’
Though her mouth tried to stay stern, her eyes betrayed her.
‘You put it so delicately, sweetheart.’
‘I’ll tell you the whole tragic story someday soon, I promise. For now I’ll just swear to you that I did not have sexual relations with that girl ...’
The paraphrasing of Bill Clinton’s infamous denial of any wrongdoing with Monica Lewinsky triggered a ripple of amusement in Maura.
‘In addition to which,’ I went on, ‘you will note that she had her own bedroom and, if you care to inspect mine – soon to be ours – you will find not a shred of evidence that she ever entered it, let along shared it with me. Not so much as a long blonde hair.’
‘Oh, she was blonde, was she? Aren’t gentlemen supposed to prefer blondes?’
‘I prefer you,’ I said, and the feeling of disloyalty towards Lizzy immediately surfaced anew. It submerged almost as immediately when Maura came to me and we embraced. Lindy decided to give up sheep spotting and get in on the cuddle, squirming between our legs. I lifted her up so that our three heads were on the same level.
It had always been my intention to preserve Lizzy’s bedroom as a kind of shrine, hopefully temporary, in anticipation of her eventual return. The moment had now come to, as they say, move on. Aside from oddments of her belongings, no trace of her remained. Not even a lingering smell of her perfume. Let the past be past, let me go forth into virgin territory. Pitfalls and perils might lay in wait – above all the Heider gang and Il Sindicato. My promise to Maura never to kill again for reward also weighed heavily on me. I would deal with these as they arose. For this woman and her child and for what we were on the brink of building together I would slay dragons.
My first morning back home I resumed my iron pumping regime in the basement gym, playing catch up after my hit-and-miss sessions in the States. In the days that followed Maura usually joined me, albeit that the plaster cast limited her range of exercises. She looked super sexy in her shiny sleeveless leotards, and we tended to close the session doing different kinds of exercises from those for which the gym was designed.
Her cell phone had been kept switched off since our stay in Santa Barbara. Finally, a week or so after setting up house in Andorra, we dumped it and bought another, with a new provider and a new number. After the phone shop we went to drink coffee behind the steamed up windows of the Derby Irish Pub in La Massana, while she familiarized herself with the cell phone’s mysteries. Lindy wandered away to do battle with a pinball machine on the other side of the bar, having gulped down her orange juice in one.
‘Now text Richard,’ I requested Maura when she had her cell figured out.
She rummaged in her purse, came up with a slender address book.
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Ask him what Carl’s doing about us. If it’s nothing, I’ll be able to breathe more easily.’
‘It’s funny, I’ve barely given brain space to the Heider family since we got here.’ She stroked my cheek, another of her tactile tricks I would never tire of. ‘I’ve been so wrapped up in setting up home with you.’
‘Fine,’ I approved. ‘Now we need to know if we should be taking out insurance.’
Even as the words left my mouth, I saw that the curtness of my tone was hurtful to her, and I was at once penitent.
‘Sorry, honey. I didn’t mean it to sound like that.’
She smiled uncertainly. ‘I know. I’m an over-sensitive bitch and you’re just being practical, thinking about our safety.’
She transferred Richard’s number from her address book to her cell phone’s contact list and composed it on the touch screen.
‘It’s okay to tell him you and Lindy are both good, and stuff like that. Just be sure to ask him what Uncle Carl is up to, and not to disclose this number to anyone, and never to call unless he’s somewhere he can’t be bugged.’
Her thumbs flew over the tiny keyboard.
‘That it?’ she said when it was done.
‘Let me see, will you?’
The message was to the point, no wasted words. I added a Drew says hi postscript and passed the cell back to her.
The chirp that signalled a reply was quick in coming. It was brief and, from our standpoint, inconclusive. Richard was in the dark about Heider’s machinations, if any. Carl and Nick had shut him out from family business. He, Richard, was still managing his end of the rackets, that was all. Nevertheless, he would keep an ear to the ground and text any developments.
‘I’ll just tell him thanks and goodbye,’ Maura said.
The exchange of information had left us no further forward, and nothing to be done about it. My preparedness was as good as ever it was: handguns in the Range Rover Evoque I had bought in the summer, and was presently outside the café (the Aston was still vacationing in Sitges); under my side of the mattress of our bed; in a hidden compartment in the hall dresser. In my study, and an Ithaca Stakeout shotgun under a floorboard. The house alarms were activated at night and the CCTV was a permanent watchdog. Nobody would be able to sneak up on us.
It was not an agreeable way to live. Being in an ongoing state of jeopardy was second nature to me. Maura, on the other hand, was not used to it, and until I had her check with Richard, barely aware of the extant threat. I needed to brief her, ensure she knew how to react if ever Heider and/or his hirelings came calling.
For now though, unwisely perhaps, I put the need on ice.
Christmas came with all its trappings and trimmings: the tree, gifts galore, Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, Christmas crackers. Squeals of delight, silly games, silly hats. Just as I remembered it from my childhood.
Christmas went, and snow fell, and on the first day of the New Year we took to the ski slopes, a new adventure for Lindy. Still with her ankle in a cast, Maura was obliged to sit on the sidelines, leaving me to give instruction. The girl had good balance and no nerves, which stood her in good stead on the nursery slopes. Within a week she was ready for sterner stuff, so we enrolled her in a class. A week later she had grown
out of the nursery slopes altogether and was going on her own with groups of kids, some of them local, beginning to cement friendships and learn French and Spanish. She had an aptitude for languages, as it turned out, unusual in an American kid.
The snows continued through January. Maura’s cats were delivered in good health and soon settled down. Lindy resumed her education, at the Collegi Internacional del Pinneu, the only international school in Andorra, where she would mingle with the offspring of other expats. Maura started learning French. I did jobs around the house, fitted a shelf here, laid a few tiles there. More ambitiously, I built a child-size house for Lindy, complete with electric wiring. I discovered talents I never thought I had. Every weekend we skied. Three times a week we drove to Andorra-la-Vella for lunch. Lucien and Madeleine, nearest neighbours, came round for dinner every two weeks, and we returned the favour on alternate weeks, playing baccarat after the meal, at which Lucien was a champion. He was unwell, but bearing up stoically and always managed to rally for the occasion.
Six weeks to the day after it went on, Maura’s ankle cast came off. An X-ray showed the break as having healed cleanly, with no complications. A course of physio was booked and she began the following day, with a female practitioner in La Massana. By the end of the month the three of us were ski-ing as a family.
When we had a few spare moments, Maura and I pried into each other’s background, mutually hungry for knowledge about our new love. Such as on the bleak Wednesday in late January, with the snow ploughs out and the traffic mostly staying home, when we braved the weather to lunch at the Cal Silvino. In the midst of our main course, as I impaled a fat succulent scallop I said, ‘Satisfy my curiosity, love, will you?