Her eyes tried to focus on him; came close. ‘Is there any other way?’
‘Lots of them. You could kill someone by accident, in a car, for instance. You can kill legally, in the line of fire, if you’re a cop or a soldier. Protecting a loved one against a murderer or rapist.’ He ate the cocktail olive. ‘That wasn’t what you meant, was it?’
She took a second to recalibrate. ‘I hadn’t thought about the variations.’
‘Anyway, to answer your question. I’ve never killed anyone. Deliberately or any other way.’
Her look back at him said I’m not sure I believe you.
They weren’t going to get personal? This was walking right up to the line. He had to make sure he didn’t cross it, if he hadn’t already. ‘I’m a lover, not a killer.’
‘Talk is cheap,’ she teased. She dipped her finger in her drink, sucked it slowly, staring at him.
Time to hit the road. Wycliff drained his glass, set it down. ‘Thanks for the drinks, and the conversation. Hope your day turns around.’ He stared to slide out of the booth.
‘I’d pay a hundred thousand dollars.’
That stopped him in his tracks. ‘What did you say?’
The woman looked around the bar. She and Wycliff could have been invisible, as far as the other patrons were concerned. ‘You could use a hundred thousand dollars, couldn’t you?’
‘Everybody could use a hundred thousand dollars.’
‘Sit down. Please. I’ll make it short.’
Get out of Dodge, moron. He lowered himself back into the booth.
‘Do you want another drink?’
Wycliff shook his head. ‘You don’t need one, either.’
‘Needing and wanting are two different things, but you’re right.’ She twirled the sizzle stick between her fingers. Her nails were long, well manicured; she wasn’t a nail-biter. Under the table, though, her leg was jitterbugging.
Was she serious? The phone conversation he’d overheard had been nasty. Who did she want to knock off? Did she hatch this crazy idea this morning, or had it been brewing, spreading its poison inside her? And if it had, had she hit on anyone else before him? That is, if she was serious.
She couldn’t be. This was the alcohol talking.
She was serious. She told him why.
She had married a man who was decades older than her, old enough to be her father (older, in fact, than her actual father, a loser she had lost contact with long ago. Her mother was dead). Before that, she had been married and divorced young, no children from that marriage, and for the next ten years she had pulled herself up by her bootstraps, made a life for herself, by herself. No family behind her, no partner, just her. She became a successful florist. Her clients were among the wealthiest and most prestigious people in Los Angeles. She had been in a few serious relationships, but felt no need to be married again, so inevitably, those relationships ended. She was fine being on her own, in charge of her life.
Then the man who became her second husband came into the picture. He was rich, worldly, dynamic, and married for forty years. His marriage had been stale for a long time; a marriage in name only. But until he met her he had not considered leaving it. He would soldier on, filling his life with work, children, grandchildren. But after he met her, he knew that wasn’t enough.
What dreary, pathetic bullshit, Wycliff thought as he listened. Women like her had been singing this same sad song since Eve bit into the apple. Why had he agreed to stay? Because he was a sucker for a crying woman who happened to have terrific breasts? Probably, what other reason could there be? Now he was stuck. He would have to wait until she finished her tale of woe.
‘Can I get some coffee?’ he called to the bartender. ‘Make it two,’ he added. ‘Black.’
He brought the mugs back to the table and put one in front of her. He sipped from his cup. Too acidic, it had been sitting in the pot all morning. She moved hers to the side without trying it. She didn’t need coffee. Talking was sobering her up.
She continued her story. The man was relentless in his attentiveness, persistence, and generosity. He showered her with expensive gifts. Took her to New York, Vegas, Europe, in the guise of business trips, introducing her as his personal assistant, although they didn’t take separate rooms, so that cover was pretty transparent. She knew getting involved with a married man was wrong, hurtful to others, potentially hurtful to herself. She kept trying to break it off, but he wouldn’t let her. He had accumulated his wealth, his power, by never giving up when he wanted something. More than anything, he wanted her. In the end, he wore her down. And she did love him. That was the problem. If she hadn’t loved him she would have been able to resist.
The usual horror show ensued. His family was shattered. They blamed her, of course, not him. The conniving bitch who had preyed on an old man’s desire to turn back the clock, leaving his spurned wife on her own, wandering the divorce wilderness.
‘She got a thirty-million-dollar cash settlement and the house, boo hoo hoo, but oh, the grief! She kept bitching and moaning that she was too old and tarnished to attract another man, but somehow she began a new relationship less than a year later and is very happy now. Still unmarried, though, which is shrewd. Marrying again doesn’t make financial sense. As long as she stays single, she collects alimony, even after his death.’
All three adult children turned against their father; but eventually, two of them, his sons, came to accept her. She was good for the old man, she lifted his spirits, doted on him, wasn’t a prima donna.
So you say, Wycliff thought. He wondered what the real feelings were. Not that he would ever find out, God forbid.
The problem, the woman explained, was the man’s daughter. She never budged in her hatred and anger towards the new wife, and by extension, her father. The relationship between father and daughter was shattered beyond repair. It had broken the man’s heart.
She and her husband had a good life together anyway, and then he died. A heart attack out of the blue, right on the tennis court after two sets of doubles. No history of heart problems. He was scrupulous in taking care of his health. Ate properly, drank sparingly, no drugs or tobacco, saw his doctors on schedule. His number had come up. One day here, the next day gone.
There was no pre-nuptial agreement. She didn’t feel it was necessary, and she knew he would do the right thing by her. Besides, California is a community-property state. Half of his estate was hers, by law. Except it turned out it wasn’t, because he had made all his money and accumulated all his physical property – houses, cars, art, everything – before she married him. He had been so happy hooking up with her that he had sold his company before their marriage and put it all in a trust, to be shared by his children. And her, she thought. But that’s not how it happened. He had never changed his will; nothing malicious, simple carelessness. His kids got everything. She got the shitty end of the stick.
‘I had a home of my own,’ she told Wycliff. She had discarded the swizzle stick and was shredding a napkin. ‘I sold it. I had a prosperous business. I sold that, too. That was seven years ago, before the market crashed. I don’t have the money to buy a new house now or start a business from scratch. I don’t want their money. I just want what I deserve, what I know he wanted me to have. God knows there’s more than enough for everyone.’
Despite his resolve not to get involved, Wycliff felt a pang of pity for the woman. Wasn’t he in the same situation, sort of? Trying to weasel his way into a piece of a relative’s inheritance? If this woman’s story was legit, and by now he had decided it probably was, she had a stronger claim to some of her late husband’s money than he had for his brother’s.
Who ever said life was fair? Not him.
The sons knew she had been screwed and wanted to cut her in. Not an equal share, but what was fair. The daughter, though, was an impenetrable wall. Zero, nothing, nada. And without unanimous consent, nothing could be done.
‘So that’s who you want killed? The daughter?’
Wycliff barked a laugh. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I know this is serious to you, but that’s nuts. You would never get away with it.’
‘I know,’ she answered. ‘That’s why I have to find someone who will do it for me. Someone completely unconnected to me.’
The coffee was cold now. He didn’t want it anyway, didn’t need it. He was stone-cold sober, and looking across the table from her, he knew she was, too. ‘It won’t be me,’ he told her. ‘If you’re smart, it won’t be anyone.’ He got out of the booth. ‘Do yourself a favor. Figure something else out.’
‘I’ve tried, believe me. At this point, there is nothing else.’
‘Guess I’ll see you on the news, then. Take care.’
The woman opened her purse, took out a card, and held it out to him. ‘In case you change your mind. Or want to talk more about it.’
He hesitated, then took the card from her hand. He would toss it later. He walked out of the bar, resisting the urge to look back.
THIRTEEN
‘I’m knitting a sweater for my grandson,’ Raquel informed Wycliff as she gathered up her yarn and needles and stowed them in her bag. ‘He’ll be three next month. Child runs his parents ragged.’ She washed her coffee cup and placed it in the sideboard. ‘Ricardo called. He can’t make it tonight. Family conflict.’
Wycliff knew that would happen some time or another, so he wasn’t surprised or upset. ‘How’s my brother?’
‘Holding his own. He slept most of the morning. His energy goes fast.’
Wycliff looked into the living room. Billy was sound asleep. His face was smooth, untroubled. As smooth as a baby’s ass, Wycliff thought. He had never had a kid, so that particular cliché was second-hand knowledge to him, but he understood the underlying sentiment. Babies and old people look the same: fresh and all wrinkled up at the same time. On the outside. Inside, not the same.
‘I’m not going to be able to come tomorrow, either,’ Raquel said. ‘So it’s you and him for awhile.’
‘That’s why I’m here.’ Which was true. Everything else was secondary. The abstraction was now the reality.
He closed the door behind Raquel and locked it, a reflex action from when he suspected everything and everybody and had to be constantly on guard, an old habit too ingrained to let go of. His present circumstances were better now, but they were still far from wine and roses: he had to deal with whatever crazy schemes Charlotte had up her sleeve, and then there was the off-the-wall encounter less than an hour ago with a woman who wanted to hire him to murder her dead husband’s daughter. What vibe did he send out that gave people the notion that he was some stranger you could out of the blue ask to commit a crime and his response would be where and when?
Only certain people picked that up, like Charlotte and that woman just now. People who carried their own sins and could smell out a kindred soul. Amelia had not seen that in him. He was going to make sure she didn’t.
Too much internal commotion. Slow everything down. Sit in this quiet house, watch his brother sleep. Charlotte had plans for them tonight. He needed to call and tell her to cancel them. Not a prospect to look forward to. It was early yet, he could hold that off a while longer.
He made himself a ham-and-cheese sandwich on rye and put on a fresh pot of coffee, Italian Roast he had bought and ground at Trader Joe’s, now his default grocery store. He had never been domestic like this before – his life had been a series of unconnected episodes, drifting from place to place, one crummy job to the next, no permanent relationships, no plan. He still didn’t have one, really. Whatever scheme he wound up doing with Charlotte was her thing, not his. And the idea that he could actually have any kind of real relationship with Amelia was a fantasy. He had nothing to offer her. They were flawed from the beginning, because he had lied to her from the first words out of his mouth. He would need a time machine to fix that, and what would he replace it with?
He would deal with all that later. He finished his sandwich and washed his dishes. He liked keeping a clean house. And with Billy here, so susceptible to infection, it was an absolute necessity.
He couldn’t put off calling Charlotte any longer. This would not be a fun phone call. Now that he had his new iPhone he would learn how to text, so he wouldn’t have to actually talk to her when he had bad news to deliver.
Suck it up, he rebuked himself. She’ll rant for a minute and then it will be over. He punched in her number.
There was dead silence for about ten seconds after he gave her the news. Then: ‘Did I hear you correctly?’
He told it again. ‘The caretaker can’t come tonight, so I have to stay here.’
‘Get a different one.’
He would learn how to text today. ‘It doesn’t work that way, Charlotte. It’s not like calling a babysitter. These people are specially trained to do this. You can’t just find someone in the Yellow Pages.’
Another long silence. His hand was sweating, holding the phone. ‘I find this unreasonable, Wycliff,’ she said, her voice icicle-sharp. ‘I’m sure you can work something out.’
Her narcissism was infuriating. ‘I wish I could, but it isn’t possible. Look, this isn’t something we should be arguing about over the phone. Come over here and we’ll discuss it face to face. You need to see what it’s like here, so you’ll understand.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ll explain when I see you, but not there. Not at your brother’s house.’
This is weird, he thought, not for the first time. Was there something between her and Billy that she didn’t want to confront? Maybe they’d had a falling out. Or maybe, like so many others who knew his brother, she couldn’t take seeing him as he was now.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ he told her, hanging firm, ‘but I’m stuck here tonight. I’ll do my best to work something out for tomorrow. Sorry to have messed up your plans.’
He hung up. He waited, prepared for a verbal reaming, but she didn’t call back.
On impulse, he called Amelia. She didn’t answer – he figured she was working – but he left a message. He couldn’t see her tonight, either, but he wanted to hear a friendly voice, and he knew she wouldn’t bust his balls over the phone.
What would it be like to be in a relationship with a woman who was just herself, who had no agenda? He could deal with schemers, he was a schemer himself. But someone who wasn’t shady, who in the world he’d always lived in would be thought of as a patsy, a mark to be played, how do you relate to someone like that? Lies came easier to Wycliff than the truth and always had, from the time he had learned that if he told the truth he would most likely get the snot kicked out of him.
Anyway, there was no future for him with Amelia. Some fun, some laughs, hopefully some good sex. But no legs. She would eventually figure him out and that would be the end of it. He could fool all of the people some of the time, but not forever.
And there was something else, square in his face. Billy was going to die soon. Maybe he could eke out a few more months, but it was deep in the fourth quarter and the clock was running out. Once his brother died, there would be nothing here for him. This house would go to whomever Billy had left it to in his will, ditto his money, and the older brother would be on his own again, out on his ass.
One hundred thousand dollars would go a long way to solving all his problems. He wished he hadn’t met that woman in the iPhone store. Life is simpler when you don’t have to make choices.
‘Wycliff? Are you here?’
His brother was awake.
‘Yeah, Billy, I’m right here. What do you need?’
Wycliff bathed his brother, powdered him dry, changed him into fresh clothes, and made him comfortable in the special chair in the living room. Billy’s complexion was sallow yellow. His liver was failing, Wycliff knew. Pretty soon everything would shut down, and then it would be days, not wee
ks.
Billy’s body was decaying from the inside, but his style was intact. Looking at himself in the mirror, he commented dryly, ‘I’ll need the makeup artist in my trailer, please. The genius who worked such miracles on Michael Jackson. He’s so good around the eyes. And while you’re up, would you pour me a glass of champagne? Have one for yourself as well. Imbibing by oneself is so uncivilized.’
Wycliff rummaged around the back of the refrigerator and found a bottle of Bollinger Reserve. Dusty champagne flutes (he knew what they were now) were in the breakfront. He rinsed two in the sink, popped the cork and poured two glasses. Handing one to his brother, he raised his glass in toast.
‘To a life worth living,’ he proposed.
Billy held his glass high. ‘That’s pretty heavy, Wycliff. I didn’t know you were such a deep thinker.’
‘I stole the quote off the back of a Wheaties box,’ Wycliff said. ‘The one that had the secret decoder ring inside.’
Billy smiled and sipped champagne. ‘Scrumptious. What do you think I should have for my last meal? Besides more champagne.’
They had been avoiding talking about Billy’s actually dying. Wycliff still didn’t want to. ‘We’ll worry about that when the time comes,’ he said, sounding more gruff than he meant. He had come here to watch his brother die and try to scope out a piece of the estate. Now he didn’t want Billy to go. Billy was prepared, but he, Wycliff, wasn’t.
‘The time has come,’ Billy answered. ‘We both know that. We’re just waiting for that hooded figure with the scythe to knock on the door.’
‘I don’t hear any knocking,’ Wycliff said. ‘So let’s leave it alone.’
Billy stared at him with sunken eyes. ‘You can do that. I can’t.’
‘Fair enough,’ Wycliff conceded. What goes through a dying person’s mind? Fear, relief, anxiety, wondering if there could actually be an afterlife after all? He didn’t have a clue. Just thinking about it paralyzed him.
‘But today, you’re alive. So let’s deal with today.’
Turn Left at Doheny--A tough-edged crime novel set in Los Angeles Page 11