“It looks like the place has been cleaned up,” Rabbit said, taking in the view. I observed that the floors had been mopped clean of sticky wine and there were no signs of shattered glass.
“Let’s hope the money is still in that hole,” I said.
“Here’s to finding out,” Vivienne said. She rushed to the entrance to the hole and slid the grate carefully out of place without making a sound, and the way she did it was nothing short of acrobatic. She leveled one foot into the hole and then descended down using the rope and disappeared. I looked at Rabbit, who was nervously tapping his foot, and I held my breath while we waited for her to call up and report her findings from the hole.
I let a moment pass before calling to her. “Viv? You find anything down there?” There was no response. I turned to Rabbit. My eyes were round as planets.
“Vivienne?” he echoed my call. The nerves were obvious. His exploding irises let me know that if any harm had come to Vivienne, he would kill me.
“Jackpot!” she cried out from the hole.
I looked over at Rabbit and noticed that a smile had managed to crack his stiff lips for the first time that night.
“Now we just have to wait for Motley to show up,” I said.
“I doubt he is just going to get an urge to come down and grab a bottle of wine,” Rabbit conjectured. “He could already be asleep for all we know.”
Vivienne banged on the limestone wall inside the hole. “Maybe we should do something to get his attention.”
“Good idea.” I set my eyes on Rabbit.
“What?” he asked, knowing me well enough to deduct that an evil thought was brewing in my mind.
I launched both hands at his thin chest, shoving him into one of the wine racks. His body fell backwards and knocked over several bottles, sending cascading splinters of glass shattering all around us.
He quickly straightened himself up while crunching glass beneath his feet. “What the hell did you do that for? You need to check your anger issues, Alice.”
“I don’t have anger issues. I just needed to make a little raucous so that Motley hears us and comes down to check.” A sudden rush of footsteps could be heard patting down the grain of the hallway. “Looks like it worked.”
The door to the wine cellar flew open, pouring in light from the hallway. In a millisecond, a large, billowy figure dissipated the light into scattered beams against the surface of the shiny bottles in the room.
It was Motley. He was pissed.
He was standing in the doorway with his feet agape and his arms balled into fists at his side. His irises had an unhealthy butterscotch tinge floating in them. Before I knew it, he was a bull on parade, charging towards me.
Chapter Forty-five: The Story of Pat Leor
“HEY THERE, OLD friend.” It was fun to taunt him. I positioned myself with my legs apart and my shoulders out so that my body concealed the open hole behind me. I was counting on his anger to blindside him.
“You!” Motley gave an animalistic snarl and hastened towards me with his arms out in preparation to choke me. He smashed into me with all of his weight and we crashed onto the floor together. He rolled on top of me and spread his hands over my throat with his thumbs pressuring my air pipe. I kicked my knee into his spine as I attempted to loosen him off. I completely underestimated his raw, rabid strength.
“Ra-bb-it,” I gurgled through my constricted throat, “help me!”
Rabbit got behind Motley and tugged at his arms from behind, trying to pry his red, throbbing fingers from around my neck.
In the midst of the commotion, a cutting light bathed over us as the door to the wine cellar swung open again. Motley eased his grip on me just long enough to turn his head towards the door, and I strained my eyes to the side and saw a pair of bare feet with a halo of green jade surrounding them. My eyes followed the legs upward, and I saw Cleopatra, dressed in a green silken robe, with her hair celestially tied in a gathering down the side of her face.
“What is this?” she demanded to know. She was gazing down at Motley and I rolling on the floor. She rushed towards us. The ties on her supple robe came undone in the front, breezing in the air behind her like a majestic cape. Frantically, she pulled a bottle of wine from the shelf and hefted it into the air and swung it at the back of Rabbit’s head. He fell backwards and hit the ground with a thud. Without Rabbit’s obstruction, Motley was able to dedicate his full strength to throttling my neck. “What the heck is all this?” Cleopatra demanded to know again, as she stood over our intermingled bodies. The frilly hem of her robe tickled my nose like moth wings.
I barely had any breath left in me. I knew it was now or never. “Now! Vivienne!” I rasped. Coming up behind Motley, I saw a circle of rope fly up from the hole like a cobra rising. The rope made a vicious hiss as it sliced through the air and dropped over Motley’s shoulders. As the rope snagged his shoulders, his eyes bulged in disarray and confusion. Vivienne performed a swift tug which sent him sliding backwards into the face of the hole. He disappeared like he had been sucked down a wind tunnel.
I crouched like a spider to steady my balance. I looked up at Cleopatra looming above me, the bell sleeves of her robe draped down beyond the arch of her shoulders, revealing the frankness of her bare skin. “You’re really going to pay for that,” she screamed. Her red hair, tied up in that loose gathering over her shoulder, looked like an exotic vine against the luscious green silk robe. She began charging towards me, her seductive eyes having transformed into something maniacal.
My hands were roving behind my back, tracing along the trestles of wine to find a glass neck to grab, and when I found one, I pulled it out and swung it at her.
Cleopatra ducked. Something about the bottle caught her eye, and she gave it an engrossing look. “Do not destroy that bottle,” she commanded. The comment seemed out of place.
“Why not?” I wanted to know.
“Because,” she said, perhaps suddenly aware of the indecency caused by her cleaving robe as she brought the ends of the belt together and retied it, “it’s important to me. Sentimental, if you will.”
“This bottle is sentimental to you?” I was bringing the bottle into the orbit of my face to read the wording on its resplendent silver label. June 21st 1997. Leon and Patricia Leor.
“Please don’t smash it,” she said.
“Who is Patricia Leor?” A creeping feeling was swirling through my body from the astronomical strangeness of holding a bottle with the same name as the alias I had purchased from the cart dealer in London.
“You don’t need to know that.”
“This looks like a keepsake from a wedding,” I remarked. “Why would this be in Motley’s wine cellar? Does Motley know the Leors?”
“It is from a wedding, Alice. But the Leors aren’t friends of Motely.”
Rabbit moaned on the floor and one of his arms jerked as he regained consciousness. “What happened?”
“Shhh, Rabbit,” I harked. I didn’t want the fact that he was awake preventing Cleopatra from telling me more. I turned back to Cleopatra. “Why would you be concerned with whether or not I destroy this bottle?”
“Because it’s from my wedding day.”
“You’re Patricia Leor?”
“I am. And Motley is Leon Leor. Or at least he was in his past life. In his real life.”
Rabbit propped himself up by the elbows, his barely-there eyebrows scrunched together, and he exclaimed, “You’re the ex-wife Motley hates?”
Cleopatra passed him a scathing look. “We were recently reconciled.”
“I’ve been you,” I said. “I’ve been Patricia C Leor.”
“What the heck are you talking about, Alice?”
“I bought your old passport from an identity broker in London.”
Cleopatra shook her head, as though the information I was relaying was completely intolerable. “That scum bag, Wally, probably recycled my identification after I swapped it out for the one I bought from him. I knew I shou
ldn’t have trusted him.”
“He is known for some less than virtuous business practices,” I remarked.
“I’m surprised it took you so long to figure out my name,” she said, tugging the bottle from my grip and gazing at it with neither affection nor hatred. “I got the name Cleopatra by mixing around some of the letters in my real name.”
“So you’re the wife Motley hated so much,” I affirmed. “I guess it doesn’t really surprise me. Tell me, is that key you always wear around your neck on a velvet string the key to Motley’s heart?”
She twisted the silver key between her fingers. “No, dear, it’s a key to a safety deposit box in Johannesburg that stores my stolen diamonds.”
My eyes dilated at the shimmer of the key, and something covetous welled up inside me. I could feel my fingers trickling towards the key. Rabbit was getting six million dollars as a parting gift, and I wouldn’t mind a second-place prize of diamonds.
“I got it!” Vivienne interrupted. The top of her head was crowning up from out of the hole now. “I got the bag!” She had the bag of money slung on one arm and blotchy scratch marks all down her neck from Motley’s blunted fingernails. From the bottom of the hole, Motley moaned a deep, guttural sound that originated in pit of his throat.
“You are all going to pay for what you’ve done.” Cleopatra was livid. She zipped by me, her robe loosening with her motion, and kneeled down to cock her ear into the hole. “Leon, my dear, are you alright down there?”
“You’ve made this too easy,” I said. I shoved my silver stiletto into the small of her back and jettisoned her into the hole. Her robe fluttered around her like mossy plumes of ethereal smoke as she spun downwards like a fallen angel. I saw the key catch its shine one last time. Her thrashing limbs made a thud when she landed on top of Motley.
“You bitch!” Cleopatra’s voice funneled from the depth of the hole.
I twirled around to Rabbit and Vivienne. “Okay, guys, let’s push one of these heavy wine racks over the hole so they can’t climb out.” Rabbit and Vivienne took hold of opposing ends of the nearest wine rack and began shoving it towards the hole.
I was certain it was a foolproof method. My confidence was quickly dashed as I felt something raw and wet clasp my ankle. I looked down and saw a red, throbbing hand circling my skin as it clenched my ankle from the abyss of the hole. “You shouldn’t have done this,” Motley seethed, his torso wiggling upwards on Vivienne’s rope as his fingers pulsed around my ankle. Beyond him, I could see Cleopatra’s shiny, she-devil eyes flicker in the dark. I tried to kick him off of me but he squeezed my ankle with an iron grip. Rabbit and Vivienne stopped what they were doing and came to my side. Vivienne stomped his hand with her thorny stiletto.
His fingers were bloodied and braided by the time he let go and he fell back down into the hole, clutching my high heel shoe in his fist. As he flew back backwards, I saw the note concealed inside my shoe fly up into the air like a paper bird. I stood over the hole and watched it flutter to the bottom of the hole to meet its destiny.
“Quick,” I called out, “we need to cover the hole before he tries anything again.” As a trio, we raked the shelf over the hole. Rabbit bundled the bag of money underneath his arm. We walked the threshold back into the hallway and I took one last lingering look at all of the compartments of the house, the pool room and poker room, scenes to such unforgettable moments. Vivienne’s spiked heel dragged spots of the blood she had drawn from Motley’s hand down the hallway like thin tire tracks.
Chapter Forty-six: The Wife
WHEN WE GOT back outside, the cold frigid air and falling snow felt good against my calescent skin. My heart was still thumping in my chest.
“Wow.” Rabbit was heaving to catch his breath. “You really did it, Alice. You got the money back just like you promised.”
“You came through,” Vivienne said. Her glossy petunia lips graced my cheek with a soft kiss. “You put helping Rabbit above protecting yourself against your own fear.”
“I just can’t believe Cleopatra is the ex-wife that Motley always moaned about. I can’t believe they reconciled,” I said.
“If you ask me,” Vivienne said, “they look like they deserve each other.”
“So, Alice,” Rabbit cut in, “I guess your hunch about Ophelia Le Fur being the ex-wife he was always hating on was totally wrong?”
“Yeah, I guess it was. But I still wonder what Ophelia’s motive was, and how she was so damn good at tailing us.”
“I think we can quit worrying about her now, Alice. There hasn’t been any action from her in months, she’s probably moved on to something else or maybe she pissed off the wrong person and wound up dead.”
“I suppose you’re right. But she seemed so determined. I just hope she doesn’t pop up ever again and raise hell.”
“It’s too late for her to do anything to us now, Alice. I’ve got my money, and after we make a quick phone all, Motley is going to be in the trunk of a homeland security van on his way back to prison.” His eyes dived to the pavement. “The only reason she would come after you is if she thinks you still have the dynamite stick and she catches wind of you trying to sell it.”
“I don’t plan on keeping the dynamite stick much longer, but I’m not going to sell it.” I knew I had to tell Rabbit the rest of my plan, and it might not make him happy. “You might not like what I do next.”
“What is it, Alice? I mean, you already got me shot and stole my money once. Can it get worse?”
“Let me just lay out my plan for the evening and you can tell me how bad you think it is.” Rabbit nodded in agreement. “First, I’m going back to my boyfriend’s apartment.”
Rabbit’s eyebrow shot up like a lightning bolt. “You have a boyfriend?”
“Yeah you might say I have a little Ting of my own going on. It’s Ben, the doctor who removed the bullet from your foot. The plan is that I go back to his apartment and I get the dynamite stick from where I’ve been hiding it. Then I phone in a call the U.S. State Department and tell them the whereabouts of one a Mr. Leon Leor, known fugitive and, more recently, attempted briber of American diplomats.”
“So far this all sounds fine with me, Alice.”
“But I haven’t finished. There is another part you might not like, and that part is that I’m going to hand over the dynamite stick to them too.”
“You mean you don’t plan on destroying it?”
“No. I’m tired of running. It turns out the secret I was running from this whole time wasn’t what I thought it was. But I know you never wanted to go back to the way things were. I know you don’t want to go back to being Lenny Rabitz.” I cut a coy smile. “Rumor has it he was a loser.”
Rabbit’s hand was on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Alice. Do what you think is right. I have six million dollars and woman who loves me and I don’t care if I have to answer to the name Lenny Rabitz again.” Vivienne leaned her chin onto Rabbit’s shoulder and kissed his cheek. “Vivienne loves me for who I am, and once you find someone who loves you for you really are you can stop being a liar.” Rabbit leaned into Vivienne and they did that snuggly thing with their noses that I once heard someone call an Eskimo kiss.
A did a pert cough. “I better go and get a head start on my plan in that case.”
Rabbit and Vivienne wished me luck and resumed their kisses. I treaded back in the direction of Ben’s apartment. The streets were lined with lamplight halos and the dusting of snow turned my toes numb. What Rabbit said really stuck to me, When you find someone who loves you for who you are, you can stop being a liar. Ben loved me for who I was. Heck, he even loved me when he was under the impression I was a sleaze dancer from Pigalle. After tonight, after I turned over the dynamite stick, I wouldn’t have to be a liar anymore. I was free to love. I would just be a normal girlfriend and Ben and I could really be together. Maybe forever. I hoped forever.
* * *
I returned to Ben’s apartment building. As I climbed the stairs, I
could hear Christmas music seeping from under the doors of Ben’s neighbors. When I got inside the apartment, I brushed off the snow and rushed to the bathroom to retrieve the dynamite stick from the linen closet. I set it down on the edge of the sink and looked at myself in the mirror. My blond hair was a matted, stringy nest and my lips were colorless. I lit up a cigarette and gave myself a smile in the mirror. “You’re almost done now.”
I went into the kitchen and grabbed the telephone directory. I found the page for the U.S. Embassy in Paris. I was unhooking the phone from its cradle when I heard the sudden sound of sleigh bells on the other side of the door. It took me a moment to recognize it as the jostling of keys.
“Ben?” I called out. The door swung open, blasting in a chill from the hallway. “You’re back early.”
“Looks like I will have Christmas Eve with you, after all,” he cheerfully announced. He was draping his scarf on the hook by the door and brushing the snow from his shoulders.
“Slow night at the ER?” I asked, watching him kick off each of his frost-lined boots.
“They scheduled too many of us on the overnight shift. It was a quieter Christmas Eve than they anticipated.”
I snapped the phone directory shut and jumped to my feet. “That is fabulous news. Maybe we can go out and get something to eat or just order in some takeout.”
“Sure. Just give me a second to use the bathroom. I’ve been holding it in since the hospital.” He went into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. “So what kind of food are you thinking?” he called through the door.
“How about Tai?” I asked, nervously looking at the phone and wondering when I would have a chance to sneak out and finish my plan. “I could go pick it up since you just got in.”
“I haven’t had pizza in a while.”
I walked over to the drawer where we kept the takeout menus. “But I really like that Tai place we ordered from last time. What do you think about that?” A few seconds of dead air occurred where he didn’t answer me. I wondered if my shaky voice was making him suspicious of me. “Ben?”
Generation of Liars Page 33