by Anne McClane
“Oh, yeah?” Lacey was relieved. He must be referring to his beloved easement-planted crape myrtles, taking the attention off her.
Every year the city of New Orleans threatened to cut them down, and every year nothing happened. There were six of them, and each blossomed a different color, and they were magnificent. Lacey remembered the buds and thought of the bounty to come.
“Did they give you a date this time?” Lacey asked.
“Nope. Same exact letter as last year, just a different date at the top. No signature, no teeth, no problem.” He took a drag off his cigarette without tapping out the ashes.
“I don’t know, Mr. Max. Don’t you worry about them rolling up unannounced and trying to cut them down?”
“I’ll see them if they do. And Gabi here will scare them away if they try to touch those trees.” He gave a slight yank on the lead, and the miniature poodle gave a little growl in response.
Lacey laughed. She knew he wasn’t posturing. “Well, I can send Ambrose over in that case, to help out.”
“I’m surprised you went jogging,” Kravitz said, changing the subject again.
Lacey’s heart started pounding wildly. Had he seen her in the middle of the night? He would say something if he had, she knew. Did he know this was a hastily constructed cover story?
“You know I have to get out early in the summer, to beat the heat.”
“I guess it works, because you’re not sweating at all.” He blew smoke out in a long blue line and jangled the leash, another twinkle in his eye.
Is that all he meant? Lacey wasn’t sure. “Oh, yeah?” She looked down at her shirt. “Huh! I didn’t notice. There was a great breeze at the river.”
“Some breeze,” he cackled. “Too bad it hasn’t made its way out here yet.”
“Maybe it will, before your walk is over,” Lacey replied.
Kravitz started to move on, and then stopped. “Oh, hey. Tell your friend not to park by the trees.”
Lacey panicked again. Was he referring to Nathan? No, that didn’t make any sense.
He saw her confusion. “The little girl with the big truck?” He sounded like a frog.
“Oh! You mean my friend Angele.” Angele had made a quick stop off at Lacey’s the week before in a catering truck. Lacey knew Angele’s job could call for her to do anything and everything, but she’d still looked funny, like a child behind the wheel.
“Yeah, I told her as soon as she did it,” Lacey continued. “It won’t happen again.”
“Well, I’m sure a few minutes won’t do any harm, just wanted to be sure it didn’t become a habit.”
“Yeah, don’t worry, Mr. Max.”
“I never do, little Lacey!” he replied as he resumed his walk.
Fat chance of that being true, Kravitz, she thought as she walked into the house.
Lacey only had occasional visitors, and most of them were related to her. Almost all of them knew not to park anywhere near Kravitz’s house, or the illicit crape myrtles. If a tire rested on even a single blade of his grass, she would hear about it.
As Lacey walked into her laundry room, she began to shake uncontrollably. She was overcome with a chill.
“How the hell does this happen in this heat?” she asked as Ambrose approached her. He put his massive body up against her legs when he saw her shivering.
She let Ambrose lead her to the sofa, and she sat down and grabbed the cashmere throw that was perpetually draped over the side. She wrapped herself up and stared straight ahead, phone and keys still clutched in her right hand. Ambrose set his chin on the cushion beside her. She reached out her left hand and stroked his head.
She released her phone and keys when she couldn’t stop her hand from shaking. She looked at the phone like it was infected, thinking of the new contact she had just stored. She and Nathan had exchanged numbers. It had seemed prudent at the time, like exchanging details at the scene of an accident.
How long had he been married? Did his wife often walk out on fights? How had he just happened across the people who had tried to kill him? How could he have survived being shot at close range? She knew he’d left something out. Several things, probably.
But she wouldn’t call him. Hopefully, she’d never have to speak to him again. If he wasn’t going to go to the police with his story, then her involvement in whatever had happened could remain hidden. Something just between the two of them.
And maybe just one other person for now. She had to tell Angele. It was still before seven a.m., but this warranted a wake-up call. Her teeth had stopped chattering enough that she thought she could talk. She called three times before Angele picked up.
The words poured out of Lacey as she gave her account of the previous five hours. When she was finished there was a weighted silence on the other end of the line.
“You still there?” Lacey asked.
“Yeah. Jesus! Give me a minute,” Angele responded.
Lacey felt the crush of remorse. She’d never imagined she couldn’t tell Angele. Or shouldn’t tell Angele. Why was it taking so long for her to say anything?
“If I didn’t know you as well as I do, I’d think you had a psychotic break,” she finally said.
That was not the response Lacey had hoped for. “You think I’m crazy,” she said.
“No. Well, yes, but not that type of crazy,” Angele said. “Maybe just temporarily that type of crazy. Maybe you’re in a fugue state.”
“A what?” The word made Lacey laugh.
“A fugue state. An altered state of consciousness characterized by delusions and unexplained wandering.”
“I know what a fugue state is,” Lacey said. It was partially true. “I don’t think I’m in a fugue state.”
“Don’t dismiss it so quickly. Say you are. Your judgment would be so impaired that you wouldn’t have awareness of it.”
“But that’s why I don’t think I am. That’s just the thing. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more grounded,” Lacey replied. She released her grasp on the blanket as her body temperature returned to normal.
“So do you believe Dinner Jacket, then?” Angele asked.
“About what part?”
“All of it.”
“He’s leaving stuff out, I know,” Lacey replied. “But he didn’t seem like he was lying when he talked about seeing me and a light. And he is very much alive now, but when I first saw him I thought he was surely dead.”
Lacey thought of how crazy that sounded. She could picture Angele’s reaction—a relaxed posture betrayed by tight lips and tapping fingers. Lacey cringed at the thought.
“So you say he didn’t seem like he was lying,” Angele said, “but you also said he seemed a little nuts when he told that part of the story. It’s the level of conviction that draws the line between normal and crazy.”
Lacey didn’t understand what she meant, but didn’t want clarification. “So you think he’s crazy,” she said.
“You don’t? Do you believe you have magical powers? Because if you do, that’s a different conversation, and we can leave Dinner Jacket out of it. That would put us back to the fugue state.”
Lacey didn’t respond.
Angele guessed what she was thinking. “Crap. If you do have some sort of mutant powers, and I’m only finding out about them now, I’m going to be really pissed.”
Lacey shook her head. “Only you. I think I’ll opt for crazy, just to not be a disappointment to you. And listen for a second, Lee,” Lacey added. “Say I am a mutant, then this is the first time my powers—whatever they are—ever manifested. And you’re the first person I called. You can’t be pissed about that.”
“Shit,” Angele said. “You really do think something happened. Whether you’re losing it, or whether you really are a mutant, this is huge either way.”
“I know,” Lacey said, her remorse notching down. She felt a strange level of comfort at having her crisis summed up so succinctly.
“The naked part’s pretty weird,” Angele sai
d. “A fugue state might explain that.”
Lacey’s anxiety spiked again. “I’m trying to forget that part. So let’s say, just to analyze, that I am going crazy. What caused it?”
“Grief,” Angele said without hesitation.
“Why now? Why after so much time has passed?”
“These things don’t follow a set schedule, Lace.”
“I hate that,” Lacey responded.
“Are you going to be okay? Do you need me to come over?” Angele asked. Lacey knew she wouldn’t ask if she wasn’t absolutely ready to follow through. But she also knew it would require a major restructuring of her plans. She had a rare day off from the production, and she had promised to spend most of the day with her parents.
“No, no, I’ve got to get some sleep,” Lacey said. Eventually.
“Hey, what about Tuesday night? Could you do dinner?” It was unlike Angele to be so proactive.
She must really be worried, Lacey thought. But she was ready to jump on the offer until another familiar set of anxieties fell upon her.
“Shit,” Lacey said. “You don’t know how much I wish I could. But that’s the Tonti dinner.”
“Ohhh,” Angele replied. “I’m sorry for you. But maybe you can see what she thinks about Dinner Jacket.”
“Funny,” Lacey said.
Fox’s Aunt Evangeline, a.k.a. Tonti, was a small doses person. But Lacey was indebted to her for the invaluable assistance she had provided after Fox’s death. More than anyone else, she had helped Lacey navigate the legal waters of the insurance proceeds, and the more complex matter of Fox’s trust from his mother’s side. The dinner date was nonnegotiable.
“Can’t wait to hear how that goes,” Angele said. “I’ll definitely see you next Saturday, right?” There was another movie-crew night out in the works.
“Yeah. If I haven’t fugued myself into another dimension by then,” Lacey said.
“I won’t let that happen. I want to hear from you every day,” Angele said. Also atypical.
“Huh. Okay. You want to keep a record of my psychosis?” Lacey asked.
“Correction. Keep it up. I’ve got reams of data on you. Could be a bestseller.”
“Glad you think so,” Lacey said, taking a beat. “Hey. Sorry for calling so early.”
“I would have been mad if you hadn’t.”
“Okay. Give your folks my love when you see them.”
“They already have it. I’ll check in with you tonight.”
“Thanks.”
Lacey set her feet on Ambrose, who had settled into a favorite spot between the couch and the coffee table. She thought for a bit about mutants. She liked them better than angels. She checked the skin on her arm to make sure it wasn’t turning scaly and blue.
6
Lawrence LaSalle slipped into his office after nine p.m. on Sunday. He was a hardworking and astute businessman; no one who happened to be watching the quiet oak-lined Uptown street would have occasion to think anything amiss. “Poor Larry,” Mrs. Von Lubbe two doors down might say, “can’t seem to leave his work behind, even late on a lazy summer night.”
Which is fine, he thought. Work and savvy had earned him a level of prosperity that finally justified his family’s place in the upper tiers of New Orleans society. But it was this other pursuit that would secure his legacy. This other venture required his attention now.
He paused at Nathan’s office door before he pulled out the mobile phone he had acquired earlier that day. He felt bile rise in his throat at the thought of the presence that typically occupied that small, unkempt space. It had come to that end—Nathan made him physically ill. That was why he was taking action. Indeed, the germ of the idea had come last November when LaSalle had not been able to come to the office, bedridden for three days with the flu. He had not missed a day of work (not counting vacations, when he typically closed the office, anyway) in over thirty years. He was less afraid of death than of the prospect of his son-in-law taking over the business. In a fevered imagining, his living pain was gone: a dreadful accident, a random violent crime, a mysterious disappearance.
When the fever had broken, and reason had slowly returned, it had been too late. The seed had been planted. There could be only one way to keep his business whole, to make sure his daughter and grandchildren had full rights to the fortune he had fought so hard for, scrimped and saved and measured so carefully for.
Once he’d made the right contact, the whole process had seemed suspiciously easy. So in a way, he was not surprised that last night had not gone according to plan. His contact had even hinted that it was a possibility. “We might have to put out multiple feelers” was the term he had used. “You have to surrender any expectation on timing” had been another hint.
Lawrence LaSalle did not think he was out of line in placing a call to his contact. It was a business arrangement, and he was merely checking in. He tried to keep a professional demeanor. He knew from experience that ultimate success is often comprised of many small failures. But the fact that his son-in-law was still in this world when he was already preparing his funeral was a grave disappointment.
He moved on to his own office. In sharp contrast to Nathan’s, LaSalle’s was spacious and tidy with a large walnut desk filling the center of the room. The Eames Office chair was a conspicuous modern luxury amidst a setting that evoked a more genteel era. But he’d never found one that suited him better, so he’d learned to ignore the incongruity. He sat in the chair, assumed a posture that might suggest he was placing a call to his broker, and dialed the number he had memorized and never written down.
“Yes.” It had taken eight rings for his contact to pick up.
“This is Roark,” LaSalle responded authoritatively.
There was an audible sigh on the other end of the line. “I know who you are.”
LaSalle did not want to waste any more time. “I just wanted to make sure another…feeler is in play.”
The silence on the other end seemed interminable. And then, finally, “Yes. Do not call again. We will be in touch.” Then dead air.
Lawrence LaSalle’s face darkened. He stared at the phone and swallowed the urge to redial. Instead, he hurled the phone across the expanse of his office. It landed squarely against the pane of the second tier of his barrister bookcase. A spiderweb of cracks appeared, obscuring the twenty-year-old picture behind the pane, from his daughter’s debutante ball.
7
Lacey stood paralyzed at Trip’s massive oak desk. It was ironic that someone who did so little work required such a large desk. She stared at the ridiculous picture she’d seen a thousand times before. He stood alone, a towering papier-mâché creature in the background. It was affixed to the float he rode in Rex. Lacey was never sure if the creature was a duck or a dragon or some horrid combination. Trip was dressed in garish purple and orange satin, a mask atop his head like a headband, the Superman-style swoop at his forehead intact. Trip went to the same barbershop he’d gone to as a boy, where every time he received the same boys’ haircut. Trip could be attractive, if he updated his look to this century.
The mask atop his head was the same one all the riders on his float wore, standard Mardi Gras fare, but their ubiquity didn’t make them any less frightening. They’d always reminded Lacey of the mask Michael Myers wore in the Halloween movies. She wondered if Nathan rode in a parade. Maybe Nathan was Michael Myers. Maybe she had saved a psychotic killer.
A thousand thoughts flitted in and out of Lacey’s mind on Monday morning at the office, but two feelings predominated. One, she was relieved Trip was not in the office and likely wouldn’t be at all today. Two, she didn’t need Double Time. Between lack of sleep and a general sense of terrified awe over what had transpired during the weekend, she wandered around the office like a zombie, trying to focus on anything but accomplishing nothing.
She could have called in sick. There was something wrong with her, wasn’t there? She still had amnesia. Not a lot of it, but enough. She tho
ught of Kafka, and the salesman who couldn’t go to work because he had turned into a giant bug. That was why she had come to the office. She felt fine. She felt very good, in fact. Just tired. And if she was turning into some freakish creature, she wanted to go about her normal life for as long as she could.
Lacey couldn’t remember why she was in Trip’s office. She had entered for some reason, and become fixated on the picture. It was an enduring symbol of his narcissism, a picture of his own self at his own desk. She knew it had been taken during the Great Tragic Season, because he never failed to mention that every time he recounted the story. Which had always seemed odd to her, but she had never given it much thought. Until today. She looked at it in a different way. Why would he keep a reminder of his greatest disappointment in such plain view?
A business card from Gus Savin lay conspicuously on the glass protector top, like a silent clue. It was the only other thing on his desk. Trip could not abide clutter. Savin’s card had a new design, Lacey noted. An S stood out at the center of a fountain. It looked elegant, not overdone, if a bit old-fashioned. Appropriate for an antiques guy, Lacey thought.
While she couldn’t quite figure out why Trip kept that particular picture on his desk, she knew exactly why Savin’s card was there. She predicted the conversation, once Trip was back in the office. He would want to know if he should get a logo too.
“Should I get a logo, Becnel?” Trip would ask.
“I’m not sure, Trip. I kind of think your name is brand enough. Strong enough to stand on its own,” she would say.
He would give a self-satisfied nod. And he would go on, entertaining what his logo might look like, even though he didn’t need one. Several variations of triple C’s stacked or contained within each other.
But again she doubted herself. Maybe the conversation wouldn’t go that way. Maybe there was more to Trip than she had ever realized. Or perhaps that was a bit much. Though she conceded that he could have motives that were hidden to her. That seemed more likely.