“It’s called watchful waiting. We test you regularly, keep an eye on it. If anything happens, we should have plenty of time to remove it before it becomes a danger to you. You’re going to be fine, Walt, trust me.”
Doreen was having as much trouble believing all this as he was. “Isn’t there something for Walter to do?”
“Of course, keep on doing whatever he has been.”
“You mean, he’s okay?”
“That’s exactly what I mean, DeeDee.” He stood up. “I’ll see you in six months, Walt.”
28: Toasts All Around
SHE RECOGNIZED THE BEAUTIFUL FACE at once. “Why Hyacinth, how good to see you!”
“Do you remember me, DeeDee?”
“How could I forget, but what brings you to my shop?”
“I was walking by, saw your sign and…remembered you…as so…very nice…to me.”
DeeDee put her arm around her. “My dear, you’re crying, what’s the matter?”
“Everything.”
She remembered. “Didn’t your movie work out?”
Hyacinth wailed and shook her head at the same time. “It was horrible. Mr. Dragon sent me to a…porno flick. They wanted me to…and to—”
”You needn’t explain, dear, I can imagine.”
“I wouldn’t do it… I couldn’t. It was too…awful!”
“Of course, you couldn’t.” She hugged her. “I’m so proud of you.”
“You are?”
“Lots of girls wouldn’t have your courage.” She touched her chin. “Hyacinth, I want you to hold your head up and show that beautiful smile. Don’t be discouraged. You’ll get your movie career, if that’s what you want.”
She smiled. “Thank you, DeeDee, you’re—”
“Are you going back to your old job?”
“I can’t, not with Mr. Dragon there.”
“I doubt if you’ll see much of him, he’s in jail.”
“He is?”
“Not for what he did to you, but something far more serious. I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
“I still can’t go back there—ever!” She wailed anew. “What am I going to do, I need a job?”
She looked around her shop. “Karen has left me and I need someone. Do you think you’d like to work in a flower shop?”
“Oh yes, do you think I could?”
“With a name like Hyacinth, you’re a natural.”
Doreen took his arm as they mounted the steps. “Are we at the right place, love?”
“Josh said the Biltmore.” The Four Seasons Biltmore lay just down the beach from their house, and they wined and dined there often. “Who are we to quarrel with four-star elegance, not to mention poshness, a killer view and class?”
“Does he have any idea what a private party costs here?”
“Do you?”
“My inheritance.”
“You’ve already spent that.”
“On this gown, surely, but it is nice to dress elegantly for a change. You’re handsome in your tux, dear.”
“I don’t believe you. You once said I looked nice in my birthday suit.”
“You did, love, but that was a special occasion.”
They were inside now, crossing the tiled floor under the glorious painted ceiling. “Did you know you called me DeeDee?”
“Never.”
“Oh yes you did, at the gate when I was in the tower. I heard you distinctly.”
He stopped and turned to her. “Hmm. I wanted you back, even empty-headed.”
She smiled beautifully. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I can do better. Do you remember asking Phil Van Zant how long I had to live?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve been thinking about what I’d do if he’d said I only had a month?”
“And?”
“I’d go to bed with you—and die with a smile on my face.”
“You’re right, that is nicer. What if he’d said three months?”
“Now you’re talking big grin.”
Josh greeted them. “Here you are at last, the guests of honor.”
“I still don’t know what the occasion is.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
Byerly smiled at him. “I see you bought a comb.”
Josh touched his now flat hair and smiled sheepishly. “Granddad insisted.”
Everyone was there. Addie was radiant, Lupe lovely and Mandy beautiful. Jamie even wore a suit. But mostly Byerly was drawn to the figure in the wheelchair. He went to him, offered his hand, said, “Good to see you, Mr. Kinkaid.”
The old man held on to his hand, wouldn’t let go. “I understand I have you to thank for giving my grandson back to me.”
“I don’t think he’d really gone anywhere, sir. I think you just lost sight of him for awhile.”
“Well put, Byerly. I did sort of have blinders on, didn’t I? All my fault, falling for a woman like—”
“But what would we do without them, sir?”
Josh raised his voice. “I’d like to make a toast.” He raised his glass of wine. Doreen, holding Jamie, showed him how to lift his glass of ginger ale. “To Walt and DeeDee, for helping me get back my mother and my grandfather.”
“Just see that you don’t lose us again,” Addie said.
Later, at dinner, Byerly made his own toast. “Here’s to happy endings.”
“Here, here,” Lupe said.
“It’s hardly happy,” Doreen said, “with Mandy and Jamie going back to Boston. Must you?”
“I think it’s best. Cyn Wu and I can make a life there.”
“But I’ll miss this little one so much.” Jamie sat beside her in a high chair. She put her arm around him.
“I’ll write and phone, so will he when he’s older, and we’ll visit back and forth.”
“It had better happen that way. You promised to bring him next year.”
“Are you going to be okay financially?” Byerly asked. “Is the settlement from Wright enough?”
“He was generous in the end, a lump sum I’m saving for Jamie’s education, then monthly support payments. I’ll be better off than I’ve been in years.”
He saw her frown and shake her head. “But you didn’t want it this way?”
“I never wanted him to know, let alone wreck his career.”
“He did it himself, Mandy.”
“No, that’s not right, Walter.” Doreen looked at him. “Wright would probably be headed for the White House if not for Joy Fielding. She did him in.“
He nodded. “There was no need for any of it, bringing Mandy and Jamie out here, kidnapping her—”
“Mandy was never a threat to Justin Wright.”
He looked at Karl Kinkaid. “I’m sorry, we’re not being very tactful. She is still your wife.”
“Not for long. You’re right about her, of course. Joy couldn’t imagine such a thing as this girl’s decency. In her world people are always out for all they can get. My money wasn’t enough. She had to have power, too.”
“Like putting a man in the White House.”
He didn’t have enough backbone to be a man. Easy for her to play him for the fool he was.” He shook his head. “Me, too, I guess.”
Josh laughed. “I always called her the Dragon lady. I guess that’s who she really was, at least Victor Dragon thought so.” He turned to Lupe. “Is Joy going to jail?”
“For a long time. Victor Dragon is singing big time—and not just about the Gould murder. It seems he and Joy were into lots of shenanigans.”
“Will Dragon serve time?”
“Not as long as his ex-beloved, but he’s disbarred and ruined. He also implicated Dirk, the—”
“The pancake man.” He laughed. “Are we rid of him?”
“We found him and charged him. Seems he held Harry while Joy pulled the trigger.”
“None of them are much of a loss.” Doreen asked Lupe, “How has Sgt. Brogan fared
?”
She shrugged. “Not even a reprimand.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“It’s true, Walt. Buster came to his senses just in time, turned on Dragon, made the collar—”
“Thus saving his pension. Is he still giving you a bad time?”
“Some things never change. I asked him where he thought he’d be today if the Byerlys hadn’t solved his murder for him.” She imitated a deep, gruff voice. “The Bye-Byes had nothing to do with it. I had the case all solved when they butted in.”
Byerly joined the laughter, then lifted his glass. “I’d like to remember someone who couldn’t join us tonight. I asked him to come but….” He shrugged. “Let’s just say Henry Clay isn’t into tuxedos these days. We’d all scare him to death. But if poor Henry hadn’t seen and remembered a young woman’s kidnapping—”
“I’d still be in that tower—or worse,” Mandy said. “Thank Henry when you see him, will you?”
“And say Hi to him for me,” Addie said. “I may have been homeless only a short time, but I’ll remember it always and how close all of us are to the street.”
“Hear, hear.” Byerly sipped, then raised his glass again. “I’d like to make a special toast to that red-haired lady across the table.” He grinned. “With Lupe’s help, we did it.”
“I did nothing, it was all you two.”
Doreen laughed. “Very well, we’ll take the credit-for one thing especially. If we hadn’t taken Jamie in, they would have found him eventually and—” She shuddered.
“God knows what would have happened to him. You’re right there, darling.”
“I suppose you two are going into the detective business now,” Lupe said.
“It was sort of fun for Walt and me. We might—”
“Not on your life. We’re going back to—”
“Don’t bet on it, Walt.” Lupe laughed and others soon joined in.
A little later, Doreen put her hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “Remember what DeeDee taught you to say tonight?”
He looked puzzled.
“You remember.” She whispered in his ear.
Now he grinned beautifully and looked around shyly. “God bless us everyone.”
“Oh yes, darling.”
Other Books
OTHER BOOKS BY ROBERT A. LISTON
The Temple of Love
A Bye-Byes Mystery
The naked and drowned body of beauty queen Kellie Greene is no sooner found in her mother’s swimming pool than Walter and DeeDee Byerly, known to the cops as the Bye-Byes, begin to turn up information suggesting murder. First, Walter learns his snitch friend, Henry Clay, was beaten up, had his money stolen, and “saw the naked lady,” but did not look.
Soon DeeDee learns from Hyacinth Owens, the beauteous employee in her flower shop, that Kellie Greene was heavily involved in something called the Temple of Love. Despite warnings, DeeDee sets out to investigate, joining the temple and even donning the sheer costume guaranteed to foster love—and death.
Thus, do the Bye-Byes become embroiled in their most dangerous and challenging case, dealing not just with murder, but drugs, hypnotism, and sexual temptation. Aided by Latina detective Lupe Hernandez, they must use all the talents that make them the wittiest and most endearing sleuths since Nick and Nora Charles.
The Brandywine Game
Rogers was dead, Khruchenko was dead. Only Sloane survived…and the secret that was to have died with him in the little shop in Munich.
The defector had said that he could identify the mole, the Soviet agent who sat on the Committee, the group that ran the Agency. That's what Khruchenko said, but Sloane couldn’t even be certain they existed. But too much had gone wrong too many times for him to doubt that the mole was real. And, just maybe, he knew who it was, knew more than the code name “Parsley.”
But could he live long enough to do something with the information? The mole was in a position to use both American and Russian agents to get at Sloane, and he was taking advantage of that. All Sloane had on his side was a vacationing political science instructor, Freddie Falscape, and a finely honed tradecraft. Finally, the woman was willing to help. Now is was a matter of time…
Desire and Deceit
A gripping tale of lust, love, lies, and murder.
Sooner or later, in one way or another, everyone in this story lies. The result is a tangled web of envy, greed, and lust leading to misguided desires and murder. A real can’t-put-down page turner.
Someone She Knew
One by one, coeds at bucolic Hinsdale College are being sadistically murdered. Veteran Ohio detective Ralph Burroughs had never seen anything like these ghastly crimes.
There are no clues—except all the victims know their killer. They go off with him to their deaths. With great reluctance Burroughs allows Cassie Morgan, a young psychologist, to join the investigation. She believes she can attract the killer for Burroughs to catch. She does ID several suspects, but the murders continue. Burroughs and Cassie come to love each other deeply.
He worries constantly about her, but believes he has taken every precaution to protect her. Then as they lay a final trap for the killer, Cassie disappears.
The Pueblo Surrender
How the NSA manipulated the U.S. Navy, Pentagon, White House, Congress, tricked the North Koreans, Russians and Chinese, almost caused a war, and concealed the truth for over 40 years.
On January 23, 1968, the North Koreans seized the U.S.S. Pueblo. The incident sent shock waves around the world-almost started a war-and has been the focus of controversy and contradiction ever since. Investigative reporter Robert Liston uncovered startling information to support a remarkable conclusion: The Pueblo was purposely surrendered in a covert mission conceived and carried out by the National Security Agency, a super-secret branch of U.S. intelligence.
Liston produces documented evidence to show that the Pueblo, controlled by NSA operatives, was used as bait to draw the Soviet Union and Red Chinese into an NSA trap—an operation that enabled the NSA to break the Soviet system of codes, put the KGB on the defensive for years, and stop a possible war between the Soviets and Chinese.
For the first time, author Liston brings to light a true story of international intrigue hidden from the American public, from Congress, even from the White House. He goes inside the U.S. intelligence apparatus and reveals how the Pueblo incident may have shaped and controlled American foreign policy and superpower politics for more than twenty years.
The Tower of Evil (Bye-Bye Mysteries) Page 21