“Here’s the thing, Grace, not only was he mentally and physically impressive, he could be relied upon to use both those endowments sparingly. With discretion. With taste. But when you needed him, he was damn there, Grace. Drunken townies thinking they could kick the stuffing out of us, they learned their lesson fast.”
The image of Malcolm duking it out in a Somerset dive would’ve amused Grace, if she’d been capable of feeling anything.
She let Gardener prattle on, pretending to listen.
Professional training coming in handy.
—
Since learning of the catastrophe, she’d retreated into an insensate fog, as if locked in a sterile glass bubble where her eyes worked mechanically but couldn’t process and her ears were unplugged speakers. When she took a step, she knew she was moving, but she felt as if someone else was pushing the buttons.
Her brain was flat and blank as unused paper.
It was all she could do to sit and stand and walk.
She figured she was faking normal pretty well because no one at the funeral seemed to be regarding her with over-the-top pity.
The guests were faculty and students, Gardener and his wife, a plump woman named Muriel, and the ever-silent Mike Leiber, dressed like a bum and lurking at the rear with that odd, spacey look on his now-gray-bearded face. A brief touching speech by Gardener, who choked up at every other sentence, was followed by overly long bullshit orations delivered by professors from Malcolm’s and Sophie’s departments.
Then: cheese and crackers and bland white wine on the beach as the waves lapped and the sky finally turned charcoal.
As everyone left, one thing struck home: Grace was the only family present. She knew neither Malcolm nor Sophie had living relatives but until then had never thought much about it. Standing alone, watching what remained of them settle to silt on the water, only to be washed away, she realized how alone they’d been before taking her in.
Did that explain it?
Could any act of nobility—or evil—ever be explained fully?
No, there had to be more, she was being pathologically analytic because damn it to hell she felt ready to explode.
Malcolm and Sophie deserved better than dime-store analysis.
Malcolm and Sophie had loved her.
—
The day after the funeral, she was alone in her apartment and finally able to cry. She did little but cry for a week and when Gardener showed twice during that time, she ignored his knock. For the next two weeks, she stopped taking his calls. Same for calls from patients and referral sources. Leaving a “family emergency” message on her voicemail. Good time for the Haunted to think about someone other than themselves.
On the morning of the fifteenth day after It Happened, Gardener showed up again and Grace supposed she could tolerate him. She cracked the door. Mike Leiber was with him and suddenly Grace didn’t feel like letting either of them in.
“Yes, Ransom?”
“You all right, dear? Haven’t heard from you.”
“I’m coping.”
“Yes…we’re all struggling to cope—may we chat for a moment?”
Grace hesitated.
“It’s important,” said Gardener.
Grace didn’t reply and Gardener edged closer. “I promise not to get all soppy, Grace. Sorry if I took advantage of your tolerance.”
Behind him, Mike Leiber stared into space. Grace wanted to hit him.
Gardener said, “Please, Grace? It’s for your sake. Matters that absolutely need to be dealt with.” Sounding like a lawyer again. Mike Leiber’s eyes remained flat as pond pebbles.
Gardener put his hands together, as if in prayer.
Grace undid the chain.
—
She led both men to her kitchen where Gardener placed a large crocodile-hide briefcase on the table and drew out a pile of documents. Leiber seated himself facing Grace but turned away immediately and busied himself with her refrigerator door. A host of diagnoses sprang into Grace’s mind. She blocked them. Who cared?
As Gardener arranged his papers, he wrinkled his nose. The room smelled of stale grease. She’d survived on forgotten food foraged from her cupboards and fried things she often burned—crap she’d normally shun. She hadn’t aired the kitchen out. Hadn’t showered for two days.
Gardener said, “Okay,” and squared the edges of the two-inch stack he’d created. “As you may have suspected, you’re Malcolm and Sophie’s sole heir.”
“I didn’t suspect. I haven’t thought about it at all.”
“Yes…of course—I’m so sorry, Grace, this is…but in any event, things need to be dealt with and here we are. You are the sole heir. Thus, you need to be apprised of your new situation.”
“Okay. Apprise me.”
Mike Leiber said, “It’s more than okay.”
Grace shot him a sharp look. He was already back studying the white expanse of fridge.
“Well, yes,” Ransom Gardener said. “What Michael is saying, Grace, is that Sophie and Malcolm were extremely wealthy, you are the beneficiary of a combination of Sophie’s own inheritance and years of prudent investing undertaken since Sophie and Malcolm’s marriage.” He glanced at Leiber.
Leiber shrugged.
“Michael here is somewhat of a financial mastermind.”
“Load of crap,” said Leiber. “Buy low, sell high, avoid stupidity.”
“You’re being overly modest, Mike.”
Leiber crossed his arms over his chest and got that blank look in his eyes again. Suddenly, he sprang up, “Gotta go. Catch some foreign exchanges.”
“I drove,” said Gardener. “How will you get back to the office?”
“Bus,” said Leiber. To Grace: “Sorry you had to learn this way. Hope you don’t fuck it up.”
When he was gone, Gardener said, “As you’ve obviously noted, Michael’s an unusual individual. His years at MIT were rough. Malcolm helped him.”
Grace sat there.
“Then again,” said Gardener, “you’re probably not surprised by that—by anything I could tell you about Malcolm or Sophie…so…here are the details.”
—
For all his initial babbling, Gardener was able to transition to pure lawyerly efficiency, communicating the facts with admirable clarity.
The house on June Street was worth between three and a half and four million dollars. The stock fund Malcolm and Sophie had set up for Grace within months of adopting her had grown to five hundred seventy-five thousand dollars.
“The fund is all yours, now, but some of the proceeds from selling the house, should you choose to sell it, will go to taxes. If we use every arrow in our quiver, my estimate is you’ll end up with four mil, give or take.”
Grace said, “Fine, I’ll pay you to do the paperwork.”
“I’ve already begun, dear. I’m already the executor, no additional fees projected.”
“Don’t executors bill by the hour?”
“No set rules, Grace.”
“I don’t need a handout—”
“That’s not what this is, Grace, it’s basic decency, I can’t tell you what they meant to me.”
Worried he’d lapse into more nostalgia, Grace said, “Thank you.” She’d buy him a gift, something extravagant. In his house, the day of the funeral, she’d noticed a collection of art deco glass. His wife stroking a vase as she walked by.
Gardener made no attempt to move.
Grace said, “Anything else?”
Gardener gave a sad smile. “As they say on those commercials for cheap knives, ‘But wait, there’s more.’ ”
Grace closed her eyes. Her nerves were frayed raw, it was all she could do not to shove him out of her kitchen.
“So,” said Gardener, “there’s the four million. Which by itself is a nice boon for someone as young as you, the potential for growth is enormous. But.” He gave a flourish. “There’s also a bit more money that Malcolm and Sophie had invested for themselves. Mike’s done a
wonderful job with those funds, too. And before him, his father did the same thing—Art Leiber was one of the premier money managers on the eastern seaboard. Another chum of Malcolm and mine from Lowell. Wonderful man, he passed years ago, bladder cancer. There were questions about Mike’s ability to handle things but he’s proven himself quite nicely.”
Here we go again.
Gardener must’ve sensed her impatience because he drew himself up. “What you’re about to see, Grace, illustrates the power of compound interest. Buying solid investment products and not touching them.”
He breathed in. Plucked three sheets of paper from the pile and slid them across the table.
Columns of stocks, bonds, funds, things Grace knew nothing about. Small-print letters and numbers, everything blurring.
She looked away. “Okay, thanks.”
“Grace!” said Ransom Gardener with alarm in his voice. “Have you seen it?”
“Seen what?”
He snatched up the bottom sheet, reversed it so Grace could read, and jabbed a spot near the bottom.
Grand Total.
Twenty-eight million, six hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Plus forty-nine cents.
“That,” said Gardener, “is after taxes, Grace. You’re a very wealthy woman.”
—
Grace had read all those lottery-winner stories, people resolving life wouldn’t change. But of course it always did, pretending otherwise was idiocy. No sense ignoring her new circumstances; the key was to make sure she remained in control.
She phoned Mike Leiber and told him she’d be withdrawing some money but wanted him to continue managing the bulk of her fortune as before.
He said, “If you have to spend, use the income, not the principal.”
“What income is that?”
“Don’t you read? You’ve got munis—tax-free bonds. The interest is over six hundred K every year. That enough for shoes and manicures, right?”
“More than enough. So we’ll continue as before?”
“Why not? You don’t care if I don’t do the dog and pony, right?”
“Pardon?”
“For most clients I have to visit twice a year with charts and crap and show what a good job I’m doing. Malcolm and Sophie knew it was a waste of everyone’s time. But Gardener insisted.”
“No need, Mike.”
“Also,” said Leiber, “I’m telling you this at the outset: Some years you’ll do better, some worse, anyone who tells you different is an asshole con man.”
“Makes sense, Mike.”
“You can call if you have questions but your questions are unlikely to be uninformed. Better to read the monthly statements, everything’s spelled out. If you want more, I’ll recommend reading a book on basic investing, Benjamin Graham’s the best.”
“I’ll bear that in mind, Mike.”
“Good. Oh, yeah, I’ll send you some checks so you can withdraw whatever you want.”
“Thanks, Mike.”
“Whatever.”
—
Over the next year, Grace sold the house on June Street, consigning the more valuable antiques and objets d’art with a dealer in Pasadena and storing Malcolm and Sophie’s papers in a warehouse that specialized in document safety. One day, she might read them.
Using the proceeds from the house, she avoided capital gains tax with a 1031 exchange: snagging the house on La Costa Beach for a good price because it was tiny and unsuitable for more than one person and the Coastal Commission was balking at issuing building permits. Additional cash was spent on a cottage in West Hollywood that she converted to her new office.
The day after closing on both properties, she drove to a dealership in Beverly Hills, traded in the BMW, and bought the Aston Martin, black and barely used. The previous owner had discovered he was too large to fit comfortably in the cockpit. The Toyota station wagon, also barely used, was parked in a corner of the lot. It turned out to be owned by the salesman. She shocked him by making an offer, ended up bundling it into the deal as a practical fallback.
She’d known she wanted a sports car, had even considered a vintage T-Bird but decided that would be literal and stupid and trite.
The first month she owned the Aston, she put on two thousand miles. The combination of excessive speed and recklessness felt strangely redemptive.
Maybe one day she’d stop imagining the night they’d been taken from her.
She’d learned nothing about the accident. By choice. Had refrained from talking to Gardener or the highway patrol, requesting records, any sort of clarification.
She didn’t even know if the drunken waste of space who’d destroyed so much was male or female.
Despite everything she told her patients about open communication, she craved the balm of ignorance. She supposed that could change.
Meanwhile, she’d drive.
The morning after catching her first glimpse of Venom Boy as an adult, Grace set out for the Claremont district.
By seven a.m., she was sitting under a giant umbrella-shaped tree and studying the scant traffic traveling to and from Avalina Street. The tree, a species she couldn’t identify, was the largest of an old-growth copse that rimmed a patch of lawn claiming to be Monkey Island Park.
No simians in sight, no water, no island. Nothing at all but a third of an acre of grass surrounded by stout trunks and overarching branches heavy with chlorophyll.
Arriving here would be a giant letdown for a kid with visions of chimps in his head. Maybe that’s why the place was empty.
Making it perfect for Grace.
No contact lenses today; her eyes were concealed by sunglasses. She’d hazarded the blond wig, but combed it straight and free of creative waves and flips and gathered a foot of ponytail through the slip-hole of her unmarked black baseball cap. Warm morning so no jacket, just jeans and a tan cotton crewneck, athletic socks and lightweight sneakers. Everything else she needed was in her oversized bag.
She’d picked up a Daily Californian near her hotel, opened it, and pretended to care about campus life. A few people walked near the park but no one entered.
At eight forty-five a.m., Walter Sporn emerged from Avalina in a black Prius and headed north.
At nine thirty-two, Dion Larue did the same. Larue drove too fast for Grace to catch many details but in the daylight, his hair and beard flashed golden, with an almost metallic glint.
As if he’d gilded himself, a self-styled graven image.
Grace remembered a technique she’d learned about when consigning Malcolm and Sophie’s decorative objects: ormolu, a process where gold paint or leaf was applied to a baser metal like iron or bronze.
Basically, trying to make something more than what it was.
She closed her eyes and processed what she’d just seen. As Walter Sporn zipped by, he’d been frowning. Dion Larue’s handsome face had the same upward tilt of nose and jaw that she’d observed last night as he left his wife out in the dark.
Overweening arrogance and why not? No one had told him no for a very long time.
Grace readied herself for another look at the big brick house.
But give it more time, just to be sure. No reason to rush.
Twenty-two minutes later, two female pedestrians rounded the corner of Avalina and headed straight for her.
Both blond, the taller one pushing a baby stroller. As they got closer, the baby’s round, white disk of face came into view. Also fair-haired.
Grace’s wig made it an Aryan morning at Monkey Island Park.
—
The newcomers didn’t alter their trajectory but did stop well short of Grace, settling near the center of the lawn. The taller woman faced the stroller and began unstrapping the baby, as Grace watched, yards away, shielded by her sunglasses and her newspaper. She’d already registered a guess as to the stroller pusher’s identity and a turn of face confirmed it.
Subservient Azha, her hair a bit limp, center-parted, and held in place by a leather ba
nd that was pure hippie redux. She had on a black cotton shift cut slightly higher than the dress Grace had seen last night, this one just meeting her knees. On her feet were flat sandals. No jewelry, no watch.
In the daylight, her face was handsome, just short of pretty. But those cheekbones.
Grace visualized Dion Larue out to reshape his world, wielding one of those gauges favored by sculptors and carving away at his wife. Azha sitting immobile and mute throughout the process, wracked by exquisite agony, as the psychopath who dominated her scooped and contoured and bloodied her down to the bone.
Nice metaphor and all that but Grace stopped indulging herself, no time for fanciful bullshit.
For all she knew, the woman was one of those jellyfish who enjoyed having doors shut in their faces.
She raised her paper an inch higher, watched Azha remove a blanket from the back of the stroller and spread it on the grass. When satisfied with its smoothness, she removed the baby from the stroller, held it up to the sun and beamed.
Tiny little thing, well shy of a year, chubby legs kicking in glee. Dressed in a white onesie, thank God for no black. Lowering the baby and pressing it to her bosom, Azha folded herself carefully and settled on the blanket, crossing her legs in some sort of yoga pose.
Hugging the baby for a moment, she plopped it down next to her. The tyke bobbled and swayed and fought to remain upright, finally succumbed to gravity and began falling backward only to be saved by the flat of Azha’s hand on its back.
That level of balance suggested five, maybe six months old.
Smiling, Azha kept her hand in place, allowing the child to pretend it was sitting of its own accord. That lesson in false confidence worked: The baby laughed. Azha laughed back, said something and kissed the baby’s nose.
All this was happening too far out of earshot to make out content but the melodious quality of Azha’s voice floated across Monkey Island Park.
The baby reached for her and she allowed it to grip her finger, began rocking it gently in a new game of balance.
All the while, the shorter woman had stood by in silence.
As if realizing it, Azha turned and looked up at her and pointed to the grass.
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