The doctor stopped in at seven before leaving the hospital. He sat on a straight chair and asked questions about the island. She described Moser’s research, the tuna trawler. But it was obvious that Haffner knew she was being evasive. Maybe he thought she was crazy. After all, the man was a shrink.
“My roommate’s coming tomorrow,” she said. “I’d like a pass.”
“That’s pushing it, I think. You’re still debilitated.”
“I won’t push, I promise. We’ll be back in three hours.”
He thought about it. “All right. I’ll trust you to use common sense. Just remember, we’re responsible for you.”
“Thank you. I will.”
Then she slept for ten hours.
Near morning, Brenda woke dreaming the dream from the ship. Her father was drinking a Bud and eating cold shrimp on the beach in South Truro, giving her pointers as she fished with his surfcasting rig. When she turned to him for approval, his head was wrapped in bandages.
What’s wrong?
Nothing, Honey, I’ll show you—
He started unwinding the bandage, balancing the beer and unwrapping his head to reveal Vince Soublik’s open skull.
◆◆◆◆◆
In the morning she forced down breakfast, then went out in the hall to wait for Renee. By nine, everyone on her floor had gone to therapy or crafts classes. She sat at one of the chair-table arrangements, facing a landscape print.
Sky and clouds. On her one night in Pohnpei, the clouds had bubbled up in great mounds of vapor, pure white and sharply outlined. The clouds in the picture moved, began to swarm. She looked away and focused on Renee Cappelli.
They had roomed together in Brenda’s last year at Davison. The spring of junior year, she had gone to Renee, a straight-arrow Chem major that Brenda knew only by reputation. She had begged Renee to room with her next fall. Renee’s suitemates were graduating that year, and Brenda needed to turn things around before the dean of students dropped the hammer. In turn, Renee had decided it was time to lighten up and have some fun. But she insisted on one rule: No parties in their suite.
Forgetting it all during the summer, for the first two weeks of the fall term Brenda had resumed her Anything Goes routine. It was all she knew. She partied nights, cut her morning classes, read only for Poole’s Victorian seminar.
Hung over, she had gotten up one morning and seen her quiet new roommate bowed over a book at the dining table. All at once, Brenda had felt something like dread. What if she never grew up? In high school, the shrinks had told her she held herself responsible for her father’s death, and this somehow explained why she had turned into the class slut. She imagined herself flunking out and back in her family’s house, in a room full of stuffed animals from childhood. She felt panic. No one could help her but herself. Not Renee, not shrinks.
In the weeks that followed, with a friend and a teacher who took an interest, Brenda Contay had changed. So radically and quickly that her former friends, and the men who now kept getting turned down by Anything Goes, couldn’t figure it out.
It pleased her, until a December afternoon following a film in the General Lectures auditorium. Washing her hands in the bathroom, Brenda had read fresh graffiti scrawled on the mirror with a marker pen.
What a waste, it shouldn’t happen,
All we know is, times are changin’,
Brenda Contay and Cappelli—
Get the dildo—end of story
She had wiped it off with toilet paper. What people couldn’t understand they explained with clichés: if Brenda Contay was no longer an easy lay, she and Renee Cappelli must be lesbians. It’s no good, Brenda decided. Stay here, and they’ll trash the one person who deserves your loyalty. Without explaining, she had left the following week.
◆◆◆◆◆
Renee stepped from the elevator, and Brenda stood. Not seeing her, her old roommate walked slowly, checking the open doorways. She was small-boned with straight black hair, and wore a khaki shirtdress. Halfway up the hall she saw Brenda. She ran, shock on her face, and then was holding her.
The hug went on. Chemistry, Brenda thought, crying, hugging back. Your friend, in for the long haul.
At last she forced Renee to take her hand, then led her in a clumsy box step. Renee settled away, still crying. They were dancing now, shuffling quietly.
“So thin.”
She felt how true it was, in Renee’s arm resting on the too-sharp ridge of her shoulder. “Pay attention, you’re stepping on my feet.”
They shuffled a moment longer, and stopped. Renee fished Kleenex from her bag. She gave some to Brenda and they faced each other, honking into the tissues.
“Your graduation,” Brenda told her. “The last time we danced.”
Renee nodded. “First we were laughing, then crying our eyes out.”
“You from relief, me from jealousy.” Sinuses cleared, Brenda could smell Renee’s cologne, Jean Naté.
“Are they feeding you right?”
“All I can eat, just like family night at Beef Bonanza.”
Renee was still wiping her nose, but also studying Brenda’s eyes.
“They’re okay,” Brenda said. “Still a little sensitive. I walk, I talk. I wet the bed just like the old Brenda.”
“Don’t joke.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re sweating.”
“That’s how I wet the bed.” She took Renee by the hand and led her to the room. Inside, Renee walked to the wheelchair and touched it.
“Just insurance, I don’t need it.”
“Sure, Brenda. You still sound like you did on the phone.”
“Would that be phoney?”
“Cut the jokes, you know what I’m talking about. You were hiding things.”
Renee sat on the other twin bed and Brenda sat next to her. “People were keeping track of me,” she said.
“Here too?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Brenda looked down at her roommate’s long-fingered, refined hand on the bedspread. Her own hand was wrinkled and blotched with freckles. She mustn’t get her involved.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “I have a pass.”
◆◆◆◆◆
Renee had leased a car, and they headed for Detroit.
Cruising east on the Interstate, Brenda felt energized, carried forward through an impasse more of mind than body. She wanted to see if they were being followed, but didn’t turn. She was at last with someone she trusted. Beginning with dinner at the Pooles’, she described what was safe to tell.
“So you went out there on a hunch,” Renee said. “You sensed there was something wrong about Vince’s death.”
“Not really. I just got sick of what I was doing. I didn’t have the guts to quit like a grownup. I used Vince’s death as an excuse to get out of town. I was sick of it.”
As if to confirm what she’d said, billboards grew denser as they neared Detroit. Among ads for cars and tires and restaurants were big, flashy signs for local news stations. All those for W-DIG played off the station anchor’s name. “TAKE STOCK” read one billboard in fancy script on a giant, gilt-edged certificate. Lou Stock’s face was centered in the oval, giving his newshound scowl with the piercing blue eyes. Nearing Detroit, they began passing city busses plastered with more promo wit—“Blue Chip Coverage,” “Pick a Winner,” “Stock Up On Lou.”
“What’s he like?” Renee asked.
“Volatile, intense. Deeply committed to his hairpiece,” Brenda said. “Station myth says he was filmed at birth and has been on ever since.”
Her Southfield high rise had a canopied entrance, each floor tiered with narrow patios. They parked and went in. The security guard was at his desk next to the elevator, wearing a red Polo shirt. “May I help you?” he asked, then looked up and gawked.
“Yes, it’s me,” Brenda said. “I’ve lost my keys.” Still gawking, he nodded and disappeared into the alcove behind
his desk.
“Don’t you trust him?” Renee whispered.
“Why do you ask?”
“You acted suspicious. He was just surprised to see you.”
“It’s his shirt, I’ll explain some time. You might as well wait down here while I get some clothes.”
“Don’t you want some help?”
“I’ll be right back.”
The guard returned with a key, and Brenda rode up to the eighth floor. For some reason she wanted to be alone, to commune briefly with the familiar air and objects in her apartment. She padded down the gray-carpeted hall and used the key, wondering what, or who, she expected to find.
In the second before stepping in, she understood why she had asked Renee to wait downstairs. She wanted Cal Moser to be here. She wanted to find him sitting in her fancy leather chair, waiting to tell her everything would be fine.
Nothing had changed. Couch, TV, VCR. Bookcases, coffee table. She closed the door, stepped to the hall closet and opened it. Everything was in place—tennis racquets and winter coats, some dry-cleaning still in plastic bags.
The phone rang, intruding on her homecoming. She would not pick up. It rang again as she stepped across the room to the sliding glass doors and drew back the sheer curtain. Outside, the hibachi was still there, and her deck furniture. She drew the curtains closed on the fourth ring.
“Brenda, this is Dieter Haffner. It’s ten-thirty, I’m calling from my Ann Arbor office. You got a call shortly after leaving, from a ham-radio operator. He didn’t leave his name. He said it was important and he’d call again. When you get back, come see me.”
Her heart pounded as the tape clicked off. Why a ham operator? More than anything, she wanted it to be Cal Moser. But how would he know where to call? Only Betsy McIntosh knew that.
Brenda turned away, walked to the hall leading to the two bedrooms and looked in the bathroom. Towels on towel bars, blue stuff still in the toilet bowl. She checked the second bedroom—her computer and printer were set up on the door she used as a desk. She backed out and moved toward her bedroom. She kept it dark with lined drapes, and could hear her clock radio inside. It had come on the morning after she left, and played ever since. Something about the idea was sad and dead.
In the crack of hall light, Brenda shuffled inside and opened the bureau’s top drawer to grab underwear before moving to the closet. On the radio, the DJ was doing a frantic spot commercial for appliances, seeing how many things and prices he could stuff into ten seconds. She reached for the light cord and felt something brush the new skin on her arm.
Brenda jerked away and stumbled back. She fell, hearing a crowded sound. Pursuing, pouring from the open closet they came—confined, flying against her clothes and face. She screamed and flailed, trying to shove up from the floor. In the unguarded second without her hands, sharp, hot pricks tacked into her wrist. So many small, solid bodies filled the room’s band of light.
On all fours she backpedaled like a crab out the entry and down the hall to the front room. She fumbled with the front door, squirmed through and slammed it shut.
In the gray, empty hall Brenda tried to calm her wheezing. Slowly she got control and crawled to the wall opposite, rolled against it and stretched out her legs. Three small welts were forming on her left wrist. Cold air from a ceiling duct poured down on her slick scalp and arms.
“Brenda, please. It’s not his fault.”
“Who’s been in my unit?”
The lobby guard stood, looking confused.
“Miss Contay, I swear, absolutely no one’s been up there. Not even housekeeping.” He came around the desk. “Look, the Orkin guy’s here, spraying around the pool. We had a problem with yellow jackets, I’ll send him right up.” He took her key and ran up the stairs.
Renee shook Brenda’s sweaty arm. “What is it?”
She had said nothing about the wasps. She mustn’t involve others.
The door to the mezzanine swimming pool flapped and the guard appeared at the railing. “The Orkin guy’s going up right now,” he said.
◆◆◆◆◆
Renee drove to the shopping center at Twelve Mile. Ten minutes later, she was back with a tube of Xylocaine.
As Brenda applied it to her wrist, the guard stepped from the elevator, smiling. “Problem solved,” he said. “You left a window cracked in your bedroom. Yellow jackets got in, there’s a nest. He’s smoking them now.”
Not satisfied, Brenda took the elevator up again. She felt cold and clammy, a shadowy presence reflected in the door’s brushed steel. When it opened, she saw her apartment was open. The stink of chemicals was strong. She found a handkerchief in the hip pocket of her borrowed poplin pants and held it over her face as she entered.
In the bedroom, the exterminator was already packing up. His helmet net lay on the bed atop a mound of her clothes. “They were in your closet,” he said. “People on four came back from vacation, they had nests in every room. I’d get one of those fits-any-size screens. Some of their buddies are out cruising the neighborhood. You don’t want to leave the welcome mat out.”
On the rug lay dozens of yellow jackets. None of them looked like the wasps on Pirim.
She picked up underwear from the floor, grabbed some clothes off the bed and went back down. She left instructions for housekeeping to clean her apartment, then asked Renee to take her back to Mercygrove. They returned in silence.
◆◆◆◆◆
“Promise me you’ll get some rest.” Renee watched from behind the wheel as Brenda got out. “And go eat something.”
“All right.”
“I’ll come back at four.”
Brenda slammed the door and walked up the ramp. She took her things to her room before going down to the basement cafeteria.
Shoving her tray along, she grabbed milk and rolls. As the worker ladled out beef stew and mashed potatoes, Brenda remembered Haffner’s message. A ham operator.
She carried her tray to an empty table. Seated, she thought about it, eating without taste. If you believed the Pohnpei phone service was monitored, a ham-radio phone patch might be how you would try getting a message to the States.
The man at the next table stood with his empty tray and nodded to her.
“Sir, you forgot your book—” She reached over for it, a paperback. On the cover was Russ Minot’s picture, the one on the poster in McIntosh’s outer office. GETTING IT RIGHT read the title. My Plan for America. She handed it over.
“Thanks.”
“Is it any good?”
“Depends on your politics,” he said. “If you think running the country like a successful business is the way to go, Minot’s right on the money. I happen to agree with him. He sure makes Washington look stupid.”
“So, you don’t like Interstate highways, national parks, Social Security—”
Balancing his tray, he raised the hand with the book. “My doctor says I can’t talk about politics. Have a great day.”
She remembered seeing the book in drugstores and supermarkets. The picture was Minot’s logo, a rugged individualist on horseback. Like her lightning bolts and motorcycles.
“Miss Contay?” The cashier put down her phone. “You have a call.”
◆◆◆◆◆
“Jeff Hotchkiss and I played squash yesterday at the Harvard Club,” Morris told her, as though squash and Harvard had figured with him for years. “Of course he asked what’s with my sister playing Wonder Woman on the high seas.”
“What about Mother?”
“Fortunately, nothing. She called from Oslo, complained about not getting any mail. Like there’s delivery in the north Atlantic. She asked about you. I said you’d been in Micronesia and got sunburned. This is true, right? ‘What’s a Micronesia?’ she asks. I said you were on assignment. When she gets home, you better back me up.”
It cheered Brenda to hear his voice. “Squash, Morris. At the Harvard Club. I’m impressed.”
“Yeah, well, I mentioned you asked about GEN
E 2. We’re in the locker room, Jeff asks what I know. Know what? I don’t know anything, my sister the Lightning Rod asked about it. Then he says it’s on the Street, he might as well tell me. There’s a leveraged buyout, his firm’s handling it. A very serious group is going after Neff Industries.”
She waited for more, but Morris said nothing. “What’s that got to do with GENE 2?”
“The company’s public, but Neff owns most of it.”
“And?”
“Neff’s doing a poison pill. An action to make itself less attractive to takeover. They declared this big dividend, so they need cash to—”
“Cash for what?”
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Okay, Morris. Someone wants to take over Neff, and Neff owns GENE 2.”
“Right. So, Neff will have to borrow or sell assets. To raise cash to pay the dividend. They’ll unload some holdings.”
Through the conference room’s glass door, Brenda watched a housekeeper vacuuming the lobby rug. She thought of her bedroom littered with dead insects. What Morris was saying confused her.
“Who’s trying to get Neff?”
“A sunbelt group is all Hotchkiss said. His shop’s representing them. Someone tipped them a well-known appraisal firm was seen visiting GENE 2 ten days ago. In Phoenix. If their assets are being evaluated, a sale’s in the works.”
“Say GENE 2 got some bad press,” she said. “What would that mean?”
“To GENE 2? Their stock would take a hit. It would go on the block for less.”
“You mean the parent company, Neff, would have more trouble unloading their subsidiary. If they were looking at bad press, they’d want to get rid of it before the news got out.”
“Well, yeah, but we’re talking a great deal of money here. Neff is huge. Their big worry’s the takeover, not bad press on a small-cap drug subsidiary. Besides, it doesn’t work that way. The buyers would demand a forward-looking statement. If the sellers knew something negative about GENE 2 and didn’t report it, they’d be in deep shit with the SEC. They wouldn’t risk it.”
She had no head for such things. Neff wanted to dump a holding that had done something very bad. If they were worried, it made sense to sell GENE 2 quickly. Except the parent company had a much larger problem.
The Anything Goes Girl (A Brenda Contay Novel Of Suspense Book 1) Page 18