She opened her eyes. The fingers were snapping in front of her, his face inches from hers. The tape was ripped down off her mouth. “What’s my name?”
She heaved for breath.
“What’s my name?”
“Lindbergh.”
“Good, now listen. Are you listening?” He slapped her. “Listening?”
“Yes.”
“Good. She jumped, you don’t know why. Understand?”
“No.”
“She’s going to drown you, you struggle, she jumps. No one else was here. Understand?” She didn’t, but feared him and nodded. “Say it.”
“I understand.”
“Good. I’ll leave the water on, it’ll be more convincing. She was too unstable. Remember, now, no one else was here. Say it.”
“No one.”
“Good.”
And he was gone.
◆◆◆◆◆
Later, she remembered men in uniforms lifting her onto a gurney, shoving it into an ambulance. Beth Soublik rode with her. Cason was there, too. The girl kept talking about phone calls, Cason saying that’s why we came, McIntosh wasn’t in her hotel room. At the time, it meant little. The two seemed to lip-sync everything.
Until Sunday morning, she fell in and out of sleep. Wherever she was, the room seemed like a hothouse or nursery. Mrs. Soublik or a nurse came and went, removing cellophane from bouquets, arranging pots on the windowsill. It was a hospital, but not the one in Phoenix. Not Mercygrove.
Too confusing. Brenda went back to sleep.
◆◆◆◆◆
When she finally woke, Renee was in the chair beside her bed, reading a journal. Your friend, she thought. In for the long haul. It was good to see her—no, much better than good, and for a long moment Brenda studied her roommate’s composed, serious features.
“Sorry.”
Renee looked up. “Hi there. Sorry about what?”
“Take your pick.”
“Don’t be silly.” She put the journal on the bed. “When I couldn’t reach you Friday, I called Gordon and drove to his place. We went next door to the Soubliks’.”
The door opened and a nurse looked in. “Dr. Silvero will be in to see you. He’s just finishing rounds.”
When the door closed, Renee turned back. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Not in detail.” It’s a lie, Brenda thought. I remember everything.
“I was at the house.” Renee shook her head. “The Soubliks told me later. It’s sickening to think of someone taking her life that way.”
Yes, everything. And she knew what a Borstal was: an English youth prison. Reformatories. If you got yourself into trouble at fourteen, were very bright and ambitious, and if years later you had won all you ever wanted, no future could include losing. I still remember Glasgow very well, all of it—
“Calvin’s been on television,” Renee said. “From Guam. He flew there yesterday for a satellite uplink. He phoned Mercygrove and got Gordon’s number. He called here several times, but he won’t talk to anyone but you.”
For twenty minutes, Renee filled her in. Knowing what his own future held, Jerry had resigned Saturday, tearfully telling police of giving Brenda’s keys to McIntosh. Once he learned tapes had been given to the other affiliates, he had gone to the Radisson and found McIntosh in the lounge, talking to the bartender. Under interrogation, the barkeep confessed to selling her a vial of sugar water, not Demerol. Fake dope saved your life, Brenda thought.
Late on Saturday afternoon, Russ Minot had held a press conference in Phoenix, disavowing all knowledge of GENE 2’s offshore test sites. Learning of them now, for the first time, he expressed shock and disgust. He promised “to get to the bottom of what’s happened.”
The Independent Party’s Senate nomination? Presidential aspirations? Ridiculous, Minot said. As both CEO and chairman of Neff’s board, he had responsibilities to Neff’s thousands of loyal employees and stockholders. That was more than a full plate. As for Monday’s Labor Day rally, it was meant simply to outline the ideas in his book Getting It Right, nothing more.
Brenda laughed. “Sure, Russ. Just a little book chat.”
“Of course the hungry crowd’s waiting downstairs to get at you,” Renee said.
“Not a chance. I’m out of the business.”
The door opened again. A darkly handsome man in a lab coat stepped in, reading a chart. He looked up and smiled. “I’m Dr. Silvero,” he said to Renee. “Would you please step outside? Just for a couple minutes.”
Renee glanced at her roommate, got the journal and stood. “Just remember, you need rest,” she said dryly and went out. Silvero moved to the side of the bed and sat in the chair.
“You’re very lucky,” he said. “We thought you might have bilateral nephritis, because of the renal damage you incurred two weeks ago. Dr. Haffner forwarded your records. We did an angiogram. The haematuria was very pronounced—”
Brenda held up her hand not hooked to the I.V. “This is not a final exam, Doctor,” she said. “Cut to the chase.”
He smiled. “We were afraid both your kidneys might be at risk. They aren’t. The right one is in pretty good shape, considering. The bad news is, you have a ruptured left kidney.”
“What’s that mean?”
“We won’t know for certain for a week, but I’m afraid it means you’ll lose it. A nephrectomy. That means you’ll want to stay on good terms with the kidney you have left. We’ll show you how to do that.”
“Will I have to eat funny? Use a machine?”
“Normal diet, after recovery. A little extra caution. No machine.”
“Margaritas?”
“Once you’re better, yes. In moderation.”
“It sounds depressing,” she told him. “I’m not much good at that.”
“If you mean your work, I don’t think there should be a problem,” he said. “You might want to put new shocks on that Harley of yours.” He stood. “Your mother and brother are here. They’ve been in several times. You were sleeping.”
Not exactly. Hearing their voices, she had played possum. Double jeopardy, Brenda thought. Before you lose a kidney, there’s one more ordeal.
“Can’t you say I’m not well enough?” she asked.
“You have to see them, eventually.”
“True.”
“Look at it this way,” he said. “You’ve really been through something here. Whatever’s bothering you, they’re likely to go easy.”
She gave him a closer look. “You aren’t just another pretty face, Doctor.”
“Did you have a fight?”
“It started a long time ago.”
“I see, one of those,” he said. “Well, good luck.”
Brenda could hear them out in the hall, quizzing the doctor. She slumped further into the bed before they entered. Morris was still wearing the neck brace.
“Oh sweetheart, why?”
“Hi, Mom. Morris.”
“They re-hired me yesterday,” he said. “I mean for next summer. In case you wondered, Kiley & Friedman withdrew from representation. Federal securities laws and the SEC—”
“Morris.” Her mother glared at him. “Not now.” She reached over and smoothed Brenda’s cheek, shook her head. “I was so worried. Renee said you were in Lake Tahoe or someplace. Cowboys showing their privates. And you weren’t even there.”
Brenda faked a painful cough.
“Don’t you see, Brenda? Why this happened? You were here, not there. I’d have come. That very day. No unpacking, nothing. I’d be on the plane to help you. You see?”
Whatever she was getting at had not come through.
“She doesn’t see.” Her mother looked across to Morris and he shrugged. Reva Contay shook her head and looked back down. “Honey, if I’d been here, none of this would’ve happened. Not one single terrible thing you’ve been through, if you just told your mother instead of making up Lake Tahoe.”
Brenda listened, nodded, agreed she was wrong.
At last she raised her hand covered in tubes, for effect. Her mother stopped talking.
“I’m tiring,” Brenda told her, glancing at Morris. “I need my strength for the surgery. Assuming my bilateral nephritis is advanced, I may need a kidney.”
Morris stopped polishing and put his glasses back on. “Need?”
“If they can’t save the good one.”
Her mother gasped and sat. She started crying. Morris came around the bed and put an arm around her shoulder. It’s a perfect Contay moment, Brenda thought. I’m in the hospital with a ruptured kidney, Morris is in a neck brace, and we’re both comforting our tiptop mother.
Mrs. Contay blew her nose. “I’m all right now,” she said. “I’m fine. Don’t worry, Brenda. I’ll be right there, sweetheart. One or both, I’ll be the donor right next to you.”
Only at this point did what they were saying register with Morris. He looked worried, patting his mother’s arm, facing Brenda. None of it would be necessary, but she was curious.
“Come on, Ma, stop,” he said. “They have organ banks. Brenda needs a kidney, we’ll get the best.”
“It doesn’t work that way. You don’t buy kidneys like you buy a brisket.” She wiped her eyes, looking heroic. “The odds are with family organs. Isn’t that right, Brenda?”
“I don’t know.”
“Always a family donor’s best,” she said. “Flesh and blood.”
Morris stared toward the window full of flowers, looking like someone who’d just been pink-slipped, or kicked out of school. “Blood,” he said. “No, Ma. I’ll do it.”
“This is a mother’s job,” she said. “You need your kidneys, you’re young. Both of you.”
“No, Ma.”
“It’s settled.”
“No, Ma. Brenda needs a kidney, it’s mine.”
Brenda felt happy but a little guilty. Morris, she could see, felt cornered.
“Next time,” he said, “no lake.”
◆◆◆◆◆
Before and after her surgery, she spoke to Calvin Moser. First he called from Guam, then from Los Angeles where he was flown for interviews with Federal agents. Both times they were friendly with each other, but distant. So much time had passed. What they had in common was now news, not personal. They had become characters in a story, and they knew it.
After the operation, he flew to Detroit. Nauko was with him, four months pregnant and very beautiful. She looked shy and said little. When they were alone, Moser thanked Brenda for contacting his father.
“That meant a lot to both of us,” he said.
“It wasn’t me, it was my roommate.”
“I see. I didn’t know that.”
“She was in Phoenix. Your father sent flowers.” She pointed. “Tell him thanks.”
“He wants to meet you sometime.” But she could see Cal Moser was uncomfortable. He’d moved on and was going back to Pirim on a grant, having received several offers after all the publicity.
“Someday,” she told him. “Chill out, Cal. We’ll stay in touch.”
She knew they wouldn’t, but his shoulders relaxed. That was the point. He was in a tweed jacket and looked very much the professor. “We’ll write,” he said. “I’ll keep you up on bug matters, you can do the same from here.”
“Has Nauko met the Soubliks?”
“Yesterday. It was a little strained, but they got along okay. Vince’s mother had photo albums. If it’s a girl, Nauko said she’d name her Beth. Mrs. Soublik suggested Brenda. If I get a vote, it goes to you.”
◆◆◆◆◆
She was released and went home to convalesce. They had replaced the water-damaged carpet in her apartment. Ned had returned from Rio and brought her more groceries. After he left, she started in on the accumulation of mail. Along with stacks of form letters and flyers was a mailer, postmarked Seattle.
She turned it over, found no return address, and knew.
Heart pounding, Brenda tore it open. Every day she had thought of him, a perverse curiosity keeping him fresh in memory. Inside was a twenty-two page, single-spaced background summary of her life, and a psychiatric profile. Stapled to the profile’s last page was a clipping from the Times Picayune describing the accidental death of Caprice Thibodeau. She read it through, recalling ugly details missing from the story.
Brenda remembered him looking down from the bathroom entry. She had said nothing about him. Not to Renee, not to Ned. She would never speak of him.
◆◆◆◆◆
September ended, the leaves changed. Brenda read and visited the Pooles. The Soubliks had her to dinner, as did Joyce Delarossa. But by November she felt a growing restlessness. Back in the classroom, Renee insisted Brenda come to the Upper Peninsula for a week.
The day she was to leave, UPS delivered a well-worn box postmarked Pohnpei, ECI. Her carry-on. She tore it open and was sorting through her clothes when the phone rang.
“Brenda? Stan.”
“Well, hello there.” Her old producer, creator of The Lightning Rod.
“Get my card?” he asked.
“The card and the flowers. How are you, Stan?”
“I waited to call until after the surgery. How’s the kidney?”
“Chugging right along.”
“I can’t believe Jerry. What a schmuck. I never recommended him, don’t forget that.”
“Blood under the bridge,” she said. “Forget it.”
“Anyway, what a fantastic story. Listen, I called W-DIG. They say you haven’t renewed.”
“True.”
“Bad vibes?”
“I wore it out, Stan. I’m reading all the books I bought and never looked at. I’m writing one, too. ‘Brenda’s Big Adventure.’”
“Writing a book? Why not? But what’s that mean, ‘I wore it out’? You want to be a librarian? Bad idea, Brenda. Listen to your old buddy. Are you listening?”
“I’m here, Stan.”
“Think pickup truck. Beat to hell, covered with cow dung, with a blown, full-bore V-eight. You know, exhaust stacks up the sides. Gun rack, longhorns on the hood. These people down here, what can I say? They’re off the graph, Brenda. I mean it. Every cliché you think someone made up about good old bubbas is here. In the flesh. You remember the Branch Davidians? That’s the norm down here, I mean it. Turn over a mesquite tree, you find Jesus freaks, space visitors. In your wildest dreams you never saw anything like it.”
“I have one kidney, Stan. I’m an old lady.”
“Rattlesnake roundups. Contests to see who has the biggest hair in Dallas/Fort Worth. You sleep on it, promise me? These people are waiting for you.”
“Plus there’s a hearing later this month,” she said.
“Fine, whatever, but Brenda? You listening? What have you got to lose? I’m talking about the second coming.”
Lindbergh, face six inches from hers, was snapping his fingers. You listening?
“Get this,” Stan said. “The Roadkill Cafe, just outside Brownsville. You think I’m joking. Fully licensed, very popular. Already they’re talking franchises—”
She had never seen a mesquite tree, but knew just what they looked like, could see them whipping in the dust, in the wash of a pickup. It was charging through Big Country, on its way to The Roadkill Cafe. She was at the wheel and looking good, in a dress of tan raw silk with big wooden buttons.
FRIDAY, MAY 4
BIRMINGHAM, MICHIGAN
5:00 P.M.
The housekeeper glanced in the rearview at the teenager in the back seat. “You got everything now? Pillow? CDs? You take a sweater?”
“God, for the zillionth time—“
“I’m just checkin’ like your mamma told me to.” She looked back to the road. “So you got no reason to go back in that house.”
“Tanya—”
“Yeah, you ‘Tanya’ all you want. Your mamma seen that Risky Business picture. She know what goes on when parents leave home.”
The girl looked away, and Tanya again faced the road. Ca
rrie Ross was a good girl, though. A nice girl. Nevertheless, the housekeeper kept her face hard for the rearview. She slowed on Maple and turned onto Mallard Lane. Ahead, Brittany Remnick stepped out of her parents’ big Dutch colonial. Hugging herself in the gray and chilly afternoon, she started down the brick walkway.
“Maybe I should go in and talk to this girl’s mamma.”
“Oh, please don’t.” Carrie undid her seatbelt and leaned forward. “Please don’t embarrass me. Mom talked to her, she told you everything’s cool.”
“Yeah, you cool all right.”
But that was probably true, the two mothers arranging for Carrie to stay with her friend while Mrs. Ross went fishing in Minnesota. Tanya slowed at the curb, and stopped. Carrie was out instantly, the two girls jumping and jabbering the way they always did. Tanya popped the trunk and looked again in the rearview. Almost instantly it was slammed shut. Wants you gone, she thought and smiled. Wants you history.
She watched Brittany start back up the walk, carrying the duffle bag. Carrie fell in behind with her box of CDs and the pillow she always took on sleepovers. The housekeeper put the car in gear and pulled away. Deposit her check, and she was home free for a week. Then she remembered: the check was still on the counter top in the Ross kitchen. Damn. Carrie had forgotten her pillow and run back upstairs. Waiting for her had thrown Tanya off a second.
Resigned, she swung into the next driveway, backed down and around. She passed the Remnick house and thought again about where Mrs. Ross and her friends were going. Some big old houseboat floating around in Minnesota. In some string of lakes called the Boundary Waters. Bunch of ladies don’t know nothing about it, Tanya had said. That’s the point, Mrs. Ross told her. To see if we can manage.
Minutes later, she pulled in at the Ross house, got out, and crossed the back drive. A flagstone path led to the patio. At the French doors she pressed the security button. The light blinked off, she inserted her house key, and turned the handle. Still locked. She turned the key again, and this time the handle levered down.
Tanya studied the key. The door had already been unlocked. It made no sense, she had checked all the doors before leaving with Carrie.
That little monkey. Carrie had come after and unlocked it for some Risky Business later. But that made no sense, either. She had her own key, plus a spare was kept under the firewood box on the patio.
The Anything Goes Girl (A Brenda Contay Novel Of Suspense Book 1) Page 30