Good advice. I wished I’d be able to take it.
Chapter Nineteen
There are a number of images that come to mind when I think of “home.” A quiet, book-filled room on a rainy day. Jack building a fire in the hearth. Maybe the aroma of something yummy baking in the oven.
One image that does not come to mind is my uncle, bourbon in hand and cigar in mouth, greeting me at my own front door.
“Charley!” He flung the door open as we trudged up the path carrying our purchases. “It looks like your operation was a success.” He stepped aside as I struggled past him, weighed down with shopping bags. Then he reached around me to take Brenda’s bags from her.
“It wasn’t an operation so much as an expedition, Harry, into the darkest heart of retail.” Simon was unencumbered. He’d left his own undoubtedly enormous assortment of purchases in his car. Eileen followed him in carrying the remains of the things Brenda and I had gotten. Her shopping had been relatively light, since she already owned an assortment of power suits, and her few bags remained in her car.
“Where’s Jack?” I asked Harry. “How did the meeting go?”
“Come on, Charley.” He set the bags down at the bottom of the stairs and took the cigar out to give me a self-satisfied grin. “Have you ever known me to walk into a board meeting and not come out with what I wanted?”
“Not recently,” I admitted.
“So we’re in?” Simon asked. “It’s on? It’s a green light? It’s a go? We’re a—what’s the word?”
“Hysterical,” I answered, patting him on the arm. “Calm down, okay? It’s not like we start tomorrow.”
“No.” Jack appeared at the top of the stairs, Mike and Gordon behind him. “You start Wednesday.”
“Seriously?” I gulped. “That seems awfully soon. I mean, I know we’ve tossed around a few lines and everything, but I really thought we’d have more time to rehearse, I mean…the day after tomorrow? Seriously?”
Simon’s left eyebrow went up. “Now who’s hysterical?”
***
Eventually, aided by a few sample bottles of wine that Gordon had brought from his restaurant, I got a grip. We gathered in the living room, some on Simon’s beach chairs and some sprawled on the floor. Harry paced.
“We’ll be fine.” Simon was suddenly the soul of nonchalance. He gestured to the pile of shopping bags. “At least we’ll be dressed for the parts, and the right costume is half the battle.”
That was one way of looking at it. A shallow way, but it was something.
Jack spoke. “Remember your best option is to avoid discussing your work—instead you’ll try to get the other person to talk. And if you’re completely cornered, try to be evasive.” He looked at me. “That shouldn’t be hard.”
I nodded. “Avoid and evade. Got it.”
“You know…” Harry took a reflective sip of a fairly excellent Cabernet. “In my experience, everyone in every business is always bluffing to some extent or another. It’s like Warren Buffett once told me—‘It’s only when the tide goes out that you discover who’s been swimming naked.’”
He was enjoying this way too much.
“I’ve always been rather fond of swimming naked,” Simon remarked, to no one’s surprise.
“And we’re not completely naked,” Eileen said. “Mike, have you got the books?”
“Um, right.” Mike had been scribbling something on a piece of paper. The secret to cold fusion, no doubt. “Yeah.” He got to his feet and retrieved a stack of three-ring binders he’d left near the doorway.
I couldn’t believe that in all the fuss over shopping I’d totally forgotten to ask Eileen how her dinner with Mike had gone. Whether, between lessons in technical jargon and servings of lasagna, anything interesting might have developed. I couldn’t really read much into her expression as she watched him. No obvious wanton longings, but you never know.
Mike passed the binders out to Simon, Brenda, and me. “This should help you,” he said. “There are different sections.” Each clearly marked with color-coded tabs. If Mike had organized them, maybe he was perfect for Eileen.
“It’s a Fake Book,” Mike explained. “I thought it might be helpful to use the same concept that musicians do, of a book with just enough of just about any song to get them to the point where they can fake the rest. This book has just enough information to get you started.” He grinned nervously. “After that you fake it.”
Something told me we’d have an easier time faking a chorus of “Swanee River” than bluffing about high-tech business ventures, but whatever.
“There’s a listing of all of Zakdan’s current products, ongoing projects, and key players,” Mike went on.
“And a glossary of terminology you should get familiar with.” Eileen took Brenda’s copy and turned to the relevant section.
I flipped through the thing. “There’s a bibliography.” I looked up. “A bibliography?”
“Oh, uh.” Mike looked a little embarrassed. “They’re just suggestions. Some of the more popular business books from the last few years. Just in case someone refers to one of them, you should know the titles and have a passing familiarity.”
As long as I wasn’t expected to understand them all.
“The last part is a primer on office etiquette,” he offered. “Things like what’s cool and what isn’t on company email and, um…” He blushed. “Sexual harassment sort of stuff. Things you’d know if you worked in offices.”
Okay, brilliant or not, if the man couldn’t utter the word “sexual” in adult mixed company without turning pink, maybe he wasn’t quite what Eileen should be looking for after all.
“Office etiquette?” Simon demanded. “And who the bollocks do you suppose needs that?”
“Certainly not you, sweetie,” I reassured him. “But—” I turned to Harry.“—if you’re still serious about sending Flank in with us, we might need to check into regulations about physical intimidation in the workplace.”
Harry stopped his pacing and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. “The man can’t help the way he looks, Charley.”
Brenda spoke up. “If we say he’s our secretary, we can probably just keep him close to us, so he won’t…I mean…so he doesn’t…”
“So he doesn’t cause a panic in the break room?” Simon asked. “Something suggestive of gazelles fleeing the watering hole as they sense a frisky bull elephant on approach?”
“Something like that.”
“At least you won’t have to worry about him saying the wrong thing to the wrong person,” Jack offered.
True.
In my experience, Flank’s verbal abilities were limited to a series of unintelligible grunts—unless he was holding a gun, in which case he was perfectly articulate. And since I didn’t anticipate he’d go prowling the corridors of Zakdan with a Walther in his hand, we were probably safe on that score.
Further discussion was interrupted by the doorbell.
“Have we ordered takeout?” Simon brightened.
“We just had lunch,” Eileen scolded him.
“That was hours ago!”
Jack rose to answer the door as Gordon spoke up.
“If you like, you can all come down to the restaurant to sample some of the things I’m thinking of putting on the menu.” A line appeared between his eyebrows. “I still haven’t made the final decisions.”
“Excellent!” Simon beamed. “If you need a discerning palate, look no further. I’m your man.”
“That’s so sweet of you,” Brenda said. “I’ve missed your cooking.”
Harry grunted and shot Gordon a dark look. He still hadn’t forgiven the chef for leaving his position as Harry’s cook and right-hand man. Even if that position had been a cover he’d assumed in order to investigate my family.
Jack came back into the room, followed by an enormous burgundy leather wing chair. The kind of thing you see in old movies of old libraries in old gentlemen’s clubs.
“Gre
at!” Harry clapped his hands once, then rubbed them together. “Now I can finally sit down in this place.”
A grunt came from behind the chair, and I got an awful feeling that I’d figured out who was carrying it.
“Right here by the fireplace,” Harry said, and the chair was dutifully deposited in position. Its bearer straightened to reveal himself.
He looked like the love child of a mob enforcer and a yeti, and he was grinning at me as if he couldn’t be happier.
I did my best to smile back. “Hi, Flank.”
***
“I can’t believe he did that.”
Jack looked at the chair, and I swear I saw his mouth twitch.
“I mean, it’s not normal for a person to bring his own furniture to another person’s house,” I insisted.
“But if we’re talking Harry, are we really talking normal?”
It had started to rain, so Jack and I had decided to stay home when everyone else went off to Gordon’s restaurant. Jack had stuck something from the freezer into the oven for dinner later. Then he’d built our first fire while I’d gone upstairs to grab the duvet off the bed. We were now comfortably curled up on it in front of the crackling logs.
I sighed and turned my back on the chair, choosing not to remember the tremendous enjoyment Harry had taken in occupying it for the later part of the afternoon.
“I should be reading plays,” I said halfheartedly.
“That sounded convincing.” Jack pulled on the duvet to slide me closer to him.
“I’ve got a whole stack to get through. And then there’s Mike’s Fake Book to study.”
“Uh huh.”
Something in the way he looked at me made me suspect I wasn’t going to get much accomplished. And I was okay with that. But I did have something to discuss with him, just because I’d promised the gang.
“Jack, do you think I should be in some sort of disguise?”
His eyebrows went up.
“Brenda is worried that the guy from the truck the other night might recognize me as the person who was in your car with you.”
Jack nodded. “I’m a little worried about that too, but if I really thought he’d recognize you from seeing you in those conditions, I’d lock you in the bedroom and throw away the key before I’d let you set foot in Zakdan.”
That was sweet, in a sort of like-hell-he-would way. But since it didn’t seem to be an issue, I decided not to get all huffy about it.
“What about using a false name? Eileen pointed out that Simon and I are fairly well known in theatrical circles, so she thought maybe…what do you think?”
He seemed to be giving it consideration. “What kind of a name?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I really think just Charley Fairfax is good enough, because anybody who would know me from the theatre would know me as Charley Van Leewen.” I still used my maiden name for most things related to the Rep.
“Still.” He appeared to be thinking it over. “If the killer knows my name it might not be a good idea to show up using Fairfax.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought of that. “Okay, I’ll stick with Van Leewen.”
“Maybe you should use a different first name,” Jack suggested.
“Do you think?”
“Something like Hazel or Brunhilda.”
“Gee, thanks.” When I had thought about it, I’d been thinking of something more like Hildy Johnson—the fast-talking investigative reporter Rosalind Russell played in His Girl Friday. Or maybe Bunny Watson, after Katharine Hepburn’s character in Desk Set. Something suitably business-ish.
Jack interrupted my thoughts with the last suggestion I would have imagined.
“How about Mina?”
I stared at him.
“No?” He watched me. “You don’t like it?”
I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it when I was born Hermina Van Leewen, in honor of my grandfather. I didn’t like it that, however much I preferred to be called Mina, all the kids at school persisted in calling me Herman. I’d liked it so little that I’d legally changed it when I was fourteen, right after my parents died. I chose Charley because, if I was going to be called by a guy’s name, it was at least going to be a cute guy’s name.
I blinked. “You know?”
He grinned. “I know everything, remember?”
“How?”
He scooted me closer again. “I have ways.”
Damn right he did. Which were a little unnerving.
“Do I have any secrets from you?”
“Do you need any?”
“This isn’t fair,” I said. “You get to know everything about me, and what do I get to know about you?”
He tilted his head, close to mine. “Everything you need to.”
Right. I have a husband on a need-to-know basis.
“My middle name is Pequod.” He looked me in the eye. “Like the ship.”
“Your middle name is George,” I informed him.
His eyes flashed. “See? I can’t lie to you. You know too much about me.” The last statement, while false, was spoken in a low whisper and accompanied by a soft bite to the earlobe, so I didn’t much care about its veracity.
“I do know one thing.”
“Mmmfghbt?” As he was occupied in the general area of my neck, I couldn’t quite make out what he said.
“I know this duvet isn’t thick enough for the kind of thing you have in mind.”
He stopped in mid-nibble. “Then I suggest we go upstairs immediately.” He stood and held out a hand. “And if I should feel the urge to call out a name in the heat of passion…?” he grinned.
“It had better be ‘Charley.’”
Chapter Twenty
The following day I had a choice. Make the most of my last day before going undercover at Zakdan by studying my Fake Book and burning through as many of Chip’s manuscripts as possible, or make the most out of it by sleeping in, booking spa appointments for the afternoon, and making reservations at some decadent restaurant for a quiet little dinner with Jack.
I was just trying to decide which spa appointments to book when the phone rang.
“Charley, I’m working on my opening speech for tomorrow.”
It was Eileen, sounding uncharacteristically flustered.
“What speech?”
“Haven’t you talked to Jack yet today?”
“He was gone when I woke up,” I yawned.
“Don’t tell me you’re not out of bed yet?”
I sat up and put my feet on the floor. “Of course I am. Do you think I’d spend the last day before our operation just lazing around? Give me a little credit.”
“Oh, sorry.”
So was I. Briefly.
I started stripping the bed while Eileen talked.
“Jack spoke to Morgan Stokes this morning, and Morgan told him that he’s arranged an executive staff meeting for first thing tomorrow. So we can meet all the major Zakdan players at once.”
“That’s great.” Then a horrible thought struck. “When, exactly, do you think ‘first thing in the morning’ might be?”
“Around ten.”
Thank God. “Okay, so we’ll go to the meeting. What’s the problem?”
“Well, obviously, I’m going to have to say something.”
Well. Obviously.
“I mean,” she went on, “the people in the meeting won’t know they’ve been assembled in order for us to look them over as suspects. They’ll be expecting to meet this crack team of consultants. So, however much we can avoid and evade in follow-up conversations, as the team leader I’ll be expected to make some sort of opening remarks.”
I sat on the bed, a bundle of sheets in my lap. “Damn. I guess you will.”
“Which is why Jack called this morning. He says I should prepare a speech.”
“I don’t suppose he gave you any idea what it should be about?”
“He said I should be vaguely reassuring while vaguely intimidating. Something that conveys a sense of
urgency without getting into specifics about what we’re supposed to be doing there.”
“All subtext and no text.” I nodded. “Tricky.”
“Then help me! I only know money—you’re the one who knows speeches.”
“Sure, sweetie.” I got up, stuffed the sheets down the laundry chute, and returned to the bed, picking up a bathrobe along the way. “What have you got so far?”
I heard the rustle of paper. “‘Good morning.’”
Uh huh. “Well, it’s a start.”
***
After an hour on the phone, Eileen had a reasonable draft of the speech and I had a must-have-caffeine-now headache. I went looking for Jack in his office and didn’t find him, but when I stumbled into the kitchen I found a note.
C,
Gone to meet Inspector Yahata at the pier in Pacifica. They think they found the truck that crashed into us.
Maybe you should call Eileen. I think I freaked her out.
—J
Right. At least I’d managed to calm her down. I couldn’t say the same for myself. Now that the whole scheme was becoming a reality, I had to admit to a tiny case of nerves. Okay, a raging case of anxiety.
I entertained the brief hope that some evidence in the truck might lead the police to the killer before tomorrow morning. But that was probably something I shouldn’t count on.
I saw Jack had put fresh grounds into the French press for me, so I filled the kettle to boil water.
It wasn’t that I was nervous about how we’d perform, or that we’d be dramatically unmasked as spies. I was of the firm belief that most people go through life too self-absorbed to notice minor discrepancies in those around them. They’re too busy trying to cover their own discrepancies.
No, what was eating at my nerves was the fear that it wouldn’t work. That, even if we didn’t blow our own covers, we might just be really bad at gathering information. Or even worse, what if we turned out to be great at getting people to spill their guts, but we picked the wrong people?
Sure, Clara had been a member of the exec staff, but did that mean her murderer was one of her close colleagues? Suppose it was some dweeb in the mail room that she’d turned down for a date once? Suppose it had nothing to do with the software glitch? Did high tech companies even have mail rooms?
How to Succeed in Murder Page 13