“Sergei?”
“The KGB man.”
“What? You’re seeing a KGB man?”
“Of course not, don’t be silly. I’m seeing Leonard Goldblatt. He’s Sergei’s counterpart in the lecture series. He’s retired CIA.”
Oh, well, that was different. What a relief.
Shit! My mother had hooked up with a spook. Of course he was charming and smart—that’s exactly what he was trained to be! Who knew what his true nefarious plans were?
“Mom,” I said with a sigh, “what do you really know about this man? He could be—”
“Harriet, I do not appreciate your tone. Why do you want to deny me a little happiness in the twilight of my life?”
Well, as you might imagine, the conversation went downhill from there.
My mother, the Drama Queen. Twilight of her life, my ass. She was in her prime. And I’d be damned if I’d let some secret agent stranger steal her heart as a prelude to stealing her money. I might not have much money, nor no longer need much of it to be happy, but my mom did. Plus, it kept her off my back.
The problem was, being a Botox Babe, Mom made an ostentatious display of her maritally acquired megabucks. Like the contessa, she dripped designer duds and diamonds. So, no doubt, this covert operative, or whatever the hell he was, was surely out to make some acquisitions of his own. I had to get the goods on this guy and expose his true intentions.
Unfortunately, that would have to wait till later. Right now, I had a killer to catch.
I WOKE UP early and piloted my airboat to land, all the while fretting about my mother. At the dock, I unloaded the Hog and then rode to Tricia’s residence at the Trailing Vines Country Club.
After being vetted by the security guard at the community entrance gate, I proceeded to the house. Well, I suppose it was a “house” the way an ocean liner is a “boat.” “Castle” would be a more apt term, I guess. It had turrets and all. The only thing missing was a moat.
A gardener was trimming the hedges out front. He stopped work to listen to my Hog as I pulled up the driveway. Can’t blame him—that V-twin vibe beats the sound of hedge clippers any day.
I rang the bell and immediately there was a flurry of barking inside. I hoped I wouldn’t have to fend off another Coco. I stood there, cooling my heels. I guess it would take a while for someone to get from one end of this château to the other. Just as I was about to ring again, the door was opened by a clean-cut, bespectacled man about Tricia’s age. He was wearing a lime-colored golf shirt and matching plaid shorts. Chic for Boca Raton males.
A chocolate Labrador retriever was running around his feet, wagging its tail.
“Hi, Harriet Horowitz?” he (the man, not the dog) asked. “Tricia’s expecting you. I’m Mark Cohen, her husband. C’mon in. She’s upstairs decorating the nursery for the baby. This is Max,” he said, indicating the dog.
Unlike Coco, this one was so cute that I just had to bend down and scratch its ears. I missed my former mutt, a Shih Tzu I’d named Diva Dog. As a Boca Babe, my dog had owned more clothes and toys than most people’s children. But I had to admit that with her delicate sensibilities, she was probably better off with her new owners in their plush condo than with me in my swamp hut.
Then I remembered that I had my Dirty Harriet image to uphold, so I stood up. After all, when did you ever see Dirty Harry petting anything?
I stepped into the foyer, which was flanked on either side by built-in niches displaying opulent oil paintings illuminated from above by recessed lighting. The painted dome ceiling featured blue sky with white clouds and a few cherubim and seraphim peeking out at the edges. The Sistine Chapel look was big in Boca.
A double staircase led to the upper floor. I expected to see Scarlett O’Hara come floating down in her drapery ball gown.
We walked up, and I heard the sounds of the Eagles’ “Hotel California” coming from a room down the hall. As we approached, the music grew louder. We entered the room. Tricia had her back turned to us as she half danced, half worked, hanging a framed drawing of a smiling elephant on the far wall. A stack of more pictures and a CD player, the source of the music, were on the floor. A crib stood at one end of the room underneath a hanging mobile of circus animals. Next to that was a changing table and a diaper pail. At the other end of the room was a dresser topped with a collection of teddy bears. The Good Life awaited this kid.
“Tricia,” Mark called. She didn’t hear him. He repeated it louder, and she turned around.
“Oh, hi.” She bent over and turned the music down, struggling a little to get back up, her protruding belly putting her off balance. Mark walked over to help her get upright.
She looked younger and more relaxed than she had at the office, probably because she had on less makeup, or because her clothes—flowered capris topped by a large Polo shirt—were more casual than the couture maternity suit she’d had on when I last saw her.
“I’ll let you two talk,” Mark said, and looked at his watch. “I’ve got a tee time with some clients in half an hour. Tricia, have you seen my golfing glove?”
“No, honey,” she replied. “When was the last time you had it? Maybe you should retrace your steps. Or maybe it’s in your golf bag.”
“Yeah, I’ll check,” he said, and headed out the door.
“Oh, honey,” she called, “don’t forget we’re having company tonight for Mom’s birthday. I’ll be wearing my red-and-white Escada suit, so you should pick out something to match.”
“Right,” he said, and left.
She shot me a conspiratorial smile, like we were two sorority girls giggling about their boyfriends. “Mark is a little absentminded,” she said indulgently. “If I wasn’t around to keep his life organized, he’d fall apart.”
Well, to each his own. If anybody tried telling me what to wear, he might as well sprout wings, because his ass would be flying out the door.
“Anyway,” Tricia said, “do you mind if I keep working while we talk? I’ve got to get these pictures up this morning. I’ve just got so much to do before the baby comes. It’s my first one, so I had to start from scratch with all the supplies and decorations and everything. The pregnancy was a wonderful surprise, but with all my work and all the preparations here, I’ll admit I’m feeling a little overburdened.”
“Sure,” I said. “Can I do anything to help?”
“Oh, no thanks,” she said, and started rolling paper up the wall again. Perfectionists. They might be overburdened to the gills, but would they ever let anyone help? Of course not. No one could do anything as well as they could themselves.
In the background, the Eagles were now singing “Witchy Woman.” Coincidence or cosmic synchronicity?
“So, what did you want to ask about Gladys?” Tricia inquired, her feet moving to the beat.
“Well, was there anything unusual about her behavior in the days before her disappearance?”
“No, I wouldn’t say so,” Tricia said, “Of course, she was only with us a couple weeks, so I didn’t know her all that well. I wouldn’t really know what was usual or unusual for her. She did a good job for us, like I said. Always did all her tasks just as I instructed.”
Now, that seemed a little unusual to me. Could anyone really please a perfectionist?
Tricia continued, “When she wasn’t working, she pretty much stayed in her room. She did go sit out by the pool once in a while, but that’s about it.”
“Did she express any concerns or worries to you before she disappeared?”
“No, but of course we didn’t really talk, other than about the household tasks. Her English was pretty limited. Anyway, I make it a practice not to get too friendly with people who work for me, both at work and at home. It’s a bad idea, creates role confusion.”
Of course. We wouldn’t want any human-to-human contact
across caste lines or anything.
“How about visitors?” I asked. “Did she ever have any?”
“She had a little friend that came a couple times. Eu-something. Eunice?”
“Eulalia,” I said.
“Yes, that’s it.”
At that moment, Mark entered the room. “Tricia, have you seen my red Saint Laurent tie?” he asked. “I wanted to wear it tonight.”
“No, I haven’t,” she replied. “Why don’t you wear the Roberto Cavalli one? That’ll match well.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said, and left.
If these two were trying to impress me with the designer name-dropping, they were wasting their time.
I resumed my questioning. “So nothing different happened in the days before Gladys’s disappearance?”
“No, sorry,” she said, hammering a nail into the wall. “I wish I could be more helpful. Anyway, I already told all this to the police.”
“Do you think I could talk to some of the other household staff who worked here at the same time as Gladys? They might have gotten to know her a little better than you did, so they might be able to shed some more light on things.”
“Well, the police already talked to them, so I don’t see what good it would do, but okay. I’ll get you a list of their names and numbers. We don’t have anyone live in, except the housekeeper who replaced Gladys, and of course she didn’t know Gladys since she came after her. If you can hold on a minute, I’ll go make the list.”
She left, and there I was again, stuck in a room that provided no opportunity for snooping. There was nothing in here but teddy bears and diapers.
Tricia came back with a computer-generated list. Naturally, Ms. Organized must have had all the names, addresses, and phone numbers of anyone she’d ever had any contact with stored in a database. I wondered what terms you’d search under to pull out the servants from the family members, friends, and clients. Riffraff? Commoners?
“Here are the names of the gardener, the cook, the dog walker, and the car detailer. They all still work for us,” she said.
Just then the doorbell rang. “Oh, that must be the caterer delivering the hors d’oeuvres for tonight,” she said. “And I’m expecting my personal trainer any minute. So, if there’s nothing else you want to ask . . .”
I was being dismissed again. But that was cool. I had to get out of this place. I was getting some wicked flashbacks of my past life, with its cast of thousands all there to support the lord and lady of the manor.
I said goodbye to Tricia and roared off on my Hog, letting out a deep breath of relief. Man, how much simpler my life was now. Sure, recovery hadn’t been easy, but I wouldn’t go back to that fairy tale if my life depended on it. There were too many monsters hiding in those woods.
Chapter 11
OKAY, I KNOW—where do I get off talking about monsters in the woods, when I live next door to an alligator? Well, at least I know Lana is there. It’s the enemy you can’t see that you’ve got to worry about.
Right now, I had other worries. I had to track down the truth about Leonard Goldblatt, my mother’s new squeeze. I rode to my office. There, the first thing I did was look him up in the phone book. Naturally, he wasn’t listed. So I got on the Web and looked up the phone number of the International Spy Museum in Washington. After pressing a gazillion numbers to get through the organization’s voice mail system—was this supposed to be a metaphor for the challenges of the espionage experience or something?—I finally managed to get a live person in the personnel department.
“Hi,” I said, “I’d like to get some information about Leonard Goldblatt, who is conducting a lecture series under your auspices aboard the Merry Mermaid.”
“One moment, please.”
Before I had a chance to respond, I was put on hold. The theme music from Goldfinger came on the line. I drummed my cold fingers on my desk. Then the Mission: Impossible theme came on. This was followed by The Spy Who Loved Me and The Lady Vanishes.
Okay, that did it. Here I was trying to save my mother from the spy who would soon purport to love her and make her and her money vanish, and I was on perpetual hold.
Just then the live person came back on.
“I have the information you asked for. According to our promotional materials, Mr. Goldblatt is a former CIA supervising special agent and one of the world’s leading authorities on counterintelligence and clandestine strategies and tactics. He is on the board of directors of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers and . . .”
Shit! I knew I wasn’t dealing with a living, breathing, sentient being. It was a robot, an android, or whatever—just reciting a canned spiel.
“I don’t want the man’s official freaking résumé!” I yelled into the phone. “I don’t want the cover story! I want the straight scoop! The inside dope!”
There was a brief silence on the other end while the robot’s tape rewound. Then it replayed, “One moment, please.”
I was tortured with some more music to spy by, then a woman identifying herself as the director of human resources came on the line. I restated my wishes, just as I had learned in a class on How To Complain Effectively that I’d taken back in my doormat days: clearly state the problem, then clearly state what you would like done about it, then restate both. That trick worked about as well now as it had then—that is to say, not at all.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said, “I cannot give out any information of that nature. I’m sure you realize that our employee records are confidential.”
I should have known. The only way to complain effectively is the Magnum method. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work with the CIA.
Now what? I knew better than to try to tackle the agency. They’d turn the tables, swoop down in the middle of the night, haul me off to some undisclosed location, and interrogate me till I confessed to . . . something, anything.
The only other option was to run a computer background check on Goldblatt. I logged on to a national database of U.S. residents and entered his name and city. I didn’t have his date of birth, but I knew he had to be at least in his sixties if he’d been a player in the Cold War. Several Leonard Goldblatts popped up but none in that age range. I went through the full background investigation, checking public records, criminal databases, and several subscription services that give P.I.s access to drivers’ licenses and other information. Nothing turned up. Nada.
As far as I could determine, Leonard Goldblatt did not exist. Then again, he was CIA. He could have had his records wiped or had used an entirely different name. Nonetheless, the fact that he left no electronic trace made me very nervous.
I decided to give it a rest for a while and let my subconscious come up with a plan.
I spent the rest of Saturday writing an interim progress report for the contessa and working a couple other cases. Then I went home to my best buddy. We had a wild Saturday night out on the swamp, Lana snapping at turtles and whatever else happened to float by, me gazing at the night sky. As Oscar Wilde said, “We’re all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
I woke up ready to take on the world, avenge Gladys, and save my mother. Unfortunately, it was Sunday, so the world wasn’t ready for me. I wouldn’t be able to get any interviews done on the case today or do much about my mother, either. So I decided to mellow out with motorcycle maintenance.
I pulled the Hog up on the porch and set it on its center stand. I checked the spark plugs and replaced one. Then I checked the oil level. Having completed these tasks, I sat down for a while to bask in that virtuous feeling that comes from accomplishment.
THAT AFTERNOON, I arrived at Lior Ben Yehuda’s Krav Maga Center, located not far from my office on the gritty outskirts of Boca. My body still felt a little battered from the week’s misadventures, and I figured the best thing for it would be to get some m
ovement into those joints and muscles. Krav Maga hadn’t yet made it to the fancy-ass athletic clubs of Boca, thank God (Goddess, whatever). That would be the end. Krav Maga is about street fighting. I couldn’t quite picture it being practiced by Boca Babes, most of them aerobics fanatics who go to class wearing three bras to keep their assets frozen in place while they jump up and down. I like to practice Krav Maga the way it was meant to be, in ratty sweat clothes and scruffy old gym shoes and with a scrappy attitude.
That day Lior greeted me at the door as class was about to get started.
“Shalom, Harriet,” he said.
“Shalom Aleichem, Lior,” I replied. Yoga has its namasté; Krav Maga has its shalom.
Lior is an Israeli ex-commando who trained with the masters, the original students of the man who developed the method for use in the Israeli War of Independence back in 1948. He’s six foot three and a lean, mean, fighting machine. Picture The Terminator as a Sephardic Jew.
Given his background, Lior is a little cocky. He likes to strut down the street like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. He eagerly awaits sundown each Sabbath so he can go hit the clubs on Miami’s South Beach.
“When you going to go out with me, foxy lady?” Lior asked. This was his standard refrain. Lior was one of the few—okay, the only—straight men in my post-Babe life who wasn’t intimidated by the Dirty Harriet thing. It was clear that strong women—physically and mentally—turned him on.
But I wasn’t turned on by Lior—really! It was a long way from my swamp abode to South Beach—and not just geographically. So Lior went through the ritual of asking me out just to test me. I had told him we could go out when peace came to the Middle East. And we both knew when that would be.
That afternoon we started class, as usual, with cardiovascular, strength building, and flexibility exercises. Then we reviewed the body’s vulnerable points to be targeted when fending off an attack—back of the neck, temples, eyes, throat, knees, groin. After that, we practiced defenses against a variety of punches and kicks. We went through several repetitions of each attack, the idea being to ingrain the defensive moves in the mind so that they become second nature in an actual combat situation.
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