In Sheep's Clothing

by Mary Monroe

  “I don’t feel like talking about this now,” I replied in a stiff voice.

  “Woman, don’t you hang up this telephone yet. There is something I need to know, and I need to know it now.”

  “What?” I asked with impatience and puckered lips.

  “Is there another man?”

  “What?” I hollered. “Who the hell do you think you are to be asking me something like that, man?”

  “Scratch that. I’m sorry and I didn’t mean that at all. I know you better than that.”

  “James, I’ll come by your place tomorrow. We’ll do something together real soon. Uh, I was thinking about inviting you to go to Reno or Vegas next weekend.”

  “We don’t need to go running off to Reno or Vegas,” James told me. “Besides, we need to be saving our money.”

  “Well, we can fly and it won’t cost us but a few dollars to pay for the tax. And the hotel room will be free.” I held my breath until I figured out the next thing to say. “I can use the employee discount now . . .”

  “Oh?” James let out a sharp whistle. The kind people let out when something impressed them.

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  James was upset and it was because of something I’d done and said. I had to make up for that. It wasn’t enough for me to just spend time with him anymore. I honestly felt that as long as the punishment fit the crime, it made everything all right again. With Ann Oliver’s credit cards, I could afford to do just about anything I wanted to do for my man. James was my ace in the hole and I had to keep him happy.

  “Let me think about it. I don’t want to leave Mama by herself for a whole weekend right now. She just got over a mild case of shingles.”

  “If she feels up to it, she can come with us,” I suggested, immediately regretting the corner I had backed myself into.

  My life had become a raging contradiction. Even though I was in control of my life, my life was out of control.

  I didn’t know if I was coming or going. In my own twisted way I blamed it all on Ann Oliver.

  CHAPTER 59

  I was glad to be back at the office. It gave me the time and the space I felt I needed to reorganize my thoughts. It also gave me the opportunity to keep my eye on Ann.

  I had stopped using her corporate credit card for my personal use, so there was no danger there anymore. And, I had used different telephone numbers and places of employment on the applications for the other credit cards. There was no chance that any of the new credit card people would call Bon Voyage. But for some reason, I still felt that for a while I needed to be in the office every day to screen Ann’s mail just in case some suspicious busybody at the credit bureau sent something that I didn’t want Ann to see.

  I had to try extra hard not to make the same mistakes that Ann had already chastised me for. I paid more attention when I took telephone messages and I took an earlier bus to work every day now so I wouldn’t be late. I even smiled all the time when I was in the office. Even when I didn’t have anything to smile about. Like the following Tuesday when Ann returned from an extended weekend in Vancouver.

  It seemed like the more I tried to avoid being alone with her, the more I ran into her. Like a ghost that could float through the wall, she appeared in the ladies’ room or the break room every time I thought it was safe. That woman was everywhere. I got stuck in the elevator with her that morning on my way back to my workstation after distributing the mail. She started to look me up and down, with her eyebrows raised in a way that made me feel hostile and defensive. I was thankful that I knew how to restrain myself.

  “How was Vancouver?” I asked. Initiating a conversation when I was alone with her made the ordeal less painful.

  “Full of Canadians,” Ann replied with a disgusted look. “No matter where I go it’s always good to be back in the good old U.S.A.” Her eyes were still roaming over my attire. “That’s a nice blouse, Trudy.”

  “Thanks. Pam and I went shopping at Macy’s after work yesterday.”

  “Well, you should shop at Macy’s more often,” she advised, straightening the lapels on her red blazer.

  I could feel the heat rising to my face but I managed to keep my cool. “Did you have a good time in Jamaica last week?” My question seemed to startle her. She gasped and gave me a frightened look.

  “Jamaica is not what it used to be,” she said with a heavy sigh. When the elevator stopped she pressed the button to keep the doors shut. “Uh, remember what I asked you to do about any calls from Mr. Giles in Jamaica?”

  “Yes. He called almost every day while you were down there.”

  “If he calls this week tell him I’m still out of the country.”

  “He didn’t sound too happy the last time he called,” I said, dying to know who this mysterious man was and what he meant to Ann.

  I had studied Ann Oliver so much I could read her body language. She was nervous. She tapped her foot a few times. Then she folded her arms in such a clumsy way the fingers on both of her hands crossed. “He’s an unhappy man and that’s why I don’t want to talk to him until I’m ready.” The elevator door slid open and she marched off without another word.

  “I don’t know what is going on between Ann and that Mr. Giles in Jamaica. That woman is into something she shouldn’t be in, and I don’t know what it is,” I told Pam and Wendy as soon as Ann waltzed out of the front door.

  CHAPTER 60

  Mr. Giles called again right after I returned from lunch, making my stomach churn the lunch I’d just consumed.

  “Let me talk to Missee Ann Oliver straightaway!” he roared, not even revealing his identity.

  By now there was no need for this man to announce his name. I had to ask anyway. “Who is calling, please?” I asked in my most pleasant and professional-sounding voice.

  “Giles!” he yelled, causing so much terror in me that I had to shift in my seat to keep from tumbling to the floor. In the background, I could hear the cling-clang of steel drums and a lot of other deep male voices with Jamaican accents talking and singing. It sounded like a beach party where everybody was having a good time except Mr. Giles. The threatening tone in his voice had me so scared by now that I couldn’t imagine what Ann was going through.

  “She’s still out of the country,” I told the angry Jamaican. There was a lot of static on the line, but his voice was so loud and angry I had no trouble hearing him. It was hard to believe that he was calling from an island country somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. It sounded like he was calling from next door.

  “Ow!” he hollered, grunting under his breath like a hog. “And what is your name!”

  My heart felt like it was marching across my chest. Even though this call had nothing to do with me, but because of my proximity to Ann Oliver, I experienced some level of fear myself. “I’m Trudy Bell,” I said, making sure I sounded pleasant. One thing I didn’t want was for somebody else to complain to Ann about my telephone manners. Especially somebody who sounded as beastly as this Mr. Giles.

  “Tru-dee, you have de lady call me back de minute she returns! See to it!” Mr. Giles hung up abruptly, the way he had been doing the last few times he called. But there was something different about him this time. He sounded a lot meaner and more determined to talk to Ann. While I was still sitting there looking at the dead telephone in my hand it rang again. It was Mr. Giles. “Tru-dee, give Ann a message for me, please. Tell her I will not call again until I hear from her. If she refuses to call me back when she returns, she may suffer. That is all.” Mr. Giles didn’t slam the phone down like I expected. I could still hear him breathing and growling under his breath.

  “Sir, are you still there?”

  “I am,” he said in a surprisingly gentle voice.

  “I will give Ann your message.”

  “One more thing, Tru-dee. Tell her I know where she lives . . .”

  This was one time when I couldn’t wait for Ann to get back to the office. About twenty minutes later she sashayed through the front door,
ignoring me completely. I jumped up and chased after her, catching up to her at the elevator. “Um, Ann, that Mr. Giles called twice while you were gone,” I told her in a low voice. She whirled around and glared at me. “He gave me a . . . uh . . . message to give to you,” I added with pleasure.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said to tell you he’s not going to call again until you call him back.” I paused long enough to catch my breath. “He seemed really upset, Ann,” I added.

  She shifted her eyes before she returned her attention to me. “Is that all?” she asked, her voice cracking.

  I shook my head and swallowed hard. My throat felt like it had a lump the size of a golf ball in it. “I don’t know what he meant, but he said if you didn’t call him back, uh . . . you may suffer.”

  Ann’s eyes got big and her lips trembled. For a few seconds she looked like a deer caught in headlights. She bit her bottom lip and looked around. Then without warning, she ushered me to a corner by the elevator. “Did he say anything else? It is really important that you tell me everything he said.”

  I nodded. “He said to tell you he knows where you live,” I said, enjoying the look of terror on her face.

  “Thanks, Trudy.” Ann literally ran into the elevator.

  Of all the good gossip for Wendy and Pam to catch from their hiding places in the ladies’ room, I was disappointed that they hadn’t heard Ann discussing Mr. Giles with Lupe or Joy.

  Freddie had her own theory about Ann and the Giles man. “She probably fucked him and told his wife,” Freddie said on the bus ride home that evening. “Or maybe she’s got something on him and is blackmailing him.”

  I frowned. “Uh-uh. Blackmail victims don’t try to get in touch with their blackmailers this hard.” I was dying with so much curiosity I didn’t have much time to think about my problems with James.

  “Wanna go dancing this weekend?” Freddie asked.

  “Huh? Oh, I can’t. I’m treating James to Vegas this weekend.”

  “Well, ain’t you sweet. I wish I could afford to be that sweet to my man.”

  I rolled my eyes at Freddie. “I’ll go dancing with you next weekend.”

  I had a very ominous dream that night. In it, I saw a hulk-like, angry, shadowy man push Ann off a steep cliff with nothing but jagged, razor-sharp rocks below. It was the kind of endless cliff that nobody could survive a dive from. When the body hit the ground and landed on its back, it was me.

  CHAPTER 61

  From the minute I arrived in Vegas, knots started forming throughout my entire stomach. I had dismissed the dream I’d had and moved on to some real misery. I had James on one side of me and his mother on the other. Mavis had on one of her favorite widebrimmed hats. She had placed it on her head at an angle to keep it from messing up the wig that I’d given to her for Mother’s Day.

  “You would think that that cheap travel agency you work for could have at least sprung for limo service,” she complained. “Every time I visit Vegas I have a limo take me to and from the airport,” she added with a look just harsh enough to annoy me.

  “Mama, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” James scolded, helping Mavis into the backseat of a cab by the curb in front of the airport.

  “And how come we stayin’ way down at that oldtime Stardust Hotel and not at the MGM Grand or the Mirage where all the action is?” Mavis continued, falling onto the seat with a groan. Of all the hundreds of people wandering about the airport, Mavis was the only one dressed like she was going to church. “If I had known y’all was gwine to drag me to a glorified flophouse like the Stardust, I would have got me a room somewhere else.”

  “Mama, the Stardust is one of the most popular hotel casinos in Vegas. People come from all over the world to stay there and see Wayne Newton’s show,” James said.

  “And that’s another thing!” Mavis roared, pouting like a two-year-old, giving the back of the cab’s front seat a healthy kick with her round-toed pumps. “Just ’cause I’m old, don’t mean y’all gotta carry me to see a old fossil like Wayne Newton. And how many Black folks come to Vegas to see Wayne Newton? Didn’t I read somewhere that Prince or Gladys Knight was singin’ somewhere at the other end of the Strip?”

  “It was the only show I could get tickets for at such a late notice,” I explained. At least that part was true. Here I was taking James and Mavis to Vegas at my expense, well, not really my expense, since the credit cards were in Ann’s name. But I still felt the need to be apologetic. I don’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but I rarely spent my own money to finance my good times since I’d come into possession of the fraudulent credit cards. But I was the only one risking my neck. With that in mind, I could not believe the nerve of Mavis. She was getting a free trip to Vegas and still was not satisfied.

  In addition to that, I’d gotten over a thousand dollars from several different ATMs, which I’d slipped to Mavis behind James’s back so she’d have money to gamble with. I had only two hundred dollars to gamble with myself. James didn’t gamble, but since I’d told him I’d get reimbursed by Bon Voyage when I turned in an expense report, he decided we’d only eat at the most expensive restaurants on the Strip.

  Summer in Las Vegas was always scorching hot. It was over a hundred degrees on this difficult day. The heat in Mexico had not been as intense. We were all dripping with sweat by the time we arrived at the hotel. Mavis was busy fanning her face with her floppy hat and complaining about other things all the way up to her room. To keep from saying something I’d regret, I left James alone with his mama while I went on to our room next door.

  I enjoyed the few minutes I had to myself. It gave me a chance to inspect the room. It had cost almost as much as I earned in two days at Bon Voyage, so I wanted to make sure everything was in order. The bed, facing a large TV on a dresser, was large enough to accommodate a small family. The carpet was so thick I was tempted to lie down on it instead of the bed. The bathroom was so immaculate I felt like I was desecrating it when I squatted over the toilet to relieve my bladder. Even the toilet paper looked too good to use. The fact that Mavis had complained about staying at this particular hotel instead of one of the newer ones was outrageous It seemed all the more ridiculous because the shabby old Victorian house that Mavis owned and lived in was near a dump site.

  By the time James joined me I had already popped open the huge bottle of complimentary champagne that I’d discovered in the room as soon as I opened the door. My head was already buzzing and my memory took me back to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I was so deep in thought, I didn’t realize James had returned to the room until he was on top of me.

  James was happy to find me stretched out on the bed on top of the covers with a wide smile on my face. “Girl, I need to get you off somewhere like this more often,” he teased, his anxious hands rubbing me all over. He seemed pleased that I was already naked as a jaybird and wet between my legs. As much as I had going on in my life now, when I did find time to spend with James, I usually enjoyed it. The one thing about my masquerade was, I didn’t know when it was going to end. But James was permanent. I had every reason to believe that he would be in that position for as long as I wanted him to. I had the best of both worlds. I planned to enjoy them as long as I could.

  Before James could even get his dick hard, let alone get naked, Mavis called with more complaints. She couldn’t find the TV remote control, she didn’t have a nice view, and she had forgot to bring her blood pressure pills. It didn’t do James much good to get her off the telephone by telling her he had to use the bathroom, because a minute later she was pounding on the door anyway.

  That was the way it was the whole weekend.

  CHAPTER 62

  Right after James left our hotel room to escort Mavis back to her room, I started feeling guilty because Mavis was not having a good time. Without giving it much thought, I dialed her room. She answered immediately.

  “Blood of Jesus.” Mavis was not that religious, but whenever it suited her
needs, she incorporated a higher power into her schemes.

  “Mavis, it’s Trudy.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said in a bored voice.

  “You seem a little tense,” I said gently and with a smile even though she couldn’t see it.

  “You just now noticin’ that?” she asked. As irritating as Mavis was, she was too pitiful to hate. Other than her son, she had no life. She didn’t even have a lot of friends. In a sense, when it came to Mavis Young, I had the patience of a saint. But James didn’t. I could hear him in the background scolding his mother like she was a naughty child. He had to do that a lot. It seemed like the older Mavis got, the more he had to treat her like a child.

  “Well, I pretty much feel the same way myself. It’s been a hard week for me. I was thinking that before we go back home maybe you and I could go get facials and a massage.”

  Mavis grunted under her breath before responding. “That sounds real nice and I could sure use some pampering. But I ain’t got that kind of money.”

  “Oh, no. If you want to join me, it’s on me,” I offered quickly. An imaginary sound, one that resembled the ching-chang of a cash register, shot through my head like a random bullet.

  “Oh. Well, when do you think we can get ourselves pampered?” Mavis chirped.

  “When it’s convenient for you,” I decided.

  As soon as I hung up, feeling a lot more relaxed now that I had soothed Mavis, the telephone rang again. This time it was Daddy, and he sounded totally distressed.

  “What’s wrong, Daddy?” I asked, my hand over my heart, expecting to hear the worst. “Did you take your pill?” I held my breath. “Is it Miss Sadie and her grandsons again? Don’t tell me Kenny, the good one, is in jail now.” I sighed.

  “Kenny ain’t in jail that I know of. But since you brought him up, there is somethin’ about that boy I can’t put my finger on. I would never bring this up to Sadie, but I don’t trust that young’n. He ain’t right. I can see it in his eyes.”