Gretchen fell silent, embarrassed. She had no idea she shouldn't have touched Mrs. Roth. There hadn't been a sign. So how was she meant to comfort the woman during this new visit? Stand in the corner and murmur and coo? She supposed she'd have to.
They got to the apartment. The electrode machine, thankfully, was gone, “The doctors realized it wasn't working,” David explained, but one of her catheters had come loose during whatever sort of attack she had had. So it was a good thing they had gone up there. Gretchen had stood in the corner with a kind look on her face and, yes, she murmured and cooed words of support.
Now Gretchen was at the bus stop. She hadn't been able to find an umbrella that worked, so she would just have to try her luck with one that had two mangled prongs. She got on the bus. She shared what was left of the seat of an apparent diabetic whose flabs of flesh splayed across the plastic. An unpleasant odor wafted from the woman, but Gretchen couldn't move away now that she had sat. What would the woman think?
Maybe I'll surprise David, take him lunch, she mused as the bus trundled past the furniture stores displaying styles that had never been in style, the Church's Fried Chickens, the shoppers bumping their plastic shopping bags into baby carriages, a battalion of which flanked every sidewalk. She wondered if she were taking him out to lunch to assuage her guilt for doubting him. She knew he loved Thai food. There was a place around the corner from the hospital. She'd get some Mee Grob, some Gai Larb, some Pad Thai. She knew the names of all the dishes now. She'd ask for him in the hospital lobby if he wasn't outside. They were sure to know his schedule.
Then she changed her mind. He was too busy, his job too important, for her to just drop by. She located her phone in her purse, under the Svardian warthog package, and dialed his number.
He answered immediately. “Gretchie baby!”
She was surprised. She had expected it to go to voicemail.
“Hi, David. You aren't in surgery?”
“No, not at the moment. Soon, though.”
“I wondered...I have to drop off one of Darko's packages at a place close to the hospital. Some Svardian deli. Do you have time for lunch? I can get Thai...?” She waited hopefully. The bus was stopped at a red light.
“Uh, today's not a good day. We've got another patient right after this one. It looks like there might be a few complications. This patient had some odd reactions to the anesthesia last time, so we have to do some extra blood tests. I might not get out until four or so. But we can have dinner tonight. I'll take you someplace nice. There's a great new Italian restaurant next to your apartment.”
“Oh, great! Okay. I'm looking forward to it. And I know you don't really like Downton Abbey, but it might be nice to watch a few episodes tonight. I'll massage your feet.”
He laughed. “Downton Abbey? It's my penance, I know, for that horrible kung fu movie I took you to. But I'll take the massage, thanks. See you soon.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
They hung up. The bus started moving. And Gretchen wondered...if David were in the hospital, why had she heard outside noises? Cars, the wind, children babbling in Spanish. And why did it sound like, beyond his voice, as she was hanging up, she thought she had heard suppressed laughter? She shook her head. No, Gretchen, don't think that way. Find North. Find North.
She looked out the window, what little of it she could see past the portly passenger. Was that...? Could it be...? Her eyes narrowed, then saucered. It was! How was it possible? All on the bus recoiled as she screamed. She pounded on the Stop strip again and again. “Stop! Stop this bus!” she roared, heart pounding in her windpipe, the flesh on her scalp tight as her shocked brain seemed to swell as it struggled to comprehend what the eyes had seen.
Gretchen thrust through the throngs of standing, now cussing, passengers, as she wailed for the bus driver to pull over. He didn't dare ignore the crazy white woman. The bus screeched to a halt beside a flower van. Gretchen flung herself down the steps, banging on the still-opening doors, until she could slip through. The moment she exited the bus, the clouds opened up and rain lashed from the heavens.
CHAPTER 16 TWO MONTHS AGO
HENRIETTA BROWN GRAPPLED her throat. She was having difficulty breathing. She pointed at the screen as if they were broadcasting the slaughter of kittens. Her son's face, five times its normal size, stared out at her from their 84” Ultra HD TV.
“Are you a poet, dear?” a harridan in a judge's costume was asking Mikey.
“Why, yes, I am.”
“What is this...program?” Henrietta sputtered to her husband. He grunted, but whether it was because he didn't know or didn't care was uncertain. Richard was thirty-five feet away from her across the vast expanse of the living room of the Brown's Connecticut residence. He was leafing through some financial documents and making a show of avoiding the episode of Judge Enda Lee, which Henrietta's niece had sent her and told her she simply must watch. When Henrietta watched TV, which wasn't often, it was usually Sixty Minutes or the History Channel. Her husband was always glued to CNN on the rare occasions he was home. They never engaged in such a declassé pursuit as watching reality TV. “A poet?” Henrietta said. “Give me a break! Mikey could barely spell, even after all the prep schools we sent him to, the two years of Harvard, and then he dropped out! Why is he spreading these lies? To the entire nation? To humiliate me? This program is so...vulgar! Unseemly!” Had her husband been sat anywhere in her vicinity, she would have surely grabbed his arm as she exclaimed, “Oh, Richard! Who are these beings, these common folk he's gotten himself mixed up with? How could it happen?”
“Drug abuse. Alcoholism,” Richard muttered into his papers, his lips pursed.
Mrs. Brown inspected, unconvinced, the faces of Louise, Carly Rae and Gretchen on the screen. Where were the dark circles under the eyes, the cold sores, the missing teeth? None of them seemed to be incessantly scratching their forearms. Their clothing was unwrinkled and clean, and their hair seemed freshly washed, styled, even, though makeup people in the studio might have done that. The witness of the defendant, the big girl, seemed of questionable repute, but other than that...
“Who is that creature? That so-called ex-girlfriend?” Henrietta now demanded to know, a finger pointing at Gretchen as the camera zoomed in for a close up, Judge Edna Lee roaring abuse at her, the redhead's eyes downcast. And so they should be! The lies she was spreading about her offspring! Mrs. Brown felt the life of the son she had borne slipping away from her. It was all her husband's fault. Richard was always looking at the bottom line. “He lived with that pauper? That scratch card scratching gambler? He's living now with those two harlots?”
“Those,” Richard said, lifting his head from the papers, “are Senator Eonton's daughters.”
“You mean...you mean...” Her voice rose with increasing horror, “the two tearaways that love to slum it? Didn't they also spend a summer in Tibet? In a tent? What sort of life is our poor Mikey leading now? A life of, I don't know, I don't know what it might be like, overdue notices, rental cars and generic toiletries.” She shuddered. “We can't do this to him any longer!”
“You now what Jeffrey said,” Jeffrey was the family lawyer, “We need to protect our assets. If Mikey has substance abuse problems, we need to cut him out of the estate.”
“That I understood, but he must've gotten help.” She knelt before the TV screen, head inspecting her son's HD image. “Bright eyes,” shining now with hatred across the courtroom, “no slurred speech,” barking out his promise of revenge, “He's clean now.”
The show was over. Henrietta had barely paid attention, such was her grief. Had he won or lost? She didn't care. As long as he was her son, he would never want for a piddly sum like $5000. Or that's the way it should be, at least. Tears and anger vied for control of her face.
“Oh! The mortification! I'll never be able to show my face at the Ladies' League ever again! Our only son, our only child, our heir, for the love of God, on common TV
, begging for a handout from that strange Annie-like creature. Before Hollywood made her into one of those African-Americans! The girl's a flight attendant! Or she was, if I'm understanding this program correctly. And you know what that means!”
Richard didn't. And he didn't want to ask.
“She thinks Julune is a month. I think that speaks volumes. That damn Jeffrey! He put Mikey in this position, forcing my poor baby to mingle with the likes of those! I won't have it! I won't have it, I tell you!”
Richard had put down the paper and was cautiously approaching his wife. Maybe she was in need of her medication.
“I won't have our son scrabbling for a measly, paltry $5000, a laughing stock of the entire Country Club! A disgrace to our good name! Did you see the suit he was wearing? Last season's! Ohhh, I'm mortified! Mortified!”
“Hone—”
“Don't you 'honey' me!” Henrietta sniped, smacking his hand from her shoulder. “You get your phone out this very instant and call Jeffrey! Reinstate the trust fund! Get my poor dear out of that bordello he's languishing in with those tarts! We've got plenty of properties in Manhattan! I want him in one of those right now! Preferably one with views of Central Park! And with a source of income! Or there will be hell to pay! Mark my words!”
Common sense had fled his wife's mind. Now it seemed hundreds of thousands would soon be fleeing their bank account. Richard speed-dialed Jeffrey. He sighed.
CHAPTER 17 NOW
GRETCHEN DIDN'T REMEMBER she was carrying an umbrella, functional or not. She scurried in the bucketing rain, yelping as it stung like hailstones, from awning to branch to lamp post, to another awning, another branch, and finally she perched behind the hood of a car, crouching down on the tar with the wheels of cars splashing torrents of water onto her back. She didn't care. She didn't even notice.
“Bastard!” she moaned to herself. “Bastards!”
But...what does it mean? Her head felt on the verge of erupting. Confusion, anger, betrayal and shock pumped through her veins in equal measures, coursing through her trembling body like molten lava and dry ice combined. Her sopping curls poked over the edge of the hood of the car, a rusty Oldsmobile, and her eyes bored with disbelief across the battered metal at the scene on the sidewalk. At the three of them under the awning of the outdoor cafe, a new hipster place vying for custom in this area of discount shoe stores and dodgy Chinese restaurants that sold more plantains than fried rice. Drinking coffee and chatting. Together! How on earth...?
The fourth of the little group, a surprising fourth, came from the inside of the cafe and joined them. Gretchen guessed she had been using the bathroom. A middle-aged white woman who looked out of place in this neighborhood. Gretchen didn't know who she was. Or...?
A bulb clicked alight in the caverns of her brain. Of course!
Gretchen banged her head against the hood of the car. Again and again.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” she called herself. Thankfully, there was nobody in the pelting rain to view this momentary madness.
Gretchen, forehead sore, peered at them again, willing what she saw to be a hallucination. But, no. She could still see what she saw before her. She didn't understand it. What could it possibly mean?
She moved around the car, still crouching, with little crab-like movements. She was strangling the umbrella, her purse was dragging in the filthy pools of water she sloshed through. The cafe was the second establishment on the block, beyond the Chinese restaurant. She couldn't let them see her. She had to think. Had to understand what was going on. She inched forward in the deluge. Through the rage, the confusion, the shock, the betrayal, tiny snippets of common sense were trickling into her consciousness, all the things her mind had been whispering to her for weeks that she had chosen to ignore, no, worse, the things she had shoved deeper into some compartment where memory didn't reach, burying them, hiding them from herself, such was her need for love.
Of course “David Lee Roth” wasn't on Facebook. A Mr. and Mrs. Roth wouldn't call their son David Lee. David, maybe, but David Lee? It seemed like a joke. On her. The simple answer? No Mr. or Mrs. Roth had called their son that, except the Mr. and Mrs. Roth. Why were David's scrubs blue when all the others were green? Because he was no anesthesiologist. Why had he taken the gun? Why had it sounded so strange when it fell? Because it was fake. Plastic. Like her David Lee Roth. Sitting at that table now. Drinking...what? It looked like a cappuccino. Drinking a cappuccino with “Lewd” and “Snicker.” And that woman with them? She was stripped of makeup, and Gretchen was sure it was “poor, pitiful, almost-Centenarian Mrs. Roth.” And Gretchen had held her hand! Kissed her on the forehead! Conniving bitch!
Slowly, stealthily, wetly, Gretchen made her way past the Chinese restaurant and pressed herself into a crevice between its door and the green and white striped partition that wound around the tables and chairs of the cafe. She wondered if David's eyes were gray, or if they were contact lenses. To make her fall for him. He probably had brown eyes. Hateful brown eyes. She longed to claw them out.
There were a few potted plants inside the partitions. There was a large bush to the left. Gretchen crawled along the sidewalk and placed herself behind it. That steely Irish Gretchen, the Gretchen of the barricades and rubber bullets and the stiletto-heels-as-weapons and feck you ye flimmin feckin c***s was rising from deep within her, percolating through half her veins. She was channeling her mother's, Ursula's, rage. The rage of the red-headed. She inched her face up, peering through the twigs and leaves. She could just make the four of them out. Her two fake muggers and the fake invalid seemed annoyed, and David, well, whoever he was, Bastard, seemed to be trying to calm them down.
“How long is this going to go on for?” Invalid asked. “I've got other gigs, you know. And I don't understand why these things can't be arranged in advance. It takes forever to put that damn make up on. And it's not as if it's really helping my career, you know. I could be going out on auditions instead of stretching out there on that bed while you and that girl hover over me.”
“You know what Mike said,” Bastard said. “He loves the long con. And he wants to be sure that Gretchen meets you enough, feels for you enough, so that—”
Lewd broke in, “That asshole's crazy,” he said. “The poor girl. What the hell did she do to him? I know we're supposed to be working for him, but the crap he's putting her through! If he hadn't paid me so much, I wouldn't keep this up. He creeps me out. And now that our part is over,” he nodded at Snicker, “all we've got is stupid stage hand jobs, setting up that apartment and those medical things.”
“And the funeral. It'll be hell setting that up.”
“I'm glad,” Bastard said, “we're finally meeting. You guys had me almost shitting my pants over those electrodes. I know I'm a great actor, but I almost burst out laughing when I saw that machine. Where the hell did you get it from?”
Snicker said, “When Mike had me get that cleaning job at the hospital so I could get my hands on the catheters and your scrubs and all the other stuff, there it was sitting there in the corner of the basement doing nothing, so we brought it along.”
“What's it for?”
“Who knows. But we thought it looked good. More dramatic.”
“It looked like something out of a horror movie.”
“And those damn electrodes hurt like hell,” Invalid said, arms folded. “I told Mike I'd quit if they didn't haul that machine away. The catheters were enough. And, Vareen,” she spoke to Lewd, “I think you should stick to acting. Your make up skills suck. Mike said mid-sixties. I looked like a cadaver. Like Cher.”
“Yeah,” Bastard said, “I didn't know what was worse, the electrodes or that poor Flora looked ninety at the very least!”
“It's a miracle,” Invalid said, Flora, “the girl didn't realize my face was fake. How she didn't, I can't imagine. I debated for a moment screaming at her when she bent over to kiss me, but decided it would be out of character. After you guys left, the moment the door was
closed, I jumped out of bed and looked at myself in the mirror. Her lip marks were still there in the latex! It's a good thing you ushered her out quickly.”
“Don't be a hater,” Snicker sniped. “Don't criticize.” He turned to Bastard. “Why did it take you so long to come down those stupid stairs the first day? Vareen and I didn't know what to do! I had to touch her breast!”
Snicker shuddered visibly. And here Gretchen realized what marvelous actors Lewd and Snicker were. It was now obvious they were so gay they were practically lisping, yet she had seen them as dumb, horny, heterosexual thugs.
Bastard was losing his cool. “If we're going to go back to the first day, why the hell did you leave the gun? I had to pick it up. I felt like an idiot, but what could I do? I couldn't leave it there! I'm surprised she hasn't said anything about it.”
Vareen shook his head. “You got it lucky, so don't bitch at us. You get all the meals, you get some action out of it. Not that I'd want it, not from a fish,” he and Snicker squirmed with discomfort, “but you know what I mean.”
“Do you know how difficult it is,” Bastard said, “to keep up the pretense over the course of a meal? Over the course of an evening? You guys only had to deal with her for a few minutes. You too, Flora.”
“So, back to what I was asking,” Flora said, “when's the, what's it called? The sting? When is this whole thing over?”
“I don't know. A few more days, maybe. A week at most.”
“And all this work, all this money he's thrown at it. He's crazy. I saw the rerun of that Edna Lee show the other day. What psychopath would do all this for a measly $30,000? He certainly doesn't need the money! We all know that!”
“He said it's the principle of the thing,” Bastard said. “You know what, though? Mike thinks she still has that $30,000, but I don't think so. That's one of the main reasons I wanted to get together with you guys. I wonder if we should tell him? I've been wondering for a while now. I thought something might be up when she bought me a present the other week. It was, well, I don't want to tell you what it was, but I looked it up online, and it didn't cost much. I always thought, if she loved me like she seems to, and if she had that $30,000, she'd have paid a bit more.”
Emergency Exit (The Irish Lottery Series Book 6) Page 25