The Last Word

by Lisa Lutz

  “I have an appointment with Marcus Lorre,” I said.

  “An appointment?” asked the receptionist. I got the feeling that Lorre didn’t have many appointments.

  The telephone rang. She picked up. “Lightning Fast Moving. How can I help you?”

  “I’ll find him myself,” I said.

  The receptionist looked like she was about to protest but gave up, as she probably had on most things in life.

  I walked down the hallway, which was most likely decorated by a bachelor who still wore wide-lapelled polyester shirts. Lorre’s office was at the end of the hall, his name on a marker by his door.

  I heard a lone male voice inside, presumably on a telephone call.

  “You sound like a nice girl,” he said. “Listen, I don’t do this for everyone, but I’ll take five hundred off the quote. Great. I’ll e-mail the documents and all you have to do is sign them virtually. Yes, you can do that now.”

  I knocked.

  “You’re in good hands. I promise,” the male voice said.

  I knocked again.

  “Come in.”

  I opened the door. A dark-haired man with a sharp widow’s peak slicked back with Brylcreem sat behind his desk. He wore a crisp white shirt open at the collar, stained by the spray tan on his neck. He had one wormy eyebrow and teeth so white, they were probably veneers.

  “Hi, are you Marcus Lorre?”

  “Who are you? And who let you back here?”

  Lorre had clearly been served papers before. He was looking for an escape route and trying to figure out where I was hiding the documents.

  “My name is Isabel. I’m a private investigator. I was hoping we could have a little chat.”

  “I’m very busy right now. Maybe you can make an appointment.”

  “This won’t take long. I want to talk to you about Vivien Blake.”

  “I can’t recall the name at the moment.”

  “You handled the contract for her move. And then, on the day all of her worldly possessions were to be delivered to her new home, three large men held them ransom and made unsubstantiated claims about the total weight of her belongings and added other ridiculous charges and refused to move a single item until she ponied up over two grand. Where I come from, that’s called extortion.”

  “I believe if she read the contract she we would see that there’s a surcharge when the items go above the estimated weight. The young woman provided the best estimate she could and we went with the numbers she gave us. The contract is clear.”

  “You had her belongings for only a month and never informed her that they were over the estimated weight.”

  “I believe if she read the contract—”

  “You’ve had twelve small-claims suits against you.”

  “Seven of the cases were dismissed for lack of evidence.”

  “The plaintiffs in ten of the twelve cases were women. Why is that?”

  “I don’t know,” Lorre said. “The men can move their stuff on their own?”

  “No, that’s not it,” I said. “Try again.”

  “Women don’t read contacts?”

  “Is this really how you want to play it?” I asked.

  “Oh, you’re one of those tough girls.”

  “Mr. Lorre, I would watch how you talk to me. There are things I can do to you.”

  “I’d love to hear them over a drink sometime.”

  “A woman actually married you?”

  I had a visual, beyond the photos, and then a physical reaction to the visual.

  “I have a beautiful wife and two beautiful children.”

  “I take it you’d like to hang on to her and the kids?”

  “We’re doing just fine.”

  “We’ll see,” I said.

  “Anything else I can help you with?” Lorre asked.

  “Have a nice day.”

  As I passed his car in the parking lot, I pulled my knife out of my purse, walked over to his car, and stabbed the front left tire. When I got into my car, Vivien glared at me.

  “I wanted to do that,” she said.

  I reluctantly handed over the knife.

  “One tire only. Then get back in the car immediately.”

  Vivien looked like I’d told her she won the lottery. While Viv vandalized Lorre’s car, I made the call I had hoped to avoid at all costs.

  “Rae, it’s Isabel. I just met with Lorre.”

  “What’s your ruling?” Rae asked.

  “Take him out.”

  Status: Resolved.

  * * *

  1. Notice how she was, in fact, threatening me by mentioning the threat she could make.

  UNRESOLVED

  Slayter returned to work a week after being released from the psych ward. Charlie Black phoned to keep me abreast of his employer’s activities.

  I drove to his office to have a word with Edward, since he was refusing to return my calls.

  Evelyn was returning from a coffee run at Caffe Trieste. Apparently, the run was just for her and Arthur Bly. Arthur came to the front desk to retrieve his brew and Evelyn said in the sweetest voice, “Decaf, double mocha. I know you said no whip, but you’ve been working so hard lately, I made an executive decision.”

  “You’re going to kill me, Evelyn,” Arthur said, boyishly accepting his beverage.

  “That might be her plan,” I said.

  Evelyn responded with an icy stare. “I’ll let Edward know you’re here.”

  “He’ll figure it out when I walk into his office.”

  When I was presumably out of earshot (I’m rarely actually out of earshot when people presume I am), I heard Arthur inquire about Evelyn’s mother. She had found a temporary home for her, but it was state-run and Evelyn couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her mother there permanently. Arthur sympathized and said he’d gone through the same thing with his own ailing father. I swear, those two acted like human beings with each other and androids in my company. I refused to accept all the blame.

  Charlie was keeping vigil outside of Edward’s office, reading a business magazine from the waiting room.

  “How is he?” I asked quietly.

  “He looks fine. The doctor said there was no long-term damage. Won’t get the drug tests back for a few days, but it was probably out of his system by the time they drew blood.”

  “Has Ethan been by to see Edward?”

  “Yes. He’s been over a few times.”

  “Did they talk?”

  “Yes. And I don’t think Edward liked what they talked about.”

  “Good.”

  “Why is that good?”

  “Because it means that Ethan told his brother the truth.”

  “Then I guess that’s good,” Charlie agreed.

  Through the glass walls of Slayter’s office, I could see his telephone call come to an end.

  I entered without invitation.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I work here,” said Edward. “Guess who I was just talking to?”

  “Without any other information, I’m going to go with Morgan Freeman.”

  “No. Agent Bledsoe with the FBI.”

  “I’m familiar with his work. I think Morgan Freeman1 makes a better FBI agent.”

  “Agent Bledsoe has suggested I keep my distance from you,” Slayter said.

  “I think that’s good advice for anyone.”

  “Nonsense,” Edward said, pulling me into a warm embrace. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, shrugging him off. I wasn’t used to affection from my boss. “Tell me what Bledsoe had to say, other than disparaging my character.”

  “The account that was compromised has been frozen,” said Edward. “But the receiving account is now closed. All we know about that account is that it was a Delaware corporation, GLD Inc., and the bank finally gave us a name associated with the account. Clayton Knight. Apparently they have a passport number for him, but it appears he might be deceased.”

&n
bsp; “So someone used a dead guy’s identity to open up a Delaware corporation, used that corporation to open an offshore account and transferred funds from your company into the offshore account, transferred that money into another offshore account, and then closed it out. So now you follow the money into the next offshore account. Right?”

  “That’s the gist.”

  I wanted to ask if Lenore was smart enough to open and close a bunch of offshore accounts, but I heeded his warning about Lenore and kept the question to myself.

  “I’ll keep looking into it,” I said.

  “How’s your father doing?”

  “He’s making the best of a difficult situation. Translation: He’s not squandering the opportunity to have his entire family at his beck and call. Who knows when he’ll get this sick again?”

  “It must be nice to have family. On the outside,” Edward said wistfully.

  “Ethan finally talked to you, I take it.”

  “Yes. Some people never change,” Edward said.

  “He wanted to see you before he went away. That’s a good thing,” I said.

  We left the other part unsaid. Ethan’s second Ponzi scheme, like his first, was a desperate attempt to emulate his brother’s success. He could have avoided the plea deal if he had gone to his brother for help. But, after years of turning to Edward only for cash, Ethan couldn’t bear to repeat the same mistake. And this mistake would likely keep the brothers apart for the rest of their lives.

  All I said was, “I’m sorry. I hear Lompoc is nice in spring.”

  “Thanks, Isabel. Now go home and take care of your father.”

  “See you Wednesday, at nine?” I asked.

  “You can take the morning off. I think Lenore will join me.”

  I was startled by being dismissed so suddenly. It couldn’t have been that I actually wanted to go jogging.

  I passed Damien’s office on the way out. It was empty, and in light of the fact that I’d caught him in one significant lie I didn’t think another would be entirely off base, so I thought I’d give his office a cursory search.

  I opened desk drawers and file cabinets and found office supplies and files, nothing that would help me incriminate him. Not that I was convinced Damien was the person behind the funds transfers, but until he started working for Slayter, no one had embezzled money from the man and tried to frame me.

  “What are you looking for?” Damien asked from the doorway.

  “A mint.”

  “In my file cabinet?”

  “That’s where I keep them. I was also looking for paper. I was going to write you a note.”

  “What was the note going to say?”

  “ ‘Where do you keep your mints?’ ”

  “Hey, I had a good time the other night,” Damien said.

  “The other night?” I said, gazing upward and to my left, which is where you look when you’re recalling a visual memory. “Oh yeah. Now I remember.”

  “You didn’t return my call.”

  “I didn’t, did I?”

  “Maybe we can hang out again sometime.”

  “Oh no, I’m late,” I said, looking at my wrist. “I’ll catch you later.”

  The exit would have been better had I been wearing a watch.

  As I was heading out of the office, Charlie sent me a text and told me to meet him at the elevator bank.

  “I have this app on my phone so that I can track Mr. Slayter. Well, it can track Mr. Slayter’s phone. It doesn’t work if he doesn’t have his phone on him, as we discovered that one time. Remember?”

  “Yes, Charlie.”

  “Then I was thinking it would probably be good for me to have his friends’ numbers in my phone so I could track them too, in case Mr. Slayter forgot his phone but I knew he was with his brother or Lenore or Willard.”

  “That’s a good idea, Charlie.”

  “I asked Mr. Slayter if that was all right, and he jotted down a few numbers for me and I put them into my phone,” Charlie said.

  “Are you going somewhere with this, Charlie?”

  “Are Willard and Lenore really good friends?”

  “I’m not sure they’ve even met.”

  “They’ve definitely met.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Her phone has been at his house all morning.”

  • • •

  I camped out in front of Willard’s three-story house on Jones Street in Russian Hill. It was the family home that he inherited by virtue of being the only living Slavinsky. He once told me that his parents considered donating their entire estate to charity but thought again when he found his success with Slayter Industries. They had hoped that someone would carry on the family name, never believing that their son would remain a devout bachelor well into his sixties.

  I had to wait two hours for the evidence against Lenore that I knew I would find, but there it was. She and Willard, locking lips outside his front door. I took the photo, waited until she got into her car and left, and knocked on Willard’s door. He was still in his bathrobe and had to make some decency adjustments when he saw me.

  “Isabel, what a lovely surprise. I would have at least worn boxer shorts had I known you were coming.”

  “I think this is a conversation that requires at least boxers, maybe even pants.”

  Willard told me to make myself at home and made a quick change in his bedroom. When he returned, he was wearing a velour sweat suit.

  “Tony Soprano wants his wardrobe back.”

  “It’s very comfortable. And you should be the last person to mock anyone’s fashion sense.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Willard asked amiably.

  “Are you seeing someone new?”

  “Why, are you jealous? I’ve always told you, Isabel—”

  “I’m being serious, Willard. It’s about Lenore.”

  “Who is Lenore?”

  “The woman who just left your house.”

  “You mean Nora.”

  “Well, Edward calls her Lenore. Has he spoken to you about her?”

  “The woman he’s been seeing?” Willard asked, the gist of our conversation finally sinking in.

  “Yes. Lenore and Nora are the same woman.”

  “Impossible,” Willard said, outraged.

  “It’s the same woman. She drives a navy blue 2002 BMW. She gets spray-tanned every two weeks. French manicure once a week on Polk Street. She doesn’t eat carbs at all. At all. Not even fruit. Does that sound familiar?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you not eat fruit?”

  “I don’t know,” Willard said, slumping into his chair.

  I guess he liked her. I should have been more sympathetic.

  “I’m sorry. It’s true. And you need to tell Edward, because he made me promise that I wouldn’t investigate his girlfriend, and here I am. Can you take care of this for me?”

  “Yes, yes. Of course, Isabel.”

  Willard walked me to the door. “Oh, and I’m very sorry about your father. Edward told me. If there’s anything I can do—that’s a silly thing to say, isn’t it? I can’t cure cancer, can I?”

  “Thank you, Willard. You’re a good man. Now dump that bitch. You weren’t in love with her, were you?”

  “Of course not, Isabel. I can’t afford love.”

  • • •

  Edward phoned me later that night from a bar. He and Willard were drowning their sorrows together.

  “I’m sorry I doubted you,” he said, slurring his words.

  “I’m sorry I was right,” I said.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I’m sorry you have bad taste in women.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I think Willard is taking it worse than I am.”

  “Really?” I said. “The man does have a good poker face.”

  “Always has.”

  “You know, Edward, there are women out there who are not grifters.”

  �
��I’m sorry, Isabel. I just don’t think we’re compatible.”

  “Good night, Edward.”

  “Good night, Isabel.”

  * * *

  1. If you like Morgan Freeman references, please see previous document.

  INTERMEZZO

  A few days later as I was trying to work from home, I was interrupted again by an overhead playdate. I use the term “playdate” loosely. David was swilling beer while trying to reason with his daughter, who had become hysterical after watching the animated Disney version of Cinderella. She immediately wanted to watch it again and David was trying to explain to his daughter that one should have some breathing time after watching a film, to let it settle into one’s subconscious and to have some time to sort through the experience.

  Max1 and Claire gawked at the moronic father-daughter duo with the appropriate shade of concern and alarm. I stayed in the foyer because children become downright terrifying when it comes to anything on a flat-screen TV, and parents do irrational things like leaving said children with irresponsible aunts when their wits are at their end.

  “Hey, Max,” I shouted over the guttural wailing and my brother’s stern appeals.

  Max turned to me.

  “Can you get me a beer?” I asked.

  Max appeared happy to have any reason to leave the room. He grabbed a beer and two juice boxes for himself and Claire.

  “Step into my office,” I said, leading Max and Claire onto the front stoop. I closed the door, which quieted the chaos inside, and took a long swig of the pale ale.

  “Did you like the movie?” I asked Claire.

  Claire nodded noncommittally as she tried to stab the straw into the juice box. Max took the box and handled the fine motor skill while he coaxed a more expansive answer out of her.

  “What do you think of the mice?” Max asked.

  “I love the mice.”

  “What do you think of the stepsisters?”

  “They’re like Sydney.”

  “You’re an insightful young girl, Claire,” I said.

  “So,” Max said, “your brother has been telling me about some of your legal problems.”

  “I’m innocent. What legal problems are you referring to?”2

  “He said someone was embezzling money from your employer’s account and framing you.”