by Judy Baer
Adam had begun talking briefly to Cassia about his work, that he traveled out of the country so much because he worked on assignment doing research for articles he wrote. She hadn’t seemed interested in the articles, but immediately wanted to know which countries he’d visited and if riding a camel was really as uncomfortable as rumor had it. Totally guileless herself, she rarely seemed to consider that others would be less than honest in return.
Adam stared at his computer screen with warring emotions battling in his gut.
What am I? Pond scum or humanitarian? Conniving, deceitful lowlife or do-gooder? Don Quixote jousting at windmills?
Conflicting thoughts raced through his head like marathon sprinters when he recalled the expression on Cassia’s face. Guilt—a relatively rare emotion in him—ran rampant.
He’d just attempted to manipulate her perspective for his own objectives. This woman could put his brain in a snarl like no one else. He’d interviewed belligerent radicals, intractable dictators of small countries, rebel leaders and, worst of all, politicians. None of them had flummoxed him like Cassia. Still, he was working her like a fine instrument, making her play the tune he wanted to hear and influencing her for his own purposes.
Definitely pond scum.
Wasn’t he?
Clearly, the more he knew about her and the longer he could help Cassia to hang on to that money, the better his story would be. And maybe he’d been over-scrupulous in rejecting Terry’s suggestion. Of course it wouldn’t be right to talk to Cassia about Burundi now, but if she should decide to look into various charities, perhaps in time he’d have the opportunity to make her see that his pet charity was more deserving than all the others.
But he had no business telling her that this money was “God’s will” for her life when he knew full well that he was hoping to talk her into keeping it so that he could write an attention-grabbing story that would sell papers, magazines, or even a book, and maybe even determine where the money would go. He and God hadn’t been on speaking terms since he’d returned from Burundi. It was ironic that now he was invoking “God’s will” for someone else.
But what’s a poor little rich girl to do? Even individuals in her own hometown are calculating their fair share of the city’s daughter’s bounty. Whom to trust, Carr has discovered, is as difficult as deciding what to do with the money itself….
Adam stared at his computer screen. This girl had to be protected not only from herself but from every other person with dollar signs instead of pupils in their eyes. And he was one of them. But he didn’t want to hurt her. He had her best interests at heart.
So that makes me the big shot good guy, right?
Adam prowled the room like a caged animal, not noticing that Pepto, snaggle-toothed, disreputable and obviously relishing his master’s pacing and discomfort, was stalking right along behind him. When he sat down, he pulled up a second story he was writing.
Central Africa, light-years away from most people’s minds and hearts, is Burundi, a land-locked, mountainous country, not much larger than Maryland. It is populated by the Tutsis, the Hutus and the country’s original Twa pygmies. The tension between the Tutsis, originally from Ethiopia and Uganda, and the Hutus is decades old and has erupted in conflict many times over the past forty years.
Life is hard there, with the potential for drought, flooding and landslides. That is not to mention the toll of AIDS, which affects more than 11 percent of the Burundians and has ravaged population growth with lowered life expectancy, reduced numbers of live births and elevated death rates. Less than 3 percent of the population will make it to sixty-five years of age. The average life expectancy is approximately forty-six years….
And so many won’t make it for more than a few months or years, he mused. The words on the screen haunted him. The average fertility among Burundians was over six births per woman. How many in each family lived to adulthood? He didn’t want to consider it.
Burundi, Cassia and her unwanted money whirled in his mind. How could it be bad to want so much for those little ones whose pathetic lives could be counted in months rather than years? He broke out in a sweat just remembering.
He’d visited the home of a woman who, he’d been told, cared for orphans and castoffs. Her job was exacerbated by AIDS, as young parents could no longer take care of their children. It was another of the many images that he’d been unable to shake upon his return to this land of plenty. Open fires, ragged blankets, or parts of them, food for one or two being spread between six or seven—it was a pitiable sight. But it was the children’s eyes that had gotten to him. They were like black holes burned in a blanket—ashy eyelashes, empty-appearing sockets, eyes that stared out of gaunt faces toward the bleak future. They had reminded Adam of miniature men and women waiting to die. The hopelessness of the children had hit him like an invisible wave, an icy miasma that cast a pall on his soul. It was a place no one would want to visit. Even those who were not dead were not actually living either. They were simply waiting out their time. The sporadic rations some received almost cruelly prolonged the inevitable.
He remembered dropping to his knees inside the hut as if someone had taken a swing at the backs of his legs with a club.
Frankie, his photographer, had taken it hard, as well.
“I can’t shake the images,” he’d told Adam when they’d spoken the week before. “Concentration is impossible. I can’t think straight. Instead, all I can see is a slow-motion replay of the kids in that hut. Something’s happening to me, Adam. I can’t detach myself from this story. I watch people buy too much, eat too much, whine too much, and I want to yell at them. Don’t they know how fortunate they are?”
More than once Adam had found Frankie out of sight with tears streaming down his cheeks. They’d both emptied their pockets of change and most of their cash, put it into a basket and given it to the children’s caretaker. Her response had pierced their hearts.
“For the next ones,” she had said. “For the next ones.”
It was perfectly clear she didn’t expect this group of children to be around long enough for it to actually help them or that the tide of homeless, helpless children had been stemmed. There would be more starving, hurting children to follow.
Adam’s jaw tightened and a tiny nerve jumped in his cheek. He regretted starting Cassia’s story, but the die was cast—the publishers and magazine editors were waiting. It was a bitter pill, but he was willing to take it. He hoped with all his heart that if Cassia had seen what he had seen and walked in his shoes, she would understand why it was important to give every dime he could to ease those suffering people’s pain. But at this moment she had no idea what drove him. She literally didn’t know Adam from…well, Adam.
His plan had now taken on a life of its own. He could sell her story, and if there was a God—a pretty big “if” for him these days—maybe she’d be willing to give that money to the children, as well.
But if she gave the money away too soon, who knew where it might end up? What was his part in this? Traitor or knight in shining armor? Perhaps a little of both. He’d do or say whatever it took to ensure that “his” children benefited from Cassia’s money. Here, in the apartment beneath her own, Adam had an edge over the others. She trusted him. She was open and garrulous, naive and sweet, innocent and untouched by much of the world. Cassia was a bit of a miracle in this day and age. And she was real. She would talk to him, share her thoughts as willingly as she shared flowers, fruit salad and her faith. Getting a page-turning story from her would be like taking candy from a baby.
Adam froze for a moment before correcting himself. Like taking candy for a baby. He had to remember. What he was doing was for the babies.
He glanced at his watch. He had to get away from his own thoughts. He picked up his keys and left the apartment.
“Hey, old man, what’s with you? You’ve hardly said a word all night.” Dick Aimes clapped Adam on the shoulder. Dick, another journalist and longtime friend, had started
writing about the same time Adam had first published. “Something wrong?”
“Decompressing, that’s all.”
He’d joined his buddies on one of their traditional Wednesday-night gatherings and, theoretically, at least, was supposed to be having fun.
One of the others at the table, a news reporter, added, “Stay home for a while. I’ve been assigned to court reporting. Take my job…please.”
“Dick said you’ve been researching a new story and you won’t say what it is. What’s the big secret?”
Adam opened his mouth to respond and closed it again. The big story was the ethical conundrum in which he’d found himself. He was already on a slow, slippery side from the high road to the low. He didn’t want to say anything to complicate his life further.
For the first time since he’d returned from Burundi he realized that he missed God. There was a time he could have discussed this with Him and gotten some advice. Unfortunately, God didn’t exist for him anymore. Burundi had seen to that.
CHAPTER 15
I let the doorbell ring three times before I decided to answer it.
Jane and my grandmother always call before dropping in for a visit, and I can identify Adam’s distinctive shave-and-a-haircut-six-bits knock. Not only that, Winslow, by some odd animal instinct, knows whenever Adam is at the door. He stands up and whines until I let Adam into the apartment. If I don’t come immediately, Winslow gives me the evil eye. I think it’s an evil eye, anyway. Who knows what a hairy, half-sheepdog’s eyes are actually doing?
For some odd reason, Winslow is enamored of Adam, and Pepto is besotted with me. We’ve never dared put the two of them together in the same room for fear of World War III. It’s Winslow we’re most afraid for, since Pepto has been known to fearlessly take on everything from the refrigerator to the UPS man.
Adam has since switched to FedEx.
I was surprised and pleased to see my friend Randy on the other side of the peephole. I love it when he stops over after work.
“Hi, stranger!” I threw open the door and waved him in. “How are things at Parker Bennett?”
“Pretty dull.” He looked like a deflated balloon. “I suppose you’ve changed your mind by now and realized that you don’t have to go back to the drudgery of the working world.”
“I haven’t decided that at all. All I know is that I won’t go back to Parker Bennett. I have to make a living somewhere. Want something to drink? Raspberry iced tea? Chai?”
“Whatever you’re having will be fine.” He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sank into it heavily.
“What’s wrong?” I poured the tea over ice cubes and joined him at the table. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed our morning talks until I no longer had them to depend upon.
“Everyone is obsessed with you guys who won the lottery.”
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Stella and Cricket had been traveling for the past few days, and they’re my only source of information about Parker Bennett. Stella went to Europe on the QE2 and is flying home after it docks. Cricket spent the weekend at a “fat farm.” She’s researched every spa in the nation, chosen her top ten and is going to try them out one by one. Her hope is that not only will she get a great vacation but she’ll come back looking lean and svelte. Unfortunately, so far she’s discovered only that she is severely allergic to exercise or anything that makes her sweat, and that she loves granola and soy milk ice cream. I think it will be considered a win if she comes home not having gained any weight. The only improvement she’s reported to me so far is that she now owns and carries a “Buns of Steel” video with her everywhere she goes “just in case.” She never tells me “just in case” what, but if she runs across a renegade pack of women dying to exercise and conveniently standing in an empty school gymnasium, she’ll be the woman of the hour.
“Let me guess. They’re all wishing it had been one of them who won.”
“Pretty much.”
“Tell me more,” I encouraged. “I haven’t heard anything about work in ages.” I hadn’t known my office mates long, but I missed them. Besides, if Randy were to ask what I’ve been doing, he’d die of boredom listening to the answer.
“You know about Bob, of course.”
“Betting Bob? Nice guy. He’s been on my mind a lot lately. What about him?”
Randy’s jaw dropped. “You haven’t heard? It’s been in the papers and all over television.”
“My television isn’t even hooked up yet,” I confessed, “and I’m finding I like it that way. The library is just down the street and I’ve been reading the books I said I’d get around to someday.” I felt myself blush. “As for newspapers, well, I’ve been doing a little writing of my own. I’ve been working on this sweet little story about a golden retriever sheepdog cross and a thuggish hooligan of a cat…. I just never got a newspaper subscription started.”
“Then you don’t know that Bob’s in jail?”
That stopped me right between the egg noodles and the cream of mushroom soup. “Bob? In jail?”
“If not yet, he will be soon.” Randy shook his head soulfully. “Man, oh, man, Cassia, I never believed money could do something like that to a guy.”
“What did money have to do with it?”
“He got the idea that his new money made him invincible, I guess. The way I heard it, Bob was at a casino for three days and nights, lost a lot of money and was pretty peeved about it. Apparently he drove home angry and exhausted. He got stopped by a cop and was pretty argumentative and confrontational. Then the policeman told him that he was obstructing justice and that he was going to take him in.”
“Oh, no.”
“But that’s not the end of it. Apparently, even though he’d been losing, Bob still had a lot of money in his pocket, so he tried to bribe the policeman into letting him go.”
I felt my heart sink. “He didn’t.”
“He did. Bribing a police officer. All that money and this is the mess he’s in. Word is that he’s already gambled away so much and is incurring so many legal bills and fines that he’s not going to be all that much of a millionaire by the time he’s done.”
Pain welled up in my chest. “He was so kind to me the first days I worked at Parker Bennett,” I murmured. “The first time I ran into serious difficulty with a customer, Bob was right there to help me out. I met his wife and son when they came to the office to pick him up. Great people. She’s invited me over for coffee.”
“Maybe it’s a good thing she did, Cassia. She’s going to need a lot of support. The legal system frowns on bribing police officers.”
“I don’t get it.” I propped both elbows on the table, rested my chin in my palms and stared at Randy. “Why did he do it? He had everything he wanted or needed.”
“Because he has an addiction, Cassia. We’ve known it around the company for years. You were only there three weeks and you saw it. The money just gave him permission to go wild. Bob’s always wanted to be a high roller.” Randy looked troubled. “Sorry I’m the bearer of bad news. I just meant to stop in, say hello and ask how things are for you.”
I’m even cautious about Randy—and I’m really fond of him. Although I’m not suspicious by nature, I’ve become so skittish that I don’t trust anyone any further than I can throw them. It’s not my nature and I don’t like it.
Randy must have sensed my thoughts, because he added, “I’m not here to spy on you, Cassia.” He looked so dismayed I almost chuckled when he added, “Brother, do I have bad timing. I’ve been kicking myself every day since you won the money. Remember going upstairs together in the elevator that morning before you won the lottery?”
“I do.”
“And how I kept razzing you about getting a new car?”
“Yes.”
“I was going to ask you to go out with me that night. I saw you drive into the lot in that junker of yours and made up my mind I’d use the car as an excuse for us to get together. I’d thought we could drive
to some used car lots and then go out for coffee. Then,” he continued, “you got to your office and found out about the money. I knew immediately that there was no way I could try to date you without looking like I was after something.”
He ran his long fingers through his straight sandy hair. “I can see that I’ve missed my chance. The look in your eyes says it all.”
“Oh, Randy. It would have been so sweet.”
“It is past tense, then? ‘Would have been’?”
“For now, at least,” I said regretfully. “This breaks my heart. I’m so sorry, but I’m overwhelmed. You’re right about one thing. People are not always what I hope they’ll be.” I told him about the letter from the mayor, about being scammed by a little boy, the bizarre charities haunting me and half a dozen other tales of woe. By the time I was done, we were both laughing.
“Just so you know, Cassia, I understand completely. If it isn’t too much to ask, could I just stop over sometimes and tell you what’s happening at the office?”
His reluctance to give up was flattering. “I’d like that.” I wonder if the FBI has a division that works exclusively on background checks for potential dates. Somebody could earn a lot of money with a service like that. Stella’s business alone could probably keep them in the black.
“I promise. No money talk.” He pushed away from the table. “Listen, I’d better run. Thanks for the visit.” He took my hand in his, and I felt the soft warmth of his palm. “I’ve missed you, Cassia.”
“And thanks—sort of—for the news about Bob.” I withdrew my hand. “Maybe I will call his wife.”
Winslow romped playfully between us as we walked to the door. To our surprise Adam stood in the hall just about to knock. Adam’s expression slid from ease to wariness to ease again, all in the blink of an eye. I sensed in that split second that Adam had sized up Randy and filed him away as someone to watch. How curious.
I walked Randy to the stairway, and when I returned to the apartment, Adam had Winslow by the collar, their faces only inches apart. Adam talked some sort of gibberish to the dog, which Winslow seemed to understand perfectly. Winslow often looks at Adam with that smitten look young lovers have.