“Owen left you everything-his controlling interest in the company, the house in Bloomfield, apartment in New York, place in Aspen and the equities, cash, and cars. No surprise, I’m sure. We’re talking, conservatively, twenty million.”
Twenty million-and Kate was thinking about the house she rented in Guatemala, thinking it was the happiest she’d ever been in her life and she had less than a thousand dollars to her name. Money made it easier but not necessarily better. Not many people subscribed to that point of view, but for Kate, it was true.
May said, “You’re free to run the company if you want.”
“You think I’m going to go in there and tell those motorsport pros how to do their job?”
“You wouldn’t be the first if you changed your mind.”
“Not likely,” Kate said.
“I didn’t think so, but you never know.” May took off the reading glasses and furrowed his brow. “There is one thing I have to explain,” his tone serious now. “Owen wanted Luke to have the lodge in Cathead Bay.”
“Dick, if you think that’s a problem,” Kate said, “let me ease your mind.”
“It doesn’t go into effect till he’s twenty-four.”
Kate didn’t care. She just wondered if Luke would ever go back.
That was it. The reading of the will took about five minutes, Counselor May offering his time if Kate needed further explanation about anything.
She didn’t.
Kate drove home and met her friend Maureen Kelso. They stood at the island counter in the kitchen, smoking and drinking wine. She put out a wedge of Saint Albray that smelled like a locker room but tasted like the best Camembert she’d ever had. “Try this,” Kate said. She sliced off a piece and put it on a stone-ground wheat cracker and took a bite.
“I’m not eating for a while,” Maureen said. “I feel like a fat pig. I had a pair of jeans on the other day, bent over and split the seat. Imagine what that does for your ego.”
“I think you look good,” Kate said. “Don’t get so skinny you look sick like Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie.” She took another bite of cheese and sipped her wine.
“Oh, okay,” Maureen said. “Are you kidding? I could lose twenty pounds, you wouldn’t notice. I’m back on South Beach, my last diet. If this doesn’t work, it’s lipo. Plastic surgeon said he’d take two quarts of cellulite out of my thighs and stomach. Said he could use some of it to give my ass more definition. What do you think?”
Kate said, “I’d try exercise first.”
Maureen took a cigarette out of her purse and lit it with an orange plastic lighter.
“I did. Had a personal trainer, even. Little muscular guy named Avis.”
“Was he Greek?”
“I think Albanian. All he talked about was abs, delts, glutes and obliques. First couple of days I thought he was teaching me the language, pick up Albanian while you’re getting in shape.”
“You have a crush on him?”
“Who?”
“The trainer.”
“He was too little. Like a toy man. I need a guy with meat on his bones.”
Kate took a bottle of wine out of the refrigerator, cut the top off with a foil cutter, and opened it with a screwpull opener. “Since you’re not in training at the moment, try this.” Kate reached over the island counter and poured Maureen a glass.
She took a drag and turned and blew smoke toward the breakfast room. “The neighbor hit on you again?”
“It’s been six months, he thinks that’s long enough,” Kate said. “I’m fair game now. He came over yesterday and said somebody looks like she could use a hug.” Kate poured more wine in her glass.
Maureen said, “What’s his name?”
Kate said, “Anders.”
“Let me guess, he’s Swedish.”
“You don’t miss much,” Kate said, “do you?”
“Is he the real thing?”
“You mean, was he born there? I don’t think so.”
“I mean, does he eat raw fish for breakfast? Real Swedes eat it like they’re going to the chair. I dated this scene-maker named Sven Lundeen, couldn’t get enough, had breath like Shamu. He was a hottie, too. Had blond highlights in his slicked-back hair. Always wore a white shirt unbuttoned to his navel and tight jeans.” Maureen sipped her wine and took a drag, blowing smoke out. “What’d the hugger say?”
“He put his arms around me and said, ‘I bet you could use a hug.’”
“How well do you know him?”
“We’ve been neighbors for ten years. I see him over the fence or through the pine trees. We’d wave to each other, but that’s about it. Anders and Sukie came over for dinner one time a bunch of neighbors got together.”
“Sukie? What’s her real name?”
“I think Susan.”
“What’s she like?”
“Kind of ditzy,” Kate said. “A secretary who married her boss.”
“So he came over and hugged you. Then what?”
“He had his body pressed against mine and I could feel something hard sticking into me.”
“Jesus,” Maureen said. “What’d you do?”
“I said, ‘What’re you doing?’ And he said, ‘I can’t pretend anymore. I’m crazy about you.’” Kate remembered the dreamy look in his eyes.
“Were you nervous?”
“I said, ‘Anders, why don’t you take your little buddy home, give it to Sukie.’”
“I’ll bet she doesn’t want it either.”
“He said, ‘I can’t stop thinking about you.’ I said, ‘What are you doing? We’re neighbors,’ hoping that would bring him to his senses, snap him back to reality.”
“How about your husband died seven months ago,” Maureen said. “Did you remind him of that?”
“I looked him in the eye and said, ‘You’ll be all right. Try to keep busy. Go clean the garage, take the empties back.’”
Maureen grinned. “What’d he say?”
“Nothing. He walked out and I haven’t seen him since.” Kate finished her wine and poured a little more. “Another neighbor asked me to call him and said he had something important to tell me. I dialed the number, he answered, recognized my voice and started saying things.”
“What do you mean?”
“Describing what he’d like to do to me like he was reading a porno script.”
“How dirty was it?”
“Dirty,” Kate said.
“What’d you say?”
“I laughed. He was so serious, and it was so dumb. I said, ‘Frank, am I giving off some kind of desperate vibe, or what?’ He’s an engineer at GM. He drives a Buick and has outlines of all his tools on a pegboard in the garage so he doesn’t put something in the wrong place. I thought, wow, where’d that come from?”
“What kind of neighborhood do you live in? All these perverts coming out of the woodwork.” Maureen finished her wine.
“He and Owen were friends, played tennis in a league together for years.”
Maureen lit another cigarette. “So how’re you doing? You doing all right?”
“I’m okay.” Kate looked away, glanced out the kitchen window at the pool still covered for a couple more weeks.
Maureen said, “You’re not very convincing.”
“I’m fine-most of the time, but then I’ll see something of Owen’s, or a picture of him. The other day, his Corvette pulled up in the driveway and for a couple seconds I forgot and thought he was home. He left it at the shop and one of the young guys was returning it.” Kate felt her eyes well up. “Night’s the worst, I reach for him in bed.” She lost it now, tears coming down her face like she had no control, and Maureen came around the island counter and hugged her and she was crying too.
“Should’ve happened to those two schmucks I married-not Owen.”
Now they were laughing, Kate picturing Maureen’s first husband, Carlo, a short balding director who shot five-Step Restroom Cleaning, thought he was the next Spielberg.
�
��All right, I’m going to stop asking questions. I came over to cheer you up and look what I’ve done.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Kate said. She lit a cigarette. “People have been calling, offering ways to help me cope, handle what I’ve been through.”
Maureen said, “Like who?”
“A group called Afghans for Widows invited me to stop over,” Kate said. “They express their grief by knitting.”
“What’s that all about?”
Kate said, “They knit afghans to help relieve their stress and loneliness.”
“Come on.”
“And a woman from the Community House asked me if I wanted to join her poetry workshop. Said poetry is a common way of expressing grief.”
Maureen lit a cigarette.
“Every workshop starts with a reading-it might be ‘Grieve Not’ by William Wordsworth, or ‘Grief ’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” Kate sipped her wine. “And then all the grieving poets write a poem. The woman said a few lines of poetry can express deep emotional feelings.”
“Are you putting me on?”
“It’s okay. People are trying to help,” Kate said. “I packed up all Owen’s clothes in boxes and had the Purple Heart come and pick everything up.”
Maureen said, “Why?”
“It’s time…” Kate said. “I think about him every day and I probably always will, but… it’s time to move on.”
Maureen poured more wine in her glass. “How’s Lukey?”
“He’s not getting any better,” Kate said. “I’m worried about him. His counselor called and said his teachers are concerned about him. He’s in class but he’s not there. Doesn’t do his homework. His grades have dropped.”
Maureen said, “Do you talk to him about it?”
“He doesn’t talk. He comes home and goes to his room. He doesn’t see his friends. Doesn’t do anything.”
“Isn’t he seeing someone?”
“Yeah,” Kate said. “A psychiatrist recommended by the school.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t need help, I’ve got all the neighborhood men.”
Maureen grinned. “What did the dirty-talker say?”
Kate took a sip of wine, trying to remember and then she did and started to laugh.
EIGHT
Amber told DeJuan about this dude was looking for someone to pop his wife. DeJuan said, “Why you telling me?”
Amber said, “ ’Cause he’s offering ten grand and I thought maybe you’d be interested.”
She was behind the bar, mixing a drink, looking fine in her black low-cut outfit. DeJuan said, “I strike you as somebody going to kill some motherfucker for money?”
Amber said, “Why you think I’m telling you?”
“That the way you see me, huh?” He picked up his drink, Courvoisier and Coke and finished it.
Amber said, “Want another one?”
He nodded. The music was so loud he could hardly hear her. Place was packed with scene-makers on a Thursday night. Two-deep at the bar. He was in one of the swivel bar chairs, watching an early-season Tigers game on the flat screen. Amber put a fresh drink in front of him. He said, “How you know this dude is looking for someone?”
“We used to go out,” Amber said. “Let me put it another way. He used to take me to his place in Bermuda. Fly down in the Gulfstream, Marty doing lines like the governor just pardoned him.”
DeJuan said, “You tell him about me?”
Amber said, “That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“Where’s he at?”
“See that guy with the long silver hair?”
DeJuan saw him down the bar. Weird-looking, kind of freakish dude, bald on top with long hair hanging off the back of his head, mid-fifties, drinking what looked like vodka on the rocks-the right glass, with a slice of lemon. He was all over this young thing, blond in a tank top, seemed to be ignoring him.
Amber said, “Go talk to him if you’re interested.”
She moved down the bar to get a drink for someone. DeJuan looked up at the TV, saw Maggs hit a tater to left against the Twins, watched him run the bases and win the game, Ordonez making it look easy. DeJuan looked down the bar again, saw the dude with the hair finish his drink, get up and move through the crowd. DeJuan put his drink on the bar top and followed him outside, standing behind him on the street, waiting for the light to change. It was dark, the marquee of the Birmingham Theater casting light on the scene. And the people were out, little bitches in their skimpy, skin-tight outfits, the man checking them out, not missing a thing.
He crossed the street. It was easy to follow him with that hair-compensating for being bald on top, that silver pelt he had, saying, look motherfucker, I got all the hair I need. Check it out.
DeJuan followed him, trying to catch up. The man walking fast, almost running. He stopped in front of a restaurant, sign said 220, went down the stairs into a place called Edison’s, high-priced Birmingham nightclub look like somebody’s basement-pipes and shit exposed in the ceiling-like it was under construction. Place was dark and crowded and filled with smoke. DeJuan felt his eyes burn. He didn’t care for cigarettes. Never had one in his life, never would.
The man stopped at the bar, ordered a vodka, took his drink into the men’s. DeJuan followed him in, only two guys in there and watched him take out a coke vial, do a one on one.
He saw DeJuan looking at him and said, “You a cop?”
DeJuan said, “I look like a cop?”
“Want a bump?”
DeJuan said, “Amber say you’re looking for a contractor.”
Man said, “What’re you talking about?”
DeJuan said, “Looking for somebody to fulfill a contract is what I understand.”
He put the little black spoon up to his nose and snorted it up his left nostril, then his right.
“Got somebody around, you don’t want around no more.”
He pinched his nose and snorted hard and screwed the top back on the vial and put it in his shirt pocket. “Now’s not the time. Maybe we can meet somewhere, discuss a business arrangement.”
DeJuan liked that, the man talking about it in his serious business voice now. He wrote his phone number on a piece of paper, handed it to him. “My private line. Call when you’re ready to talk.”
DeJuan went through the door back into the smoky nightclub, Thornetta Davis doing “I Ain’t Superstitious,” belting out the lyrics as DeJuan passed in front her, checking out the country club dudes dancing with their ladies, if you could call it that, stiff moves and no rhythm like they dancing to some other song.
DeJuan was robbing a 7-Eleven the next morning when his cell phone rang. It was the dude with the hair.
He said, “Hey, this is Marty, can you meet me in the parking lot of Bed Bath amp; Beyond on Sixteen Mile in thirty minutes?”
At first, DeJuan had no idea who this dude Marty was, thinking it was a wrong number, but then he recognized his voice.
DeJuan said, “I’m kind of busy at the moment, can you give me an hour?” It was a shocker. DeJuan would’ve bet his diamond pinky ring he’d never hear from the dude again. He glanced down at the 7-Eleven manager lying on the floor in his green vest, hands and feet wrapped in duct tape-angry sawed-off little dude. Before DeJuan taped his mouth, manager Mr. Richard Ferguson said 7-Eleven would prosecute him to the full extent of the law and did he want to reconsider and turn himself in?
“Yeah,” DeJuan said, “Straight up, I want to turn myself in. You’re such a bad ass, I’m worried.” Did he want to turn his self in? The fuck was wrong with his head?
DeJuan had come in the back door. Walked up, there was a dude named Russ-Russ smoking out behind the store when DeJuan approached, placed the barrel of his SigSauer Nine against Russ’s cheek, said, “Break over, motherfucker, get back to work.”
He dropped his cigarette and DeJuan walked him through the stockroom into an office. There was a desk with a phone and a bank of TV monitors that showed
different parts of the store. There was a guy behind the counter working the register.
DeJuan said, “Who’s that?”
Russ said, “The manager, Mr. Ferguson.”
“Tell Mr. Ferguson, get his ass in here, you got an emergency needs his immediate fucking attention.”
Russ grinned. “He’s not going to like this.”
After DeJuan secured Mr. Ferguson, he had Russ show him how to turn off the video cameras. Then he tied Russ up, put him in the stockroom.
He was cleaning out the register-look like about $1,700-when a customer come in, old lady, had something in her hand, coming toward him. He closed the register and turned toward the woman. “How you doing? Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
The woman held up a carton of cottage cheese and said, “I want my money back.” She pulled the top off and pointed to a green circle of mold. “Know what that is?”
DeJuan didn’t like her attitude, old bag coming in getting in his face, fucking with him ’cause she think the customer always right. He picked up the cottage cheese, read the small type on the back, found what he was looking for. “Look here,” DeJuan said. “See, it expire.”
Old lady look like she going to throw the shit in his face, said, “I want to see the manager.”
“He tied up right now.”
“I want my money back or I’m never shopping in this store again.”
DeJuan said, “You promise?”
“What’s your name? I’m going to write a letter.”
“Richard Ferguson. Now, why don’t you take your moldy cottage cheese and your moldy old ass, get the fuck out of here.”
There was a silver Benz, big one, S600 out by itself in the parking lot that was getting busy at one in the afternoon. DeJuan drove by, saw Marty behind the wheel, spun around and parked next to him. DeJuan put his window down and so did Marty, Marty saying, “Get in, let’s talk.”
DeJuan got out, walked around the back end of the Benz and got in the front passenger seat, sat back against the plush leather. Man, it was cold, like a meat locker in there, but Marty look like he was sweating in his Ryder Cup at Oakland Hills golf shirt, DeJuan trying to figure out what color it was-teal or coral some bullshit exotic name like that.
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