by Dianne Emley
Kyle Tucker walked in behind her and after a quick, “Morning, Iris,” skirted to his office.
“Hi, Kyle,” she said to his back. She suspected that normally friendly Kyle wanted to avoid a discussion of his somewhat psychotic love interest, Dawn.
She saw Amber Ambrose on the phone in the office next to Kyle’s. Iris raised her hand in greeting. Amber barely nodded, then turned her chair to face the window, her back to Iris.
“Happy Monday to you, too, Amber,” Iris muttered.
Finally, Iris reached Louise’s alcove. Louise looked up from typing on her computer and perfunctorily said, “Good morning, Iris.”
“Morning, Louise,” Iris said, feeling miffed by the cool reception she’d received on a day she felt warm and fuzzy about her workplace. She went into her office, hung up her suit jacket on the hanger behind the door, and put her purse in the filing cabinet. She tucked her brightly printed silk blouse, which she had selected that day for its cheerfulness, into her skirt.
She picked up her coffee mug. Opening her center desk drawer, she fished around for spare change and pocketed a few coins.
She took her mug to the lunchroom. When she opened the door, several sales assistants and junior brokers who had been laughing and talking suddenly clammed up and dispersed. Alone in the lunchroom, she filled the mug with coffee and fed coins into the vending machine. A package of Oreo cookies dropped into the aluminum bin.
Back in her office, Iris sat on the credenza against the southern-facing window. She ate the Oreo cookies, first twisting them apart then scraping the creamy filling off against her bottom teeth. She gazed out the window toward the hills of northeast Los Angeles where she had grown up. She couldn’t make out much more than a dim outline through the smog.
When she was a girl, she’d sit at the top of the hill above her house and gaze at the skyscrapers of downtown L.A. and wonder if she’d ever leave the neighborhood, have money, see the world, and fall in love. She had done all those things. Now she looked back at where she’d come from, wondering if her life would ever be that simple again.
Sitting there, she made a decision. She was not going to Greentree to buy the fox from Douglas Melba. Roger Weems could find someone else to do it. And she wasn’t going to sell the fox to Rita Winslow. She was through with the whole thing. Garland was right. Let the professionals—the crooks and the cops—sort it out. She’d already done more than enough.
“Oreos on the credenza. Something’s up.”
Iris turned to see Liz Martini stride into her office, wearing a jersey wrap-around dress in a psychedelic print. Her wavy, long, dark hair had been blow-dried smooth and cascaded past her shoulders. She walked to the window and peered out. “Ugh, look at this smog.”
Iris slid around and crossed her legs. “No one in the office likes me, except you.”
“And I just put up with you.”
“I was really happy to come to work today and see everyone, but no one was glad to see me.”
“Iris, it’s Monday. Plus, you’ve spent years cultivating a healthy wariness of you on the part of your employees. Who cares if they like you? They’re producing!” Liz drew a cookie from the cellophane package with her long acrylic nails and bit it in half. “What’s going on?”
Iris glanced out her office door and lowered her voice. “Jim Hailey offered me the regional manager job.”
Liz raised two clenched fists. “Yay! I told you.”
“He wants my decision by the end of the week.”
“You’re going to say yes, of course.”
Iris hiked a shoulder.
Liz dipped her head at Iris. “Seriously? You’re thinking of turning it down?”
“I need to think about it. So much is going on right now.”
“What? You mean what we were talking about at lunch. All that foxy stuff.”
“Yes. Lots of business about a fox happened over the weekend.”
Liz sidled closer. “Tell, tell.”
“I can’t. Not now.”
Louise appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. Winslow is here to see you, Iris. She doesn’t have an appointment. Are you in?”
Liz looked at Iris, her eyes wide.
Iris pondered the possibilities. She was bound to have to face her sooner or later. “Sure. I’ll see her. Thanks, Louise.”
Iris stood and tossed the remaining cookies in the trash where they landed in the metal container with a thwack. She brushed crumbs from her skirt.
Liz grabbed Iris’s arm, leaned in, and said, “Don’t you dare keep me in suspense.” She stepped out the door just as Louise was leading Winslow in.
Winslow greeted Iris cordially. “Miss Thorne, so nice of you to see me on such short notice.”
“Mrs. Winslow, this is a surprise.” Iris closed the door while Winslow sat in one of the chairs facing her desk. Still standing next to the door, Iris said, “If you’re carrying a gun, I want it now.”
With a blink of her bloodshot eyes, Winslow dropped her pleasant expression and scowled. “I’m here alone on your territory. I’m not giving up the only protection I have.”
Iris threw up her hands. “This is a business office. I don’t come to work packing heat. Either give me your gun and I’ll put it in this filing cabinet or you’ll have to leave.”
Winslow snapped open the brass clasp on her fine leather handbag, pulled out the pearl-handled gun, and handed it butt end first to Iris.
Iris deposited it in the top drawer of the cabinet and pressed a button on the top, locking it. She sat behind her desk. “Mrs. Winslow, I’m glad you came to talk to me.”
Prudishly clutching her handbag on her lap between both hands, Winslow said, “I thought you were bringing me the fox. Why haven’t I heard from you?”
“Look, I have to be honest with you. I can’t get you the fox. I led you on just to see if I could find out what happened to Todd Fillinger.”
Winslow’s eyes bored into Iris. Her jaws were tightly clenched and a muscle in her cheek pulsed.
“I’m telling you the truth,” Iris insisted. “I was not involved in stealing the fox from you. I went to see Todd in Moscow to examine investing in art galleries. After he was murdered, a man named Dean Palmer who worked for the U.S. Embassy there gave me Todd’s ashes in an urn to bring to Todd’s sister in Bakersfield. A woman who said she was Todd’s sister took them from me at the L.A. airport. That’s all I know. That’s the truth.”
“Don’t toy with me,” Winslow rasped.
Iris was stunned into silence by the viciousness of her tone.
“I can’t believe the ends Fernando will go to in order to betray me.” Winslow picked up the handbag from her lap and slammed it onto the seat of the chair next to her. “I gave him everything, even freedom to chase around as long as he didn’t throw it in my face. I asked little in return, only that he stay with me and help me run my business. But again and again he—” She clapped her hand over her mouth but not before a sob escaped.
Iris sat motionlessly then began rummaging in a desk drawer for a box of tissues. She offered them to Winslow but the other woman had already pulled a monogrammed, lace-edge handkerchief from her handbag and was dabbing her eyes with it.
“Mrs. Winslow, don’t get the wrong idea about Fernando and me. He came to my house to tell me some things about Todd, about what happened after I left Paris. That’s all.”
Winslow’s teary moment passed. She quickly stuffed the handkerchief into her purse and went on as if nothing had happened, her demeanor again steely. “Don’t lie, Miss Thorne. It doesn’t suit you.”
“I’m not lying.” Her accusation angered Iris. “Mrs. Winslow, I’ll admit I lied to you when we met at the hotel, but that’s the only time. All my cards are on the table now. I just want to be free of this whole situation.”
“I must confess that your story has a certain earnestness to it. Did Roger Weems help you cook it up?”
Iris reared back as if she had been slapped.
Winslo
w gloated smugly. “Little girls like you. So cocky. So sure of yourself. Sitting here in your bright corner office with your expensive clothes and your cheap antique reproductions. Assuming that someone like me is past her prime, easy to trick. Well, I see all and I know all.”
Iris recovered, although she sensed it was too late. She answered with a half-truth which was harder to pin down than an out-and-out lie. “Weems showed up and asked me about you and Fernando and the fox. I told him exactly what I told you just now.”
“And he went away and left you alone after that?”
“Yes.”
Winslow laughed cruelly. “I know Roger Weems better than you, dear heart. I don’t know what scheme he’s brewing, but he’s not going away until he gets what he wants.” She took a pack of Dunhill cigarettes and the cloisonné lighter from her purse, placed a cigarette between her lips and lit it.
Iris didn’t think it was a good time to tell her there was no smoking in the building. She dumped paperclips from a hammered silver tray into a drawer and slid the tray across the desk.
Winslow posed with her bent elbow on the chair arm, hand held high, the cigarette squeezed between her fingers. She swung her arm to her mouth and took a puff, leisurely exhaling a long stream of smoke. “How much did Weems tell you about me? About our history?”
“Not much.”
“That I believe. Did you ever wonder why he works alone?” Winslow knocked ash into the silver tray.
“I wasn’t aware that he does.”
“Let me tell you something about Roger Weems. He wants the Czarina’s fox and he’ll do anything to get it. It goes beyond logic and reason. It represents for him his darkest hour. Like Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. If he can get the fox and me, he’ll redeem himself.” Winslow’s eyes gleamed. “I’m part of the prize, you see.”
She again tapped ash into the tray and settled back into the chair. “Twelve years ago in Buenos Aires, an old woman died. Nothing remarkable, except this old woman was the Argentinean widow of a former high-ranking member of the Nazi party who had fled Germany for South America at the end of World War Two. Her adult children cleaned out her house and found, wrapped in velvet, tucked away in a corner of an old trunk, an unusual jeweled statuette of a fox.” She laughed quietly at the vagaries of life. “They took the statuette to a respected jeweler who immediately recognized not just the value of the gems but the artistic value of the piece. He took it to a professor of art history at the university. Before long, I received word through my network that the Czarina’s fox had been found. I immediately made plans to travel to Buenos Aires with my associate at the time, Paolo.
“With some mild persuasion on the part of my middleman, the professor was encouraged to part with the fox. In the meantime, Roger Weems and his partner, a sweet young man by the name of Greg Kelly, had also heard that the fox had been located and were en route to Buenos Aires. You see, the Bremen Museum had offered a longstanding, substantial reward for the fox. Weems was able to convince someone at the FBI that the statuette fell under their jurisdiction. Weems knew of me but we had yet to meet.”
Winslow gazed out the window behind Iris’s head as if seeing the events of the past projected there. “Paolo and I met the middleman on a quiet street near midnight, as arranged. I wasn’t happy with the location but it was the one acceptable to the middleman. After that night, I swore I’d never be that foolish again.” She smiled ruefully. “But of course I was. It seems that we are always that foolish again. The middleman gave me the fox and I inspected it in the dim light, was satisfied, and paid him. We were standing in the middle of the empty street, shaking hands, when out of the darkness Greg Kelly walked up holding a gun. From the other side of the street came Roger Weems, also armed.
“Before anyone could say a word, the middleman pulled a gun and started running away, shooting all the while. Kelly returned fire. Paolo was dead before he had a chance to draw his gun. Kelly was out of bullets and was running for cover to reload when the middleman shot him in the back.”
“What about Weems?” Iris asked.
“Weems just stood there.” Winslow’s expression was sardonic. “During all that gunfire, he just stood there with his gun in his hand. He was not three feet from the middleman, but he let the guy shoot his young partner to death. Bullets were flying everywhere and Weems stood in the middle of it like a statue. I didn’t carry a weapon back then. I dropped to the pavement as soon as the shooting started. Then I remembered the fox. It was on the ground beside Paolo. Weems had gathered his wits by this time and kicked me in the side of the head, knocking me out. When I came to a few minutes later, I saw Weems kneeling beside Greg Kelly in the street. I grabbed the switchblade that Paolo always kept in his right boot, snuck up on Weems, and slashed his hand, making him drop the useless gun he was still holding. I grabbed it and told him to give me the fox. Bleeding profusely from his hand, cursing me throughout eternity, he finally turned it over.”
Winslow pressed out her cigarette in the tray. “It wasn’t until I returned to the hotel that I discovered I’d purchased a fake. It was an excellent facsimile and given that it was dark, I had made an honest mistake. Knowing that Weems would soon track me down thinking I had the real fox, I quickly left the hotel, leaving the bogus statuette behind. I understand that Weems still keeps it as a memento."
Iris listened with her hands steepled, resting her chin against her thumbs. “Didn’t Weems get into trouble with the FBI over that incident?”
“He simply fabricated a story about what happened in which he portrayed himself as a hero rather than a coward. I’ve since learned that the sound of gunfire at night causes him to have a flashback of when he was shot in Vietnam. He becomes paralyzed with fear. Greg Kelly died because of Roger Weems. Weems, as befitting a man of his character, lays the blame at my feet.”
Winslow drew her handbag onto her lap, opened it, and took out a mirrored lipstick case. She spread rose color on her thin lips. “Much blood has been shed over this fox.” She angled her eyes at Iris. “Weems is here because he thinks the fox is here. He sought you out for the same reason I did. But something is going on, and I can’t quite get my arms around it. The only explanation is that you’re lying to me. You and Fernando. I don’t know what you two are plotting behind my back. I’ll leave you with this: You will get me the fox.”
Iris attempted to walk away from the fox one final time. “What if I can’t get it for you? I mean, I honestly cannot get it.”
“Well, one, I don’t believe that and two, I will make things very unpleasant for you.”
Iris met her gaze and could tell she was serious. “What if I get you the fox? What happens then?”
“I will happily go on my way and our paths will likely never cross again.” Winslow stood and smoothed her seashell-pink tailored dress. The delicate color, like the hanky, seemed to mock the size of the big-boned woman. “May I have my gun now, please?”
Iris got it for her.
Winslow tucked the gun back into her handbag. “And stay away from Fernando. Good day, Miss Thorne.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Iris didn’t tell Weems about Winslow’s visit. She didn’t tell Garland either. Since the only way out of this situation was through it, she saw no point in telling them. It would only further upset Garland. She had no doubt that Winslow would follow through with her threat. To eliminate Winslow from her life, she needed Weems’s help. To get his help, she had to follow through with his scheme.
In Weems’s office, Garland watched the goings-on with resignation and barely disguised anger, an attitude that Iris had become familiar with since her involvement in this ordeal.
Weems observed and commented while a cadre of agents outfitted Iris for audio transmission and with a bulletproof vest. When she had gone home before coming to Weems’s office, she had put on a bathing suit top which covered as much of her as a bra, but kept her from feeling as if she was wearing her underwear in public while the FBI wired her for sound. She’
d also selected a modest denim shirt—nothing thin or clingy, according to Weems’s instructions. She wore comfortable jeans and athletic shoes, in case something happened and she needed to run.
Weems described the setup. “At Greentree restaurant, we’ll have agents posing as diners in the area where you’ll be sitting. We didn’t clear out the restaurant because we don’t want Melba casing the place ahead of time and noticing something’s amiss.”
Garland drummed his fingers against the tabletop. “Do the restaurant employees know what’s going on?”
“No. We couldn’t take the chance that someone in the restaurant would tip off the other side.”
Garland persisted, “What if the employees or owners are in on it? What if Lazare owns this place?”
“Mr. Hughes, we’ll have agents all around Iris. Stings like this are straightforward, done every day. The location is excellent. The restaurant has large windows and there’s a hotel right across the street that gives a clear view of the restaurant where we’ll be monitoring communications.”
“But this place was not of your choosing,” Garland interrupted. “The bad guys selected it for the same reasons you outline. Their people will be watching what’s going on too.”
“Undoubtedly, Mr. Hughes,” Weems agreed.
“Dean Palmer knows what Iris looks like. When he sees it’s her and not this Margo Hill, he’ll know something’s up.”