The Grift

by Debra Ginsberg

  “Love it,” he said. “It’s a new me.”

  “Definitely,” Cassie said. She spun him back around so that they were both staring into the big mirror and put her hands on his shoulders. “You know, if you want, I can get rid of those grays, too,” she said, lowering her voice. “A lot of guys do it. More than you think. It would look really hot.” She brushed off his shoulders with her hands even though all the stray hairs were already gone, her fingers lingering on the bare skin of his neck.

  “Something to think about,” Cooper said, giving her a small smile. He knew he must be back in prime form if women were starting to come on to him. On the other hand, he felt bad that this one was so clueless—or desperate. It reminded him of Max’s “bride” and, despite his new philosophical approach to that whole thing, the memory still stung.

  “Well, you can come in anytime,” Cassie said. “I’ve just started here, so I’m working a lot of hours to build up my client base. Why don’t I give you my number for when you decide about the color? Here, I’ll write down my cell so you can make sure you get me and not someone else.”

  Part of Cooper’s new philosophy (borrowed from several twelve-step programs) was to avoid trying to change things he had no control over. The old Cooper would have said something like “Thanks, and I’ll send my boyfriend in, too,” but the new Cooper knew better than to get even that deeply involved. He thanked her, tipped her well and left the salon after giving himself one last go-over in the mirror.

  Cooper picked up a fresh carrot juice with a wheatgrass shooter at the Jamba Juice next door to the salon and headed over to the hospital. The backseat of his car was packed full with boxes of dolls and games, and he planned to distribute them to the sick kids in the children’s ward. Another part of Cooper’s new approach to life was to try to be less selfish and to give back to society in the form of charitable works. At least that was the way he’d explained it when he’d asked his father for funds to implement this charity. It was his brush with death that had really done it, Cooper explained. How many people got a second chance? It was actually his responsibility to make the most of his new lease on life.

  Of course, Cooper hadn’t actually walked through the tunnel toward the light, but he had been sick and he might have died if, instead of collapsing at Marina’s house and being taken away by paramedics, he’d passed out at home alone (or, worse, on the road). What he had was an inflamed and fatty liver along with some related “insult” to his pancreas and kidneys. Cooper’s attempt at sexy self-destruction, it seemed, had resulted in an extremely unsexy, if curable, illness. After the initial drama of the emergency room and admittance to the hospital, Cooper had the self-awareness to be embarrassed by the nature of his medical problems. Despite that, though, he still believed that Marina had saved his life. More important, he believed his was a life worth saving.

  It was also Marina who had pointed him toward love—real love this time—with her prediction about the landscaper he was going to meet. It hadn’t just happened, of course. After he’d recovered and gotten back into shape, Cooper had called every landscaper in the phone book to come over and assess the state of his cactus garden, each one of them decidedly hetero and totally confused as to why he sent them away so fast. He finally met Michael, “a landscape artist” who’d been putting in a koi pond at a neighbor’s house. He’d been watching the parade of his competitors with much amusement and finally came over to see what Cooper was up to.

  “I’m just curious,” Michael had asked Cooper. “Are you waiting to find the one who can feel the pea under all the mattresses?”

  It was as close to love at first sight as one could get, Cooper thought, and he had Marina to thank for it. And he had been thanking her in as many ways as he could since the day she’d sent him off in the ambulance. He still felt guilty that he’d been too sick to go with her to that party and felt somehow responsible for her nearly getting killed, although who could ever have guessed that Andrew was such an insane psychopath? So his first order of business was to make sure that she had expert medical care right through her delivery. (“Yes, Marina,” he’d told her, “I did notice that you were pregnant.”)

  The next thing he did was go with her to Andrew’s funeral. Or, more accurately, he’d gone to Andrew’s funeral while Marina waited nearby with a cop she knew. Just as she’d told him, Max’s fiancée, Kiki, was there at the graveside, the ruby ring sparkling in the sunlight. Max, curiously, was not in attendance. Avoiding as usual, Cooper thought at the time. Although it didn’t jibe with Cooper’s newfound charity, he had to admit he got a catty satisfaction out of telling Kiki that a police officer was waiting to talk to her about her engagement ring. He was only sorry he couldn’t be there when she asked Max why he’d given her a ring (subsequently taken into evidence) that had been stolen from a murdered man. But he did find out what eventually happened when Max called him a few weeks later.

  He’d started with a long, insincere bit about how he’d heard Cooper was sick and was calling to see how he was faring and blah blah blah until Cooper cut him off by asking how his pregnant fiancée was doing and about the wedding plans. Max gave one of his famous pauses and then informed Cooper that it wasn’t going to work out with Kiki after all. Sadly, she’d suffered a miscarriage (read: never pregnant in the first place, Cooper thought), so there wasn’t going to be a wedding. Cooper kept quiet, refusing to say he was sorry because he absolutely wasn’t. And then Max said he wanted to make sure Cooper knew he had nothing to do with that man’s death or any of the trouble Marina had been through. “I just bought the ring from him,” Max said pathetically. “Andrew was Royal Rings, for fuck’s sake. How could I have known?” Although he realized Max must have been really rattled if he used the f word, Cooper still said nothing and let him carry on, using Max’s own shrink trick on him. Max said it was important to him what Cooper thought of him. He said he was taking a sabbatical from work to “think through some things.” And then he paused for so long that Cooper was sure he was going to finally say it: I miss you, I love you, I made a mistake, let’s get back together. But for one last time, Max pulled the chair out from under Cooper. “So you believe me, don’t you, Cooper?” he said. “If someone asked…” And for one last time, Cooper hung up on Max. Marina, Cooper thought now, had always been right about Max, too.

  The funny thing was, now that he was ready, open and enlightened (about certain things, anyway), Marina didn’t want to read for him anymore. She told him that he could come by as often as he wanted, but it was no longer “right” for her to read for him. Whatever that meant. Marina may have gotten shaken and stirred over the last few months, but she still had that mysteriousness about her.

  No matter, though. In a show of real good nature, Marina had given him the name of another very competent psychic who lived above La Jolla. Ciel would only let him see her once every three months—no exceptions—but he was okay with that, too. After all, too much looking into the future made you less inclined to actually live it.

  That, at least, was one thing Cooper was sure of.

  MADDIE—

  LET’S TOAST TO THE SALE OF YOUR HOUSE!!!

  POINT FIVE OVER THE ASKING PRICE!!!

  CONGRATS!!!

  —JOY

  Madeline crumpled the note, filled a champagne flute with the Dom Pérignon her Realtor had left to celebrate the sale of her house—and her own hefty commission—and sucked it down in one gulp. She’d begged off a get-together with Joy, who was a talented Realtor but an irritating person, by telling her that she was having trouble dealing with everything—all the arrangements, the money, the lawyers and, because she was selling Royal Rings, the business advisers as well. Joy had dropped off the champagne anyway, perhaps hoping that Madeline would share it with her at a later date. Not likely, Madeline thought.

  She took the bottle and glass into her nearly empty living room and sat down on the floor. She could barely hear the movers packing and crating in the kitchen. The odd sound of c
linking silverware and china was the only indicator that they were there. Madeline felt the warm glow of the Dom spread golden through her solar plexus. It felt so good, she poured herself another glass. She’d forgotten how much she enjoyed the taste and buzz of good champagne. It was time to take up this particular habit again. Madeline had spent so long chained to the demands of a breeding body that she had to remind herself that there was no longer anything that was forbidden. For the first time in she couldn’t remember how long, Madeline wasn’t trying to get or stay pregnant. One of the very first things she’d done after that night was to have an abortion. She went way out of town to a ratty clinic where there was no chance of her being recognized by anyone, handed over four hundred dollars in cash and was on her way home less than an hour later.

  She’d expected to feel some sadness, maybe even regret. But Madeline hadn’t shed a single tear either before or after her visit to the clinic. The only thing she felt was an overwhelming sense of relief that she’d gotten her own body back and a determination never to let anyone else control it ever again. Not that she’d ever have to. Madeline’s need to produce an heir died the same moment Andrew did.

  Madeline had and continued to put on a show of grief worthy of an Oscar, but the deep inner truth was that she was glad Andrew was dead. If it had happened at any moment before that night, Madeline would have felt something more. If not an agonizing sense of loss, at least sorrow of a kind. She had loved him, after all. But the side of Andrew she’d seen that evening before the party—so deeply ugly and frightening it made her uncomfortable to think about it even now—had effectively extinguished any affection she still had for him.

  Eddie’s unexpected visit had put a real crimp in Madeline’s post-party seduction plan for Andrew, and she’d had to revise—to try to get him into bed before the festivities. This ended up as one of the most spectacular failures Madeline had ever experienced. Andrew was already drunk and surlier than usual when he arrived home less than two hours before the party was supposed to start. He took one look at her Diana, Goddess of the Hunt outfit and asked her what the hell she thought she was wearing. She’d stayed cool, plied him with Johnnie Walker Blue, ran her hands up and down his back and moved down between his legs. Then he’d grabbed both her hands and barked at her to stop it. She acted wounded, desperate, and slipped off her dress and put the full naked breasts he’d bought and paid for in his drunken face. Then he slapped her hard in hers.

  “You should try not to be so obvious about being a whore,” he said.

  Hand to her stinging cheek, Madeline was too shocked to cry or speak. But whatever slim hope she’d held out for their marriage vanished with his next statement. “This isn’t going to work, Madeline. We’ll have to come to some kind of agreement, but this”—he gestured around the room and then at her—“is over.”

  Madeline remembered what Eddie had said about seeing Andrew hanging around Marina’s office, and suddenly she figured it out. His animosity toward Marina, the way he’d cut Madeline off from seeing her, his long disappearances after the fire when Madeline finally dropped her. He was having an affair with Marina. In a weird, nothing-left-to-lose kind of panic, Madeline turned to him, still naked and flushed with shame and fear, and demanded to know how long he’d been sleeping with her psychic. His reaction—she shuddered in the memory—was terrifying. He’d grabbed her by the back of her head and yanked her hair until tears of pain formed in her eyes. He got so close to her face that she could feel the alcoholic moisture of his breath on her lips. “Don’t. Ever. Mention. That. Name. Again.” He pulled her hair a little harder. “That witch is the cause of all this grief. Do you hear me? And I blame you. You spoiled brat. You brought that devil woman into this house and everything went to hell.”

  “Andrew…” She was whimpering. “Please…”

  “You’re lucky I didn’t kill—” He stopped himself, but not before Madeline saw the most intense look of hatred she’d ever seen shooting from his eyes.

  “Andrew, you’re hurting me.”

  He let her go and pushed her away. “You’d better go get ready,” he said. “We’re having a goddamned luau.”

  Madeline poured another glass and drank. It was pretty amazing how quickly you could kill a bottle of bubbly, she thought. But still she felt nothing more than the soft glow. Well, it was enough for now, anyway. The sound of methodical packing and stacking continued to come from the kitchen. She longed for peace—real quiet—but she was still afraid to be alone. She’d kept the house full of people—lawyers, movers, friends and Realtors—for months. At night, when there was nobody left, Madeline went to the Inn at Rancho Santa Fe and checked into a room. That lonely trek would soon be over, though. The house was sold and she’d soon be moving into another—one that would be hers only. She hadn’t been completely honest with Joy. She knew much more about the money than she let on. The lawyers were handling it, but Madeline was well in charge of the lawyers. It wouldn’t be long now—not long at all and she’d have everything she’d wanted.

  Well, almost everything. There was no man in Madeline’s life, and she expected it would be a long time before there was again—if ever. Her gratitude to Eddie was genuine but it wasn’t love. Whatever his motivations for being there that night, he hadn’t just saved Marina’s life, he’d saved hers, too. She’d rewarded him—quietly, carefully, but making sure he knew—but she didn’t want to hear from him or see him again. It was time she started over, fresh. On her own terms.

  Chapter 38

  Eddie sat in Darling’s, not-reading the North County Times and waiting for the latest in a string of increasingly surly waitresses to come and take his breakfast order. The name of this place was a pretty good joke if you thought about it, he mused. Never in the dozens of times he’d been into this place had he ever been served by anything resembling a “darling” of any kind. Lots of skinny, black-haired, pale-faced, nose-ringed girls, but no darlings, sweeties or even honeys. Not that Eddie would ever again refer to a woman by any of those endearments, anyway. Just one more thing to add to his I-will-never-understand-women list.

  He stared out the window onto the Coast Highway and watched the sun glinting off the cars as they whipped by. It was before nine, but there was already a heat shimmer coming off the road. It was going to be a scorcher today; the beaches were going to be packed. Eddie was glad he’d be working in an air-conditioned house, doing nothing more taxing than installing a faucet. The house was close, too, just down the road in Solana Beach. He’d be done by post time. If he hustled home to shower and change, he could be over there by the third race. He couldn’t believe that he’d lived in San Diego for more than half his life and this summer was the first time he’d gone to the races at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. About time, is what it was. He planned to take his boys this weekend when they came to stay with him. Tina hadn’t liked the idea at first, thinking it was all cigars and dirty old men at the OTB, but he’d set her straight.

  “Hey, sorry to make you wait; we’ve been totally swamped this morning.”

  Eddie turned his head and saw the cutest little thing ever to wear an apron in this place. She was white-blond for one thing, and curvy instead of bony like the rest of them. Her white Darling’s T-shirt was about two sizes too small (on purpose, he guessed) and hugged her plump breasts as if it were in love. His gaze made it up to hers just a shade too late and he saw her big round blue eyes narrow in annoyance that he was staring at her tits. Why wear a T-shirt like that, he wanted to ask her, if you don’t want me to look? Just why? But he was going to die without knowing the answer to that one question.

  “Yeah, okay, hi,” he said.

  “Any questions about the menu?” she asked. “Or are you ready to order?”

  “Oh, I know what I want,” Eddie said. “I’m a regular here. You must be new. I haven’t seen you here before. What’s your name?”

  The eye roll she gave him was so dramatic that her irises almost disappeared. “Listen, would you mind just,
like, ordering if you’re ready? I’m super busy.”

  “Coffee,” Eddie said. “Scrambled eggs, wheat toast, small oatmeal.”

  “Great,” she said, and she swept the menu off his table. “Be right back with your coffee.”

  Hell with her, Eddie thought, training his eyes back on the road. Hell with all of them. But no. He didn’t really mean that. Because, not to put too fine a point on it, this was the first time in thirty years that Eddie was without a wife, lover, mistress or any combination of the three. It was weird. But it was probably good for him. Like oatmeal. He’d always known that women were his weakness, his Achilles’ heel. But that hadn’t stopped him. Who knows how long he would have carried on if they, the women themselves, hadn’t put an end to it? As it was, he’d ended up killing a man…

  Eddie felt his waitress splash the coffee down next to him, but he didn’t turn around to look at her again. Of course, he hadn’t murdered Andrew, not like Andrew had murdered that guy—who, in a weird twist, turned out to be Marina’s tough-guy boyfriend. It was just lucky that he’d been suspicious of Madeline’s motives for having him wait out there in the dark. He’d gone to his truck and picked up that piece of pipe just in case. He hadn’t planned anything, though, and what Eddie had done was totally justified. You could actually see the black-and-blue marks on Marina’s neck. Andrew would have choked the damn life out of her if Eddie had gotten there two seconds later. How did you get there? Eddie wondered for the thousandth time. How did you get to the point where you put your hands around a woman’s neck and strangled her? Here was a guy who had everything—he was Mr. Royal Rings, for God’s sake. He was beyond loaded, he had a hot wife, a mansion…. How bent did the man have to be to try to murder a woman at his own house while a thousand of his closest friends partied inside? It was an insane form of evil that Eddie couldn’t begin to comprehend.