The Booster Club

by Angela M. Sanders

  Unable to take the strain, Eleanor’s necklace burst at last, pearls clattering over the hearing room floor.

  The chair rose. “Well, ladies. It looks like you’ve got yourself a firehouse.”

  28

  “Did you see Eleanor’s face when she figured out that we’d swapped out the agreement?” Claudine asked.

  They were sitting in the Granzer mansion den later that evening, and she was sprawled on the Persian rug with a glass of Louie’s best bourbon in her hand. Claudine hadn’t felt so relaxed, so carefree, really, in years. Even the Cabrini heist had barely crossed her mind.

  “I thought she was going to strangle herself with her pearls,” Ruby said.

  “I still can’t believe we pulled it off,” Deborah said.

  “It was her own greed that got her,” Claudine said. “You know that means no membership in the Carsonville Women’s League for you.”

  “So what?” Ruby said. She truly didn’t seem to care. “It was worth it just to see her face when she was busted for the goat hormones.”

  “Why did you want to join so bad? I never thought they were all that great,” Deborah said.

  Ruby held out her glass for more bourbon. “My mom used to be president of the Women’s League, but they kicked her out when she got sick. I thought if I joined, I could convince them to put a plaque on her grave like they do for every past president.”

  “A plaque? That’s it? I’ll get you a plaque if that’s what you want,” Deborah said.

  Maybe Ruby wanted revenge more than justice, Claudine thought. Or maybe she’d finally realized that what other people thought didn’t matter. She didn’t have to prove she was “better,” because their brand of better wasn’t necessarily worth having. “Or—I know. Let’s go to the cemetery and steal all of the other plaques.”

  Ruby laughed and choked up a little bourbon. “I’m done with stealing.”

  “Me, too,” Deborah added.

  “What?” Claudine said in reply to Deborah’s stare.

  “What about you? Are you done killing people?” Deborah asked.

  “Killing people?”

  “You know, ‘taking them out,’ giving them the ‘K.O.’.”

  “Deborah, I steal things. I don’t kill people.”

  “Too bad. I was going to ask you to do something about Louie.” Deborah kept a straight face for a second before it cracked into a grin.

  “I’m sorry about your husband,” Claudine said. “You paid a high price to get the Rizzio kids their home.”

  “Well,” Deborah drew out the word. “At least I never have to look at another bird again. I think I’ll take up eating chicken just to get rid of more of them.”

  “What’s with you?” Ruby said to Claudine. “You look so serious.”

  Claudine leaned over and with effort pulled in a duffel bag. “Deb, this is for you.”

  Deborah gingerly unzipped it. Her expression went from curiosity to wonder. She pulled out a fork. “Our sterling.”

  “Larry said he couldn’t get the jewelry back, but I was able to find your flatware.”

  “You—you mean you stole it?”

  “Yes, but it’s complicated. Let’s just say that you can do better than Louie.”

  “Hey, I think it’s on.” Ruby pointed the remote at the TV and clicked up the volume.

  Newscaster Brenda’s face appeared, her rigid coiffure touching the screen’s edges. “A dramatic scene at what should have been a routine Carsonville County commissioners’ meeting revealed a story of long-standing corruption. Eleanor Millhouse, CEO of Fine Properties of Distinction, is known for her lavish developments, such as the City Gents condominiums and the Shangri-La Spa. Today we learned she’s also the developer behind the city’s sewage treatment plant and the reason dozens of families were left homeless.”

  The two-minute story included footage of a bedraggled Eleanor pleading with Ned Rossum, who in turn had grabbed the chair’s sleeve.

  “Ms. Millhouse is under psychiatric observation while officials begin an investigation into bribery and collusion. City activists say they are planning a recall for Commissioner Rossum,” Brenda concluded.

  Ruby turned off the television. “We did it.”

  In an uncharacteristically clumsy move, as she leaned back, Claudine’s hand knocked over her tumbler. She grabbed the glass, but not before bourbon left a brown spill on the rug. “I’m so sorry. I’ll help you clean it up.”

  “No biggie,” Deborah said. “My new puppy will probably shred it, anyway. You’re going to get me one, right, Ruby?”

  * * *

  What a miracle. What a freaking miracle, Ruby thought as she drove home. One minute everything is lost, and the next we have the firehouse. Maybe we’ll put in an art studio for kids like Joanie. And a doggy day care where the kids could learn to take care of animals. Ruby still couldn’t believe it.

  She pulled the Volvo into the parking lot of the Quickie Mart. She’d surprise Bruce with a six-pack of diet Fresca and some snack cakes. He’d like that.

  Perry Mason flicked across the screen of a small TV near the cash register. Ruby noticed that the store was well set up to nab thieves. Circular mirrors were set into the ceiling to show each aisle, and cigarettes and batteries were locked behind the counter. Not that it mattered to her. This week’s trip to Klingle’s was her last. She was concentrating on her salon. That’s what she really enjoyed, anyway. Those rich broads could pay retail.

  She set the soda and box of snacks on the counter. The Carsonville Recorder showed a front page article about the county commissioners’ meeting with a photo of the crowd and another of Eleanor Millhouse looking crazed. Ruby chuckled and unfolded the paper. A good, long article, and the reporter had picked up on the youth shelter angle, too. Below the fold was another story. The San Francisco Museum of Decorative Arts was burgled the night before last. Thieves made off with most of an opera singer’s multi-million dollar jewel collection. Fascinating. Claudine would be interested in that, she bet.

  Ruby absently stuck the newspaper in her Balenciaga tote. She was barely out the door when she felt her upper arm in a vice-like grip.

  “You,” the cashier said. “I knew you were a booster. Knew it from the first time I saw you. I’m calling the police.”

  All at once, she recognized him. Her heart stopped. It was the guard she’d gotten fired at Klingle’s.

  29

  Late that night, Claudine’s phone rang. She’d been dreaming of emerald necklaces and a velvet armchair at Geneva’s Hotel Beau Rivage. She rolled over in bed and clicked on the light.

  The number wasn’t one she recognized. It wouldn’t be Oswald. She didn’t expect a victory call. When the heist was over, he was on a plane, and she’d likely never hear from him again.

  Claudine cleared her throat. “Hello?”

  “Deanie, it’s Gilda. Your father is in the hospital.”

  Claudine bolted upright. “Heart attack?”

  “It doesn’t look good, honey. You better get down here.”

  Within minutes, Claudine was pulling her Mercedes out of the driveway. Her fingers trembled on the steering wheel and she couldn’t get the key in the ignition. Go, go, go. At last, the car started.

  At the hospital, a night duty nurse told her visiting hours were well over, but when she said she was there for Henri Dupin, the nurse ushered her down the hall. Before they entered, the nurse stopped her.

  “Your father had a stroke. He’s on life support now. Honey,” the nurse placed an arm on hers, “if you have anything to say to him, this is the time.” She released Claudine and opened the door.

  “Dad,” Claudine whispered and put a hand on his.

  “Deanie.” Hank’s voice was faint. If she thought he looked bad the last time she saw him in the cardiac care unit, that was nothing compared to now. His skin was waxen and his breathing labored, even with machines whooshing and beeping to help him.

  André sat on the other side of the bed. For once
in his life, his composure was gone, and he looked like the little boy she remembered from childhood. Gilda sat at a respectful distance.

  “Don’t talk, Papa.” She hadn’t called him that for years. “Just rest.”

  When she was in kindergarten, not long after her mother had died, Claudine used to wait after school for her father to stop by on his bicycle to take her home. He perched her on the handlebars in front—probably not super safe, in retrospect, but prudence was never her father’s forte. He was strong, with black curly hair and ruddy cheeks. When it was time for bed, he told her stories about how the two of them would sail a ship to Africa to save the tigers, or how they would stave off a Martian army from a perch on the Empire State Building. Then he’d have Mrs. Detweiler next door come over to sit with her while he went out to “work.” It was years before she understood what this work was, but he had already started her on agility exercises, and she could pinch Mrs. Detweiler’s earrings with one hand behind her back.

  Just you and me and André, just the three of us, her father had always said. Just us.

  She laid her head on the edge of his bed. At 4:17 a.m., Henri Dupin died.

  * * *

  “Hi, honey,” Ruby said when Bruce dropped off the bail check and led her from the jail. She wasn’t a crier. Lord knows she’d had enough in her life to boohoo about, though it didn’t do any good to weep. But today all she wanted was to fall into Bruce’s arms and bawl.

  “Hi, honey,” Bruce replied.

  He’d been so sweet through all of this, and, really, she’d come off pretty lucky. The security guard from Klingle’s had not been happy to be demoted to cashier at a Quickie Mart, and he was hell-bent on putting Ruby away for a long time. Since she’d absentmindedly stuck the newspaper in her bag, it gave the police the right to search it, and they found a bracelet with the loss prevention tag still attached. A lawyer recommended by Larry the Fence said Ruby would likely only have to do a year of probation and six months of community service on top of the night in jail she’d already spent. As she said, she’d come off lucky.

  But she hadn’t yet faced Bruce. Time in jail was nothing compared to the prospect of losing him. “Are you—do you still want me to come home?”

  “Of course.”

  They drove home, silent. Ruby’s whole body thrummed with emotion. Bruce stared at the road, and she couldn’t read anything from his placid expression. Did he hate her? Would he ever trust her again?

  The dogs scampered at their feet when they came in the kitchen door. Bruce steered her to the den and set her on the love seat. “Okay. I’m ready.”

  She told him everything—how she started shoplifting, when she did it, how and who she did it for. She told him about the ladies who came for “wholesale” deals. About trying to win a place on the Carsonville Women’s League to vindicate her mother. Then she bit her lip and waited.

  Bruce taught middle school. He’d mastered the art of listening without betraying emotion. Even after years of reading his face, she had no idea what was going through his mind.

  “Honey?” she whispered after a few minutes.

  “You’re back,” he said. “It’s the Ruby I love and married. It’s you.”

  She fell forward and ground through two decades of crying in forty-five minutes. She should have told him so much sooner. God, she loved him. Who cared that his suits weren’t Armani and he couldn’t pronounce the words on the menu at Swift’s Dinner Palace? He was her Bruce—solid, caring, funny, and kind. The man was solid gold. She’d never forget that the rest of her life.

  When she was finally able to talk, she said, “How are the kids?”

  Bruce knew instantly she was asking about the dogs, not his students or the Rizzios. “Marty’s a little off his feed. I think he missed you.”

  Ruby put her hands up flat, and Bruce placed his on the other side, overlapping hers.

  * * *

  “Grady, sweetheart, get off your duff and come in here. Watching all that television isn’t good for your health.” Deborah had moved the tables to the side of the Villa Saint Nicholas dining room for a low-impact aerobics class. Gilda had helped her choose the music. Many of the attendees were in chairs or leaning on walkers.

  Grady slumped in and found a place toward the side of the room.

  “Amazing,” Gilda whispered. “He won’t listen to any of the rest of us.”

  “He’s a darling,” Deborah said. “Is everyone ready? Now lift your right arm. One, two, three. That’s good.”

  Dean Martin’s “Fly Me to the Moon” filled the dining room. The Rizzio kids were in school, except Hugo, who agreed to take community college classes for two years before any of the Villa’s residents would consider inducting him into the community.

  Grandpa Granzer was so grateful the Booster Club exposed his heirs’ attempts to declare him mentally incompetent that he pressured Louie to sign the Granzer mansion over to Deborah as part of the divorce settlement, along with a tidy annual income. “I’ll show them who’s nuts,” he’d said. She immediately moved the Rizzio kids in.

  She felt good with the kids and at the Villa. Needed. She’d become the Villa’s recreation director, and Warren said they’d even pay her to get a certificate in recreation management, if she wanted. She shared Warren’s office and rented a steam cleaner to freshen up the rug. She ended up cleaning the carpets in the halls, too. She’d have this place spick and span in no time.

  Louie still hadn’t come home, and he refused to talk to her. She was getting used to the idea. In any case, her lawyer seemed not to have a problem getting in touch with his. A week after Louie moved out, she brought the watches she’d stolen to the police department and said she found them in the park. The sergeant behind the desk looked suspicious, but since none of them had been reported stolen, he couldn’t do anything about it.

  “Eddie, watch that your hand doesn’t hit Mary Rose. Thank you.”

  Life sure was amazing. Stay positive, as Ruby said. Stay positive and all sorts of things can happen.

  * * *

  Claudine stepped from the dark church into the crisp November sunshine. It was done. Her father’s memorial service was over. If she had gone to San Francisco for the heist, she wouldn’t have been there for him at the end, and today at the service. Knowing this meant more than rubies.

  Father Vincent had insisted on a real church service, but he couldn’t find a parish to let him officiate. At last, Claudine located a Unitarian church on the edge of town, which, for a fee, let Father Vincent do what he wanted.

  It was a fine service. Claudine had ordered a Christofle silver urn from France for her father’s ashes. He would have liked that. Father Vincent preached a moving sermon integrating the Sermon on the Mount with the story of Paul’s becoming a disciple and his forgiveness. Gilda sang “Nearer My God to Thee” and kept the dance moves to a minimum. They all cried.

  Except Claudine. She’d already cried so much that she felt hollowed out. Deborah and Ruby had sat behind her. Ruby had said she’d name their next rescue Hank.

  Not only was her father gone, but André was leaving, too. He and Father Vincent won a spot on the reality TV show, The Perilous Path, a sort of long-distance scavenger hunt. He’d already cut his hair short and taken on a Kentucky accent. Father Vincent, playing André’s father, was looking forward to doing some fancy driving and was trying to negotiate a Utilikilt with the network.

  Wisps of snow blew over the bleak parking lot. Now it was time to recuperate, see what life had in store for her with no father, no profession.

  Leaning against her car—she drove the Mercedes this time—was a man. She blinked and looked again. It was the man who had been following her, the man in the gray Taurus. She started to back away.

  “No.” The man stepped forward from the car. “Don’t go. Please. I just want to talk to you.”

  Closer now, she got a better look at him. He didn’t have that stiff look of a policeman. He wasn’t bad looking, actually. Fit, came
l coat, a little bit of a beard.

  “Stop there. What do you want?” she said when they were still at least a dozen feet apart.

  He began to step forward again, and she held up a hand. “I said, stop. What do you want?”

  “I work for Lewis of London International. We insure high-value accounts. The big ones.”

  The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. “And?” She glanced to the side. She could run up the parking lot to the alley behind the church. She could probably lose him in five minutes if she tried. But what she really wanted to do was sit down where she was and bury her head in her hands.

  “I’m sorry to talk to you here after your father’s memorial service.”

  He knew about her father’s death?

  “But I haven’t been able to get in touch with you, and I’ve been trying for weeks.”

  “So?” Claudine said.

  He ran a hand through his hair. It was dark and curly, just as her father’s had been. She’d be arrested by a man who looked like her father. The irony. “It’s just—well, to get to the point, we want you to come work for us.”

  “What?” She’d heard him, but the “what” came out of her mouth automatically, as a way to buy time.

  “We can pay you good money,” he said quickly. “It’s just that you have—well, you may have certain skills. No one can say for sure, of course.” He watched her. “With your knowledge—knowledge and skills that you may have, that is, we can’t prove anything—you’d make a perfect detective for the company.”

  She looked around. There was nowhere to sit, so she leaned against a Mazda hatchback. “I need a minute.”

  The man kept his distance. “I’m going to leave my card.” He set a business card on the roof of her Mercedes. “I hope you’ll think about it, at least.” He paused a moment. “Will you?”

  “Go. Leave me alone.”