by Chris Wiltz
“So what the fuck, Honeycutt? Give it to him.”
“I don’t want to.”
“What you mean, you don’t want to? You telling me the asshole’s a vengeful gangster and his sidekick’s a slicer. You telling me not to deal. What the fuck are you doing?”
Karen sat back and stared out into the office. “I’m thinking…” She sat up again, looked at LaDonna. “You take the money for the movie. Then you don’t have to deal with Solo.”
“That doesn’t get you off with Solo. Hell no I ain’t taking that money.”
“Why not? Jack and I will figure out how to play Solo.”
LaDonna got up and started pacing the office. She stopped and looked at Karen. “No,” she said and started pacing again.
Karen said, “Look, I just don’t want to give the money to Solo. Anyone but Solo. In fact, I’m dying to give it away.”
LaDonna stopped again. “Why’s that?”
“Fuck,” Karen said. “My mother.”
“Your mother? You want to make sense here?”
“She says it’s tainted.”
“Wait a minute. You telling me your mother knows about this money?”
“Course not. She was just talking about money. Christ, it’s all she ever talks about.”
“So let me get this straight.” LaDonna sat back on the sofa. “You don’t want to keep the money ’cause it’s tainted but you don’t want to give it back to the person who tainted it. Tainted? What kind of fucking shit word is that?”
“You know. Judy.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well I don’t want no tainted money neither. Don’t try to give me your problem.”
“Goddamn,” Karen said, “you don’t think every dime Solo Fontova ever touched isn’t tainted? For Christ sake, it’s just fucking money…”
“Not to you. What I think, you want the money. That’s why you took it to begin with…”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Oh, no doubt,” LaDonna said, “but the bottom line is…” she raised her voice “…you want the money.” Then louder, “So get over your mother!” She went to her desk to check the time on the computer. “Speaking of Solo Fontova, he’s going to be here any time.”
“Oh yeah? I’m kinda getting an idea here, LaDonna…”
***
Karen went downstairs to meet Solo when Luc called up to say he was there. Luc raised his eyebrows at her as she passed him. LaDonna was right—he was a busybody. Too bad, with those looks…those hands…
“Solo,” Karen said. “Come on up. LaDonna’s waiting for you.”
Ernesto hung back.
“It’s beans and rice day, Ernesto,” Karen told him. “Grab a table, they’ll fix you a plate.”
He didn’t move except to fold his arms and stand there in the middle of the room like a goon.
Karen leaned over the bar. “Where’s Buddha?”
“Not till four,” Luc said with a wag of a finger in his voice that pissed her off.
Solo was carrying a brushed-aluminum briefcase. Karen led him up the stairs, turning back to say, “Ernesto gives me the creeps, Solo.”
“That is his job, Karen.”
She smiled. “Of course.”
They were out of sight of the bar now. He put his hand on her arm to stop her as she reached the doorway. “Now that I am investing in your friend’s movie, you will have no trouble giving me the money, Karen. I am right?”
“We’ll talk about that. LaDonna’s waiting.” She went through the door into the hallway.
LaDonna threw open her office door. “Solo, how nice to see you.” She air-kissed him, first one cheek then the other. “Please, come in, get comfortable.”
Solo laid the briefcase on the coffee table and sat on the sofa. Karen sat behind the desk. LaDonna pulled a straight-back chair up to the end of the coffee table.
LaDonna’s eyes gleamed at Solo. “Is that—” her eyelashes fluttered as she looked down at the briefcase and back to Solo “—the money?” He sat back in the sofa, a man feeling important, and started to speak. LaDonna held up a finger. “First, I asked Karen to explain the tax credits to you.”
He looked at Karen the way a Komodo dragon might. He blinked and his eyes were back on LaDonna, dismissing Karen. “The Louisiana tax credits? I know the state will pay back twenty-five, thirty per cent of the cost of the film.”
“And you know,” Karen said, forcing him back to her, “that if the documentary is not made for any reason, you can sell the credits to a tax broker for eighty cents on the dollar.”
“Yes. I know that.”
“Jack tells me that you intend to invest a quarter of a million into this project.”
LaDonna let out a small shriek. “A quarter of a million dollars? Is that what’s in here?” She put her hand on the case. “Oh, how fabulous…”
Karen began talking over her. “Did Jack speak out of turn, Solo?”
Solo held up a hand. He said to LaDonna. “I have some new ideas I want to discuss with you. Over lunch. Alone.” He glanced at Karen.
“But maybe Ramon should be here. Should I call him?” LaDonna smiled sweetly.
Karen could see exasperation ready to pop out all over Solo like sweat. She watched as he contained himself.
“That is not necessary at this point, for Ramon to hear.”
Karen said, “I know Ramon is a pain in the ass, Solo, but he really is a great director.”
“Please,” said Solo. To LaDonna: “I have never said this—pain in the ass. What I think, he is not worthy. I think you will get tired of him. Do not misunderstand. I respect Ramon. He fights for his woman.”
“He does,” said Karen. “It’s very sweet but he’s maybe a little naïve. Getting back to the tax credits, the way this works is…” Karen reached for her purse and pulled a sheaf of papers from it “…I have the law right here if you want to see it. Anyway, the expenses and spending on the documentary have to be reviewed by a certified auditor. Of the producer’s choice.”
“Your point here, Karen.”
She spread her hands, palms up. “You’re the producer.”
“The executive producer.”
“Exactly. LaDonna is the star, Ramon the director. I do the paperwork. The paperwork can say your investment was more than two fifty. It can say it was, oh, let’s say double that. The auditor signs off on it, you collect a hundred fifty in tax credits…my math says that means your investment is only a hundred big ones.”
He still looked reptilian, his face immobile, but Karen knew him well enough to know the wheels were spinning upstairs.
LaDonna clapped her hands softly. “Tell me, Solo…” She patted the briefcase.
“Fifty thousand, LaDonna. Another fifty soon.” He said that to Karen.
“The money’s gone, Solo.”
He began turning red, a slight heave to his chest. LaDonna reached out and put her hand on his knee. “Solo,” she said, “Karen gave me the money. The bank called my loan after the hurricane and I had to borrow from…I might as well call them what they are, loan sharks. When Karen found out what they were charging me, she gave me the money. I paid them off.”
He cooled off before he took LaDonna’s hand from his knee and held it. “If it helped you…” he looked at Karen “…I forget about it.”
“Solo,” LaDonna said, “you are quite a man. Come on, let’s eat. I’m starving.” Solo followed her downstairs.
Karen counted the money in the case, wrote a receipt for it, and a duplicate for the records. She brought the receipt to Solo. Upstairs again, she occupied herself with Costa Brava work schedules and invoices.
An hour later LaDonna burst through the door. “Oh my God, Honeycutt, I couldn’t wait for him to leave. While you were talking, I kept thinking, how do we pull this off? The paperwork…”
“Calm down, LaDonna. There will be two sets of paperwork. The salaries will be inflated except—where’s the money? It won’t be in your bank account, or mine or
Ramon’s, because there’s only that money.” She pointed at the brushed-aluminum briefcase. “That’s all we ever got no matter what Solo’s paperwork says. You see?”
LaDonna went over to the case. She opened it and gazed at fifty thousand dollars stacked neatly inside. She closed it.
“You know, Honeycutt, you are wicked. There’s only one problem I see and it’s a big one. How do we get rid of him?”
Karen smiled. It felt like LaDonna’s cat smile but on her face. “I think Ramon can take care of that problem.”
“Ramon?”
Karen nodded. “We let Solo get his tax credits in hand. Then I bet Ramon would take a great deal of pleasure siccing the state of Louisiana dogs on him and that Bullmastiff of his.”
Twenty-three
Pascal couldn’t get out of the restaurant until almost ten o’clock. Karen waited for him at the bar. A half hour earlier she’d walked in, saw the buttoned red leather counter and missed Raynie. She sat at the bar and wondered what it would be like to sleep with Jimmy Johnpier. Harley Sands breezed into the bar just in time.
“Heard from Raynie yet?”
“She only left this morning, Harley. I’m sure they’re still out celebrating…”
“Think she can keep him out all night?”
“And then what?”
“They get in his plane and fly home.”
“And then what?”
Harley closed one eye, his face screwed up. “Eventually he takes his boat to tuna town. I can’t stand it, I swear I can’t…” He shook his head hard, shaking loose the images. “I’m taking over from Pascal in a few minutes. Things are trés in-ter-es-ting around here. Beware the brother.”
He turned to go. Karen caught him by his apron strings. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He keeps paying someone…” he leaned in and whispered, “the sous-chef…to give him a new key every time he loses it. It drives Pascal mad. And just so you know, Pascal’s real interested in what happened Saturday night. He seems to think that just because I left here early, I know something about it. Gotta go.” He wheeled out.
***
Pascal had dinner brought to them in his office.
“I had plans for us,” he said, “dinner uptown, show you my house, but Raynie’s absence is messing up the works. I’ve got to hire someone fast.”
“Johnpier sent a limo for her this morning. I helped her pack. It took all of half an hour and it’s like she never lived there. Her stuff fit in the trunk, room to spare.”
Pascal took the last forkful and wiped his mouth. “Give Johnpier a month. He’ll lavish her with clothes, jewelry, things. Johnpier likes things. Wait till you see his palace.” He took their plates to the bar. “A little port? I find it resolves the meal.”
She smiled. “Is that quaint or worldly?”
“Hell if I know.” He poured two small glasses of port. “Jimmy likes to say things like that.”
“He has a profound effect on people’s speech. Raynie came in last night talking…different…she said it was because she’d been with Jimmy all day.”
He handed her a glass and sat beside her on the sofa. “You’re worried about Raynie, aren’t you—what, that she’ll get eaten up with the money?”
Karen stopped the glass an inch from her lips. “Why should I worry? I’m sure she will. That’s what she’s in it for.”
Pascal nearly lost the nip of port he’d taken. Karen smiled, took a sip of hers and ran her fingers up and down the long stem of the glass. “Haven’t you talked to Johnpier?”
Pascal concentrated on swallowing before he said, “No. He called this morning to tell me they were off to Vegas. It was all news to me.”
“It was? You told me he wanted to marry her.”
“Right, but I had no idea he actually would, and so fast.”
“When the woman says yes, you move. I guess.”
“Wait, back up.” Pascal put his glass on the coffee table. “He took her out yesterday, asked her to marry him, and she said yes. Just like that?”
“Sort of. He took her out, told her he wanted to marry her and said she could look at it as a business proposition.”
“A business proposition? What, like a merger? I got a wedding invitation once from a couple in business who called their marriage a merger. Like that?”
Karen slid her glass on the table too. She crossed her legs, turning more toward him. “Pascal, where’s the romance, the passion in that? Johnpier’s in love with Raynie. Apparently he’s not like a lot of men who think they can profess undying love and the woman will swoon into their arms.” He laughed and she realized she wasn’t nervous with him the way she’d been last night. “He told her he was marrying her for love—and her looks—and her youth, although I don’t really remember that being part of the equation—and he couldn’t imagine why she’d be marrying him for anything other than his money. Unless, of course, it was for his scintillating humor, which, as it turned out, kind of, um, closed the deal.” Karen was into it now, letting loose, improvising.
“His scintillating humor. That sounds like Jimmy. So that’s it? She says yes?”
“Well, I think there were a few other stipulating factors, but you’re Johnpier’s confidant. I think he should give you the details.”
He reached across what had become a small distance between them and grabbed both her hands. “Uh-unh, you’re not getting out of here alive unless you tell me.”
“But Raynie told me in confidence.”
“Did she say that? She said don’t tell anyone?”
Karen tilted her head. “No. She didn’t. I think it was just understood, you know? Given the nature of the talk. Women know when they can spill and when they can’t.”
“You’re killing me here. What if I tell you Jimmy and I had a bet. Since I lost the bet, which means Raynie gets my dearly beloved ’76 gold Eldorado convertible as a wedding present, I ought to get some kind of consolation prize. Tell me how the man did it. He’s a conniving bastard, you know.”
Karen started laughing. “He is. He’s smart. He wanted her bad enough that he asked her to commit to three months and if she leaves, he’ll give her whatever she thinks is fair.”
He let go of her hands, took one and held it between them. “Son-of-a-bitch. So that’s how you get a woman to marry you.”
“Well, one way…”
He angled his body more toward her, edged a little closer. “That wouldn’t work with you?”
“It might but it strains my imagination.”
“What would it take, good old-fashioned love?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I ever loved anyone enough to marry him. I thought so one time but...” She shook her head.
“I had one of those too, a couple, but I’ve got a few years on you.”
She would have liked to ask him how old he was but he leaned in and kissed her, tentative at first, as though he wasn’t sure she was ready for it. She stopped thinking about it, about anything, only the way his mouth worked with hers, his arms coming up around her…
She froze when she heard the knock on the door. Pascal pulled away slowly, ran his hand down the side of her face before he answered it. She heard Harley say through the partly opened door, “Sorry to interrupt, boss,” and Pascal closed the door. He crossed the room, carrying a white canvas bank bag around its gathered-up neck. He unlocked a cabinet under some bookshelves at the side of the big desk and she saw him put the bag in a safe. He spun the dial, locked the cabinet. When he came back he held out his hand and walked her into the room next door.
***
This went straight to the heart, the kind of connection that made all the fireworks with Luc nothing but sport, not that there was anything wrong with that. This made you want to do the whole ride-off-into-the-sunset thing. Karen sighed deeply and Pascal touched her hair and kissed her then put his hand over hers, the one that rested on his chest and could feel his heart finally beginning to slow down.
The restaur
ant elevator started to move.
“People still here?” Karen murmured.
“No. That would be my demented brother.” Pascal started to get up but leaned back toward her. “Don’t move. I won’t be long.”
In the moonlight coming from the unshuttered bedroom window she could see him grab a pair of sweat pants from the back of a chair. The elevator had stopped. Pascal went out to the hallway, leaving the door open a crack behind him.
“Where did you get the key, Avery?”
“Oh, I uh, had an extra.”
“Give it to me.”
“Come on, Pascal. This is my building too.”
“I live here, Avery. I don’t have a key to your place, go barging in on you in the middle of the night. I can’t believe I’m trying to use reason. Just give me the fucking key.”
“What’s happ’nin, brother? Gittin a little nookie?”
Karen heard them moving into Pascal’s office. The thick plaster walls of the building muffled their voices so she couldn’t understand what they were saying. She got out of bed and grabbed Pascal’s shirt, opened the door enough to get through it and stepped into the hallway, hoping she didn’t hit a loose board. Pascal’s office door was open.
“What are you going to do, Avery? Pull a gun on me?”
Karen stopped short.
“I’m clean, I swear. Said I was sorry ’bout that. Didn’t I?”
“I don’t remember either. Did O’Leary take your gun too?”
“I want to kill the motherfucker.”
“I keep telling you, the Cuban’s your problem.”
“You think the Cuban’s got my money?”
“I don’t really know, do I, Avery?”
“Can you just give me some cash? I know you’ve got it.”
“Not in the middle of the night. Why didn’t you come over today?”
“I been busy all day.”
“All day.”
“Look, I got some new eyebrows.”
“I couldn’t help but notice.”
“They okay?”