Silence flooded the line as both husband and wife waited for the other one to say the right combination of words to undo the damage being done, but the cream was in the coffee. There weren’t any right words. Nothing but the clicking sound of that Kit-Cat clock’s tail filling the tiny kitchen.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
That black plastic tail might as well have been a timer counting down to the next series of hateful words and wrong turns that would widen the great divide. When Clayton finally broke the silence she didn’t even hear what he said. His tone was belligerent, and that was enough. She hung up—hard—and then lifted Eben off her hip. The phone rang again and again. She let it. She walked back outside, letting the door slam behind her. She heard the walking stick slide down the wall and hit the floor. She let it lie. The phone stopped ringing by the time she had settled back out on the porch and so she finished feeding her son. She kept her eyes on his face, and off the magnolia stump and the scarecrow. She stared at the boy, while her brain cycled from calm to angry, to profoundly sad, and then eventually back to angry. She burped the baby and was just about to stand up, to walk off her mood, when the phone rang again. She knew nothing she had to say at this point would be productive. He was going to want to prove his point, to argue his case. That’s what he did when he drank. Voices would rise, they’d talk over each other, and soon they’d be acting like two people she didn’t even recognize.
She went in the house anyway.
When she put her hand on the receiver, she paused and tried to will it to stop ringing. She could just go back out on the porch, or get in her Jeep and drive—anywhere. Anywhere but here, but she didn’t. Despite what she’d said, she wasn’t really ready to give up. She refused to believe they were completely broken—yet. So she snatched the phone off the cradle.
“What, Clayton? What do you want? I’m not going to do this—”
She knew before she finished her sentence that it wasn’t Clayton on the line.
“Hi, Kate? It’s Mark. How you been?”
5
THE KNIGHT’S INN MOTEL OFF INTERSTATE 92
TAMPA, FLORIDA
“Yeah, baby. I’ll be home late tonight.”
Bob Kane pressed the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he paid the convenience store clerk for the bag of ice. “Yeah, I know. I swear, that goddamn new kid, Pooler, keeps jacking up the system down here and there’s no one else can fix it.” He laid a ten on the counter and stuffed his wallet back in his pants. “You’re damn right, I deserve a raise. These ports would all go to shit if they didn’t have me around to keep them runnin’. How was your treatment today?”
The kid with his hair pulled back in a man-bun, rang up the ice and handed Bob his change. Bob hoisted the sweating plastic bag onto his shoulder and fumbled to grab the money and keep the phone to his ear. “I’m sorry, baby, but the doctors are right about this. You gotta hang in there.” Bob dropped a quarter back on the counter and it bounced to the floor. The kid with the bun smirked. Bob stuffed the rest of the cash into his pocket and then held the phone to his chest, ignoring what his wife was saying.
“What the fuck kinda hair-do is that?”
The kid just kept smirking. Bob shook his head, and put the phone back to his ear.
“What?” he said. “No, no, I didn’t say anything about your hair. It doesn’t bother me at all. I like the wig. You know that.”
He didn’t see the kid give him the bird as he left the store. That was probably a good thing.
After spending a few more minutes on the phone with his wife under the fluorescent lights of the storefront, he tapped the phone and ended the call.
“It never ends,” he mumbled to a man walking into the store, and re-situated the ice on his shoulder. He walked across the lot, waited for a break in the traffic, and then hustled across the four-lane highway back to the motel.
Once he’d made it across the blacktop, he cut across a Denny’s parking lot and tried to remember a time when he wasn’t serving at the whim of some woman. His mother passed away last year, and although he’d never admit to it out loud, he was relieved. He’d spent every day since his father died in 2002 being that woman’s on-call do-boy. It was no wonder his dad checked out early at fifty-three. His mother had whittled the man down to a nub. Now his wife was sick, and ever since the day they found the lump, she’d expected him to be at her beck and call, morning, noon, and night. He and Kelly hadn’t even got it on in almost a year, mostly due to the chemo. She was tired all the time. But to be honest, even before she got sick the sex was as cold and emotionless as a tax audit. No one would blame him for stepping out.
For stepping out on my sick wife, he thought, and almost laughed out loud. Who am I kidding?
Of course they would blame him. Everyone would hate him.
Everyone except Penny.
She understood how tough he had it, and she had the means to push Kelly and all her medicine bottles and doctor visits right out of his mind, at least for tonight. After he picked up the damn ice, anyway. Of all the rat-trap motels located off the ports, Bob had to pick the only one with—not one—not two—but three—busted ice machines. That skank at the front desk with a mustache thicker than his could’ve told him that when he checked in, but whatever.
Chicks with mustaches and guys with hair-buns. The world is going straight down the shitter.
Bob wiped at the sweat on his balding head, and rounded the corner of the motel.
Room 104. Penny. Finally.
He reached into the pocket of his khakis for the key card and then stopped cold. He didn’t need the key. The door was already slightly open. He’d told Penny to deadbolt it behind him when he left. This wasn’t the worst part of the city, but why invite trouble?
Women expect you to wait on their every whim, but can’t follow an order as simple as locking a damn door.
He grabbed the doorknob as a rush of panic hit him. Maybe Kelly found out about Penny and followed him there. Maybe she was sitting inside with that ridiculous wig on. The mind of a cheater was always on the defensive.
No way, he decided, and pushed the door open wide.
“Penny?” Bob looked around the empty square box of a room. “Penny?” he said again, sounding a little more concerned. “Baby, I’m back.” The purple crushed-velvet comforter was still made up tight across the bed like it was when they’d arrived. He half expected to see Penny already laid out across it, wearing that black lacy number he’d bought her, but he could still bounce a quarter off that queen-size mattress. It hadn’t been touched. He set the bag of ice on a small table and the condensation immediately began to pool and drip onto the carpet.
The TV was off.
He knew for a fact he’d turned it on before Penny started bitching about the ice. She knew Bob liked ESPN muted in the background when they got down to business. She thought it was because he liked a light on so he could see her, and that was part of it, but it was mainly to give him something other than her taut little body to focus on. Without something to distract him, he would barely last through the foreplay.
“Penny?” he said a third time. His voice was loud and impatient.
When the toilet flushed, Bob relaxed. Game on, he thought and grinned.
“Damn, girl. You scared me. You left the door wide open. I thought somebody done come in here and stole you away.” Bob turned and pulled a fifth of Bacardi Silver and a plastic bottle of club soda from a paper bag. The faucet in the bathroom cut on. “No need to get too clean in there,” he said, and dumped two fat limes onto the counter from another bag. “Because you’re fixing to get real dirty.” He tore open the bag of ice, ignoring the wet mess it left on the table, and dropped a couple cubes into the motel-provided plastic cups. He poured the rum strong and added the soda water. “I got you all set up, girl. Whenever you’re ready.” Bob fumbled through the bag for the knife he’d brought to cut the limes. The sound of rushing water from the bathroom sink stopped and the door opened.
Bob spun around when he heard the voice that wasn’t Penny’s. He held the small paring knife in one hand and a ripe green lime in the other.
“Damn, Bob. I drive all the way down here to see you, and you pull a knife on me?”
The tall, pale-skinned woman smiled, unbothered by the small knife despite what she said, and finished drying her hands with one of the motel’s small hand towels. Confusion danced across Bob’s face like a chorus line. The tall woman’s smile flashed and showed off a set of snow-white teeth, polished to a high gleam. She furrowed her brow and crossed her arms, and then spoke with the tone of a kindergarten teacher. “Would you mind putting that away, Bob? It’s making me a little uncomfortable.” She tossed the damp towel onto the bed. Bob Kane looked down at the two-inch paring knife in his hand as if he were unaware of what it was, and then shook his head rapidly like he were trying to prompt himself awake after nodding off.
“Vanessa?” He spoke the woman’s name like a question.
Vanessa put her slender clean hands on her hips. “Bob, seriously, the knife.”
Bob slapped the knife down on the counter next to him, as if it had suddenly become scalding hot, but still held onto the lime, squeezing it like a baseball.
“What the hell are you doing here, Vanessa? Where’s Penny?”
Vanessa was wearing a white pantsuit and had thick black hair she wore in a long, messy tangle down the length of her back. She pulled the tuft of hair over one shoulder of her suit, and then sat on the edge of the bed. She smoothed out the velvet cover with both hands, and then leaned back to rest on them. Without looking up, she answered. “Penny? You mean the young girl you were shacking up with tonight? She had to go. I’m sorry, Bob. I’m sure that’s a real stinger.”
Bob watched as the woman continued to rub at the purple velvet and then cross her legs. He watched her lean back further on her hands and get comfortable. Comfortable on the bed he’d paid for. Bob squeezed the lime tighter and pointed it at his uninvited guest.
“Just what the hell is going on here, Vanessa? Why are you here, and what the hell did you do to Penny?”
Vanessa looked offended. “Do? We didn’t do anything to the girl. She left. What can I tell you?”
“We?” Bob said, and suddenly felt unbalanced. He abandoned all thoughts of the pretty young waitress.
“Of course we, Bob. You don’t think I’d come to a strange man’s motel room in the middle of the night without someone to look after my best interests?”
Bob, still clutching the lime, looked nervously around the empty room, before letting his eyes linger on the bathroom.
Vanessa turned to look at the door behind her as well, and then back to Bob. “There’s no one in the room but us, Bob. I assured my associates that you were a man of reason and that we could work this out. I asked them to stay outside.”
Bob relaxed a bit, and finally set the lime down next to the knife. “Look, Vanessa. I don’t know exactly what it is you want from me, but you can’t just bust in here and start acting like we’re old friends. I barely even know you.”
Vanessa stood up, brushed at the back of her legs, and took a seat at a small table by the wall. Bob noticed for the first time a stack of papers on the table next to the Knight’s Inn channel guide. Vanessa slid them over toward the other chair. “I was under the impression, from the last time we spoke, that you did know exactly what I wanted from you, and you were willing to take the appropriate steps to get to know me a lot better.”
“Well, lady, your impression was wrong. You asked me to falsify documents in the shipping computers. I told you I’d see what I could do. I took a look at it, and the risk wasn’t worth the reward. I’m sorry, sweetie, but I can’t help you.”
“No, sweetie,” Vanessa repeated the sentiment with disgust, “we had an arrangement.”
“You’re wrong about that, too. We have never had an arrangement. I had a small operation going that only a few people knew about, and it wasn’t something I was real happy about to begin with. I’d still like to know how you found out in the first place. I need to plug that leak.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Vanessa said casually, and studied the tips of her French-manicured fingernails.
“The hell it don’t, but the point here is, moving a few can numbers around is one thing, but what you’re asking is an entirely different ballgame. Too much oversight. I can’t cover that kind of heat, so like I said before, I can’t help you.”
“Yes, Bob, you did say that already. I just don’t think you understand the unique position you’re in. I still believe you can be a big help to me.”
“Goddamn, lady, are you deaf? I don’t know you, and I don’t owe you shit.” Bob motioned toward the papers on the table. “So I suggest you listen closely to what I’m saying, and take whatever that is and hit the road.” Bob crossed his arms and leaned back on the Formica counter, and then gave Vanessa a good once-over. Up until now, they had mostly just communicated by phone. She was a beautiful woman. Her eyes were huge and icy blue. They set sad at the edges, and burned with a quiet intensity. Her skin was so pale it shimmered like brushed pearl under her expensive tailored suit. She was a major step up from Penny, and light-years above the wife, but something in her eyes was just—off. There was a coldness in them that made Bob restless and uneasy. She must’ve been very aware of the effect they had, because she burned those eyes straight into him with all the heat of a blowtorch. She uncrossed her legs and spread them apart just a few inches. She arched her back off the uncomfortable wooden chair, knowing what effect that would have, too. It was a practiced move that put a strain on the lower buttons of her blouse, pushing her cleavage up front and center. Bob’s eyes fell right where she wanted them. She smiled. To command a grown man using only her posture was empowering.
Bob spoke as if he were reading from a script Vanessa had written herself. “Listen, why don’t we forget about all this nonsense with the docks, and you and me make us a different kind of arrangement. I mean, the room is paid for and all.”
Vanessa faked a coy expression and spoke with mock embarrassment. “Now, Bob, do I look to you like the kind of girl that goes home with her panties in her purse?”
“I’d be willing to bet you’re the kind of girl that doesn’t wear any in the first place.”
“You’re a confident man, Bob.”
“You have to be in my position.”
Vanessa stood up and slipped from vixen mode right back into business. Her tone was cold and precise.
“Then be confident about your ability as the Ports of Tampa Shipping Foreman, and entertain the proposal I’m here to make. Do that, and you can also be confident that this little tryst with a woman half your age doesn’t make it back to poor, sick Mrs. Kane.”
Bob’s flirtatious manner evaporated as well. His voice rose at the threat. “So you’re here to blackmail me? Wow, you really are a dumb bitch.”
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed slightly, but not enough for Bob to notice. His face was flushed red, and he was shouting. “You think you can force me into doing something that could land me in federal prison by threatening to tell my wife I’m banging a little cooze on the side?” He laughed. “Go right ahead, honey. Tell her anything you want. You’d be doing me a favor. Maybe when you’re done, I’ll be through having to deal with any of you bitches.”
Vanessa didn’t flinch at the second insult. “Listen, Bob, I’m not here to blackmail you, or to try and convince you to break any laws. I can see that ship has sailed—forgive the pun. I just thought I’d put myself out there one more time since we were being so—friendly and all.” She tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “I won’t pressure you anymore about it.”
“Great, so get out.”
“Of course, but before I leave, I’m going to need for you to sign off on these.” She rested a pale hand on the paperwork sitting on the table. “I had
the appropriate pages tagged for you—to make it easy-peasy. Two shakes and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“And what exactly is it you think I’m going to sign?”
“Your resignation.” The cold intensity returned to Vanessa’s eyes. “And your recommendation for your replacement.”
Bob stared at her blankly, and then erupted with laughter. “My resignation?” He leaned over the table, and flipped though the sheets of paper, scattering them across the table. He laughed again, and his belly shook. Vanessa started to laugh with him. “You think I’m going to just walk away—and leave that dip-shit kid, Pooler, in charge—just because you said so?”
“Yes, Bob. Yes, I do.”
Bob’s laughter died as he read. Vanessa’s did, too. She moved away from the table, but her smile stayed in place.
“You’re outta your fucking mind if you think I’m going to sign this shit. There ain’t no way I’m ever gonna do that.”
Vanessa backed further away but kept her smile. “Just keep reading, Bob. Look there on the last page. I promise you’ll at least find it pretty interesting.”
Bob looked back down and flipped to the last page. It was a goodbye letter to his wife. Perfectly forged. So finely done, he was baffled as to when he might have written it. It went on to say how he was leaving Florida, leaving her, for another woman. It was so painfully honest, as it went on to talk about the cancer and how it sickened him. It went on to say a lot of things. Things he’d always wanted to say. Things he did say—to Penny. Bob’s eyes went dark, and he slung the stack of paperwork across the room.
“No one is going to believe that shit.”
“Yes, they will, Bob. As soon as they talk to Penny and she corroborates the story.”
“You crazy bitch. Do you know who I am? I know people. Powerful people. You think you got power over me because you caught me with some redheaded slut in a motel room? Or because I got me a snitch on the docks who ran his mouth about my business? Well, guess what? All that adds up to jack shit. You don’t know me. I survived the strikes in 2012. I took on the fuckin’ president and I’m the one still standing—me—Bob Kane. I’ve got the union. I’ve got real power, and you don’t have the slightest clue who you’re fucking with.”
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