Sam grabbed her hands and pulled them away from her throat.
"Stop that, Elizabeth. You're bleeding."
She shook him off and used both hands now to scratch her neck in long, sharp strokes. She put her bloody fingers on his shirt. She purred:
"Did Rachel do everything you told her to? Is that why you paid her so well?"
Sam slapped her hands down but years of fear – imagined or not – kindled her anger; her new grief fanned it to a flame. A lifetime of being a lady, a sweet daughter, a dutiful wife, an admired student and kind human being was undone by her childrens' deaths and torn to shreds by her husband's betrayal. She went at him again.
"Do you realize that makes Rachel a whore? You hired a whore to care for our beautiful little girls. You made me watch her doing it day in and day out. How much did you think I could take? I could kill you for what you brought into this house. Kill you!"
"Oh God, shut up."
He took her hands and yanked her toward him. She fought but he was stronger than she was and he made her be silent. His eyes filled with tears. He thought they were done with this madness. They had been so happy and now here it was again.
"Elizabeth, I love you but this is crazy. Think. Think. When would I have had time to do what you're saying? I slept with you every night, Rachel was with the girls every day."
"Don't patronize me. There are so many ways. You're just like my father. Just like him. Look what he did to my mother and now you're doing it to me. You liar. You cheat."
She yanked on her hands but Sam held her and tried to talk her down. They needed one another. Despite all this, God help him, he needed her.
"Maybe that money was her nest egg, Elizabeth. Maybe she sold her mother's jewelry. I told the cops the truth. I do not know how she got that money."
Sam searched his wife's face, looking for any sign that she believed him. He was done in by her innuendos, her passive/aggressive asides, and now this meltdown. Elizabeth went limp. Her lips parted and he watched her beautiful mouth form the words that tore him to shreds.
"I don't believe you."
Sam dropped her hands. He nodded and moved away from her. Elizabeth needed more help than he could give her.
"I think that was pretty evident by the way you threw me under the bus when those cops were here," Sam said as he started to walk away. "Forget it. I'm not going to talk about this anymore."
"You threw yourself under the bus," Elizabeth called after him. "You looked like someone punched you when they told you about Rachel's money. You said all the right things but they weren't truthful things. No, detective, I can't imagine how our nanny would put her hands on that kind of money. No, detective, Rachel never talked to us about her finances."
Elizabeth mocked him cruelly and with that Sam stopped. He squared his shoulders and turned around. He put one hand against the door of the kitchen and the other at his hip. He shook his head.
"Don't you ever quit? I mean, really, Elizabeth. We go for months, years, and I think everything is fine and then suddenly you do this. It's like you've been working yourself to a lather inside your head."
"You lied, Sam. I saw Rachel with you in the study just before Christmas. You two were talking about money. When you saw me, you closed the door. And that's not the only–"
"I don't know why I closed the door. I don't even know if I closed the door." He threw up his hands at the futility of the conversation. "Rachel had two grand to invest. That was it. It told her to buy a mutual fund. I wouldn't count that as heavy-duty investment advice or a ton of cash to do it with.
"And instead of snooping around why didn't you just walk in and listen? You would have learned a thing or two. Maybe you would have taken some responsibility for our finances. You just wanted me to make the money so you could spend it on the girls. I think that suited you very nicely."
"Oh, no. Oh, no. That's not right. I never asked for anything except to be able to stay home and be a mother to our children. But you took that away from me," Elizabeth railed. "And we're not talking about me or us, we're talking about Rachel and you and all the dirty things you did with her."
Elizabeth lunged for him again but Sam pushed her away and this time she stumbled and fell against the wall.
"That's it." Sam came at her and pushed her shoulders against the wall to make sure he had her attention. "Rachel is dead. We should be packing her things up. We should be sending condolences to her family. We should tell them that she was so good to our children–"
"And to my husband."
Sam let go of her and raised his arm. Elizabeth threw up her own up in defense, but the blows never came. Sam had clenched his fists and was shaking them at the sky. He grunted. He wheezed and then he lowered his hands.
"I will not talk about this ever again. I will go and see O'Brien's captain. I will have him replaced. It may make you feel better to have him falling all over you like your personal bodyguard, but when he implies I have been unfaithful, that I am somehow responsible for what happened to my children, that's where I draw the line."
"You just got caught, Sam. That's why you're mad."
"You are so naive." Sam shook his head. The fight had gone out of him. "All they want is the case closed, and if they decide to make it look like I am responsible for all this then that's what they'll do. I do the same thing. I point fingers at anyone who is a plausible alternative just so the jury won't look at my client. That's what I do, and that's what the cops do."
Sam leaned against the wall and looked at his wife through sad eyes. Despite the pretty robe and the fancy lingerie, her beautiful body and her elegant face, her suspicions made her ugly. He used to think she was ill, a little off, but now he was beginning to think his wife was selfish and evil. Or maybe she played the lawyer's game better than he did. Look at someone else. Look at Rachel. Don't look at me because you won't like what you see.
"They will probably never find out who did this. Even if they do, there is no guarantee those people will ever be convicted. What if we sat through a trial and they got away with it? Could you go through that, Elizabeth? Could you?"
"I would go through hell, Sam."
"We're already there and I am afraid down to my very core." He put a hand over his eyes and sighed. When he looked at her again he asked: "Why aren't you afraid, Elizabeth?"
"Because nothing could happen to us that is worse than this," she answered.
"Oh, there are worse things." He pushed away from the wall. "At least we're straight. We'll just have to see where we end up."
He started for his study. He had heard all this before. He had loved her despite the crazy ideas that took hold of her at times, but that was when he was strong enough to weather the storm. Now he was injured and sinking fast and his sympathy was gone. He needed quiet and she wouldn't give it to him.
"Is that a threat? Are you threatening to leave me? I won't allow that, Sam."
Sam hesitated. He pulled back his shoulders that seemed to be perpetually slumped these days. He turned, looked at Elizabeth and then walked back to where she sat on the floor. He looked at her bloody neck and fingers. He looked at her clothes. He picked up a strand of her hair. Holding on to it, he pulled her toward him and kissed her forehead. His lips were soft and sweet and he whispered against her skin:
"Dye your hair, Elizabeth."
CHAPTER 30
DAY 5 – NIGHT
"Where are those damn kids?"
Mort burst through the door of the dilapidated house, stomping and slamming and swearing. Georgia responded by flinging a watering can at him.
"What in the hell do you think you're doing?" she screamed. "You're a Goddamn hillbilly, Mort. A no-class hillbilly. What are you thinkin'? Out so late, and then coming in here like that?"
"Shut up, Georgia. Shut up and tell me where those two brats are."
Mort got in his wife's face. She saw a man she barely recognized, but he saw her for what she was: better than he probably should have, and a helluva lot wo
rse than what he dreamed about. The best thing about her was that she was quick.
"Okay, honey. I'm sorry, baby." Georgia hunched her shoulders, and moved back a step like she was bowing to him. Mostly she was just getting ready in case he hit her. Better to whack her bod than get her face rearranged. "Don't get your shorts in a knot."
"Where are they, Georgia?" Mort snarled.
"Bobbi's out back looking for night worms. I don't know where the other one is." Georgia used her little girl voice, but he wasn't buying it. He must be pissed if the little girl voice didn't take the edge off.
"They got on those necklaces?" He was running to the backyard like he already knew the answer.
"I don't know. I don't know. I'll check."
Georgia went after him, holding the squeaky door open more to see that he didn't hurt Bobbi than to offer her assistance. When the little girl wasn't there, he ran into the house again. Georgia followed him to the room the girls shared.
Mort threw open the door and scanned the mess. Hair ribbons, discarded clothes, bed sheets that had been made into tents, all of it littered the floor. Normally this wouldn't have bothered Mort since he actually liked his kids and it was fun to watch them play games. He never played when he was little. Half the time he didn't live in a house when he was little. He knew that his kids wouldn't amount to a hill of beans, but he loved them anyway. Someday they'd get knocked up and have more redheaded little kids. Maybe they'd be happy, maybe they wouldn't. Right that minute, though, Mort didn't give a crap if the girls were happy.
He dove into the room, tossing clothes, throwing toys, kicking at the little princess beds that he had got half price. He knocked his knee on the bedpost and swore. Mort stormed out of the room and slammed through the kitchen again. This time he headed to the playroom that really was just a lean-to a previous owner had knocked together without a permit. He roared as he threw open the door:
"Roberta! Carolyn! Get your butts out here now!"
Georgia hadn't gone further than the porch. She shivered in her peachy-colored K-Mart velour top with the plunging neckline, gave up the chase, and went back to mixing up a facial of honey and egg just like the woman on T.V. had done. She tried to block out Mort's voice and the girls' cries but it was really hard. She had just applied the honey/egg goo to her face when she heard the door of the lean-to slam. A second later it slammed again and this time she heard the girls wailing.
Mort stomped back over the concrete slab they called a patio, threw open the squeaky door again and went through the kitchen. A minute later, the kitchen door slammed open again, and the little girls chased after their father, crying in anguish. Mort was out the front before they could catch him, so the girls ran back to Georgia. They tugged on her peachy velour top and looked up into her egg-and-honey splattered face.
"He took my necklace," Bobbi sobbed.
"Mama, my locket. Daddy took my locket and said I couldn't never have it back," Carolyn cried.
Without missing a beat, Georgia backhanded Carolyn. She was, after all, the older and less favored of the two so it was only right.
"Your dad knows what he's doing," she said even though the egg stuff tightening around her mouth made it hard to talk. "Those damn things didn't even have your right names on 'em. Get to bed."
"It's too early," Carolyn yelled through her sniffles.
"I don't care what time it is, get to bed."
Carolyn, her cheek burning where her mother had hit her, her eyes glittering with rage, stood her ground. Another year, Georgia knew, and Carolyn would be hitting back. But that was another year. If the kid tried anything now, Georgia was ready for her. She didn't try anything because Bobbi was tugging at her shirt. Finally, Bobbi won out and the girls retreated, but not before Carolyn muttered a few choice words that Georgia didn't quite catch.
Alone in the kitchen, Georgia considered how hard it was to be a woman in this day and age. Good looks weren't nearly enough to get a body by. A woman had to be tough, and knowing that made her feel better about hitting Carolyn. Yep, Georgia decided, she was just helping her girls along best she knew how. They would thank her for it someday.
Pushing aside the egg/honey goo, Georgia grabbed up the warm washcloth and scrubbed the stuff off her face. She tossed the cloth, checked herself out in the toaster, and then sat down and put her head back. Suddenly she felt old and tired. She wished Mort would come back and just put his arm around her, but Mort was halfway down the block, walking fast and thinking hard. In fact, Mort's mind was near bursting with thinking.
It didn't matter that Medium Man had been the one to take out those kids he, Mort, would be blamed because he was the boss. Just like Charlie Manson. That man never lifted a finger, but look where that got him – life in the slammer. And Mort was kicking himself for being fool enough to take those necklaces. Just showed what you got for being nice and thinking about your kids while you were at work. It was lucky he had been at Hussein's Emporium, Pawn Broker to the Stars, passing the time and flipping through the police bulletins just for the fun of it. Old Hussein never even saw the one about the lockets since Mort slipped it into his pocket before he high tailed it home.
Turning the corner, Mort hurried on, walking through puddles of yellow light seeping out of the street lamps. The light made his hair look like it was on fire. A pair of pit bulls kept pace with him behind the junkyard fence. They weren't barking but he knew those dogs were just dying to get at him. He knew that because that's how he was sometimes: quiet, thinking, biding his time. When the time was right – pow!
Three blocks later Mort was at the Los Angeles River that really wasn't a river at all anymore. It was a flood channel, a concrete artery cut through L.A., and it was dry as a bone. Mort always thought it was strange to cover up a river with concrete but then politicians weren't the brightest bulbs. He slid down the steep embankment and landed in the otherworld of Los Angeles.
Graffiti exploded all around him, spray-painted on every inch of the concrete. Mort felt like he was walking through someone's bad trip. No, no. It was worse. It was like God screaming obscenities at him in big, bloated letters colored black and white and green and blue and red. The thought that there might be a God watching him gave Mort even more of the heebie jeebies.
A hundred yards down, he found a drainpipe and poked his head in. It was filled with the dark and creatures gone long without water. He could have hunched over and walked right in, but he didn't bother. Instead, Mort pulled himself back out and looked over his shoulder to make sure he was alone. Not seeing any gang bangers, homeless dudes, or drug peddlers who usually hung down here, he took the lockets from his pocket and threw them in the drainpipe. He heard them clank against the side of the huge, hollow cylinder. When the echoing stopped, Mort kept his eyes on the drainpipe as he slowly backed away; he looked at that thing like he was afraid those lockets might come flying back out at him.
When nothing happened, he sat down and put his back up against the embankment. Mort took the bulletin out of his pocket, looked it over once more, and tore it to shreds. There were probably ten thousand more of these things all around Los Angeles but it wouldn't matter now. The lockets would never be found. Still, Mort was near paralyzed with dread. Since he couldn't think of one thing more to do, he couldn't think how anyone would ever find those necklaces, he dropped his head back, closed his eyes and tried not to think at all.
"Das meh real horse. O'Brien! O'Brien!"
Geoffrey Baptiste, the Beanie Man of Trinidad, the fourth owner of Mick's Irish Pub, called out his Trini hello the minute Finn opened the door. Finn raised a hand in greeting, Geoffrey beamed, and more than a few heads turned. Most of the faces Finn knew because Mick's was that kind of place.
Finn slapped the back of old Sam who was perpetually waiting for his son, young Sam, to come and take him away to his house in Missouri. Since everyone knew there was no son, Finn never asked after him but only said, 'Happy to still see you sittin' here, Sam,' and that made the old man happy
enough.
Violet was hanging over the end of the bar. She was a tiny thing with long black hair, beautiful Asian features, and a pedigree from Hawaii. She could pass for twelve until she opened her mouth and then a drunken sailor couldn't match her. She lusted after Geoffrey who already had a wife stashed back in Trinidad. Since that wife was older than he and preferred the company of her children to the Beanie Man's sweet ways, she stayed behind when Geoffrey came to the U.S. to make his fortune. While Geoffrey swore he loved 'dis wife' her existence didn't keep him from dancing a little with the ladies, but Violet was not one of his preferred partners. As he told Finn, if he wanted basa basa – a woman to argue with – he might as well go home to his wife. Besides, Violet's bam bam was like a little boy's. A woman, Geoffrey said, should have buttocks rounded like two soccer balls. He and Finn had that conversation many times and each time Geoffrey laughed mightily. His gold teeth flashed, his wide smile pushed his ears right up into the knit beanie of the day, and Finn was left feeling fine no matter what had happened during the day.
Finn turned sideways and said his sorries as he moved through a gaggle of fine looking young women, one of whom was wearing a bridal veil with her crop top and jeans. For her, a girl he had seen nearly grow up in Mick's, Finn had a kiss on the cheek. When pressed, Finn offered an Irish blessing for her wedding.
There are 4 things you must never do:
lie, steal, cheat, or drink.
But if you must lie,
lie in the arms of the one you love.
If you must steal, steal away from bad company.
If you must cheat, cheat death.
And if you must drink,
drink in the moments that take your breath away.
The bride and her maids raised their glasses and all kissed Finn before they went back to partying hearty. The young dandy Joseph was there. He had no money because he was a struggling actor. He swore that one day he would put his Academy Award on Geoffrey's bar. Tonight, he shot darts in the corner like he was aiming for the eye of a producer.
Severed Relations Page 17