by Jack Barnao
I got in alongside him and he smiled and we exchanged all the civil grunts. Then he got out at my floor and started along the corridor the same way I was going. I went ahead and let myself in but before I was across the room he was behind me, tapping on the door. I opened it and he smiled and said, "Signora Ridley, per favore, signor."
"Sure, come in." I let him by and called and Kate came out of the bedroom, toweling her hair.
She said, "Good morning, John, did you have a good run?" before she noticed the delivery. It made her tut and wrap her towel quickly into a turban for her hair. "This could have waited awhile." She found her purse and pulled out a bill for the bellboy, addressing him in rapid Italian. He nodded and unloaded the boxes into the bedroom. I left them all behind me and took my shower.
When I came out of the room, Kate was ready for her day, crisp and businesslike. Herbie was just out of bed, sitting in his dressing gown looking grumpy. Not a morning person.
"Hi, have you two decided what happens to me now?" I asked.
"Herbie and I were just discussing it," Kate said, too brightly to be true. "I was wondering if he wanted to spend some more time here but no, he wants to go on and see some other places, with you along, if you don't mind."
"Nothing would please me more, but I'm sure he'd like to spend time with you as well, can't you come with us?"
"I'd be delighted," she said, then mouthed a little disappointed moue for us. "Only I'm still a working girl. I have to get my merchandise bought and shipped."
"Well, can't you join us afterwards? We're supposed to be spending only a week in Rome but maybe we could spend the time there that we were supposed to spend here."
She shook her head and the action really made her look the executive. I could have imagined her with a cigar. "Not possible, I'm afraid. I have to be home to supervise the arrival of the goods, then shipping to the stores and pricing and all the other things for the fall season."
"Well, okay, Herbie. You and me against the world. Why not go and shower and we'll have breakfast, hire a car and hustle off to Venice where the car won't be a damn bit of good to us?"
"Yeah." He stood up, relaxed now. I guessed he hadn't wanted to stay around Florence any longer. All the beauty in the art world wasn't going to wash the bad memories away. He seemed relieved. "Yeah. See you in fifteen minutes, I have to shave."
He left and Kate smiled. "Shave! Would you hear him. I'll bet he hasn't shaved a dozen times in his whole life yet."
"He's not a kid anymore," I told her. I figured she was taking her son too lightly. "He stopped me from getting killed last night. He saw three men killed the day he was kidnapped. If he wants to make a thing about shaving, he's entitled."
"I guess," she said. She was standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. I thought perhaps she was still feeling grateful, there was no need for that. I'd performed as advertised, no better.
"Listen, why don't you go on down to breakfast, I'll bring Herbie down when he's ready and we'll have a caffelatte with you."
"No." Her voice was high and nervous. She sounded dry-mouthed. "No, that's okay, thank you, we'll all go down together."
"Well don't feel you have to talk to me. Why not look at your goods that arrived, what are they, samples?"
"Yes," she said, smiling brightly. "Yes, samples of stuff I was buying before this business started."
"Well go ahead. Here, I'll help you." I stood up, taking out my knife. She moved in front of me, trying to look casual.
"No, don't bother now, I'll only have to pack them again."
I put one hand under her chin and tilted her head up so she was forced to look into my eyes. "What's in there, Kate?"
"Purses," she said. "Just purses."
"Good. I need a present for a friend in Toronto, let me see what an expert has picked out."
She leaned her strength against me but she would have needed to be the size of Mean Joe Green to keep me away from those boxes now.
I slit the tape on the top box and pulled out the excelsior from it. Inside was a fine leather purse, cut square and simple. Maybe it was meant for a man to carry, I don't know, but it looked like quality. "What's a thing like this worth?" I asked her.
"To me, twenty-five dollars American. In my store, two hundred."
I took out my billfold, still there, intact, after all my adventures. "I'll give you one hundred. I figure you owe me a deal," I said.
She pushed the money away. "No. Your money's no good, John. But I wouldn't want you to settle for one of these. Call your friend and tell her to go into any of my stores and pick out the best bag in the place. That way you know she'll be getting exactly what she wants."
"And this way I'll be getting exactly what I want," I said and opened the purse. It was like all new purses, shiny and crisp and smelling of leather and packed with crinkly paper to keep its shape. The only difference was that this crinkly paper was in the form of crumpled U.S. one hundred dollar bills.
She looked at me, then reached out and took the purse out of my hands. "Now you know," she said.
I stood there and shook my head. "No. Spell it out for me. You and Carla set this whole thing up? What?"
She sat down on the edge of the bed. It was opened and rumpled and her pale blue nightdress lay negligently across the pillow. She picked up the nightdress and folded it, mechanically, like a nurse preparing a dressing.
"If you had ever lived with his father, you'd know why I wanted to hurt him, financially, the only way he understands," she said.
"Go ahead, break my heart. But this was your own kid you're talking about here. Didn't that matter? Were you willing to take blood money for your own son?" I guess my voice had roughened. I was talking to her the way I would have spoken to a soldier under my command who had put other soldiers at risk. But she didn't crack. She kept folding that nightgown tighter and tighter.
"You have to understand that I hadn't seen Herbie for four years. Not since the divorce. And anyway, it was going to be over by the time I got involved. All I have to do is move the money back to Toronto."
I looked at her without speaking and she could read my anger. "Look, I wasn't talking about my son when this thing was proposed to me. I was talking about a stranger, a boy who groped servant girls and stole cars. He was just another possession of a man I hated. Then, when Herbie got here and I met him, it was too late to change anything. I tried to contact Carla but she was adamant. She wanted to get her own revenge on this man Scavuzzo." Now she paused and looked up at me, staring into my eyes for the first time since I opened that bag. Her voice became almost a hiss. "She wanted to revenge herself on all of you arrogant bastards."
There was nothing to say. I guess a lot of men hurt a lot of women but the reverse is true as well. I just wondered for the thousandth time what makes people think life is going to be fair. In the meantime I needed distance from this woman. Her hatreds were corrosive. I shut my clasp knife and turned away. "Tell Herbie I couldn't wait. I'll be downstairs in the dining room."
As I moved to the door she said, "John, John. Don't let's part like this." And when I didn't speak she ran after me and put her hand on mine as I reached for the doorknob. "What are you going to do?"
"Nothing," I told her. "Not a damn thing." And I went out, closing the door carefully behind me, leaving her with tears of shame spilling down her face.
Chapter 23
After that first morning the trip went well. Herb and I had breakfast and hired a car and drove over to Venice. The place was bulging but I have connections there, a retired British spook who keeps a little pension to boost the pittance he got when he quit spying. He gave us a room to crash in and I showed Herbie the sights.
I didn't push culture on him too hard. He needed time to overcome his battle fatigue. The first couple of nights he woke up in a panic, but he settled down when I sat and shot the breeze with him for a few minutes. That was all it took, a couple of nights.
On the third day we were eating lunch in a si
de street off the Piazza San Marco when a busload of Norwegian students pulled in. They were mostly girls, mostly knockouts. It worked out well. Herbie teamed up with a sixteen-year-old and I hit it off with the teacher. None of us got much rest over the next few days and by the time their bus left for Rome, Herbie was in love. So we broke the pattern we'd set ourselves and followed their route for another week and a half, including four days in Florence. Herb and I stayed outside the town and Capelli and his boys didn't see us, or if they did they left us alone.
When the kids went back to Norway, Herbie wanted to follow them but I talked him out of it. Being in love was good for his art appreciation, and for the rest of the time we drove around the country studying the art of the Renaissance like a couple of Jesuits. Okay for him, but I was starting to get restless. However, celibacy finally did to Herbie what Freud promised. He began to sublimate. He bought himself some paints and started in to copy the works of some of the world's greatest. He was dedicated and he had talent. It looked like his grandmother was right.
The only change we made in our overall plan was to take a side trip to Trondheim before coming back home. Herbie saw Ea and promised to come to see her again, the next year. It looks as if he might. He's serious about art and so's she, and the first blush of romance at a distance leaves them extra energy to put into their painting.
Anyway, six weeks to the day I was back in Elspeth Ridley's house, dropping off Herbie who was going to live with her while he attended art college. She poured me a Bushmills and I reported.
"It's a good job you were along," the old lady said. "My son had taken out that insurance without telling anybody. It would have looked very suspicious if you hadn't been there and been so efficient."
"What are they doing about it?" I asked politely.
"Nothing, yet," she said. "It's posing quite a problem for Herbert. He's experiencing financial difficulties and this added five-million-dollar debt, if he has to pay it himself, that could be the last straw."
"At the risk of sounding nosy, ma'am"—I threw in the "ma'am" as an apology for bringing up the grubby subject of money—"where does that leave you? Will your income be affected?"
"It could be," she said gravely. "But I have taken certain steps over the years that will insulate me from a company loss, even a company failure."
"I'm glad to hear it." I wondered what they were. Rejecting my father's lifestyle had meant rejecting any understanding of how the wonderful world of wealth really works.
"But that's not important," she said in what was suddenly a frail, old-woman's voice, different from her normal brisk tone. "The more important question is, do you think Herbie was harmed by it?"
"No. He came out of it unharmed, in fact it improved him. Kind of a tempering process," I said. Smooth, Locke. Maybe they were paying a bonus for performance above and beyond safe delivery of merchandise.
"Yes," she said, in the same tone, looking at me over the rim of her gin and tonic. "The improvement is remarkable."
"You can put down part of it to his falling for a very sweet little art student," I said.
"Yes," the old lady said drily. "He showed me her photograph the moment he came in. Very pretty, for a policeman's daughter."
Well how about that. The old lady was a snob. An Achilles wheel on her wheelchair.
"He's an inspector and her mother is a doctor," I said.
She sipped her drink and frowned at me. "Oh come on, John. You know what I'm talking about."
I sighed. "Frankly, Elspeth, I don't. If you're coming on snobbish, I've misread you. Take it from me, this is a nice girl. Herbie may not end up with her but if he did she'd make you proud."
She set her drink down and reached out for my glass which was not quite dry. "You just did it again, John. Let me get you another drink."
I didn't yield the glass. "Did what?"
She took my glass anyway and sloshed in the Bushmills. I was glad I had come in a cab, straight from the airport. Ontario's new drinking and driving laws weren't written to accommodate Elspeth Ridley's hospitality.
"You passed another test." She handed me the drink. "Here I was trying to find out whether you were a yes-man, eager to go along with whatever I said."
"So you don't disapprove of the girl?" I left all the other inferences alone. I may not be a yes-man but I'm not a noman when there's chance of a bonus.
"Of course not. She's a sweet-looking little thing, like the young Garbo."
Herbie sauntered into the room. "I'm set up in the back bedroom," he said. "I hope you don't mind, Granma, it's got a north light. That's going to be better to work in."
"Work away to your heart's content. Only don't get your oils on the rug, it's an antique."
"I already rolled it up." He grinned. "It's okay, I guess, for something non-representational."
She pretended to throw something at him and he ducked and laughed. "I hope you'll be comfortable here," she said. "Now be a good grandson and go away for a moment while I finish talking to Mr. Locke."
"Yeah, sure." He straightened, then came over and stuck out his hand. "S'long John."
"So long, Herb. You still want to come running in the mornings?" I shook his hand and he hung on.
"Maybe till fall," he said. "I'm not big on slip-sliding down the Rosedale Ravine on the ice."
"I'll be by for you Monday morning at seven. See you outside."
"For sure," he said and winked and left.
Elspeth watched him go then turned back to me, no sentimental sighs, all business. "How much money do you have left?"
I turned to the flight bag I had brought in with me and pulled out a folder. "Here's the whole list of expenses. It came to sixty-three hundred and forty-eight dollars. Here's the rest of the traveler's checks and some change, thirty-six hundred and fifty-two."
She shook her head. "That's not enough," she said.
I stiffened. "Every nickel is accounted for, ma'am. Have your accountants look it over." I stood up but she waved me down again, smiling apologetically.
"No. No. Don't get on your high horse. That came out wrong. I meant it's not enough for what I had in mind. I wanted you to have a bonus. Here, keep the traveler's checks and I'll have my banker send you the balance of your pay and another fifteen hundred dollars."
"You mean you're giving me a five-thousand-dollar bonus? That's extremely generous of you, Elspeth." Clever work, Locke. Don't switch to calling her Mrs. Ridley now or she'll own you.
"You've earned it," she said. "Guidance therapy for wayward boys is expensive. Even more so in—what do they call them—life-threatening circumstances."
"Thank you again," I said and dug deeper into my flight bag, coming up with the present I'd bought her in our second spell in Florence.
"Why thank you, this is unexpected," she said. "Whatever is it?"
"It may not be appropriate but it seemed like a good souvenir of what happened," I said as she unwrapped the purse.
She held it up, delightedly. "Well, isn't that thoughtful of you. Thank you. Where did you pick it up?"
"In Florence," I said and her eyes flicked at my face and away in a sudden flash of alarm. I felt my stomach contracting but I twisted the knife I had unknowingly dug into her. "It was made at Belladonna," I said and she gasped and dropped it as if it were hot.
I stood up over her. "You're part of it, aren't you?"
"Part of what?" she almost whimpered in her old lady voice.
"Part of the plot. What happened? You figured the family trust was going belly up? You figured to grab a chunk of it before it all went down the tubes, is that it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, her voice strengthening and coarsening as her throat dried up on her.
I put my glass down. "Don't worry," I told her. "I'm not going to say anything. If I do, it shatters young Herbie's way of life. You go to jail. His mother goes to jail. His father goes belly up. I can't do that to the kid."
"I don't know what you're talking about
," she said again, fluttering her hands.
"Goodbye. And don't bother arranging bonus checks. I don't want any stolen money. I'll take the rest of my contract out of your traveler's checks and give the balance to your banker."
I turned and left, not looking back.
The cabbie who came for me glanced at the bags and brightened. "Airport?" he asked.
"No, just got back. Clifton Road, please."
He slammed away, annoyed that the fare wouldn't be in double figures. I rewarded his bad manners by tipping him a quarter. He left, swearing, and I walked up the back stairs to my apartment.
The two queens on the ground floor were throwing plates at one another. Typical Saturday night. But on the second floor I could hear Janet Frobisher's stereo playing. I was glad she was in. If the gods were good to me, this would the night we finally got together. I had done some soul-searching on the airplane while Herbie mooned over the photograph of his girl. What I needed was some stability in my life. A regular girl like all the other regular guys had. Janet would be ideal. She was intelligent and beautiful. I could settle down with her. No roses around the door or anything, but a good steady relationship that lasted longer than it takes a dozen long-stemmed roses to wither.
I couldn't place the music she was playing, it wasn't Mozart but some kind of folky thing. No matter, we could play the classics later after a welcome home dinner.
I knocked on the door. It was opened by a tall, lean man. I looked at him and my heart sank. "Hi, Bruce. Is Janet home? I'm her neighbor."
"Yeah," he said, in his pinched Australian drawl. "G'day. Come on in." He turned away and called out, "Hey, Jan, it's one o' the poufters."
"I'm from upstairs, not downstairs," I said dully. I had identified the song on the stereo. It was "Click Go the Shears," an Australian boozing song.