Edited to Death (5 page)

Calvin and I looked in on Madame DeBurgos. She was nestled on the rose velvet loveseat
in her front room—much, I imagine, as a destroyer might nestle into a slip at the
Marina—her glass still cradled close to her bosom. She didn’t sit up, but she opened
an eye and presented Calvin with her hand to say goodbye. When we were halfway out
the door, she summoned me back. “Maggie, come here, my dear, one tiny little second.”

I stood at the foot of the loveseat. “Yes, Madame?”

She waved her Pernod at me. “What a luscious young man, darling. Does Michael know?
Do you have one of those open, continental marriages?”

“Madame! I just met him. We were supposed to do an assignment together for Quentin.
We’re just going to get something to eat.”

“Mm-hmm, how lovely. Just remember what the French say—a spot of
l’amour
is delectable for the instrument.”

I snapped, “Which French proverb is that? I must have missed it.” I was cranky, headachy,
and, now that Calvin had introduced the idea, badly in need of a drink.

“It doesn’t translate well, my dear. Just run off and have a lovely time. Think of
me, though, in the throes of passion.”

Instead, we thought of Madame in the throes of cracked Dungeness crab at Pier 23.
Actually, that’s how Calvin did his thinking. I did mine over a very handsome shot
of Wild Turkey. It burned going down, but didn’t come back up again, to my relief
and surprise. And then, I did order a pot of English breakfast tea, strong and black,
and proceeded to watch Calvin eat. I couldn’t imagine how he had an appetite, but
just watching him work his way through a cracked crab made me feel better. The sheer
messiness of it was a kind of sensuous re-acquaintance with the business of being
hungry—and being alive.

At night, Pier 23 jumps with jazz and jazz-lovers. But during the day, there’s just
food and drink and gossip, all delivered at ear-splitting decibel levels. If you go
to make a phone call or use the restroom, there’s a terrific view of the bay from
the back porch. By the time Calvin had reduced his crustacean to rubble and I was
on my second pot of tea, the place was almost deserted. I began breaking off pieces
of sourdough bread, just to put something in my stomach.

To tell the truth, the events of the day—Quentin’s body, finding out that Michael’s
hockey buddy was a homicide cop, a big dose of Madame, and bourbon on an empty stomach—were
conspiring to make me the tiniest bit giddy. Suddenly, I sat straight up.

“The children!”

Calvin laughed. “I wasn’t even sure we’d gotten beyond the first date. Are we already
committed to reproducing ourselves?”

I glared at him. “No, I’ve already done it. Excuse me.”

I picked my way through the tables and squeezed by the Rubenesque hostess to find
a quiet nook to make a call. I needed more privacy than sitting at the table to talk
on the phone.

Anya was home. She’d picked up the boys and was making a desultory tour through the
refrigerator to start dinner.

“Anya, I’m still in the city.” I re-described how to roast a chicken. What could go
wrong with roast chicken?

“Maggie, Lily is visiting from next door and she wants the boys and the cats to come
play Nintendo.”

I got a life-size picture of my little ruffians following Lily’s every command in
front of the screen. Her two years of seniority over Josh, enormous vocabulary, and
willingness to share her electronic paraphernalia gave her near-complete control over
my boys. I didn’t mind, though; she was a benevolent despot and a great civilizing
influence. “Fine, but no snacks past five. I’ll be home before seven.”

I hung up and called Michael’s office. His secretary said she hadn’t seen him since
before lunch. “He has a client back here at four-thirty. He should be here any minute,”
she said. I couldn’t imagine leaving any of the day’s events on his voice mail, so
I simply left a message that dinner was at seven and I’d see him at home.

When I returned to the table, the waitress had cleared away the rubble and brought
two china mugs of coffee. It smelled delicious. “I decided it was time for you to
move on from that wimpy-ass tea,” said Calvin.

I held my cup aloft. “We haven’t done what we said we’d do. So here goes: To Quentin,
wherever he may be—and whyever he’s there.”

Calvin clinked mugs with me.

“Get the kids straightened out?”

“Yes, fine. They’re playing Nintendo with the little tyrant from next door.”

“So Maggie, who did it?”

For a moment, the sight of Quentin’s crumpled body—face down on his desk, blood Rorschach-like
on the desk—came back to me. The table, the restaurant, even Calvin—everything seemed
hostile and dangerous. I stood, a little unsteadily, and grabbed for the edge of the
table.

“I’ve got to go.” I put my hand out. “It’s nice to meet you. Thanks for lunch.”

Calvin ignored my hand. “Sit down. You’re looking a little green around the gills.”

I sat. “Yo’ mama,” I said glumly.

“What?”

“Yo’ mama. It’s an answer in the dozens. It’s the black equivalent of ‘so’s your old
man.’ Only worse.” I peered at Calvin and gestured. “You know—you keep exchanging
and accelerating insults. Why am I explaining this to you? I’m the honky here.”

“I know what the dozens are. I just don’t know how to do them. How do you know how
to do the dozens?”

“I grew up knowing how. I was a tough kid. The wrong side of L.A.” I took a sip of
coffee. Suddenly, I felt better. The image of Quentin’s body began to recede. The
world—or at least the restaurant and Calvin—seemed friendlier, familiar. No bodies
would pop up here between the upright piano and the screen that hid the noisy, warmly
fragrant kitchen.

“So if you didn’t grow up with the dozens, how do you know what they are?”

Calvin grinned. “Black Lit. I took a course at Stanford. Learned how to be cool. Going
to private schools and growing up in the Philadelphia suburbs doesn’t teach you any
of that stuff.”

I laughed. “That’s a great testimonial to your alma mater. Go to Stanford. Get in
touch with your roots. I bet the Senator and Mrs. Stanford had just that thing in
mind for privileged black students.”

“Senator Stanford had never even heard of privileged black students. Now, Mrs. Jane,
that might have been a different story. But I’m glad to hear you laugh. You looked
a little panicked a few minutes ago.”

I shivered. “I remembered Quentin. What he looked like lying there.”

Calvin spoke, “So let’s talk about it. What the hell happened?”

I shook my head. “I can’t imagine. And that’s just the beginning of the questions.
Why did it happen? Why Quentin? And where’s Stuart? And what about Madame? She’s supposed
to be an ex-paramour.”

Calvin shuddered. “What a thought. Enough to put you off girls for life.”

“I think that might be just what it did for Quentin,” I said. “That, combined with
marriage all those years to the lovely Mrs. Quentin.”

“I don’t think so. I’m not sure, but somehow I think there was still a woman in Quentin’s
life.”

I rearranged the salt and pepper shakers. “Did you know?” I asked idly, “that the
word ‘salt’ has origins in European, Icelandic, Greek, and Gothic roots?”

“Huh? Maggie, are you paying attention to me? I said I thought there might be some
other woman in Quent’s life.”

I fixed my eyes on the salt and pepper, lining them up just so. “Why do you think
that? I didn’t think you knew him that well,” I asked.

“I don’t. And it’s certainly nothing he said. Just a feeling. One day I dropped some
proofs off, and we walked out of
Small Town
’s offices up the street to lunch. Quent couldn’t tear himself away from that antique
jewelry store on Sutter. I don’t think he was looking at earrings for himself, or
that guy he lives with. You know anybody?”

I took a swallow of coffee. “Not really.”

“There’s something else,” said Calvin. “Wasn’t Quentin a little mysterious about this
story he wanted us to do?”

“He was. I thought he was just trying to do me a favor with this piece. I’d been bitching
that I was sick of the cooks-and-books circuit I was on.”

“Cooks and books?”

“Oh, you know. Lisbet Traumer does the restaurant reviews for the magazine, but I
do all the peripheral food stuff—101 places to buy capers and cornichons, and interviews
with every precious little Eastern writer who comes to town.”

“Oh, yeah. The Maggie Fiori Blue-Plate specials.”

“Right. Well, I was having an attack of ‘I want to be a real journalist when I grow
up,’ and Quentin told me he had just the thing for me.”

“The Cock of the Walk story?”

“That’s what we were supposed to work on together?”

“That’s what Quentin told me.”

A shadow fell across the table. The hostess, a generously proportioned walking advertisement
for the excellence of the Pier 23 cuisine, was hovering.

“Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt such a pleasant tête-à-tête, but we need to close
to get ready for dinner.”

Out on the street, Calvin put his arm around me. “Tête-à-tête,” he mused aloud. “That
I did learn in the Philly suburbs.”

“Yeah?” I said, ready to one-up him. “Here’s a twist for you. Tête-à-tête is ‘head-to-head’,
of course, but how about tête-à-bêche?”

“Head to tail? Sounds like a French pornographic documentary.”

“No, no. It’s something in philately: two stamps reversed in relation to each other.”

Calvin shook his head. “My, my, you are full of information.”

I sighed. “I know. It’s my hobby, or my obsession, or something. None of it’s very
useful, I’m afraid. It won’t help find out what happened to Quent.”

We lingered, not sure what to do next. It’s tough to find a body, lose a friend, meet
someone new, get mildly snockered, sober up, and say goodbye in the space of four
hours.

“Give me your card, Maggie,” said Calvin. “As a general rule, I know that’s not what
people do after a tête-à-tête, but I think we should keep in touch.”

“Me, too.” I dug in my purse for a card, checked it for shopping lists on the back,
and handed it over.

Calvin looked at the card and looked back at me.

“Margaret? Your first name is Margaret?”

“That’s generally what Maggie is short for, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah. But Margaret seems like a weird name for a Jewish chick.”

“It is,” I said. “But I was born in a Catholic hospital, before smoking became the
eighth deadly sin. The nun who took care of my mom during labor kept a pack of Old
Golds in the pocket of her habit. She’d light up and let my mom have a puff or two
between contractions. My mom was so grateful she named me for her. I guess I’m just
lucky she didn’t name me Goldie, in honor of the smokes.”

Calvin shook his head. “Named for a vice, Maggie. You ought to be up to your neck
in sin by now.”

“That explains everything,” I muttered.

We hugged and headed our separate ways, me to my suburban-issue Volvo, Calvin to his
MG convertible. I watched him push the top back to enjoy the last rays of fall sunshine.
And sighed. Oh, to be young again. Or even innocent.

5

L’chaim

It’s the ordinariness of daily life that comforts. Staves off the horrors, the headlines,
the famines, the border skirmishes—even Quentin’s death.

Our dining room looks onto the street through tall, floor-to-ceiling French doors.
Makes for lousy privacy from outside, but great people-watching from inside. This
time, I was on the outside looking in. Through the French doors, I could see and faintly
hear the last moments of pre-prandial hullabaloo.

From the curb, when I saw all that normalcy—the flower beds, the front walk where
Lily had chalked hopscotch, I instantly regretted every moment of longing for a day,
never mind a year, of living dangerously. Josh was sitting at the table, engaged in
his only significant domestic accomplishment, folding napkins into elaborate, decorative
shapes. Zach was watching, napkin in hand, desperately trying to duplicate his older
brother’s maneuvers, which transferred the crinkliest Zee into graceful origami. I
sympathized with Zach; I couldn’t mimic Josh’s skills either. I was just happy Josh
had a place to put all that fretful energy.

Michael was carving a roast chicken, sneaking nibbles of skin. Anya was pouring milk
for the boys. Watching them all, I felt like an intruder, bringing into a clean and
ordered place all the wickedness and haphazard cruelty of a world where someone living
and breathing could be reduced to a forensic set of facts in a split second. Well,
okay, not so clean and ordered. I was, after all, the housekeeper-in-residence.

The front door was unlocked. I walked in, dropped keys and gloves on the hall table,
sidestepped a fielder’s mitt and three in-line skates, and hurried to the dining room.
Zach hurled himself at my legs. Michael looked up and smiled. Raider threw himself
on my feet and whimpered.