Isabella Moon (33 page)

“It would have been smarter to do that after you got dressed, don’t you think?” he said, raising up on an elbow to see her better. “Maybe on your way out?”

The girl dropped the wallet onto the desk and sank down onto the chair, weeping histrionically.

Worse than being fooled, he really hated it when women cried. His Mary-Katie had been such a stoic over the past couple weeks and hadn’t even cried at all that he’d seen. That moron Fitzgerald had gone overboard on her, getting her in the face and in the ribs—areas he’d told him to avoid. He’d had broken ribs himself before and knew that it hurt like hell. His only aim had been to get rid of the child, not for his Mary-Katie to be seriously injured.

“Just get the hell out,” he told the girl, who was mumbling between sobs about flunking out of college and wrecking her car. When she got up, she seemed to want to hide her body from him. Her clothes were spread over the floor and she stooped to get them rather than bend over. She hadn’t been so shy the night before.

Miles reached for the television remote from the bedside table and pressed the On button. CNN came up on the screen, a presidential photo-op with some photogenic dictator.

As the girl hustled into the bathroom, he called after her.

“Hurry up. I’ve got to take a leak.” As an afterthought he also told her to leave the soap and shampoo where they were.

Driving the six hours back home, it occurred to Miles that he should write a book. So many schmucks were making a killing telling losers how to buy real estate for cheap. He was a self-made guy. Bolstered by the check in his briefcase for half a million, he could see himself laying out his methods on paper and paying some hungry graduate student a couple hundred bucks to write it all down so that it made sense to the average Joe. Publishers, he figured, were always looking to make an easy buck, just like he was. There were CDs, too, to be made from those books. If he hit it big, he wouldn’t even have to continue in real estate!

The idea kept him amused all the way home. Traffic was light once he got out of the Atlanta sprawl. October was a slow time for vacationers in the neighborhood.

When he was about an hour from home, he stopped to gas up the BMW and stretch his legs. He was hungry, but he wasn’t even tempted by the sloppy pizzas and dried-out hot dogs the quick-stop had to offer. Since Mary-Katie had been laid up, he’d had to be extra careful about not sliding into thoughtless nutrition. Staying clean inside was as important to him as the pristine state of the Gucci and Brooks Brothers suits hanging in his closet and the shine on his shoes. As he paid for his gasoline, he took a slightly faded banana from a basket resting between a display of Mexican jumping beans and a selection of lighters that played “Dixie” and told the cashier to add it to his total. At least the inside of it was untouched by human hands.

“Sure,” the man said. “Funny how many people buy fruit in here. Me, the only produce I want to see is between a burger and a bun. But my girlfriend, now, she’s what you call macrobiotic.” He indicated a plastic container on the back counter. “Brings her lunch to work every day, she does. All those vegetables make her skin glow like sunshine.”

“No kidding,” Miles said. His back was a little stiff from the drive. What he really wanted was to be at home, maybe taking a long soak in the hot tub before ordering up some sushi or Italian for dinner. It would be another week or two, he figured, before his Mary-Katie would be up to cooking. As it was, she wasn’t a great cook, but she did make the effort on a regular basis, and that counted for something.

“Hey, you have a good day, man,” the cashier said.

As Miles left the store, he noticed a chubby, pasty-skinned redhead squatting in an aisle, stocking a middle shelf with pop-top cans of ravioli and Vienna sausages. She gave him a lopsided smile and blushed as though she’d heard her loser boyfriend talking about her. Miles didn’t like redheads, but he nodded to her all the same. His Mary-Katie had that cast of auburn to her hair that was subtle, classy, but this girl looked like she’d dipped her head into a bucket of strawberry-colored metallic paint. She was probably tattooed as well: he suspected that if she leaned forward, he’d see one of those giant bumper-sticker designs sticking out of her pants—hot pink roses or some vaguely satanic verse. Funny how those things never showed up on asses you wanted to see.

In the car, he ate the banana and chucked the skin into the garbage can by the pump. As he drove back onto the highway, he called his Mary-Katie by voice dial.

The phone rang four or five times before she answered.

“Were you asleep?” Miles said. “Did you take a pill, baby?”

“Yes,” Mary-Katie said. “Are you coming home?”

“You sound great,” Miles said. “I can’t wait to see you. Atlanta sucked. You want me to pick up something to eat on the way in?”

“Sure,” Mary-Katie said. “That’s fine.”

He loved that she was sounding more like her old self, despite the pills. He’d have to see about getting her off of them soon. Serious pills like the ones the doc had provided could be trouble, and he didn’t want her turning into some slob of a drug addict.

“Let’s eat on the deck. What do you think?”

“I want to stay inside,” she said. “It’s too cold outside. Do you mind?”

Miles put some pressure on the accelerator and slipped around a semi.

“Wherever you want,” he said. “Call in to Grisanti’s and tell them I’ll get it in forty-five. Ciao, baby doll.” When he hung up, he couldn’t help but smile to himself. He put in a CD of Sills performing in
Il Barbieri
and thought about what a lucky bastard he was.

Carrying dinner and his suit bag in from the car, he decided it was better anyway that they weren’t eating outside. No doubt it had been nearly eighty degrees that afternoon, but even in the garage the air had turned cool and a breeze came through the open door. There was no sense in his Mary-Katie picking up a chill, delicate as she was.

He took his time settling in. Mary-Katie had left his mail on the kitchen table, and he thumbed through it, finding nothing of interest. Nothing important came by mail anymore, but each day he looked forward to it with childlike anticipation.

By the time he was ready to go upstairs, darkness was falling quickly and he turned on every lamp he passed. They had the alarm system, which he’d rearmed as soon as he came inside, but he liked the criminal element to be aware that somebody was home. A few of these guys he occasionally employed could get squirrelly sometimes, or just plain greedy.

In the bedroom, he found his Mary-Katie sitting up in bed and tucked beneath one of the quilts the old woman had made. Coming home to his wife had been one of the main pleasures of his life. She kept the house immaculate, kept herself beautiful and slender (did she realize how bearing a child would have ruined her figure?), entertained the people he needed her to entertain. Seeing her still so pale dampened his mood some, but the smile with which she greeted him made him feel better.

“You took so long to get home,” she said, holding her hand out to him. “I’ve done nothing but watch the stupid television all day.”

Miles took her hand and sat beside her on the bed. But then she pulled him close to her and surprised him by kissing him hungrily, open-mouthed, as she hadn’t in many weeks. He held her closer and felt the erection in his pants, a far stronger, more insistent one than he’d had for that slut in Atlanta. Sex with his Mary-Katie was always the best. Sometimes, even as he was chatting up a woman he’d chosen to sleep with, he asked himself why he was doing it when he had his Mary-Katie at home waiting for him.

“I’ve been waiting a hell of a long time for that,” he said when they finally separated.

His Mary-Katie put her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I just couldn’t. But it will be different now. We’ll be different, Miles. Different people.”

“Hey,” he said, taking her by the arms and looking into her face. Her eyes had a feverish glaze. Was she really better? He couldn’t tell for sure. But, sick or well, she wanted him again, which was what mattered. They were whole again.

“Let’s put all that crap behind us,” he said. “I’ve got a check for a new project right here.” He patted the right breast of his sport coat. “We’ll get away when it’s done. What do you think? St. Croix? Palm Beach? You choose.”

The idea of his Mary-Katie in one of her bikinis pleased him. She’d have to get back to the gym, of course, first. But she was so young. And it wasn’t as though she’d gotten puffy lying in bed.

“Palm Beach,” she said. “I think I want to learn to play golf.”

Miles laughed. She was getting her sense of humor back. They’d tried golf lessons for her a few years back, but he hadn’t liked the way the young pro put his hands on her hips as he stood behind her, guiding her swing. Maybe they would find somebody older down in Palm Beach.

“Why don’t we talk about it over dinner,” he said. “Paolo would be pissed to know I left our food in the warm oven for so long.”

“Sure,” Mary-Katie said. “I’m hungry.”

As he prepared their dinner tray, Miles sang along with the Frank Sinatra CD on the stereo. When the bit about the man in Chicago who danced with his wife came on, it made him smile every time. He’d never been to Chicago, but had always imagined that he’d get along fine there. His reputation as enough of a tough guy to keep people from screwing him over pleased him. Sometimes he thought that his talents were wasted here down South. If he put his mind to it, he knew he could do some real damage in a place like Chicago.

Upstairs, it was quiet and dimly lighted. The television was off, and he wondered if his wife might be reading or, perhaps, asleep. Carting trays of food up and down the stairs was getting old. Even though she’d been coming downstairs more and more frequently—indeed, had handled things on her own the past few nights—he could tell she wasn’t a hundred percent yet. With a sigh, he realized now that they should have set her up in the guest room downstairs. It would have meant a lot less work for him.

“Hey, babe,” he said. “Can you get the light? I don’t want to fall on my ass.”

There was no answer.

“Babe? Are you asleep?”

As he came through the doorway, the overhead light threw the room into stark brilliance. He first looked for Mary-Katie on the bed, then realized that she was the figure standing in the bathroom doorway. Somehow she seemed taller than her five feet, five inches. She was wearing heeled boots, he saw. She was also pointing what looked to be a small-caliber pistol at him.

Miles laughed.

“What the hell? You can’t be serious,” he said.

In answer, his Mary-Katie pulled the trigger of her little gun four times in quick succession. He stumbled backward, dropping the tray, sending veal scallopini and pasta with marinara sauce and an entire bottle of a 1998 pinot noir bouncing across the carpet. And the sight of it might have been funny except for the spots of fuzzy activity in his side and his left leg. It wasn’t until he’d been lying on his side, speechless, watching Mary-Katie move quickly around the room in her boots for what seemed like an eternity that the pain started in. He tried to tell her, to call her back from the deck doorway through which she’d disappeared, but couldn’t come out with words, only low, pitiful moans.

The room was dark. She’d turned off the reading lamp as well as the overhead before she’d gone, the bitch. He knew that he’d eventually have to get up and do something about his wounds, but at just that moment he wanted to lie there and maybe sleep for a few minutes, then maybe think about what to do next.

35

SUNDAY BREAKFAST
had been a sore disappointment to Bill. But he’d poured milk over his cold cereal and downed the glass of juice that Margaret put out for him without complaint. He had hopes that whoever was on duty at the jail would’ve brought in a box of doughnuts, but knew the chance was slim. If not, he might be able to persuade Margaret out for brunch at one of the inns in town. His talk with Delmar Johnston wouldn’t take all day.

Delmar Johnston had been smart-alecky with Frank during his booking. He’d said that he had to think about a lawyer, that he’d just hang around the jail awhile and see what the food was like before he started making telephone calls. Bill fully expected that he would remember the lawyer about the time he got settled in the interrogation room, and that was okay. He’d made the unusual request that he wanted to make his statement directly to the sheriff, and that suited Bill as well. Nobody was in a rush except, perhaps, the parents of the Catlett boy, who had called a couple of times looking for answers. He was certain that they’d get them, eventually.

All bets were off when he pulled into his reserved space in front of the courthouse, where the jail was housed, and saw an ambulance speeding away, its siren off in deference—he hoped—to Sunday morning and all the churches in the neighborhood.

What the hell was happening now?

Daphne stood just outside the jailhouse doorway with Matthew John, the weekend jailer. They were laughing over something, but when they saw him, they straightened up.