Mrs. Million (3 page)

“You should go back on TV and say you’ve changed your mind.”

Barbaraannette shook her head. “I made my bed, now I’ve got to sleep in it.”

Toagie made an erasing motion with her cigarette. “That’s crazy. If I’d known you were going to go on the TV and throw away a million bucks I’d never have driven you down there.” Toagie took a ferocious drag on her Salem, thin cheeks sucking in so hard you could see her molars. “Fact is—” She blew smoke. “—and you know it, that man was never worth two cents let alone a million dollars cash money, which, I might add, it turns out you don’t even got.”

Barbaraannette said, “Have you been throwing up your dinners again, Antonia?”

“That’s right, change the fleeping subject why doncha. They give you, what did you say? Two hundred thousand a year?”

“Two hundred eighty-four after taxes.”

“Right, so then you got to pay off your Sears card and your car and your mortgage and your groceries and what have you got left?”

“Two hundred eighty-four thousand dollars.”

Toagie blinked. “You don’t owe nobody? Jeez Louise, what’s
that
like? Well, anyway, you won’t have nothing like a million bucks.”

“I can borrow it.”

“Lord God, Barbaraannette, don’t even say that. All the things you can do now and you want to go in debt a million bucks for a jerkball like Bobby Quinn? I don’t mind being the first one to tell you you’re out of your fleeping mind.”

“Did you know your hair is a little green?” said Barbaraannette.

“It’s not a
little
green; it’s a
lot
green—and I’ve got a few things to say to Rhoda about that not the least a which is she charged me twelve dollars this time.” She burned through another half inch of Salem. “Hey, for a million bucks I bet you could buy yourself a good man. One cleans up after his self and doesn’t drink much. How would that be? I bet you could buy that Jon Glaus, works at Fetler Ford?” Her hand shot out in the direction of the Ford dealership east of town. The ash detached itself from her cigarette and landed on Barbaraannette’s kitchen floor. “He’s cute,” Toagie added. She bit the knuckle of her right thumb, held it between her teeth. The telephone began to ring.

Barbaraannette removed the whisk broom from its hook in the closet and swept the errant ash into the dustpan. “I’m a married woman, Toag.” Barbaraannette dumped the cigarette ash into the sink and washed it down with a two-second blast of tap water. “I’ve got unfinished business with Bobby. Anyway, I don’t think I’d be happy with a man sells Fords.”

Toagie let go of her thumb, looked at the tooth marks she’d left behind. “Well if Jon Glaus doesn’t do it for you, I could name a half dozen others would be more’n happy to come sniffing after you, big sister, lottery or no.” The ringing continued. “Aren’t you gonna answer that?”

Barbaraannette shook her head and put away the whisk broom and dust pan.

“What if it’s Hilde?” Toagie asked.

“It’s more likely some fool with another investment opportunity. Or Mary Beth calling to tell me I’m an idiot.”

“You don’t need to hear that from Mary Beth. You got me.” The ringing continued. “I was you,” Toagie said, “I’d get a machine.”

Barbaraannette permitted herself a shallow smile. “Instead of Jon Glaus?”

“An
answering
machine.”

“I just ignore it.”

The two women listened until the phone stopped ringing.

“Why don’t you unplug it?”

“Because.” Barbaraannette sipped her coffee and eyed the last bite of cake. “One of these times I might just pick it up.”

“I
CAN’T BELIEVE YOU
never even told me your real name.”

“I told you. It’s Bobby. Robert.”

“Yeah, but you told me Bobby Steele.”

“I
am
Bobby Steele. Bobby Steele Quinn.”

Phlox said, “What are you bringing
that
for?” She’d been snipping at him all morning, and she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because he was all of a sudden worth a million dollars and she wasn’t.

“This?” Bobby was folding his lambskin duster into his suitcase. “It’s colder’n a welldigger’s ass up there. I bet they still got snow.”

“You got a jacket already packed. We’ll only be on the road two days. How many do you need?”

“One for driving, and one for dress.” He grinned. “You want me to look good, don’t you?”

Phlox made a sour face, but the fact was, she
did
want him to look good. Looking good was a big part of who he was. Bobby Steele—Bobby Steele
Quinn
was not the richest or the smartest or the nicest guy in Tucson, but he was hands down the best-looking and the best-dressed man Phlox had ever got her hooks into. And he was pretty damn good when he was undressed, too.

She busied herself with her own bag, checking through her makeup kit, tossing in a few extra condoms. Bobby was fitting a pair of cowhide heel protectors onto his boots. He always wore them while driving. He didn’t want the backs, of his heels to get scuffed on the floor of the pickup truck. Bobby was very particular about his boots.

Sometimes Bobby’s fastidiousness got under her skin, and she wished her man was a bit more…manly. A little more grizzled, a little dirt under the nails, a shirttail hanging out. But then she would remember her last boyfriend, Bart, whose custom had been to pare his toenails in bed with a pocketknife, and Bobby would start looking good again.

Phlox finished her packing, sat down on the bed and watched Bobby. She’d always liked the way he moved, the way he touched things. He had great hands.

Bobby closed the suitcase, then fitted his straw Resistol onto his head. Phlox felt her nails digging into her thighs. She said, “Aren’t you bringing your good hat?”

Bobby pointed to the leatherette hatbox waiting near the bedroom door. “It’s packed and ready.” The El Presidente, a genuine 100 percent beaver belly fur felt Stetson, had been Phlox’s Christmas present to him, nine hundred ninety-nine dollars. That was where her lottery money had gone. It looked great on him. Like a million bucks.

“Put it on,” she said.

“Now?”

Phlox nodded. Bobby shrugged, opened the box, and replaced his straw hat with the El Presidente.

“C’mere, you.”

Bobby looked at her, frowned. “I thought you wanted to get going.”

“C’mere, Bobby Steele.” She grabbed him by his silver-and-turquoise belt buckle and pulled him close. “Or whatever your name is.”

“Jesus, Phlox, I just got dressed.”

Phlox yanked open the front of his shirt, mother-of-pearl snaps popping. “Then you can get all undressed, Pook.” She ran her nails slowly down his chest, then went to work unfastening his belt buckle. “Show me again me what that wife of yours is paying the big bucks for.” She tugged down his zipper. Bobby’s breathing had become audible. He reached up to remove the hat, but Phlox stopped him. “No time for that, honey. You just leave that hat on your head.” She worked her thumbs into the waistband of his jeans. “Pretend I’m your wife.”

“Jesus, Phlox,” he said, shaking his head. But she could tell he was into it. His pupils were huge and his hands were shaking and she had the damnedest time getting his jeans down.

Art Dobbleman parked his Plymouth across the street from Barbaraannette’s bungalow. He set the hand brake and put the car in neutral, but left the engine running. He still wasn’t sure he should do this. Barbaraannette might think he was being pushy. She might not even open the door to him, what with all the calls and visitors she’d probably been getting.

Not that he had any choice. His boss, Nathan Nagler, had made it quite clear to him that he was to procure the “Quinn account” for Gold Rock Savings & Loan. “I want this institution to be the repository for Mrs. Quinn’s money,” Nagler had told him, blinking rapidly. Nagler was in his early fifties but had retained his soft, boyish features. His face was the color of cheese curd, his eyes and hair startlingly black. “Unless of course the damn fool woman decides she’s going to pay out that reward, in which case I want this institution’s money to go to work for her.” Nagler had plucked his prized hole-in-one golf ball from its display, bounced it off his leather desk blotter, caught it. “The woman needs us, Art. You make sure she knows it.”

The thing of it is, Art thought, it really would be in Barbaraannette’s best interest to talk to him. There were things he could help her with, things she would need to know about now that she had her hands on some serious money. He was a professional. Money was his business.

Art sat in his car watching her front door, thinking about how he should make his approach. Should he act professional and impersonal? Try to impress her with facts and figures? Or take the opposite tack, go in all friendly then ease the conversation around to business matters? Neither approach seemed right. Should he leave his rubbers on, or take them off before walking up to her front door? It was pretty sloppy out there, snow rapidly melting in the April sun. His shoes were practically brand new. They had cost him nearly one hundred dollars.

Art rolled his neck, heard it crack. He wished he could wait a few days. It seemed somehow indecent to go charging in looking for business only one day after she’d cashed in her ticket. He felt as if he was approaching a bereaved heiress.

He decided to wear the rubbers, then take them off when she invited him in
—if
she invited him in—so as not to track on her floors.

Art had been sitting in his car for a good ten minutes when the front door opened and Toagie Carlson, Barbaraannette’s younger sister, emerged wearing a puffy black parka, purple sweatpants, and knee-high lace-up boots. Art felt a wave of relief—Thank God he hadn’t gone in while Toagie was there! Lately, the relationship between the Carlsons and Cold Rock S&L had not been cordial. The foreclosure process on the Carlsons’ under-maintained, oversized foursquare was nearing its inevitable conclusion. Toagie had been quite vocal over the past few weeks, telling her side of the story all over town. Naturally, her story made the bank out to be evil incarnate. Art smiled humorlessly. It wasn’t as if the bank would lose any business. Anybody who knew Toagie and Bill Carlson knew there had to be another side to the story. Anyway, it was a moot point now that Barbaraannette had won the lottery. Toagie would now have no problem making good on her loan. Still, he was glad he hadn’t knocked on Barbaraannette’s door with Toagie on the premises.

He watched the younger sister walk quickly up the wet sidewalk, puffing on a cigarette, slightly unsteady in her high-heeled boots. What he should do, he should knock on Barbaraannette’s front door right now while she was still in visitor mode, before she had a chance to start making a pie crust or running a bath or doing anything else that might make her resent the intrusion. He was about to go into action when a silver-gray Lincoln glided to a halt in front of Barbaraannette’s bungalow.

Art slunk down in his seat. A stolid, steel-haired woman stepped out of the Lincoln, scanned her surroundings, then lifted her oversize purse from the car, closed the door firmly, and marched up the walk toward Barbaraannette’s front door preceded by her formidable bosom.

Mary Beth Hultman, the eldest of the three Grabo sisters.

Art felt like a prison escapee who had just been missed by a roving searchlight. He decided to wait a little longer before knocking on Barbaraannette’s door.

B
ARBARAANNETTE WAS ALWAYS GLAD
to see Mary Beth, but she often wished it were some other time. Yesterday, for instance. Or tomorrow. It didn’t matter. Though she loved her sister dearly, the time was never quite right for Mary Beth and Barbaraannette. They both knew it and avoided one another when possible, but being sisters in a small community meant they saw each other often.

Barbaraannette said, in a vain effort to get things off right, “Mary Beth, you are looking sensational!”

Mary Beth arched one charcoal eyebrow and unleashed her metallic voice. “Same as I looked last Thursday, dear. What’s this I hear about you giving away a million U.S. dollars to that no-good women-chasing wife-abandoning nightcrawler Bobby Quinn?”

Same old Mary Beth, going straight for the giblets.

“How about a cup of coffee,” suggested Barbaraannette. “A little caffeine to calm you down.”

“Thank you, dear.” Mary Beth said, heading for the kitchen. “A million dollars. Better you should pay someone to beat you senseless with a two-by-four than give that man a copper penny.” Mary Beth worked at the Grant Anderson Medical Center, Cold Rock’s largest hospital, where she ran the Family Planning Clinic with legendary exactitude.

Barbaraannette followed her sister into the kitchen. “I’m not giving anything
to
him, Mary Beth. The reward is for whoever
finds
him.”

“Same difference.” Mary Beth poured herself a cup of coffee from the Chemex.

“No it isn’t.”

“Either way, you’re a million dollars poorer, dear, and for what? A man hardly worth thinking twice about. You were married to him three years. Were you happy?”

“Part of me was.”

“What about the part above your waist, dear?”

Barbaraannette blushed. “I didn’t mean anything like that.”

Mary Beth said, “Don’t think you’re the only girl in this town who was part happy with Bobby.”

“I’m the only one he married,” said Barbaraannette. But she knew that what her sister said was true. Since high school Bobby Quinn had applied great energy toward sowing his oats. Marriage had only slowed him down a little. “I know Bobby was a little wild.”

“He was a lot wild, dear.” Mary Beth’s eyes remained granite, but a faint hint of color came and went on her throat. “That man knew how to charm a woman every which way, and make her thank God she’d had the bad judgment to let him.” She sipped her coffee. “By the way, did you know that Art Dobbleman is sitting outside in his car trying to get up the nerve to come knock on your door?”

“Art?” Barbaraannette went to the window and looked past the curtain. “Where? In that gray car? I wonder what he wants.”

“He probably wants you to put your money in his bank instead of spending every last dime of it chasing that no-good Bobby.”