Poisoned by Gilt (4 page)

twenty of us now sat at semiattention. Redesigning our

surroundings in the blink of an eye, I gave Richard a

more enticing stage that curved into the center aisle.

Then I swapped the dreadful overhead fluorescents and

acoustic ceiling tiles in favor of a lovely blue-lit coved

ceiling, and livened the textures and colors throughout

the space.

The three of us--Sullivan to my right, his ogler to my

left, and me, the monkey in the middle--were by far the

youngest people in the room. I took off my gloves and

Sullivan allowed me to shed my coat unassisted, which

was unlike him. He looked tired and miserable, even in

my peripheral vision.

I studied the jet black hair of the woman seated di-P o i s o n e d b y G i l t
25

rectly in front of me. Her precise, sharp-cut bob was identical to that of--she turned around and fired a glance at

me with narrowed eyes--Margot Troy!

Come to think of it, her presence here made sense.

Margot would have been drawn to the name of the

course--Going Green. Could she have known in advance that Richard was going to be the finalist judge for

the green home contest? If so, her being his student certainly tipped the scales in her direction.

I struggled to focus on Richard's lecture. Did Margot

know that he'd stepped down as judge? If she was here

primarily to suck up to him, this latest development

wasn't going to sit well.

Margot raised her hand. "I'm sorry, Richard," she said

in a saccharine voice. "I couldn't hear what you said just

now. Could you please repeat your observation? The one

about conservation being our moral obligation?"

Richard repeated a hoary cliche about our being the

children of our beloved Mother Earth and it being our

duty to love, honor, and protect her and her precious, diminishing resources. After several minutes of his droning

on and on with variations on that same theme, I began to

suspect that Richard's lecture was the real cause of the

furrows on Sullivan's brow; Sullivan probably hated that

his one-time idol was regurgitating the homilies of countless conservationists instead of dazzling us with his own

vision.

The girl seated beside me struggled to peer around me

at Sullivan. She was clicking the spring on her pen repeatedly, probably trying to annoy me into changing

seats. Fat chance. She looked twenty at the most. I had almost ten years on her, Sullivan had fourteen, and we had

26
L e s l i e C a i n e

amassed a world of shared experience in our relatively

short time together.

Richard finally began discussing something personal--

his sideline business producing and selling nontoxic products for households, including paints and wood-finishing

sealants. A middle-aged woman said timidly, "But your

products cost so much more than the products at the

home-improvement stores."

"In terms of money, sure," Richard countered. "But

think about the cost to the environment. Think about

how the toxins in all those products are permanently polluting the earth. And once the air and water are gone, we

won't survive. Mankind will simply cease to exist."

"Oh, get over yourself, Thayers," a man yelled from

the back of the room. I turned. It was the man in the

sheepskin coat who'd held the door for me.

"Matthew Hayes," Richard intoned wearily as he eyed

the handsome young man. "Figured you'd show up here

eventually to disrupt things."

"Oh, I'm not here to disrupt. I want you to teach me.

Teach me something I don't know, Mr. Thayers. Something

that I haven't heard a zillion times before. Teach me how I

can use responsible products and still make money. Just

don't focus on the so-called earth-friendly products that you

personally profit from!"

Several classroom members had slouched down in

their seats. Others were stealing tense glances at Richard

and his heckler. Was it just a coincidence that on the

same day, this man whom Sullivan so admired had made

two such ardent enemies? Or had Burke Stratton sent

Matthew Hayes here?

"Don't force me to call security, Matthew."

"Please, don't throw me out, Master Thayers. Teach

P o i s o n e d b y G i l t
27

me how I'm supposed to make my own profit when you

antipollutants fanatics are picketing outside my business." He stood up, the color rising in his cheeks. "When

protestors block customers from my door, while handing

out fliers, printed on your oh-so-ecologically-responsible

paper, urging people to boycott my company! Teach us

how big business is bad! Yet they're the only ones who can

keep their profit margins low! They can survive despite

your boycotts. All of which just happens to help sales for

all your touchy-feely products!"

An elderly man at the end of our row rose on wobbly

legs and called to the man behind us, "Sir? I paid good

money to be here and to listen to Professor Thayers. And

I'll thank you to either sit there quietly or leave!"

Matthew Hayes plopped himself back down into

his chair and crossed his arms. "Dude, sorry to break

this to you, but if you paid more than a dime for this

class, you got ripped off." Again he snorted with forced

laughter. "You actually believe Thayer's nonsense, don't

you?"

"Class," Richard said in an authoritarian voice, "this is

simply a personal vendetta that Mr. Hayes has against

me. Don't give this misguided man the time of day. He

skirts the law with his use of ivory and rain forest wood."

"Untrue! I use recycled materials only, and you know

it! If any of my materials were illegal, the SEC would

shut me down."

"This is not the time or the place," Richard said. "If

you want to have a private discussion, you--"

"Yeah, right. Admit it, Thayers. You just can't handle

anyone with a different mind-set from your own."

"What mind-set?" Margot remarked over her shoulder. "Do you even have a mind?"

28
L e s l i e C a i n e

I began to wonder if this had all been staged--if

Richard, the "great motivator," had hired Hayes to liven

up the class with a debate. I stole a glance at Steve. He

was glaring at the heckler.

Hayes again got to his feet. "Come on, Thayers. If your

product is so safe and earth-friendly, put your mouth

where your money is. Drink it."

Richard grabbed a quart-sized can of paint. He

smirked at Matthew. "This is gold paint, which, as you

must know, is normally the most toxic of all paints, because of its metallic content. You want me to drink this in

front of you to prove it's safe?"

"Absolutely!" the heckler fired back at Richard. "Go

ahead! Drink your paint. If it's so safe, why not?"

"No! Don't be crazy, Professor Thayers," a woman student cried, echoing my thoughts exactly.

"He just wants to make you look foolish and desperate," another woman said.

"No, no." Richard calmly held up his hand. "He's

right. About this one thing, I mean. I'm happy to prove to

this . . . earth-eroding miscreant that every word I say

about my products, and our duty to the planet, is the

truth." He pulled out a Swiss Army knife from the pocket

of his baggy slacks and started to pry open the can.

I looked at Sullivan, who was aghast as he watched his

mentor. "Stop him!" I whispered harshly.

"How?" he whispered back.

"Take the cans away from him!"

"I'm sure he knows what he's doing." To my ear, however, Sullivan had never sounded less sure of himself.

"He'll be fine, Erin," Margot said under her breath,

turning toward us.

"Wait, Mr. Thayers." I shot to my feet. "Can't you just

P o i s o n e d b y G i l t
29

point out that there's a big difference in calling something nontoxic versus edible? Or potable, in this case? I

mean, just because it won't kill you to eat a cup of mud

doesn't mean it won't make you sick. Furthermore--"

I broke off. My words were falling on deaf ears.

Richard set down the lid and held the gold paint high

with both hands as though he were a priest lifting the

Holy Cup at Mass. With his wild eyes and hair, however,

he looked more like the quintessential mad scientist. All

around me, his students were shrieking or laughing as if

this were a grand staged event.

Richard Thayers took three or four deep gulps from

his can of paint. Disgusted, I sank into my chair.

"Ah. Not bad," Richard said, wiping his lips on a paper

towel that he'd produced from behind the dais. He

coughed a little, set down the can, and gave his heckler a

triumphant smile. But I was certain that I glimpsed a hint

of fear in his eyes.

Richard glanced at his watch. "Thank you for your attendance tonight." He cleared his throat. "Class is dismissed."

"Are you okay, Professor Thayers?" an elderly woman's

frail voice behind me asked.

"Just fine. Thank you. And thank you all for coming

tonight. We'll see you here next week. For our final session." He gave a wan smile, then focused on packing up

his things.

"This is really not as big of a deal as it seems," Margot

said quietly, again rotating in her seat to face us. Her expression and voice sounded sincere, her dark brown eyes

directly meeting my gaze. Margot had the kind of patrician features and style that screamed old money. I

guessed her to be in her late forties, but she'd had "work

30
L e s l i e C a i n e

done," so it was hard to tell. "I've taken his class three

years running, and he does this every year."

"Really?" I asked, still appalled and feeling a little sick

to my own stomach. "He drinks gold paint every year?"

"Oh, yes. The first time he did it, everyone panicked.

Half the class was about to call nine-one-one on our cell

phones till he convinced us not to. Word's starting to get

around, though," she grumbled, eyeing Matthew Hayes.

"Obviously."

"Matthew Hayes couldn't have known. If he was aware

that Richard drank paint every year, why would he goad

him into doing so? He'd only be playing into Richard's

hand."

"True. Well. In any case, no worries." She grinned at

me and stood up. She whispered, "I need to go pay our illustrious instructor some compliments now. It probably

won't help me win the contest, but it certainly won't

hurt."

"Too late for that, Ms. Troy," Steve said. "He stepped

down today. He knows one of the finalists and couldn't

be impartial."

"Oh, but he--" She gave Richard, then me, a confused glance, but a moment later focused on Sullivan

with a steely resolve. "That could only be your client.

Otherwise, you wouldn't know before I did. I'm one of

only three finalists, for heaven's sake. What happened?"

"We really don't know anything beyond the fact that

he stepped down, Margot," I said.

"Peachy," Margot growled. "Just peachy." She narrowed her eyes at the doe-eyed girl beside me, who was

blatantly listening. "I'm sorry, young lady, does our conversation concern you?"

"Um, no, er. I was just . . . worried about Mr. Thayers."

P o i s o n e d b y G i l t
31

"Well, as you've already heard, you needn't bother."

Margot gathered her things and swept out of the room.

Steve laid his hand on top of mine and gave my fingers

a brief squeeze. To my chagrin, that was enough physical

contact to get my pulse racing, especially when our gazes

locked. He looked sad. "I'd better go talk to him," Steve

muttered, then rose.

"I'll meet you outside," I told him. He caressed my

shoulder for an instant as he walked behind me, then

brushed past the girl beside me as though she--despite

her doleful gaze--were invisible. My karma would no

doubt give me a head-whack for the glee that brought

me. The girl rushed out the back door as Sullivan strode

down the stairs.

Meanwhile, Matthew Hayes came partway down the

stairs and stopped at the end of my long row of seats.

He stood, arms akimbo, giving Richard the evil eye.

Oblivious, Richard finished packing his half dozen quartsized cans and a pair of spiral notebooks into a filthy canvas bag, which he slung over one shoulder. He looked up

and smiled at Sullivan.

"Hey, S.S. Thanks for coming tonight. I'd meant to

have you say a few words to the class. But then we were so

rudely interrupted."

"Oh, puh-lease," Matthew growled.

"Enough, Hayes," Richard snarled at him. "Show's

over!"

Matthew gave him a withering look and stood his

ground.

Richard's face was discolored and damp with perspiration. Steve was studying Richard's features intently, and

seemed to be seeing the same thing I was.

" 'Fraid I'm going to have to take a rain check on that

32
L e s l i e C a i n e

beer," Richard told Sullivan. "Turns out, I've got to dash

over to a client's house tonight." He patted Steve on the

back. "Next time, okay?"

I hoped that Steve would stick with him, suggest that

he might need to have his stomach pumped, and insist