Rubbed Out (23 page)

“Are you expecting someone?” I asked.

Stephanie shook her head rapidly from side to side.

A moment later Alima waltzed into the living room. I noticed she was holding a key in her hand.

“W
ho the hell are you?” Stephanie demanded, as she took in Alima's piercings, her skin-tight black leather pants, fire-engine-red sweater, red boots, and fake leopard jacket. “How did you get in here?”

“The normal way. Through the door.”

“It was locked.”

“No shit. Your daddy gave me a key.”

“Why would he do that?” Stephanie asked, her voice a study in confusion. “Are you the cleaning lady?”

Alima put her hands on her hips and curled her lips up in a sneer. “Cleaning lady? Do I look like a cleaning lady to you?”

Stephanie took a step back. “I'm sorry. I just can't think of any other reason you'd have a key.”

Alima looked at her, then looked at me and grinned. She had sharp canines, something I'd never noticed before. I wondered if she'd had them filed.

“You want to tell her or should I?” she asked me.

“Why don't you?”

I was interested to hear what she was going to say. Besides, I didn't have the heart.

“Fine. I will.” Alima swept her hair off her face with the back of her right hand and paused to fix a barrette, building the tension. “I was your father's friend,” she said to Stephanie.

“My father's friend?”

“You know. The reason your mother left.” For all the expression in Alima's voice, she might as well have been talking about the weather.

For a second I was sorry I'd let Alima do the talking. It was like watching a lynx getting ready to eviscerate a rabbit. I could see the muscles in Stephanie's throat working as she swallowed, trying to take everything in.

Alima tipped her head to the side and fingered her nose ring in an absentminded way. “Your father said your mother told you about me. I guess she didn't, huh? You two couldn't have been very close.”

“How old are you?” Stephanie asked, looking at Alima carefully for the first time.

Alima tossed her hair off her face again. “Old enough to get what I want.”

Watching her, I remembered what it had been like to be that sure of myself, of my sexual power.

“I can't believe my father would go out with someone like you.”

“Someone like me?” Alima raised an eyebrow. The ring through it moved as well. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think?”

“I think I'll just pretend you didn't say that.” Alima held out her hand. Stephanie ignored it. “Perhaps another time,” Alima said putting it down by her side. “In any case, since I was driving by I decided to stop and meet you. I thought it was about time. Especially since we're going to be doing business together.”

“Business? We're not doing anything together. Get out.” Stephanie pointed to the door. “Get out right now and leave the key to the house on the table.”

“I don't think your daddy would want that.”

“I don't give a damn what he wanted.”

“You should.”

“All I know is what I want, and what I want is for you to get the hell out of here. Now.”

Alima looked about as concerned as a cat did upon hearing the word no. “You don't mind if I take a quick look around the house, do you?”

“Didn't you hear what I said?”

“Yes, but I have a cleaning crew coming next week, and I want to make sure the to-do list I'm giving them is complete. Of course, if necessary, I suppose I could postpone them for another week or so, but then I'd have to get a different painter in. I'm sure you understand.” Alima turned to me. “I think this place should bring a good price after it's put back together, don't you?”

“What are you talking about?” Stephanie demanded.

Alima's eyes widened. She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God, you mean your father didn't tell you?” she asked in a fake concerned voice. “He left the place to me.”

I felt like slapping her.

“That's impossible,” Stephanie said. She held out her hand and steadied herself against the arm of the chair.

“No, it's not. Call the lawyer.”

“My mother wouldn't have let him do something like that.”

“Janet had nothing to say about it. The house was in his name.”

Stephanie shook her head. “No. You're lying.”

“Am I?” And Alima took her cell out of her bag, hit the power button, and dialed. “Here,” she said, holding her StarTAC out to Stephanie. “Talk to the lawyer in charge of probating your father's estate. Ask him. Go on,” she said when Stephanie hesitated. “You want to know, don't you?”

Stephanie's hand was shaking as she took the phone and walked into the kitchen. I could hear her saying, “No, he wouldn't. He didn't,” over and over again. She looked sick when she came out.

“Told you,” Alima said, retrieving her phone from Stephanie's hand.

I don't think Stephanie even noticed.

“How could he have done something like this?” she asked as she sank into the sofa and buried her face in her hands. I noticed she'd bitten her nails down to the quick.

Alima took it upon herself to answer.

“Simple,” she said. “He was in love with me. I made him feel important. Not like you or your mother.” She put out her hand and studied her nails. “You can fight this in court. But it's going to cost you money. If I were you, I'd settle for the money your mother stole from your father and let it go at that. If you can find it.”

Stephanie lifted her head up. Her eyes were dull with shock. “I don't know what you mean,” she said.

As I watched Alima weigh Stephanie's answer, I wondered, if you act like fifty when you're eighteen, do you act like eighteen when you're fifty?

Finally Alima said, “I can't believe you don't know what I'm talking about.”

“I don't. You're just saying all this stuff to confuse me.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, you are.”

Alima leaned forward slightly. “Tell me,” she said, “what do you think your father did?”

“He was a lawyer.”

“He was a lawyer for two Russian mobsters.”

Stephanie's eyes widened. Two small red dots appeared on her cheeks. She jumped off the sofa and strode over to where Alima was standing and shook a finger in front of Alima's chest.

“You're lying,” she cried. “I don't know why you are, but you are. I know what he did. I used to spend time in his office. He wrote wills for little old ladies and did house closings and handled divorces and did stuff like that.”

Alima shrugged. “Maybe that's the way he started off, I'm not saying it isn't, but people who handle wills for little old ladies don't die the way he did.”

Stephanie bit her lip and turned her head away. “I don't believe you. I won't believe you,” she said.

Alima gave her a pitying look. “So much the worse for you,” she told her before turning to me. “It's your turn,” she said to me. “You try and explain the realities of life to her,” she said. “I've got other things to do with my time. And by the way,” she said to Stephanie, “you should do something about the way you dress. You look like a crow.”

“Fuck you.”

I grabbed Stephanie's arm just as she was bringing her hand up to punch Alima in the face and dragged her back to the sofa. It took me a half an hour to settle Stephanie down and another half an hour to convince her that Alima was telling her the truth. From the expression on Stephanie's face, I had the feeling it would have been kinder if I'd taken out a gun and shot her.

“My mother never said anything to me about money. She really didn't.” I watched Stephanie's eyes well up and the tears begin to fall. They dripped down her cheeks and fell on her sweater. “She told me she had a little money saved up. I thought she was using that.

“I tried to be a good daughter,” Stephanie continued, her fingers plucking spasmodically at her pants legs. “I really did. But everything I did was wrong. I never knew what she wanted, and after a while I gave up trying.”

Alima paused at the entrance to the living room on her way up the stairs. She took one look at Stephanie and rolled her eyes.

“Grow up,” she said to her. “So your family life stunk. So what? Suck it up and move on.”

Stephanie didn't give any sign of hearing her.

“My father was worse, though,” she continued. “One day, when I broke a dish, he told me adopting me was my mother's idea and he'd only done it to shut her up. I've never forgotten that.”

“He was probably angry,” I said.

Stephanie shook her head. “It was more than that. He meant it. I never remember him hugging me. Not even once.” She closed her eyes for a few seconds, then opened them. Her cheeks were speckled with little dots of mascara that had fallen off her eyelashes. “I should have stayed in the City,” she whispered. “I should never have come back here.”

“Why did you?”

Stephanie wiped her cheeks with the back of her right hand, smearing the dots into larger splotches. Her skin glistened with the moisture from her tears.

“I just . . . I didn't . . . I couldn't believe.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I don't know. I guess I thought coming here would make it real. It would have been better the other way.” Her face collapsed and she started to sob.

I couldn't get her to stop, and I couldn't leave her the way she was. After about an hour of trying to get someone to sit with her, I was desperate. I finally dialed Peter Simmone, the psychologist her mother had gone to, and explained the situation. Despite our past meeting, he told me to bring Stephanie over. A point for him.

I managed to coax her into my car. He was waiting for us when I got there. The last I saw of Stephanie, he'd put his arm around her and was guiding her into his office. She was leaning into him, as if she'd fall down without his support.

I turned around and went back to the Wilcox house. I had a question for Alima, but she'd already gone. Luckily for me, there were no locks on the bottom windows. I pushed one open and went inside. I spent the next hour and a half going over the house from top to bottom, just to make sure the money wasn't there.

It wasn't.

Or if it was, I couldn't find it.

G
eorge and I met at the pizza shop near Nottingham Plaza. He was ten minutes late, and I was starting on my second slice when he walked through the door. I waved to him and he nodded to me before giving his order to the girl behind the counter. A moment later he put his plate containing three slices topped with pineapple and ham down on the table and slid into the booth opposite me.

“How can you eat that?” I asked.

“This from a woman who lives on chocolate doughnuts and coffee?” he said as he took off his jacket and carefully laid it next to him on the seat.

“Chocolate is good for you, or haven't you heard?”

“Really?” I watched George peel off the top of a small container of blue cheese dressing and dip his pizza in it. “So what's going on?” he asked.

“I just talked to Stephanie. I don't think she knows anything.”

“She could be lying,” he said as he took a bite. A line of red-colored oil slid down his chin. He wiped it away with his napkin.

I thought about the expression on her face when Alima mentioned the money. “I don't think so.”

“Why?”

I recounted the conversation between Stephanie and Alima.

“Plus I went through the house. The money's not there.”

“No reason it should be. If it were me, I'd have it in a bank in the Bahamas by now.”

“If it were me, I'd be in the Bahamas by now.”

“This is true,” George said. He took another bite. “This Stephanie, she could be a really good liar. I've known people that could convince their own mothers they were somebody else's child.”

“If what you say is true, why would she be up here?”

George shrugged. “People do illogical things all the time.”

“That's helpful.”

“But true.”

“Maybe. My gut feeling is she doesn't know.”

“Your gut feeling? That's what you're going on here?”

“What else do I have?”

George considered that for a moment. “Nothing else, I suppose, when you get right down to it. So what now?”

“I'm going to fly down to New York City and talk to Quintillo.”

He took another bite, then reached over for my soda. “You mind?” he asked.

I shook my head and he took a sip.

“And if you come up dry, what then?”

“I'll worry about that when it happens. So what about you? Did you find anything out?”

“Some dibs and dabs. But not a whole hell of a lot, unfortunately. I think I can put names to two of the guys at the bar, but that's it. No addresses, no vehicles, no nothing. They've both got warrants out on felony assault, fraud, and extortion. One of them is a possible ex-KGB.”

“Wonderful.”

“Phil says he thinks they got in beef with some of their brethren in Brooklyn and decided to set up shop here until things cooled down.”

“They probably couldn't resist the climate.”

“Pining away for all that snow and ice.”

“Reminds them of home.”

George finished off his first slice and started in on the second. He was a neat, methodical eater. Which is hard to do with pizza.

“And that's it?”

“I'm hoping to have the names of the other guys for you by tonight.”

“It would be nice if you could turn up an address.”

“I'm working on it.”

“I mean they have to live somewhere.”

“How about under a trash can?”

“My money would be in a Dumpster.”

George drizzled some more blue cheese dressing on top of his second slice, folded it, and took a bite.

“Don't worry,” he told me. “Phil and I are going out later. We'll shake something loose.”

“Why's he doing this?”

“He owes me.”

“And?”

“He's hoping to pick up some information he can use.”

“Anything else?”

“He was a friend of Paul's.”

“Makes sense.” I glanced at my watch.

“What time's your plane?”

“I still have an hour before I have to be out at Hancock.”

“Good. I'll drive you,” George said

It almost felt like old times, I thought as I watched George polish off the remains of his last slice.

 

 

It was cold in New York City, the kind of raw cold that bites through your bones and makes you want to stay inside, turn on the TV, and order in Chinese. I was waiting for a cab outside the terminal at LaGuardia and wishing I'd brought along another sweater when my cell rang. It was Bethany. She sounded hysterical, but then, that wasn't unusual these days.

“You just got a dozen gladioli delivered to the house,” she said. “The note said,
Thinking about you, Manuel.
Gladioli are what people send to funerals.”

“Not necessarily,” I told her even though that was my association with them as well.

“He's going to die.”

“Bethany, he's going to come out of this. These people are just playing with our minds.”

“Well, they're doing a good job. I threw them in the trash.”

“Okay. Leave them there, but don't throw them out.”

“I shouldn't have done that, should I?” And she started to sob. So much for being tactful.

“No harm done.” I took a deep breath.

Bethany cried louder. I moved the cell away from my ear.

“Bethany, where's the girl that's staying with you?”

She stopped crying long enough to answer me. “She went off to class. I was just going to go to school when these came. I don't know what to do.”

“Don't do anything. I'm calling George. He'll be over.”

Bethany sniffed. “He doesn't have to. Really.”

“I can see that. He'll be glad to.” And I hung up and phoned George.

“I'm not a baby-sitter,” he said.

“She shouldn't be by herself now, and there's something else as well.” And I told him about the note and the flowers.

“It probably won't lead to anything, but I'll see if I can trace them. Maybe someone got stupid and used a credit card.”

“Maybe,” I said although I didn't think so.

“It would be a nice change.”

He hung up and I called Bethany back. “George will be over in about twenty minutes.”

“Okay.” Her voice was very small.

“How's Zsa Zsa?”

“She's fine.”

“Good. I'll call you later.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

I wanted to say something else, but I couldn't think of anything except, “Don't worry.”

Sometimes words really are inadequate. Or maybe it's that I can't think of the right ones when I need them. As I slipped my cell into my coat pocket, the two people standing in front of me got into a cab. A few seconds later, another cab pulled up in front of me and I slipped inside. In the best-case scenario, the trip into the City from LaGuardia takes twenty minutes, but we were in rush-hour traffic, and that wasn't going to happen this time around unless we sprouted wings.

Traffic had congealed around us and we advanced in fits and starts. I spent the next hour watching the numbers on the meter grow and wondering how Manuel was and thinking about what the flowers and the message meant. Like Bethany, I didn't think the choice of flowers was accidental.

Listening to the wailing of the music coming from the radio of my Pakistani driver mixed in with cars honking their horns didn't improve my mood. I'd just asked the driver to turn his music down when we hit a two-car pile-up before the tolls, and that slowed us down even more.

Finally, we inched our way through and got onto the FDR. But that wasn't much better. It must have been pouring in the City earlier in the day because there were large puddles on the road that the cars were slogging through, and I finally told the cabbie to get off at the 96th Street exit and take Third Avenue down to Quintillo's apartment.

I didn't know if he'd be there or not, but aside from the gallery it was the only address I had for him. As it turned out, he wasn't. At first I was upset, but his absence turned out to be a good thing. By dint of a good story and three hundred dollars, I managed to convince the super that I was Quintillo's long-lost sister, and he unlocked the door of Quintillo's apartment and let me in to wait. It would be a pity, we both agreed, for me to have to wait outside in weather like this. Especially since it had taken me so long to find him.

The place was hot and stuffy, the way apartments get in New York City when the heat comes on in the winter. Looking around, I'd forgotten how small apartments in the City could be. Even though it was a one-bedroom, the entire place could fit in my living room with space left over to spare. I took off my jacket, stashed it on the sofa, and got to work looking for Janet Wilcox's money. Unfortunately, something that small could be anywhere.

I decided to start in Quintillo's bedroom and then go through his living room, kitchen, and bathroom—in that order. I worked as quickly as I could, but I could see it was going to take a while because Quintillo's place was jam-packed with drawings, canvases, and pieces of sculpture. Evidently he was using it as a storeroom for the artworks he was selling out of the gallery.

I wondered how the hell Quintillo managed to get dressed in the morning, as I edged my way around five bronzes, one of which looked like a Rodin. I looked through his drawers, which were filled with drawings, and tried his closet, which contained sporting equipment, an ironing board, five cases of books, two suits, and three pairs of jeans. Welcome to City living. I checked under the mattress as well, found nothing except some old socks, and moved on to the living room.

I glanced at my watch as I came out. It had taken me half an hour to go through Quintillo's bedroom, and the only thing I knew now that I didn't know before was that he had an awful lot of unsold stock on his hands. As I walked into the living room, I heard footsteps out in the hall. A second later I heard a key turning in the latch. The master of the house had returned.

“Hi,” I said when he came through the door. “You wanna do Chinese or Mexican tonight for dinner?”