Sheer Gall (25 page)

“Yep,” I said as I wrote it down.

“One more thing. So long as you're going in there, let me tell you how to retrieve documents someone may have deleted from the system.”

“How can I retrieve what's been deleted?”

“The computer doesn't physically erase anything. It just sort of forgets where it is. Here's a command that'll make it remember where to find the discards. Write this down.”

I did.

“You all set, girl.”

“You're totally wonderful, Ty. Next time I'm in Chicago, dinner's on me.”

“You got that right.”

I hung up and turned toward my credenza. It was nearly five-thirty. I was due at my sister's house at six for Friday-night dinner, but I was itching to see whether Tyrone's instructions would actually get me into the system. If so, I could browse through the Tully, Crane network tomorrow afternoon.

I activated the modem, punched in the telephone number Tyrone had given me, and pressed transmit. When the computer on the other end answered, I followed Tyrone's step-by-step instructions until the screen displayed the message:

PASSWORD?

I typed in the password Tyrone had given me and hit the Enter key. The screen went blank for a few seconds and then displayed a new message:

GOOD AFTERNOON, FOXY LADY.
WELCOME TO THE TULLY, CRANE & LEONARD NETWORK.
PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE.

Foxy lady?
I repeated with an amused smile. Classic Tyrone. Then again, it was certainly better than having the Tully, Crane computer greet me as Rachel Gold. My name was the last thing I needed floating around in their computer network.

I pressed a key and the screen immediately displayed a new message:

YOU HAVE 1 NEW E-MAIL MESSAGE.
DO YOU WISH TO REVIEW IT NOW (YES/NO)

E-mail message?
Intrigued and a tad edgy, I typed in Yes and hit the enter key. A new message unfurled on the screen:

To: Foxy Lady
From: The Man of Your Dreams
Re: Breakin' and Enterin'

Congrats, girl. You in. Happy hunting. Meanwhile, I'm making reservations for two at L'Escargot, and you're buying.Oh, yeah. Almost forgot. Good Shabbos.

I smiled at the message on the screen. “Good Shabbos, Ty,” I said.

Chapter Twenty-eight

The St. Louis weather in November could charitably be described as whimsical. Just two nights before, it had been sixty-eight degrees when Jonathan Wolf arrived at my front door. Last night, we'd had our first killing frost. My patch of basil and bed of impatiens were not the only casualties. My car wouldn't start. All new windows and the same old engine. The timing was terrible: in fifteen minutes I was supposed to pick up my niece and nephew. We'd made our plans after dinner last night at my sister's house. The three of us were going rollerblading through Forest Park in the morning, then to lunch at the Crown Candy Kitchen, followed by a movie of their choice (unless I could talk them into
Old Yeller
, which was playing at the Tivoli).

The car battery seemed okay—headlights worked, engine cranked—but what did I know? After several more tries, I went inside to call for help. The man at the service station promised he'd have someone there in ten minutes. I checked my watch. Time for Plan B. I called my sister and told her the problem. I promised to call as soon as the mechanic arrived.

I went outside to wait. On a hunch, I tried to start the car again. No luck. The engine cranked but wouldn't catch. As I got out of the car, I realized that it wasn't in the most convenient place for the mechanic. I had parked it last night at the top of the driveway in front of the garage. The space looked too narrow for maneuvering the tow truck into position. Fortunately, my car was light, the driveway was level, and I had plenty of nervous energy. I released the brake and, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the doorframe, I pushed the car down the driveway toward the front of the house. As I hopped into the car and put on the brakes, the big red tow truck from Roy's Amoco turned into the driveway behind me.

The driver's door opened and a guy in a tan mechanic's jumpsuit stepped down. According to the name patch stitched above his chest pocket, his name was Danny. He looked fresh out of high school, with tousled blond hair, big blue eyes, a smudge of grease on his cheek, and an adorable pair of dimples. He was so darn courteous and respectful that I felt like a marooned old maid.

Danny lifted up the hood and had me try to start the car while he leaned inside and fiddled with something that was apparently connected to the gas pedal. When that didn't work, he poked around for a few minutes and then came around to my window.

“I think I spotted the problem, ma'am.”

“Bad?”

“Not really. It looks like the wire to the coil got disconnected. I bet I can get it up and running in five or ten minutes.” He gave me a sweet smile. “You can wait inside, ma'am. I'll come get you when it's all fixed.”

As I walked toward my front door, I wondered whether three years at Harvard Law School had started me down the wrong romantic path—a path strewn with discarded Ph.D.s, J.D.s, and M.D.s. Maybe life's pleasures were better shared in the company of an adorable, aboveboard auto mechanic with cute buns. If nothing else, he'd be able to fix the leaky faucet in my downstairs bathroom—an achievement not to be belittled and far beyond the talents of my last boyfriend. As I opened the door, I paused to glance back at him. He was, as my niece Jennifer would say, buttery.

I took the portable phone from the kitchen, pressed the speed-dial code for my sister, and headed back to the living room. Ann answered on the second ring.

“It's me,” I said.

“Can you hold a sec, Rachel? I have Joanie on the other line.”

I peered through the living-room window. Danny was straightened up from under the hood. He pulled a red bandanna out of the back pocket of his jumper and used it to wipe off his hands.

“Rachel?”

“The mechanic is out there now. He says it's a loose wire or something. He thinks he can fix it right here.”

“Oh, good.”

I watched through the window as Danny got into the driver's side of the car.

“That was a great dinner last night,” I told her.

As I stood by the window, I saw Danny close the car door. The hood of the car was still up.

“Here he goes,” I said to her. “Let's see if he's got it fixed.”

I watched as he inserted the ignition key.

Looking back, the moment seems fixed in amber, as if someone hit Time's pause button: Danny motionless, key in the ignition. Then Time lurched forward in freeze frames.

Danny frowning in concentration, his head tilted forward.

A crow cawing from somewhere nearby.

Danny turning the ignition key, his elbow cocked.

The engine cranking.

A falling acorn tocking against the window near my head.

The car hood, still propped open, shivering as the engine turned over.

And then—a fast-forward nightmare.

A ball of fire erupted from under the hood, followed by an explosion that blew apart the front end of the car and rattled the living-room window.

Red flames shot out of what had been the engine block. Danny's figure was visible through the smoke, slumped backward in the driver's seat, mouth open.

A tire wobbled across the front lawn.

I stared in horror at what was left of the car.

Danny's head bobbed slightly. He was alive.

“Oh, no,” I gasped, starting for the front door, the phone gripped in my hand.

That's when the second fireball ignited, shattering the living-room window with a deafening roar and slamming me onto the floor in a shower of broken glass.

There was an awful moment of silence as I lay facedown on the wood floor—and then the hollow clatter of metal rain.

***

The emergency-room doctor at the hospital told me I was lucky. Just a concussion and some lacerations.

“Oh, yes, missy,” concurred the Pakistani plastic surgeon as he stitched the cuts on my arms and back. “It could have been much worse.” The scars would be almost invisible, he promised. Had I still been in front of the window at the moment of the second detonation, the window panes would have exploded like shrapnel into my face. He
tsk, tsk, tsked
, as he tied off the sutures, one by one. “You are one lucky lady,” he said.

“Please please please please stop talking,” I pleaded, my eyes squeezed shut.

Later, as I lay alone in my curtained-off area of the emergency room, I heard them on the other side. “He was blown to smithereens,” a female nurse said in a hushed tone. Some male—sounded like an ambulance driver—described a severed arm dangling high in a tree across the street from my house, “just like a fucking Christmas ornament, man.”

Eventually, they moved me to an upper floor “for observation.” Because I had lost consciousness after the explosion, the doctors wanted to keep me overnight to make sure there were no neurological problems. I was placed in a room designated private, although it soon felt like Groucho Marx's stateroom in
A Night at the Opera
. First to arrive were two police detectives, who entered immediately after the orderly wheeled me into the room. They asked questions for about twenty minutes before my mother arrived, her eyes red, a handkerchief twisted in her hand. Brushing aside the detectives, she sat on the bed and gave me a fierce hug. There were anxiety and protection in that hug, but there was vengeance, too. She's still my mother, and no one but no one messes with Sarah Gold's little girl.

Next to arrive was my sister, Ann, flustered and scared, followed five minutes later by a stout, officious nurse who announced that it was time for everyone to leave so that “patient” could get some rest—an announcement that my mother immediately and decisively overruled. “I'm her mother,” she said, standing up and stepping toward the nurse, “and I'm not ready to leave.”

The nurse retreated, her eyes blinking, and almost backed into the next arrival, Jonathan Wolf, who came dashing around the corner and into the room, his cashmere topcoat unbuttoned and trailing behind like a cape. He sidestepped the nurse and approached the bed.

“Good Lord, Rachel,” he said with a stricken look on his face, “how are you?”

“A little dizzy, a little sore.”

He leaned over and gently took my hand. There was tender concern in his green eyes. “I'm so sorry, Rachel.”

I gave him a plucky smile. “Aren't you supposed to be at services this morning?”

He reached up and gently brushed back my curls to reveal a bandage high on my forehead. “Stitches?” he said.

“Not there,” I said. “That's where I conked my head.”

Benny was next into the room, followed a few minutes later by my secretary, Jacki. Her eye shadow was smudged and her eyes were red. The sight of Jacki buoyed my spirits—in part because of the special place she occupied in my heart and in part because of her, well, her singularity, which seemed amplified in my crowded hospital room. Dressed in a conservative print dress, white panty hose, a powder-blue pillbox hat, and dark flats, Jacki Baird was at least four inches taller, thirty pounds heavier, and capable of bench-pressing one hundred pounds more than any man in the room.

“Oh my God, Rachel,” Jacki said, her lips quavering. “Oh my God, oh my God, you poor thing.” She fumbled in her purse, pulled out a facial tissue, and blew her nose at an impressive decibel level.

Amid all the commotion, an earnest young male nurse pushed through the crowd. He leaned over to peer into my eyes with his flashlight as he asked me a few questions about my aches and pains. As he took my pulse, I could hear Jonathan Wolf on the phone over in the corner. He was talking to, or, more precisely, commanding someone high up in the police bureaucracy to assign more resources to the case.

Amy called, having heard the news of the explosion on the radio while she was in Sally Wade's offices reassembling all of the Douglas Beef files we had sorted through yesterday. I assured her I was okay. Just as I finished the call, another doctor arrived. He gave a disapproving glance around the noisy room and then looked down at me. I shrugged weakly. The crowd was beginning to get to me, too. My mother must have spotted the shrug, because she started moving around the room suggesting that it was time to leave so that her daughter could get some rest.

One by one, they stopped by my bed on their way out. Jonathan told me he'd drop by tonight after services. Jacki tried to tell me that she would take care of things at the office but started blubbering halfway through. Benny handed me a small paper bag. Inside were two Payday candy bars and a hardbound copy of Elmore Leonard's latest. Ann was next, with an air kiss and promise to make sure that Richie walked Ozzie before bedtime.

That left my mother and me. “Come on, doll baby,” she said. “Let's go downstairs. I'll buy you an ice cream cone.”

I yawned. “I don't know, Mom, I'm kind of drowsy.”

“That's why you should get out of bed. When you bang your
kep,”
she said, using the Yiddish term for head, “you don't go to sleep.”

I sat up with a groan. “Yes, Dr. Gold.”

One delicious hot fudge sundae later, I said good-bye to my mother at the elevator after assuring her that I was fine on my feet and could easily get back to my room. “Mom, I ran five miles this morning. Assuming the doctors let me go home in the morning, I'll run another five tomorrow.”

She gave me another fierce hug. “I'll be back by dinner.”

As I rode up the elevator, I tried to imagine who was behind the explosion. I had given the police detectives my list of suspects. There was Junior Dice, of course, even if he was still in jail. Marvin the mortician was a possibility, mainly because he was such an enigma. Then there was Alton police officer Annie McCarthy, who would no doubt have access to the sort of people who rigged car bombs. Brady Kane qualified for any list of suspects. Then there was the other possible connection, the one I hadn't had enough time to explore on Friday afternoon. To my surprise, he was in my hospital room when I returned.

Bruce Napoli was standing by the window with the phone in his hand. He smiled and nodded as I walked in. Even though it was Saturday afternoon, he was wearing one of his commander-in-chief uniforms: black pinstripe suit, crisp white shirt, and a silk gray-and-red-patterned Ralph Lauren tie. His thick, coal-black hair was neatly brushed back.

“Tell him I'll be at the club by five,” he said, closing his eyes to concentrate. “We can meet in the St. Andrews Room. Then call Patty. Tell her to meet me at the St. Louis Club at seven. Be sure she knows which room the reception is in. That's all for now, Holly.”

He hung up and turned to me. “Ah, back on your feet already.” He gave an admiring smile. “That's excellent.”

I nodded uncertainly, pulling my robe tighter.

As if reading my mind, he said, “I happened to be in the neighborhood. Up on the fifth floor, actually, visiting Burt Washington. He's the chair of our trusts and estates department. Poor fellow is recovering from heart surgery. Quadruple bypass last week. They just moved him out of intensive care. Seems to be doing well.”

Keeping my voice neutral, I asked, “How did you know I was here?”

He chuckled and gestured toward the small television set above the bed. “Turn on your TV. Turn on the radio. You're the lead story, Rachel.” He peered out the window. “Look down below.”

I joined him at the window. In the parking area below were four television news vans, each with a satellite dish tilted skyward. I stepped back from the window. “Good grief,” I murmured as I sat down on the bed.

“Actually, it's good news for you, Rachel.”

I looked up at him, puzzled. “How?”

“The publicity will put pressure on the police. Capable, motivated police detectives are a scarce resource. This will force the department to allocate some of that resource to your case. Second, and more important, it ought to deter any second attempts. You're in the spotlight, which makes it far too risky.”