Suspicion of Guilt (51 page)

"I am ... hideously jealous."

Walter said, "We're going to Japan."

"Are you really? How lucky!"

"That's right, we're going to take care of some business and see the sights. Have some fun, eh, Walter?"

Walter gave Gail an open-mouthed grin. "Do you want to go?"

"I'd love it, but I have to stay and take care of my daughter. Will you send me a postcard?"

"I'll send you a big postcard."

Ehringer said, "You must come to our house for dinner after we return. Say yes. I must meet the intrepid Karen."

"All right. Yes."

"What a drama! Lost at sea—"

"Really, we were all right, once we got off the boat," Gail said. "We managed to load enough food and water, and a tarp to cover ourselves." She added, "I am so sorry about Howard Odell."

"I misjudged the man."

"He tried to save us," Gail said, "just before—"

"Did he? Good. He salvaged some scrap of manhood, then."

Russell, visible through a glass panel, looked both ways then rounded the corner at Biscayne Boulevard, heading north. Gail could barely feel the motion of the car. There was a gray-haired woman in the front seat—a nurse, perhaps, or Walter's governess.

When Gail glanced back at Sanford Ehringer, he was gazing through the side window.

He said, "I wish I'd known what was going on. I paid no attention to those companies. I had no stake in them. But the shareholders! You'd think that men and women of intelligence would not allow themselves to become complacent. Oh, the love of money! Many reputations went down on that boat, Gail. Some mighty highfalutin folks are scrambling to explain themselves."

Ehringer's eyes suddenly sparkled. "What a thing to watch! As Cervantes said, 'A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world as a public indecency.' "

He reached over to pat her hand. "And so you have won. A battle well fought, I grant you that much, even if—" He drew his head down onto his shoulders, heavy jowls spreading over his starched collar. "Even if Patrick Norris will inherit twenty-nine point six million dollars. Egad! I would sooner let Walter drive this car."

Walter looked around from the window where he stood on his knees. He grinned, and Gail smiled back.

Gail said, "It may please you to know, Mr. Ehringer, that Patrick will make sure that all of Althea's friends receive what she wanted them to have."

"That's something," he said grudgingly.

"I never wanted to bring anyone down," Gail said. "The embezzlement was completely unrelated to the forgery. All I ever wanted was to do a good job for my client."

"Oh, yes. What was it you told me? You believe in truth and in doing what is right. Noble of you, really. Yes, Gail, I admire that in a young person. You and I may disagree on some things at present, but experience in life should bring you around."

Gail had to laugh a little at that. "You would never bring Patrick Norris around."

"I'm certain! He's too committed to his causes. His project won't make much difference in the long run, but it keeps them happy, doesn't it?"

"In the very long run, Mr. Ehringer, we will all be dust."

He sobered. "Yes. I sooner than you."

Russell's voice came over the speaker. "Ms. Connor? Is this the place?"

She looked out the window, then nodded, and Ehringer pressed a button. "Stop here, Russell."

Gail picked up her purse from the seat. "Thank you for the ride, you and Walter."

Ehringer held out his hand. "We will see you when we return from Japan. May I bring you a present?"

"No, you mustn't—"

"Matching kimonos for you and your daughter. Allow an old man this small pleasure."

"All right." She smiled at Walter. "Her name is Karen. She'd love to see your hamsters."

"Okay." Walter grinned. "She can have some."

"Well ..."

Gail turned to get out of the car. Through the wide door she could see passersby staring.

"Before you go!" Ehringer motioned to her. "Close the door for a minute, Russell." When Gail sat back down, Ehringer was looking at her from under his tangled black eyebrows. A smile danced on his thin lips.

"It was lucky you had time to load food and water on board your life raft before the ship went down. But what about the other?"

"Other?"

"My friends at the bank report that Howard withdrew a rather large amount of cash from the Seagate and Atlantic accounts two days before his departure. He wouldn't have left it behind." Ehringer smiled wolfishly. "Did it ... sink to the bottom?"

Gail hesitated, then said, "No. It didn't."

He put a veiny hand to his heart. "My dear! Surely you plan to return the money to its rightful owners."

"No."

"But what of truth and honor?"

"The truth is," said Gail, "I have no desire to return it to people like Frankie Delgado so he and his pals can purchase more X-rated movies and vibrating waterbeds."

"But is this not desire cloaked in morality? As Nietzsche pointed out—"

"Call it my hazardous duty pay."

Ehringer began to chuckle. "We make our own rules, don't we, Gail?"

"We?"

"We who have the capacity to make the rules." Grinning, Ehringer tapped on the window and the door opened. He touched his forehead with extended fingers, a salute.
"Au revoir,
my dear."

She could still hear him chuckling as Russell closed the door.

Gail and Patrick stood on the weedy sidewalk across the street from the vacant lot and watched an orange front-end loader scrape together a pile of junk, leaves, and rusty auto parts. Black smoke belched from the stack. A group of kids were watching, some sitting sideways on bicycles, others venturing to climb on the pile, until their mothers yelled at them to come away from there.

"How can you start on this already?" Gail asked.

"It's all donated," Patrick said. "One of the men in the neighborhood works for a construction company, and he talked them into letting him use the heavy equipment for the day."

"Do you have zoning clearance? A permit?"

"No," Patrick said. "We tried, but it would take weeks. I say go ahead and do it. What can happen?"

"If someone gets hurt, they could sue you for—"

He laughed. "Gail, stop! You lawyers." He pointed toward Biscayne Boulevard, where the Reel Stuff squatted on the corner. "That's next on my list," he said. "I want to buy it and convert ft to a community theater."

Gail held back her smile. "I've heard they're about to go out of business. You could probably get it cheap. Want me to check it out for you?"

"Thanks, that'd be great." Patrick put his arm over her shoulders. "Say, Gail, now that you're going to have your own office, you want to be our attorney?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"Pro bono?"

She laughed. "Patrick—"

"It can be your good deed for the decade." He squeezed her shoulders. "How about it?"

"Fine. But you can pay the overhead." She began to tick off for him a list of things he had to do—see a tax attorney, incorporate, get some investment advice—

"Stop! Stop!"

They stood and watched the front-end loader for a while. Above its rattle and clank, Gail said, "As slow as probate is, you'll have to wait six months or so to collect. I'm going to advance you enough to get started."

Patrick waved a hand. "No, Gail, you don't—"

"I know I don't have to. But I've just come into some cash rather unexpectedly, so don't worry about it."

"All right. Thanks." Patrick said, "I want you to know. I'm going to take your suggestion and let Rudy and Monica have the house and the art collection. In fact, I called Rudy about it last night. He sounded as snotty as ever over the phone, but that's Rudy." He idly played with the end of his beard. "I never wanted Rudy and Monica not to have the house. If they had asked me, I would have given it to them."

The front-end loader made another run at the trash, and the pile rolled. The children ran out of the way. Gail said half to herself, "I hope this does some good, in the long run."

"Do some good? Just look around you, Gail. Of course it will do some good. We have to start somewhere."

He took her arm and they continued along the sidewalk. "Over there is where we'll put the Althea Norris Tillett Community Center. What about that name?" He laughed. "If Aunt Althie could see this, she would want to strangle me."

With a final blast of smoke, the loader picked up the last mound of trash. The scoop lifted, extending over the rusty bed of the dump truck, then tilted. The debris fell in with a crash, rocking the truck on its wheels, and a cloud of dust rose over the vacant lot on 62nd Street.

Epilogue

The raucous chirping outside made Anthony come suddenly awake. He had drifted off to sleep again. The windows were already gray with light, and he could see the bed and dresser and his clothes laid neatly across a chair. He got up and dressed quickly, not bothering to tuck in his shirt or put on his shoes. He felt for his car keys and slid them quietly into his pocket.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he pulled the blanket away from Gail's face and bent down close to her ear. "Gail. Wake up for a minute,
amor,
I'm leaving."

"Hmmm?"

"I have to go. It's dawn."

This was the fifth—no, sixth—time he had been in her bed. The first had been a month ago, a rainy afternoon when they had found themselves alone in the house. Gail had coaxed him into her bedroom, which was the color of ripe peaches. A cool breeze had come through the windows, but his body had been on fire.

Last night was the first time with Karen in the house. They had talked until midnight in the kitchen, then suddenly it had been past one o'clock, and so much easier for him to walk fifty feet than to drive fifteen miles. Karen never came into Gail's room at night, she assured him. It had been strange, making love so quietly.

Anthony lowered his head to Gail's pillow, her breath gently touching his cheek. Perhaps he could lie with her a few more minutes. But to see Karen's face at the door in broad daylight—

"Gail. Wake up."

Her eyelids fluttered, then she held out her arms.

He kissed her, wanting more than that. He could feel her breasts against him. "Gail."

Now her eyes were opening. Blue-gray, like the sky at dawn. The color the sky would soon be if he didn't leave this minute. He stood.

"Sneaking out on me, are you?" She smiled. "Call me later."

"Te quiero."
He blew her a kiss at the door, then closed it with barely a click, his shoes in his other hand. With the night light in the bathroom to show the way, he slipped quietly past Karen's room. He would go out the back door, the farthest exit, first turning off the burglar alarm. Gail had fought him over the alarm system, but he had insisted. She was far too trusting. A brilliant woman, but lacking common sense about the world. To let that man Ramsay into her house! It still made Anthony shake with anger, thinking of what had nearly happened. He had dreamed of parachuting onto the deck of the boat, screaming for Gail and Karen to get down, then emptying his pistol into that
hijo de puta.

A shoe dropped from his hand and clunked against the wall. He froze. But there was no sound from behind Karen's door. He silently crossed the living room, then bent down to put on his shoes and tie the laces, feeling foolish. One could not carry on this sort of thing forever, of course, but the situation with her daughter was delicate. He unzipped his fly and tucked in his shirt, zipped it back again, and walked into the kitchen buckling his belt.

Karen stood by the refrigerator watching him. The light was on over the stove.

"¡Ay! Diós mio."
He smoothed his hair and came in. "Good morning."

She had a carton of orange juice in one hand and a glass in the other. She was wearing a long gray T-shirt with an ibis, the Hurricanes mascot, its teeth bared. From the family room he heard the sound of a cartoon show on low volume.

"I must have fallen asleep." He smiled at her. "You're up early."

Her lips were pressed tightly together. She went over to pour herself some juice at the counter. Her hair was halfway down her back, tangled from sleep. "I know you were in her room last night."

Anthony let his hands fall at his sides. "Yes. I was."

Karen picked up her glass and drank, watching him over the rim with her intensely blue eyes.

"We—when men and women are in love—as your mother and I are—they want to ... be together."

He stared at the counter for a while, at three bottles of nail polish, a cracked mug stuffed with grocery coupons, a loaf of raisin bread, the Indian blanket Karen had been weaving with that strange woman counselor ...

Pulling out a stool, he sat down beside her. "Karen. Listen. It isn't good for your mother to be alone. Well, she has you, so she isn't alone, but—she should be married. I haven't asked her yet. No, it's true. I haven't. We've talked about it, of course, but I haven't said to her Let's do this. You see, at our age, it's a big step. We have many things to work out between us."

He leaned an elbow on the counter, arranging his thoughts. "For me particularly. A big step. And there is you to consider too. I would never try to replace your father, or to come between you and Gail. She wouldn't be happy if you weren't happy, I know this. And yet I think she needs me as well. So." He nodded. "There are some things to think about." He brought his eyes up to Karen's. "I love her very much. Before I ask her to marry me, I would like to have your permission."

Karen put down her glass. "Mine?"

"Yes. I want to know how you feel about it, if we were together, all of us. What do you think?"

Karen looked at him for a while longer, then said, "I think it might be okay."

He felt a rush of relief so great he wanted to put his head down on his arms. He nodded.

"Do you want some orange juice?" Karen asked.

"Sure. Why not?"

She crossed the kitchen for another glass, then poured, not spilling any. She sat down again and brushed her hair back over her shoulder. Her toes curled around the rungs of the stool.