Big Numbers (10 page)

TWENTY-EIGHT

My hasty retreat from the hospice’s premises is delayed by slow or broken elevators. Six guests and visitors wait for the non-functioning technology, others immediately go for the stairs. I’m trying to figure the odds when Kelly slides her arm into mine, stands on her tiptoes to whisper in my ear. “Come with me, baby.”

Her breath is warm, moist, and fragrant. Goosebumps form on my neck. Blood gathers in my crotch. Yes, girls, it’s that easy. “Are you talking about Mexico?” I say. “Or do you know another way out of this roach motel?”

Kelly’s nose wrinkles. Her smile lights up the dim hallway. “Mexico. Vera Cruz, actually.” She kisses my cheek. “But I do know where there’s a freight elevator.”

I resist an urge to press her against the wall, give her a quick hump, and one minute later, after a brisk walk and two right turns, I’m pushing a big red button with my forefinger. Another two minutes go by before the squeaky steel doors slide open.

Kelly and I push inside a work elevator. It’s twice the size of the building’s regular lifts, and the walls are covered with heavy brown padding. This elevator already has two young men inside, each protecting an apparently empty sheet-draped gurney. What’s that smell?

I’m no expert, but my eyeballs and an accidental bump of the hip tell me these gurneys are unusually large and heavy. Are the patients inside instead of on top?

This is a hospice.

“Are we riding with what I think we’re riding?” I ask one of the white-uniformed young men, a Latin guy with thick forearms—the kind of health-aid you do not want giving you a sponge bath.

The two aids glance at each other. It’s not the Latin guy who’s going to answer me. It’s his taller buddy. More of a twinkle in his eye.

“At least they have each other,” the buddy says. “This is a ride they usually take alone.”

Kelly talks me into
an early dinner at Clooney’s. The place is always crowded, but I say yes because every single bartender makes a good martini. It must be a Clooney’s secret training tradition. This evening I’m going to have two Bombay-with-olives; up I think, one for each stiff I rode with on the freight elevator.

Kelly points to a table at beach level, says she wants to watch the stormy sky through those floor-to-ceiling windows. Stormy sky, my ass. She wants to parade all the way through Rick Clooney’s main dining room, see who’
s having dinner in town tonight.

Rick’s a local celebrity, a skinny bald Harvard grad who got mixed up with the wrong Italians, got arrested, but kept his mouth shut and went to prison for five years to keep his new friends clear. The beachfront restaurant was his coming home present, and some of his old friends like to drop by now and then for a free lobster. Once a place gets a rep like that
in New Jersey, you can’t keep the crowds away. There’s always the possibility of a shooting or other free entertainment.

Gusty wind greets our arrival at beach level. Beyond the surf, white caps toss the gray water.

Kelly has something on her mind. I hope it’s not Mexico again. Can this woman really expect me to run away with her? I’ve known her less than two weeks. Sure, I like her. The sex is awesome. But the truth is, I wouldn’t leave my kids for Shania Twain, the fantasy love of my life. I mean what the hell is Kelly thinking?

We’re waiting for our drinks, Kelly saying, “You’d love Vera Cruz. Gerry took me there on a business trip last year. I just loved the restaurants and beaches, this one nightclub. We went every night for the music. I could have danced my way down to a hundred and fifteen pounds.”

“Feel that Latin beat, do you?” I say.

Her eyes spark. “I like a strong steady rhythm, yes.”

Whew. Sex is like salt and pepper to this woman. She sprinkles it on everything.

The drinks arrive and I take a big gulp of my martini. The alcohol stings my mouth and burns my throat on the way down, churns my stomach when it hits bottom. I take a second gulp and everything hurts a little less.

“I know what you’re worried about,” Kelly says.

“Worried?”

“You’re concerned about the money. Would I dole it out in Mexico, put you on an allowance.”

I look up from my martini. “Kelly, I am not worried about money or Mexico
or anything like that. It’s about my children.”

Her eyes shift from me to the storm outside. “Whatever. But just so you know, I would be totally dependent on you as far as the money goes. You know what to do with it, how to hide it, keep it safe. You’d be in charge. It would be like your money, really.”

I finish the martini and decide to try a new approach. I give her the full-boat Carr grin. “Are you sure you trust me? I mean we’ve only been lovers for what, ten, eleven days? I’ve been a conniving stockbroker more than seven years.”

She smiles. The redhead does think I’m amusing. It’s a quality in women I like very much.

“In my house that night, I loved the way you looked at the Renoir,” she says. “It’s the same way I stare at it sometimes when I’m alone. Wanting to be like those people. Happy in the sunshine.”

I wave at the waiter for another martini. Kelly hasn’t touched her cosmo. She’s tougher than me, getting used to all these doctors, hospices, stiffs, and the smell of antiseptic. The trappings of death. That little visit to the hospice today was gruesome. I need medication.

Kelly saying, “That Renoir was what I thought my life would be like when I hooked up with Gerry. But I was wrong. I had money enough, just no one to enjoy it with. Gerry was always working.”

I pick up the menu.

“Oh, I’ll admit I would have stayed with Gerry forever. I like being pampered, living well. But the man never talked to me, Austin.”

I look up from Clooney’s list of steaks. I haven’t had a Porterhouse in six months. Lot of mac and cheese, but no Porterhouse. “And in one week, you know me?”

She shrugs. “We enjoy a lot of the same things—good food, champagne, art, sex. I think we would enjoy Gerry’s money together. You share your feelings with me. That’s what I want most.”

My second martini arrives. I enjoy a long, slow, two-swallow guzzle.

“I’m not saying we’d be together forever,” she says. “I’m saying it would be good while it lasted.”

Okay, let’s see. On the plus side of this “Do I? Or don’t I?” ledger is the good sex. The big money. Living in Mexico. The end of dialing for dollars. No more Rags, Psycho, or end-of-the-month shit swaps.

Wow. That’s a long and strong list of positives.

On the minus side, I would no longer see my kids.

“Sorry, Kelly. There’s just no way.”

TWENTY-NINE

“ACCIDENT KILLS SHIP’S MATE”

I’m waiting for Rags to follow me inside his office and approve Gerry’s transfer papers when my eyes find the above newspaper headline on
Rags’ desk. Hard to miss actually because the story and the bold, all-caps headline are circled in bright red ink.

I hear Rags coming. There’s only time for a quick peek. Seems a Branchtown charter boat’s first mate was lost at sea yesterday while attempting to land a two to three-hundred pound Mako shark. Neither the man, the malfunctioning equipment
—a flying gaff—or the shark were recovered during an extensive search.

“How’d you like to go fishing next weekend, Carr?”

It’s Rags, swaggering into his office. The sales manager has been all smiles, humming Sousa marches since he ran me down in his Jaguar.

“You, me, Mr.
Vic and one or two of his cronies,” he says. “We’ll take the Triple-A out, have some fun.”

I stare at Rags, a little confused, not only by the juxtaposition of this lost-mate story and the fishing offer, but by the strange workings of my sales manager’s mind. Why would I want to do anything with him? My gaze moves from
Rags’ happy face to the newspaper story.

“Oh,
yeah. Can you believe that?” Rags says. “What a way to go, huh?”

“I don’t understand what happened,” I say.

Rags slides behind his desk-slash-breakfast counter. He puts a hand on his necktie to keep the silk out of the bagel with cream cheese he’s ready to consume. “Vic says it happens once and a while with flying gaffs—this big hook they stick in the fish to bring him on board?”

“I know what a gaff is.”

“Well, with flying gaffs Vic says you stick the hook in, then the handle part comes off and you have the fish on a thick rope. The mate’s arm must have gotten tangled, or the damn shark just caught him by surprise.”

My stomach turns sick and sour thinking about that ship’s mate. Imagine being yanked overboard and towed to your death by a fish?

Rags points his finger at me. “I get it. You see this story, then I walk in saying let’s go fishing.”

I must look pale. “Pure coincidence no doubt.”

Rags shakes his head. “Sit down, Carr, we need to talk.”

Rags pushes his poppy seed bagel to one side, then plops into his swivel chair and props his feet up. He’s got on a charcoal gray suit, white shirt, a black and gold regimental striped tie.
He looks good, but the man is evil.

I sit in one of two upholstered, high-back chairs that face his modestly worn desk. He’s Mr.
Vic’s fourth sales manager in seven years. I find myself staring at the barely scuffed soles of Rags’ new Florsheims.

“Oh,
yeah. I forgot,” Rags says. “You’ve got that form you want me to sign, right?”

“Right here.”

I hand him Gerry’s “Third Party Authorization to Transfer Funds or Securities Between Accounts” but Rags puts it down without looking, says, “Let’s get this other thing straightened out first.”

He leans back, makes a tiny A-frame house out of his hands and fingertips. “Okay, just so you know, here’s what happened: I read the paper this morning and was curious about that story, so I circled it, took the paper to
Vic, asked him about the flying gaff. When he’s done telling me, Vic asks how you and I are doing, if we’d made peace yet. I told him yes and no—I’m being honest here, Austin—and so Vic suggests we all go fishing together, have some fun.”

I stare back unconvinced. Rags and I have disliked each other from the second we were introduced. A strong, instinctively mutual distaste in the exchanged gaze. A male challenge or something. It’s a hard thing to put in words because the emotion feels so primal, as deep as our lizard-brain core.

“So, yeah, you’re right. It’s no coincidence,” Rags says. He shakes his head. Smiling. “The story and the fishing invitation are connected, but not because I’m planning to kill you with a flying gaff, okay?”

THIRTY

The grin on Rags’ face makes my teeth grind. I don’t know why he thinks this is so goddamn funny. The bastard ran me down. Could have killed me. Why shouldn’t I believe he’d try to murder me again?

“Okay,” I say.

“That was an accident with the car, Austin.” Bastard reads minds.

“I know.”

“Good. So are you up for a fishing adventure with Mr. Vic and me?”

“Sure.”

“Probably next Saturday. I’ll let you know.”

He reaches for my papers. “Now, let’s see what you have here. A transfer form?”

“Just need your signature at the bottom.”

“Two million going out of the Burns’ account, huh?”

“Yup.”

On the wall behind Rags are three Currier & Ives prints. Bloodhounds, foxes, English riders in long red coats and black leather boots. I’ve heard Rags say his British ancestors were landed gentry. I think that means his great-great-grandfather was a stable boy who’d earned dibs on a corner of the horse barn.

“I see the assets are staying with us,” Rags says. “Who’s this Kelly Rockland?”

“Kelly’s the redhead Gerry came in with, the one you talked to on the telephone.”

“I thought that was his wife?”

“He always told me she was his wife, but she’s not.”

Rags sticks out his lower lip. “Odd. And now that he’s dying, he wants to give his little sweetie a present of two million in bonds?”

“That’s what he wants,” I say.

Rags wouldn’t be going through this if it was any other salesman. He would have signed it, passed it back. But no. It’s me, Austin Carr, and he’s going to study the names, addresses, and account numbers like he’s eying naked girls in Playboy.

“What does his real wife think?” Rags asks.

“Doesn’t have one.”

His eyes are still on the form. Maybe he’s trying to memorize it. “How about his kids?”

“He’s leaving the bulk of his estate to them—a boy and a girl I think. Both doctors. They’re not going to be upset about two million.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Rags says.

“Gerry’s probably worth twenty million, all the businesses he owns. The legal fees on his estate will be a million.”

“People are funny about money,” Rags says. “At the very least, the kids are going to be curious.”

“Let them be curious. This is what the client wants, Rags. And it’s his damned money.”

I shouldn’t have cursed. Rags doesn’t like it when I curse. Maybe it’s that English aristocratic blood. A muscle in his jaw begins to flutter.

“This form isn’t complete,” he says. “You didn’t fill out this one part properly…the reason for the transfer.”

My own jaw tenses. My back teeth rub. My ass and backbone are still sore from the pounding his Jaguar gave me. I could take a swing real easy, bust up that neat little Brad Pitt jaw.

“There’s a reason listed,” I say.

Rags shakes his head, no.
“‘Estate planning’ is not a complete enough reason, Carr. What’s required here is for the client to tell us exactly why he wants these assets transferred.”

“Estate planning is exactly enough. Ask compliance.”

“I have to sign this thing, put my name and career on the line for it. Go back to Burns, get a reason, bring the new form and signature to me.”

I stand up. “I’m not going to do that, Rags. There’s no reason in hell to do that. This form is complete, signed, and legal. Estate planning is a lawful reason. Again I ask you to check with compliance. It’s the way we’ve done it for seven years.”

“Sit down, Carr. And you will get a new form signed, or there’s no transfer.”

I remain standing. “You are the world’s biggest asshole, Rags. The biggest and the dumbest.”

A red cloud forms beneath the skin of his neck and climbs to Rags’ ears. It’s so cartoonish, so vibrant a red, I expect steam to geyser from his ears.

“I’ve had it with you, Carr. You’re fired. Right now. This fucking minute. Clean out your desk.”

“Clean out your ass,” I say.

I rip the transfer form from his hand and stride out of
Rags’ office.

My golfing buddy Mr.
Vic will straighten this turkey out pronto.