Death Will Help You Leave Him (21 page)

I had forgotten about the temple of rich ladies’ underwear.

“Yes, of course.”

“Don’t you see?” Luz’s eyes sparkled. “I can get her to the shop. We often have specials. We send fliers.”

“You’ve showed me,” Barbara said. “Glossy, Bruce, and very pink.”

“We make them on the computer and print them up. I can send Netta an announcement for a sale she can’t resist.”

“It’s a great idea.” I smiled at Luz. “But Netta saw us at the funeral. What if she figures it out and makes a scene?”

“That’s why it has to be me,” Luz said. “You two and Jimmy met her at the funeral, but I did not. Remember? I stayed far away from her.”

“Then I guess it’ll be okay,” I said. “If you’re sure you don’t mind. I could understand it if you didn’t want to see her.”

“I want to do it,” she said. “If she killed Frankie, I want to know. The same if anything she says helps us find out who did.”

“If there’s a sale on, won’t you be too busy?” Barbara asked. “How can you have a real conversation with her if the store is packed with women pouncing on the bargains?”

Luz looked pleased with herself.

“Oh, this will be a very special sale. I will make up the flier myself. Only Netta will get one.”

“Can you get away with that? You don’t want to lose your job.”

“No problem,” she said, “as long as I set it for a date and time when I am in the store alone.”

I thought of another objection.

“At the funeral, Netta looked like a beached whale. Will she be interested in sexy underwear?”

Luz and Barbara looked at each other and laughed.

“She is still a woman,” Luz said.

“Don’t tell anyone I said it,” Barbara said, “but when gorgeous lingerie goes on sale, feminist principles fly out the window.”

“It is true, we have beautiful things,” Luz added. “Silk and satin, handmade lace, and some of the new microfibers feel so soft and wonderful. You can even put them in the washing machine.”

“But she’s just lost her husband,” I said.

Luz and Barbara exchanged another glance and shook their heads.

“It has nothing to do with men,” Luz said with authority. “It is how we feel ourselves— beautiful in our skin.” She ran her hands down her brief but sweetly rounded torso in an unconscious gesture. My body stirred in response, like a sleeping lion shifting position. I hoped to hell they didn’t notice.

“She is very pregnant,” Barbara admitted. She sketched elephantine curves in the air with her hands.

“Oh, we have maternity things,” Luz assured us, “flowing robe and nightgown sets. And underwear for afterwards, when they want reassurance they can get their old body back. Also nursing bras.”

“Nursing bras are sexy?” I asked.

“Ours are,” Luz said.

“It’s not about sexy,” Barbara said, “we’re trying to tell you. Sexy is something you put on for someone else— men.”

“That lesser breed that you put out with the trash,” I murmured.

“Now you get it. This is aesthetic— no, spiritual.”

“Spiritual?” I squawked. “I know the whole universe is One, but lingerie? That’s going too far.”

“No, she is right.” Luz sounded certain.

“It’s the inner feminine,” Barbara explained. “Think Jung if it makes you feel better. Sensual, opulent, at peace with our own spirit. It’s the same with belly dancers— but I digress.”

“So you do. All the time.”

“So it is settled,” Luz said. “I will make the flier tomorrow. I often stay to close up, so I can make sure I’m alone at the end of the day.”

“If we could be sure you’ll be safe,” I said.

“What, in my own shop where I work for three years?” Luz scoffed. “Surrounded by filmy garments? The most dangerous object in the whole boutique is a corset.”

“Luz, did you ever tell the cops you thought someone was stalking you?” Barbara asked.

“Oh, Barbara, not stalking,” Luz protested. “It was only a feeling. What could I have told them?”

“What kind of feeling?” I asked.

“A nervous feeling,” she said. “A kind of chill between the shoulder blades, as if someone is watching me.”

“Do you feel it now?”

“Oh, no, I feel safe with you. I have not gone into the park alone since that time I told you about. And I try not to come home too late at night. But I can’t become a prisoner in my apartment. I go to meetings. I visit my aunts.”

“Can’t one of your cousins take you home?” I remembered she had a lot of cousins.

“They usually do.”

“Speaking of home,” Barbara said, “Luz is coming home with me for brunch. Bruce? Wanna come? We’ll lure Jimmy away from the computer with bagels and lox.”

“Are you sure it is okay to interrupt Jimmy’s work?” Luz asked.

“You have to interrupt Jimmy,” Barbara explained, “or he wouldn’t have a life.”

“I promised to go downtown and see Laura,” I said. “Don’t give me that look, Barbara. She got hit by a car the other day. The hospital said she’s lucky. She got off with bruises and a broken thumb.” I didn’t say she’d landed on top of me. “She’s still having trouble getting around and lifting, though. The least I can do is give her a hand. My ex,” I told Luz. “Just a friend now.”

Barbara opened her mouth and closed it with a snap. Not a good example for her sponsee if she badmouthed Laura. Or maybe she realized that if she told Luz I was still hung up on my sicko ex-wife, I would wring her neck.

“I’ll walk the two of you over there and then take the train,” I said.

Luz had enough tact to change the subject. I entertained her with stories from my recovery jobs doing office temp work as we wound our way past yelling kids, beleaguered parents, and gossiping nannies. More dogs like Taxi, high on being off leash. Squirrels storing acorns for the winter.

“I always wonder how they manage to remember where they’ve hidden them,” I remarked.

Luz laughed.

“Maybe they forget.”

We crossed the bridle path and reached the main park road. It was Saturday, so the road was closed to cars. There were plenty of bicycles, and runners were out in droves, with the New York Marathon only a couple of weeks away. But we hit a lull. For the moment, the road was clear.

As we started across, Barbara fell back.

“Go ahead,” she called after us. “Pebble in my shoe.”

“Want to wait?” I asked Luz. “Need a rest?”

“Whatever you like. I am fine.”

Luz, on my right, turned her head to smile at me. So I was looking north when a car came tearassing down the road, headed straight at us. I stopped, but Luz, still smiling, stepped right into its path. At the last moment, I got hold of her elbow and jerked her backward. We both cannoned into a knot of helmeted cyclists on racing bikes, streaking by behind us at just the wrong moment. All of us went down with a crash, punctuated by the whir of spokes and a stream of curses from the cyclists, who had been hugging the bike lane and hadn’t even noticed the speeding car.

In no time at all, a crowd gathered, like people at the beach when someone spots a shark. Some helped disentangle us from the bicycles and their riders. Others whipped out their cell phones. The rest provided commentary. They seemed to be enjoying themselves.

“Are you all right?” I asked Luz.

“Only a little shaky.” She held up her hand, palm down, to show me the slight tremor. “But you— your leg!”

I looked down. The right leg of my pants was ripped from knee to cuff, exposing a long gash, dirty and bleeding.

“You must wash it,” Luz said, “or it will become infected.”

I hadn’t even felt it until she mentioned it, but it hurt like hell now.

Barbara caught up to us.

“What happened?”

“A car tried to run Luz down,” I said.

“Bruce’s leg is injured,” Luz said at the same time.

“Luz, are you okay?” Barbara had her priorities straight, thank God. “Was it a park van? There are no cars in the park on the weekend. And how did the bikes get into it?”

“Wrong place at the wrong time,” I said. “We jumped backward—”

“Bruce saved me,” Luz put in.

“—and a protruding bike pedal took a bite out of my leg. It wasn’t a park van. It was a car that shouldn’t have been there, and it was going about ninety miles an hour. Luz could have been killed.”

“Did you see what kind of car? I don’t suppose anybody got the license plate.”

“All I saw was running lights glowing like the eyes of a mad bull and then a black streak going by. And the crowd didn’t gather until the bikes crashed.”

“Let’s see your leg.” Barbara squatted down to examine my wound. I held out a hand to steady her and realized it was shaking.

“Maybe we should all sit down.”

The crowd was dispersing. Excitement over. Luz and Barbara helped me limp over to a bench. Barbara brought out a wad of tissues and a bottle of designer water and dabbed at the dirt around the wound.

“Ow! It stings! Take it easy, will you?”

“It really needs disinfectant and maybe stitches.”

“Forget it,” I said. “We’ll bandage it when we get to your place. I’ll be fine. I’m more concerned about Luz. This could be the same stalker who scared her before.”

“In the park?”

“It happened in the park the last time.”

“In a car? We didn’t plan to walk across the park,” Barbara said. “How could someone have followed us?”

“What goes up must come down,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“The road circles the whole park,” I said, thinking it through as I spoke. “Cars go uptown on the East Side behind the Met, across at the north end, and downtown parallel to Central Park West, right past where this guy almost got us. What if the stalker was following Luz? He could have picked her up at her apartment.”

“And followed her into the subway? By car?”

“I took the bus,” Luz said. “It was such a beautiful day.”

“But we spent more than an hour at the meeting,” Barbara said.

“So he waited. Followed her to my apartment, waited again, and followed us into the park. Then all he had to do was zip around the top at 110th Street and intercept us.”

“He could have taken a break while we were in the meeting,” Luz said. “If he knew it was a meeting, he’d know how long it would last.”

“Who would know it was a meeting?” Barbara asked, then answered her own question. “Only somebody in the program.”

Luz looked up, biting her lip, as the bell that signaled a customer’s entrance pinged. She stroked the smooth satin of the slip she had been folding. It was warm in the shop. Maybe that was why she was sweating. The boutique’s owner, an impossibly thin Park Avenue matron who didn’t need the money, often said, “Ladies don’t perspire.” If a woman stained her bras and camis beyond a dry cleaner’s abilities, she wasn’t good enough to buy them here.

The women surged into the shop. Four of them— four and a half: Netta’s gargantuan belly preceded her like a dignitary’s motorcycle escort. A woman with platinum tipped and rigidly sprayed hair, earrings far too large for the East Side, and a bright pink sweater festooned with bling had already found the high priced and artfully displayed items in the first showcase. The flaw in Luz’s plan had been that she could not actually put anything on sale. She hoped the ladies from Brooklyn would assume the price tags represented a reduction in even more expensive garments.

“Ooh, look at these,” the woman cooed. “Netta, you gotta see. If they don’t have it in maternity, you could get it for afterward.” Chomp, chomp. “You can wear it for you know who.”

Luz shuddered, hoping her reaction didn’t show on her welcoming saleswoman’s face. She recognized the voice and the sound of the ruminating jaw. She had last heard it as she cowered in a bathroom stall.

“Don’t be silly, Shirley,” Netta said. “I’m not thinking about afterward. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Listen to huh!” Shirley said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mimicked in a mincing voice. “Doncha?”

The third woman still held the door open, letting in a blast of frigid air as she ushered an older woman in.

“Come on, Mamma Silvia,” Netta said. “It’s warm in here.”

Madre de Dios
, Frankie’s mother! Luz’s bowels turned to water. It was too much.
They’ve never met me, they’ve never met me.
She said it like a rosary.

The woman at the door turned a glossy head of sculpted auburn hair. These women must spend a fortune at the beauty parlor. Maybe they could afford Chez Ashleigh’s wares, on sale or not.

“Come on, Aunt Silvia. There’s a cute little chair here. You can sit down, get comfy while we look. Wanna Tic Tac?”

Luz recognized that voice too.

“Let Netta sit. Do your ankles hurt, darling?”

“They’re a little swollen. But you sit too, Mamma Silvia.” She raised her voice. “There must be another chair.”

“Of course, madam. I’ll get it for you right away.” She schooled her face and tone not to betray her anger. Frankie had given her plenty of practice.

“I don’t know why I let you children talk me into this.” Silvia sank onto a little gilt stool with a tapestry cushion. “My heart is broken, and you want me to look at nightgowns.”

My heart is broken too
, Luz thought. She looked at Netta. Had she still loved Frankie? She continued to bear his babies, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be relieved that he was gone.

Luz placed another gilt chair, this one with a low scrolled back rest, next to Silvia’s.

“Let me help you, madam.”

Netta sat, one hand pushing at the small of her back and the other curved protectively over her enormous belly. She neither thanked Luz nor met her eyes.
Good
, Luz thought.
It would be horrible to like her.

“I wanna see this in a twelve,” the gum-chewer demanded. Shirley. “And the robe that comes with it. I can see Tony getting hot and bothered if I wore this.” She gave the irritating giggle Luz remembered.

The one who had called Frankie’s mother Aunt Silvia snickered.

“I should be so lucky. My Rocco gets hot and bothered when the Giants win, and that’s about it. But it is cute. Ya got the same one in ivory in an eight?”

“An eight!” Shirley scoffed. “You gotta be kidding, Patti. You haven’t been an eight since seventh grade.”