The Blossom Sisters (22 page)

A little lady named Anna Bristow stood up and asked about the gardens that she and several of the others had planted that would provide fresh produce for the whole summer.

“I don't see this as a problem, Anna. We have the golf carts, and there's enough room on the back of each cart to transport the produce in baskets. Put that down on your sheet when you write what you're good at or want to do.”

Rose took the floor. “How do you want me to discharge the legal firm and the accounting firm when we've been doing business with them since we started?”

“Barney and I can do that. You have both firms on a retainer, and you really haven't utilized all the money you paid out. I'm working for free. The lawyer we plan to bring on board will probably donate her services. It's win-win. People change firms all the time, and no one takes offense; that's just part of doing business. I feel confident when I tell you I think we can have all the legalities and accounting up to snuff inside of a month. You won't have to do the ledgers anymore, Granny. Everything will be computerized and will serve as valid records should you ever have to produce them to any agency making inquiries into your business.”

“When do the ten days start?” Violet asked.

“Today. We're going to start carting all your inventories over here and use the west wing to store them. You will also work in designated rooms in the west wing for each project. It will be a day or two of chaos, but we'll get it all worked out. We're up for volunteers to help us cart all your supplies and inventory. We can call Pastor Evans to see if he has any high school kids who want to work a few hours after school.

“Barney and I are going to leave you for a bit. Talk about this among yourselves, and if you're all in agreement, fill out the sheets about your likes, dislikes, and goals. We'll be back in an hour for your decision.”

A short round man in the back stood up, introduced himself, and asked for confirmation as to the two weeks' vacation and how it would be arranged.

“With a travel agent,” Barney said, heading for the door.

“What about holidays?” Elroy Hitchens called out.

“All holidays are paid and you have Christmas week off, too,” Barney shot back.

“Well, I want to go to Las Vegas. They give seniors a free lunch and twenty-five dollars to gamble. Can we do that?”

Gus thought Barney was going to pull his hair out. “You can go wherever you want on your vacation.”

“It has to be a senior trip, or you don't get the free lunch and the twenty-five dollars. A bus trip. B-U-S!” Elroy bellowed, his eyes on Gus. “A special trip, not a vacation.”

“I'll work on it, Elroy,” Gus said, shoving Barney ahead of him.

“Damn! I'd rather go up against a bunch of Wall Street sharks than those people. You sure we can make this work, Gus?”

“Yeah. I'm sure.”

“You gonna drive a bus all the way to Vegas, Gus?” Barney laughed so hard, tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Only if you're my copilot.” It was Gus's turn to laugh. “I think you need to buy these guys a bus, Barney. I mean, you're rich, it won't make a dent in your bottom line, and I'm sure you can write it off.”

“A big yellow bus?”

“Well, yeah. You'll need to call Detroit and order it. Get all the bells and whistles and make sure there are seat belts. Elroy is going to want TV for the long trip.”

Barney gaped at his friend.

“Isn't this fun, Barney?” Gus asked.

“I gave up making bushels of money to do this and to buy a bus. Already I'm losing money. And yeah, I'm having a hell of a good time.”

“Sure you are. Wait, it's going to get better. I'm feeling the love, I really am. Listen, Barney,” Gus said, turning serious, “you're
getting
this, aren't you? It's not about money with the seniors. It's about being a family, belonging, your peers watching over you, helping you. They just want to be productive, to count for something at their age. Before they came here, according to Granny, they were the forgotten ones. Barney, if I live to be a hundred, I will never forget the looks on the seniors' faces when I rolled up in that yellow bus. They couldn't wait to get on that bus, to get as far away from the facilities where they'd been living. I was the guy who made that happen. At least, the getaway part. We both know
that
feeling from when we were kids.”

“What? You think I'm not getting it? Of course I'm getting it. What the hell do you think I'm here for? Sometimes you're a jerk, Augustus Hollister.”

“Takes one to know one.” Gus grinned. They were back to being kids again. He loved every minute of it, and he knew Barney did, too.

Chapter 23

E
LAINE HOLLISTER SASHAYED INTO SYCAMORE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
and walked straight to the information counter, where she asked for Isaac Diamond's room number. “I'm his granddaughter,” she explained. She waited, looking around to see who, if anyone, was watching her. Visitors, nurses in white uniforms and rubber-soled shoes, and technicians moved from area to area. She didn't see anyone who might be paying attention to her. She'd never been here before, so she asked where the gift shop was, then she asked, “By any chance, do you know if Grandpa has any visitors? I don't want to intrude if other members of the family are visiting. I can wait my turn.”

The sweet young candy striper offered to call the nurses' station to ask. A moment later, she said, “The head nurse told me that Mr. Diamond has no visitors, and you can go straight up. His room number is E444. The gift shop is around the corner.”

Elaine almost fainted when she heard the room number—444. How perfect was that? She forced herself to take several deep breaths before she was ready to walk on jittery legs to the gift shop, where she bought a single white rose with some mixed greenery nestled in a slender glass vase. She hoped she would remember to wipe her fingerprints off it before she left. The gift shop attendant wrapped several napkins around the sweating vase she'd taken out of the cooler. “So it doesn't slip out of your hands,” the volunteer said. Problem solved.

Elaine's thoughts were all over the place as she walked to the elevator and pressed the button for the fourth floor. A good-looking young intern stepped into the elevator and stood next to Elaine. Any other time, she would have gone into full flirt mode, but she barely noticed the young man.

Elaine got off the elevator on the fourth floor, and checked the painted arrows on the wall with the room numbers. She didn't bother going to the nurses' station but went directly down the hall to Room E444. The door was closed but not completely. Elaine knocked softly and opened the door at the same time. She made sure she closed it all the way behind her. She didn't step forward until she heard the clack of the heavy-duty door snap shut. “Good morning, Isaac!” She loved it that the old man looked pasty and gray, as well as shocked to see her standing in his hospital room. “How are you? Your office called me the other day to tell me about your accident.”

Isaac did his best to cover his surprise at seeing her standing there. His eyes were wary. “Everyone is trying to make my accident more than it is. I'm being discharged tomorrow and will have some physical therapy at home for a few weeks. I told them I was driving myself home tomorrow. I'm so sure of it, I had my son drop off my car last evening. This is just a blip on my hip. Get it—blip hip?”

“I guess what you're trying to say is you're the same seventy-eight-year-old superstud you were the night you manhandled me. With the aid of four little blue pills.” Elaine made a sound of disgust in her throat before she said, “I just came here to tell you that I want a refund of my retainer.”

“Elaine, as much as I appreciate your coming here, I really am not up to doing business of any kind. I'm sure my partners offered their services. Make an appointment to talk with them. I can tell you this, though. We did quite a bit of work on your case. We hired private detectives, I had meetings about your case, there were e-mails and phone calls and, of course, our hourly rate all gets deducted from that retainer.”

“Isaac, Isaac, you aren't listening to me. I didn't
ask
you to return it. I
told
you to return my retainer. I won't take no for an answer.” Before Isaac could respond, Elaine moved to the bed and reached for the call button, which was twined around the bars of the bed. “Don't even think about calling out, because if you do, I'll give you a chop to your throat that will crush your larynx. Tell me you understand what I just said.”

Isaac nodded.

“Okay, now, this is what we're going to do. Ooops, I meant to say what
you're
going to do. I'm just going to listen. Oh, Isaac, you look . . . scared. What's wrong? Are you not feeling well? Not that I care. Try and get comfortable because I'm going to make your day, you son of a bitch!”

“What's wrong with you, Elaine? Why are you threatening me like this? And you are threatening me.”

“Why? You have the nerve to lie there and ask me why? All those disgusting, degrading things you made me do the other night, that's why. You're a pervert. You're a dirty old man.”

“You could have left anytime you wanted. You went along with it because you wanted me to lie and cheat for you. I'm a lawyer, and I don't do things like that. I take my profession seriously.”

“You took advantage of my greed. I admit it. You said you would make it come out right in the end if I had sex with you. Sex is sex, and, yes, I agreed to a simple bump and grind. What you did to me was not acceptable. And, Isaac, I have it all on tape. So, listen up, you bastard.” Elaine pressed the tiny button on the medallion hanging around her neck. Isaac's courtroom voice, filled with lust and passion, reverberated through the hospital room. “Tell me when you've had enough. Make sure you pay attention to my voice when I'm telling you to stop, when I'm fighting you, and you're telling me to shut up and take it like a whore. Once this goes public, if you force me to go that route, I am sure there will be many women, probably clients, who will come forward. Your call, sweetie.”

“Turn it off. What do you want, Elaine?”

“Money. Lots and lots of money.”

Elaine's mind raced. How much was too much? What if she lowballed it? She thought about her half of Gus's house, which, if she was lucky, would be $250,000 sometime in the future, possibly years, before the house could be sold. She straightened her shoulders and said, “I think three hundred seventy-five thousand dollars plus my retainer back will do nicely. What I want you to do is call your bank, your broker, or whomever you have to call, and tell them to wire the money into an account whose number I will give you when you're ready.”

“That's blackmail!” Isaac blustered.

“Yes it is.”

“You're insane! I'm not paying you four hundred thousand dollars for a roll in the sack.”

“Sure you are. Because if you don't, I'll send copies of your performance to your partners, to the Bar Association, and to every judge in Sycamore Springs and in this part of Virginia. And I'll send it to the newspapers. I'm going to count to five, and if you don't already have the phone in your hand by the time I get to one, I'm walking out of here. And there are no second chances.”

“Bitch!”

“Bastard. I'm going to start counting now.”

“Wait just a damned minute. If I do what you want, how do I know you won't come back again and again? That's what blackmailers do. They try to suck you dry.”

“Guess that's a chance you have to take. What's it going to be, Isaac?”

“Give me that thing,” Isaac gestured toward the recorder.

“After you make the call, and I'm sure the money is in my account. Not one second before.”

“How many copies have you made?”

“Enough to carry me through till the day you die, you son of a bitch. Do I start counting, or do you want to man up and pay for what you did to me?”

“Give me the damned phone.”

An orderly opened the door and said, “Time for rehab, Mr. Diamond.”

“Ooooh, can you wait just a few minutes? Grandpa needs to make a phone call first. It will take just a minute.”

The orderly ogled Elaine and backed out of the room. “Five minutes, Mr. Diamond. Your time is reserved with the therapist.”

“Guess you better make it snappy, Isaac.” Elaine handed the phone to the lawyer. She stood close enough so she could hear every word on both ends of the line. She held up her account number and the routing numbers.

Elaine could barely breathe as she listened to Isaac transfer $400,000 into her account. When he broke the connection, Elaine took one long, deep breath. She turned around just as the orderly came back into the room.

“Time to go, Mr. Diamond.”

Elaine always prided herself on being able to think on her feet. She knew instantly what she had to do. “I'll just sit here and wait for you, Grandpa. I brought a book with me. Now, you do what they tell you to do so you can get out of here and back home to all of us. I'll just sit here and wait for you,” she said playfully as she wagged a finger in Isaac's direction. Just for good measure, she winked at the orderly, who got so flustered he pushed Isaac's wheelchair into the door. She laughed when she heard Isaac curse.

Isaac Diamond glared at Elaine, but said nothing as the orderly helped him out of bed and into the waiting wheelchair.

Elaine waited until she heard the ping of the elevator before she got up to close the door. She moved lightning fast, checking the closet and the drawers of the night chest. She almost laughed out loud when she saw Isaac's car keys and wallet. What a fool he was to leave things like this in a hospital room. She helped herself to the $400 in the wallet, and to the Visa card. Four hundred dollars, another sign. She removed the car key. Time to go.

“Four, four, four,” Elaine kept mumbling as she made her way out of the hospital. She headed straight for the parking garage, where she pressed the key to give her some idea of where Isaac's pride and joy, his favorite toy, a Mercedes Maybach worth $450,000, had been parked. She listened, heard the chirp coming from the upper level. She looked around to where she'd parked her VW to get her bearings. She walked over to her car and took a screwdriver out of her trunk, removed the license plate, and stuck it in her purse. She was glad she'd backed the little car into the parking slot. She then made her way up the ramp to the next level as she searched out the Maybach. She looked around for security cameras, but didn't see any. Nor did she see any people looking for their cars. She quickly removed the license plate and screwed the VW's plate onto the Maybach.

Elaine raced back down to the lower level and fixed the plate from the Maybach onto the VW, then back up to the next level, where she opened the car door with the remote, got in, and drove out of the parking garage. She was now $850,000 richer.

Elaine drove the silver Maybach like she was born to do it. As she ate up the miles, a smile stayed on her face all the way home. She swerved into her driveway, bolted out of the car, and ran up to the deck. She checked the duct tape and saw that everything was the way she had left it.

Inside, she went to the front door, checked it, too, then backed into the house. All was well. She ran upstairs and changed into jeans and a tee shirt. Her heels were replaced with Gucci sneakers. She moved then, faster than she'd ever moved in her life. She carried boxes and boxes out to the cavernous trunk in the Maybach. Back inside, she packed all her designer clothes into her designer luggage and carried it all out to the car and jammed it to the ceiling in the car, being careful to leave the driver's side of the rear window free. She stacked the last of her things in the passenger seat and on the floor.

Back in the house, Elaine sat down at the table and typed out a text to Gus's cell phone. It was short and sweet.

Elaine hit the SEND button and powered down. She slipped the phone into her already loaded shoulder bag. First chance she got, she would ditch the phone and get a new one.

Elaine walked through the house to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything and wasn't leaving something behind. Satisfied, she walked out of Gus's house for the last time. She kept her word and placed the key above the doorframe.

Where to go? Maybe south, the Carolinas. Time to take a few years off to recharge her batteries before going out to find a good old boy with a southern drawl who knew how to treat a lady.

Little did Elaine know, as she tooled down the interstate, that the next mark she chose, one Beauregard Levi Mac-Namara, would turn out to be a Bernie Madoff wannabe, and that for years after getting involved with him, she would be back to driving a lemon yellow Beetle.

 

While Elaine was tooling down the interstate in Isaac Diamond's $450,000 Maybach, Gus and Barney were listening to the seniors' vote of confidence. The vote to go with Gus and Barney's plan was a hundred percent unanimous. Even Oscar, who had wanted to kill Gus, was in total agreement.

Gus and Barney walked among the group to shake each man's hand and to receive a motherly hug from the ladies, including the Blossom sisters.

Fresh fortune cookies and lemonade were served.

At the end of what Violet called the social hour to cement their new plan, the seniors dispersed, and Gus and Barney were left with each senior's résumé.

“Listen, Barney, we have to really read these so we get a clear idea of each person here. When we call them by name, that means we know them and their stories. And each of them has a story. I don't want either of us to think they're just a bunch of old people. I want each one of them to be my friend, and I want us to do what's best for our friends. Do you agree with me?”