The Collectibles (25 page)

A
lthough Preston would have preferred to stay at the Bellagio or one of the other newer, upscale casinos, he figured it would be better to stay at the Frontier, easier for Missy. When he checked in, Nevada being three hours behind New York, his room was not yet ready. He tried Missy's cell phone, but getting no answer, he roamed around the casino and wandered into the coffee shop. He checked back with the reception desk; his room still was not ready, but the young man behind the counter told Preston he had a message and handed him an envelope. His expression soured as he was reminded of the last envelope he had opened. This was a brief note from Missy explaining that she was working the morning shift in the casino and would be off at twelve-thirty, suggesting they meet in the coffee shop at one. Preston checked his watch and, noting that it was 12:45 p.m., set out for the coffee shop, wondering how he would recognize her.

Preston left his name with the hostess, explaining that a Miss Scarlatti would be joining him, and sat down in a corner booth with red and white leather upholstery. Preston was lost in thought. The business, Marcia, everything that had happened to him in the last few months swirled in his head, and now he was embarking on this strange inherited project. His thoughts were interrupted by one of the most attractive women he had ever seen, standing in front of his table with her hand out.

“Hi, I'm Missy.”

Preston started to stand up and come out of the booth, but Missy waved him to sit down.

“You're fine,” she said, joining him at the table. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Wilson. How was your flight?”

“Easy. It was comfortable up front; I read a little and slept most of the way.”

“Never flown first class,” Missy said with a smile. “Must be nice. Anyway, glad you made it safe and sound. Where are you staying?”

“Right here, the Frontier, waiting for my room to be ready.”

“Yeah, it takes awhile, particularly when the busloads come in. Probably it'll be ready around three-thirty or four. My shift started early and I'm starved. Do you mind if we order?”

“Not at all. I'll call a waitress over.”

“You don't need to. She'll be here in a minute. She knows what I want anyway. Everything's pretty good here.” Missy looked Preston over. “So tell me,” she said, “how long do you plan to be here?”

“I'm not sure, Miss Scarlatti.”

“Missy. And I plan to call you Preston, unless you've got a better idea.”

“No, Preston is good.” The waitress strolled over, and they ordered, Missy nodding when the waitress asked whether she wanted her usual.

“So what brings you here? All I know is that you know Joe. How do you know him?”

“I first met Joe, actually, when I was a kid – fifteen. My father dragged me up to the Adirondack Mountains for some father-son bonding. I hated it. Joe was helping his uncle, who was a guide for my dad and me. I thought he was a weird guy, Joe's uncle, but I knew a lot less than I thought I did then.

“Joe actually saved my life. I lost my footing and fell down into a deep crevice in the mountains. Somehow, the old man lowered Joe by a rope down to where I was, Joe got a rope around me, and I was hauled out of there. Pretty scary, although I acted like it was nothing. I didn't see Joe for another thirty years, but I tracked him down a few months ago. Ironically, he was up in the same mountains. I had gotten myself into a pretty bad business mess – I own some car dealerships around the country and some real estate, and I owed the banks and others a lot of money – and I'd heard that Joe was a lawyer specializing in getting business people out of messes like that.”

“So you're a car guy?”

“Well, yes, I'm in the automotive business.”

“You don't look like a car guy.”

“No? How's that?”

“I see a lot of guys out here. Vegas gets a lot of dealer conventions, NADA, I think they call it, and a lot of other meetings involving automobile dealers. You don't have the car-guy look, that's all.”

“What's the car-guy look?”

“Oh, a touch harder, gold necklace, bracelet, rings, no tie, shirt open, unbuttoned at the top. You're not even wearing a Rolex.”

“I know what you mean. To tell you the truth, I don't think of myself as a car guy, either. I'm not on the sales side. I own the companies. I'd like to think I'm on the business executive side, as CEO and chairman of my companies.”

“I see,” Missy said. “Anyway, back to Joe. He does get a lot of people out of messes. Doesn't have to be business. He's that kind of guy. So he agreed to help you?”

“Yes, and he did. It was unbelievable. He wrote a plan and presented it to the main bank I was in trouble with. It was a very comprehensive plan. Frankly, I didn't think we had a chance. I thought I was done. But somehow, Joe convinced the bank to give me another shot. Unreal. I still can't get over it.”

“That's Joe.”

“How did you meet him?”

“Actually I met Joe's wife Ashley first. She was running a domestic shelter.”

“A domestic shelter?”

“Yeah, a place where spouses who have been knocked around, battered, can go for help. What a fine woman. I couldn't believe she was spending her time doing that. Anyway, I got help.

“It's complicated. I wanted to get as far away as possible, where nobody would find me. Went to New York, upstate, a rural area. I was hurting for money, stayed in a small motel, cabin really. It turned out Joe owned the cabins. He was up there looking things over. That's when I first met him. He's been looking after me ever since. Anyway, I'm happy to meet any friend of Joe's. I'm just wondering what all of this has to do with me, though.”

“This is a little weird, I know,” Preston said. “All I can tell you is that Joe really wanted me to meet you and get to know you. He obviously thinks a lot of you. Joe knows I'm married, so it's nothing like that. I know it sounds funny, but he just wants me to get to know you.”

“That's not so funny, Preston, not so hard to understand. I like the fact that Joe wants people to get to know me. Makes me feel good, important. Tell me about your wife. What's her name? What's she like?”

“Her name is Marcia. She's about your height. She's very pretty. And she's smart.”
A lot smarter than I've given her credit for.
“We live in Manhattan. She used to teach psychology at Columbia. Now, she's helping schools set up gifted-children programs. She's got a lot of friends. People love her.”

“How about you, Preston? Do you love her?”

“Of course.”

“Any kids?”

“No, not yet.”

They were quiet for a while as they ate their lunch. Preston worried that this was not going as well as it should.

 

Missy excused herself for a moment, telling Preston with a warm smile that she had to powder her nose. But before returning to the table, she reached in her handbag and took out her cell phone. She punched Joe's number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Joe, it's Missy.”

“Hi, are you okay? Is anything wrong?”

“I'm fine. How are you? Where are you?”

“I'm down in the Bahamas fishing. Had a great day. Actually, I was shooting trap on the back of my boat out in the ocean with a friend.”

“How do you shoot trap from a boat?”

“You don't, usually. My friend Harry is pretty clever, and he rigged up a device to do it.”

“I have to go, Joe, but I wanted to ask you: there's a guy here named Preston Wilson. He called me and said he was coming out, wanted to meet me, and said he knows you. He said you encouraged him to meet me. I'm having lunch with him right now. I just ducked out to go to the ladies' room. Is this guy for real?”

“I'm glad he's out there, Missy. I did suggest that he meet you and get to know you. He's not a bad guy. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, trying to work his way out of a few problems.”

“Sounds like he's got a silver corncob up his ass.”

“That, too,” Joe said, laughing. “But, Missy, he could use your help right now. Don't be too tough on him; it's hard being rich. Get to know him and see if there's any way you could be of help, would you?”

“Jesus, Joe. That's the first time you've ever asked me to do anything. Of course I'll help any way I can. I'm glad I caught you. Keep having fun down there and catch some fish.”

“Thanks. Great to talk to you. I may be
incommunicado
for a while – the reception can be bad down here. I hope things continue to go well for you. You're quite a lady.”

“Thanks,” Missy said, her eyes moist. “Talk to you later.” She returned to Preston just as he was hanging up his own cell phone.

“So what do you and Marcia do together?” Missy asked.

Silence for a moment. “Well, to be honest, Missy, I've been tied up with my stores, my business, flying around the country, and I haven't done a lot with Marcia lately. I come home from a trip, I'm tired. We talk a little, have a drink, that sort of thing. Once in a while we go to the opera and the ballet. Marcia likes that. And to dinners with her friends, business associates. She works out at the club. She stays in good shape.”

“What's really going on, Preston? Are you having problems with Marcia? Talk to me.”

“No, well, why do you say that?”

“I don't know. Just listening to you, sounds to me like there's more to the story, that's all. It's not a problem. You don't need to tell me anything. I've got enough problems of my own to deal with. So what are you going to do here while you're in Vegas? Gamble? See a show? Hook up with a woman? What?”

“Let's start over,” Preston said, realizing he was getting in trouble. “I came here to get to know you. I haven't started out very well. I should have asked you a lot more about yourself. I would like to know more about you, if you're willing to talk to me about you. And let me be more forthright about Marcia. I'm too used to giving evasive answers, and I don't want to do that now. I apologize. The truth is, my wife left me a couple of weeks ago. She wrote me a note telling me that she was going to see her mother and then her college roommate. Lord knows why she needs to see her.”

“You mean the roommate?”

“Yes.”

“You don't like her, I gather.”

“Not really.”

“Do you like her mother?”

“Not really, either.”

“Marcia got a boyfriend?”

“No, or at least I don't think so. I never heard anything about that. God, I hope not.”

“Have you tried to reach her?”

“No, she told me in the note that she wasn't taking her cell phone and not to call her.”

“She took her cell phone with her, Preston. She's probably wondering why you haven't tried to call her. She must want time to think. She must have been under a lot of pressure. Have you ever done anything to hurt her?”

“You mean physically? God, no. Why would you ask that?”

“Just asking. She must have left you for some reason. Why do you think she left?”

“You're right about her being under pressure. I had her sign a lot of personal guarantees in connection with my corporate debt. Then, when it looked like things were going to blow up, that the banks would foreclose, including on the personal guarantees, I had to get her signature on some consents and that brought the whole matter out about the risk to her in signing the guarantees. There was even discussion from our criminal lawyers about going to jail because we hadn't paid the bank back when we should've. She wasn't really at risk in terms of jail, but she was pretty upset. Mainly, she was upset because I hadn't told her about the deterioration of my business. She said she thought we were in this together.”

“She sounds like she loves you. She just hates that you used her for the guarantees and weren't honest with her. Mostly, it sounds like she hates that you didn't tell her about what was going on.”

“That's pretty much what she said when we last talked, or I should say, argued. Then I got a note, which I'm still not sure I understand.”

“Tell me about the note,” Missy said, pouring herself another cup of coffee. “This is getting interesting.”

“I was on my way down to Charlotte for a big conference with the bank there, which Joe had arranged. She told me she hoped I had a good trip and that the meeting would be successful. She knew I was a nervous wreck about it, not that I said that. She said she'd been thinking a lot about us, and she's tried hard to be the wife I wanted her to be. That bothered me. I'm not sure I understood it. And then she talked about losing something, and that she thought what she had lost was her. I read the note over and over, and I still don't understand that.”

“What's so hard to understand about that, Preston? Jesus. You're working all the time. You told me that. You're running around the country, being a big shot CEO. You don't spend time with your wife. You have her sign a bunch of guarantees, putting her ‘at risk,' as you put it, and then you don't level with her when things start going south. You don't include her, you don't talk to her, and yet you tell me you think she's smart. She's trying to figure out where she fits into all of this because the woman she was is apparently not the woman you expect her to be. She lost herself. I get that. Why don't you get it?”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“I believe that,” she said, thinking,
You belong to an exclusive club of men – the All About Me Club. No wonder you wouldn't think of it that way.
“You've got to lighten up a little. Try looking at things from other people's point of view. Try to put yourself in Marcia's shoes. It's pretty understandable that she'd be talking with her mom and a former roommate somewhere. If she hasn't got a boyfriend, it's only a matter of time, I can tell you that. If you want your wife back, you better figure out where she is, go to her, and let her know you love her before it's too late.”