The Last Word (38 page)

“This is not for recreational use, Al. When you’re sick as a dog, we’ll revisit this
conversation.”

Dad turned to me for sympathy and said, “Your mother is such a square.”

1
. Like I was saying, white-collar criminals can get away with murder. Well, not exactly.

2
. It’s closed now. So don’t Google it.

D
ad returned to the hospital for the consolidation chemo and Dr. Chang had the results
of the antigen test.

“Good news,” Dr. Chang said. “We have a match.”

Rae pumped her fist into the air.

“It’s Isabel,” Dr. Chang said. “She’s a six-out-of-six antigen match.”

“What was I?” Rae asked.

“A half match,” Dr. Chang said.

“Is it possible they accidentally got the samples crossed?”

“No,” Dr. Chang said.

Rae was visibly disappointed. My mother sank into the chair next to Dad, breathing
a sigh of relief. Dad winked at me.

“The next step,” said Dr. Chang, “is DNA cross-matching, to test for the antigen compatibility.”

“I’m sure our antigens are compatible,” Dad said, as if all we needed to do was have
a friendly chat with them.

“We take white blood cells from Isabel and mix them with your blood, Albert. Hopefully
there’s a negative cross-match, which is a good thing.”

“Assuming Dad’s blood doesn’t attack Isabel’s white blood cells, when would this happen?”
David asked.

“In about a week, after we finish the consolidation chemo,” Dr. Chang said. “Isabel,
here’s some literature about what to expect. If you have any questions or concerns,
let me know.”

Rae followed Dr. Chang out of the hospital room with a question or concern. Mom and
David went across the street to get coffee, leaving me and Dad alone.

“I knew it would be you,” Dad said.

•  •  •

Late that night, when I had just fallen asleep, Rae knocked at my back door. She was
carrying that ridiculous briefcase she’d brought to the job interview she did for
Mom. Although, this time, her attire was decidedly less professional. I believe she
had pajamas on under her raincoat.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime? I know you like to rise with the stock market,” I said.

“I have a proposition for you. Where can we discuss it?”

“Wherever you can find a place to plant your ass.”

“This needs to be a professional conversation,” Rae said.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have worn pants with anthropomorphized peanut butter sandwiches
on them.”

Rae sat down on my easy chair; I took the bed.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“As you know, the business continues to have some financial difficulties.”

“Yes, Rae. I am aware of that.”

“You haven’t paid me the money you owe me. We currently have over five grand in outstanding
bills and we need more clients. I believe I’ve come to a sound conclusion.”

“Things could be better,” I conceded.

“What you need is a legal cash infusion,” Rae said.

“I am aware of that. Can I go to bed now? You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”

Rae opened her briefcase and withdrew several formal-looking documents along with
a bank check for a sizable amount.

“I want to buy back in,” she said. “Right now you own sixty percent of the company
and Mom and Dad own forty percent. I want to buy fifty percent of your shares. You
can take that money and then give the business a low-interest loan until we’re back
on our feet.”

“If I give you thirty percent, then Mom and Dad are back to having the majority share.”

“True,” Rae said. “But if we promise to have each other’s back, we can work together
and no one can steer the ship off course.”

“I thought you were done with this business,” I said. “What’s changed?”

“Have you seen a newspaper lately? The economy is sunk. The job prospects for someone
with just an undergraduate degree are dismal. I’m not sure about graduate school yet
and I don’t want some crappy entry-level job working for the man when I can be the
boss of me. I think this new business venture of mine has some traction.”

“Are you referring to the business that involves you spraying whipped cream on cars?”

“I’m referring to the business that has fifteen potential clients ready to hand over
retainer checks. In fact, right now we don’t have the personnel to handle all these
cases, so I’m going to have to cherry-pick my favorites. Can you say that about your
caseload?”

“I’m concerned about your loose ethics. Is there a line you won’t cross?”

“Of course,” Rae said.

“What is it?”

“The line shifts on a case-by-case basis.”

“That’s the part I don’t like.”

“Let me remind you of something. I let the air out of Marcus Lorre’s tires. You slashed
them and then let Vivien have at it. Can I be blunt?” Rae asked.

“Please,” I said.

“You and I both know that I have more restraint than you. So if you’re worried about
ethical boundaries, maybe you should just keep an eye on yourself.”

“I need to know what you’re doing,” I said. “All cases should be run by me.”

“I will you keep informed, but I work autonomously.”

“Shit,” I said.

“That’s a yes?” Rae said.

I didn’t have a choice and we both knew it. I couldn’t run this business alone anymore,
and I didn’t want to. I didn’t just need Rae’s money; I needed her help. Whether I
was signing a deal with the devil only time would tell, but I signed it on the spot
and immediately lost my status as boss.

•  •  •

Before Rae left, she turned on my computer and had me watch a video of a bone marrow
donation procedure, providing her own narration.

“You’ll be anesthetized, so you won’t feel a thing. They’ll stick a long needle into
your pelvic bone and take some marrow you won’t need. As you can see, you’ll be lying
on your stomach with part of your ass exposed. It’s probably too late to tell you
that you should have been cutting back on the Goldfish and maybe doing some squats.
Anyway, my point is, the procedure is no big deal. I could have done it without the
anesthetic.”

“Good night,” I said.

Sometimes my sister doesn’t understand that bidding adieu actually means
leave
, so I picked up her backpack and threw it outside. Then she got the hint.

•  •  •

I had hoped to tie up any loose ends before the procedure, but I remained stalled
in my investigation, or more specifically, my incrimination of Willard Slavinsky.
We knew he framed Edward, but I had no way of proving it. I felt as if I had failed
my boss.

“I had a good run,” Edward said. “I would gladly step down. I just don’t want to do
it under a cloud of shame.”

As Edward and I lamented his current predicament, the oddest thought crossed my mind.

What would a conflict resolution specialist do under the same set of
circumstances? I’m not in the business of revenge, but sometimes people need to be
schooled. Those are two entirely different concepts.

“Call Willard,” I said to Edward. “Invite him over to your office. See if maybe you
can come to an understanding.”

“He’s not a fool, Isabel. He won’t confess on tape.”

“Then seduce him.”

“I’m not in the mood for your jokes.”

“I have a plan. Call him and make sure he comes alone.”

•  •  •

Three hours later, Willard reluctantly dropped by Edward’s office. He had the pinched
expression of a man concealing every scrap of emotion. Before Edward said a word,
Charlie showed up and offered to get Willard’s parking ticket validated. Charlie passed
the ticket to me and I breezed past Evelyn’s vacated desk and stamped the ticket.
Then I headed down to the garage and waited for the parking attendant to deliver Willard’s
car.

Meanwhile, Edward struck up as benign a conversation as he could.

“I’m not sure what I’ll do with all of my free time,” he said.

“You’ll figure out something,” Willard said.

“There’s always golf.”

“Keeps me out of trouble.”

“Maybe I should play more tennis,” Edward said.

“Tennis is good. Was there a particular reason you wanted to see me?”

Edward’s phone rang.

“Excuse me,” he said, picking up the phone.

“It’s me,” I said as my sister met me in an alley behind a dim sum restaurant in Chinatown.
“Can you hold him for fifteen minutes? I’m still waiting for your brother to arrive.”

“I’ll do my best,” Edward said.

“I’m going to hang up,” I said. “But you might want to continue this phone call.”

Edward chatted with a dead line for another five minutes, until Slavinsky
started checking his watch and shifting impatiently in his chair. Edward ended his
fake conversation and killed the next three minutes complimenting Slavinsky’s casual
wear and asking him about his shopping habits. When Willard’s patience had all but
dried up, Edward then looked him dead in the eye and said, “Can you sleep at night?”

“I sleep just fine.”

“I know you didn’t do this alone. Who helped you?” Edward asked.

“Where is that boy of yours? I’m going to be late for my tee time.”

“We wouldn’t want that.”

Charlie was huffing and puffing when he rushed into Edward’s office and returned Slavinsky’s
ticket.

“Good catching up,” Willard said as he swiftly got to his feet.

“Let’s do this again sometime,” Edward said.

•  •  •

Fifteen minutes later, a plainclothes police officer flashed his lights and motioned
for Slavinsky to pull his Mercedes to the curb.

“Is there a problem, officer?” Slavinsky impatiently asked.

The officer said, “We received an anonymous call about a man driving erratically matching
your description. The caller suggested you were carrying explosives.”

“Do I look like the sort of man who carries explosives around with him?”

“I don’t know,” the officer said. “I don’t work in the bomb squad. Do you mind if
I check your vehicle?”

“Fine. Whatever. Just make it fast.”

“Please pop your trunk and put your hands on the steering wheel.”

The officer checked the trunk of the car, called in for backup, and asked Slavinsky
to step out of his car.

“Is there a problem?”

“Where were you planning on going with twelve cans of tear gas and three dozen sticks
of dynamite?”

•  •  •

One hour later, Henry Stone served up his most disapproving gaze as he directed me
to Slavinsky’s interview room.

“Don’t look at me like that. You agreed to this plan,” I said.

“You owe me,” he said.

“I recently came into a bit of money. Will forty bucks do it?”

“I want to be friends. I don’t want you to completely vanish from my life. Those are
my terms.”

“Seriously?” I said, eyeing the fidgety Slavinsky through the one-way mirror.

“I’m not letting you into the room,” Henry said, “until you agree.”

“I’m not going to your wedding,” I said, clarifying the terms. “And don’t invite me
to any baby showers.”

“Fine.”

I held out my hand. “So we’re friends,” I said.

“We’re friends,” he said.

“It’s really over, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

I looked him in the eye. I couldn’t remember the last time I did that. He had the
kindest eyes, eyes you knew were never lying to you. You cannot say that about most
eyes. Henry refused to take my hand. He kissed me on the cheek and left. As endings
go, this one was unsatisfying. It was like a leaky faucet that finally got fixed,
only you had gotten so used to the leak, you almost didn’t care. Also, you had some
guy in an interview room waiting for you, so you really had no way to segue out of
that metaphor.

•  •  •

It didn’t take Willard long to sort out his predicament, especially after I walked
in.

“Isabel,” he said. “I believe I called an attorney.”

“I don’t know anything about that. I just happened to be in the station
and saw you here in
the box
, as they call it on some TV shows from the early nineties.
¹
Thought I’d say hi. Hi. Can I get you anything? Water? Soda? I know where they keep
the water and the soda.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to fix Edward’s problem. You and Edward own enough shares of the company
that you can dictate any decisions made by the board of directors. If you wanted,
you could get them all to forget about his little indecent-exposure incident, which
has already been settled in court, and reinstate him as CEO.”

“Why would I do that?”

“So they’ll drop the terrorism and hate crime charges against you,” I said. “Where
have you been?”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“The tear gas and explosives in the trunk of your car when you were obviously en route
to your country club.”

“You put them there.”

“No, I didn’t. You were going to blow up the place.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you were really mad that they recently let in a Jew and a black. And not
one of those Sammy Davis Jr. twofers.”

“As usual, I have no idea what you’re talking about, Isabel.”

“I think that’s an excellent defense. It’s certainly my go-to defense, but what about
the e-mails?”

“What e-mails?” Slavinsky asked. He was turning the shade of a Campbell’s soup can.
The red part, of course.

So, I showed him the e-mails, which contained very brief threats to his country club
from the e-mail address statusquo@[redacted].com. The tone was a bit off for a rich/angry/elitist
racist, but it did the trick.

“I didn’t write these e-mails, I don’t know who this statusquo person is, and I most
certainly do not share this sentiment.”

“That might very well be true, but as you know, sometimes the truth is irrelevant.”

“You still need proof,” Willard said smugly. His tomato-soup face was returning to
its usual shade of princess pink.

“But we can prove that the e-mails were sent from your computer,” I said.