The Last Word (39 page)

“That’s impossible,” Willard shouted, slamming his fist on the screwed-down table.

I whispered, “It’s actually not impossible. Our computer expert checked the headers
and can trace the e-mails through the IP address back to your home computer.”
²

“You won’t get away with this.”

“No. You won’t get away with it. Trust me, these e-mails were written on your computer.
I had no idea you had so much anger in you.”

Willard studied the e-mails, his face white as a sheet, his hands trembling like a
drunk with DTs. Mostly he was furious, trying to keep it under containment. His eyes
darted around the room as he tried to figure out his next chess move. As has been
established, I suck at chess, so I can’t really draw a proper analogy. I can only
tell you that Willard was cornered and he had no way out. I made sure of that.

“How do I make this go away?” he eventually asked.

“When Edward is CEO again, I’ll make sure all the evidence disappears. Do we have
a deal?”

“This is outrageous.”

“Do we have a deal?”

“Yes.”

“One more thing,” I said. “I know you didn’t do this alone. What is your relationship
with Lenore or Nora?”

“We’re involved.”

“How much did she help?”

“She helped.”

“Did she drug Edward?”

“Yes.”

“I want to know how.”

“The first time, his bourbon. Once he was knocked out, we drove him to Oakland and
dropped him off. The second time, in the teapot in his office. Once he and Charlie
were unconscious, we got him out of the building.”

“Then stripped him naked and dropped him in front of the elementary school?”

Willard cleared his throat.

“Why, Willard? You have enough money. I’ve seen where you live.”

“He got lucky. He married a rich woman who was stupid enough to not have a prenup
and then all of this is his. I didn’t think he deserved it. I helped him make decisions
every step of the way. It was as much mine as his.”

“What about Damien? You recommended him. Was he in on any of it?”

“He was just a recommendation,” Willard said. “Are we done here?”

“You are most definitely done. Obviously, I don’t think you and Edward should work
together anymore.”

I left Slavinsky in the box and phoned Edward as I left the police station.

“I’m on my way.”

“Want me to see if I can find any uranium on the black market?” he asked.

“Nope,” I said. “I think we’re good.”

I returned to Edward’s office. I suppose I had a spring in my step for the first time
in months, so Edward knew our plan had succeeded.

“It worked, I take it?”

“It worked. It couldn’t have been easy to get your hands on that much dynamite in
ninety minutes.”

“I know people,” Edward said.

“Please don’t say anything that I would have to deny in a court of law.”

“I’m sure you say that to all the boys.”

“I wish I could have video-recorded it for you. It was so satisfying.”

“I’m sure.”

“So what happens next?” Edward asked.

“Willard will recommend to the board that you be reinstated as CEO and you buy him
out. I think this partnership has run its course.”

“And that’s that. He gets away with everything he’s done?” Edward asked.

“There’s still a police record, and we have the interviews if he gets any wild ideas
in the future.”

“It doesn’t seem like enough, does it?”

“No,” I said. “That’s why I got him a subscription to
American Renaissance
³
magazine and had a KKK hood put in his locker at the country club.”

“Isabel!” Edward exclaimed, somewhere between mortification and amusement. “Do you
have any sense of decency?”

“A little.”

Edward sat there, contemplating what we had done and what we would be doing to Willard
over the next few weeks. His amused smile turned into a slight chuckle. Then he began
laughing convulsively, I think more out of relief than anything else.

1
.
Homicide: Life on the Street.

2
. Robbie Gruber was going to get another porn gift basket.

3
. A white supremacist magazine. Please don’t look it up. Even out of curiosity.

H
onestly, I don’t think I have anything more to say. I could keep documenting my life
until I find that perfect moment to end these reports. Maybe it would be a transient
instant of bliss that would fool you into believing in happily ever after, but it
wouldn’t fool me. I have no idea what’s in store for me, but there will be no walking
off into the sunset. I could kill a few more decades waiting for a goddamn epiphany
and then reflect back on my youth and say something so wise, you’d want to quote it
back to your friends again and again, but it would take me months to come up with
that wise saying and I probably wouldn’t even mean it. Or I could just keep writing
about my misadventures into my twilight years: “My walker is on the fritz again; even
the tennis balls need replacing. My neighbor Ellie wants me to look into who is stealing
her newspaper. I’m getting too old for this shit. One day, maybe, I’ll retire and . . .”

Sometimes people die mid–narrative sentence. Rather than leave you with a half-baked
ending thirty, forty years from now, I’m going to take my final bow. This is no easy
feat, since I’m lying on a gurney.

The anesthesiologist just gave me some really awesome sedatives.

Before I go, or before I go under, there’s a lot of information to disburse and I
don’t want to leave you hanging, so I better get started.

Edward Slayter was offered his old CEO position back, but he declined. He said he
was going to try to live his life while he could still remember it. The first thing
on his agenda was firing Damien, just to be safe. Then he took a road trip with Ethan,
like the one they planned when they were teenagers, only they didn’t drive across
the country, they went to Reno and gambled and saw some shows that I decided I wouldn’t
ask them about. Charlie then drove Ethan and Edward to Lompoc, so Ethan could turn
himself in. The brothers said good-bye and Edward promised to visit whenever he could.

Edward, no longer CEO but still the key decision-maker in his company, encouraged
the board of directors to look for a CEO who was not a white male. You’d be surprised
how many people fall into that category.

Evelyn Glade returned 90 percent of the money she embezzled, got probation, dumped
her boyfriend, and got engaged to Arthur Bly. I’m not sure why or how he forgave her
involvement with the company embezzlement, but I suspect their relationship always
ran deeper than I thought. Do I think it’s a perfect match? No. But I think they’re
both getting what they want.

Grammy is on a yearlong seniors’ cruise. She corresponds by postcard and the occasional
text message. All she writes is,
I’m alive. Hope UR 2
.

Princess Banana has given up her tiara. She now wears a blue mechanic’s jumpsuit and
wields a wrench. She talks about working at an auto repair shop. It’s amazing how
quickly children grow up.

Rae and Vivien set out to completely massacre the reputation of Lightning Fast Moving
Company. Right now their Yelp rating average is a two, and last we checked they were
filing for bankruptcy.

Vivien is on academic probation. Apparently she spent more time writing those Yelp
reviews than working on her papers. Her parents have insisted that she take a short
break from Spellman Investigations.

Morgan Freeman
¹
has at least three films coming out this year.

Charlie Black, navigational consultant, apparently never forgot about
Sweatergate. Perhaps overestimating the risk of my going under general anesthesia,
he decided to absolve me of my sins. How he figured out this particular sin, I never
learned.

“I forgive you for stealing my sweater,” Charlie said magnanimously. “You must have
really liked it.”

“I
loved
it,” I said.

And I meant it.

Now on to the more important stuff, before they wheel me away. I broke the news to
my parents about the deal I brokered with Rae. They seemed pleased until Rae started
running prospective cases by the company.

“I’ve got a possible client who would like us to make his girlfriend stop sneezing.
And another potentially lucrative case involving a custody dispute over a boa constrictor.”

“What were you thinking?” my mother asked me when we finally had a moment alone.

“I was thinking what everyone is thinking all of the time:
How can I make this last just a little bit longer?
”

Although I don’t think anyone is thinking that at the opera.

As they steered my father’s gurney down the hallway, I shouted, “You owe me.”

“Don’t I know it,” he replied.

Mom looked at me all gooey-eyed and held my hand.

“Mom, relax. He’s going to be fine.”

“I know,” Mom said. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Why?”

Mom never answered the question, but days later I understood what she couldn’t say.
If it didn’t work, I’d blame myself. Fortunately, there was little time for melancholy
with Rae still grumbling over the fact that she wasn’t a match.

I didn’t even feel it when they put the needle in my hand. I’m that tough.

I’m starting to get tired, so I better wrap this up.

Dr. Blank Blank asked me if I was okay. Sure, I was fine. Have you had
these drugs before? There’s a really good reason people try to steal them. I was fine.
I think the hospital could have used better lighting and a pair of sunglasses would
have been nice. But it’s not the Ritz.

I like to think I’m a good person, but I don’t think I’ve ever claimed to be a magnanimous
one. I could blame the drugs, but this next part was 100 percent me.

As I was being whisked away, I called my sister to my side.

“Good luck in there,” she said.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” I whispered.

Rae leaned in close.

“What?” she asked.

“I win.”

1
. This is not only my last footnote, but also my last Morgan Freeman reference.

W
e all won. Dad’s alive. The doctors say he’s in remission for now, but I think he’s
cured. They hate it when I use that word, so now I just use it in private or behind
the doctors’ backs.

A lot has gone down in the last six months. I’m not sure where to begin. I’ll start
with the easy stuff.

Dad gained ten pounds. That was really hard on Grammy.

Mom repainted the bedroom a color she calls spring. I call it one she will regret
in two years. It kind of looks like the lime Jell-O Dad was always trying to offload
on everyone.

Demetrius asked Loretta to marry him. She said yes, of course. Based on the size of
the rock he gave her, I think he made more in his settlement than he’s letting on.

Sydney can count to ten, although she skips four and seven, so no one has alerted
the ten o’clock news. When Sydney learned that there was royalty more powerful than
a princess, the princess phase passed. Now she wants to be queen (forget about that
mechanic’s-suit business you heard earlier—that was the drugs talking).

Grammy is Grammy. She will always be Grammy even when she dies
and then we’ll be left with the memory of Grammy, which is more of the same. Grammy.
And she’s not on a yearlong seniors’ cruise. That was also the drugs talking.

I should tell you about Isabel, since this is mostly her story. I asked her if she
had any last words and she said, “Leave me alone; I’m in the shower.”

Kind of a waste of last words if you ask me, but I gave her a chance.

There’s other stuff I should tell you about. Mr. Slayter’s condition got worse. Isabel
suggested that Charlie move in with him and everyone thought that was a great idea.
Edward started tying up loose ends in his business and personal life. Then one day
he gave Isabel one of those swanky corporate apartments. He said something about how
if she lived like a grown-up, she might start acting like one. Has he met her? She’s
not allowed to sell the place for ten years, even if our company tanks. But it won’t.

Henry got married. I saw the license; it’s totally legal. When I heard he had a pregnant
fiancée, I tried to talk some sense into him.

“Clint Eastwood has seven children from
five
different women; Jack Nicholson has three from four. No, the other way around. Sorry.
I just memorized these facts in the car. Bob Marley had
eleven
children from eight different women.”

“What is your point, Rae?” Henry asked.

“My point is that society no longer dictates that you settle down with your first
baby mama. Wait. See what happens. You know?”

“For forty-eight years I’ve watched civilization unravel around me. I have no need
to join in the mayhem.”

Clearly my slapdash statistics did little to bolster my argument. If you’re going
to marry a woman, the number of children P. Diddy has sired should certainly not talk
you out of it.

I saw Annie Bloom, Henry’s betrothed, just once in the halls of 850 Bryant Street.
She was the kind of belly-only pregnant where you could get away with congratulating
her and not risk an unrecoverable insult. She had dark eyebrows and wavy brown hair,
and skin the color of Demetrius’s favorite overpriced coffee beverage. Henry was meeting
her outside security.
He kissed her on the lips and patted her belly and they looked so goddamn happy I
could have puked. I left him alone after that. I don’t know why, but my sister never
made him that happy.

Claire, the daughter of Max the shrink, took a shine to Izzy. David says it’s because
they have so much in common—Goldfish snack food,
Phineas and Ferb
, and a general ambivalence toward Sydney. Claire and Isabel have had several supervised
playdates, which everyone understands is code for dates with Max and Izzy. David thinks
it’s a perfect match. Dad thinks it’s a great match, but that’s just because Max has
a job and no tattoos. Mom was still hoping for an attorney, but I think that’s more
so Izzy can save money on legal representation. Frankly, I think she might save just
as much money with a shrink. So far Izzy hasn’t messed up whatever she’s got going
on with Max. I give her another six months.