The Last Word (6 page)

“You mean Willard.” Willard Slavinsky is one of Edward’s oldest friends and one of
the major shareholders in Slayter Industries.

“I said Willard.”

“You said William, which is a preferable name.”

“I lost my train of thought,” Edward said, slightly agitated.

“Happens to many people in my company,” I said.

“Anyway, you don’t know whether it’s going to work out until you give the person a
shot,” Edward said.

“Point taken, but I think you could have waited for a brief surveillance and a Platinum
Level
⁷
background check.”

“He’s new to the area. I’ve hired a Realtor to help him find an apartment,
but I gave him your number, in case he wants someone to show him around the city.
Places to go at night, that sort of thing.”

“You want me to play tour guide?”

“Yes, only I don’t want you to give him the Isabel Spellman dive bar tour.”

“Sorry, that’s all I’ve got.”

“When are you going to talk to Charlie about his sweater situation?”

“I’m waiting for the right moment.”

“There’s never a good moment to tell a man he has an unpleasant odor.”

“Sure there is. After he’s won the Super Bowl.”

“Invite him to lunch and have a casual chat.”

“I’m a private investigator, Edward, not a tour guide or a hygiene coach.”

“You’re so many things to me, Isabel. Banana. Mononucleosis. Wombat,” Edward said
as he jogged off with even more energy than when we’d begun.

•  •  •

While Edward was at the office, Charlie took the Geary bus to Polk Street and met
me at a corner café across the street from Edinburgh Castle. The Polk/Geary corner,
still in the clutches of the Tenderloin, always feels like typical San Francisco.
Homeless people mark every corner and working stiffs loiter at bus stops, while just
a short stroll away, you can dine at a fine restaurant or go to a strip club. Just
one block away is a luxury apartment building, the swanky foyer on an unlit side street.
Their doorman is a homeless guy who lives in the alley. At least that’s how many of
the tenants see him; he’s apparently quite good at hailing cabs.

I used the ruse of wanting to keep my chess skills sharp when I made the invitation;
Charlie was kind enough to play along, not once mentioning that my chess skills were
as dull as the sheen on the twenty-year-old board we were playing with.

Charlie opened with his knight to c3. Don’t worry, I’m not going to describe the entire
game in chess notations, or even Isabel notations.
⁸
Charlie
won in twenty-four moves. You’re probably not surprised. Our meeting wasn’t about
chess. It was about his sweater/sweater smell, so in between strategizing about chess,
I had some other things to strategize.

Charlie Black isn’t like other people. I don’t know who he’s like, but I got the feeling
a flat/direct approach might be the way to go.

ME:
Charlie, how often do you wash that sweater?

CHARLIE:
It says “dry-clean only.”

ME:
How often do you dry-clean-only that sweater?

CHARLIE:
You have to leave the sweater with a stranger to dry-clean it.

ME:
Those strangers are usually quite reputable.
⁹
You only pay them when you get the sweater back. So they have no incentive to steal
it.

CHARLIE:
But if I don’t have the sweater, then I can’t wear it.

ME:
You can wear another sweater.

CHARLIE:
But Mr. Slayter bought me this sweater, so I think he wants me to wear it.

ME:
I see.

Later that afternoon, I got a follow-up e-mail from Slayter.

Dear Isabel,
¹⁰

Did you handle that business we discussed earlier?

Regards,

Edward

Dear Edward,

We discussed all sorts of business. What business are you referring to?

Yours truly,

Isabel

The sweater situation.

Edward

Charlie’s not reading your e-mails. Why didn’t you just say that to begin with?

Isabel

Did you talk to Charlie?

Yes.

And?
¹¹

Problem: Charlie’s sweater smells because it’s the only sweater he has.

Solution: Buy him more sweaters.

Edward loathes long, inefficient e-mail exchanges, which I tend to inadvertently embrace.
The phone rang shortly after I dispatched my last missive.

ISABEL:
Hello?

EDWARD:
Isabel. Edward.

ISABEL:
Edward. Isabel.

EDWARD:
Would you mind taking Charlie shopping for sweaters tomorrow?

ISABEL:
I’m a PI, Edward. Not a fashion consultant.

EDWARD:
That’s obvious, dear. Also, would you verify that he’s washing his undershirts? And
maybe have a deodorant talk with him.

ISABEL:
Where do you stand on the whole debate between natural deodorants and the aluminum-containing
products that actually stop your sweat? Personally, I think it just makes you sweat
in other places. I wonder what would happen if you put that stuff all over your body.

EDWARD:
This conversation should have ended after I asked you to take Charlie sweater shopping.
You should have said, “Of course,” and we’d have ended the call.

ISABEL:
Can’t you find someone more suited for this?

EDWARD:
His mother is dead. You’re his closest friend.

ISABEL:
I think now you’re his closest friend.

EDWARD:
I run a company worth fifty million dollars and I have over seventy employees. A
good manager knows how to delegate. Will you
please
handle this for me?

ISABEL:
Consider it done.

EDWARD:
I’ll consider it done when it’s done. Anything else we need to discuss?

ISABEL:
Well, your secretary is a bit overzealous with her perfume. Do you want me to have
a chat with her about it?

EDWARD:
Good-bye, Isabel.

The moment I hung up the phone with Slayter, it rang again. The caller ID said Henry
Stone. I debated whether to pick up, because most conversations with my ex-boyfriend
don’t really go the way I’d like them to.
¹²
But he generally calls for a reason and then calls again if the call is not returned,
so I answered.

“Hello, Henry.”

“It’s nice to hear your voice.”

“Really? Many, many people disagree with you on that point.”

“Have you gotten a grip on your dictator complex?”
¹³

“It’s much improved.”

“Excellent. And has it had a salubrious effect on your workplace environment?”

“Maybe. If that means that my employees are in a constant state of mutiny.”

“You don’t know what
salubrious
means, do you?”

“Nope. Henry, you never call without a reason.”

“I’d like to have lunch.”

“I do not enjoy eating lunch with you.”

“Why not?”

“In the past it was because you’d give me a dirty look if I ordered anything but salad.
And now, you still give me a dirty look if I don’t order salad, and then you usually
tell me about a new woman you’re seeing. So I take it things didn’t work out with
Lola Leggert, and how could you expect they would with a name like that? And now you’re
dating someone new. Let me save you the twenty dollars in food and fifteen in beer
and say, mazel tov, I hope it works out with you and Blank Blank.”

“If lunch doesn’t work, let’s have drinks.”

“You don’t like drinking with me. I always have more than one.”

“I’ll make an exception.”

“Ah, so things are going well with Blank Blank.”

“Yes. Things are getting serious.”

“I wish you and Blank Blank the best.”

“She’s pregnant, Isabel.”

“Blank Blank is pregnant?”

“Her name is Annie Bloom.”

“Well, that’s better than Lola Leggert or Blank Blank.”

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes. I take it you’re the father.”

“Yes.”

“Wow. That was kind of fast.”
¹⁴

“I know.”

“They have these things called condoms now.”

“It’s serious.”

It felt like that time I stole my brother’s LSAT prep book and he sat on my chest
until I gave it back. Actually, it felt worse than that. I don’t go in
for dignity all that often, but some occasions demand it. It’s not just for you but
the other person.

“Congratulations,” I said, and I wanted to mean it, which is good enough. “We’ll have
lunch soon.”

While I was truly happy for Henry,
¹⁵
I’m always surprised how quickly men manage to move on. I’m sure you’ve met the three-month
widower already on his third girlfriend. I had wrongly assumed this particular heartache
of mine had formed a tough scab. Apparently not. I hung up the phone, stepped into
the walk-in closet in the foyer, and had a good cry. This type of behavior I considered
to be the height of dignity. Until, of course, D knocked on the door.

“You in there, Isabel?” D asked.

I wiped away the tears and opened the door.

“Yes. I was looking for this coat. I lost it a long time ago.”

“It’s very hard to look for coats in a dark closet.”

“You are a very wise man, D. Anyway, it’s not there.”

“There are other coats in other closets,” D said.

“Indeed,” I said, thinking we were both talking about the same thing.

Then he said, “There are some great summer sales going on now.”

•  •  •

I spent the next three hours entering the staff’s time sheets into a database and
generating client bills; then I paid office bills in my usual slapdash fashion. Still
unable to crack the computer accounting program, I hand-wrote the bills on the laser
printer paper; jotted down a list with the check number, payee, and amount; added
up the total; and then went online and made sure we were flush enough to cover the
amount. As it turned out, for once, Spellman Investigations was in the black. I guess
my mother had finally caught up on some collection calls, because we had more than
enough money to cover all of our bills, payroll, and then some. I decided to count
my blessings and call it a night. As I headed out, I heard my parents cooking dinner
as they watched
Jeopardy!
.

ALEX TREBEK:
He was a playwright and president of the Czech Republic.

DAD:
Milan Kundera.

ALEX TREBEK:
Category: Famous Georges. She was the author of
Middlemarch
.

DAD:
Jane Austen.
¹⁶

MOM:
I think she has to have George in her name.

I leaned into the kitchen, said good-bye to the unit, and casually mentioned that
I’d gotten all of the bills and payroll taken care of. My dad looked surprised and
said, “Huh. Good job.”

“Have you reconciled the bank statements?” Mom asked.

“Not yet. I’ll get to that tomorrow.”
¹⁷

It took ten minutes to find parking when I got home (David gets the one-car garage
and Maggie the driveway). I traversed the narrow alley to the back of my brother’s
house and entered my apartment through the door adjacent to the garage. I walked through
the narrow hallway that ended in the four-by-four-foot kitchen with a hot plate and
minifridge and opened the refrigerator to be met by wilted spinach,
¹⁸
a jar of mustard, a stick of butter, and half a bag of Mallomars left over from my
sister’s last visit. I checked the liquor cabinet, which is just a cabinet where I
put booze, if I have any. There was a pricey bottle of bourbon that was a Christmas
gift from Slayter. Rarely is booze left untouched, but when my brother told me what
it was worth, I thought I might need to pawn it someday, if things got really bad.

I didn’t feel like walking to the corner shop and buying a bottle of wine and a bar
of chocolate and having the clerk say, “That time of the month again?” so I circled
the house and knocked on my brother’s front door.

David answered the door in what had become his uniform in the last
month—sweats with holes and a ratty T-shirt. This was not the clothing of an overworked
stay-at-home dad but a calculated Oscar Madison slovenly wardrobe choice. I will explain
it all shortly.

“Isabel, what a pleasant surprise,” he said.

“It’s a ten-second commute. How much of a surprise could it be?” I said.

“Well, after last time,” he said. “Come in.”

I planted my feet firmly in the foyer, making sure to be no more than three steps
from the door. “I’m in,” I said. “Care to offer me a drink?”

David went to his far more impressive bar and poured me a shot of some midlevel bourbon.
“Ice?”

“Yes, please.”

He dropped two ice cubes into an old-fashioned glass and extended his arm. The distance
between us was approximately ten feet. I stayed put and held out my hand. My brother
brought the glass to me.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“Can’t be too safe.”

Maggie, who was also dressed like she was auditioning for a mid-western couch potato
competition, brought me a bowl of Goldfish (the snack food) and kissed me on the cheek.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“I want to kill myself,” Maggie said, referring to the thirty-pound dictator responsible
for the tsunami of aggravation.

Sydney, my three-and-a-half-year-old niece, sat primly at her miniature dining set
in the corner of the living room, wearing a pink crinoline dress, a tiara, and ballet
slippers, sipping imaginary tea from an imaginary teacup.