Crown Jewel (17 page)

A moment later he was off the chair. He opened the refrigerator. Yes, Philly had lived here. Petrified food in containers. A milk jug with residue on the bottom. Soda pop, beer, wine, canned juice. The vegetable bins were full of blue-green mold that was nothing more than thick powder.

The freezer was loaded with meat, all with freezer burn. The cabinets were loaded with staples, the same things Ricky had in the cabinets at his house. Philly must have cooked for himself. The thought surprised him. Everything about Philly surprised him.
Everything.

Ricky walked into the laundry room. He almost cried when he opened the door to the dryer and saw Philly's clothes. He slammed it shut. The appliances looked new.

The living room was the same. There was his father's recliner. Philly's reading glasses were on the table, along with a James Michener novel. A pair of worn, scuffed slippers were under the table. A dish of hard candies, individually wrapped, was on the coffee table, along with a pile of newspapers and six month-old issues of
Newsweek
and
Time
magazines.

The mantel over the decorative fireplace was full of pictures. Of Philly, of his mother, two of his father. He walked closer to see if there was one of him. He knew there wouldn't be. He wasn't disappointed.

He went back upstairs, down the hall to his mother's room. He turned on the light. It was exactly the way he remembered it except for the thick layer of dust.

The bathroom was next. It, too, was the same, with the exception of the thick, designer towels with matching bath mats. They were all white and monogrammed, even the mats. The toiletries were pricey name brands.

The medicine cabinet held aspirin, seven prescription bottles, cologne, aftershave, and shaving cream, along with a razor. Two new toothbrushes still in their wrappers were on the bottom shelf, with a new tube of Colgate toothpaste. Philly had planned on coming back here.

He turned off the light. He marched down the hall to Philly's room, where he walked over to the window to look across at what used to be the Windhams' house. He wondered if they still lived there. If they did, what did they think about Philly's not coming home for six months? Who mowed and tended the lawn? The Windhams had to be old by now. Even good neighbors like the Windhams wouldn't continue to take care of a neighbor's property. Would they? Maybe he should go over and knock on their door. No, the house was dark. Another time. Or, he could simply call them and ask.

Ricky sat down and turned on the computer. Philly had AOL and Quicken. Without a password he wasn't going to get anywhere. He longed for a cigarette. Well, hell, Philly was a three-pack-a-day man. He rummaged in the desk drawers and found an unopened pack of Marlboros. He wondered what would happen if he smoked a six-month-old cigarette, and found that he didn't give a damn. He lit up. He stared at the screen in front of him while he puffed on the cigarette.

He was far from computer literate. What little he knew he'd learned from Roxy. It was a way to keep in daily contact with his two sons without acting like a father.

Roxy said all the records concerning the resorts, including the one they were building on Camellia Island, were computerized. Backed up, and then backed up again for safety reasons. Aside from emails, he checked the front pages of the
L.A. Times
and
USA Today
and the weather. That was the extent of his computer use.

He needed to call Roxy. He dialed her number, even though it was one o'clock in the morning in South Carolina. Her voice sounded sleepy but alert. “Hello.”

“Roxy, it's me. Listen, I'm sorry to wake you. I found the place where Philly lived. Hid out, whatever. It's our old home. I'm here now. Don't fall asleep on me, Roxy. I need your input here. You with me, Roxy?”

“Yes. I'm making coffee. I went to bed at nine-thirty, so I've had some sleep. Talk to me.”

He did. “Six months, Roxy! All the bills must have been paid in advance.”

“Philip loved direct deposit and having bills paid directly from the bank. It was less for him to oversee. There's no reason to think he wouldn't have carried that over to his own personal checking account. If my memory serves me right, he used to keep fifty thousand dollars in his personal checking account. I don't know how I know this, Ricky. I'm assuming I either overheard it or he told me himself. Think about it. Basic utilities, lawn maintenance with a firm that had direct billing. It makes sense. You could ask his lawyer. Then again, maybe this was one of those things he kept secret. I don't know what else to tell you.”

“Think, Roxy, do you have any idea what his computer password would be?”

“I don't have a clue.”

“This whole thing is making me crazy. It's beyond bizarre.”

“I told you several times that Philip wasn't the person you thought he was. My personal feeling is he wanted to be you. Without your faults. You can run with that or not.”

“You can hold the fort, can't you? I'm going to need a few more days here.”

“It's not a problem. They're installing the bathroom fixtures tomorrow. Oh, by the way, I got a confirmation today that John Edward, the famous psychic, will attend our opening. If you can't figure out what's going on, maybe you can consult him on a professional level. I have his phone number if you need it. How do you feel being in your old home?”

“It's spooking me, Roxy. I feel like Philly is here watching me, hating it that I'm here. He went to such great lengths to keep all this a secret, and here I am, seeing everything. I'm going to pack up the computer and take it home with me. Tomorrow I'm going to check out my mother's safe-deposit box, since it has my name on it. I wish you were here, Roxy, I really do.”

A low, throaty chuckle came over the wire. “I take it you miss me.”

“I do. Something's happening to me where you're concerned. I don't ever remember feeling quite like this before.” He smiled when he heard the chuckle again.

“And to think we used to hate each other's guts. Ricky, if you want me to come to California, I can call one of the boys to come here and oversee things.”

“No, it's okay. I should be able to clear things up in a few days. If not, I'll just turn it over to Gracie. Two days, that's it, and then I'm heading back to the Crown Jewel. What are you going to do now that I woke you up?”

This time the voice purred a response. “I'm going to sit here and pretend you're sitting across from me. I'm going to tell you all my secret desires, all my innermost secrets, and you're going to tell me yours.”

Suddenly he found it difficult to breathe. “And then…”

“Then I'm going to…”

“Yes? What? Can you make smoke come out of my ears?”

“Oh, honey, I can light a whole bonfire in those ears of yours. Smoke is just smoke. Flames now, that's something else entirely. 'Night, Ricky.”

Ricky looked at the pinging phone in his hand after Roxy hung up. He burst out laughing.
Damn, she's good.

He turned off the computer and disconnected it. Just to be on the safe side, he took the monitor and the printer as well, not knowing if they would be compatible with what he had at his own house.

Outside in the quiet night, he looked around.
Will I ever come back here?
He simply didn't know. The street was deserted, most of the houses dark. A lone lamp glowed at the end of someone's driveway farther down the street. It was cool, and it felt damp.

Ricky backed his car down the driveway, his headlights arcing on the Windhams' mailbox. Only the name wasn't Windham now, it was Nebitz. Well, that took care of calling the Windhams.

God, Philly, what demons were inside your head? Hot tears burned behind his eyelids as he shifted gears and drove off. A high keening sound escaped his lips. In the whole of his life, he'd never felt such sadness.

 

It was midnight by the time Ricky disconnected his own computer and moved it to one of the guest rooms down the hall. He had Philly's computer hooked up within minutes. He clicked on AOL. For the next hour, he played with every imaginable password he could think of. He went through the calendar, dates, years, names of everyone they both knew. Nothing. His own password was simple, RLMS. Ricky Lam, Movie Star. Just for the hell of it, he typed in RLMSB. Ricky Lam, Movie Star's Brother. He almost fell off his chair when the screen came to life. Son of a bitch! Had he ever told Philly his password? He must have. Then again, maybe Philly was one of those hacking wonders he was always reading about in the papers and hearing about on the news.

For some reason he expected to find hundreds of emails. What he was seeing was probably no more than twenty or so. That made sense. Who would try to contact Philly after his death? He counted them, his finger tracing the emails on the screen. There were twenty-four altogether. Twenty-three of them dated the week of his death. The last email on the list had come through four months after his death.

Ricky read the emails slowly, trying to absorb what he was seeing. They appeared to be responses to queries that Philly had sent out. Queries concerning his biological parents. All twenty-three were regretful. The writers were unable to help simply because it was either too long ago or they were the wrong people.

The last email was different. It was from someone named Martin Mangarella. He said he was Martina Mangarella's son. Ricky read it eight times.

Ricky not only memorized the email, he memorized the phone number at the bottom. “I'll be damned!”

If Philly had lived the year his doctor said he had, he would have been able to read this particular email. Sometimes life just wasn't fair.

 

At one minute past eight the next morning, Ricky dialed the number from Martin Mangarella's email. He identified himself and explained, in detail, the circumstances for the call.

“Yes, I remember the email from Mr. Lam and my response. I wondered why he didn't respond. I'm sorry about his passing. Are you Ricky Lam, the movie star?”

“Retired movie star, Mr. Mangarella. Yes, Philip was my brother. I'd like to arrange a meeting with you as soon as possible.”

“Well, sure, Mr. Lam. I own a hardware store, and I don't open till ten o'clock. If I'm late, my manager can open for me.” He rattled off his address and gave directions. “You really are the movie star, huh? I think I've seen most of your movies. I'm what they call a movie buff.”

And the price is going up, up, and up,
Ricky thought. “I can be there in forty minutes, Mr. Mangarella.”

“I'll be waiting, Mr. Lam.”

Martin Mangarella was as good as his word. He was sitting on the front steps of a small, brown, shingled house. The neighborhood as well as the house reminded Ricky of his own childhood home and Lee Ann Oliver's house. It was that kind of a neighborhood.

He was a small man with shell-rimmed glasses that almost hid his dark brown eyes. He was dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a yellow tee shirt that had
MANGARELLA HARDWARE
on the pocket. He stood up to shake hands. His grip was firm and hard. His smile was shy, Ricky thought.

“Everything's in the basement. I have all the boxes up on shelves in case of leaks or whatever. They're pretty moldy and smelly, but I don't think that will matter to you. We should probably discuss the fee now before you start looking. It's not going to take you very long. My mother labeled everything, and all the boxes are in alphabetical order.”

“How much is the fee, Mr. Mangarella?”

“You see, that's just it. I don't know what to charge you. What is it worth to you? I don't want to gouge you because I understand how important this is to you. I'm not trying to get rich off this. By the same token, I shouldn't be giving this information to you for free either. I guess you should just give me a number, and I'll take it.”