Lie Down with the Devil (27 page)

“Moon—”

“You want me to apologize, I will. I’ll take full responsibility. I’ll say I’m sorry. I took advantage of you. You were exhausted. I took you here to my frigid little love nest. I got you drunk on champagne and caviar—”

“I’m starving,” I said.

“God, so am I.”

“There’s no food.”

“Cans,” he said. “There always used to be cans. In a cardboard box somewhere. I hope there’s an opener.”

“I’ll use my teeth.”

“Oh, no, don’t waste them on the cans.” He shifted and squeezed in close in the narrow bed. “Jesus, you know, I’m eight years older than you.”

“How do you even know how old I am?”

“I read your file, child.”

“Sam’s ten years older than me.”

“I don’t want to talk about Sam.”

Neither did I.

“God, you’re beautiful.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why?”

“I’m not,” I said. “I know what beautiful is and I don’t like lies, so it makes me uncomfortable.”

“What’s beautiful?”

“If movie actresses and models are beautiful, then—”

“They’re not. You’re wrong. I’ll never lie to you.
It’s my personal opinion that you are beautiful, and I have a right to it. I have a right to my own opinion. For example, in my personal opinion, it’s too damn cold to get out of this bed unless we get some exercise first. That’s just my opinion, what’s yours?”

His opinion coincided exactly with my preferences. After we’d made love, we lay close together, breathing too quickly, his arm cradling my shoulders.

“Mooney—”

“What?”

“I’m not good at this.”

“Oh, yes, you are.”

“I don’t mean sex; I mean love. I mean happily ever after—all that stuff. When you make a lot of mistakes, you lose faith.”

“I don’t make those kind of mistakes. I used to but I’ve changed.”

“Hah. What kind of mistakes do you make now?”

“Mistakes of cowardice.”

“That’s a lie.”

“The purest truth. I have wanted to do this since the day I met you, but I was afraid, and even if you’re doing this to get even with Sam or to show me what a bad girl you are, or because you were too tired not to, I don’t care.”

For a moment I wondered whether I could possibly have told him those things, blurted them out loud in a fit of indiscretion. Certainly my tongue had run away with itself last night. But he kept on talking, so I didn’t have to ask.

“I just want you to stay with me.”

“You deserve someone better.”

“It’s not that easy to get rid of me, Carlotta, and I don’t want to argue with you on an empty stomach, okay? Let’s find something to eat instead.”
Wrapped in a blanket, feet stuffed into overlarge sweat socks, I joined him in a quest for provisions. Under the same bed that had hidden the box of bedclothes, we struck gold in the form of tin. Canned spaghetti and meatballs. Spaghetti-O’s. Ravioli-O’s. The entire Chef Boyardee bonanza.

“What do you like for breakfast?” Moon said. “I don’t know what you like, except ice cream and Chinese food that burns your tonsils.”

“No ice cream. I’ve got frostbite.”

“I’m not sure anybody filled the oil tank. We could go out.”

“I’m not fussy.”

“Saying no to breakfast ravioli does not make you fussy, Carlotta. What do you like?”

“Honestly? Eggs.”

“I’ll get some.”

He was dressed and gone almost before I could protest.

I went about getting ready for the day more slowly. If I hadn’t, I might have banged my elbow harder in the cramped shower stall. By the time I got out of the shower, the hot water was a memory and it felt like my toes were encased in ice. I dressed by layering just about everything I owned.

Then I shamelessly snooped. Photos of long-ago summers crowded one paneled wall, making me feel like I’d stepped into a family album. I tried to find Mooney as a kid, spotted two possibles, so alike, I couldn’t be sure which one was him. I knew so much about my ex-boss and so little. Some of what I knew I’d forgotten and some of it I’d ignored, and now I wanted to know everything.

After a while I climbed the ladder to see whether there was a likely frying pan near the stove. Mooney
had left in such a hurry that he hadn’t loaded his pockets with the things he’d removed last night. His nail clipper was on a bench near the bed. I unfolded two sheets of paper, one yellow, one salmon colored, and read about why I should and should not support Proposition 6.

Wait a minute.

The frying pan forgotten, I clambered down the ladder, the flyers clenched between my teeth. Where had I put Roz’s file? In my bag? In the guitar case for extra padding? I opened the case and there it was, the report on the Cambridge office building. I shuffled papers, ran my hand down the list of firms till I found the political consulting firm she’d marked with an asterisk.

My cell phone had little charge, not much service. “Roz? Can you hear me?”

“Where are you?”

“Why were you suspicious of the Consortium Guidance Consulting Group?”

“What? You want me to call you back? On another line?”

“Just tell me about the consulting group.”

“The cops are still hanging around. And Eddie Nardo—”

“It was one of the companies in the Cambridge building.”

“Oh, okay. Consortium Guidance Consulting, right. They didn’t want to talk politics. You ever meet any political wonks don’t want to talk or flirt or show off how clever they are?”

“You sure they’re political? ‘Consortium Guidance’ is pretty vague. They could guide investors or corporations or—”

“Desk man said they did political polling.”

“Did they seem like a front?”

“There was work going on. It wasn’t a maildrop or anything.”

“Any reaction to the pictures?”

“That was the thing. One guy, like, he opened his mouth to say something, but another guy shut him up, overrode what he was going to say with how busy they were and how I’d have to go now. I mean, he could have just been a prick, but I didn’t like the vibe.”

The vibe. How much could I trust Roz’s intuition?

She said, “And I think they knew about the bag.”

“The bag?”

“Remember? The tote bag type thing your guy carried? When I described it— I mean, I leaned over the desk and drew it on a piece of scrap paper, and I got this weird silence. You still there?”

“Yeah, yeah. Look, don’t go back there, Roz. Don’t spook them, but find out about them. Who owns them, exactly what they do, who they work for.”

“Okay. And I made some calls about the senate committee. The lobbying is fierce on all sides.”

“How many sides are there?”

“More than you’d think. Really, this has nothing to do with whether or not the Nausett are a tribe. Everybody knows they’re a tribe. It’s about gambling and how many gambling empires there ought to be. So, like, other Indian tribes are not necessarily pro-Indian. It’s ‘I got mine, Jack, and screw you.’”

“Huh?”

“Think about it. Here I am, a member of the Connecticut Pequot and I am sitting pretty. New Englanders are pouring into my state begging me to take their money, and then all of a sudden, it’s not bad enough the Mashpee Wamps are probably gonna open a place in Middleton or New Bedford, but here come the Nausett. How many tribes are gonna split the pot? So
it’s not anti-gambling types doing the lobbying, it’s pro-gambling folks, too. You got your do-gooders, your religious—”

“Keep on it.” I had my finger poised to disconnect.

“You don’t want to hear about Nardo?”

“What?”

“He’s worried about you. He dropped by, wanted to talk, very concerned. Says you should call him.”

“Fine. You can reach me on my cell.”

“Where are you?”

I hung up. Then I reread the salmon-colored flyer. Citizens for Good Cape Government were concerned that gambling would usher in a host of social ills. Drinking, drug abuse, street fights, gangs. Their logo featured their initials: CGCG.

Did the Consortium Guidance Consulting Group also use initials? CGCG?

If I’d had a car, I’d have sped off to investigate, without breakfast, without explanation. I might have left a note.

The thought of a note on the kitchen table gave me pause. God, I wouldn’t leave Mooney a note. How could I even think of it, a note like the notes I’d left men who meant nothing to me? Thanks for a great evening. See you never.

I was having a hard time putting a label on how I felt. Up until last night I’d had one good male friend in my life and now what did I have?

I guess I have always believed that friendship precludes love, that the bond of friendship takes the fizz out of the sizzling messy chemistry of sex. Up until last night, up until this morning, I’d have insisted on it.

I tucked the cab into a slot in front of 843 First Street. It wasn’t a cab stand, but it wasn’t a tow zone either. No meter, which was fine. I didn’t want to attract the attention of a meter maid or a patrol car.

It was almost noon, the high, bright sun contrasting sharply with the chilly temperature. Members of the Consortium Guidance Consulting Group should be hunched over their desks, crunching numbers from last week’s polls, inventing questions to trip up potential voters, polling citizens who’d rather be eating lunch than talking on the phone to a stranger.

Worker bees take lunch breaks between noon and one. That’s when I would go in. Maybe the gate would be temporarily unguarded. I might have hashed out the plusses and minuses of a variety of approaches with Mooney, if he’d been there, sharing the front seat.

He’d returned triumphant to the Marshfield shack, bearing a dozen eggs, bacon, a half gallon of Tropicana, four grapefruits, a loaf of sliced Italian bread, salt, and two cups of steaming coffee encased in Styrofoam. The toaster was dead, so I grilled bread on the stove while Mooney peeled bacon slices and broke eggs into a cast-iron skillet the size of a wagon wheel.

While he cooked, I explained about the two CGCGs.

“Up or over?”

I said “over” just to watch him flip the eggs with a warped spatula.

He caught me looking. “Something wrong with the eggs?”

“No.”

“Something wrong with the big picture? You and me doing breakfast together?”

“I don’t know, Moon. Maybe it’s because you’re the same as always, because here we are talking work.”

“And you thought once we slept together, I’d treat you differently?”

“Maybe.”

“That I’d be a different person? You?”

There was no knife sharp enough to penetrate grapefruit skin. I started peeling a yellow sphere, but Mooney insisted on using a hacksaw. The eggs were excellent.

After getting an encouraging medical update from Thurlow, Mooney felt the need to be at the hospital when Mitch Farmer woke. I was keen to check out the Cambridge consulting group as soon as possible. Mooney thought it a long shot. So we split, Mooney dropping me at the T station in Braintree so I wouldn’t have to wait forever at a commuter stop farther south. En route, I connected via cell phone with Leroy, who agreed to bring a cab to South Station, which was terrific because I didn’t have the time or the nerve to face down Gloria in Allston. It wasn’t so much that I thought there’d be cops watching her building; it’s that Gloria has six senses and then some. I was sure my old friend, who could sniff sex in the air from afar, would
take one look at me and say, “Girl, what the hell have you been doing?”

I leaned back in the cab, recalling, picturing the night I’d followed “Ken,” the pseudo-bridegroom, watched him leave the silver Volvo with the tote bag clutched in his hand. He’d still been carrying it when he came out, but who knew what he might have removed from its interior, what he might have left inside?

I couldn’t prove it yet, but I was sure he’d been driving Danielle Wilder’s car. I was convinced that “Ken” was the key, that “Ken” was Kyle, connected to Danielle Wilder by Amy’s sighting at Radio Shack.

How did he connect to Julie Farmer?

They had eaten dinner at the same table. The waiter claimed he hadn’t overheard the conversation, but he branded it unpleasant, argumentative.

“Ken” had to be the key.

The image of a key made me think of a car key. That made me think of Jonno, who’d brought me the box containing Sam’s car key, and in turn, I thought about Eddie Nardo. I wondered whether Eddie had heard from Sam, whether he’d dropped by the house to give me a message from Sam. I checked my cell phone, just in case. Sam hadn’t called and I was relieved.

Julie Farmer had hired me to follow the man in the Volvo. The case had taken a few odd twists and turns, but now I was back on the initial job. I glanced at my watch and decided it was time. As to an approach, I’d wing it, go with whatever hit me once I saw the setup at CGCG.

The Consortium Guidance Consulting Group was closed.

The door was locked and no one answered my knock. It was a business day, no holiday. The firms next door and down the hall were open. Their respective receptionists had no idea why CGCG’s door was still locked.

It took some time to locate the building super, a skinny, surly man wearing cut-fingered gloves and eating a brown bag lunch in the furnace room of an adjoining building. It took some cash to convince him to talk.

“Huh, those guys,” he said, with a jerk of his chin and a sniff, once bills had slipped into the pocket of his oversized jeans.

“CGCG. Who are they?”

“They pay the rent.” Another sniff. Twitchy, too, probably a cokehead.

“Cash or check?”

“Huh, I’d have to look.”

“Why don’t you do that?”

There was a four-drawer metal file cabinet in one corner. The super gave me the eye, like he thought I might be planning to steal it. We glared at each other while the furnace clanked. I was getting ready to ask for a refund when he finally rambled over to the corner, yanked the second drawer from the bottom, and thumbed through a manila file folder.

“Check.”

“Company check? Personal check?”

“Company.”

“Sovereign? Bank of America?”

“Citibank.”

Checks can be traced. I’d put Roz on it and maybe Mooney would help. Mooney. Oh, my God, he and I had finally done it. We’d had sex. We were lovers…. I almost had to shake myself physically to get back to
the sunken room and the clanking furnace and Mr. Big Jeans.