Mean Woman Blues (27 page)

Mr. Right was saying, “Now you probably think your bank is there to serve you. But, after hearing about Ms. Whittaker’s problem, we looked into it a little bit. And ladies and gentlemen, serving you is about as far as you can get from the whole story. Yes, indeed, these pillars of the financial community have bigger fish to fry by far. Oh, yes, much much bigger fish to fry.”

Skip froze. She’d heard that before, that voice, saying those words. “Bigger fish to fry” was one of Jacomine’s favorite expressions. She stopped the tape, rewound, and listened again with her eyes closed.

Her scalp prickled. It was Jacomine.

* * *

She called Shellmire. “Turner, Where are you?”

“I’m back at my office.”

“Anything new?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, I’ve got something. I’m bringing you a tape.”

She sped to FBI headquarters, once again managing not to get a ticket. She played the tape for Shellmire, watching him watch Mr. Right. She saw him go through what she’d experienced, moving from utter disbelief to wary alertness to excitement. It wasn’t the fish phrase that did it to him, it was a growing familiarity. “See the way he shrugs? Kind of bucking his head up first? I always thought he did that when he was lying— a ‘tell,’ you know what I mean?”

Skip nodded, surprised she’d never noticed.

“I’m going to go get some more tapes.”

He brought an armload of tapes of Jacomine, being interviewed, giving campaign speeches, even giving a sermon. The more he and Skip compared, the more excited they got.

Skip thought she was going to go nuts; it was like having an itchy trigger finger. “Look, let’s go to the airport, get the first flight out to Dallas.”

“My thought exactly. Just let me set some stuff up with the Dallas guys, have some agents there discreetly check out the employment record he gave the station, maybe his references…”

Skip stopped him in mid-sentence. “Okay, okay, fine. Meanwhile, I’m going to the airport. I’ll rent a car and find a hotel, meet you when you get there.”

“Skip, you’ve got to calm down. You’re going to do some damage if you don’t watch out.”

“Right.” She was standing now. “See you there.”

Maybe she could calm down on the plane. Meditate or something.

David Wright had shaken off his absurd panic, had understood that was probably all it was. It was a mistake not to have whacked Isaac months ago, but now the problem was under control. The glitch, he should say; that was all it was.

There was another now. Karen had taken her miscarriage unreasonably hard. She was practically a vegetable. Two days after her miscarriage, David got up early and made coffee, toast, and scrambled eggs for his wife. They were the first scrambled eggs he’d ever made in his whole life, but he figured any fool could scramble eggs. And he was right. As far as he could tell, they were no different from anybody else’s scrambled eggs.

He made a plate for Karen and put it on a tray, on which he’d already placed a rose from their garden. He took it into their bedroom and shook her gently.

“Come on, sleeping beauty. Breakfast time.”

All day yesterday, so far as he knew, she’d done nothing but sleep. She opened her eyes. “What is it?”

“Look. I made you some breakfast.”

She made a kind of grimace, though she may have meant it as a smile. “Thanks.”

But she didn’t budge.

“Karen, now, come on. You can’t stay in bed the rest of your life. Come on and eat now.” He could barely believe the words coming out of his mouth. No more than he could believe what he’d just been doing for half an hour. Earl Errol David Jackson Jacomine Wright had never made so much as a sandwich for himself, much less for a woman. And here he was, begging.

Karen didn’t answer. It was like she was in a coma or something. “Come on, baby, just a little bit.” He held the toast to her mouth. Her eyes had closed again, and she didn’t even notice.

“Karen!” He spoke sharply. “You can’t do this.”

She didn’t answer.

He left the room to keep from hitting her. That was one thing he absolutely could not do. It was bad enough what she’d told her parents, though her father, thank God, had the sense to believe him instead of his bimbo daughter, but it could not, under any circumstances, happen again.

What had to happen was, he had to win her back. He came back and sat on the edge of the bed, took her hand.

To his surprise, she opened her eyes, stretched, and sat up. “David, this is sweet of you.”

“I need my girl back.” He looked into her WASP-blue eyes, and almost believed what he was about to say. “Karen, I’m nothing without you.”

She picked up the coffee. “I’ll be okay.” She patted his hand. “Thanks to Dr. Wright.”

“You promise you’ll get dressed and do something fun today?”

She nodded. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” Unlike most women, who slept in T-shirts these days (if you believed what you saw in the movies), Karen still wore lacy nightgowns. She had on a white one, and the lace against her white shoulders was unbearably lovely. He absolutely couldn’t believe he’d ended up with a woman like this. The thing was to keep her.

He left fifteen minutes late, but with a terrific feeling of accomplishment. He was pulling it off. He felt elated. His life was coming together again: Karen was coming out of her coma, Isaac was still in his, and
Mr. Right
had had great response to the banking show.

Walking through to his office, he noticed that Tracie actually had on a dress. Was it his imagination or was she dressing better these days? He mimed tipping his hat. “Looking lovely this morning.”

She gave him a wave that was actually a little finger-wiggle. Definitely seductive. “Got a great idea,” she said. “How about overmedication of elders? I’ve got this woman whose mother’s on fifteen different prescription drugs. Poor thing’s so out of it her speech is slurred.”

“Can we get the mother on the show?”

“Whoo! That might be too much, don’t you think?”

“How about a tape? We could go to her house and talk to her in the comfort of her own bed.”

“You are so
smart
, David Wright. Sure. Let’s do it. I left a memo for you.”

Tracie was falling for him; it was never more obvious. She’d have to be kept at bay. He absolutely could not mess up this thing with Karen. Did Ronald Reagan mess around with bimbos? Hell, no. That was for losers like Clinton. He, Mr. Right, must be above reproach.

He wasn’t in his office twenty minutes when Tracie busted in, not even bothering to knock. He glared at her over the rims of his reading glasses, a trick he’d seen in movies, and spoke in his most supercilious pseudo-British. “Ms. Hesler. Do we need to talk about privacy?”

She ignored him. “David, listen.” He noticed for the first time how pale she was, how her hands were flying aimlessly through the air, working off nervous energy. “I need to talk to you.” She closed the door behind her. “Something bad’s going down. Two feds just walked into the station manager’s office.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s all right, it’s all right.” She patted the air in front of his chest, not touching him. “It can’t affect us directly— unless we get fired. The bank must have leaned on somebody. I’ve seen it before. Every time you have a really controversial story, this kind of thing happens.”

Mr. Right was no longer listening. His attention had gone ten minutes into the future. His panic flashed back for a second and then disappeared. One thing about it, panic was an illusion at worst, a warning at best. When the worst had happened, the very worst that could possibly happen, it was replaced almost instantly by an icy calm.

He knew at once that there was no way this could be coincidental. Isaac had awakened and ratted him out. No doubt in his mind. Well, there was his contingency plan. He cracked the door and looked around the corner. Nobody was there.

He said to Tracie, “Well, they’re damn well not going to get away with it. I’m going in there and bust this little party up.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I damn well can, and I will. Stay here, and I’ll let you know what’s going on. Here.” He held out a folder. “Been working on a strategy for next season. Look it over, will you? Be back in a few.” He strode out purposefully, and after a few steps, reversed his direction, slipped out the back door, and drove away. He figured he had about twenty minutes till anyone noticed he was missing. It was still a long way from that to connecting David Wright to Errol Jacomine. His television career might or might not be over, there was still half a chance Tracie was right and the feds were there for some relatively benign shakedown, but he didn’t think so.

He drove to Highland Park Mall, near one of his banks, the one with the Thomas Washington account. He parked his car in the lot, leaving his sports jacket on the seat. He opened the trunk, extracted a baseball cap, shades, and tan windbreaker, all of which he put on, making sure the cap covered his now-famous gray hair. And then he pulled out a canvas briefcase, the kind meant to carry a laptop. This one contained his life— lives, actually. He’d taken the precaution of having a number of documents forged at once. You never knew when one persona was going to have to die and another was going to be needed. There was one other thing in the case— a gun.

He went into the bank, looking warily around. A woman employee caught his eye, and he saw the flash of recognition. She started toward him happily, smiling and waving, and he knew she wanted to tell him what a fan she was, to be the person who helped Mr. Right that fine day. He absolutely could not have that encounter; Mr. Right could not be connected to Thomas Washington. He turned and fled, pretending he hadn’t noticed her.

He walked briskly to the nearest men’s room, which was by no means near, and called a cab. He waited in a stall for fifteen minutes, then slowly, warily, ventured out.

He gave the cab an address a block from Rosemarie Owens’ house and walked blithely up to her door. But on the way he phoned her. “Morning, ma’am. UPS. I’m at the service entrance.”

She had a back door, but not a service entrance. The message was a prearranged signal, in code in case her phone was tapped. It was only to be used in cases of direst emergency.

* * *

Rosemarie was trying to keep it together, just keep her heart inside her chest. She’d spent a lot of time thinking about what to do if this moment came, and she was somewhat prepared: She had a gun. She made her voice casual. “Mr. Right. As I live and breathe.”

“Rosemarie, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” She was wearing a pair of flowered capris and a white sleeveless sweater-thing. She was his age, but in her own opinion, she could be thirty years younger.

“How’s your wife?” she said.

“Guess that means you’re not in the mood for a little slap-and-tickle.”

She put her finger to her lips, walked outside and closed the door, took his arm, and began to circle the garden.

“Hubby’s home, I guess? Or hubby-facsimile.”

“Earl, Earl, how the hell am I going to explain you?”

“You had the phones swept lately?”

“Once a week, just like we agreed. Yesterday was the day. On the lam, are you?” She smiled when she said it, letting her surgically enhanced eyes crinkle prettily. The whole thing was to appear cool as a creek bed, as if the entire Dallas police department could descend on her and she’d ask them in for tea.

“Afraid so, old girl.” The “old girl” thing was something he’d learned from his English voice coach. “Possible situation unfolding.”

“Oh?”

“Feds at the office. I went out the back door.”

“Damn! I was so hoping that rotten cable station was finally going to turn a profit.” She sighed. “I guess all good things must come to an end. I’ve got to hand it to you, baby-cakes.
Mr. Right
was a great idea, and you were the perfect Mr. Right.”

“Rosemarie, if you don’t mind, we’re a little exposed out here.”

Good. He’d blinked first.

“I’m just waiting for the maid to go home. Sistine takes a few minutes to pack up. How do you like that name? Sistine. Too much, isn’t it?”

“Quit trying to distract me, and let’s think.”

The front door thwacked shut. “Ah. She’s left. But Todd’s in there watching TV in his den and getting stoned. With any luck he won’t even come out, but if he does…”

“Ah, yes. The boy toy. Well if he does, I’m the best friend of your late husband. Bit of bad luck— unfortunate investment, wife bankrupting me, little wager that went awry.”

She burst out laughing, ignoring his obvious urgency to get in the house. “Why, Eliza Dolittle, you
are
a quick study.” When her eyes uncrinkled, she made them hard as marbles. “Is that your little way of asking me for money?”

“Rosemarie, for Christ’s sake, I have plenty of money. Can we go inside, please?”

She shrugged. “Come in.” But she spoke coldly, stripping all the amusement, all the welcoming banter from her manner.

He stepped into her restaurant-sized kitchen, and she saw him taking in its polished wood floors and gleaming granite counters, its little lights under the cabinets, its lavish bowl of fruit. Earl said, “In case Todd comes out, let me shave first. My head, I mean. He figures out who I am— I mean, even the Mr. Right part— we’re both going down.”

She sat down on a barstool. “Have it your way, darling. Use the downstairs guest room.”

“Well? Aren’t you going to show me?” She’d forgotten he didn’t know where it was.

“I suppose.” She got up languidly, as if her fate wasn’t inextricably tied to his, and walked him leisurely through the house. She’d taken care to make it look like the manor to which she certainly hadn’t been born. Instead of being lavish, her house was comfortable. It had hardwood floors and good, well-kept furniture with plenty of personal touches, like a piano covered with photographs, and there were books (though she never read) and flowers.

She led Earl into a room with a four-poster bed covered with a red toile print. The wallpaper matched the bed cover. Light streamed in the windows; French doors opened to the backyard they’d just strolled. The pool was steps away. A very soothing room.