Mittman, Stephanie (19 page)

Meanwhile
his da had blabbered on about how he knew the ins and outs that nobody else had
put together, not even the coppers, bless their stinkin' hearts.

Davis
shoulda left right then. He'd done what he come for, telling his da where he'd
be. No need to rub his nose in how Davis had been invited to stay with the
upper crust cause his da couldn't hold his liquor and went crazy every Friday.

It
had taken him long enough, trying to get the whole thought out, everyone
waiting for enough words so that they could just fill in the end themselves.

And
before they could, he'd gone and got his ears boxed.

He
deserved it, he figured. Deserved a lot worse than his da had ever managed to
dish out. Always breaking down and being sorry before he ever really let that
last punch loose.

Course,
he didn't seem too sorry earlier in McGinty's.

The
horsecar ride over'd been bumpier than usual. Too much rain, Doc Mollenoff had
told him, trying to make Davis lean against him like some baby. Too little
rain, the doc's sister had said before rolling up her shawl and handing it to
Davis to hold for her. He didn't mind much about holding her wrap, though,
since it made him a pretty good pillow against all the banging and bumping that
had gone and woken up every pain he had.

She'd
wrapped it about herself when they'd gotten off the trolley a few blocks from
Mr. Whittier's place and hummed some tune that was real familiar to him, all
the way to the house on Oak Street.

"I
tried to refuse to speak to him at all," Miss Mollenoff was telling anyone
who would listen just as that old geezer, Arthur, was pushing Mr. Whittier into
the room. Arthur was so old, he made Mr. Whittier look kinda middle aged.

"Selma,
it's all right," the missus said, a bunch of papers in her hand. She was a
lawyer, Davis thought, looking at her and trying to figure out what her angle
was. A
lady lawyer.
Now, that was something, all right. Probably thought
she was too smart for the likes of him to outwit. "After dinner you'll
tell me exactly what was said."

"After
dinner my eye!" the mister said. "Be a good girl and give us
something to sink our teeth into, Selma dear. No doubt it's salmon instead of
steak for our bellies, so how about something tougher for our minds?"

"It's
Friday," the really old lady, the lawyer's mother, said. "Of course
it's fish."

"Thank
you, Mrs. Vhittier," Dr. Mollenoff said with a slight bow as he held out
the chair for her and helped her sit in it. When Davis was that old, he hoped
he'd be dead.

"Yes,"
Selma agreed. She was kinda pretty, in a plain way that reminded Davis a little
of his mother. Not that his mother was plain—'cause she wasn't. She was beautiful.
But Selma did look a little like her without some of the details drawn in.
"Thank you. You're a wonder at remembering our laws."

"They're
Jewish," the other Mr. Whittier, the one with the parrot, whispered to
him. "So they keep kosher."

Davis
nodded. He didn't know what a kosher was or where they kept it, but he figured
wherever it was, it was probably the same place they were hiding their horns,
which everyone knew Jews had. Selma had a lot of hair, piled high, and wide
enough to hide a good-size set of horns, but the doc... he couldn't hide a
single hair on his head without it sticking out plain as a pikestaff with the
flag of Ireland waving on it.

***

"Foolish
nonsense," Cabot said as he waved away the pottage of love apples and
leaned forward at the table. "No offense intended, Mollenoff. I have no
quarrel with Judaism specifically, but with religion in general. Archaic laws
to bind a people to an unproven force and keep them subservient by the
exploitation of their fears and the comfort of their traditions."

"Cabot,"
Charlotte said, outraged on her guests' behalf. "That's insulting. Judaism
goes back thousands of years and their dietary laws are rooted in strong health
concerns that have proven correct over the centuries."

"Yattita,
yattita, yattita," Cabot said with a sigh that was meant to put her in her
place. "And we're supposed to eat fish on Friday because Christ did. Take
a man's idiosyncracies and—"

"Not
in my house," Kathryn said, signaling the servants to stop in their
tracks. "You will apologize to me, to our guests, and to the Lord, Cabot
Whittier, or you will leave my table and, very likely, my heart."

She
was stonily silent, her hands remarkably still, not a shake in them as she
waited for Cabot's contrition.

"I'm
sure Cabot didn't mean—" Charlotte began when her husband said nothing.
Why here, why now, did he have to bring up his quarrel with God? She had
understood, even accepted, his rejection of some all-powerful being's allowing
him to be ruined as a man in his prime for the heinous crime of saving his
little brother.

Under
his tutelage she had kept her faith private and to herself until it had all but
vanished. But to challenge the strong beliefs of others was an unforgivable
breach of the social etiquette he embraced almost as strongly as others
worshiped the Lord.

"Apologize,"
his mother demanded.

His
brother, Ash, sat sadly shaking his head. "You know, Cabot, there are
people who, in the face of adversity, actually embrace their faith instead of
abandoning it."

"Well,
I suppose some people have a need," Cabot answered. "And hope."

"You've
left out gratitude," Dr. Mollenoff said, fingering tassels that escaped
from just beneath his vest.

"Gratitude?
Am I wrong that the Cossacks came to Poland and forced you from your home,
Mollenoff?" Cabot asked. "Is that what you're grateful for? Weren't
your relatives and friends left behind to die?"

"Cabot!"
Charlotte didn't know how Kathryn managed to find her tongue. Her own was thick
and lodged in her mouth where she fought against it to draw a breath.

"Are
Selma and I not here, in America, where we are safe and free? For that I thank
my God," Dr. Mollenoff said in the lyrical cadence his accent provided.
"God is good, Cabot Vhittier. just because ve are not vise enough to
understand Him doesn't reveal a veakness on His part, but on ours."

"Amen,"
Charlotte said softly, ignoring the widening of Cabot's eyes. Let him worship
the law. After all, the
California Penal Code
had become his bible, the
judges who handed down opinions, his gods.

Maria
took a step forward with the silver platter on which the salmon and green peas
were artistically arranged, but Kathryn raised her hand and shook her head.

"I'll
have your apology, Cabot, or your good-night."

"And
so you have it," Cabot said, bowing slightly with his head. "My
apologies, Mother. My point being made, I see no reason to leave my belly any
emptier than my head."

"That
would be rather difficult from where I sit," Ash said, squeezing his
mother's hand gently and refilling the doctor's goblet with wine. Next he
reached over the table and carefully poured the deep red wine into Charlotte's
glass, winking at her as he did.

"Don't
you take anything seriously?" she asked him.

"I
take a great many things seriously," he said, staring at her as if she
were suddenly the only one in the room with him. "But my brother's opinion
of religion is not one of those things."

"How
about my opinion of the status of your case?" Cabot asked. "The
meeting I had with our investigator last night? Miss Mollenoff's meeting with
the district attorney? Who I believe Sam Greenbough sold those damn beans to
and for just how much? Any of those concern you, or is your mind occupied
elsewhere even as we speak?"

There
was a note in Cabot's voice, a warning, perhaps, that Charlotte wasn't sure she
had ever heard before. There was an edge, a gruffness, that belied the
gentility in which he so prided himself.

"Contrary
to public opinion, as well as your private opinion, I'm sure," Ash said to
his brother in a surprisingly similar voice that only served to remind
Charlotte of their relationship, "I can concentrate on more than one thing
at a time. In fact, I can button my shirt, sing some ditty, and still have a thought
in my head quite at the same moment."

"It's
when you are unbuttoning your shirt that all that ability seems to hide under
the sheets, then. Is that it?"

Across
from her, Davis's eyes widened and his jaw dropped just a bit. When he caught
her watching him, he quickly lowered his head and busied himself with the last
drops of soup in his bowl.

"Why
don't you tell us about what the district attorney asked?" Charlotte said
to Selma, trying to steer the conversation, and her mind, away from the thought
of Ashford Whittier unbuttoning his shirt. Pulling her gaze from his collarless
shirt and leaning forward so that she could focus on Selma, who sat two seats
away from her, she fought to rid her mind of her brother-in-law's chest.

It
didn't work. Instead, Michelangelo's
David
came to mind and she sighed,
caught herself, and tried to hide it with a stretch and mumblings about being
tired. Selma was repeating how she had not wanted to tell the DA anything at
all and how he had tried to trick her into admissions that she cleverly fought
off at every turn.

Of
course, Ashford Whittier didn't look one bit like
David.

For
one thing, he had clothes on.

She
felt her cheeks burn and tried harder to concentrate on what Selma was saying.

"On
and on he pressed me about the books. Did Mr. Whittier ever ask me to change an
entry? Did he ever question my figures?"

And,
too, Ashford Whittier had hair on his chest. Charlotte had seen the dark wiry
strands escaping the confines of his unfastened collar twice now, looking like
some springs gone haywire.

"And
I told him that Mr. Whittier showed very little interest in the books at
all," Selma continued. "That he took care of the importing and any
dealings with the clients overseas."

David,
now
full blown and in all his naked glory, reached across the table for the platter
of gratin of asparagus by her elbow. With a gasp she grabbed for her wine, took
a small sip, and followed it with a very unladylike mouthful, swallowing it
quickly. Too quickly. Choking for a breath, she wheezed as if the wine had been
laced with bones.

Ash,
once again fully clothed, thank goodness, was on his feet and behind her
practically before her breath had caught in her throat. He grabbed her wrists
and pulled her arms above her head with one hand while he pounded gently on her
back with the other. Still coughing, her eyes swam in tears while everyone
around the table shouted directions for her well-being.

Her
voice croaking and broken, she tried to tell them all she was perfectly all
right.

Actually,
it was a wasted effort and she needn't have bothered trying, since Ash was
reassuring them all of the fact while he gently massaged a spot between her
shoulder blades. "You're okay," he repeated over and over while his
hands investigated her back and no doubt learned more than he had any business
knowing. The tips of his fingers seemed to be searching for her corset. Tender
circles made lower and lower on her spine announced that he had found none. He
squeezed her shoulders in what felt like full approval, and she realized that
she'd left her hands high in the air and that she was surrounded by five pairs
of very wide eyes. Sheepishly she lowered her hands, and her gaze along with
them.

But
not before seeing the daggers that shot from Cabot's eyes at his brother. What
did he want? For her to choke to death? She hadn't seen any move on Cabot's
part to help her. Had Cabot ever touched her back? Anyplace but the top of her
hand, which he patted frequently enough to make her feel like an obedient pet?

She
hardly knew the feel of his hands, but his brother's had been warm, strong, and
reassuring.

"Are
you all right?" Selma asked her when it was finally clear that she
certainly was, but no one seemed to know quite what to say.

"She's
fine," Cabot said before she could get the words out herself. "I
thought we'd done the wine thing, Charlotte, and that I'd taught you to sip
rather than gulp it down as if it hadn't fermented yet."

"Thank
you, Cabot, for embarrassing me further. I certainly hadn't suffered
enough," she said with a tight, polite smile.

"I
hardly think choking on a glass of wine is cause for recrimination." Ash
made an elaborate ritual of placing his napkin on his lap, then shifted his
body so that his back was to Cabot. "You're looking especially lovely
tonight, Mother."

"Yes,"
Charlotte agreed. There was a distinct pinkness to her mother-in-law's cheeks
despite the worried look on her face. "Very pretty, actually."

"Oh,
Pretty! I want some of that!" Liberty shouted from the kitchen. Despite
his banishment he seemed to follow conversations from the distance, and always
had an inappropriate comment at an appropriate time. Each outburst was usually
followed by "Shut up, you stupid bird!" said either by the parrot
himself or by a disgusted diner or two.