Reilly 13 - Dreams of the Dead (30 page)

“Let me ask you this,” Nina said. “Did Marianne tie the sale to her being offered the managerial position?”

Ms. Choi hesitated. “It was not a, uh, kickback, nothing like that.”

“No, there would have been no reason to offer her the job as part of the negotiations because Mr. Strong was ready to sell.”

“Honestly? He seemed hostile to the idea, but she was instrumental. She caused him to change his mind. She has many years of experience as the assistant manager there, and her half brother apparently has an MBA from the University of Chicago. She pointed out to us that he has been the chief financial officer at Paradise for three years. She said they would make a solid and stable team, and we were pleased to find them available.”

“Excuse me,” Nina said, “I’ll be right back.”

She got up and went into the living room and paced. She hated to think how disappointed Ms. Choi would be to learn that Marianne was only experienced at publicity and giving ski school lessons, while Gene was a high school dropout who worked as a host in the Lodge.

What now? She had to get back into the kitchen. The Koreans
would have to fly in a manager at short notice. They seemed dubious about trusting Kelly, and she was the only other possibility.

No, worse. Working backward, the sale might be delayed and therefore fail. Would that be in the best interests of her client?

The phone seemed to buzz in the background. Was there an underground cable in the Pacific? Were coelacanths listening in?

Worse, this was the sort of bad news regarding which the bearer might get sued. Nina quickly reviewed in her mind a rather arcane area of tort law. The facts were not all in. If Nina told Ms. Choi about her sleazy new managers, would she be sued by Marianne and Gene?

Hmm. Hmm. Interference with advantageous business relation. Inducement of breach of contract. Those causes of action were just the beginning if the sale fell through. Philip might feel she had committed malpractice in volunteering such negative information.

Caveat emptor. Apt Latin maxims never die. She returned to the monitor.

Ms. Choi said, “Is Mr. Strong going to be all right?”

“We hope so.”

“He couldn’t, ah, suffer an event before Tuesday?”

“Life is uncertain,” Nina said. “I am so sorry, it has been a pleasure talking with you, but I have to go. I hope I answered your questions?”

“I think I have a few more, now.” And Ms. Choi would have a pantload more if Nina kept talking to her. Nina hurriedly said how much she would love to visit Korea someday—which was true, she loved Buddhist temples—and signed off.

B
ack upstairs, Nina pulled the rubber band out of her hair, sat on the edge of the bed.

Should she call Lynda? That would expose Lynda to the same legal and ethical problem that had unexpectedly landed on her. Should she call Philip? Paul? Eric?

Marianne and her morose half sib were completely unscrupulous.
Nina wondered now if they had somehow defeated Philip’s efforts to renegotiate his loans.

Had they used more than lies and chicanery to take over Paradise? Had they followed her and Paul to Jim Strong’s body? If so, why would they take it?

She tried for one more connection. Could Gene Malavoy have been Cyndi Backus’s secret lover? An adventurous woman might find him an attractive nuisance.

Did Cyndi ski? Did she meet him at the resort?

And if that happened, how then did Marianne feel, with her young half sib taking up with a local stripper?

Nina’s mind boiled over with possibilities, some outrageous, some that seemed to have a logical basis. The oven timer went off. Hitchcock sat at her feet, imploring her with big, steady eyes for some dinner. It was finally Sunday night, and she had laundry to fold while tutoring Bob for his geometry test, then she had to get over to Boulder Hospital.

She had to tell someone in authority at Paradise about the phone call. Philip was out of commission. She called Kelly.

Kelly answered immediately. She sounded rushed. Nina ran through the conversation. “I had heard Marianne make the same claim last week. I should have called you then. I’m very sorry. I know you have problems with Marianne and Gene. For that matter, with your father.”

Kelly said, “I’m dumbfounded. They don’t have the right.”

“We have to approach this cautiously, Kelly. Will you let me figure out how to deal with this situation? We don’t want to cause the sale to fall through.”

“I don’t know what to say. You better talk to my father, as soon as he’s able.”

“I didn’t even tell you how sorry I am about Philip’s illness.”

“Seems like just one more evil twist. Okay, thanks for letting me know.”

Nina hung up. Whew!

It was called compartmentalization, and men knew the feeling well. Nina plunked it all in a bow-tied box and picked up the pot holder.

J
ust off Emerald Bay Road, Boulder Hospital was small, intimate, and gave good personal care. Nina arrived well after dark.

She swung into the parking lot, remembering a story she had read a few years before about a bear which had stumbled through the automatic doors. The incident was caught on the hospital’s surveillance video. Pulling into an empty spot, she wondered if most people in the world had as chummy a relationship with wildlife as people up here in the mountains, next to a colossal lake where Native Americans still fished. Bears had been bashing in windows lately when the human doors wouldn’t give. One had even broken through the garage door of a local residence and eaten all the frozen chicken in the spare fridge.

The small community hospital treated roughly sixty-five patients at a time. It had a fully equipped Cardiopulmonary Department. Flowers in Reception held a big card with thanks from a former patient. Everyone seemed busy but happy. The rugs were clean. It was prime visiting time, but things were starting to quiet. Nina quickly found Philip Strong’s room.

She hadn’t had such a great experience with hospitals herself. Once she had been shot, sustaining a minor wound, and had been taken to Boulder. Giving birth to Bob had been tough, she thought, negotiating the corridors, remembering.

Back then, it had been just another hard time, Kurt not there, she young and lost.

The door to Philip’s room was open. She stepped inside. Kelly sat beside Philip’s bed, reading from a book by Roddy Doyle. Philip grunted now and then.

Nina put a vase full of flowers by his bedside, which already held four other bouquets. She moved some and set hers in a space under the window.

“Hello, Kelly.”

Kelly looked up from her book. “Hello, Nina.”

“Hi, Philip.” Nina hesitated, then came over and hugged him.

“Understand you saved my sorry ass by calling for help,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Thank you.”

Relieved that he was making sense, Nina said, “I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time. I wish I could make it all better for you.”

“Would that the universe worked that way.” He smiled weakly.

Kelly wore tan khakis and a sweater. Nina sat down on the only other chair in the cubicle, an adjustable office chair.

“How are you feeling?” Nina asked.

“I give myself a big two.” He looked hopefully toward Nina. “Quit fussing, Kelly. Even if they put the money in escrow for Jim, Nina will figure out what’s happening there. They’ll find his body. Or something. I’m confident of that.”

Nina plastered a smile on her face. He must know he was putting her in an impossible position. He might be doing it out of wishful thinking. He might be doing it to pacify his troubled daughter.

“Dad, now that Nina is here, I want to talk to you about something important. You need someone to run Paradise for the next few days. Marianne and Gene want to take over. Do you want that?”

Philip sipped from a paper cup. “Them taking over?”

Nina read tension delicate as spiderwebs forming between the two of them.

“Marianne’s made some kind of deal with the Korean buyers. She’s got a contract to manage the resort with Gene once the corporation buys it. Right, Nina? Nina talked to their lawyer in Seoul this afternoon.”

“No!” Philip said, obviously shocked. “Marianne and Gene? Impossible. Isn’t it, Nina?”

“Kelly’s right. Marianne will be general manager once the resort is sold,” Nina said. “She can do what she wants.”

Kelly said, her tone so noncommittal Nina couldn’t decide if
Kelly was annoyed at the thought or happy, “The Koreans seem willing to play into Gene’s dreams. He always wanted to run a resort. Marianne’s satisfied running the ski school. I admit she’s qualified to do that. But the two of them? I don’t know.”

“But Gene? He’s a big nothing—a host in our restaurant, for God’s sake!” Philip said. “He shouldn’t be running anything more challenging than a gourmet appetizer! And Marianne. Oh, my God, I always expected it. She has invaded our family and taken advantage—”

Kelly went on, “The Koreans don’t know any better. Marianne and Gene could fake a résumé. They do have some real experience at the resort. But you know, I wonder, and please, Dad, don’t have a fit, I wonder if it isn’t for the best? Marianne loves the resort, maybe even more than you.”

At that very moment, the door to the room opened, and Marianne Strong and Gene Malavoy appeared. Their timing could not have been worse.

Gene held a huge bouquet of flowers, which he tried to hand to Philip. Philip turned his head away. “Get that out of my face,” he said loudly. “What are you two doing here anyway?”

Marianne, dressed in yogic black head to toe, every muscular bone outlined, said, “How are you, Philip? Dad?”

“I’m not your dad and as if you gave a damn. I’m guessing it was bad news for you, hearing I made it through.”

She tilted her head. “What a thing to say.”

Gene tried to find a place for the bouquet, but there was no room on the ledge, and no vase to hold the flowers. He set them down on a cart and looked around. “Not even a private room for a man like you,” he said.

“‘A man like me,’” Philip said in a low tone. “You people. Traitors. You make me sick. You”—he pointed at Marianne—“married my son Alex to get your mitts on the resort, didn’t you? And as for you, Gene”—Philip’s face filled with disgust—“I gave you a job when you had no experience whatsoever, on Marianne’s say-so.”

“I’m guessing he has heard about our contract with the Koreans,” Marianne said to Gene. She tapped Philip’s hand so briefly he didn’t have the chance to recoil. “Look, we have done nothing to harm you. Nothing. We have to go on, too. We made sure we wouldn’t lose our jobs when the resort is sold.”

“Maybe you engineered the whole thing somehow,” Philip said.

“We didn’t run it into the ground. You did that. If you’d kept it profitable, we wouldn’t be taking over as managers, and I wouldn’t be out of pocket my life’s savings. Let’s not be hostile. I’ve known you and Kelly a long time. Now I’m protecting myself.”

“What do you want, Marianne?” Philip cried. “Why come here? Jesus H. Christ! You’re vultures picking on dead meat.”

“Let us get to the point. Gene and I are willing to run the resort as of Wednesday, the day the sale goes through.”

The veins in Philip’s face, already far too red and thready, throbbed. He did not answer.

“Since you are—incapacitated at present, it seems to us that the logical thing now is for us to take over immediately.”

“I begged Alex not to marry you,” Philip said. “You’ve insinuated yourself into our family business to the point where you think—no, you believe—you deserve to take over.”

“Dad, you shouldn’t dismiss her without listening to what she has to say,” Kelly said.

“Whose side are you on?” Philip pulled his sheet up over his shoulders. “God, it’s cold in here.”

Marianne sat down, speaking in a serene voice. “I understand this causes you upheaval, and I’m sorry about that, okay? But Gene and I will do a good job. We’ll honor Paradise and its past, while ushering it into a new era.”

Philip struggled to sit up. “I give you not one damn thing!”

A machine beeped. Within seconds, five medical people entered the room commanding them all to leave.

In the hallway, Nina put her arm around Kelly’s shoulders. “Your dad’s tough. He’ll be okay.”

Kelly, who seemed to be thinking hard, didn’t answer.

Marianne shrugged. “It’s a completed arrangement. We manage the resort as of this moment.”

Kelly pulled herself together. She spoke in an ice-cold voice. “You manage nothing, Marianne. Legally, I have Dad’s power of attorney. At the moment, he’s unable to make business decisions. Right, Nina?”

Nina nodded. “That’s right.”

“So that leaves me in charge. So I hereby take over Paradise Resort for as long as the Strong family owns it. I’ll manage it for as long as it belongs to my family, even if that’s only a matter of days.”

“Ugh,” Marianne said. “I have nothing against you, Kelly, but your father gambled away a lot of money. He lost your family asset, not me. I don’t think you’re blind to that, either. Watch out for that family-loyalty thing you have. It can rise up and bite you.”

“You don’t know me,” Kelly said, “so don’t talk to me that way. I don’t know you either.”

“Oh, come on, Kelly, we are old friends. Let me be. I don’t mean to hurt you or Philip. Don’t be like this.”

“Not until I sort some stuff out,” Kelly said. “Maybe then. Meantime, I’ll see you at Paradise at eight. Let’s keep the damn place running. It’s best for all of us. That we can agree on.”

S
ondra heard the sound of the truck before she spotted it several stories below. Two slick-looking guys arrived at the receptionist’s desk and were escorted into Sondra’s office, where they asked politely where they should put the current shipment.

Arrangements agreed upon, they began the slow process of unloading a completely brand-new set of beautiful designer furnishings, including some original oil paintings of Tahoe before the logging of the 1800s. Sondra told them exactly where to place each piece and, when she was satisfied, handed each of them a fresh $100 bill.