Winter Chill (23 page)

“Okay, guys . . . hit it!”

At Moira’s cue, Jayne began an African melody on the piano. Grace crossed the room to open the door and a crowd of dancers dressed in Zulu costumes and carrying spears came in, holding a tiger skin rug, complete with head.

“Oh, Lord!” Charlotte began to laugh. “That animal has to be six feet long.”

“It’s actually a little over nine. I can take the head off if it really bothers you, but it adds such a nice touch of authenticity and it’ll be on the floor, not the wall. Moira says it’ll fit perfectly in front of your fireplace and I think it’ll look very . . .” Grace stopped in midsentence as she felt Moira’s hand on her arm. “Okay, Moira, I’ll stop. But do you like it, Charlotte?”

Charlotte reached out to touch the fur. “It’s beautiful and you can leave the head on. I can always put a sleep mask over its eyes.”

“Since we’re doing the presents . . .” Alan Lewis got to his feet. The owner of a chain of upscale building supply stores, Alan had provided Deer Creek materials at cost in return for his first-floor unit. An overweight man in his fifties with a cherubic face and a completely bald head, he placed his meerschaum pipe in an ashtray and cleared his throat. Alan’s doctor had told him to quit smoking last year, and he’d tried everything: hypnosis, acupuncture, even aversion therapy in a famous clinic. Finally, the doctor had conceded that a pipe might be less harmful than chain-smoking unfiltered Camels, provided he didn’t inhale, of course. Alan had left his doctor’s office and ducked into the nearest pipe store. The salesman had been very helpful and Alan had emerged four thousand dollars poorer, with two hand-carved, antique meerschaums and a set of seven Dunhills, one for every day of the week, in a custom-fitted presentation case. His wife, Laureen, had picked out the tobacco, an aromatic blend that smelled a lot like cookies baking. Now Alan’s doctor was happy and so was Laureen, and only Lyle knew that Alan still sneaked a Camel now and then.

“We wanted to give you something special.” Alan beckoned at his wife. “Laureen? You do the honors, honey.”

“I just want you all to know that this was Alan’s idea.” Laureen Lewis picked up a silver-wrapped box and carried it to Charlotte. An attractive blonde who was always watching her weight, she hosted a cooking show on the local Las Vegas television channel. Usually unflappable, Laureen’s face was pink with embarrassment as Charlotte began to unwrap the package.

Charlotte lifted the lid and stared into the box with disbelief. “What is it?”

“It’s a toilet seat.” Alan grabbed it and lifted it out. “See? It’s silver, that’s in honor of your twenty-fifth anniversary, and it hooks on like this. The fixtures are genuine gold and that’s mother-of-pearl inlay on the edges. I can install it in a jiffy if you tell me which bathroom you want it in.”

Charlotte couldn’t help it. She started to giggle. Leave it to Alan.

“I think it should go in the guest bathroom.” Lyle took over when he saw that Charlotte was virtually speechless. “That way more people will get to admire it. Thanks, Alan. That was very . . . generous.”

When Jack St. James stood up, Lyle gazed at him in shock. He was a short, muscular man in his early forties with light brown hair closely cropped in the military style. Today he was dressed for the occasion in a dark blue three-piece suit, quite a change from the chinos and NRA sweatshirt he usually wore. When Jack had applied for the job as live-in security officer, he’d told them that during his employment with a big security outfit, he’d designed the highly rated home security system that several of Charlotte’s wealthy friends used. Jack was a lifelong member of the NRA, an organization that Charlotte abhorred, but his mention of a gold medal won in Olympic rifle competition had confirmed that Jack St. James was the man for the job. The tough little man inspired their confidence, important since their building was so isolated. In return for a small, one-bedroom apartment just off the garage and a reasonable salary, Jack had agreed to design a special security system for the entire building and to act as their in-house security chief.

“Twenty-five years and you’re still together.” Jack handed his gift to Charlotte. “I figure you and Lyle deserve medals for that.”

Charlotte lifted the lid on the box and gasped, then held up Jack’s gift for everyone to see. There were two silver medals inside, replicas of the ones from the Olympics. “Thank you, Jack. It says we won the silver in the marriage marathon. That’s very clever! Wherever did you find them?”

“I didn’t exactly find them. I just drew up the design and had a trophy place make them to order.”

“It’s your idea?” Alan Lewis put his pipe in the ashtray and got up for a closer look. “I bet you could market these. People are always looking for unusual gifts and these’d sell like hotcakes. It’s a brilliant concept.”

“And you could use silver for the twenty-fifth, gold for the fiftieth, and bronze for whatever the bronze anniversary is. What is it anyway? I’ve got a Hallmark date book at home and I could look it up because they usually have a list of . . .” Grace realized that Moira was staring at her and she stopped. “All right, Moira. But I still think Jack is a genius.”

As everyone began to tell him how clever he was, Jack sat there, obviously embarrassed, until Jayne took pity on him.

“Go fetch our gift, Paul. Jack’s face is redder than a turkey waddle.”

“A what?” Lyle turned to her in surprise. He hadn’t been raised on a farm, but neither had Jayne. It must be a phrase from a song she’d written.

“A turkey waddle. You know those gross little things that hang down on the . . . oh, never mind. Just get it, Paul.”

“If you will all pardon me, please?” Paul got up and bowed. “This will take only a moment.”

Everyone watched as Paul returned almost immediately with a large box. “Jayne has told me this is appropriate for your happy occasion. It is only a small token of our friendship and affection, but we hope it will meet your favor.”

“Lord!” Lyle’s eyes widened as Charlotte lifted a miniature house out of the box. “That looks just like 247 South Haven Street.”

“It is!” Charlotte bent closer to read the house number on the tiny door. “Look, Lyle, a replica of our very first house. Is that why you were asking me all those questions, Jayne?”

Jayne nodded. “Paul got hold of the original blueprints and his model man built it.”

Charlotte lifted the roof and peered at the tiny furnishings inside. “I still don’t know how you did it but it’s simply perfect, all the way down to that awful living room rug.”

“How’d you do it?” Moira leaned closer to look. “That pattern isn’t even made anymore.”

“Betty did the rug. That’s her present.”

“Our Betty?” Charlotte looked shocked by Jayne’s emphatic nod.

“Dang-tootin’. I showed her what I needed and she hand-colored the pattern with felt tip pens.”

“That was so sweet.” Charlotte sighed deeply. “I’ll go up to thank her when we get home. Do you think she’s getting any better?”

Moira shook her head. “That’s impossible, Charlotte. I read a book on it. It says that some days are better than others, but it’s an inevitable decline. Of course Betty doesn’t realize how confused she is and that helps, but Alzheimer’s is a real b—”

“Bitch.” Grace supplied the word before Moira had time to think of an acceptable substitute. With all these “shucks” and “dangs” and “horsefeathers” floating around, she sometimes felt like she was a character in a Jimmy Stewart movie. “Alzheimer’s is a bitch of a disease.”

Everyone was silent for a moment. Betty Matteo’s lawyers had offered Marc the land on Deer Creek Road at a bargain price, provided it contain a unit for Betty and her full-time nurse.

Charlotte cleared her throat. “Well . . . Lyle and I thank you all for the wonderful presents. I think this is the nicest celebration we’ve ever had.”

“It’s not over yet.” Hal Knight came as close as he ever had to smiling as he handed Charlotte a thin package. A handsome man whom Charlotte thought resembled the young Henry Fonda in
The Grapes of Wrath,
Hal was saved from a too-pretty face by a hairline scar, two inches in length, running across his left cheekbone. Most people imagined that it was a dueling scar, but Hal freely admitted that it came from a fall off his tricycle at age three.

Hal lived and worked in the third-floor unit. He was the cartoonist who drew Skampy Skunk, Benny Bunny, and Chiquita Chicken, whose antics made the whole country laugh. Few people acknowledged the subtle sarcasm that ran through every strip.

They’d all grown to know him very well, and one night at the penthouse spa, after one too many glasses of wine, Hal had revealed the source of his bitterness. Because he was handsome and successful, beautiful women continually made overtures toward him. Flattered, Hal enjoyed their company, but that was as far as it went. He’d tried all the remedies. Therapy. Sex clinics. Potency drugs. Even a desperate attempt at a homosexual liaison. Nothing had worked. Apparently, Hal had informed them wryly, he was lucky. One therapist claimed that he was sublimating his libidinal urges in his work, and that if that particular part of his anatomy was functional, he might not be nearly so successful.

“This is sweet, Hal. Thank you.” Charlotte reached up to kiss him on the cheek. “Look at this, everyone. It’s Skampy Skunk and Chiquita Chicken congratulating us on our anniversary.”

Hal nodded. “Better hang on to that, Charlotte. It’ll be worth big bucks someday.”

“It’s worth big bucks now.” Lyle took the drawing from Charlotte and studied it. “A signed Hal Knight has to be worth at least a grand.”

Hal almost smiled again. “More like five grand, Lyle, and just wait ’til I croak. Look what happened to the sketches Picasso drew on restaurant tablecloths. I’m probably a better investment than IBM.”

“Sorry I’m late.” Marc Davies burst into the room, shook hands with Paul who had automatically risen to his feet, and took his place at the table. “Some idiot backed into my car at the baseball game and dented my bumper.”

“My goodness! I didn’t know they played baseball in February!” Charlotte looked confused so Marc hurried to explain.

“It was college baseball. They start early so they can finish before the end of the school year, and I went out to watch the new pitcher at U.N.L.V. He’s got one hell of a change-up and his slider’s pretty decent, too. Those are pitches, Charlotte.”

“Is he better than you were?” Lyle couldn’t resist teasing his former partner.

“Of course not.” Marc grinned. “I was the hottest thing the pros ever latched on to. Ask anyone who was around in seventy-two. This kid I saw today has got possibilities, though. All he needs is a little seasoning.”

Charlotte frowned slightly. “I didn’t know you played professional baseball, Marc. You never mentioned it.”

“That’s because I wasn’t around long enough to brag. One season and I was retired. It’s a long story, Charlotte.”

“It sounds fascinating.” Charlotte reached over to fill his glass with champagne. “Tell us about it, Marc.”

Marc raised an eyebrow. “You’re really that interested?”

“Of course we are!” Charlotte smiled at him. She wasn’t, but she knew that a good hostess always listened to her guests.

“All right. Just let me wet my whistle first. I’ve got some catching up to do.”

Lyle studied his former partner as he drank. At first glance, he looked the part of a builder, sporting jeans and a blue work shirt open at the collar. But Lyle knew that Marc ordered his jeans from a tailor in London, and that the shirt was actually cut from the finest silk with an elaborate blue-on-blue pocket monogram. Marc’s loafers were handmade in Italy, and his watch was a diamond-studded Rolex worth over ten thousand dollars.

Marc drained his champagne glass and set it down. His face was slightly flushed and Lyle was sure that he’d had a couple of beers at the game. He’d always been very close-mouthed about his aborted career before.

“On the night before the last game of the play-offs, I got a call from some guy who wouldn’t identify himself. He said that if I came in to relieve, he’d give me fifty big ones to throw the game.”

“Do you mean fifty thousand dollars?” Charlotte looked shocked as Marc nodded. “Whatever did you say?”

“I told him I wasn’t interested, that there was no way I wanted to get involved in something like that.”

“Well, I should hope not!” Charlotte pursed her lips together. “Did you report it to the authorities?”

Marc shook his head. “I figured it was a joke. We had some real bozos on the team and that was right up their alley. At the game the next day, I got called up to relieve in the sixth when the score was tied four-four. I got two strikes on my first man and then he caught a piece of my curve ball and lined one straight at me. I had to dive to make the catch and I racked up my elbow so bad they had to take me out of the game.”

Grace was sitting on the edge of her chair. “That’s exciting! I just love baseball except that I’m always working when the games are on television and every time I try to tape one to watch later, Moira ends up telling me how it came out before . . . Okay, Moira. I’ll be quiet. But did your team win, Marc?”

“Nope, we lost. And the next day I got an envelope in the mail with fifty big ones inside.”

“Good heavens!” Charlotte gasped. “They thought you got injured on purpose?”

“I guess so. I thought about turning it in, but the kind of guys who pay to fix a game don’t like anyone to know about it, especially the police. And there was no way I could identify who’d sent it anyway. So I stuck it in a safe deposit box and went off to the hospital for elbow surgery.”

“But the surgery didn’t work,” Lyle prompted. He’d heard this part of the story before.

Marc nodded. “That’s right. After five different doctors had worked on me, they told me to forget about pitching again. And since my career in baseball was finished, I used the money to start my construction business.”