“Liana!
I recognized the number of your carry phone,” he said, with pride. “I hoped you will call your uncle.”
“Of course, I will call my favorite uncle.” I tried to keep my voice upbeat and cheerful. “How could I go to bed without saying goodnight?”
“
Mi sobrina favorita
.” He laughed, and I could hear relaxation wash over him. “You are all right,
¿
la verdad
?”
“The truth, I am all right.”
“And the cats? Richard, he calls earlier to say you have found them.”
“The cats are right here, and we’re all fine. We’re spending the night in Flint’s guestroom. We’ll be back before noon tomorrow, flying in with Gurn. And it’s called a cellphone, Tío, not that it really matters.”
“Si, si.
I knew it was something like that. Your mother, she flies back tomorrow, too.”
“She does? Why? I thought she was going to stay in Phoenix for a few days.”
“She will tell you tomorrow. You sound
muy cansada
,
sobrina.
”
There’s no fooling Tío. “I am tired, Tío.”
“Then go to sleep.
Mañana
comes soon enough.
Te amo.
”
“Te amo.
”
I threw myself flat on the double bed, arms outstretched, looked up at the ceiling, and tried to free my mind of everything. Cats walked over and around me, stopping periodically to sniff my face, hands, and neck, tickling me with their fur and noses. It was better than a Valium, and I dropped off for a minute or two. Fifteen minutes later, Flint knocked on the door holding a plate with a steaming slice of pizza oozing with mozzarella cheese and a side of hamburger meat in one hand, and a cloth napkin and crystal goblet filled with sparkling deep red wine in the other. Flint is a wine connoisseur and drinks only the finest.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” I said when I thought about the night before. He looked at me as if I had lost my mind. “Well, maybe just a sip.”
A pizza lover from way back, I shut and relocked the door, relishing what I had in store for me. Then I took a swallow of the knock-your-socks-off cab. Ambrosia.
Noting Lady Gee’s tank had brightened up considerably, as had her mood, I changed into the large man’s T-shirt I often sleep in, fed the cats, and clicked on the remote for the small TV sitting on the dresser across from the bed. After a quick run through the channels, I found the Marx Brother’s
Duck Soup
nearing its end. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve watched as many black and white ‘30s and ‘40s movies as I could, much to my mother’s alarm.
Having seen
Duck Soup
at least twenty times, I can come into the story at any point. I love it as much today as the first time my father introduced me to one of the best Groucho, Harpo, and Chico films. Cross-legged on the bed, I ate my pizza, laughed at the movie’s finale, savored the last dregs of wine, and zonked out around eleven o’clock, with a cat cuddled in each arm. Not bad.
Chapter Nine
Things Are Looking Up…Aren’t They?
The next morning, my eyes opened like they were on springs. I checked the watch still wrapped around my wrist. It was precisely 6:30 a.m. I knew precisely where I was, too, not as is so often the case when you’re sleeping in a strange bed, and you need to orient yourself. I raised my head, without moving anything else, and glanced down at the warm weight at my feet. Two cats, curled into one, slept peacefully, bodies pressed against me.
I lay there recapping the previous gawd-awful day, not knowing many of the answers but some of them. I tested myself using a pro and con mental ledger, hoping I’d get a decent score.
What I know:
Kelli, my ex-husband’s new wife, shows up at my home in Palo Alto yesterday.
Why? She needs to find Nick.
Why me? Probably because he told her my family and I run a detective agency, and we might be more likely to find him when she couldn’t.
What did she want him for? Safe to say it revolved around information on the microchip she’d put on his dog tags. Having the chip in my possession, I’ll soon know why it’s so important.
Why did she take the cats? I’d initially told her I’d look for Nick, which must have been what she was angling for, but threw her out when I found out my cousin, Stephen, had died. Apparently, she had Eddie Crackmeir follow her in his car for any necessary help. Taking the cats, I feel sure, was a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants plan.
Wow! This isn’t much.
Other side of the ledger—what I don’t know:
Putting all the emotions of an ex-wife and current wife aside, I know
nada
about Kelli, other than she is a consummate liar. Like
all liars, she uses the worst of human frailties and weaknesses to her own advantage. Mine, in particular. She’s also resourceful and fast thinking. I will not underestimate her again. Even grading on a curve, I’m probably only going to get a C.
Kelli Crackmeir, or whatever the hell her name is, seems to have no shortage of willing men in her life. First, Nick Papadopoulos, a former marine gone to seed. Whatever backbone he’d had seems to have vanished. Or is that an act solely for my benefit? He and Kelli could be in cahoots, to use her word, and he could be playing all of us. In any event, I know from years ago not to trust him as far as I can throw an overweight bull elephant. My grade is now a lousy D.
Nick says he knows nothing about the races and called Stephen to warn him not to run after he found the list with ‘take out’ written beside my cousin’s name. Is that true? Or did he have a case of the last minute guilts and try to call off what he’d help set in motion? Is Nick innocent of Stephen’s death, as he claims, or is he as consummate a liar as his lady love? He’d lied to me for years about his affairs. Maybe that’s why Nick and Kelli were attracted to one another in the first place. Maybe people who lie together lay together. I’m down to a D minus.
Kelli’s second man, Lou Spaulding, is an internationally powerful and dangerous man from all accounts. Did Kelli really only marry Nick to get close to Spaulding? Or are Nick and Kelli playing him, too? And what info could be on the chip that has Spaulding ready to kill Nick in order to get it back?
Added thought: Why isn’t Spaulding going after Kelli with an ‘i’ as well or instead of Nick?
Enter man #3, Eddie Crackmeir, and I’m getting tired of these men, already. What is Eddie’s part in all of this? Does it mean anything that he’s Kelli’s legal husband? Is he in on whatever’s going on with Nick and Kelli?
Added thought: Are Kelli and Eddie making fools of Nick and the rest of us?
Face it, Lee, these are only three men I know of in Kelli’s life. There could be more. As far as I’m concerned, Cleopatra and Mata Hari were amateurs next to Kelli. I am loathe to say it, but I have a deep respect for her capabilities. And of the three men I know about, what did they do for her in the past, and what are they willing to do in the future? I won’t underestimate their part in this or trust any of them further than I can throw an overweight bull…never mind.
What about the names on the list Nick found and I now have in my possession? How many on that list are already dead? Let’s not forget Gurn is on that list. Making sure he doesn’t wind up dead is something I mean to get an A+ on.
Mentally rerunning my encounter with Kelli Whatshername is like watching one of Boris Karloff’s better horror movies. Something dastardly is going on, and you have no idea who’s going to get done in, or who’s going to be standing at the end. But I promise myself this: I will be standing at the end. And Gurn, my family, and anybody else I care about. It’s too late for Stephen, but there is no way I’m going to let anybody else get taken out.
At six forty-five, I got up and went into the bathroom. Before I brushed my teeth, I cleaned out the litter pan and saw the cat’s food dish was empty. I hadn’t heard the little darlings get up in the night, but apparently they had, ate their dinner, and took care of their business.
I glanced out to the desk and saw that Lady Gee was swimming her little heart out. All was right with her. Should I give her more food? I didn’t know. I’d read once that you had to be careful not to overfeed fish. When I got a chance, I would look it up on the Internet. Lady Gee was mine now, and I’d try to make sure she had a long and happy life.
That’s when it occurred to me I might have gotten more than a D minus on this test. After all, I had the cats, the microchip, an expensive, butt-ugly ruby ring, Nick, and Lady Gee, tank and all.
Momentarily satisfied, I pulled out my black practice leotard, tights, toe shoes, and ear buds connected to an iPod
from my knapsack. I had time for forty-five minutes of practice. The few times I wear black is at funerals, or when I do my ballet barre. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s the solemnity of both occasions, but there you have it. The only addition of color was a short, pale pink organza tie skirt that wrapped around my waist.
The flimsy fabric is supposed to help the dancer remember that eventually she’ll be wearing a costume, ninety-five percent of the time a starched tutu. It is important to train yourself to hold your arms out from your body, not to crush the netting. Why this particular dancer—meaning me—wore a flimsy, practice skirt, I don’t know. Call it hope. Dancing on-stage while wearing a costume could someday happen to me…along with winning the lottery.
I tiptoed out of the room, not stirring cats that were dead to the world, and entered the living room. Last night I hadn’t paid much attention to my surroundings, but as I looked around, more refreshed and in the morning’s light, I couldn’t take my eyes off the walls. Painted a rich, forest green, three of them served as backdrops for various sizes of colorful Native American portraits in oil, acrylic, or pastels. Depictions of warriors: some vigorous and young, filled with the glories of war; and old men, memories of long ago victories and more recent sorrows etched across their features.
I didn’t recognize the artist’s brushstrokes, and none were signed, but he or she was someone with talent and no small understanding of the plight of the Native American soul. The fourth wall opened into the large kitchen, a long off-white tile countertop separating it from the living room.
Drawn to one corner of the room, I found a simple hand-chiseled, light wood table held a Frederick Remington cast of a brave, his pony, and a small dog. It was heart-
achingly beautiful, each subject exhausted, despairing, and near death. It was the real deal, and I wondered how Flint came to own a museum-quality work such as this. There would be a story, I knew, but it might not be one I should be privy to. I turned away.
Nick was asleep on the sofa, lightly snoring, his left arm over his head and the right holding onto the gray blanket covering him below a naked chest and abdomen, no longer filled with rippling muscles and a well-defined six-pack. Whatever else was going on in Nick’s life, he was no longer a slave to his daily workouts. His pants and shirt—correction Ken’s pants and shirt—lay haphazardly on a worn suede overstuffed chair, said chair having seen better days but still exuding its initial expense.
Attaching the iPod to my waist, I walked softly through the room, wondering about the paintings on the wall. Something told me they might be Lonato’s work. While I had known him most of my life, it was always as my father’s friend. Lonato was a private person, solitary and ruminative. In the past, I often hesitated on asking him the simplest questions, allowing a wall to be built between us, especially when I was a child. No more. After the past twenty-four hours, I saw a man who was giving and generous. I wanted to be more than Bobby’s daughter to him. I wanted to be his friend.
I began my barre, freeing my mind of those thoughts and others. For me, this is similar to the reason why many people have a hobby. It’s a small allotment of time when you can put everything on a backburner and concentrate on a golf swing, a needlepoint stitch or, in my case, a dance step.
After my stretches and warm-up, I moved on in earnest. On and off for many years, I have been practicing a series of steps, which create one grand movement. From fifth position, I do a
plié
, which is French for bend at the knees,
then a
relevé
, also French, meaning rise to a toe point on one or two feet. On one point, I raise the non-supporting leg out to the side, with knee sharply bent so my toe is pointing next to the supporting knee. I say all of this because in the scheme of things, this is about a thousand dollars worth of ballet lessons right there.
But
here comes the hard part. While you’re rising up to point, you need to mentally and physically prepare yourself for a series of turns or pirouettes in place, spotting something in the room so you know when you’ve made one complete revolution. After the turn or turns, the dancer is supposed to relax the body and return to fifth
position, exactly from where he or she started. Tack on another fifteen hundred bucks.
Even the most beginning of dancers can make one turn in place with a little practice. You need more experience and technique to do two turns, which I’ve been able to do since junior high. Only the really good can manage three or more turns in place, me not being one of them. One day, if I’m lucky and don’t continue to fall on my butt, I might be able to accomplish three turns with a return to place. It is devoutly wished.
Listening to selections of
Swan Lake
on the iPod, I did the preparation, then the turns, and managed to do my usual two and a half revolutions before I lost my balance and came down off toe, not facing the countertop but the sink. Undaunted, I returned to fifth, about to
plié
again, when I heard Nick’s voice, smooth and sultry.
“You always were a beautiful dancer, Lee, but then, you’re a beautiful woman.”
I hadn’t seen him rise from the sofa I’d been so intent on my barre. I threw a hand towel around my sweaty neck before I faced him.
“That was something you used to say when you wanted to get laid.”
“How am I doing?” He flashed a smile and leered at me.
“We’re divorced. I don’t remember much of our marriage, but I remember that.” I returned his stare.
He grinned again. “Maybe I remember enough for the both of us.”
I turned away and wiped my forehead roughly with the towel, taking out on my skin what I’d like to take out on my ex. “Nick, don’t insult either one of us with this kind of crap, okay?” I faced him again and threw the towel at him. “We’ve got far more important issues at hand, so don’t make me mad. I might forget I’m trying to save your life.”
His mood changed abruptly, and he looked down. “Okay. Sorry, Lee.” After a pause, he looked back up. “Truly, I’m sorry. I’m not myself lately. I guess having your wife’s boyfriend put a contract out on you makes you a little nervous.”
I hesitated, and my voice softened. “About that, Nick. The wife part.”
“What?”
I moved around to the edge of the counter and stepped back into the living room, heading for the sofa. When I saw it was more or less still his unmade bed, I changed my mind and sat primly on the suede chair. “Maybe we should both sit down.”
“Okay,” he said, following me, a questioning look on his face. He grabbed his shirt from the back of the chair, pulled it on, sat at the one end of the sofa, and waited.
“Nick, I don’t quite know how to put this, so I’ll just say it. Eddie Crackmeir isn’t Kelli’s uncle. He’s her husband.”
“What?” Nick jumped up and glared at me.
“They were married in Oklahoma five years ago. There’s no record of divorce.”
“What are you talking about?” Nick began in protest. “She told me he was her uncle. He came over to our condo and introduced himself to me as her uncle.” He stopped sputtering and tugged at the neck of his shirt, pulling the
collar out. Then he threw himself back down on the sofa, while I went on.
“I understand, but he’s not. Richard found a copy of their marriage license online, her father’s signature on it because she was underage. Eddie Crackmeir is Kelli’s husband.” I stopped talking to let the words sink in.
Silence loomed for several seconds. I could see various thoughts and emotions running across Nick’s face almost as if he was speaking out loud. He turned to me.