“I-do-not!”
“Sometimes, I don’t even like you, Oliver. You always rain on my parade. You know that, right?”
“I know, and I’m sorry. C’mon, let’s take a cab. By the way, did I give you my card with that phone number I scribbled on the back? Eileen’s son called today and gave me his new phone number. He wants you to call him. My advice is, don’t do it. You severed all those ties, so let it be.”
“It’s in my pocket. I won’t call him, so don’t worry about it. If he calls you again, tell him I have relocated, but don’t tell him where.”
A cab slid to the curb, and both men piled in. Nine blocks later, the cab slid to the curb again, and Oliver got out.
“Thanks for dinner, Oliver. I have the cab fare. I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Okay. Mace?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll do what you said. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
The cab pulled away. Mace leaned back in the seat for the thirty-minute drive to his temporary digs. It was raining harder by then, lightning dancing across the sky, the thunder booming all around him. Drivers, frustrated with the crawling traffic, leaned on their horns in the hopes it would make the traffic move faster. Mace actually thought about getting out and walking the rest of the way. He craned his neck to see if he could read a street sign, but it was raining too hard. Up front, the cab driver was mumbling and muttering to himself in some language Mace couldn’t understand.
Mace’s earlier happy, contented mood was suddenly gone, and he felt only stress and anxiety and didn’t know why. Maybe it was the driver, who had some beads in his hand and appeared to be praying as he muttered and mumbled. Praying in traffic?
The night lit up at the same time that a roll of thunder sounded across the sky. For seconds, it looked brighter than daylight. Mace was able to see a street sign. Four blocks to go. He dug in his pocket for some bills. He leaned forward and handed them to the driver, telling him he would walk the rest of the way.
The driver turned to face him, shaking his head and saying, “You no go. Stay. One little minute, and you be safe.”
“It’s okay,” Mace said. “Be careful. Drive safely.”
It was the biggest mistake Mace would ever make in his life. He stepped out of the cab into water that came over his ankles. He could see lines and lines of cars, their headlights blurred in the driving rain. Deciding that the driver was right, he turned to get back into the cab but couldn’t find the handle. Water rushed at him as he struggled to move, his hands outstretched in front of him. Lightning flashed, and thunder roared, as he squeezed himself between two cars to get to the sidewalk. He reached for the lamppost and hauled himself to the curb. The last thing Mace Carlisle saw before he died was a bolt of lightning streaking to the streetlight he was hanging on to for support.
Chapter 14
T
he police arrived at Oliver Goldfeld’s suite of offices at the same time he did. Oliver took a moment to wonder how they had missed one another, but then he remembered that he’d come up the back way, huffing and puffing on the steps. His one concession to exercise other than his once-a-year squash game with his roly-poly internist. He squinted down at his fancy watch, a gift from Mace, which did everything but cook meals and take a shower for him—six eleven. The watch had to weigh at least half a pound, and he hated it, but because Mace had given it to him, he faithfully wore it every day. He looked at New York’s finest, his eyebrows raised in question. He thought both officers looked tired and were about to go off their shift. He waited, his gut telling him he wasn’t going to like whatever it was they were going to tell him.
The taller of the two officers held out a business card. Oliver sucked in his breath when he realized he was looking down at his own business card, the one on which he’d written Eli’s number on the back, which was now nothing more than just a smear of blue ink. “Where . . . where did you get this?” he finally managed to croak, his tongue thick in his mouth.
The second officer licked at his lips. “From the dead body of a man. He was struck by lightning around eight o’clock last evening. The M.E. gave us this card and his personal effects. We went to the address on his driver’s license, but that location is empty and for sale. His company’s offices weren’t open yet, so we came here. We didn’t have your home address, just this address on the card. Are you Mr. Carlisle’s attorney?”
Oliver thought he was going to black out. All he heard were the words,
dead body.
He tried to calculate how many hours had passed since he’d parted company with Mace, but his frozen brain wouldn’t cooperate. “I am . . . was . . .” Suddenly, it was all important that these officers know he was more than Mace’s attorney. “I consider . . . considered Mace my oldest, closest, and dearest friend in the whole world.” His voice cracked, and he had to sit down. Again, he thought he was going to black out.
“If you’re up to it, Mr. Goldfeld, we’d like you to come with us to identify Mr. Carlisle’s body, unless you think someone from his company would be the better choice. Is there any family that you know of?”
“No family. I’m all the family Mace has. Of course I’ll come with you,” Oliver said, his voice cracking all over again. “But first I want to call Mace’s physician to meet us there. His name is Jonah Levin.” Oliver hit the number four on his speed dial, then spoke in a harsh whisper.
The city was alive and already going at full throttle when Oliver and the two police officers climbed into the squad car. The driver hit his siren and turned on his flashing lights as he whizzed into the teeming traffic. Oliver had never ridden in a police car before. He didn’t like the way it smelled.
Oliver’s thoughts were chaotic as he tried to come to terms with what had happened and what was going on at that exact moment in time. His eyes were wet as the fingers on his right hand caressed the watch he was wearing. Suddenly, he loved this watch and vowed at that moment never, ever to take it off.
Oliver was stunned to see Jonah, whom he and Mace called Jonesy, already in the hospital morgue. He wrapped his arms around his doctor and let the tears flow.
“I don’t want you to see him, Oliver. I made the identification and signed off.” The doctor’s eyes were just as wet as Oliver’s.
“No, Jonesy, I want to see him.”
“No, you don’t. Trust me on that.”
The two officers mumbled something that sounded like they were sorry for their loss, and left the morgue room.
“Why?” Oliver asked.
Jonesy told him. This time Oliver did black out, but Jonesy managed to catch him before he hit the floor.
“Okay, you’re coming back with me to my office. I need to check you out. You’re white as a sheet.” Oliver didn’t protest, as he struggled to put one foot in front of the other.
“We have to . . . to make arrangements. We need to tell . . .”
“And we will, but not right this second. Harsh as this may sound, Mace isn’t going anywhere.”
Oliver knew that Jonesy was right, so he kept quiet.
Ninety minutes later, blood drawn, blood pressure taken, Oliver waited for Jonesy to say something.
“Your blood pressure is off the charts. I want you to go into my office and lie down on the sofa. It’s not a request, Oliver, it’s an order. The tech who drew your blood took the sample to the lab, and we should have the results later today. That means you are not going anywhere until I say you are. Consider this a wake-up call. I mean it, Oliver.”
Oliver looked up into the doctor’s kindly eyes and nodded. He obediently trotted into Jonesy’s office and did as instructed. He thought his heart was going to punch right out of his chest. He talked himself down until his breathing returned to normal. The moment he was feeling clearheaded, he called his secretary, issued orders, and ended the call saying, “No, I am not going to change my mind. Be sure to call Marion. Start the ball rolling.” And then he dozed off, because he had to escape the horror that his life had become since he had first seen those two policemen at his door.
When Oliver woke several hours later, Jonesy was sitting in a chair across from him. “I canceled all my appointments for the day. How are you feeling, Oliver?”
“Like shit! How do you think I feel? Want to take my BP again?”
Jonesy did. He smiled. “It’s still a little high, but I think you’re out of the crash-and-burn state, and I want it to stay that way. A shock of this nature will do that to a person’s blood pressure. I took the liberty of making calls and taking care of things. Closed coffin for obvious reasons; we’re doing the one-day thing. They actually tried to talk me out of the coffin, but I was insistent. People need to see one. I don’t know why that is, it just is. Then it’s St. Barnabas and cremation. I know for a fact that was Mace’s wish, because we talked about it once not too long ago. Just a service. I assume you’ll want to take possession of the ashes.” Oliver nodded. “The service is at five tomorrow afternoon.”
Oliver struggled to sit up against a pile of cushions. “You want to hear a crazy-ass story, Jonesy? Mace had a new will made just yesterday. He was hell on wheels about doing it yesterday. He was leaving to go back to Alabama this weekend. Oh, God! Where is Lola?”
Jonesy smiled. “She’s with my staff. I sent them over to pick her up. Right now, she’s in the conference room and loving all the attention. She’s yours now, Oliver.”
“Yeah, I guess so. I don’t believe this.”
Jonesy licked at his lips, and it looked to Oliver like he was trying to make up his mind if he should say something or not. “Mace was in here yesterday morning. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’m going to tell you anyway. If you tell anyone I broke my Hippocratic oath, I’ll deny it. Before Mace left to go to Alabama, before the dark stuff hit the fan with the eviction and divorce, we ran some tests. They weren’t good, Oliver. Mace had both colon and prostate cancer. I was sending him his drugs. Hell, he could have gotten them himself or even written his own prescriptions because he was a pharmacist, but he didn’t do that. He rejected chemo and radiation. That was one of the reasons he wanted out of his marriage so badly. He wanted it all over and done with before he . . . passed.”
Oliver reared up, his feet thumping on the floor. “What the hell are you saying, Jonesy? Mace would have told me if he was that sick. He never said a word.”
Jonesy sighed. “Mace said you wouldn’t be able to handle it. He knew you as well as he knew himself. You were the brother he never had. He wanted to spare you, that’s the bottom line. As sick as he was, all he could think about was you, Oliver.”
Oliver was so choked up, he had to do battle with his tongue and vocal cords to speak. “He kept talking about smelling the roses. Just yesterday, he tried to talk me into buying a getaway house close to where he was going to buy a house in Alabama. He said he would fix up a room in his house that would be just for me. He met a lady while he was there. Actually, she was his landlady. He thought the world of her. Since you broke your oath, I’m going to break mine and tell you he left everything to that lady, Julie Wyatt. I tried to get him to wait, not to rush into things, but he was adamant. I guess it all makes sense now,” Oliver said brokenly. “I have to call and give her the news. I’ll need Mace’s cell phone to do that, though.”
“It got fried along with the body, Oliver. I have his belongings out in the clinic. Maybe you can get her number from the information operator.”
“I seem to recall Mace saying she had an unlisted number because of her ex-daughter-in-law, who harassed her. I’ll try. If I can’t reach her, I’ll make a trip there to tell her in person. Is it okay for me to go home now, Jonesy?”
“How are you feeling?”
“Sad. All I want to do is cry my eyes out. I don’t know what I’ll do without Mace in my life. We weren’t attached at the hip, but it was damn close.”
“Crying is very cathartic. Don’t hold it in. Let it all out. There are no rules when someone passes on. If something works for you, then go with whatever it is.”
“How long did Mace have?”
“If he was lucky, a year, maybe a little longer. The last few months would have been hell for him.”
Oliver struggled to his feet. He wrapped his arms around his doctor and patted him on the back. “Thanks, Jonesy. For everything. I’ll see you in the . . . at the service.”
“Call me, no matter what the hour, if you need me, Oliver. And do not drink any alcohol this evening. Promise me. And don’t forget to pick up Lola on your way out.”
Oliver nodded as he shuffled out the door.
Four days later, Oliver loaded up his car in the underground garage where he lived. Mace’s ashes in the somber-looking urn were nestled in the corner of the SUV, with Styrofoam packed all around it. His eyes were wet, his nose dripping, as he packed his bags and all of Lola’s gear. He swiped at his eyes as he ran off his mental list of things he had done and the things he still had to do. He’d retired his housekeeper, stopped all personal deliveries, and had his personal mail forwarded to the office. They would send it to him once he had a permanent address. All his cases had been assigned to other lawyers.
The office would remain open to tidy up all loose ends, then close down permanently within three months. He had arranged for his partners and associates to join another law firm. The only things he was taking from the office were Mace’s files, at least the immediate ones. The other files would be sent on along with his mail in the next few weeks.
Oliver stared out and over the concrete wall to the day outside. He had one more call to make, to
Her Judgeness.
Mace had always called Marion
Her Judgeness,
and that’s how Oliver thought of Judge Marion Odell these days. He knew he wouldn’t get her personally, but at this point, he really didn’t give a hoot in hell. She hadn’t even shown up for Mace’s service. No one was more surprised than he when she answered the phone. “Oliver, how nice of you to call so early in the morning. How are things?”
“What
things
are you referring to, Marion? I’m just calling to say good-bye and to wish you a good life. I’ve retired, and I’m leaving this morning. I thought I would give you the courtesy of a personal phone call, and tell you what I think of you for not attending Mace’s service. That was a despicable thing for you to do.”
“But, Oliver, I had my clerk call and explain that I had a meeting I had to attend. What do you mean, you’re retiring? Where are you going? Does this mean you’re terminating our relationship?”
Oliver sighed. “I am. South. Yes. Oh, one last thing. You sucked in bed, Your Honor.” He could hear the judge sputtering as he clicked off.
Oliver swore at that moment he could hear Mace laughing somewhere overhead. Then he burst out laughing. “Damn, that felt good, Mace!”
Lola, who was dancing around at his feet, barked, a high-pitched sound that made the hair on the back of Oliver’s neck stand on end. He looked over in the direction where Lola was staring and saw a glob of vapor swirling about. He thought his heart was going to burst right out of his chest. Lola barked again, then one more time, as the vapor rose higher and sailed out over the concrete wall.
Oliver’s hands were trembling so badly he could barely open the car door for Lola to hop in. But he managed somehow. He slid behind the wheel, taking great gulps of air into his lungs. “You’re here, aren’t you, Mace? Lola knows it, too, I can tell.”
Oliver felt a poke to his shoulder, the way Mace always used to poke him. He closed his eyes, willing Mace to appear and, when he didn’t, Oliver’s eyes misted over. In a voice he hardly recognized, Oliver started to mumble, “I did what you said. I’m going to Rosemont, and I’ll pick up the pieces. I promise to smell all the roses. I will, Mace. I got your laptop, took the virtual-realty tour, and bought the house you planned on buying. I wired the money yesterday. I’m going to do it all. That’s the promise I made to you and to myself. So, if you want to ride shotgun, it’s okay with me, buddy. Hey, did you like the way I blew off
Her Judgeness
? And now I’m ready for that sing-along. Hit it, Mace!”