Irv had seen him after the staff meeting, hovering suspiciously behind the elevator bank. He’d probably gone snooping around his mother’s office while the partners were at lunch. The teacup and shawl had been out of place.
But what could Irv do? He’d tried to keep Jeremy hidden in the file room, but Bud had killed that plan. And now the boy was out. And with his charm, how long before people would warm to him and spill their guts— tell Jeremy everything they knew, or thought they knew? Because the fact was, no one knew shit about the truth.
And no one knew Rachel like Irv knew Rachel.
He shuffled across the stone-tiled floor of his penthouse toward the kitchen. The path was clear— thanks to the absence of furniture. When Candace had announced she couldn’t stand living with
a self-centered, egomaniacal prick, he’d told her to get the hell out. To take her things and get the hell out. He’d returned from work that night and found the apartment completely empty.
At first he’d been furious. That little bitch. Good thing he hadn’t married her like she’d been pressuring him to do. Then, he had sat down on the cold floor, which she’d had installed when she’d moved in a couple of years before. He began to laugh and laugh until tears ran down his cheeks. Candace was an interior designer and she’d furnished the place in some weird Buddhist-Louis XIV eclectic style all the home design magazines wanted to photograph. So naturally, when he’d said to take her things, she’d included the quarter of a million in furnishings she’d selected. Too bad she couldn’t have taken the stone floors, as well.
He’d made do with a mattress on the bedroom floor and a couple of plastic chairs he’d picked up at the drugstore. And it turned out he liked that better. A hell of a lot better.
His feet were throbbing in his tight shoes. He was tempted to believe the shoes had shrunk in his closet, but he knew they were a full size larger than he used to wear. Water retention, his doctor had said. And try to lay off the drinking, Irv. Your liver’s gotten so big, there’s practically no room left for it in your gut.
Irv opened the refrigerator door. The shelves were stacked with cans of Budweiser and Coke. No food. He rarely ate at home. For an emergency he had a loaf of bread and a couple of steaks in the freezer. He took out a can of Coke and popped off the lid. See— he didn’t have a drinking problem. It wasn’t as if he needed to grab a beer first thing in the morning.
Rachel had been completely mistaken about him. But even though she’d made a stink about it, he knew it wasn’t his drinking that disturbed her. Maybe she’d decided it was time to bury her fallen god. But he was kidding himself. In Rachel’s eyes, Irving Luria had lost his luster a long, long time ago.
Irv pulled open the sliding glass door to the balcony. There was still a splendid view of Biscayne Bay and the Rickenbacker Causeway. He’d bought the condo over thirty years back, when it was one of the first high-rises on Brickell Avenue and most of the surrounding lots were verdant estates. Since then, building after building— one taller than the next— had sprung up along the bay. He leaned his elbows against the railing and sipped his Coke. He remembered the one time he brought Rachel here.
He and Rachel had taken a prospective client, a major bank, out to dinner. Rachel had been with the firm less than three years, but Irv had insisted she team with him on closing the deal. And what a team they made. Witty, charming, dazzling, and above all, professionally credible. The bankers shook hands with them after dinner and announced they were delighted to have PCM as their new auditors.
Irv invited Rachel back to his place to celebrate. He’d occasionally brought other young women back to his apartment— usually to fuck them— but never Rachel Lazar. She wasn’t like the others— giggling, painted creatures who would do anything to please him to get a promotion. Rachel was pure, like Mary, Mother Mary. And he remembered thinking as he handed her a glass of Drambouie, Rachel would be the crowning glory of his life’s work. He would teach her, guide her, help her become the mother of all accountants. The most highly respected and admired woman in the accounting profession. One who never compromised.
God and Mary. It was perfect. She was perfect.
As they stood on the balcony, watching the lights of the cars going over the causeway, he had decided to tell her his plan. The breeze blew her hair across her face and into her mouth. She laughed as she pulled it away. “This has been such a wonderful night, Irv. I feel like I’m flying.”
God and his Mary. “As do I, my dear.”
“You mean so much to me, Irv. You’ve taught me so much. I want to tell you something. Something wonderful I haven’t shared with anyone yet.”
He took her hand. “Yes?”
“I’m getting married. His name is Daniel Stroeb.”
She had continued talking. At first Irv hadn’t heard anything else she’d said. The lights on the causeway had become a blur and the bay had grown dark and bottomless. And then he realized she was walking away, pulling the sliding glass door closed after her.
“Rachel, wait. Please listen to me.”
She hesitated and extended her head through the gap of the sliding door. He thought of Marie Antoinette at that moment— the potential sliced off in a split second.
“You can do great things with your life. But if you marry and have children, you compromise. You dilute your essence.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Ah, Rachel. That’s because there are stars in your eyes. Because a handsome young man is telling you he loves you. Think of what you’re giving up. And think of what you’ll be left with when he stops telling you how pretty you are, how wonderful, how much he loves you.”
“He won’t stop.”
And he had realized he could let her go. That it would just be a matter of time before she’d return to him.
He glanced down at the crushed Coke can in his fist. What a fucking fool he’d been. How could he not have seen the inevitable?
He went back to the kitchen and got a Budweiser. It was after nine a.m. No longer first thing in the morning.
Irv arrived at the office a little before eleven. Not great, but there’d been days he’d gotten in even later. Someone in a dark suit was sitting in the alcove, stiff as a mortician. Irv didn’t really care. He had
limited client responsibilities these days and certainly wasn’t taking on any new ones.
Bud stepped out of his office, noticed Irv, and signaled to him to wait, then went to shake the mortician’s hand— a bland man with thinning hair and a moustache. Irv recognized him. Something Stroeb— Rachel’s brother-in-law. A lawyer running for judge or some such shit. A total asshole. Irv pushed open the door to his office, hoping to escape any contact with him.
“Irv,” Bud called after him.
Shit.
“You remember Dwight Stroeb.” Bud rested his large hand on the man’s shoulder. Dwight looked disoriented, like someone who just sat down and realized there was no chair. “Dwight tells me he needs to speak with us about something of great urgency.”
“That’s right,” Dwight said. “Just a minute of your time.”
“Unfortunately, I have to run off to a prior engagement.” Bud patted Dwight’s back. “But Irv will take good care of you. And I promise, Dwight, you and I will get together real soon.” Bud was halfway down the hallway moving at a brisk pace when he turned. “Take care now, y’all.”
Dwight was filling the air with his vapid noise as he stepped into Irv’s office. “A real pleasure. And I believe my friend, Enrique Castillo, is a client of yours. He’s been very receptive—”
Irv regretted he’d only had a couple of beers and a small glass of Drambouie before he came to work. He remained standing, hoping the man would follow suit, but Dwight parked himself in one of the guest chairs. Irv looked longingly at his bottom drawer. Dwight had stopped talking and seemed to be sizing Irv up.
“What do you want?” Irv said, sitting down in his own chair.
“You’ve had a difficult time,” Dwight said.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“I remember years ago, you were a bit of a legend. The tough
businessman— fair but demanding. A maverick. You used to get written up all the time in the business journals.” Dwight pulled on his mustache. “This must be difficult for you.”
Irv narrowed his eyes.
“No one hears your name much anymore.”
“This meeting is over, Mr. Stroeb.” Irv pushed his chair back.
“I’m sorry,” Dwight said. “You’re a busy man. Let me get to the point.”
“I’ve heard enough of your point.” Irv started to stand.
“I’m here about the murder investigation.”
Irv froze.
“I’m concerned,” Dwight said.
“About?”
“You.”
Irv sat down.
“You’re vulnerable, Irv. I’m sorry, may I call you Irv?” Dwight smoothed his moustache. “In any event, I’m sure you’re aware the police are continuing to dig deeper, looking for a viable suspect. My nephew wasn’t satisfied with the way things were going.”
“Jeremy?”
Dwight nodded. “He’s stirred up the lady detective on the case, asking questions. And unfortunately, the police don’t have a lot to go on. That means their focus is very limited.”
“Which means what exactly?”
“That they’re concentrating on people who were closest to my brother and sister-in-law.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m only saying you’re in a particularly bad position. The police know all about your fall from grace, your drinking problems, the fact that Rachel was taking over your key accounts.”
“How dare you come in here and accuse me? Get out. Get the hell out of here.”
Dwight didn’t move. “You misunderstand me, Irv. I’m not here to accuse. I’m here to help protect you.”
The veins were pulsing in Irv’s temples, ready to explode.
“As it happens,” Dwight said, “I have a close relationship with a key person on the investigation. I know he’d be willing to listen to reason. After all, no one wants PCM or its partners embroiled in embarrassing attention from the police.”
“You come here to blackmail me?”
“Blackmail? What do you think I am? I came here to offer you protection. To save you and your firm from needless expense, wasted time, and unwelcome publicity.”
“Get the fuck out of my office, you scumbag.” Irv slammed his hands on the desk. “Before I throw you out.”
Dwight stood up tentatively, decided against saying whatever he’d been about to, then left the office looking more like a blowfly than a mortician. But then, there wasn’t much of a difference, really. They both subsisted on the dead.
Chapter 20
The bedroom resembled a war room, Jeremy speculated, or a classroom with a maniacal professor. Scotch-taped to all available wall surfaces were pages from a flipchart Marina had taken from MIU. On each, written in red marker in all capital letters were the following headings: Thesis/Premise, Who it Offends, Motive for Murder, then Suspects. Piled helter-skelter on the floor, like unmatched pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, were his father’s papers and polemics. The theses, which Marina had arrived at after sorting through all of Jeremy’s father’s work, included rants about government welfare, free-trade hypocrisy, agricultural subsidies, the Cuban embargo, and many other themes that meant little to Jeremy.
But even without fully grasping the issues, Jeremy could see one thing. D. C. Stroeb had offended many people. His father may have been brilliant, but he had also been reckless.
Marina was scribbling something on the page headed, Ecological Fallacies. A cigarette quivered from the side of her mouth. She hadn’t adhered to their customary routine. Usually they ate right after they’d made love, then they’d study the papers.
She was wearing a black thong and a torn-off tee shirt that left her midriff exposed. This was her best effort at “dressing” so as not to distract Jeremy as they explored motives and suspects in his parents’ murders.
Right— no distraction. Jeremy watched her small, muscular
butt jiggle ever so slightly as she wrote. It had deep dimples and was almost perfectly white, with no tan lines. Marina had probably never even been to the beach. And if she had, it would have been to spray-paint political messages on the pier pilings, not work on a Copper-tone tan.
Jeremy had been coming here every night for almost two weeks. He hadn’t seen his sister in more than a week. After dinner at the Castillos’, he and Elise had gone to the movies, but that had been the last time they’d done anything together. Jeremy would arrive home long after she’d already gone to sleep. If she was still having nightmares, he saw no evidence of them. And she seemed to have a thing going with Carlos. Maybe Jeremy was rationalizing that she was doing okay, but he couldn’t help it. The pressure of needing to be there for his sister, of not letting her down, was getting to him.
So he had concentrated on Marina, hoping she would help him find his parents’ murderer. He would drive directly to Marina’s apartment after work, skipping class. They’d pull off each other’s clothes and pounce on each other like he’d seen sharks attack a meal of entrails at the Seaquarium. Marina wasn’t a big fan of her bed. So they’d screwed on the futon, on the old Indian blanket covering the filthy kitchen floor, in the tiny bathtub— with or without water— and occasionally, mainly just for variety, in her bed with its sagging mattress.
Then she’d feed him. And Jeremy had come to crave this part of the evening ritual almost as much as the sex. There was always something amazing. And not just French cooking. Marina was accomplished in Peruvian cuisine as well. One night she’d made
cebiche de pescado
— she’d called it. Cubes of mahi mahi cooked in crushed garlic and a hot pepper sauce that burned his throat and brought tears to his eyes. But then she handfed him pieces of cooked sweet potatoes that balanced the harshness, which he devoured like a starving dog. And another night,
lomo saltado
, thin steak sautéed in garlic with
onions, peppers, and chopped tomatoes. They ate it with fried potatoes out of the blackened, crusted iron skillet, which she’d rested on a pile of newspapers on the tiny kitchen table.