She’d found out because of pie.
Every once in a while, when she couldn’t stand it a minute longer, she’d sneak over to Merle Valentine’s coffee shop that served fourteen varieties—all made from scratch. You had your standards: apple, apple crumb, peach, lemon meringue, chocolate cream, cherry, sweet potato, pecan, chocolate-pecan, lemon chess, etc. But Lydia’s all-time favorite was a Midwestern specialty made from a recipe brought to Miz Merle by a Mayflower truck driver. Rum raisin with lots of sour cream sitting atop Miz Merle’s crumbly, flaky pie crust the secret to which, everybody knew, but nobody could do it the same, was orange juice.
Just a week ago Lydia had been sitting at the counter nursing a cup of coffee while she ran through all the possibilities for pie sin, taking her time, savoring it, when she heard a man down the way order a BLT, light on the
mahnez.
Mayonnaise. There was only one place she’d ever heard it said like that, and that was New Orleans.
She was feeling perky that day, Clay having rolled over at seven and, instead of giving her his standard early morning grumpy face and a list of errands, he’d risen magnificently to the occasion with a mixture of ardor and calisthenics that had left her atingle. Then he got up and brought her chicory coffee with hot milk like he used to do every morning back at the beginning, back in the sweet old days.
She was feeling so good, in fact, that when she heard the voice of home, she couldn’t resist sliding two stools closer to the stranger and saying, “Bet you a hundred dollars I can tell you where you’re from.”
An older man, small, dark, with black eyes and olive skin, glistening gray hair, an open-necked white shirt—he jumped.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that I’m from New Orleans and….” He was looking at her so strangely that she’d trailed off.
Finally, in his rough, unmistakable accent, Mid-City she’d guess, he said, “I live in Miami now.” Then he gestured with his coffee cup. “They don’t know how to make coffee there either. Think they do, the Cubans.”
“But not like the Café du Monde,” she laughed.
“No.” Then he turned on the stool and gave her a long look. A long, long look. “You grew up Uptown?”
She nodded. “We lived on St. Charles. The riverside, between Third and Fourth.” And then, in that way of Southerners, began to place herself in the world through her family. “I’m a Soniat. My daddy was Leland Soniat. My mother a Bergeron. We called her Missie, but her real name was Melanie. Now, my grandfather on my—”
“Leland Soniat. Sugar business.”
“That’s right! Did you know him?”
The old man pulled a white handkerchief out of his back pocket, rubbed it across his forehead. He was sweating, despite Miz Merle’s three tons of air-conditioning.
“I did a job for him once.”
“Really! Mr.—” She held out her hand. Gallo, he said. Anthony Gallo. She could call him Tony. She did, asking him what kind of work he did, he did a job for her father.
“Odds and ends,” he said. “Odds and ends.”
“You had your own business?”
He laughed softly. “No. I wouldn’t say that. I was sort of a contractor.”
“I see.”
He took a long swig of his coffee, made a face, then drained the cup. “No, you don’t.” He didn’t say it rudely. In fact, his gravelly voice was gentle as a caress, a hand on the side of a lover’s neck. Then he seemed to make some sort of decision. He said, “I moved to Miami after Mr. Marcellos went up. But for a while I worked for Joseph Cangiano. You know Joey?”
Who didn’t? Joey the Horse. Heir apparent to Carlos Marcellos, the big boss.
“I met you once,” he went on. “You were about twelve. Having lunch with your daddy at Galatoire’s.”
What kind of job could he have done for her father? But then she tamped the question down. There were so many things about men’s business that the knowing of wouldn’t make you smarter—just sorrier. Better to let it go.
“So, what are you doing in Raleigh?” He asked that one, though it could have gone either way.
“I live here with my husband.”
“Bet you a hundred dollars I can tell you his name,” said Tony Gallo in that sweet voice, giving her a long sad look that made her blood run cold.
*
By six o’clock, Lydia, after three tries, had finished packing the car, which gave her time for a quick set of tennis with Susan and a shower before Clay arrived home.
He pulled into the driveway in their black Cherokee and tooted the horn. Walked around the Mercedes, patting it like a prize bull. Waved to her as she came out of the house. “Looking good.” She knew he meant the car. “You ready to roll?”
“Crack of dawn,” she smiled.
“There’s my girl.” He pulled her to him, gave her a hug. She felt good to him, though a little scrawny after the pillowy Janine whom he’d left not so long ago. In a way, he felt bad about the trip. He knew she didn’t want, never wanted, to go.
And it would be her last vacation, after all. But, if you considered it that way, what difference did it make?
He stepped back and took another look at the car. Lydia had done a great job of shoehorning everything in. They were all set. Off for their usual August. Except sometime, sooner or later, he didn’t know when, that was the arrangement, Lydia would meet with a terrible accident.
He actually got tears in his eyes, thinking about it. Oh yeah, he was going to make a very tragic, not to mention attractive, widower.
The meeting with the man from Miami he’d found through a man who knew a man had come off like clockwork. At first Clay was shocked the man was so old, but he was a professional, alright. He’d scoped out the details, taken his down payment, all cash, old bills, of course. Assured Clay it was a piece of cake.
“Can you do—can you do it—with no blood?” Clay asked at the last minute. Then shrugged. They’d agreed that Clay would know none of the details so there’d be nothing to give away, but, “I’d like for it to be as painless as possible.”
He’d always been embarrassed, a doctor and he couldn’t stomach the sight of blood. Of course, in his specialty, it was never an issue.
“No problem,” the old man had nodded. “I do custom work.”
*
The alarm sounded at five o’clock. Rise and shine. Lydia groaned.
“Come on,” said Clay, who was already up, showered, and dressed in khakis and a madras shirt. “Here’s your coffee. Drink up. Long and winding road ahead of us.”
Corny, he was so corny. Lydia peeled one eye open. “Clay, would it be impossible, absolutely impossible, to stop somewhere along the way? There’s that place everybody talks about in Pawleys Island, we could even stay over? We have our own linens.” She asked this every year. But she knew it was more complicated than that. Then they’d have to eat out and God knows dragons that way lay.
And for five years he’d said, “Oh, you magnolias are so delicate. Come on, darlin’.” There was that put-on accent. “Let’s make some hay before the sun shines. Hit the road.”
Was there
ever
a man so cornball? She thought about that while she dressed in a red linen shirt and matching walking shorts, slapped on some lipstick and mascara. Dropped a few final things in a tote bag, walked through the house one last time, touching, fluffing things here and there, and out the side door. She locked it behind her.
Clay was behind the wheel in the driveway, the motor already warmed up. Not that it needed warming on this first day of August. Barely light and already in the low eighties. Humid. It was going to be another scorcher.
“Oh, that air-conditioning feels so good.” She slipped into the leather seat beside him. There wasn’t room for another single thing in the car. The trunk, the back seat, the luggage rack were jammed.
“There’s my good little packer. You deserve to be cool.”
“Oh, God! The cooler with the sandwiches and the fruit juice. I almost forgot it.”
Clay tsked. Shook his head, impatient. “Well?” He gunned the motor.
“I won’t be but a minute.” She grabbed her keys and jumped out of the car.
That was okay. The delay would give him a chance to fiddle with the radio. He liked to listen to talk shows. Lydia hated them. But if he found one now, it would take her a while to ask him to change it. She was feisty, but polite. So polite. And slow. What was keeping her? Probably stopped for one last pee.
He turned around and looked at the back seat. She’d left an opening so he could see through the rearview mirror. She really was amazing. Now, if she’d just hurry up, they could arrive in time for him to grab his clubs and get in a few holes before the cocktail hour.
He glanced at the dashboard clock. Five-thirty. Where was she? The hell with the neighbors—he tooted the horn.
Then he looked down, reached over, and ran his fingers across her raised initials on the tote bag. When would it be? The business with Lydia? Well, the old man from Miami was right, it was better not to know. Of course he was right. That was his business. His specialty. Just like Clay had a specialty. When you wanted a job done right, the best thing, even though it had been very expensive, you hired a pro.
Five thirty-five. She’d been in there ten minutes. What could she be doing? Changing her clothes? Jesus! Women. He’d go roust her. He sighed and pushed the heavy car door open.
“Lydia!
Ly
-dia!” He entered the house through the side door.
No answer.
“Lydia?” She wasn’t in the laundry room. Well, he hadn’t expected her to be. Nor in the living room where the furniture stood weird and lumpy under its white-draped covers. Lydia always insisted that Mattie help her close up the house as if they were going forever. She wasn’t in the breakfast room. Nor the dining room where everything was put away, even the china cabinet emptied. Lydia must have asked Mattie to polish and store her family things, silver and crystal. He called up the stairs. She was probably in their bedroom, fiddling with something. “
Lydia!
”
Silence.
Of course! The heat must have made him stupid. The cooler would be in the kitchen. She was probably in there stuffing down another bowl of cereal. Or maybe she’d hidden away some doughnuts. She did that sometimes, didn’t think he knew.
Back through the living room, dining room, he pushed the swinging door into the all-white kitchen and heard himself scream.
And scream and scream and scream. Oh Jesus! God Almighty!
Blood, blood, blood, blood. Everything was splattered scarlet.
Gore dripped down the cabinet fronts, off the tile counter tops, pooled onto the tile floor. The kitchen was a slaughterhouse. An abattoir.
Clay screamed again.
No, no, no, no!
He couldn’t help himself. And then he wretched. The sight, the stench, he couldn’t stand it. He wretched again and, leaning over holding his own forehead, vomited on the floor.
The room reeled.
What was he going to do? What? It had all gone wrong.
He couldn’t believe this. It had to be some kind of joke. Or maybe he was dreaming.
Then he stepped forward. Stopped. NO! No tracks.
That thought was a little tardy, though Clay didn’t know it.
But wait. He shook his hands in front of his body like someone flipping water. Let’s get real here. Take this a piece at a time. Like where
was
she? He scanned the room, his eyes flicking up and down, side to side. Okay, where was Lydia? Her body?
Then cupping a hand over his nose, he gingerly leaned to his left. Maybe she was over there, behind the work island. No way. Wrong. But there was the cooler, standing all alone.
He hugged his arms across his ribs, grabbing his elbows. He rocked back on his heels, tried to gather himself.
Where
the hell was she? Had that dope, that incredibly ignorant fancy-pants Miami fuck-up—God, he
knew
he should never have trusted a wop—shot her, slit her throat, whatever the hell he had done,
here,
and then dragged her out? To where?
Besides, Mr. Miami wasn’t supposed to do it now. And he’d promised there wouldn’t be any blood. Custom work, he’d said. Custom! Shit.
And what was he supposed to do? He wasn’t supposed to have to do
anything
. That’s what he paid the man top dollar for.
Suddenly Clay couldn’t breathe. He wheeled. Whatever else, he had to get out of here. He had to get out of this house right now.
He ran, the thick pale carpeting that Lydia had loved muffling his footfalls, back through the dining room, the living room, the hall. He didn’t see the fainter and fainter track he left here and there, fine droplets of blood.
He was almost out the door, but wait! He hadn’t checked her New Orleans room. Could the bastard have left her there, with all that glass? Oh, God.
He ran through the library, down the little back hall, and there….
He froze. Someone was talking. He almost choked, then sucked it up and crept closer.
It was Lydia! She was alive. Christ! How mangled? How bad? And would she know…?
He gentled the door open. There were her banana trees. Her hibiscus. Her palms. And her voice. The far door, leading to the backyard and the alleyway, was open.
“Go to your car, Clay. Go to the car.”