Adjusted to Death Page 12

  Wayne was already in the pool, doing laps. He stood up in the water when he heard me. His upper torso was beautiful. My stomach did a little lust lurch at the sight. I jumped into the pool beside him and we did laps together until I was tired. Then we got out of the pool and into the hot tub. The move revealed his green swimming trunks and well-made legs. We sat silently, staring through the steam into each other’s eyes.

  “Who was Scott Younger?” I asked. The question bounced off the walls of the room. Wayne flinched. I asked myself why I had broken the mood, the bond. Because you’re chicken, came a voice in my head.

  “He was a lonely and depressed man,” Wayne answered, his voice low. “Always been reserved, quiet. But the last year or so, he was seriously depressed. Did nothing but sit in his study and watch TV. Then it was constant VCR movies. Didn’t talk. Hardly ate. Hadn’t dealt with the business in years. Even stopped going to his art committee meetings. Wouldn’t have gone anywhere if his back hadn’t started bothering him.” He laughed bitterly. “I thought the chiropractor’s would save him from being a total hermit.”

  “But why?” I asked. He looked up at me blankly as if he had forgotten my presence.

  “You mean why was he depressed?” he asked. I nodded. “Who knows?” he replied with a massive shrug of his shoulders. The water in the tub splashed over the sides. Then, with obvious effort, he began to speak again in his low growl.

  “I think he backed himself into a corner. Nothing mattered to him. Dealt dope to defy his father. Then he made a success of it. But it wasn’t something he could feel really proud of. And women. There were women, but… but he couldn’t connect emotionally. Then he thought he wanted kids. But he couldn’t connect there either. Kids didn’t like him much. He really went downhill after Renee dropped him. That was his last try to give some meaning to his life.”

  “Why did you take care of him?” I asked. I had to know.

  Wayne looked startled by the question for a moment. “Scott was good to me when I first worked for him. We were friends. Well, almost friends, anyway. Met shooting baskets at Crocker. Both frustrated basketball players.” He paused, his eyes staring out unfocused into the past. “Over the years… I don’t know. Guess I just got used to taking care of him.”

  He refocused his eyes. “I’ve read a lot of pop psychology books lately,” he continued hesitantly. So that’s where he got his theories about Scott. “According to them, some of us end up taking care of emotionally disturbed people because we’re playing out our own childhood struggles. Maybe I was. Scott was certainly playing out his. His mother died in childbirth. His father never forgave him. I could tell that, the one time I met the judge. No love there. Servants took care of Scott. Servants he wasn’t allowed to fraternize with. So he played out his life taken care of by a servant, never emotionally connecting with anyone.”

  “And your parents?” I asked softly. He lowered his head even further at the question.

  “No father. Mother’s a severe manic-depressive. Been in an institution the last twenty years. She couldn’t cope after I left home.”

  I shivered, cold in the steaming hot tub, remembering his story about the boy and the magically mad mother.

  “You don’t blame yourself, do you?” I asked. A stupid question. Of course he blamed himself.

  “Can’t help it. I kept thinking that once Scott was okay, then I’d leave. Couldn’t leave him while he was depressed. What if he ended up like my mother? But it just got deeper.”

  We sat in the tub for a while. I reached out and took his hand. But he shook me off.

  “Need to tell you the worst. He asked me to put him out of his misery. Told me I inherited it all. He acted like he was joking.” I held my breath for a moment, afraid Wayne was confessing. “I knew it was a cry for help. But I couldn’t get him to a therapist. Didn’t try hard enough. I keep wondering, did he ask someone else?”

  No murder confession. I let out my breath. Then the faces of the people who had been at the chiropractor’s that day flickered through my mind.

  “I can’t imagine anyone who was there as a hired killer,” I said.

  He shook his head wildly. The water in the tub splashed. “Nor can I. I’ve checked the accounts. No money missing. He didn’t pay anyone to do it, that I can tell. But I still can’t stop wondering. Did he feel so bad that he would rather have died?” The last sentence exploded from him, loud and clear. His face was a map of pain.

  There was no obvious answer to that question. I moved across the tub to put my arms around him awkwardly from a crouched position. It is difficult to gracefully hug someone who is sitting in a hot tub. His body jerked at my touch. Then he stood, pulling me up with him and holding me in return.

  “Kind, as well as witty and beautiful,” he said softly after we had held each other for some time. It was a shock to realize he meant me. I held him tighter, squeezing the guilt and despair from him by brute force. Somewhere a buzzer went off, as if we had won a game-show prize.

  He jumped. “My lasagna!” he yelped in a voice two octaves too high.

  Never had the words “my lasagna” held such comic import. Laughter spilled from me uncontrollably, echoing against the plaster walls, drowning out the buzzer. Wayne’s laughter began as a low rumble and flowered into neighing gasps that filled the room.

  “God,” he said suddenly. “I can breathe. That band around my chest, squeezing my lungs, it’s gone.” He lifted his arms triumphantly, then hugged me again briefly as the buzzer continued its song.

  We put on our robes and walked into the kitchen, our bare feet joyfully slapping the warm ceramic tiles. Then I sat and watched as he produced dairyless lasagna and fresh baked bread from the oven, his battered face glowing. An insolent voice in my head asked me how long this could last, but I dismissed it. I would enjoy it while it did.

  It was the best lasagna I ever tasted.

  - Thirteen -

  We didn’t make love that night. But we lay together for a long time on the bed in his room, surrounded by his books and plants and quilts. As a child on Halloween, I had always set aside the richest, sweetest candies, saving them for later when I would be less glutted and more appreciative. I felt like that hopeful child again at midnight when Wayne left me at my house. I fell asleep savoring the intimacy to come.

  Sunday morning, I awoke to romantic fantasies and watery sunshine drifting through the skylights above my bed. But thoughts of business soon intruded. It was time to visit my warehouse and pick up paperwork.

  An hour later, wrapped in two layers of sweaters and a down jacket, I was driving across the Richmond Bridge. The weather had returned to an oppressive drizzle. There were very few cars on the bridge that morning. I noticed a black Cadillac behind me and wondered idly if Cadillacs were again going to replace Mercedes and B.M.W.’s as symbols of wealth. Back to basics?

  Once across the bridge I drove down the highway to Oakland automatically, snug and warm in my Toyota and daydreams. The warehouse district was deserted. That was one reason I liked to visit on a Sunday morning. No traffic snarls or employees to distract me.

  I drove into the warehouse parking lot, lost in an internal dialogue on the relative merits of solitude and love. As I stepped out of my car I heard the sound of another car pulling up behind me. Odd for Sunday morning, I thought, locking the door and dropping the keys in my purse. Then I turned from my car door and saw a black Cadillac not two yards away.

  In the time it took for me to consider unlocking the door and climbing back in the Toyota, the doors of the Cadillac opened and two figures emerged into the grey morning. Both were dressed in navy blue suits. The first was tall, thin and neat in his suit. The other was short, stocky, and moving rapidly toward me. But what arrested my attention, as I frantically fished through my purse for my keys, was the similarity of their grotesque heads. Both had rubbery, distorted faces that seemed oddly familiar.

  My heart was beating so loud it seemed to shake my entire body. I dug deeper in
to my purse, jabbing my shaking hand on a pencil. I grasped the car keys just as I realized what I was looking at. These men weren’t deformed; they were wearing identical, smiling masks of Ronald Reagan. I felt an instant of relief before I asked myself why they were wearing masks. With renewed desperation, I turned to my car and fumbled my key into the lock. As I turned the key I felt a hand on my arm, a heavy hand that gripped me tightly.

  “Lady, you’ve got something of ours,” said a deep voice.

  I turned toward the voice slowly and saw the stocky one, his receding hairline evident above Reagan’s rubber features. I considered but dismissed the use of tai chi to loosen his hold on my arm. I looked around the parking lot for help, but it was deserted. The only other car in sight was a beat-up old Chevy in the next lot.

  “It’d be easier if you’d just give us what we want,” the stocky Reagan continued. The great communicator was not communicating to me. I couldn’t translate the meaning of his words. The pounding of my heart didn’t help any. “The boss says to get them… and we’ll get them.” He paused in silent menace, his rubber face impenetrable except for the slits where his eyes were. “The easy way or the hard way.”

  My response was a blank look. I could feel my mouth gaping open. I shut it with a snap and tasted bile.

  “Give her a chance to answer,” said the tall Reagan in an annoyed voice.

  “Well?” asked the short one after he had allowed me a full thirty seconds to respond. His mask may have been smiling, but the eyes I glimpsed beneath the mask were small and angry. A shiver ran through my already trembling body.

  “Can you tell me what you’re talking about?” I asked in a shaky voice. I hoped it was a suitably meek request.

  “The fuckin’ pictures, lady, the fuckin’ pictures!” he shouted, tightening his grip on my arm.

  “What pictures?” I asked.

  The two Reagans exchanged glances.

  “Lady, just get them for us, okay?”

  “Honestly, I would if I could. But I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I searched my brain frantically for a way to convince them.

  It went around like this for the next ten minutes, with the stocky man demanding, me protesting my ignorance, and the thin man acting as an exasperated referee. After the thirtieth time I was asked where the pictures were, my fear had turned to, not quite anger, but irritation. My arm was sore from being squeezed, my neck hurt, and I still didn’t understand what was going on. With this irritation came a spurt of bravery.

  “Did you guys kill Scott Younger?” I asked.

  “Listen, lady. Scott Younger was the last person the boss wanted wasted,” answered the stocky one. The tall one nodded his Reagan-face in agreement.

  “Do you know who killed him?” I persisted.

  “No, do you?” returned the stocky one.

  I shook my head.

  “Bunch of fuckin’ amateurs these days, punks. Running around with their fuckin’ Uzis—”

  “That’s enough, Hugo,” the tall one said. “Younger was not killed with an Uzi.” He turned his rubbery gaze on me. He wasn’t close enough for me to see his eyes. “We’d like to know who killed Mr. Younger, ourselves. If you find out, you’ll let us know.” It was an order.

  “Me?” I squeaked.

  “Our boss would consider it a favor,” he said. I had a feeling there was a second, social smile underneath his rubber one, but neither of them warmed my heart.

  “Just who is your boss?” I asked.

  “None of your business,” Hugo answered, tightening his grip on my arm once more. “Lady, you’d better not fuck with us on this. If we find out you are…” He let the threat trail off into the cold air. It was an effective technique. I began trembling again. But I still had some of my own questions.

  “You searched my house, didn’t you?”

  “How could you tell?” responded Hugo.

  “Everything was so neat. The files were in alphabetical order and the cat—”

  “I told you,” Hugo broke in, his rubber face turned toward the tall Reagan. “But you had to straighten up after me. Alphabetical order! I told you I put everything back the way I found it!”

  “Shut up, Hugo,” the tall man responded. “You’re the one that fed the cat.” There was a short silence while Hugo regrouped .

  “The cat was hungry,” he said, turning toward me again. “You shoulda heard her crying. Leaving her like that, without feeding her.” He shook his head in sadness while his mask smiled on.

  I considered telling him he’d been suckered by C.C., but recognized in time that he was not a person to take teasing well. I was in enough trouble as it was. Spurred by his righteous indignation over the near-starvation of my cat, Hugo threw himself into another round of questioning and arm squeezing. He ended with a magnanimous proposal.

  “Lady, we’ll give you twenty-four hours to come up with the pictures,” he said.

  “Forty-eight hours,” amended the tall one.

  Then the two Reagans climbed back into their black Cadillac and drove away. I tried to catch the license number, but the plates had been liberally smeared with mud.

  I collapsed against my car. The cold wind chilled me through sweat-soaked clothing. I opened the door and crawled into the front seat. Should I call the police? All I wanted to do was lie on my car seat and recover. How was I going to convince the Reagans that I didn’t have anything to do with “the pictures”? What in hell were these pictures, anyway? And what did they have to do with Younger?

  A sharp rap on my side window startled me out of my thoughts and into sitting position. I looked out the window. Two heavily bearded men, with bird nests for hair stared back at me. They shared a crazed ferocity of expression and unspeakably filthy clothing. Rapists, I was sure. As if I hadn’t been through enough.

  I jammed my key into the ignition, but turned toward the window again when I heard another tap. Something was pushed up flat against the glass. It was a badge.

  “Narcotics officers, ma’am,” came a voice cutting into my panic. “What are you doing here?”

  I babbled. About my business in the warehouse, my fear, the two men in the Cadillac, everything.

  “Mind if we search your car?” was the only response.

  “My car?”

  “No problem, if you don’t have anything to hide.”

  I got out of my car and let them go to it. They pawed through files, gas receipts, Softisculp dolls, maps and Christmas ornaments, to no avail. My glove compartment had a set of emergency tools, a flashlight and an owner’s manual I hadn’t looked at in years, as well as my current registration and insurance documentation. But no drugs. They checked my license against the registration, looked beneath the body of the car and then gave up. One of the officers turned to me.

  “You ought to be more careful, ma’am,” he said. “This can be a dangerous place when it’s deserted. And you have some mighty strange friends.”

  Then they turned and headed for their car, the beat-up Chevy I had spotted an eternity of an hour before. They had probably been there the whole time.

  My anger at the two narcotics officers fueled me with enough courage to get my paperwork from the warehouse and drive home. I told myself I should have never allowed them to search my car. I didn’t have any drugs, but it was the principle of the thing. And they sat there the whole time the Reagans were interrogating me!

  I shivered, remembering the threats. My arm ached from being squeezed. I returned my focus to the narcotics officers. It frightened me too much to think of the masked men who had interrogated me. The men who had entered my house without a problem. The men who could do it again just as easily.

  When I drove up my driveway all I wanted was to cuddle up somewhere in the womb of my house and make my mind a blank. I wanted to forget the day’s events, the weeks’s events for that matter, even if that meant forgetting Wayne. I longed to own a TV, if only for the day, to bury my mind in. I told myself a book and a hot bath would do.
But even that was not to be.

  Maggie was waiting for me on my porch. She sat on the stairs wrapped in an olive-green slicker, her red hair escaping from underneath the hood. It was all I could do to hold back tears of self-pity when I saw her huddled there.

  “Jeez, Kate, I’m glad you’re here. I was going to wait five minutes longer and then go home,” she said, standing up to meet me as I approached the stairs.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked wearily.

  “I’m here to apologize,” she said with a sheepish smile. Then her wide eyes filled with concern. “You look just terrible. What’s wrong?”

  I toyed briefly with the idea of telling her what had happened to me in four-part harmony, but satisfied myself with grunting, “tired, work.” Who knew what Maggie’s fevered imagination might make of the real story?

  “Wow, you do look bushed,” she said. “Want me to make you some tea?” I nodded and immediately regretted it. Now I had invited her in.

  She put her arm around me for support and led me up the stairs. I let myself lean on her. It felt good. For all her childish excesses, Maggie was at bottom a kind woman who would always help a friend in need, if she could stop whirling around long enough to notice you were in need. Once inside, she sat me down in my comfy chair.

  “Just tell me where you keep the blankets and the tea,” she admonished when I tried to play hostess. I sank into my chair and gave her directions. The idea of being treated as an invalid was suddenly appealing. She bounded off in the direction of my kitchen. I could hear cabinets slamming as she searched for tea, and then C.C.’s meows begging for food. I thought of the stocky Reagan and began shivering all over again.