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  “Maybe it’s for one of his parents.”

  “It’s for him.”

  Usually her mother’s gossip had some truth to it, but Scotti doubted that Len Lasher was dying. People with MS lived for years, and anyway, Mario would have mentioned it.

  “You don’t find it interesting, but the old Scott would have. I remember how he’d tease me, say I was the town crier, chuck me under the chin, all the affectionate ways he had that you seem to have lost.”

  “Oh, Mother, cork it!”

  “Yes, that was what he always said. ‘Cork it!’”

  Along with all the other changes Scotti’s daily dose of hormones had brought (softer skin, thicker hair, budding breasts, testicles atrophying), her mother’s attitude had changed toward her as well. With Scott she’d behaved in a kittenish fashion: seductive, flirtatious, playful; but Scotti inspired peevish, sulky behavior, like some older sister’s acting out of sibling rivalry.

  “You never visit Daddy’s grave, do you, Scott?”

  “Scotti. Please . . . no, I don’t visit his grave. I don’t see the point in visiting graves.”

  “You pay your respect that way,” said her mother. “I visit Daddy’s grave to make sure they’ve weeded around it, too. I want that in my will. I want my grave cared for.”

  “Okay, Mother.”

  “Someone who can’t remember pink is a color her own mother never wears may not remember to take care of her mother’s grave, either.”

  That was when the phone rang.

  It was Mrs. Perry, head librarian.

  “I’m sorry to call you on Christmas Eve, dear, but we have a problem. You have a door key, hmmm!”

  “Of course.”

  “A Delroy Davenport called. He says he works for Len Lasher. He left a book in the bathroom. There’s an envelope in the book that Mr. Lasher needs tomorrow. Of course, we’re not open.”

  “And I’m the one nearest the library.”

  “Exactly, dear.”

  “What am I to do with the envelope?”

  “Mr. Davenport will meet you tomorrow, at the library, whenever you say. He said he knew you.”

  “Why don’t I just drop it off at the Lashers?”

  “He wants to meet you at the library. We don’t know what’s in that envelope, do we? It could be that Mr. Davenport needs the envelope, not Mr. Lasher. Or maybe Mr. Davenport doesn’t want Mr. Lasher to know he was careless.”

  “Can’t he wait a day until the library is open?”

  Mrs. Perry picked up on the angry tone. “After all Len Lasher has done for us, I don’t see how we can refuse a small favor for his manager.”

  “All right, I’ll go there.”

  “I am sorry, Scotti. . . . Here’s the number he wants you to call when you’re ready. Tomorrow morning, Scotti. Please.”

  Scotti took down the number and hung up.

  The phone rang again and Scotti answered it.

  She had the feeling it could be Davenport.

  “Hello?” she said sharply.

  “I know it’s late, but I’m taking a chance you might like a little cheer on Christmas eve. This is Mario Rome. I’m at Hydra. May I buy you a drink?”

  Scotti laughed, relieved. “I’m leaving now.”

  Hydra was a Greek place just outside East Hampton Village. Scotti used to hang out there when she was working on the Candle case. Gus Garvas, the owner, knew all the local gossip. His wife made the best pastitsio and saganaki Scotti’d ever tasted.

  After she hung up, her mother said “You have to go to that library now?”

  “No. Tomorrow. Now I’m meeting Mario Rome in Hydra.”

  “So much for Christmas with family.”

  “We’ve had Christmas, Mother.”

  “You know, Scott, men don’t like women who are available at the last minute. And on Christmas Eve, of all times. It shows what he thinks of you.”

  “I won’t be late,” said Scotti, grabbing her coat from the closet.

  “He’s going to get the idea you’re desperate.”

  “That’s me,” Scotti chuckled.

  ELEVEN

  Len Lasher was no different dying than he’d been living: he liked to organize and orchestrate his daily life. Yesterday, with Delroy’s help, he and Lara had trimmed the three downstairs trees. He did not want one upstairs.

  On Christmas Eve at noon the servants had been invited in for gift-giving and champagne in front of the tree in the living room. Then all but Delroy went home to be with their families.

  Now, Christmas Eve, Lara, Len, Deanie, and Delroy (feeding Len) were together for a light supper the cook had prepared for them ahead of time.

  Then Deanie had opened some of her gifts under the library tree. Just Deanie, Len ordered, so all attention could be focused on her.

  “Has it been good so far?” Len’s speech synthesizer asked Deanie. He was sitting up in a recliner, a thin flashlight fastened to a headband, pointing to letters which ultimately made words, spoken in a robotic, inflectionless voice. Deanie came out “En nee.”

  Deanie sat on a footstool, facing her father. “Santa should have come tonight after everyone’s asleep.”

  Len was working out an answer for her. She was a thin little darkhaired image of Lara thirty years ago. Lara recognized some of her own mannerisms already: particularly that pout Len used to call Lara’s “pickle puss.”

  Lara said, “Deanie, Santa is coming twice this year. He just came and then after you’re asleep, he’ll be back.”

  “Maybe I’ll get my gold locket.”

  Len’s machine mutilated the words, “More coming, Peaches.”

  “The party dress doesn’t fit me.”

  Lara said, “The dress can be altered, honey.”

  It was a gift sent by Edward Candle, his only contact with the Lashers since last summer. Lara had felt like sending it back, but Len decided it was not Lara’s gift to return. It was Deanie’s, and Deanie did not know the details of Candle’s arrest, just that he had done “something bad.” It was no surprise to her parents that Deanie chose to keep the Christmas gift.

  The dress had been designed by Carolina Herrera: white organdy with short sleeves and tiny pin tucks on the bodice and sleeves. Already, like Lara, Deanie would have a hissy fit when something she wore wasn’t exactly right. The robotic voice said, “Tomorrow we’ll see what else Santa has for you.” “I hope it’s the locket!”

  Of course, the Cartier locket would be one of the gifts.

  Before Martha took Deanie off to bed, Deanie said, “The birthday of Baby Jesus is tomorrow, too.”

  “It’s the same thing as Christmas, honey. Christ . . . mas,” said her mother.

  “I know that. But it’s Jesus’s birthday more than anything else.”

  Len made the grunts that substituted for laughter.

  Lara didn’t think it was funny. It was a hangover from Deanie’s early kindergarten/first grade schooling at Holy Family Academy in New York. A nonpracticing, nonbelieving Jew, Lara didn’t put up a fight over Deanie’s schooling until later.

  Len had let the Catholics take over those valuable years because he’d promised his mother, on her deathbed. It wasn’t until Deanie started saying things like “Jesus died for our sins” in casual conversation at the dinner table that Len began to agree with Lara the school was a mistake. When the ALS began to show itself, at first mildly, they moved year-round to East Hampton. Len got the idea to found a small private school for Deanie and a few other friends’ daughters.

  Still, the church had made inroads. Every now and then Deanie would say or do something that would have warmed the hearts of all the priests and nuns who’d had her in their care.

  Len tried to speak independently of the machine, but even Lara couldn’t understand the babbling when Len was tired. She nodded toward the instrument with a wink and a pat to his shoulder, what was left of it— it was bone and little more now.

  She hated hearing him over the synthesizer. She could not bear
to hear animal noises from this man who had won her with his eloquence. Even with his lisp, even when he was whispering to her or shouting at her, language had been his forte. (He couldn’t stand people who pronounced it “for-tay.”)

  Len had gone from poor boy to tycoon counting on what would come out of his mouth. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t pronounce his r’s. His calling her “Lawa” only endeared him to her.

  The doctors couldn’t say how long Len would last. It could be six or seven months more. One didn’t die of MS for a long time, as a rule, but the usual life after an ALS diagnosis was about three years. Len was three-quarters through his third.

  He beamed his light on the synthesizer keys and waited for the voice. “Tired, love,” it said.

  “I’d hoped we could lie down and have a nap together now, darling.”

  He shook his head.

  She said, “No? I’d like that, Len.”

  Again, he shook his head.

  He knew her too well. She could never nap. She never had. He could nod off in an instant, and he often woke up drooling, waiting for someone to wipe his mouth.

  Len would never subject her to that. He had insisted on separate rooms as soon as he couldn’t count on himself for anything.

  Lara asked Len, “Don’t you want to watch TV together until Delroy comes for you?”

  “Okay.” He tried to shrug.

  Lara wasn’t sure whether he was doing her a favor or whether he wanted to be alone. They were slipping away from each other. The priest who had come to see Len last week told Lara to expect Len to start his moves away from Deanie and her.

  The priest said, “He will begin very slowly to move on.”

  She resented a priest, of all people, telling her that. What did he know about love between a husband and wife? Len used to say they get paid for making up something to say to all those people thinking someone has to know the score, or we’re all simply in the dark. And of course we all are, Len would say: those men rushing around in their skirts, pushing the body of Christ down people’s throats know it, too. That’s why so many of them drink and pull little boys’ puds.

  TWELVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  Eventually he went downstairs, where Scotti was. R

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  TWELVE

  Before Liam went into the shower he read from Affirmations, the bulletin from his mind-set group concerning such subjects as Anger, Worry, Goals, and December’s aptly called Proceeding.

  Since Nell and he had decided to stay past summer in the Hamptons, Liam’s reading material was Affirmations and home-repair manuals.

  He had become a professional house watcher. He could fix anything broken, too, the same as he could take cars apart and put them back together. He was also good at finding things, such as the floor safes the rich often have installed for their valuables.

  When time to scheme was what you wanted, and money along with it, why not find a job to give you leisure and stay right where the money was?

  He advertised his services in the East Hampton Star, thinking he would be employed by home owners in East Hampton Village, Georgica, Wainscott, or Sagaponack, where the rich were.

  He’d miscalculated. People like that had live-in servants, or caretakers somewhere on the grounds. The respondents to Liam’s ad were ordinary second-home New Yorkers with houses in places like Northwest Woods or Springs.

  Liam wasn’t interested in taking anything from their houses. Big risk/small gain. But he did his work well.

  For a long time he’d been waiting for just the kind of break Nell had provided, not even knowing what she’d stumbled on one summer evening when Liam couldn’t drive her to Islip Airport. He was helping a client pump water from his cellar. Nell had been forced to call a car service.

  That ride from East Hampton to the airport in Islip had started everything. All the way, Mario Rome had talked to Nell about the Lashers . . . Long after Nell’s job demonstrating Star Cosmetics was finished, Nell continued to hire his van.

  A new “project” was under way. Chuck floor safes and house plans, they had a scheme as beautiful as Nell herself.

  In the bathroom, Liam showered, forgetting that he hadn’t planned to use the shower until he replaced the caulking at the end of the tub.

  Never mind! He felt wonderful. He always did after good sex. He got past all the anxieties Prozac and Affirm couldn’t penetrate—most of them caused by the feeling Nell was too good to be true.

  His sister used to say that how you got a woman was how you lost a woman. He had taken Nell away from a con man named Jimmy Rainbow. After that, every man Nell came near was a threat.

  That very afternoon she’d fished mail out of the box which she’d tried to hide from him.

  She’d said he’d make more of it than it warranted.

  He made her show him the letter. Inside, a poem she claimed Mario Rome must have sent her. Who else was there?

  Across the top he’d scribbled: “Something I wonder about.”

  It was called “The Meaning of Birds.”

  Liam almost blew a gasket when he read it.

  Of the genus of birds we know nothing, save the legend they are descended from reptiles: flying, snap-jawed lizards

  that have somehow taken to air . . . But what does it matter, anyway how they got tip high . . .

  . . . We are often far

  from home in a dark town, and our griefs are difficult to translate into a language understood by others

  . . . But still, it is morning again, this day.

  In the flowering trees,

  the birds take up their indifferent,

  elegant cries.

  Look around. Perhaps it isn’t too late to make a fool of yourself again.

  Perhaps it isn’t too late, to flap your arms and cry out, to give one more cracked rendition of your singular, aspirant song.

  “What the hell does this mean, Nell?”

  “You were the one who told me to sweet-talk him. Your words exactly, Liam! ‘Sweet-talk him’!”

  “Perhaps it isn’t too late to fucking punch his face in!”

  “It’s just a poem. He wants to be a writer!”

  “How do I know it’s from him?”

  “Who would it be from? Tom Cruise?”

  “Why would you try to hide it?”

  “Because look at you! You go bananas!”

  Liam knew she was probably telling the truth. But she always had to prove it, come through for him, give him some horizontal reassurance anytime he had the slightest doubt.

  They had sex a lot. Liam had a lot of doubts.

  It did no good for him to remind himself that he’d never served time and she had. He still always thought of her as being a better person than he was. She’d done four of six for grand larceny. Bad lawyer—grumpy judge—Liam would have known how to beat that rap. It was her one and only criminal venture.

  She’d been assigned to the prison beauty' parlor, where she’d learned to cut hair and advise inmates on skin care.

  Nell Slack had gone in there frumpy and unskilled and come out this classy beautician. She’d acquired a certain cool dash, copied from a cell mate who’d once taught the tango at a Fred Astaire Dance Studio.

  Liam had met Nell at Haven, a halfway house in Brooklyn Heights. In those days he was doing a lot of business with Fina Merola, a notorious jewel thief. Fina was one of the most skilled fences in the east. She could tell a fake in less time than it took to say, “You got fucked.”

  The first time Liam had ever seen Nell in the visiting vestibule he had asked, “Where’d she come from?”

  “Cortland Correctional,” Fina had said. “We call her Sweet Air because she thinks she shits roses.”

  After he got the courage to ask Nell out, the first few dates he couldn’t order martinis. His hands trembled so much trying to hold a longstemmed glass, he changed to Jack Daniels neat.

  There was something about Nell that always made him think he’d lose her. It would
n’t last. She’d go.

  It was all right now. Good sex energized things, and now (thanks to Fina) he had the final plan worked out for the project.

  He felt like getting dressed, going someplace. He knew Nell would rather lie around naked and talk.

  Okay, first they’d talk.

  They had a lot to talk about.

  Liam dried himself off with the bath towel. He reached for the caulk he’d left on the top of the toilet. He squeezed some from the tube and put it on his nose. Then, carefully, he worked it around the bridge, breaking off little pieces until it was perfect.

  Naked, he strolled into the bedroom. “Look who’s here!” he said.

  THIRTEEN

  “Look who’s here!” he said.

  “What’d you do to your nose?” she laughed.

  “Imagine me bigger, with red hair.”

  “Are you supposed to be Delroy Davenport?”

  “Himself.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  Last Sunday they had gone to the Amagansett Presbyterian Church expressly to see Davenport. Mario Rome had told Nell he thought Delroy went there regularly, that it was one of the few times the Lashers lent him the Jeep. His nose and his red hair made him stand out like a clown at a convention of priests.

  Liam sat down on the bed and pulled off the false nose. “I’ve figured everything out.”

  “Again?”

  “This is the final plan. Delroy is our man, our courier, and he’s not going to bring us cash. Our ransom demand will be the Lucky We.”

  Nell pulled the covers around her naked body and sat up in bed. “The ring?”

  “The ring, baby. The ring. Money can be numbered or dusted and the amount we want would be heavy, too. Thanks to Fina’s research, we know

  the Lucky We belongs to Lara Lasher. It’s right there in a safe at The Highway Behind The Pond. Or it’s in the safe at 825 Fifth. According to a maid who worked at Le Reve, she changes it from one safe to the other.” “Why wouldn’t it be in a safety deposit box?”

  “That kind of jewelry is kept in home safes. Safety deposit boxes are locked when there’s a death. Whatever’s in the box gets taxed as part of the estate. Rich people don’t like paying big taxes. They find ways around it all the time.”