"If it's a cash deal, this can go quickly."
"I'd like to surprise her."
"That's a hell of a gift, Charlie."
"Yeah."
"You must love her to pieces."
"Daddy?" came Julia's voice early the next morning. He had a headache upon waking and immediately wanted some of the odorous tea. "There's something wrong with Mom. Somehow she got past the elevator man and tried to hail a cab in her bathrobe."
"What?"
"She was standing out there with a little suitcase."
"Where was she going?"
"I don't know. The doorman brought her back inside and called me and I ran up there and we went straight to Dr. Berger's. He looked at her right away and gave her some anxiety medication and said she shouldn't be left alone tonight. I brought her to our place."
"Can I talk to her?"
"She's sleeping in the guest room. I don't think I should wake her, Dad."
"What does he think is wrong with her?"
"He can't tell yet. She's anxious. I know she's been thinking about Ben a lot…" Julia sighed at the sadness of it. "She's been taking too many sleeping pills, but she also has indications… They got her to sleep-basically knocked her out-and will do some blood work. Dr. Berger has some blood results from a year ago, and tomorrow they're going to test the protein deposits in her blood and see if there's a change. They can make some guess about how fast it's going."
"How fast what is going?"
"Alzheimer's."
"I really don't-"
"Don't fool yourself, Dad. Mom isn't the same as she was a couple of months ago."
"She was clever enough to buy a retirement home in New Jersey without me knowing about it," he responded. "Seems like someone who is thinking all right."
"You've just proved my point." Julia, ever the lawyer, slicing his logic into piles and rearranging it into her own truth. "Yes, a month or so ago she was able to do that, though of course they're very good at walking older people through this process, and now, now, she is hailing cabs in nothing but a bathrobe!"
"Okay," he said.
"She had lipstick on, too."
"What does that matter?"
"It explains a lot — oh, you wouldn't understand."
"Try me, dammit."
"It's just so heartbreaking."
"The lipstick?"
"Yes! It shows she thought she was fine, she thought she was ready to go out, that she wanted to go out."
"Where was she going?"
"By the time we got to Dr. Berger's, she was sort of tired and hostile, so she didn't say much, but I think she was trying to go to you."
"Me?" He staggered out of bed and found the packet of tea.
"She said she was going to China."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I couldn't understand it. She said some papers came messengered to you at home and she opened them and thought you needed them."
"What papers?"
"I don't know. I haven't been up to your apartment yet."
The report from Towers, the investigator? What else could it be? I meant send it to me here, Charlie thought, didn't I say that? What else could upset Ellie so much? She would have picked the pages off the front table by the elevator, Lionel going up and down in his circular window, and opened it, thinking perhaps it was urgent, since it had been messengered, and, reading it, gotten the shock of a lifetime.
"Are you going back to the apartment?" he asked Julia anxiously, dumping some of the dry tea into a glass of cold water. Maybe it had opium or cocaine or something in it, but he had to have it now.
"In about an hour, yes, to get her sleeping gown and stuff. The doctor expects her to sleep for about ten or twelve hours. She'll feel more comfortable if she has her usual things."
"Right," he groaned. He looked at the concoction. It had dry bits floating on top. Why did he crave it so much? He jolted the whole glass of thick brown liquid down his throat.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You sounded funny."
"I was drinking something, sweetie." Julie would prowl through the apartment looking for clues to her mother's mental condition. If Ellie had left the investigator's report out, Julia would find it.
"Daddy?"
"Yes."
"Can you come home right away?"
He'd have to figure out how to accelerate negotiations with Mr. Lo. "I think I can take a plane tomorrow, sweetie."
"How's your back?"
"Amazing."
"I don't understand."
"I got some Chinese medicine. They made it right in front of me. Really quite-"
"Dad?" Julia said suddenly. "I have someone on the other line. I'll expect you home in about forty-eight hours?"
"Yes." He thought of the investigator's papers lying on the kitchen counter or wherever Ellie opened them. "Mom'll be at your place tonight?"
"I think so."
"Maybe she should stay a night or two."
"I can't. Brian is in L.A. until next week, and I'm leaving for London tomorrow."
"So," Charlie asked, his mind flying in front of the conversation, "Mom'll get back into our apartment sometime tomorrow morning or afternoon?"
"Morning. I mean, she's got pills that should calm her."
Not if she reads the investigator's report again, he told himself. "Tell her not to worry about anything and that I'm coming home."
He retrieved Towers's number and then stood in front of the bathroom mirror. He took off his shirt, looked at his stomach. A horror. Like his father's twenty years ago. Melissa Williams must have been out of her mind. He sat down on the toilet thinking that he was starting to smell Chinese to himself. Happened on every trip.
He called Towers. "You sent me a package?"
"You got it? Good."
"I'm in China," Charlie told him bitterly.
"I don't understand," said Towers. "You called me at six o'clock this morning, said send it to me, but not at the office."
"Yeah," said Charlie. "I did."
"I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Ravich."
"Me too. What was in it?"
"Just the usual basic information."
"Yeah?"
"Also, I'm getting some good stuff on that Melissa Williams."
For a moment Charlie considered telling Towers to forget about Melissa Williams. Maybe that would be better. But he was curious about her. "Do me a favor," he finally said.
"Sure."
"Don't write any of it down, goddammit. Nothing, not a report or a fax or anything."
"I'll have my handwritten notes."
"Just read them to me and throw them away."
"When?"
He looked at his watch. His headache was going away. He had the meeting with Lo. "Call me at the end of the day. My day. Five p.m."
"That's 5:00 a.m. here."
"Yes," said Charlie in a cold voice.
"Right," answered Towers. "I'll call. I'm terribly sorry about the mix-up."
The tea was working now, helping him think. He wanted to know what Towers's report said, but even more than that, he wanted to get it out of the apartment before Julia arrived. Ellie sounded as if she'd been pretty addled by the time she got to the doctor's, but Julia wouldn't forget a comma. He called the front desk of their building. "This is Charlie Ravich."
"Evening, Mr. Ravich," came the voice of Kelly, the doorman.
Not where I am, he thought. "Listen, is Lionel on duty yet?"
"Just got on."
"Can you switch me to the phone in the elevator? I need to ask him a small favor."
"Very good, Mr. Ravich."
The phone clicked. "Lionel here."
"Lionel, this is Charlie Ravich."
"Mr. Ravich, sir."
"I need a favor, Lionel."
"Sure thing."
"Take the elevator to my floor, please."
"Right away."
Charlie could hear the far hum of the elevator. The elevator stopped and the static with it. "Sir?"