"He sounds like a certified loon."
"By no means. I've had my people do a thorough check. He's intelligent, well-educated, dedicated, and has contacts in the Middle East - which should muddy the investigative waters nicely. He also has his own good reasons for volunteering, so no one is likely to come looking for us, if he talks."
"I don't like this. How can we trust him?"
"We don't have to trust him. How can he hurt us? Once you give him the schedule and hotel layout, pay him off, and turn him loose, all he'll know is that some man in a parking lot gave him money to do something he wants to do anyway. That's all he'll ever know."
"I still don't like it. He might be able to finger me later. We could use an underling just as easily."
"It's quite simple," Rudo replied. "You want to move into the upper tier. We need proof that you're willing to risk all before we allow that. Your reputation. Even your life. Consider this a rite of passage."
A pause. "If you insist on this, I suppose I'll have to do it. But if I go down, you'd better make sure of this: I'm taking you and a lot of other people with me."
"Look. It's up to you. You can do the payoff and come play with the big boys. Or you can refuse and stay right where you are, in the cozy middle of the organization, with the little boys.
"Don't worry; it's in our best interests to keep our people happy. The risks are minimal. And we'll protect you if anything goes wrong. But for now, it's your turn to prove yourself."
A longer pause. Brand sighed again. "When and where?"
"I'll give you the details tomorrow at lunch."
***
Thursday morning at breakfast, while Clara played with her oatmeal and blueberries and Brand read the New York Times Business section, I cupped my coffee mug in both hands and sipped at it, stared with burning, red-rimmed eyes out the window.
The housekeeper had put fresh-cut tulips in glass vases on the end tables in the living room, straightened up a bit, and opened the windows. Fresh air and sunlight streamed in through the picture window; the hyacinths and lilies-of-the-valley in the flower box outside were in full, fragrant bloom.
Too beautiful a spring morning can amplify one's misery.
Clara tugged at Brandon's arm and stepped on Frou Frou's, our Llasa Apso's, tail, as he was lapping up the last of the oatmeal she'd dropped on the floor for him. Frou Frou retreated under the table, yelping.
"Papa, will you take me to the zoo on Saturday?"
Brandon didn't answer right away. Clara tried to scramble up into his lap, and in so doing tore a page of the Business section. Brandon scowled and started to chide her, but caught my warning glance. To assuage my own guilt, I had chewed his ear for quite a bit the prior night, over how he'd brutalized Clara.
At any rate, at my glance he laid his paper down, picked her up, and wrapped his arms around her instead, and kissed her curls.
"I have to work on Saturday. Sorry, Tookie."
"Please? Please?"
"Papa has to work," I told her. "I'll take you shopping with me instead."
"It's all right," Brandon said. "Maybe we can go to the park for a while on Sunday. Well take Frou Frou along. OK?"
She beamed, grabbed his ears, and gave him an excited shake. "Groovy! Then Maman and I can go shopping on Saturday, too."
"Where did you pick that up?" I asked.
"What?"
"The 'groovy.' "
"That's what Uncle Henry says. And Jessica says it all the time, too, when she talks on the phone to her boyfriend. She's hip."
"She's what?" I asked.
"Hip, Maman. In the groove."
I gaped at her, flabbergasted.
"That sort of slang may be all right for some people but it's not appropriate language for you, little lady," Brand said. To me he said, "You'd better have a talk with Jessica. And I'd better talk to Henry."
I might have felt the same way myself, if Brand hadn't suggested it first. But the slang did sound kind of cute, coming from her. "It's just a word, for heaven's sake. It's not an obscenity."
"Can we go shopping Saturday, Maman?"
"Well see," I said, and smiled at her.
Brandon's and my eyes met over the top of her head.
"I'll be working late," he said. It occurred to me that I might as well have had Jessica set a place for Marilyn. She was right there at breakfast with us.
"Of course you will," I replied, and sipped coffee.
***
"I'm a friend of Patricia Wright's," I said into the phone. "Joan Moresworth van Renssaeler. We met last year at her Christmas party."
"Oh - yeah, yeah. I dig." Franklin Mitchell sounded as if he didn't have a clue what I was talking about. He also sounded like a flake. Not a good phone personality; he'd made a better impression in person. "How's Patsy doing these days? Has she, you know, like, dropped the kid?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Has she had the baby?"
"Oh. No. Not for several months yet. Listen." Through the open bedroom door, I saw Jessica and Clara playing with Clara's Barbie Dolls on the living room carpet.
Jessica had been helping me care for Clara since she'd been born. She was a strawberry blond, at least forty pounds overweight, and had the most beautiful, freckled face. She was also Irish, but I didn't mind the Irish so much. At least they were Protestants, some of them.
I dried my palms on my skirt, lowered my voice.
"This may not be your usual type of job, but I need someone I can trust and you come highly recommended. I need you to follow someone and take some photographs. This afternoon. And possibly - well, the job may take a few days, before you get the chance to catch - exactly what I'm looking for - on film."
"Yeah? And what's that?"
My voice failed me for a moment. "Does it matter?"
"Well - yeah. Of course it does. How'm I gonna, like, know if I got what you needed, if you don t tell me what you need?"
"Oh. Well." I cleared my throat.
"Maman, Maman, look!" Clara came running in, holding up her Ken doll. She'd put a dress on him and was giggling. "He dresses funny."
"Amusing, dear," I said to Clara, and glared at Jessica, who entered behind her. "This is an important call; do you mind?"
A sullen look crossed Jessica's face. She scooped Clara up and carried her back out.
"Hello?" he said. "Hello?"
"My husband is cheating on me."
"Ah."
"I want you to get pictures of them together. Lots of them. In bed, if possible. I'll pay you well."
"I charge a hundred fifty a day, plus expenses. I'll get you all the pictures you need. Since you're a friend of Patsy's, you can pay on delivery."
"Don't be surprised when you see whom it is."
He chuckled. "Man, nothing gets to me any more. Not in this business."
***
Over the next few days life carried on in a travesty of its old routine: Brand ate breakfast with us, went to work, stayed late or didn't come home at all. Clara seemed to sense that something was wrong; she needed a lot more attention and reassurance than usual. Jessica and I had difficulty controlling her.
***
On Sunday after services, Brand stayed home all day. He paced the house like a caged wildcat. When I asked what was going on he told me to mind my own business. I grew afraid that he'd invited her over - that they were going to announce their intention to run away together.
That afternoon he surprised me by keeping his promise to take Clara and Frou Frou to the park. Afterwards, while Jessica and I helped Clara press the flowers and leaves she had picked in the park between sheaves of waxed paper and then glue them into her scrap book, he spent a good deal of time in his office on the phone. I couldn't listen in because Jessica was around, and in the evening after she'd left he didn't make any calls. After we put Clara to bed he went out again, and didn't come back.
***
Franklin Mitchell called on Monday rnoming. "We'd better talk. Right away."