"Well, I suppose she does want the work just now, since she's investing every penny. She's so excited about increasing her savings."
There was a pause as their drinks arrived, the waiter's hard black shoes moving around the table, the sound of ice tinkling, the sharp scent of alcohol tickling the cats' noses. "But I do wonder," Bernine said, "about these investments of hers. Mavity is thrilled with the money, but this Winthrop Jergen…" Another long pause. Dora began to wiggle her left toe. Ralph's feet became very still. Bernine said tentatively, "I wonder sometimes if Mr. Jergen is-quite to be trusted."
No one responded. Under the table, Ralph tapped his foot softly. Dora shifted position, pressed one foot tightly against the other.
Bernine said, "The kind of money Mavity's making seems- well, nearly too good to be true.
"Though I don't see how Mr. Jergen could cheat her," she hastened. "After all, she must get a regular monthly statement. And she told me herself, she drew two hundred dollars from her profits just last week to do a few things to the house, buy some new dishes."
Dora made a strange little sound. "Oh, the dishes are lovely. Real Franciscan pottery, just like Mama had. Well, she didn't have to do that, just because we were coming. Didn't have to do anything for us."
"She wanted to," Bernine said. "And I guess she can afford it, all right. I'd love to invest with Mr. Jergen, but I-I don't know. Investments make me so nervous."
"Investing with that Je…" Ralph began. Under the table, Dora kicked him.
"Still," Bernine went on smoothly, "if Mavity can make that kind of money… Well, maybe I would like to try."
Ralph cleared his throat. "I-I wouldn't do that." Dora kicked him again, barely missing Joe, and the cats backed away against the terrace wall. There was another pause, as if Bernine might have looked at Ralph with surprise.
"Do-do you have any-special reluctance?" she asked. "I know so very little about investments."
Dulcie cut her eyes at Joe, amused. This was hugely entertaining. Whatever Bernine was playing at, she must seem, to Dora and Ralph, the height of sophistication-it must be a heady experience for Ralph to find Bernine Sage asking his advice.
Ralph leaned closer to Bernine's chair. "I would be careful about investing with Jergen." And Dora's heel pressed hard against his ankle.
"Oh?" Bernine said softly. "You're not telling me there's something wrong?"
The waiter approached and they heard the tinkle of fresh drinks. There was a long interval concerned with ordering, with crab mornay, with a salad of baby lettuces, cuts of rare fillet, and a broiled lobster-a discussion that left the cats sniffing around under the table for any leftovers from previous diners.
"I can't believe…" Bernine began when the waiter had gone, "I can't dream that Mavity's Mr. Jergen… Are you saying that Mr. Jergen…?" She paused delicately, her hand beneath the table seeming to accidentally brush Ralph's hand. The cats watched, fascinated, as Ralph tentatively stroked Bernine's fingers. Dulcie could picture Bernine giving him a steamy gaze from beneath her mascara-heavy lashes.
Ralph cleared his throat and shifted his hand guiltily as if he thought Dora might have noticed his preoccupation. "I would not invest with Mr. Jergen," he said bluntly.
"Ralph…" Dora said.
"We-Dora and I-we are very worried about Mavity."
"But she's made such wonderful money," Bernine said. "She told me her profits have been…"
Dora sighed, pressing one toe against the other as if to relieve her tension. "I don't think we should be talking about this, Ralph. After all, we…"
"Dora, be reasonable. Do you want this poor girl to… Do you want the same thing to happen to Bernine?"
Bernine leaned forward, tucking her sandaled toe behind her ankle in a little spurt of elation. As if she had whispered to herself, Bingo! Gotcha.
"All right," Dora said reluctantly. "If you want to do this, Ralph, all right. But we have been far too trusting in the past, and I…"
"Dora, this is different. Can't you see this is different?"
Dora sighed.
Ralph leaned close to Bernine, clutching her hand earnestly beneath the table, as if in a spasm of heart-to-heart communication. "Winthrop Jergen-it's hard to tell you this, my dear. But Winthrop Jergen is a-professional confidence artist."
Bernine caught her breath.
"We have the proof," Ralph said. "All the court proceedings are available, back in Georgia."
"You mean he's-been to jail?"
"Jergen wasn't convicted," Ralph told her, "but he's guilty as sin."
"We only hope," Dora said, "that we can convince Mavity of this. That she will accept the truth. We haven't told her yet. We wanted…"
This time it was Ralph's turn to kick, his black loafer thumping Dora's ankle.
"We only hope that she can pull out of this in time," Ralph said. "Before Jergen gets away with her money. She doesn't…"
The waiter returned with their salads. In the island of silence as he served, the cats curled down more comfortably against the wall. When he had gone Ralph leaned, again, toward Bernine.
"Winthrop Jergen, my dear, robbed us of nearly all our life savings."
"Oh. Oh, don't tell me that. Oh, how terrible for you. I can't believe this." Bernine's toe wiggled with excitement.
"We've gotten none of our money back," Ralph told her. "All gone. Police couldn't find a trace, not a bank account, nothing."
Dora uncrossed her ankles, setting her feet solidly. "Jergen arranged his little scheme so his partner went to prison. Jergen got off free-went totally free."
"But where did this all happen? And when?" Bernine asked, puzzled.
"In Georgia, and not many months ago," Dora told her. "Not long before Christmas-it was a terrible Christmas for us. Terrible."
"But what brought him here? How did you know he was here? Did Mavity…?"
"Mavity told us about her wonderful investments," Ralph said. "She hoped we might be able to make back some of our losses."
"And," Dora said, "when she described Jergen, we began to suspect that this might be Warren Cumming-that's his real name."
"Seemed impossible it could be the same man," Ralph said. "But when we checked Cumming's phone in Georgia, it had been disconnected. And when we went to his office, it was empty; he'd moved out. Mavity's description of Jergen sounded so much like Cumming that we decided to find out. So when we told…"
Dora kicked again. Poor Ralph was going to have a black-and-blue ankle.
"When we told our Georgia friends we were coming out here," Ralph mumbled, "they wished us luck. You have to understand how angry we were, that Jergen got off free."
"Scot-free," Dora said. "Looks like he came right on out here, took a new name, started right up again, cheating people-cheating my own aunt."
"But…" Bernine began.
"I suppose he got a new driver's license," Dora said. "Got all those fake cards like you read about, social security, who knows what else?"
Ralph shifted his feet. "All we can do, now, is try to convince poor Mavity of the truth. She thinks that man hung the moon. But with some proof…"
"Now," Dora said loudly, pressing her knee against his, "now all we can do is help Mavity cope with this. That's all we can ever do."
As their entrees were served, the conversation deteriorated to a replay of everyone's concerns for Mavity, punctuated by the sounds of cutlery on china and occasional smacking from Ralph. The cats had nearly dozed off again when the main course was concluded and their waiter took the plates and brought coffee and the dessert cart. Bernine declined dessert. Dora chose a pecan and caramel torte with whipped cream. Ralph selected a double cream puff with chocolate sauce. Dulcie was partial to the small custard tart on the bottom shelf. Lifting it gently from its pleated white doily, she and Joe indulged. Above them, the conversation turned to Molena Point's tourist attractions, then back to Mavity, to how shocked Bernine was and how worried they all were for Mavity's well-being. When again the dessert cart passed their table, the cats went away beneath it, licking cream from their whiskers.