What little money I’ve amassed during my unremarkable life I’ve spent on women. Or lost at cards, but even that was usually done to impress women. So my radar dish went into full rotation when Jane’s blouse parted to expose more of her sumptuous bounty.
“You’re after the Reeveses, right?” she asked. “All that cash he’s been flashing around. He must have a couple of grand in his wallet alone and I’ll bet there’s more in his suitcase or a money belt.”
The sphinx’s face revealed more than mine did, or so I’d like to think.
“Mrs. Carmody’s diamonds? Don’t bother — they’re fakes. But her emeralds look like the real thing.” She arched her eyebrows awaiting my response.
I let her wait. I was finding it difficult to breathe. I shifted my weight and reached up to the overhead console to increase the airflow.
“I want half of whatever you get,” she said.
An ambitious, beautiful woman with confidence, an eye for gems, and filled with larcenous intent. I was in love.
“What makes you think I’m a thief? I was just looking for a comfortable place to get out of the sun for a while.” I lowered my eyes. “See the sights.”
“Right,” she said, resting her hand on my thigh. “Look, mate, I’ve been schlepping these loudmouthed Yanks — no offense — up and down the East Coast for six days. I deserve a finder’s fee at least.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She nodded, then glanced out the window. “Hold that thought,” she said and returned to her station at the front of the bus.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re coming up on the Sharpe Hill Vineyard, where we’ll stop for a tour followed by lunch. Charles Flynn will guide you through the grounds and show you the entire process from grape to glass.” A man of about fifty stepped onto the bus when we came to a stop, presumably the erudite Mr. Flynn. “I’ll meet up with you in the tasting room.”
I disembarked with the other tourists — Mrs. Carmody’s diamonds did indeed look like paste — but Jane grabbed me by the arm and pulled me aside.
“You and I can go straight inside. We have things to discuss. Gerry.”
“And I was so looking forward to Mr. Flynn’s tour.”
She gave me a withering look, looped her arm around mine, and led me down the garden path — so to speak — to a side door that opened into a bright meeting hall furnished with rows of tables. Another tour group was just leaving. I held the door until the last of them — Germans, by the Sturm und Drang of their conversation — staggered toward their bus. Jane didn’t relinquish her grip on me for a moment and I didn’t mind much, since my arm was in the enviable position of being clutched against her pliant bosom.
The tables were strewn with tiny plastic tasting glasses left behind by the German tourists. Jane was on a first-name basis with the wine steward, who delivered a bottle of chilled Chardonnay to our table along with a pair of goblets. She relieved him of the bottle and poured us each a full glass. He left, casting dark glances back over his shoulder. For a moment I thought he was going to challenge me to a duel.
“Partners?” She raised her glass.
I left her hanging and downed half my wine in three swallows. I prefer beer, but free wine’s okay, too.
She leaned across the table. “C’mon, Gerry.” She said my name as if she didn’t believe it. “Fifty percent of what you get from my sheep is better than nothing, right? Better than a ride to jail in the back of a police car, right?”
“I got on the wrong bus, that’s all. An easy mistake. Happens all the time, I bet.” I stripped the purple smiley face from my shirt and applied it to her blouse at the exact point where it began its outward curve. “Have a nice day,” I said, and stood up.
She muttered something I didn’t hear and peeled the sticker off, sticking it to the table with a pout. I regarded her with the same arched-eyebrows look she’d used on me earlier.
Her shoulders slumped. “Twenty-five percent?”
I felt a little sorry for her — she caved so easily. I sat down again, refilled our wineglasses, and raised mine. She hesitated long enough to make me wonder, and then clinked her glass against mine.
“So, do you always rip off your... what’d you call them... sheep?” I asked.
It was her turn to play the sphinx.
“Probably not. The owners would catch on before long. But you’ve been thinking about it. Dreaming that someday you’ll hit the jackpot and retire to Fiji. Until the money runs out. It always does, you know?”
She furrowed her brow. She could have entire conversations with those eyebrows of hers.
“Money always runs out. There’s never enough.”
“So what do you do?”
“Take my retirement on the installment plan. Learned that from a character in a book. When I run low, I go back to work.”
Maybe it was the wine. More likely it was the way her leg brushed against mine now and then. I regaled her with tales of my funnier capers, the made-to-order party stories I never got to tell because no one throws that kind of party. A hair-replacement scheme that plucked thousands of dollars from vain, desperate men. My stint as a personal-injury lawyer courtesy of a diploma granted by the University of Some Caribbean Nation. A brief but lucrative job appraising household belongings that went south when the settings on some rather valuable pieces of jewelry started leaving mysterious green stains on the necks and fingers of their owners.
“You never get caught?” She was on her third glass of wine by then. I wondered how she was going to talk to her charges later without slurring into the microphone.
I shrugged and pressed my leg back against hers when she brushed me for the sixth or seventh time. “A few times.”
“Go to jail?” Her leg didn’t move. She toyed with a strand of black hair that curled around to touch her cheek.
“A little.”
“How did you stand it, cooped up in a cell for months? Years?”
“It’s free room and board. I can read a little, catch up on a month or two of missed sleep. You know what I always tell my cellmates?”
Her eyes were unfocused but they still seemed to penetrate my soul. She shook her head and sucked on the tip of the strand of hair.
” ‘Wake me up for meals.’ They get a kick out of that one. It’s from a Warren Zevon song. I tell them that’s what I’m going to say when I get to heaven.”
She raised one eyebrow.
“Okay, wherever I end up.”
I was about to ask her how a beautiful sheila like her ended up so far from the Antipodes when a set of doors opened at the far end of the room. Jane’s tour group filtered in, presumably vastly wiser about the process of winemaking. Jane slipped our dead soldiers under the table and sprang to her feet to greet them with nary a stagger or a slur. I was impressed.
The room filled with loud conversation as jugs of wine were distributed along with more of those tiny plastic glasses that reminded me of the ones I prepared for communion during my brief stint as an altar boy back in Milwaukee. Lunch consisted of ham sandwiches wrapped in cellophane. I smiled at the waitress and took two, against orders.
Jane put on her game face and wandered among her flock. She looked genuinely interested in whatever anyone said to her and smiled easily as she meandered, spending a few moments at each table. Her tips at the end of a tour were probably quite generous. The cleavage helped, no doubt; I noticed the men gaping into her blouse. I didn’t blame them — I did the same thing every chance I got.