“You’ll keep in touch?”
“Of course I will,” I said.
“Victor, have you ever met my Uncle Rupert and my cousin Ronnie?”
She gestured over to Ulysses S. Grant in the front of the line. Put him in a blue uniform, give him a bottle of whiskey, and he could have led the charge at Cold Harbor. But it wasn’t Uncle Rupert who caught my interest, it was the woman who had been by his side but was now slinking away. I hadn’t noticed her before, but when she glanced back worriedly, I caught her face and my heart seized.
I had seen her before. We had shared drinks. I had made an awkward pass. Son of a bitch. It was the woman in Chaucer’s the night I ended up with my tattoo. The motorcycle blonde with the ponytail and the eau-de-Harley had been Chantal’s cousin Ronnie.
“Son of a bitch,” I said.
“What?” said Monica.
“I’ll be right back,” I said as I left Mrs. Kalakos at the graveside and headed sprightly after Ronnie.
When she saw me coming, Ronnie started rushing off faster, and then she stopped and wheeled and faced me down. She was cute and was wearing a skirt, but her eyes were suddenly hard and I had no doubt but that she could have pounded me into the dirt with one hand.
“What did you do?” I said to her. “Drug my drink and then waylay my ass to a tattoo parlor to scrawl your cousin’s name on my scrawny chest for all eternity?”
“Something like that, yeah,” she said.
“Why?”
“So someone would remember,” she said. “Detective Hathaway had told my father long ago that he believed there was a connection between those five guys and Chantal. And then there you were, on the television, looking so smug and clever as you tried to get Charlie the Greek a sweetheart deal. I thought someone needed to remember the little girl who disappeared. My friend Tim runs a parlor on Arch. He agreed to do it.”
“And you couldn’t have sent me a letter?”
A smile crossed her wide, pretty face. “I thought this would be more effective. And with that stupid smile of yours on the television, you looked like you deserved it.” She dropped her chin. “But Monica’s been saying nice things about you, and I sort of feel bad.”
“You should. I could have you arrested for assault.”
“I know.”
“And I could sue you for everything.”
“All I’ve got is a motorcycle.”
“Harley?”
“You think you’re man enough to ride it?”
“It was a really rotten thing to do.”
“I know. I’ll pay for the laser to get it removed if you want.”
“You bet you will,” I said. I glanced back at the grave site, the family together under the little tent, the small hole in the ground in which the tiny coffin had been lowered. “If I do remove it.”
She tilted her head at me.
“Well, he did a nice job,” I said. “And I’ve sort of gotten used to it.”
“I’ve always liked a man with a tattoo,” said Ronnie.
I looked at her, the wide, pretty face, the shoulders of a field-hockey player. “You want to maybe get a drink sometime and talk about it?”
Yeah, I know, I am so pathetic it hurts.
71
Due to the funeral, I was late for Beth’s closing, obviously later than I thought, because when I charged into our conference room, expecting to see the sellers and the real-estate agents, the title guy with his stamps and stacks, all I saw was Beth, sitting alone among a welter of paper.
“Did I miss it all?” I said.
“You didn’t miss much,” said Beth.
“How’d it go?”
“It didn’t,” said Beth. “I backed out.”
“Excuse me?”
“I backed out. I didn’t buy. I remain unencumbered, unmortgaged, utterly homeless.”
“You decided you didn’t like the house after all?”
“No, I loved it, really. It was perfect for me.”
I sat down next to her, looked into her eyes. I thought she’d be upset or distraught or something, but she seemed happy, almost giddy. “Then why, Beth?”
“Do you think people can really change?”
“I don’t know. Charlie gave up a boatload of cash to do the right thing with the painting, even though it didn’t quite work out. That seems like a real change for him. But then again Theresa Wellman lapsed right back, didn’t she?”
“I was devastated when I found her that night, drunk and high, totally oblivious to the fact that her daughter was in the next room. I was so wrong to take her case.”
“You saw a need in her and tried to fill it.”
“I saw a need in myself and tried to use her to fill it. But when I saw her lolling and insensible, for the first time in a long time I saw my life clearly.”
“What did you see?”
“I’ve been miserable to be with for the last couple of years, haven’t I?”
“A little.”
“More than a little. I’ve been whiny and dissatisfied and paralyzed, everything I never wanted to be. And buying a house with all my little plans to fill the little rooms would only make it worse. I love being your partner, Victor, but the firm has become something I never expected it to be. I think I need a break.”
“Take a few weeks.”
“I need more than that.”
“I’ll stop doing criminal law.”
“But you love criminal law, and you’ve become great at it. You’ve found your place, I’m still looking for mine.”
“We’ll find it together.”
“I don’t think so. How long have I been talking about traveling the world? Khartoum. Cambodia. Kathmandu.”
“I thought it was just talk.”
“It was, but not anymore. I’ve always wanted to be the kind of woman who can find herself in Kathmandu. That’s not what I am now, that’s not what the house could ever change me into. But that’s exactly what I’ll be the moment I set foot in Nepal.”
“So you’re really going?”
“I can’t wait.”
“When will you come back?”
“When the money runs out, I suppose.”
“I got a fee out of the Kalakos case. Give me a little time and I’ll get you your share.”
“A little time? What, is the check postdated?”
“Well, it wasn’t quite a check. We were working the barter system.”
“Victor.”
“Don’t worry, I know a guy who knows a guy who can take care of it for me. I think it’s worth a lot.”
“Keep it, all of it, I have enough for right now. The thing I feel most terrible about is leaving you in the lurch. Use my share to keep the firm going.”
“Derringer and Carl.”
“You’ll have to take my name off the letterhead.”
“Never. You’ll be our foreign office.”
“It’s a shame, really, because I did love that house.”
“It had ghosts. Sheila told me. There was a suicide that haunted the place.”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“She didn’t want to spook you.”
“But I like ghosts.”
We sat there for a moment, quiet, together and apart, thinking about our diverging futures. Then I started laughing.
“What?” she said.
“I’m imagining Sheila’s expression when you told her you were backing out of the deal.”
“She wasn’t happy.”
“Oh, I bet not. I can just see her throttling your neck.”
“It wasn’t that bad. She actually said she understood. Said she was thinking about backing out of a deal of her own.”
I turned to Beth, thought that one out, started laughing again.
And that, right there, was how I became a sole practitioner. I’d been afraid of becoming just that for a long time now, left alone to my own pale devices, but when the news finally hit, it didn’t feel so bad. I had an office, a career, a pile of swag in my desk drawer that I didn’t have to share with anyone. I would miss Beth, absolutely, but I figured the cash would go a long way to assuage my bruised feelings.