She would probably go straight from here to hospice and bypass gaga land.
Her mother’s given name was Agnes. Of course it was, she thought. Her parents had given their daughter nothing, not even a decent name.
Instead they had bestowed one upon her that sounded like someone trying to hock up phlegm. Thanks, Me-maw and Paw-paw.
Her mother opened her one good and cataract-less eye and said in the hollowed-out, gravelly voice of a Camel smoke queen, “You look too thin. Don’t they feed you?”
“Does who feed me?”
“Your man!”
Post-it note to self: Never ask Mommy another question again. But you know you will because you can’t help it.
“I feel like shit,” said Agnes, not waiting for an answer and probably already having forgotten the question.
“You actually look better than last time.”
“Can I come and live with you?”
“We tried that, remember? You tried to stab me with a cheese knife. Putting you here was actually a pretty fair compromise in lieu of my having you arrested.”
“I forget things,” said Agnes.
“That’s okay. I don’t. Especially cheese knives to the jugular.”
“You look rich. Are you rich? Is my little girl rich?”
“I do just fine. That’s why you can afford to live here. Because of your little girl.”
Her mother would never remember this, because her brain was full of rot, too. But it made her feel good to say it.
“I never thought you’d make anything of yourself,” Agnes said with a yawn.
“You always said I was full of surprises.”
“Did I?”
“No, I’m lying.”
“How’s your father?”
“Dead to us. Over twenty years. We covered this before.” She pantomimed the shotgun to the mouth, pulled the invisible trigger and jerked her head back, although her mother wasn’t even looking.
That was okay because the pantomime had been bullshit.
“I forget things,” said her mother, promptly forgetting it but then surprising her daughter by saying, “Did he treat you nice? Did he love you?”
Clarisse’s fingernail rubbed the arm of the chair she was sitting in. She rubbed it so hard, part of it broke off and fell to the floor. She looked down at the fuchsia-colored piece of herself resting on the cheap, stained carpet and said, “How have your bowel movements been lately? Firmer?”
Her mother sucked down the last of the Ensure and handed the empty to her daughter, who promptly disposed of it.
“Why do you keep coming here?” asked Agnes, licking her cracked lips, caused by oxygen deprivation, caused by the COPD, caused by the Camels. “You hate me and I know it.”
“I’m your daughter. And I am paying for this place. So I like to make sure you’re getting my money’s worth.”
“Do I have other children?”
“Not that you ever mentioned,” she lied.
“What is your name again?”
“Lucretia.”
The older woman sniggered. “That is one funny-ass name.”
“Says Agnes.”
The lips curled back. “I don’t like you much, you little bitch.”
“Yes, you made that quite clear over the years. Not so much the words, but the actions.”
Or, more accurately, inactions.
“You must love me, too, though. To pay for this shit, to come here and give me the chocolate milk and ask about my bowel movements.”
“It’s called Ensure. And I will bury you nice, or do you prefer cremation?”
“Just burn me to ash and be done. I’m almost there now.”
“And sprinkled where?”
“Who gives a shit?”
“I will see you next time.”
But her mother had fallen asleep. That often happened when your body could barely breathe. As she looked down at the wrecked woman, she had to fight back the urge to put a pillow over her face and be done with her and that part of her life.
You’re right, I do hate you. And you earned that. But it also wasn’t all your fault, either. Part of me feels sorry for you. But only part. But you have nothing and I now have a lot, so here we are.
Sometimes life didn’t just suck, it made no sense at all.
Because people often make no sense.
Later, as the plane shed altitude on its way to land, she looked at her Mickey Gibson phone — that, like her notebook, was actually labeled that.
Gibson had tried to call her three times.
You could have been so much more, Mickey Gibson. And you just threw it all away. You had every opportunity, and now look at you. And me? I had nothing. And now look at me. Right on the same playing field as you. Because this is a competition even if you don’t know it yet.
But all the phone call attempts were interesting. She might have found out Pottinger’s true identity now. Other things being equal, that had to be it. Fingerprints from Stormfield was the most likely angle. If she had passed that test, things were about to get interesting.
Mickey Gibson would have her full and undivided attention for the allotted twenty-five minutes, because she had a schedule to keep.
She looked out the rounded window of the Gulfstream as the tarmac flew at her. A few moments later the jolt of landing brought her back to terra firma in more ways than one.
She deplaned, and the waiting car service dropped her four blocks from the place she was using as a temporary residence. She walked the rest of the way.
Later that evening it took ten minutes to type out the message to Senator Wright and append a little attachment that would forever change the man’s life, and not for the better. Yet it would do wonders for her bank account. This was her version of ransomware, only she would never accept cryptocurrency in payment. It fluctuated too much in value from day to day, which was the last thing you wanted currency to do. A wire to bounce-around bank accounts in Zurich and Istanbul would suffice.
With the senator about to receive a gut punch via the “very” personal online account he had provided Angie so she could write dirty to him over the digital ether and hopefully sext him a time or two, she opened her Mickey Gibson notebook, lined up her Post-it notes, stared at the video sectors on her screen, and tapped the speed dial.
Mickey Gibson, Round Three.
She was fully prepared and scripted, but actually hoping that Gibson had a few surprises for her.
Truthfully, after Mommy time, she needed the diversion.
Chapter 13
Gibson was in her home office. Tommy was playing in the corner, and Darby was sound asleep on her blanket in a miniature wooden rocking chair Gibson’s father had made for his granddaughter.
The phone buzzed. It was her police friend, Kate, from Jersey City.
“Only three sets of prints were in the system,” she said. “One matches a fellow named Paul Gerald. He works for the post office.”
“The mailman, then,” said Gibson.
“Right, that’s what I figured, too. The second set was a Mary Tatum, she’s also a postal worker.”
“And the third?”
“Harry Langhorne.”
“Not another postal person?”
“No.”
“So where’d you get the print match, then?”
“I always check local databases first before I hit the national pipeline. The two mail carriers were on the fed databases. I had no idea if Langhorne was from or had any connection to New Jersey. But apparently he had his prints taken when he was doing some volunteer work at a school. That particular school district required a background check. So I didn’t even have to tap the FBI database to nail him.”