“It’s about the will,” Grady said.
“Yes.”
“He didn’t leave you everything, after all.”
“Yes, he did.”
“Then why is the news bad?”
“‘Everything’ includes his mistakes. Neville made some reckless financial deals during the last year or two of his life.”
“How reckless?”
“I’d rather not go into it now, Grady. I don’t feel very well. My head—”
“How reckless?”
“Very,” she said. “Very reckless.”
“So he didn’t leave you any money?”
“No.”
“But there’s the house.”
“It has three mortgages on it. Among other things, Neville bought a stud farm in Kentucky.”
Aragon, putting the papers back in his briefcase, wondered how she’d found out about the stud farm in Kentucky. If Shaw had told her that, he’d probably told her a lot of other things she’d been pretending not to know. Whatever her reason for the pretense, she had gained nothing from it but a small delay. “I’m buying time, Mr. Aragon... Grady is starting to love me, really love me. I’m becoming indispensable to him.”
“What about the car?” Grady said, “My Porsche.”
“It’s paid for, if that’s what you mean. I traded in the Continental and the Mercury.” She took off her glasses and hid them away in a needlepoint case. The fine print had been read, all of it bad. “It’s really our car, isn’t it, Grady?”
“Sure. Naturally. I call it mine because you promised to give me the pink slip on it—”
“Whatever is left of the estate we’ll share, the two of us. We don’t need a fortune to be happy together.”
“—and because I do all the driving. You can’t even shift gears.”
“Shut up,” she said. “Shut up about that stupid car.”
“Stupid car? Now wait a minute, you can’t talk like that about a turbo Carrera.”
“I can if I paid for it.”
“That’s a bitchy remark.”
“I have more of the same if you care to hear them.”
“Say, what’s the matter with you, anyway? I never saw you like this before.”
“I have had bad news, terrible news, and all you can do is stand there blabbering about a car while I... while my whole world falls apart.”
“Since we’re supposed to be sharing everything, let’s call it our world,” Grady said. “So our world is falling apart. You’re right, that’s terrible news. But what I want to know is how new is this news?”
“What do you mean?”
“When did you find out?”
“Just now, from Mr. Aragon. He told me about the — the stud farm in Kentucky. And other things.”
Aragon didn’t deny it, but he glanced toward the door as though he wished he were on the other side of it.
“I had no idea Neville liked horses,” she said. “He never let me keep any pets, not even goldfish.” She thought of the aquarium in their bedroom at home, the dead fish floating in the murky water that smelled of Scotch. “I would have liked a dog, someone to talk to. Everything was always so quiet. I used to look forward to the gardener cutting the grass or clipping the hedges. He was a funny little man. I forget his name, or perhaps I never knew it. His lawn mower sounded very loud, worse than the Porsche. I have this — this awful headache, Grady. Could you get something for me from Dr. Ortiz?”
“No.”
“But I hurt, I hurt all over.”
“Sure you hurt. A needle in the butt every morning and a bunch of goats surging around in your bloodstream, what the hell do you expect?”
“I’m only doing it for you, Grady.”
“Crap. You’ve been here two or three times before. Who were you doing it for then?”
“You’re cruel, you’re so cruel to me.”
“I’ve never lied.” He threw the towel into a corner as if he were trying to discard a piece of the past. It lay in a dirty heap. “You must have known Neville had blown away every bill he owned. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know. Ask Mr. Aragon.”
In spite of the mention of his name, neither of them turned to look at Aragon. He picked up his briefcase and took a step toward the door. When this didn’t attract attention he took several more steps until he was close enough to put his hand on the doorknob. Goodbye, Miranda. Nice meeting you. Once.
Miranda had started crying again. Her tears dropped on the burn-scarred desk, little crystal bombs iridescing in the sun for a moment before they exploded into words: people were cruel to her, they accused her of things, they picked on her. She hated Grady, Smedler, Aragon, all lawyers, lifeguards, nurses, doctors and the California judiciary. She was innocent, her butt hurt and she was going to throw up. She also had a terrible headache but nobody cared, nobody cared about anything except their damned Porsches and everyone should get the hell out of there.
“I was just leaving,” Aragon said.
“Take Grady with you. He can show you his turbo Carrera.”
Grady stood with his arms crossed on his chest, motionless, expressionless, like a cut-rate Midas turned to bronze instead of gold.
“Do you hear me, Grady? I want you to leave.”
“Everybody hears you,” Grady said. “You’re screaming.”
“Not yet. I’m working up to it, though.”
“You’re making an ass of yourself, Miranda.”
“Get out of here.”
“All right, all right. Like the man said, I was just leaving.”
The café had been opened only a few minutes before and none of the tables was occupied. Two waiters were more or less on duty, an elderly man sitting on a stool picking his teeth and a teenager who bore a strong resemblance to the woman who’d greeted Aragon at the reception desk in the office, thin straight lips and nose, eyes cool as coins. When he saw Grady his face seemed to splinter with excitement.
“Mr. Shaw, Mr. Shaw, sir...”
“Bring us a couple of beers, Pedro.”
“What kind?”
“You’ve only got one kind.”
“My uncle says to ask. It sounds good.”
“I’m buying,” Grady told Aragon. “Or rather, Miranda’s buying. All I do is write the magic name Shaw on the bill and everything is taken care of.”
“Was taken care of.”
“That’s definite, is it? I mean you weren’t trying to scare her to force her to economize, or something along those lines?”
“No.”
Grady rubbed his eyes. The pupils were red from the salt water and sand and sun. “She conned me.”
“Maybe you con easy.”
“It’s not just the money I’m talking about. It’s the whole deal. I didn’t go after her, man. She was there, I couldn’t get past her. So I thought, why not? I was figuring on a little fling, a couple of months, three at the most, and I thought that’s what she wanted, too. But then she began using words like commitment and marriage and forever. Forever. Can you beat that? I’m not a forever guy.”
Pedro returned, swinging a bottle of beer in each hand.
“Mr. Shaw, sir, I’m ready.”
“So am I,” Grady said. “What are we ready for?”
“The ride. Tomorrow.”
“Oh. Sure.”
“Very early before the traffic. How about seven o’clock?”
“You like seven o’clock, Pedro?”
“You bet.”
“I don’t like seven o’clock. But then, I don’t like six or eight o’clock either, so let’s make it seven. We’ll race the wind, you and me.”
“You and me will win. You bet?”
“I bet,” Grady said. After the boy left he poured the beer himself. It gushed out over the tops of the bottles like used soapsuds and he sat staring at the foam as though he saw his fortune in it, brief as bubbles and a little dirty. “Here’s to Miranda.”