She looked away. “Okay, thanks.”
“Grace!” said Ransom Gardener with alarm in his voice. “Have you seen it?”
“Seen what?”
He snatched up the bottom sheet, reversed it so Grace could read, and jabbed a spot near the bottom.
Grand Total.
Twenty-eight million, six hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Plus forty-nine cents.
“That,” said Gardener, “is after taxes, Grace. You’re a very wealthy woman.”
Grace had read all those lottery-winner stories, people resolving life wouldn’t change. But of course it always did, pretending otherwise was idiocy. No sense ignoring her new circumstances; the key was to make sure she remained in control.
She phoned Mike Leiber and told him she’d be withdrawing some money but wanted him to continue managing the bulk of her fortune as before.
He said, “If you have to spend, use the income, not the principal.”
“What income is that?”
“Don’t you read? You’ve got munis — tax-free bonds. The interest is over six hundred K every year. That enough for shoes and manicures, right?”
“More than enough. So we’ll continue as before?”
“Why not? You don’t care if I don’t do the dog and pony, right?”
“Pardon?”
“For most clients I have to visit twice a year with charts and crap and show what a good job I’m doing. Malcolm and Sophie knew it was a waste of everyone’s time. But Gardener insisted.”
“No need, Mike.”
“Also,” said Leiber, “I’m telling you this at the outset: Some years you’ll do better, some worse, anyone who tells you different is an asshole con man.”
“Makes sense, Mike.”
“You can call if you have questions but your questions are unlikely to be uninformed. Better to read the monthly statements, everything’s spelled out. If you want more, I’ll recommend reading a book on basic investing, Benjamin Graham’s the best.”
“I’ll bear that in mind, Mike.”
“Good. Oh, yeah, I’ll send you some checks so you can withdraw whatever you want.”
“Thanks, Mike.”
“Whatever.”
Over the next year, Grace sold the house on June Street, consigning the more valuable antiques and objets d’art with a dealer in Pasadena and storing Malcolm and Sophie’s papers in a warehouse that specialized in document safety. One day, she might read them.
Using the proceeds from the house, she avoided capital gains tax with a 1031 exchange: snagging the house on La Costa Beach for a good price because it was tiny and unsuitable for more than one person and the Coastal Commission was balking at issuing building permits. Additional cash was spent on a cottage in West Hollywood that she converted to her new office.
The day after closing on both properties, she drove to a dealership in Beverly Hills, traded in the BMW, and bought the Aston Martin, black and barely used. The previous owner had discovered he was too large to fit comfortably in the cockpit. The Toyota station wagon, also barely used, was parked in a corner of the lot. It turned out to be owned by the salesman. She shocked him by making an offer, ended up bundling it into the deal as a practical fallback.
She’d known she wanted a sports car, had even considered a vintage T-Bird but decided that would be literal and stupid and trite.
The first month she owned the Aston, she put on two thousand miles. The combination of excessive speed and recklessness felt strangely redemptive.
Maybe one day she’d stop imagining the night they’d been taken from her.
She’d learned nothing about the accident. By choice. Had refrained from talking to Gardener or the highway patrol, requesting records, any sort of clarification.
She didn’t even know if the drunken waste of space who’d destroyed so much was male or female.
Despite everything she told her patients about open communication, she craved the balm of ignorance. She supposed that could change.
Meanwhile, she’d drive.
Chapter 48
The morning after catching her first glimpse of Venom Boy as an adult, Grace set out for the Claremont district.
By seven a.m., she was sitting under a giant umbrella-shaped tree and studying the scant traffic traveling to and from Avalina Street. The tree, a species she couldn’t identify, was the largest of an old-growth copse that rimmed a patch of lawn claiming to be Monkey Island Park.
No simians in sight, no water, no island. Nothing at all but a third of an acre of grass surrounded by stout trunks and overarching branches heavy with chlorophyll.
Arriving here would be a giant letdown for a kid with visions of chimps in his head. Maybe that’s why the place was empty.
Making it perfect for Grace.
No contact lenses today; her eyes were concealed by sunglasses. She’d hazarded the blond wig, but combed it straight and free of creative waves and flips and gathered a foot of ponytail through the slip-hole of her unmarked black baseball cap. Warm morning so no jacket, just jeans and a tan cotton crewneck, athletic socks and lightweight sneakers. Everything else she needed was in her oversized bag.
She’d picked up a Daily Californian near her hotel, opened it, and pretended to care about campus life. A few people walked near the park but no one entered.
At eight forty-five a.m., Walter Sporn emerged from Avalina in a black Prius and headed north.
At nine thirty-two, Dion Larue did the same. Larue drove too fast for Grace to catch many details but in the daylight, his hair and beard flashed golden, with an almost metallic glint.
As if he’d gilded himself, a self-styled graven image.
Grace remembered a technique she’d learned about when consigning Malcolm and Sophie’s decorative objects: ormolu, a process where gold paint or leaf was applied to a baser metal like iron or bronze.
Basically, trying to make something more than what it was.
She closed her eyes and processed what she’d just seen. As Walter Sporn zipped by, he’d been frowning. Dion Larue’s handsome face had the same upward tilt of nose and jaw that she’d observed last night as he left his wife out in the dark.
Overweening arrogance and why not? No one had told him no for a very long time.
Grace readied herself for another look at the big brick house.
But give it more time, just to be sure. No reason to rush.
Twenty-two minutes later, two female pedestrians rounded the corner of Avalina and headed straight for her.
Both blond, the taller one pushing a baby stroller. As they got closer, the baby’s round, white disk of face came into view. Also fair-haired.
Grace’s wig made it an Aryan morning at Monkey Island Park.
The newcomers didn’t alter their trajectory but did stop well short of Grace, settling near the center of the lawn. The taller woman faced the stroller and began unstrapping the baby, as Grace watched, yards away, shielded by her sunglasses and her newspaper. She’d already registered a guess as to the stroller pusher’s identity and a turn of face confirmed it.
Subservient Azha, her hair a bit limp, center-parted, and held in place by a leather band that was pure hippie redux. She had on a black cotton shift cut slightly higher than the dress Grace had seen last night, this one just meeting her knees. On her feet were flat sandals. No jewelry, no watch.
In the daylight, her face was handsome, just short of pretty. But those cheekbones.
Grace visualized Dion Larue out to reshape his world, wielding one of those gauges favored by sculptors and carving away at his wife. Azha sitting immobile and mute throughout the process, wracked by exquisite agony, as the psychopath who dominated her scooped and contoured and bloodied her down to the bone.