“You seen the pictures, Bagatti?” asked Don.
“Why would I have seen them?” said the realtor.
Don picked him up by the shoulders and jammed him against the wall. His head made a kind of bounce against the plaster, and he lost his silly smirk. “I guess I didn’t ask sincere enough,” said Don. “You take those pictures, Bagatti?”
“Like I said, a private detective. This is assault, you know.”
“Got pictures?” said Don.
“All the guy did was call me.”
“So why you telling me and not Cindy?”
“He’s gonna name both of you in the suit. But he said, like, maybe it could all go away.”
“He said? Or you say?”
“What do you think? What are you talking about?”
“Blackmail,” said Don. “Extortion.”
“Not me,” said Bagatti. “But maybe him.”
“Maybe?”
“He said twenty thousand. You still get the house for ten thousand less than he asked for. It’s a bargain, right?”
“But I bet he doesn’t want to go back and adjust the price on the records, right?”
“Why screw up everybody’s taxes?” asked Bagatti. “You’ll still get a profit on the house.”
“And you came to me?”
“Cindy’s got no money,” said Bagatti.
“How do you know that? She wouldn’t tell you where to point your dick when you pee.”
“Like I said, the guy has a private investigator. Man, you’re hurting my shoulders.”
Don let him slide down the wall to stand on his feet. But when Bagatti made as if to go for the door, Don bounced him back against the wall again. And, again, his head did that little rebound from the plaster. “Careful,” said Don. “This is a bearing wall, I don’t want to have to replace it just because you put a dent in it with your head.”
“Look, Mr. Lark, I’m just a messenger.”
“Tell me the lawyer’s name.”
“He didn’t say. He said he’d contact you.”
“I don’t want any lawyer dust in this house. I’ll go to his office and we’ll work this out, or he can go ahead and take us to court, because nothing illegal happened.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“No, I’ll tell him. Give me his number.”
“He said he’d call me back. Didn’t give me a—”
This time his head didn’t bounce as much. “Don’t hold your neck stiff when I do that,” said Don. “It’ll just make it hurt worse later. Stay loose.”
“You’re hurting me, man.”
“His number.”
“Let go of me and I’ll write it down.”
Don stepped between Bagatti and the door and watched while he pulled out a business card and with trembling hands struggled to write the phone number.
“Memorized it, huh?” said Don. “From calling it so much?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re the office sneak. You’re the one tipped him off that maybe Cindy and I liked each other. And he must have got you to hire the detective. Fast work, getting those pictures only a couple of hours later.”
“So what? The ice queen starts getting lovey with a client, I get suspicious, and it turned out I was right, wasn’t I? Getting a thirty-thousand-dollar discount on the house. So don’t get all righteous with me, calling me a sneak when you’re a thief.”
Right then. That was when Don could have crossed the line. All these years of self-control. All those months when he wanted to go kidnap his daughter and hide her in Bulgaria or Mongolia and he didn’t do it. All those months, all those years afterward when he wanted to find his ex-wife’s lawyer and smash the sanctimonious snake’s head into splinters against a lightpost, and didn’t do it. All the violence that had gone unexpressed, he wanted so badly to let go . . . and didn’t.
Bagatti must have guessed at the decision he was making, because he cowered, watching Don’s eyes. And when Don finally stepped back against the outside wall, letting Bagatti pass, the realtor bolted like a squirrel, out the door, down the porch steps.
Don held the card with the lawyer’s number. Another lawyer. Another attempt to destroy him. When you kill, Don, kill the right guy. Life in prison for killing a realtor? Come on. One dead lawyer is worth ten dead realtors any day.
He locked the door, got in the truck, and drove. At first he thought of driving to Cindy’s. But what would that accomplish? Either she knew about the threat from the previous owner, or she didn’t. Either she would be embarrassed about their near-tryst or she wouldn’t. No possible meeting would work out happily for either of them.
So he drove. Up to some of the new housing developments around some of the lakes north and west of the city. Houses for doctors and lawyers, executives and car dealers. Big houses, on huge wooded lots, designed to have great views and to give them, too. From the road over there where the common people drive, this house would look like a slavery-era plantation house, and that one like a Federal mansion, and this other one like a Hollywood extravaganza, and that last one like an escapee from the ugliest part of the 1950s. Taste didn’t come with money. Nor restraint. Nor even common decency. I used to build their houses, thought Don. I used to try so hard to please them. Excellence that they didn’t understand and didn’t want to pay for. I built their house as meticulously as I would hope they did surgery, or handled legal cases, or whatever. Was I the only one who cared that much? The only one who wanted to do good work even where it wasn’t on display?
He came out onto Lake Brandt Road, and then took the left fork onto Lawndale. He stopped at Sam’s and got out and used the payphone to call the lawyer’s number. He recognized the name of the firm when the receptionist said it. They didn’t have the best reputation in town, but extortion was a new specialty for them.
“He’s with a client,” said the receptionist.
“Get out of your chair,” said Don, “and go tell him that either he talks to me on the phone or he talks to me in person ten minutes from now.”
“We do not respond to threats, sir.”
“It says a lot about your law firm that you have a policy about that,” said Don. “Don’t waste my time, I’m calling from a payphone.”
It only took a moment for the lawyer to get on the phone. “Most people make appointments,” said the lawyer.
“What you and your client are doing is extortion,” said Don.
“No it’s not,” said the lawyer. “It’s fair warning.”
“But if I give you twenty thousand, the whole problem goes away.”
“It saves everybody a lot of unnecessary legal fees and court costs,” said the lawyer. “It’s called settling out of court.”
“Then in exchange I get a quit-claim that specifies the amount I paid you.”
“No you don’t.”
“Then go to court, and I’ll testify that only your unwillingness to have a legal document with the amount of money on it stood between us and settlement.”
“That’s a privileged matter.”
“There’s no privilege because you’re not my lawyer,” said Don. “I’ll be at your office at eight-thirty in the morning. The check will be made out to your client.”
“It will be cash.”
“No it won’t. Again, I’m happy to testify in court that your client wanted to leave no paper trail.”
“Cash or no deal.”
“I’ll be there at eight-thirty with the cashier’s check. You be there with the quit-claim specifying the amount of money and making no assertions about any kind of relationship between me and Ms. Claybourne. Or you can sue your brains out.”
“Apparently you don’t know what a court action like that will involve, Mr. Lark, or you wouldn’t talk so blithely about getting into one.”
“I spent a quarter of a million dollars on assholes like you, trying to get my daughter back. And other assholes who were even assholier than thou managed to keep me from getting her back until my ex-wife g
ot them both killed. What exactly do you think I’m afraid of now?”
“You’re afraid of Cindy Claybourne losing her job.”
“Not really,” said Don.
“So chivalry is dead?”
“No, I’m just not afraid of her losing her job. You and your client picked the wrong targets here. Ms. Claybourne and I have both lost about all we have to lose. You don’t have it in your power to do more than inconvenience us.”
“So why are you agreeing to the twenty thousand?”
“Because if I don’t get this whole thing to go away right now, I’ll probably end up losing control and killing somebody.”
“Now who’s the extortionist?”
“Yeah, that’s it, I’m trying to force you to accept the twenty thousand dollars you demanded from me. Eight-thirty in the morning. Check made out to your client. Quit-claim. No mention of Ms. Claybourne or of any improprieties.”
“I won’t accept anything but cash.”
“Fine. I’ll have a dollar in cash, too. The check or the buck. Your choice. See you in the morning.” He hung up. He was shaking as bad as Ryan Bagatti had been. It did no good to talk tough with a lawyer, he knew that. They just smirk at you and think of new ways to make your life a living hell. But Don’s life was already a living hell. Lawyers had lost their last hold over him.
He went to the bank where his renovation money was and withdrew the twenty thousand in the form of a cashier’s check. On the bottom of it he wrote, “For quit-claim on Bellamy house and all related matters.” Then he put the check, folded, into his shirt pocket and returned to the house.
The front door was locked, just as he had left it. Of course. Sylvie didn’t have a key.
Sylvie didn’t have a key, but she had let the Helping Hands guys in.
No. He must have forgotten to lock the house up. That was the morning of the closing, after all. He left the door unlocked.
Okay, so maybe he did lock it. She picked it, that’s all. It’s not like he’d paid Lowe’s for some fancy unpickable lock or anything. She was a burglar, probably, that’s how she paid money to support the drug habit she doesn’t have.
He thought of the missing screwholes in the door. This house was going to get to him pretty soon.
He took the check out of his pocket, tucked it under the screwdriver he’d used on the kitchen cabinets, and then, wrecking bar in hand, went upstairs and tore off lath and plaster until he was covered in white dust and sweat.
It had been a hot day. The water wouldn’t be all that cold. He went down the hall to the bathroom, stripped off his clothes, shook off as much dust as he could over the tub, then got into the shower and rinsed himself off. The water was running clear now, but that just increased its resemblance to a mountain stream. He took it as long as he could, then turned it off and stood there shivering and shaking off the water until he was as dry as he was likely to get. Only then did he remember that he wasn’t alone in the house. He hadn’t seen Sylvie since he got back from his phone call and from the bank, so he’d forgotten about her. But he couldn’t very well parade naked through the house. But he also couldn’t put back on these clothes covered in plaster dust. So he compromised. He put back on his briefs and carried the rest of his clothes downstairs.
Of course she was standing in the entryway to watch him come downstairs. “Water’s pretty cold, isn’t it?” she said.
Wordlessly he passed by her. The fury of his confrontations with Bagatti and the lawyer swept over him, and he wanted to shake her and scream at her to give him some privacy. Instead he walked to his suitcase and got out what was now his cleanest set of clothes. He had to do a laundry, there was no doubt about it.
“What was that guy here for?” said Sylvie. “He sure took off out of here. But then, so did you right afterward.”
He didn’t owe her any explanation. Especially when he was doing his best not to erupt in fury. So he turned his back to her and hooked his thumbs under the elastic of his briefs and said, “I’m changing my clothes. I prefer to do it alone, but I can’t seem to do anything alone in this house.” Then he pulled off his briefs and turned around. She was gone. Finally.
He got dressed in clothes that were pretty rank, even for him. It was nearly seven, and even though it was still daylight savings time, it would be dark soon. He took everything but his dirty clothes out of his suitcase and left the house. This time he didn’t bother to lock the door behind him. That way he wouldn’t have to wonder how she got it open, if he found she had let yet another person into the house in his absence.
When one batch of clothes was washed and dry, he picked a pair of underwear, some socks, and a pair of pants and a shirt, went into the restroom at the laundromat, and changed into them. Then he came back out and put the dirty clothes he’d been wearing into a washing machine together.
A tired-looking middle-aged woman in a grocery checker’s outfit was the only other person in the laundry, and apparently it irked her to see a man put underwear and socks in with blue jeans and a red shirt. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you to separate whites and coloreds?” she demanded.
“They did, but America is past that now,” he said. When she finally realized he had deliberately misunderstood her, she huffed a little and left him alone. If only a little snottiness would work as well on Sylvie.
When everything was clean and dry, it was nearly ten. He stopped at Pie Works and got a pizza and took it back to the Bellamy house. It was late for him, the house was dark, and he wasn’t even sure he was hungry, just knew he had to eat in order to keep working again tomorrow. He came in, turned on the worklight in the parlor, and went to set down the pizza on his workbench when he saw the check. He had left it folded, tucked under the screwdriver. Now it was open, tucked under nothing. Sylvie just couldn’t stand not prying, it seemed. And she didn’t even have the decency to hide the fact that she’d done it by refolding the check and putting the screwdriver back on top of it.
Twenty thousand dollars. Now he’d have to redo his budget. But he could juggle the figures till he was blue, there wouldn’t be enough money. He’d have to borrow against the house after all. Not till near the end, though. To buy the countertops and chair rails, the carpet and window treatments. Twenty thousand dollars. That was the most expensive love affair he ever heard of that didn’t actually include any sex.
Why am I doing it?
Not for Cindy. Nothing chivalrous about this. I’m just buying my way out of death row. I really am ready to kill somebody. I’m paying them to get out of my life so I don’t have to kill anybody.
He sat on his cot eating the pizza as mechanically as if he were driving nails. He heard the tell-tale footsteps on the stairs. She was making another foray into his territory. She seemed determined not to learn.
But instead of barking at her he just closed the pizza box and slid it across the floor. It stopped right in the doorway between the parlor and the entry. He saw her appear behind it, looking at him gravely.
“Nothing special, just pepperoni and sausage,” he said. “I’ve had all I want.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“Yeah yeah.”
“Why can’t I say thanks and you just say you’re welcome like a normal person?”
“Why can’t I just . . .” He had meant to say, Why can’t I just say leave me alone and have you go away like a normal person.
“Why can’t you just what?”
“Finish the pizza, it’s still warm.”
“No thanks,” she said. “I’m not hungry.”
“Then don’t eat it,” he said.
“I just came down to say I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For always wanting to watch what you’re doing. I can’t help it, nothing’s happened in this house for so long.”
“I ought to sell tickets.”
“And the work you do, it’s kind of dangerous, isn’t it? Like you’re tearing up the house.”
“It’s safe enough.” Espec
ially if you stay out of the room while I’m working.
“No, I mean, dangerous to the house. It feels like it’s being knackered, you know? Cut up and boiled down for glue and fertilizer.”
“I know what knackering is,” said Don.
“You’re not hurting it?”
“The lath and plaster is nothing. It has to come off so I can bring the house up to code. I’ll put new studs in between the timbers to take nails for, like, hanging pictures or whatever. And for outlet and switch boxes and TV cable outlets. Then I’ll put on wallboard and it’ll be good as new. Better.”
“I don’t know how it could be better than new,” she said. “It was so beautiful then.”
“You weren’t there,” said Don.
“But can’t you just feel it, here in the house? How he loved her?”
“Who?”
“Dr. Bellamy. He built this for his bride. I looked it up in the library, back when I was a student here. That’s what I majored in, you know. Library science. I was going to take a job in Providence, Rhode Island. I was about to get my master’s degree.”
“And?”
“Oh, I found all kinds of wonderful things about the Bellamys. They were so much in love, and so much a part of life in Greensboro. Soirees, parties, dances. Not a month went by without some mention of him or his wife or their house in the newspaper.”
“Any pictures?” asked Don.
“Some lovely ones. When they were young. And later, too, when they were getting into late middle age. Not a one when they were old. When they died they ran youthful pictures of them. I think that’s the way everyone thought of them their whole lives. Forever young.”
“I meant, any pictures of the house. To help in my renovation.”
“No,” she said. “Except the outside, but I don’t think that’s changed all that much.”
“I suppose not. No obvious add-ons, anyway.”
“Sorry I couldn’t help.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m not restoring the place anyway, I just thought if there was some special touch or something—doesn’t matter.”
“There are all kinds of wonderful things in this house,” she said. “But the house keeps its secrets.” Then her face darkened. “I’m sorry I’ve been bothering you. I know it drives you crazy, but I just can’t seem to stop myself. My old roommate Lissy used to do that to me. Sneak up behind me while I was studying or something. And all of a sudden I’d sense she was there and nearly jump out of my skin.”