Reilly 04 - Breach of Promise (9 page)

Someone in the audience clapped and said “Attaboy.” Riesner leaned down, whispering urgently to Mike.

Milne looked at Mike, looked at the audience. Then he slowly stood up from the bench, leaning forward. Nina had never seen him lose his temper.

“So you’ll do whatever you want with it?” he said to Mike very deliberately, as if intentionally goading him further.

“You’re damn right I will,” Mike said, rising out of his chair.

Riesner pushed him down and this time, though still in the grip of a combative frenzy, Mike finally seemed to comprehend that he had made a grave error.

“I want to apologize for Mr. Markov,” Riesner began, but Milne cut him off.

“You’re going to get that receiver, Mr. Markov,” Milne said. “The receiver will assure that no business assets are sold or transferred until further order of the Court. The receiver will perform an accounting of every dime you take in and pay out. Do you hear that, sir?”

“Your Honor, please—this isn’t fair—we request—” Riesner pleaded desperately.

“Is that clear, Mr. Markov,” Milne asked, without bothering with a question mark.

“Very clear,” Riesner replied.

“So ruled. Court is adjourned until two-forty-five.” Again, the courtroom rose. His robe billowing behind him like a kite tail, Milne disappeared behind his partition.

A dozen conversations burst out. Riesner sat down. He and Mike Markov looked at each other. Nina grabbed Lindy and said, “Not a word until we’re outside.” Lindy nodded. The reporters rushed forward and Deputy Kimura motioned his head toward the door by the jury box that led to a private hall and a way out past the clerk’s office. Nina and Lindy ran for the door, pursued by at least a dozen people, and once they made it through, the deputy closed the door behind them.

They waited in the hallway visiting with the clerks, then jogged out to the parking lot without interference and got into Nina’s Bronco. As they began to drive away, they noticed a commotion on the south side of the lot right near the exit lane.

“What’s all that shouting?” Lindy said. “Oh, no! Look!”

Nina craned her neck and saw cars had stopped exiting. All of the television cameras were pointed at one spot, where two men in suits stood facing each other. “It’s Mike and Harry, Rachel’s ex-boyfriend,” Lindy said.

Mike Markov stood absolutely still in a clearing between trees, while Harry yelled into his face.

“Harry looked mad in court today,” Lindy said, lowering her window. “What a waste. He must still have feelings for Rachel.”

Nina could see Rachel in the crowd that had formed around the two men, looking inconspicuous but engrossed.

“You dumb thug,” Harry said to Mike in a voice loaded with contempt. They could hear each word clearly.

“Harry,” Mike said, “why don’t you shut the fuck up? This is no place to argue.”

“Poor Mike,” Lindy said. “He’ll never understand guys like Harry. To Harry, any camera is an invitation.”

“You and your goddamned money,” Harry said. “You think you’ve got it made. You think you can buy her!”

Mike was silent, although Nina and Lindy could observe the heat of his emotions in the redness of the muscles in his neck.

“How much are you giving her, Mike? A million? More? How much are you promising her to play house with you for one whole year? Does she get a bonus for sticking it out for two? Isn’t that the way rich old farts do it these days with pretty young things? Buy them?”

“You’re making a mistake, Harry.”

“No, you’re making the mistake. Because, Mike, she loves me. Your money’s not going to affect that in the long run. She’ll come back to me after she’s grown up a little and realizes what she’s gotten herself into. But you’ll never get it until she leaves, will you? Because you’re old, and you’re vain, and you’ve had way too many slugs to the brain to see how it really is.”

So fast his arm almost blurred, Mike threw a punch, but before it reached Harry, two uniformed policemen grabbed him. They pulled him back and escorted him away. On the patio in front of the courthouse, they stopped and sat him down on a bench. One took a position in front of him, arms folded, mouth moving. Nina could imagine the lecture he was giving.

“Doesn’t look like they’re going to arrest anyone,” Lindy said with relief.

Another policeman escorted Harry to his bright-yellow car. A few seconds later he flew by Nina and Lindy looking as pretty as the quick, colorful, visual splash of a billboard advertisement.

“What was that all about?” Nina asked.

“Rachel. They were fighting over Rachel. She’s the focus now.”

“Harry’s just lucky Mike didn’t land a punch on that faultless jaw of his,” Nina said.

“That wouldn’t help his modeling career,” Lindy said, rallying.

“Doesn’t he work at Markov Enterprises?”

“Not anymore. He was my assistant in marketing, but Mike fired him recently. I guess he found out about Harry and Rachel, how close they used to be.”

“Didn’t you say he modeled for your new ad campaign?”

“Yes. He didn’t start as a model with us but it’s hard not to notice Harry’s looks. One night a few years back, Mike and I brainstormed a way to cut some corners. We started using posed photos of Harry in all our print media. Well, business really picked up. Other businesses saw him and liked him, too. Now, he’s really in demand. We finished some ads with him for television right before Mike fired him.” Lindy looked in the side mirror. “Let’s go. Oh, boy. Here come the television trucks,” she said.

“Hold on.” Nina pulled into the street and took off down Al Tahoe, watching the rear window. They zigzagged through the shopping center and out another entrance.

“A stimulating day,” Lindy said.

“Yes. More than usually dramatic, even in court,” said Nina, noting with satisfaction that no one seemed to be following them. Her mind slipped back to the earlier events of the day. Markov and Milne had both lost it. And if she hadn’t been thinking about sloppy emotions, she might not have focused in on the anger that had circled like a storm in there, and now that she came to think about it, always did orbit the courtroom. But nobody considered anger sloppy, because anger was so very masculine.

“They do get emotional,” said Lindy, “don’t they?”

Nina laughed. For the next few blocks, they listened to the radio, while Nina ruminated and Lindy leaned tiredly back against her seat.

“Nobody won in there today,” she said, breaking the silence. “I lost my home, and he’s losing control of the business.”

“That’s true.”

“Seeing Mike blow up in court shocked me. No wonder he almost broke Harry’s face afterward. He’s like a stranger, with just glimpses of the old Mike peeking through once in a while. A receiver’s going to drive him nuts. He’s very hands-on.”

“Your interests will be protected,” Nina said. “It was the right thing to do.”

“Maybe legally. But suddenly, this is not about Mike and Lindy anymore,” she said sadly. “It all comes down to money.”

Nina didn’t have a response, so she concentrated on her driving.

“Nina?” said Lindy.

“Yes?”

“Do I really only have two days to move out?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Then, will you do me a favor?”

“Of course.”

“Stop by tomorrow. There’s something I’d like to show you.”

After dropping Lindy off at the parking lot next to her office where she had left her car, Nina drove directly on to her next appointment. For the first time in months she turned on the car heater and shut out the dusty dry scents of autumn by rolling up the windows. Along the parkway between the highway and the lake a steady stream of joggers and skaters cruised along. High cirrus clouds blocked some of the sun and the lake had turned choppy in a rising breeze.

Sandy was waiting for her after lunch along with several clients. She followed Nina into her office and said, “I finally got a call back from Winston Reynolds’s assistant. She says he can only meet with you at eight tonight.”

“He’s here in town?”

“He’s in L.A.”

“Well, that won’t work. The Tahoe airport’s closed to commercial planes, even if there were direct flights. Reno’s airport is sixty miles of hard driving from here. He can talk to me tomorrow.”

“He’s in trial. His assistant said he’s making a big effort to free up dinner tonight, but you have to get down there.”

“I could charter a flight,” Nina said. Her normally frugal nature balked at the thought, but this was no time to pinch pennies. “Call the airport and see if I can get a charter.” She went into her office, feeling grand, and pulled out her office checking account records, which didn’t look grand. How far would twenty-five thousand dollars go? How would she snatch Winston Reynolds away from Riesner without paying a whole lot of money up front?

She needed him. She would think of something.

Sandy buzzed and said, “Six hundred round trip. Six p.m. You’ll be there by seven. The pilot will wait at LAX until you’re ready to return.”

Nina raced to the school to wrest Bob from a street hockey game he was playing with friends on the asphalt field. He didn’t want to leave and sulked through the ride home, growling at her when she said he’d be sleeping at Matt and Andrea’s that night. “There’s no place quiet to do my homework there,” he said. “Troy’s got way less than me and then him and Bree play around. And I don’t even have a desk there. I’m old enough to stay home alone.”

“Not overnight, you’re not,” said Nina automatically. “And I’m sorry to do this to you on a weeknight. But I’ll make it up to you on the weekend.”

“How?” Bob asked as she pulled up to their house.

“How about a bike ride around the Baldwin Mansion and Pope House?”

“What day? I’ve got a science project.”

“Sunday afternoon. Without fail. Try to finish your project on Saturday.”

“Mom, don’t make promises you can’t keep. What are the chances?”

“Cynic,” she said. “But you’re right. It’s not a promise. I’ll just do my best. Don’t I always?”

Bob relented then, and together they climbed the steps to the front porch of their house. Throwing her most expensive, new powder-blue suit and matching heels into a suit bag, she helped him stuff his backpack with books, called Andrea, and got Matt instead.

“Matt, I’m embarrassed to ask you this, but I’m in a pickle,” she said, without preamble.

“Hi,” said Matt. “And how are you?”

“In a rush. Sorry.”

“What’s up?”

“I need a favor,” asked Nina, “just like I always seem to need a favor.”

“You sound so guilty.”

She felt so guilty. She had never fully expressed her deep gratitude for all that Andrea and Matt had done for her and Bob when they arrived in Tahoe, friendless and practically destitute. They had given the best thing anyone could, a home for the single mom and the confused little boy.

“I wouldn’t ask except it’s the best place for Bob. I need to go out of town on business tonight.”

“You know, when you say you wouldn’t ask, you make me feel bad. If we don’t want to do something, we’ll let you know, I promise. And you need to promise that you’ll continue to ask, anytime, for anything, okay?”

Lindy treasured her friends, but Nina treasured her family. “You’re the best. Can I drop him at four?”

“Tell him it’s taco night. That ought to excite him.”

A female pilot, pleasant and polite, had charge of the sporty little two-seater Cessna. Lolling in the leather seat, staring out the window at the lights of Tahoe Valley spread out below twinkling like a bejeweled Indian tapestry, Nina decided she would never fly coach class again. She could get used to living this way. . . .

She felt relaxed when she disembarked at LAX. After a short conversation with the car rental agent, who told her there would be a slight delay, she grabbed a large, caffeinated cola at a bar masquerading as a restaurant. Taking a stool next to the black windows overlooking the airstrips, she watched lonesome-looking business travelers nuzzle their drinks like lovers, and observed as a dozen planes took off and landed without crashing, marveling at the survival of all the fragile little packages of flesh crammed inside.

She stopped at the restroom to change, removing her official travel clothing of soft stretch leggings and a sweater and exchanging them for the snug-fitting suit, stockings, and shoes she had brought. At the mirror, she liberally applied makeup, including red lipstick. When in the Southland, she would do as the Southlanders do. Anyway, once in a while she enjoyed turning into a glamorous stranger.

Standing in line at the rental car agency, she studied a map of the maze of freeways and streets she needed to memorize if she was going to arrive only fashionably late. The car, a radiant-blue Neon with turquoise trim, was low to the ground and zippy as a sports car. She joined the million other cars flowing through these arteries into the night, another bright corpuscle in L.A.’s lifeblood.

She turned the radio on to a song with a lot of bass and let the music travel through her, all the way down to the toes in her high-heeled shoes. All her life she had climbed a ladder routinely and without thought, slipping more often than she wanted. For the first time, she had glimpsed the top. And there, in that upper region, shiny and bright, was the payoff, a glorious mountain of gold, the Markov money.

A share of that kind of money would set her up for life. She could buy her house outright, or a bigger, better house, and finally create the kind of stable home life Bob needed. She could work less, be more available to him, maybe even be more available to a relationship that would put a man in her life and in Bob’s on a more permanent basis. She could buy Bob all the things she couldn’t afford now, the fancy athletic shoes he wanted, the computer software that was out of her price range, all the tickets he wanted to visit his father in Europe. She might even turn into the parent she wanted to be, patient, generous, and undistracted.

Pulling up in front of the hotel that housed the Yamashiro Restaurant, she handed her keys to the parking valet.

The maître d’ was expecting her. He led her past the regular restaurant, where silverware and glasses clinked and people talked in muted tones, where sounds and colors were as discreet and perfectly balanced as in a Japanese temple, into a private room of bamboo and scrolls.