“Reyna, is there something you’re not telling me?” I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face and it showed in my tone, because she began to stutter and sputter and had to clear her throat again.
“W-what makes you think that?”
“Oh, just about everything I know about my former boss? He lets you call him by his first name, he buys you lunch and takes you places—heck, you’re so smitten you’re even using utensils!”
“But—but—but—”
“I hope you’re using protection.”
There was silence on the other side.
“Your former boss and I certainly do.”
“Wyatt!”
“Have a good time at the conference, Reyna. We should do a double-date when you get back.”
“With Azz-hole? No way.”
“First of all, don’t call him that. Second, he seems to have mellowed some. Can’t think of a reason why.”
I heard Reyna giggle on the other side of town, and grinned. I knew she’d think about it, then bring it up with Pillory in some not-so-subtle way, and then we’d see. It could be fun. I could pump Pillory for all kinds of dirt on Jack, getting all those embarrassing stories of what stupid pranks he used to pull in college. After what he’d put me through at my old job, I thought I deserved at least that much.
Next, I dialed an often-used number. Izzy was an antique dealer I did business with while handling my “special finds.” He had specified that he doesn’t accept stolen goods, so I’ve never told him. With a straight face, I’d say, “Izzy, there was this cool flea market, and guess what I found….” and he’d give me this look, and sigh, and look it over, and decide how much it was worth and whether he was willing to accept it.
“Hey, Izzy, it’s Wyatt.”
“Wyatt! How have you been?” His voice was slightly nasal, and I could just picture him, with his short hair and an attempt at a beard, with wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. He kept his head covered with a fisherman’s bucket hat, rejecting the little black yarmulke of his tradition. Izzy Silberman observed Shabbat not as holy, but as one day of the week when he could have peace and quiet without the interruptions from incessant phones, e-mails, and annoying customers.
“I’ve been great, Izzy. I have a new boyfriend.” I bet he winced on the other side, and I grinned.
“You be careful, Wyatt. I take it he’s keeping you out of trouble and off the rooftops?”
“Sort of. I actually broke into his place and he caught me. The rest is history.”
“Wyatt!” He exclaimed in an appalled voice, full of concern. “Is he a good man?”
“Well… I don’t really know him, but I’d like to think so. My good man here is trying to dispose of an estate of his deceased sister and their two aunts, and has boxes of stuff at his place. I’m helping him sort it out, and I was wondering if you’d like to have a look?”
“Aha! Finally you offer me something with provenance. I’ll look. How is tomorrow? I can close the shop early.”
“He’s working. Weekends are just about it, Izzy.”
“Hmmm…,” I heard him mumble, probably while looking at his calendar. “Saturday after sundown. That’s legit, not even my wife can fault me for that, and I’ll be able to drive.”
“I’ll let him know. Pencil it in, okay?”
We chatted some more, and Izzy discovered that my best friend ever, Reyna Guajillo, would be indisposed and I’d be on my own on a Friday night. “Come see us for dinner, Wyatt. Don’t bring anything. Debra always cooks extra for Shabbat.”
I didn’t want to go. If it hadn’t been for Izzy’s restraining influence over the years, I probably would have been in jail by now. Despite, or perhaps especially because of that, I didn’t feel like writhing under his searching gaze. Plus I had other stuff to do.
“Sorry… I just feel like spending some time alone. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do that. How about we plan for Saturday night, though. I think you’ll like Jack. Let me give you his number.”
O
NCE
again, my job waiting tables yielded a potentially profitable lead. I should have ignored it, but old habits are hard to break, and with Jack busy and Reyna out of town, I felt like there was a void within me. My siblings were off to college, my mother had been dead for years, my father and I never talked to one another, and I couldn’t really bother Susan and Paul—their baby was a handful, and they barely slept. Plus, seeing them together still felt like rubbing salt into a recently closed wound: not terribly agonizing but not exactly fun either. I just had to find a way to entertain myself.
I scanned the tables under my control as I mentally counted the money I had earned. Two hundred bucks in tips on Wednesday and a bit less than that on Thursday, so my rent was almost covered for the month, but I still didn’t have phone and food money—not until Novack paid the second half of his invoice. I did have a modest amount of money sitting in my emergency cash stash right next to my getaway bag, but the rule was, I had to cover my basic expenses every month. If only BW&B had been a paying client… but they weren’t. If only I had more clients like Novack… but I didn’t. If only I could wait tables every day, I’d be set for cash, but I couldn’t get any more hours—people with higher seniority were way ahead of me, with families depending on their income, and the boss knew that.
Friday sure looked like a good day to improve my financial standing by breaking into that lawyer’s house while he was at a baseball game.
D
RESSED
for work, I had my tools in my pocket and a change of clothing and a wig in my bag. My donor lived in a posh, gated subdivision out in Fox Chapel. Those were always fun, because the luxury of a gate and guard gave the residents a false sense of security. Back in the 1980s, the community had been planned with care, sparing no expense to screen the houses from one another by vegetation, privacy fences, and careful positioning. There was no dog; I overheard the owner talk about his plans to acquire one.
After the fiasco where I met Jack in person for the first time, I concluded that being mistaken for a girl might amount to something of advantage, and so dressed appropriately. I wasn’t going out in drag—not really—I was dressed only to misinform. When people saw a person in black tights and a pink T-shirt with a floral design, their first assessment was going to be “girl,” not “guy in drag.” I had to take care not to rip my opaque black tights when I was climbing the neighborhood’s six-foot brick wall and avoiding the metal spikes on top. My jump ended in a soft landing due to my sporty black-and-purple slip-on Sketchers girly shoes—and I found myself in a crouch on the other side. I then pulled my baseball cap with an attached brown ponytail over my microfiber cap and sauntered out, just walking, looking for my donor’s address. I bet I looked okay; my blond stubble was given a smooth shave before I left, and clip-on earrings lent verisimilitude to my appearance.
I called my donor’s landline; nobody picked up. I knocked on the front door and rang the bell; nobody opened. There was still just enough light for me to see the lock without a flashlight. The front lawn was carefully landscaped, with mulch surrounding a large boulder and some short shrubs. There was something familiar about that boulder. Before I reached for my set of picks, I touched its surface.
Laminate. A fake stone….
I glanced up and down the street, and bent down as though to check my shoe while I dug my fingers under the hollow structure. Most people kept a spare key somewhere. This fellow had ordered one of the three fake landscaping boulders available from a home decorating catalog, apparently to disguise his eyesore of a utility vent. It also made a natural hiding place for his spare keys. Sure enough, there was a spare set of keys on the gravel underneath. I pocketed the keys and, still unobserved, I unlocked the door.
Having slipped inside, I drew the curtains and locked the door behind me before I clicked on my small flashlight. The rush of excitement I felt was better than going up and down a roller coaster: I was in, he was out, and I would find out more about him. A quick thought of Jack’s disapproval crossed my mind but was soon drowned by the hum of the donor’s refrigerator and the particular odor of his house. I lived in the moment—I had broken in and had to stay on my toes or get out. The image of making it out the door and back to the car niggled at me. I could have done that—but I’d gotten so far already, it would be a shame to waste all the effort. I’d just have a look. If the resident was a harmless, pleasant fellow, I’d leave him alone.
The interior was posh but sterile. The owner hadn’t been spending a lot of time in his living room. There were no plants; a picture of two older kids sat on the automatic, natural gas fireplace. No wife, though. Divorced, maybe? That would make him another lonely soul, I thought with sympathy. I walked through quickly and checked all the rooms with silent haste, making sure I was truly alone. There was a carved wooden box on his bedroom bureau, and I opened it and rifled through spare change and various receipts, stray cufflinks, and carelessly crumpled money. My fingers skimmed an envelope; it held cash. It felt substantial. Behind the envelope sat a checkbook in its vinyl, leatherlike cover. I pulled it out and checked the register and held back a whistle as the account balance made my eyebrows rise. It must be nice to be king. Further examination of his drawers revealed underwear and socks and folded polo shirts—and a small baggie of white powder atop a mirror, together with an old-fashioned razor blade.
The sympathy I felt before dissipated when I saw the cocaine. So he wasn’t a good guy after all. I reached back into the wooden box, took the envelope, and stuffed it in the front of my tights. I was taking the good barrister’s drug money, but from the look of it, he had more elsewhere.
Unwilling to push my luck any further, I exited the house, locked up, put the keys where they belonged, and snapped the latex gloves off my hands. As I sauntered down the street, a couple walking a standard poodle bade me good evening.
“Good evening,” I replied.
“Are you a friend of Ernie’s?” the woman asked.
“Just a casual acquaintance.” I smiled.
“I believe he’s out tonight,” she said.
“Yeah, a ball game.”
“Do you want us to give him a message?” The man was looking me up and down. That made me nervous.
I smiled, eager to make my getaway. “Sure. Just tell him Susie stopped by. Although I’ve already texted him, so he’ll know.” I nodded at them. “Nice to meet you.” Now I had to continue down the road at a regular walking speed and take a turn and cut through another cul-de-sac before I made it to the wall and over it.
Shit. Crap. Oh God.
That had been a close call. With a bit more timing, they could have seen me replace the keys under Ernie’s fake stone. I could have gotten busted. Adrenaline coursed through my veins and I felt short of breath.
A bubble of breathless laughter rose out of my throat.
I had gotten away with it.
Again.
Just as I was about to congratulate myself and open my car, my cell phone roared in my skirt zipper pocket. I smiled; there was no need to check the caller ID. “Hi Jack,” I said, still slightly out of breath.
“What are you doing?” He sounded curious.
“Nothing good. Why?”
He paused at that, and then he said, “Wanna come over? I did more sorting on my own.”
“Okay,” I said without even thinking about it. The idea of seeing Jack restored my adrenaline high, and I grinned from ear to ear.
H
ALF
an hour later, he was looking me up and down; my sensible high-tech girlie shoes, black tights with a run down the knee where I snagged the fine knit on the wall despite my best precautions, and that lovely pink T-shirt that drew the eye with its wild flowers, its generous hem hitting me almost as low as a miniskirt. A neutral, green windbreaker covered my top. My long honey-blond hair was in disarray. The strands that were tortured by my microfiber cap only minutes ago were standing up in every direction, charged with static and set in dry sweat. The microfiber cap always did that to me.
“What have you been doing, Gaudens, and why are you wearing earrings?”
Gaudens.
He suspected, and he disapproved.
“I told you. Nothing good. You got anything to drink?” Adrenaline was still coursing through my veins.
He took in my flush and dilated pupils and turned into the kitchen. I followed him and watched him fix two martinis; mine with a twist of lemon, his with an olive. He passed me my drink and we touched the triangular glasses in a silent toast.
The first sip always tasted the best; I could feel the soothing liquid fire settling my jarred nerves. I felt like I could breathe again—until he spoke.
“Why?”
I cocked my eyebrow, trying to deflect his question.
He set his drink down on the kitchen counter and stepped close to me, running his hands up and down my torso, over my waist, down my legs. I shivered and a sigh escaped my lips; my eyes threatened to close. His fingers skimmed my belly, halting at the uneven bump inside my tights. Deft fingers slipped in and pulled out a bank envelope.
I tried to reach out, but the long-stemmed martini glass was in my hand and, to my chagrin, my nervous system ground to a halt under Jack’s recent touch.
He leaned his firm butt against the other kitchen counter and counted out the money, and then he slipped it back in the envelope and closed it. “I just don’t understand this, Gaudens. You just broke into some dude’s house and stole over $3000.” His lips were pressed together and there was tension in his shoulders; a warning sign, the lull before the storm.
I sipped more of the strong drink, savoring the bite of gin on the tip of my tongue, inhaling the bright essence of lemon oil floating on its surface.
He grabbed my shirt and pulled me in. “Answer me.”
Martini sloshed over my wrist as I was stretched to my toes with the two of us standing eye to eye. “C’mon, Jack.”
“Why.”
“Because I’m running out of money.”
“Then get more clients. Get a job. Wait more tables.” His eyes were cold, implacable.