The Tolling of Mercedes Bell: A Novel (12 page)

Aretha Franklin’s voice filled the room with “Chain of Fools” and they sang along at the tops of their lungs, shaking their hips, at first dancing back to back, until Jack spun around to dance behind Mercedes, his hands around her gyrating waist. She turned to face him. Spontaneously they pointed at each other as they sang the lyrics:
Chain, chain, chain ... Chain of fools ... You treated me mean, you treated me cruel.

At the end of the song, parched and sweating, they sought refuge
at their table before the next song could ensnare them. They sat laughing at each other and sipped their drinks.

Jack leaned over and kissed her damp cheek.

“Mmm, salty.”

Mercedes took a long drink of water and returned his gaze.

“What time is it getting to be?”

He looked at his watch. “You’ve just missed the last train. Are you going to turn into a pumpkin?”

“That depends,” she said.

“On what?”

“On whether you can drive me to my car.”

“Of course I can.”

Just then the sound of Phil Collins singing “One More Night” filled the room.

“Shall we?” Jack asked, holding out his arm. He led her out to the dance floor. Other couples joined them one by one. He held her eyes with a long penetrating look and began singing the words.
Please give me one more night ... ’cause I can’t wait forever ...

She rested her head on his broad chest, her ear on his heart, and felt the dampness of his shirt beneath her cheek. She closed her eyes and listened to his voice as he held her tightly, his big hand wrapped around hers, his other spread across the small of her back, pressing her waist against him, guiding her in a gentle swaying rhythm around the dance floor. When the song stopped he kissed her lips, the glittering reflections of the disco balls patterning them with flickering diamonds of color.

T
HE SPARKLING SKYSCRAPERS OF
San Francisco receded in the rearview mirror. Soon they were on the freeway toward the East Bay train station where her car sat waiting in the deserted parking lot.
Yellow pools of light from light poles dotted the blacktop. East Oakland on a Sunday at 2:30 a.m. was not the safest place for a single woman. He pulled his car up beside hers and scanned the area warily.

“Do you have far to drive?”

“No, just ten minutes from here.”

“Let me follow you then, please,” he urged.

“It’s probably not a good idea.” She thought of the jarring appearance her neighborhood would make after such an enchanted evening.

“I’ll wait until you’re safely inside your house, then I’ll drive away. I don’t feel right about leaving you here. Indulge me.” He was not negotiating.

She reflected for a moment, and acquiesced. There was no good reason to refuse his protection at this late hour.

He pulled her into his embrace, kissing her long and hungrily, stroking her hair. He kissed her again and put a hand around the curve of her hip. He felt the top of her lean thigh and ran his hand slowly up to her rib cage, just beneath her breast. She felt the side of his face and his muscular shoulder. Her hand came to rest over his heart. Her pulse raced.

“Got your book?” he murmured.

She patted her purse.

He kissed her once more, until she thought her head would explode. She gathered her things, pulled out her car keys, and looked into his eyes.

“Lock your doors,” she said to him and exited his car.

The Beetle started with reluctance. She slipped it into gear and left the parking lot. He followed her closely onto the freeway, then east a few exits to her neighborhood. She turned down her street and parked in front of her house, the only one with its porch light still on. He pulled up behind her. She walked over to his car, and he rolled down the window.

“Now I know where to find you,” he said with a smile. “Please go into your house and lock the door behind you before I break my word and get out of this car.”

She kissed his delicious mouth one more time, then walked to her front door, floating.

T
HE NEXT MORNING SHE LAY
in bed for a long while. She was in a waking dream, going over every detail of their date. She could see Jack’s striking face at the dinner table and his quiet, genteel table manners. She recalled the light in his eyes when she spoke to him, his wicked sense of humor, and their frenzy on the dance floor.

Her feet ached from dancing. She could still see the flickering lights from the nightclub; her ears still rang from the music. A rush of desire and ecstatic wonder gripped her as she relived all of it.

W
HEN SHE BROUGHT GERMAINE HOME
later that afternoon, an unfamiliar white van was parked across the street from their house. An Asian man with a red baseball cap sat inside, staring at their front door. As Mercedes approached the house with her keys out, he sprang from the van, opened the back, and pulled out an enormous vase of long-stemmed red roses. Germaine gaped at him as he approached their door.

“You Mesadee Ber?” he asked in a heavy accent.

“Yes, I am,” she replied, eyeing his cargo.

“My instruction say wait till you come. I been here over two hour!” he cried. Mercedes noticed the logo of a San Francisco florist on his hat.

She gave the keys to Germaine and reached out to receive the flowers, her face flushed. Germaine excitedly unlocked the door.
The delivery man bowed and scurried back to the van, looking uneasily up and down the street. Mercedes carried the heavy vase to the table. Germaine stood beside the luscious bouquet, gazing up at the velvety texture of the dark red petals. She had never seen anyone send flowers to her mother—certainly not her father.

Mercedes opened the envelope that accompanied them, held her breath and read.

Thinking of you today and
“One More Night.”

Jack

“Mom!” Germaine exclaimed. “Are they from Mr. Soutane?”

“Yes, Babe.” She sat down on a chair and pulled her daughter into her lap. Germaine took the note from her and read it.

“Wait till Anne hears about this! What’s ‘One More Night?’”

“It’s just a song, Honey—a wonderful song.”

E
merson slouched against the high back of Jack’s office guest chair. His left ankle rested on top of his right knee, exposing an argyle sock and the bottom of a new shoe. They were bantering about the notorious Studio 54 nightclub in New York City, where Jack had spent an evening on his recent trip. Emerson snickered in his high, twittering laugh and his eyes darted furtively toward the doorway. He jumped at the sight of Mercedes standing there, then uncrossed his legs and sat up straight.

The men were obviously involved in a personal conversation. In fact, Mercedes had never seen Emerson so unguarded. She decided against interrupting them and walked to the conference room where the Franjipur documents from Percy Millner and Lloyd Turner Strand were arrayed. They had been copied in secret from employee files normally available only to those with a need to know. The documents captured Mercedes’s interest at once. Among them was a copy of Rand’s unexpurgated personnel file, which would include whatever had been removed from the copy Franjipur sent him after the termination.

Jack swept into the room.

“Good morning, Ms. Bell,” he said with a sparkle in his eye. He watched Mercedes react to the sound of his voice and noted her clingy knit pullover.

“Hi,” she said. “We received that box from Franjipur. Want to take a look?”

“Definitely.”

He settled into a chair at the end of the table, and they sifted through the documents. She was keenly aware of him, how he held the documents in his fingertips, his pale blue polished cotton shirt, dark jacket, and Cartier watch. She knew without checking that the rest of him was immaculate, and that he knew he was being carefully examined. Her mind wandered to their most recent date.

“They did a nice job,” he said thoughtfully. “These are very helpful; they provide a solid basis for some of our claims. And it’s always handy to learn the language spoken in the enemy camp,” he said in his velvety timbre.

“That’s one of your specialties—learning the enemy’s language.”

“It’s just a high stakes chess match. Honestly, I don’t even
like
litigation.”

“What?”

“No. Most of my practice is tax and estate planning. I just get the odd litigation matter that only a fool would pass up. That’s when I call Darrel’s team. And what a lovely team it is.”

She smiled, but his conversation with Emerson was in the back of her mind.

He looked at her for a moment longer. He liked her reserve and curiosity, and how she kept her own countenance.

“You know, you have a very good mind,” he said.

She said nothing.

He rose from his chair. “Care to come over to my office for a minute?”

No one was in the hallway when he closed the door behind them. He walked to where she stood, picked up her hand, and kissed it.

“You turn a good day into a beautiful day, Ms. Bell,” he said.

“Do you think we’ll actually be able to work on this case together?” she asked, with a furrowed brow.

“We’re already doing it.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You worry too much.”

“I just don’t want to jeopardize my job. I’ve never—”

He leaned over and stopped her with a lingering kiss. It took her breath away.

“I can’t think when you kiss me.”

“Then don’t.”

He pushed her back gently, grasped both of her hands in his, stretched out her arms against the wall, and kissed her deeply.

“There now,” he said.

Before she could speak, he kissed her again, longer, and pressed himself against her. For a moment she imagined they were horizontal.

“You said you practice yoga to still your mind,” he said quietly.

“Somehow I don’t think this is what the yoga masters have in mind.”

He stepped back, took out a handkerchief, and wiped the smudge of lipstick from her face. Then he wiped his lips. He looked at the pink stain on the handkerchief.

“Now I’ll have you with me all day. Are you free this weekend?” he asked.

She looked at him pensively, in a quandary about how she could possibly keep her concentration in the office when he was present. Her insides were in an uproar.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll call you tonight,” he said.

She returned to the conference room and finished organizing the documents as prescribed by Jack before he had blown her concentration to smithereens.
Before I allowed him to,
she corrected herself. She heard him take a call and listened intently, just to hear the deep resonance of his voice. Rand Taylor was returning his call.

“Rand, I have good news.” Jack closed his door with a shove and she could hear no more. She collected her wits, boxed up the documents, and carried them to the paralegal office.

Simone looked up as Mercedes entered, acknowledged her with a nod, and kept dictating. Lindsay was on the phone, trying valiantly to be understood by a non-native English speaker. She repeated her phrases several times, each more slowly than the previous. Mercedes set the box of documents on her desk, sat down, put on fresh lipstick, and deciphered the notes she had scrawled. The drone of voices and Lindsay’s patience calmed her.