Forget to Remember (14 page)

“Welcome, Mr. Beard. Let me check your
purse.”

The bag Beard was carrying did look like a
purse. Was the man looking for a gun?

The man unzipped it; Carol caught a glimpse
of bills. He nodded. “I see you left your cell phone in the car.
Good.”

He returned the purse to Beard and faced
Carol. “Miss, may I have a quick look at your purse?”

Surprised, Carol handed it to him. He opened
it and pulled out her cell phone. “Mr. Ault likes to have the full
attention of his guests. I’ll keep this for you and return it when
you leave.”

He gave the purse back to her and led them
into a dining room that could be used as a banquet hall. Three
places were set at one end of a long table. Paintings adorned a
wall, some of which looked vaguely familiar to Carol. She suspected
they were genuine masterpieces. Wall-to-wall windows faced south in
what Carol realized was the reverse of the view from the Ramirez
home. The sun had set, and the myriad of city lights twinkled
below.

“How do you like my view?”

Carol turned to see an old man wheeling
himself into the room. The wheelchair rolled almost silently on the
hardwood floor. His white hair and white face gave him a ghostly
appearance, and his body looked as if it had shrunk to something
less than normal size. It reminded her of a mummy she had
undoubtedly seen in a museum somewhere. He was well-dressed,
however, in slacks and a blue blazer with a red silk scarf tucked
into his shirt that was unbuttoned at the top.

“I love it.” Carol tried to sound
enthusiastic, even though she preferred the view from the Ramirez
house. However, she knew you didn’t tell a billionaire he had a
second-rate view.

“Welcome to my humble abode. You’re Carol.”
He rolled over to her and grasped her hand in both of his. She kept
her grip loose, afraid if she squeezed, he’d crumble into dust.

Ault turned toward Beard. “Jake, baby,
how’re they hangin’?”

“Fine, Seb. Good to see you.”

Ault’s hand disappeared inside Beard’s, but
Carol noticed Beard used no pressure as they shook.

“Let’s not waste time on formalities. It
took you guys so long to get here I’m starving.”

“May I use your bathroom first?” Carol had
been feeling the pressure for a while.

“Of course. Go out that door, down the hall
on the left.”

The bathroom was large and had gold
fixtures. The tub, big enough for two people, had jets. It would be
fun to take a bubble bath here with candles. Carol looked around,
quickly, admiring the layout, but she didn’t want to keep Ault
waiting. She washed her hands, fluffed her hair, and returned to
the dining room.

Ault and Beard were bantering about
football. When he saw Carol, Ault rolled up to the end of the table
and indicated the chairs on either side for Carol and Beard. As
they sat down, Ault rang a bell on the table. A large woman
appeared out of a side door with a tray of food. The man who had
met them at the door helped her serve.

The food was what Carol figured must be
served at a training table for a football team—with emphasis on
steak and potatoes. Carol was certain she wasn’t a vegetarian, but
she was glad there was also a green salad. Beard helped himself to
monster portions, whereas Ault and Carol ate much more
modestly.

Beard was served a beer. Ault said he was
under doctor’s orders not to drink. He had iced tea. Offered a
choice of beverage, Carol picked iced tea. She wanted to keep her
wits about her.

Ault kept up a steady stream of
conversation, directed mostly at Carol. “You may be wondering why I
don’t have a motorized chair. Actually I do, but my doctor wants me
to get some exercise, so I use this one indoors. I drive the other
one when I’m out and about.”

Carol tried to be polite. “You have a
beautiful place here, Mr. Ault. The view, the paintings…”

“Yes. Money may not buy happiness, but it
does buy a certain amount of beauty.” He looked at her with green
eyes. “Speaking of beauty, you look fabulous in that sweater.”

“Thank you.”

“Reminds me of what girls wore in the
forties and fifties. Those were the days. Sweaters that gave a hint
of what was inside, but you had to use your imagination to fill it
in—or out.” He chuckled. “Now when most girls wear a sweater, it’s
cut down to here, boobs spilling out all over the place. Leaves
nothing to the imagination.”

Carol had almost worn her v-neck top. Close
call.

Ault continued in reminiscing mode. “Back
when my brain worked better, I used to write poetry. I bet you
don’t believe that, Jake.”

“No, Seb. I always thought of you as a
hard-drinking sports nut.”

“That’s a fair assessment, but there was a
softer side to me that didn’t show up in the locker room. In fact,
I wrote a poem called ‘Sweater Girl.’” He rang the bell, and when
the woman appeared he said, “Send in Kyle.”

The man in the suit came into the room.

“Kyle, go and print out a copy of the poem
called ‘Sweater Girl.’ I want to present it to the young lady.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kyle smiled and disappeared through another
doorway. He returned while they were eating ice cream with a choice
of sauces. He handed the poem to Ault who bowed his head slightly,
gave it to Carol, and invited her to read it.

Carol put down her spoon and looked at the
computer-printed page.

I long for the days of the sweater
girl—

Those innocent days.

In dreams she would haunt
us,

She'd tease us and taunt
us

In reds, whites and
grays.

Some say that today's is a better
girl—

A girl you can touch.

She's strong and
aggressive

Or sweet and caressive;

She's sometimes too
much.

For instance, when she is a wetter
girl—

Aswim at the beach

In G-string bikini,

So tiny, so teeny;

It's all within reach.

And then there's the case of the
letter girl—

A feminine jock.

She'll kick, hit and chase
balls

Like soccer and
baseballs;

Watch out for her sock!

I long for the days of the sweater
girl—

With figure supreme.

She'd make us delirious

But still be
mysterious,

And leave us our dream.

“I like it.” Carol was impressed. It wasn’t
Robert Frost, but it had a certain energy to it. It also rhymed,
something the songs Beard had been playing on the radio didn’t seem
to do.

“Thank you. Nothing warms my heart more than
praise from a lovely lady.”

“May I keep this?”

“Of course. That’s your copy.”

Ault excused himself, citing a bladder
problem, and wheeled out of the room. Carol looked at Beard. “What
do we do now?”

“Now we get to work. As I said, leave the
talking to me.” Beard spoke uncharacteristically softly, as if the
walls had ears, leaning across the table.

“He’s such a nice man. I hate to—”

“He’s a bastard and a crook. This is no time
to start thinking. Just do what you’re getting paid to do.”

Carol didn’t say anything more. There was no
point arguing with Beard. She pretended to reread the poem. When
Ault returned, he ushered them into a gigantic living room that
also featured wall-to-wall windows. There was a card table in one
corner. Ault positioned himself at the table, still in his
wheelchair, with his back to the window. At Beard’s signal, Carol
sat down opposite Ault. Beard sat to Ault’s right.

“Well, Jake, I guess you came here to take
my money. Since I won’t gamble with you anymore, you brought Carol
to do the honors. Did you train her?”

“I didn’t need to. She’s better than I ever
was. She took money from me.”

Ault laughed and turned to Carol. “How did
you learn the game these guys play?”

“I grew up playing shell games on street
corners.”

Ault laughed again. “I like a girl with a
sense of humor.” He picked up a deck of cards. “If you had your
choice, how would you set it up?”

“Uh…how about 5-4-3-2-1 and I start?”

“Okay, but if I lose, I get to call the next
round.”

That sounded fair to Carol.

Beard said, “Let’s talk stakes.” He opened
his purse and poured a stack of one hundred dollar bills onto the
table. “How about five grand?”

Ault didn’t blink an eye. “You want to risk
it all on the first game?”

“Yeah, I trust Carol.”

“All right. It’s your funeral.”

Ault dealt the cards in the way Carol
specified and nodded to her to move. She took one card from the row
of five. She already had the game won. If Ault knew this, he didn’t
let on, but it soon became apparent. When she took the last card,
he was unfazed.

“Oh well, easy come, easy go. Now I get to
pick the setup. I’m just going to deal out all the cards and see
where they fall. Then I’ll start.”

He ended up dealing six rows, seemingly at
random: 16-13-10-7-5-1. Carol had practiced converting to binary
and adding up the columns. As she calculated in her head, Beard
said he wanted to risk all of the ten grand. Carol cringed. If Ault
knew what he was doing, Beard would end up with nothing.

Ault studied the board for only a few
seconds and removed the single card, leaving 16-13-10-7-5. That was
the wrong move. He had to take cards from the row of sixteen,
because in binary, sixteen is 10000, and the other rows contained
fewer than sixteen cards. Thus the binary 1 was in a column by
itself, violating the rule that each column should have an even
number of ones for a winning combination.

Beard was right about Ault. He had
undoubtedly once had a razor-sharp mind, but he’d lost it. He had
become senile. Carol knew the move she should make, but she
couldn’t do it. She sat and stared at the cards. Beard stared at
her. He was getting fidgety. Ault was humming a tune to
himself.

Carol stood up from the table. “I have to go
to the bathroom.”

Beard started to protest, but Ault held up
his hand. “When you gotta go you gotta go. The cards will still be
here when you return.”

Carol took her purse and followed the route
she had memorized to the bathroom. A house this size resembled a
maze, and finding the bathroom wasn’t a cinch. She went inside and
closed and locked the door. She looked at the window she remembered
seeing beside the toilet. It was cracked open. She raised the sash
until there was enough room for her to fit through.

A screen covered the opening. She fiddled
with it for a few seconds and figured out how to loosen it. It was
light; she held it in both hands and gave it a push to sail it away
from the window. She stood on the toilet and stuck her head out
into the darkness. She could just make out grass a few feet below.
The screen had fallen far enough away so she wouldn’t land on
it.

She hesitated. Once she went through the
window, she would be committed. She would make an enemy of Jake
Beard. He would come after her. But she was no hustler. She
couldn’t play his game. She considered going back to the living
room and explaining this to Ault and Beard. Ault would be cool,
especially if she showed him how she could beat him. Beard
wouldn’t. Since he was her protection and her ride home, he could
be dangerous if he turned against her. She needed to get away from
him.

She threw her purse out the window. With her
hands on the windowsill she pushed off from the toilet and found
herself hanging over the sill, arms and upper body on the outside,
legs on the inside, with her weight on her stomach. She couldn’t
stay that way more than a few seconds.

Scrambling furiously, she grabbed the sill
and managed to twist her body around so her legs were outside the
window. She was glad she had been doing stretching exercises that
increased her flexibility. She hung from the sill by her hands and
then dropped, landing awkwardly on the grass and falling onto her
back.

CHAPTER 18

Carol got up slowly, hurting in several
places, but she didn’t think she’d sustained any injuries worse
than a few scrapes. She jogged toward the front of the house and
immediately realized her shoes were not built for running. She
needed to retrieve the athletic shoes she’d left in Beard’s
car.

The car was parked in the circular driveway
near the front door of the house. Outside lights illuminated it,
but the living room windows faced in another direction. She hadn’t
been gone long enough yet to raise an alarm. She reached the car,
fervently hoping it wasn’t locked.

She tried the door on the driver’s side
because it was facing away from the house. It opened to her pull.
Beard must have been confident the locked gate would keep his
beloved car safe. Giving a sigh of relief, she dove across the
bench seat and grabbed the bag that contained her shoes from the
floor. Backing out of the car, she closed the door until it was
just ajar, but didn’t try to shut it. The noise of it latching
might carry into the house.

Carol crouched beside the car where she
wasn’t visible from the house and changed her shoes. She forced
herself to take a few extra seconds to make sure the laces to the
athletic shoes were securely tied. It occurred to her the Cadillac
was old enough that each door had to be locked individually. Since
she hadn’t locked the door on the passenger side, she could have
gotten in that way, even if Beard had locked his door. She hoped
she would have thought of that and not panicked if Beard’s door had
been locked.