Getting Old Can Kill You (11 page)

I wanted to ask questions, but I didn’t need to. I let her ramble on. Heaven knows, I’ve already realized, she loves to talk about herself. She’s doing all my investigative work for me.

“Most of my belongings have already been shipped to my daughter, since I thought I’d be going there as soon as I sold my place. When Stacy informed me there was a delay in construction, I panicked at first. But then I began to understand this odd situation was freeing me to do what I had to do. Deal with myself.”

She grimaces, then reaches into her purse, which is at her side. It’s large, and I’m curious as to what’s in there.

Joyce takes out a pill bottle, spills two pills into her hand. She gets up and takes them with a glass of water. “Indigestion, acid reflux,” she explains. “I’m ashamed. I don’t even have a cookie to offer you. I’ve been dieting.”

“Not a problem.” She is painfully thin. Why do wealthy people need to look like skeletons? I’m happy that Jack talked me into a large lunch. She should stop dieting, but it’s not my business to give her advice.

She continues. “At first I stayed at good hotels, but after a while I was bored with it. Too much temptation to drink and smoke and spend time with the kind of people I no longer enjoyed. I wanted to get back to who I once was a very long time ago, not this angry, rich wife, recently widowed. I realized I hated who I’d become.”

Joyce chats on and on. About the mansion she had just sold that was on the Intracoastal Waterway. It’s a throwaway remark, as if it was no big deal, but I know that area. Just about everyone does. Yet, few of us ever get to see it. The waterway covers three thousand miles of land touching the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It runs nearly the entire length of the eastern seaboard. But what she’s talking about is a section of Fort Lauderdale and Sunrise. Both towns contain incredible real estate. No way to visit them unless invited. Or if one takes the tourist boat trip that shows off these expensive homes, known for their astronomically high prices because of their privacy and exclusivity.

We are probably a twenty-minute drive from those homes, but they might as well be on the moon for how far they are from our reality.

Joyce regales me with tales of servants, country clubs, what she called in her words a useless life. The cash register in my head is tallying up real estate and memberships and Jaguars and yachts and I’m way up in the millions.

Joyce is still throwing pearls to the swine, so to speak. Seemingly so bored with her affluent life. “I gave up on hotels and looked for a sublet. And that’s how I ended up here. And then to my utter amazement, I found Arlene. It was
beshert
. You know, fate.”

She pauses. I guess she is finally giving me a turn to speak. Or cueing me on what should come next? Or skipping over details she doesn’t want me to know? Gladdy, I chide myself, don’t be so cynical.

I do ask the most obvious question. “However did you find this place?”

She smiles. “Well, that’s a story in itself. You’ll laugh. Purely by accident. I happened upon Seymour, who was walking in Lauderdale Park. I was walking, too, for exercise. We met one day and the next day we ran into each other again. We sat on a park bench to rest and then we started to talk. He was planning a trip but was worried about leaving his condo empty.”

She suddenly looks at her watch. “Oh, dear. I forgot to tell Stacy something important. I must call her right back before she leaves the house and takes her children to the dentist.”

She quickly moves me toward the door.

As I stand on the landing, she says, “You’re a good listener, Mrs. Langford.”

I startle for a moment. I’m not quite used to my new name.

I’m not about to leave until I say what I came up there to discuss. I face her directly. It’s harsh, but I say it gently. “Arlene doesn’t want you here. Do you think you can change her mind?”

Joyce shifts from one foot to another. She’s in a hurry. She wants me out. I watch her face shift from irritation to bland.

She gives me an answer. “I thought so until that outburst at the pool. There is no forgiveness in her heart. I don’t know how to reach her. I don’t want to cause her pain all over again. What should I do?”

As much as I’d like to, I can’t just tell her to leave. I try a different tack. “Arlene is talking about moving away.”

Joyce hangs her head in shame. “Because of me? Then there’s nothing else for me to do—I should be the one to leave. I’ll start searching for another place to stay immediately.”

I feel sorry for her. Everything she said made sense, so why do I feel so uncomfortable? She was like all angles and sharpness—too slick in the telling?

Then I realize she never fully answered my question about how she met Seymour. I don’t know what to think.

I
da won’t admit she’s as excited as Sophie and Bella about today’s class. Today they get to the good stuff. She’s been wondering if she made a mistake and they were wasting their time in this so-called private eye course. Gatkes seems all over the place. He talks about “good cop” and “bad cop” roles when dealing with prisoners. What’s that got to do with being a PI? Then he sells them clothing. She thinks he’s made all of it up. And besides, where are the other students? She expected a classroom filled with other enthusiastic students. The girls are clueless. They follow whatever Gatkes tells them. But she cannot admit defeat. So she has high hopes about what they’ll learn today: how to defend themselves.

They eagerly follow Mike Gatkes as he leads them to what might be a storage room far back down the hall from their usual classroom. This is a larger apartment than she thought.

He takes out a set of keys and unlocks half a dozen locks on this one door.

“Today you have your chance to buy your weapons of mass destruction.” He laughs. “Kidding.” Gatkes teases with a lilt in his voice. Ida is beginning to wonder, along with all the other things she questions, what’s with the drama queen in their teacher?

He opens the door with a flourish and they enter, eyes growing wide with amazement at the huge quantity of killing equipment. Again, what’s this? Do we kill a flea with an elephant gun?

Ida comments, “Would we really need stuff like this?”

He shrugs. “But a PI should always be prepared. Trust me. You’ll find something useful in here.”

Ida hates with a passion when anyone says trust me. The sign of a big liar.

The girls gaze at row after row of all sizes and shapes of scary-looking guns as Gatkes calls out his favorites. He likes a hefty handgun, especially the Glock. The Taurus revolver is a big seller, too. His KAC SR Enhanced Match Carbines are guaranteed accurate. “But let’s not get too involved here. You girls don’t want to carry.”

Sophie and Bella shake their heads in horrified agreement. No, sir. They don’t want to “carry.”

Ida whistles, staring at the $1,075.99 price tag on something called a Long Range Sniper machine gun. “Who buys this stuff?”

Gatkes shrugs. “Your basic war fighters, law-enforcement and security guys, and law-abiding civilian shooters. Let me show you what you might need.”

He waggles the next item through his fingers. “Here’s a dandy pair of handcuffs. Always useful. The prices range from $88.99 down to a bargain at $13.99.”

He passes a pair to the girls, who handle them as if they were diamond bracelets at Tiffany. They look to their leader, Ida, hopefully.

She says, “Okay on the cuffs, the ones at $13.99.”

Sophie and Bella are gleeful.

Gatkes marks a list he is carrying.

He moves things along, continuing his comments. “You might not need these leg irons, but they’re a sweet buy at $30.99. Or the expandable baton, a giveaway at $19.99.”

Bella whispers to Sophie, “What would we use that for?”

Sophie shrugs. “For a band concert?”

Gatkes says, “What you would definitely need are night-vision glasses. Great for nighttime, low light, and poor weather conditions.” He hands each girl a pair, then hits the switch and they are in darkness.

The girls ooh and aah. Even Ida is impressed by how clearly she can see. The girls move around waving their arms, making silly faces, having fun with being able to see one another.

Ida commands, “Enough already.”

The girls stop short. Gatkes turns the lights back on.

Sophie says, “But we gotta have these. They’re cool.”

“Good choice,” Gatkes says encouragingly. “That’s the top-of-the-line Cougar 492.5, at $99.99. An incredible buy.”

“Whoa,” says Ida. “Way too rich for our blood.”

Her reticence doesn’t faze Gatkes. “I respect your price range. I have a nice Bushnell Nightwatch. For you, $79.99.”

Ida comments, “Gatkes, you sure do like that ninety-nine-cents thing. Why don’t you just say a hundred bucks and be done with it?”

“Would you buy it at a hundred?”

“No.”

“So $99.99 sounds better.”

“I get your drift,” Ida says. “But we’re not buying even for $79.99. Flashlights will have to do.”

The girls are disappointed, but Ida is in charge.

Ida smiles seeing how the girls are awed by her takeover personality. She’s determined to talk them into having her name in the title of their new business.

Gatkes gets them to follow him down another aisle. “Here’s our selection of excellent deterrents. The Tasers and Mace start at $49—”

Ida says it before he does. “—ninety-nine.”

“They’re scary,” Bella says. “Don’t they hurt?”

“Yeah,” adds Sophie. “And what if we accidentally tased or maced ourselves?”

Gatkes agrees. “I see your point. May I suggest the less dangerous, but equally useful pepper spray?”

“What the heck is this?” Ida reads from a nearby tag. “ ‘Counter Assault Bear Deterrent Spray with brush holster.’ ”

“Bears?” Bella asks, moving backward from Ida, looking every which way, terrified.

“Not for you, ladies.” Gatkes winks conspiratorially. “No bears in our beloved Florida, though you might run into the occasional alligator. Kidding.”

He walks them over to another shelf. “I think you’ll like this handy-dandy little number. The Hot Lips lipstick. Looks like an ordinary lipstick for that element of surprise. You get an eight-second burst of pepper and an eight-to-ten-foot range. At a delightful price of $9—”

Now it’s the chorus of three calling it out. “—ninety-nine.”

The girls look eagerly toward their leader.

Ida says, “Sold.”

The girls are delighted.

Gatkes smiles and reaches into another bin. “This last item will put the finishing touch on your basic equipment package. The Kevlar vest.”

He holds one up, turning it around for them to appreciate.

Sophie and Bella, really getting into it, take turns trying on the various types of vests.

Ida shakes her head as she watches them modeling, turning, dipping, and preening as if on the runway of a Saks Fifth Avenue fashion show.

Gatkes moderates. “Here we have the antislash Covert Ladies’ Hoodie made of aramid fiber, being modeled in pink by Mrs. Fox and in blue by Mrs. Meyerbeer.”

Ida smiles contentedly as she reaches for her credit card. This may be costing them a fortune, but now she realizes Gladdy Gold and Associates was sooooo old-fashioned.

I
da is nervous about going to Rico’s home. Logically, it’s a good idea. Since the girls don’t dare invite Rico to Lanai Gardens, which would give away their secrets, he has opened up his home for their meeting place. Here they can discuss their new business and make future plans, as well as teach Rico what they learn.

It’s a neighborhood far from where they live. She tries to pay attention as Rico drives, but nothing looks familiar. She has no idea where they are. Maybe a mostly Cuban area, from what Ida sees as they drive down his street. People are sitting on steps, chatting. She hears much laughter. And music. Children playing in a tiny pocket park. She considers how quickly they’ve accepted Rico. Enough to follow him without question.

A smile plays across Ida’s face. She is pleased with herself. She has led the girls into what could be murky waters, but so far, all goes well. They are having an adventure. Which is more than what Gladdy Gold and Associates offers.