Getting Sassy (3 page)

But before I could come up with a reason for her to stay here, she had propped her cane against the wall and was zipping up the front of her hoodie.

The Arthur Floyd Tart building, Fowler’s tallest, was named after the architect who designed it. The big, black slab of stone had tinted windows and an impervious look to it. Several floors of the building once housed a prosperous computer software company that made the kind of computer games that were probably inciting children and other impressionable types to violence. But they were quite successful at it, so Fowler took the attitude, if they’re not designing cyber characters who gleefully disembowel each other here, they’ll be doing it somewhere else. Which is exactly what happened after they were bought out by a larger company. So now those floors were empty, and the darkened windows looking down on Fowler’s business district reminded me of some carrion beast waiting for the town to gasp its last breath.

The Tart’s remaining businesses occupied the lower and upper floors, and my money man was on the tenth, and highest, floor.

Unlike his persona, Mick Hughes’s office was unassuming. It consisted of an outer room where his secretary du jour plied her trade and his own office, which gave him a view of Fowler’s skyline, such as it was, and the expressway extension beyond it.

Since I’d been his client, he’d had three different secretaries. Different and yet not. As though they had all risen from the same gene pool: tall women with athletic builds and blond hair. They were polite enough, but smiles were hard won.

The current secretary’s desk plate identified her as Myra Quill, and she peeked into Mick’s office before waving me in. No way I was
letting my mother sit in on this meeting, so I settled her into one of the armchairs in the outer office and selected three magazines for her. She discarded
Southern Living
and
Time
but opened
In Style.
I left her in Myra’s care.

When I walked into Mick’s office, he stood—not something he normally did—and whistled under his breath—not something he ever did. “What happened to the rest of you?”

Since I’d seen him in February for my taxes, I’d lost the thirty pounds I’d been carrying since my divorce twelve years ago. It was a combination of things—walking, a little weight training, less fast food. And there is no underestimating the toll that worry can take on a person’s metabolism. Nerves apparently speeded mine up. I might have been a happier person a year ago, but I did like being able to fit into smaller jeans.

“I donated it to Models without Hips,” I said as I drew the big envelope filled with my finances from my satchel and set it on his desk.

“You look good.” He said it like I was a Philadelphia cheese steak sandwich.

“Thanks.” I dropped into the chair and patted the envelope. “And I’m hoping you can find some money for me.”

I noticed he had his own “Robyn Guthrie” file opened on the desk. After allowing his gaze to linger on me—on my chest in particular—for another moment or two, he settled into his chair. I knew I’d overdone it with the knit top, which was a snugger fit than my usual sloppy Ts. I was here hoping he’d offer me a loan, not a romp in the sack.

But Mick moved on, picking up the top sheet from his file and placing it squarely in front of him. “This looks pretty good,” he said, after perusing it for a moment. Then he glanced up at me. “You planning on taking early retirement?”

“No,” I said with the sigh of a person who knows she’ll never retire. “My mother lives in Dryden Manor, and she’s running out of money.” I hated telling anyone this. “If I can come up with some of
it, maybe I can get a bank loan to cover the rest.”

He folded his arms on the desk and leaned toward me. “How much you talking about?”

“It costs roughly five grand a month.”

He whistled again in a different kind of appreciation and looked down at the figures.

“I’ll do anything to keep her out of a Medicaid bed,” I said.

Shrugging, he said, “Have her move in with you.”

“I’ll do anything but that.”

He was right—I should find another apartment—one on the ground floor with an extra bedroom—and move her in with me. The “sandwich generation” did it all the time—three generations under the same roof. I didn’t have kids, so I guess that made me an openfaced sandwich. The guilt and shame I felt over my own ambivalence was eased slightly by the knowledge that my mother didn’t want to share an apartment with me any more than I did with her. I knew that because we’d tried it once.

“Okay,” was all Mick said with a nod. He opened the envelope I’d given him, then sat back, smoothing his tie against his chest. Neither of us spoke for several minutes as he went over the papers I’d assembled, which laid bare the state of my financial affairs.

Having someone peruse my finances felt a lot like getting a pelvic exam, and to keep from squirming, I glanced around the room. Mick had no photos on his desk, and his bookshelves were filled with thick, imposing tomes. The only items interrupting the monotonous beige of his walls were his degree from U of I, which hung on the wall next to his desk and, beside that, a watercolor of a chestnut horse in a white-fenced paddock. I suspected that Mick, or someone else he held dear, had painted it. It wasn’t very good. The horse’s legs were short in proportion to the rest of its body, and its tail was inadequate. But I’ve never asked about the artist, because I was afraid he might ask for my opinion. And I would have to tell him the truth. Because that is what I do.

Rumors swirled around Mick Hughes like flies around a rotting peach. He’d been a jockey—that much was known fact. I’d heard that he walked with a limp, although I’d never seen him walk far enough to determine the veracity of that rumor. I seldom saw him without the desk between us. The source of that limp was up for debate. One story had him mangling his leg in a bad fall during a race. Another had someone mangling his leg for him when he refused to throw a race. I find the former story more credible, since I couldn’t believe Mick was familiar with the higher ground. He seemed to revel in his role as Fowler’s bad boy. He was probably a few years younger than me—early forties—with a broad forehead and bright, rather intense, eyes. I always thought his sandy brown hair needed a combing, but he may have been going for the unkempt look, because he sometimes looked like he could use a shave as well. As far as I knew, he’d never married, but I doubted he had qualms about dating women who were.

Until today, I’d been content to know nothing of Mick’s life outside this office. An editor at the
Fowler News and Record
had recommended Mick Hughes to me when I’d first gotten to town, saying that Mick earned money on the side as a bookie and as a loan shark, but that he kept his various enterprises separate. This convinced me that reasonable people benefited from Mick’s financial acumen. The rumors didn’t bother me. Besides, I figured the more shady his extracurricular doings, the harder he’d work at keeping everything above board in his legitimate business.

“If you didn’t need five grand a month, it’d be a pretty good year for Robyn Guthrie, wouldn’t it?” Then he leaned back in his chair and raked a hand through his hair.

In fact, it was a good year. I’d ghosted a book and had established myself as a stringer at several magazines that paid well. In addition I was earning some money as a freelance editor. If you ignored the fact that I needed sixty thousand dollars to keep my mother at Dryden for the next year, I was doing great.

Just as he began punching my numbers into his computer, his phone rang. He answered, saying, “I’m busy here, Myra.” As he listened to her, he picked up a slip of paper, tapping it against the edge of his desk. Then, abruptly, he said, “Send him in.”

He gave me a thin smile. “You mind waiting outside for two minutes, Robyn?” He wagged his head toward the door. “Gotta see this guy.”

“Sure,” I told him, relieved that I didn’t have unfinished business with Mick.

The man waiting for Mick carried a black briefcase and wore a black suit with a bright white shirt and a stern look. I got a whiff of a spicy cologne as he brushed past me on his way into Mick’s office. I had an image of the two of them exchanging wary looks along with thick wads of money.

My mother had nodded off, head resting on one shoulder. It was a position I often found her in, and one that looked like it would give her the neck cramp from hell. But I let her sleep and picked up
Time.
To be honest, I was also more in the mood for
In Style,
but would’ve had to extract it from beneath my mother’s hand, possibly waking her.

Myra seemed interested in what was going on in the other room, but since there was a closed door keeping her out, she had to content herself by keeping watch on her side. She reminded me of an overeager Doberman—alert and all jittery with stifled energy. Like she was just waiting for an excuse to throw herself at the door.

I didn’t have long to read. No more than five minutes passed before the man left Mick’s office. He glanced at me with eyes the color of washed-out cornflowers. Myra watched as he walked out the door then settled back onto her haunches.

My mother roused from her nap.

“Who’s bringing the salad?” I heard a trace of panic in her voice.

“I am, Mom.”

She nodded, murmuring, “Don’t put any grapes in it,” and went back to sleep.

“I’m good, but I’m not a magician.”

Back in his office, Mick delivered the bad news as he studied my life on paper. He shook his head and went silent for several moments, tapping his pencil against the edge of his desk. He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and pulled his tie down an inch or so.

There was an edginess to him now, as though he was a doctor about to tell me I had better get my affairs in order. Then his lips moved slightly as though some new thought struck him, and he began plugging more numbers into his computer. I noticed a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. At least he was working hard.

I surveyed the room again—anything to distance myself from the edginess. That was when I noticed that the painting of the horse was crooked.

It hadn’t been crooked before the man with the briefcase stole a few minutes of Mick’s (and my) time. Or had it?

I quickly added together a number of facts: Mick made book on the side, therefore he dealt in cash; the man had something in the briefcase, which might well have been cash he was bringing to Mick; Mick had to put the cash somewhere, and the painting was large enough to hide a small wall safe. More insane justifying: while money made on illegal betting wasn’t exactly stolen, it wasn’t obtained in a legal manner either. Therefore, it was okay to steal it.

Then the cautionary, albeit underdeveloped part of my brain kicked in, and I reminded myself that Mick’s reputation was due, in part, to the gusto with which he pursued deadbeats. One persistent rumor had him kidnapping the mistress of a man who hadn’t taken his debt seriously enough and he had threatened to return her to the man’s wife one digit at a time. I had no idea how that particular ploy ended and wasn’t even certain it had occurred.

Images of my own shattered kneecaps were enough to restore reason. You are nuts, Robyn, I told myself, adding a mental thump upside the head.

Just then he looked up, and for a second I thought he was seeing right into my mind where my felonious thoughts screamed in 72-point type. But he pressed his mouth into a narrow line and swiveled his computer screen so I could read it.

“That’ll buy you three, four months.”

I sighed. And waited.

With a quick glance at the horse, I told myself that if he was going to offer me the loan, it would be now. And accepting a loan from Mick Hughes would be only slightly more sane than stealing the money from him. Maybe he’d give me a decent interest rate because I was a client or because he thought I looked good in a snug shirt and minus the thirty pounds. And then what would I do? That kind of loan—even one with a reasonable interest—would keep me in debt for most of my life. But if it would keep my mother in Dryden, maybe it was worth it.

His chair squeaked as he leaned back, hands clasped lightly as he studied me. Finally, he said, “I’ve known you about a couple of years, right?”

“About that.”

“And I know you’re a pretty smart lady.”

I nodded. “Thank you” didn’t seem appropriate.

“Smart enough to know that nobody could squeeze that kind of money out of your portfolio.”

I swallowed.

Mick continued. “That’s not why you came here, is it?”

It was all I could do not to look away. “I guess it’s not.”

Neither of us spoke for several moments. Finally, he said, “You don’t want to do this.”

My face grew warm and I swallowed again. Of course he was talking about his loan service, but I figured if anyone could spot a larcenous thought, it would be Mick Hughes.

“Trust me,” he said.

Nothing more. Loan not offered, therefore not taken. Last chance down the tubes. I managed to convince myself that he wouldn’t give
me such a great interest rate. He probably saved his “specials” for women a lot better looking—not to mention younger—than me. There was still the bank. But even if I could get the loan there, I had to wonder if the amount would outlast my mother. How much was enough? Weighing her days left against a loan—God, there were times I despised myself.