Читать книгу Job or death in Philadelphia. An American crime novel - - Страница 5

The monkey see, monkey do principle would be the best way to describe my way of life until this point. I have always been worried about my future. I felt terminally ill most of the time. I always hoped to end up with a bigger paycheck and a balance of my long-term investments. And always, I was taking on new relationships and new jobs with the mad enthusiasm of somebody who has never been beaten and never been abandoned.

Pulling into the driveway, I cursed secretly, because Larissa’s car was parked right in the middle of it. Larissa was my aide, but somehow, she tried to take a special place in the family. Alex insisted on hiring her as a part-time shopping aide for me and a part-time tutor for our girls. My husband believed modern children need a grandmotherly influence in order to grow into stable and mature adults. He used to say that in his old country, grandmothers constituted a special social institution: more influential than the Orthodox Church, and more advanced than an academic school.

We couldn’t possibly get a grandmother in our own family. My mom was still working on her retirement plan. My husband’s mother was a grand dame, socialite and full-time Londoner. There was no way she could fit two teenage girls in her schedule between lunch with the Prime Minister and dinner with Rupert Murdoch. That’s why Larissa, being an old Jewish lady, fit right into our puzzle.

Entering our home, I received a doggy attack from Elvis. Forgetting that he had begged me out of my breakfast this morning, this source of eternal love jumped and slobbered all over me.

«Rachel!» Larissa summoned me to the kitchen. «I think the girls are upset with each other. Something happened at school. They don’t want to tell me what. As a mother, I think you should talk to them.»

As a mother, I would rather have a cup of coffee right now, especially seeing Larissa sitting at the table with her cup of Earl Grey and biscuits. Of course, I didn’t say that. Alexander thought that the European system of rearing children was superior to the American. In his eyes, Larissa, after teaching English at some schools in Moscow, Berlin, and New York for thirty years, was an embodiment of this system. I went to the entrance hall and shouted for the girls at the top of my lungs. I knew it was a no-no, but I would rather have the girls come down to the kitchen, then walk up to their rooms. Frankly, it is healthy for kids to get in a fight now and then, because this way they build up their conflict-solving muscles for future adult life.

First, Iris showed up with a thunder of heavy footfalls. She was taller than the other eleven-year-olds, with long blonde hair and dark brown eyes.

«Mom,» she crashed into a chair with a moan. «When is dinner? I’m starving.»

I took her words about starvation with a great deal of healthy doubt, looking at her slightly bulging tummy and peach-like cheeks, but Larissa sprang into action. She turned to me with her well-groomed head with a strawberry blonde hairdo and offered to feed the child with something healthy.

«A couple of spoons of nonfat cottage cheese with a bit of sour cream will do her just fine before dinner,» she let me know.

«Sour cream? Yuck.» My sweet angel made a retching sound.

«What is so yucky?» Evana asked, entering the kitchen with a quiet grace of hers. She was my daughter’s age, but shorter, slimmer, with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes.

«Mom wants us to have cottage cheese for a snack. Can you imagine?»

Evana considered the news for a moment. «Well, it might not be that bad,» she said flatly.

I opened the fridge, found a tub of cottage cheese tucked away in the door compartment, and sniffed it. It looked fresh to me, but I tasted it, just in case.

«It’s not even sour,» I announced after taking a bite. «Tastes kind of chalky, but this is the healthy part, I guess.» I spooned the white substance into tiny ice cream bowls for the girls.

«Mom,» Iris looked at me with alarm. «Where did you get this jar?»

«In the fridge… No talking, just eat and go. We have to cook dinner.»

«Mom,» Iris insisted. «Show me the jar.»

I showed her.

«Ah, this is not the cottage cheese. This is my dough clay, for my science project.»

Somehow, eating clay gave me a burst of energy, because I stayed in the kitchen to help Mark, my British cook, to make turkey soup. I have my own special way of cooking turkey soup, which I invented while living in Center City and driving a cab. This soup, like any other great invention, came into existence by accident and lack of resources. It was the day after Halloween, and Iris had overdone it with sweets. Her stomach hurt, so she stayed home from school. I did a six-hour shift and went home. The best treatment for stomach sickness is chicken soup, no doubt about it, but we had only turkey breast. I found two potatoes, a tomato, a white onion, a red bell pepper, and moldy spaghetti squash. Cooking a vegetable stew, I sautéed chopped onion and pieces of turkey in olive oil. Then I dropped in tiny slices of bell pepper, potatoes, squash and tomato, and I poured some water to top the stew. I let the soup cook slowly for two hours on medium heat; finally, I just added a little garlic and soy sauce to it.

The result was amazing. My strictly no-soup-please daughter finished two helpings and announced that her stomach hurt no more.

After dinner would be the best time to tell Alex about my new investigating job. Five minutes before six, he called and said he was running late. The girls got their dinner in the TV room. Larissa ate in the kitchen, and I just sat in my favorite recliner, reading a mystery novel. Glistening with silverware and china, the dinner table remained untouched.

Around midnight, my husband’s car pulled into the driveway. I ran outside to hug him, and his smell made my head spin. It was okay that we missed a family dinner, because at the end of the week we would have two days all to ourselves. I’ll be able to be with him for two days!

«I’m starving,» he said, entering the kitchen, still in his business suit. «Oh, soup.»

I poured soup for him and ran to the bathroom for a quick makeover, feeling all fuzzy and romantic. It took two minutes to shower, slide into my silk nightgown, brush my teeth, and put on a touch of French perfume. However, when I returned to the kitchen, he wasn’t there. I ran upstairs to our bedroom and found my beloved husband lying on the bed, still fully dressed.

«Honey, do you want to take it off?» I pulled the sleeve of his jacket. He didn’t respond. Only when I was pulling his pants off, he said, «Phew, what’s that smell? It’s awful.»

I lay next to him in the dark, hoping that he didn’t mean my expensive French perfume he praised so much when fully awake.

I tried to shut out the annoying ringing in my ears when I realized it wasn’t an alarm clock. It was my cell phone.

«Rachel,» I croaked, picking it up. It was two o’clock in the morning, and I hate phone calls in the middle of the night.

«Joe Madnick. How are you?»

«I don’t know. I was sleeping.»

«Come here this instant. I need your help. Don’t ask questions; just come to my office now.» He hung up and left me staring at the darkness in disbelief.

Why would Joe call me in the middle of the night? And then I remembered; he appointed me as his detective. I’m a lawsuit investigator! I jumped out of my bed, pulled on jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed a jacket and went outside. My red Jaguar greeted me with its lights when I unlocked the door. I looked around our dark property, breathing the chilly spring wind, smiling at the dawn of my new life.

Driving, I thought about some crooked ways life rewards us. I wasn’t even thinking of becoming a detective, with all my love of mysteries and whodunits. I didn’t have any special training and education. I would never get this job if I tried to look for it. Joe would reject me if I asked him to hire me. But I was in the right place at the right time. He was backed up; I came with a pack of sandwiches. Voilà! He asked me to do some investigative legwork for his law firm.

I felt so much pity for Debbie. I have been through the hell of single motherhood. Her case seemed obvious to me. If this Philippine woman accused her new co-worker with such ease, she probably did something similar to other people before. In twenty years, she stepped on some toes. I had to find those people and talk to them. I needed to find a couple of witnesses who would testify against Gamma Woods.

Joe’s voice boomed in my ears, «Get out there and talk to people, find as many as possible, those who can tell that Debbie is a nice, decent lady. I don’t want to paddle to court just to meet a material witness saying that Debbie stole before.»

For his office, Joe used his own house, a two-story red brick townhouse with a lawn up front and a parking lot in the back. At two o’clock in the morning, the house looked spooky. All the lights were off. I knocked at the door, and it opened a crack, just enough for me to get in. Once inside, I was grabbed and pressed against the wall.

«Shish!» Joe put his fat fingers on my lips. «Don’t talk.» Moonlight in the entrance hall was just enough for me to see that he looked exactly like I left him in broad daylight. Which means he wasn’t attacked or injured, just mildly paranoid.

«Did anybody see you coming here?»

«I don’t think so…»

«Rachel, don’t think too much!» He whispered and cleared his throat. «It’s my job.» He stood plastered on the wall, peeking out the door window in complete silence for a very long time before saying, «Okay, now, it’s time.»

He opened the door, let me outside, and ushered me into his car soundlessly. With his bulky body, he moved in the dark like a cat, reminding me he served some years as a Navy SEAL, doing who knows what, who knows where.

Getting into the driver’s seat, he didn’t put a seatbelt on, just started the car and pulled off his driveway onto the street. There was something eerie in the way we were moving through the neighborhood, and it took me some time to realize he hadn’t turned his headlights on. Plus, the car had tinted windows.

«What’s going on?» I whispered. «What do you want to do?»

«I’ll tell you in a minute,» he whispered back at me. «Just do what I say.»

After a couple of miles, he wheeled to the opposite side of the street and parked without turning off the engine. I got out, obedient to his command, while Joe was shifting his big body inside the car, trying to get out. Not having enough room, he put his left foot on the ground and pressed the car horn with his elbow. His honking woke up the whole neighborhood. Dogs barked, and the light went on and off in the next house up the street.

The house on the hill across the lawn from us remained dark and silent. Joe exhaled like a whale and proceeded to the car’s rear. He popped the trunk up, pulled out an oddly shaped bag, and handed it to me. It was slippery. He, himself, got a heavy object that looked like a white box. He carried the box to the lawn and left it there. I put the slippery bag next to it. Shaking and sweating, I was trying to kill the thought that those objects were the remains of some annoying material witness who crossed my new boss.

Joe trotted back to his car, got another boxy white thing, and dumped it next to the first one.

«Get in the car,» he commanded, though it took him more than a second to get inside and start the engine. He wheeled back to the right side of the road, turned on the headlights, and lit his cigarette.

«What did we just do?» I squeaked.

«Take this, you need it.» He gave me his cigarette.

I don’t smoke, but neither do I dump things on people’s front lawns; so, the cigarette felt like the right thing to do.

«How was it?» My boss asked.

«Terrifying!»

«Yeah… Especially when I tooted my horn in the middle of the operation. Everything because it was so secretive.»

«What was it?»

«My old toilet tank.»

My cigarette flew out when I coughed. «Your toilet tank? You woke me up in the middle of the night to dump your toilet tank on other people’s property?»

«You have to understand, I was too embarrassed to put them in front of my office. These rich people have so many kids, it’s natural for them to throw out toilet tanks. Nobody would give a shit about it. And I’m a lawyer. I have clients coming. I have done so much work, by the way, since you left. I installed two new toilet tanks. Now, the toilet flush sounds like a military jet.»

«So, that was the important business you needed to do. That’s why you didn’t come for dinner. That’s why you didn’t want to discuss Debbie’s case with me!»

Toilet tanks did me in. From now on, I will investigate everything myself without Joe’s help. I will just report the results. I will never let him know how I got my information. And I knew just where to start: Debbie’s new house and her neighbors.

The next morning, I slept through my husband leaving for work, and didn’t wake up for my children’s breakfast. It was ten when I finally opened my eyes and dragged myself to the kitchen. After my nocturnal dumping trip, I felt out of place, as if I had just come in from Europe.

«Sleeping in today?» Larissa’s voice had a sarcastic undertone to it. «You don’t look good. You know, it’s destructive for a woman of our age to spend nights out. Here, your cup of strong coffee.»

«Thanks, Larissa. Did the girls behave this morning?»

«They were unusually quiet. I think your absence stressed them out. A daily routine is more important for children than anything else. They expected you to see them off, and as always, you weren’t there for them. Have a piece of toast with your coffee. Don’t just gulp it down. It’s bad for your stomach.» She gracefully put her fingers through her curly strawberry hairdo. She might be well into her sixties, but she insisted on looking forty-five.

I fixed myself toast and jam, watching how a secret thought was boiling inside the old lady like soda mixed with lemon juice.

«You know, Rachel,» she finally gave up. «You know, I like to read before going to bed. I only read very good authors like Dan Brown. There is no point wasting your life on anything inferior. I mean horrors or mysteries.»

I nodded in complete agreement.

«Though last night I was reading a very interesting historical novel about a great medieval artist. You wouldn’t know his name, anyway… Suddenly, I heard some noise. Heavy footfalls… It was two o’clock in the morning. Of course, I rushed to check on the girls. You know, I am a highly responsible and dependable person. And I got a glimpse of you, in this yellow jacket, getting into your red car and driving away.» She wrinkled her lips disapprovingly.

«So?»

«It’s not any of my business, of course, but I believe Alexander noticed your absence.» Burning with curiosity, Larissa bent over the table and knocked down her cup with her skinny, sharp elbow.

«I’ll talk to him.» I stood up abruptly and left, leaving the poor old lady to brew in her own sauce.