Nessa waved the cloud away with her free hand and kept scrolling with the other. “Here’s a picture of him with the Clintons. And another with Donald Trump. I’m telling you, Harriett. Your friend Leonard might be the most popular man on earth.” She paused to scan a newspaper article. “And I think I just figured out why everyone loves him. According to the Times, Leonard has promised to give away ten billion dollars before he dies. The man’s a saint.”
“A saint would give away money anonymously,” Harriett responded. “People who announce their intentions in the Times are out to make friends. Tell the world you plan to give away ten billion dollars and you’ll have a very hard time finding enemies.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Nessa asked.
“No,” Harriett admitted. “It’s an interesting thing.”
“You wanna know what’s funny, though?” Nessa looked back down and scrolled through all the articles she’d found. “I can’t figure out what Leonard used to do for a living.”
“He didn’t do anything,” Harriett said. “He was in finance. He just moved money around. Speaking of which, you remember Antoine Marchand?”
Nessa began to type. “Antoine with an e?”
“Do you really not recognize the name?” Harriett asked. “He ran one of the biggest Ponzi schemes of the nineties. Madoff stole his thunder a decade later, but Marchand was the OG.”
“I was in nursing school in the nineties. I didn’t have time for the news.”
“Must have been a nursing school on Mars if you missed the Marchand story. He jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge. A crew filming a movie caught it all on camera. The video was one of the internet’s first viral sensations.”
“I remember a man jumping off the bridge, but why are we talking about him now?”
“Antoine Marchand is our new BFF Claude’s dad.”
“So her father committed suicide?” Nessa asked. “How sad.”
“He stole hundreds of millions of dollars,” Harriett said. “If I recall correctly, poor Claude had been kept in the dark, and she ended up broke after he died. I imagine that must have screwed with her head a bit. Now look up Spencer Harding, and you’ll get a sense of our cast of characters.”
Nessa spent a few minutes perusing the results. “There are plenty of articles about paintings he’s sold, but there’s not much online about Harding himself. Lot of stuff about his wife, though. She hasn’t been seen in public much since they married, and people aren’t happy about it. Do you think she’s really addicted to painkillers?”
“I think an addiction to painkillers is an excellent excuse for keeping your wife under house arrest.”
Nessa glanced up. “You know the girl in blue died of a fentanyl overdose,” she said. “That’s a painkiller.”
“That fact hasn’t escaped me,” Harriett said.
“So Spencer Harding keeps his wife under surveillance, has his bodyguard threaten anyone who gets close to her, and sends you flowers to show he knows where you live? Sounds like he might be our guy.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Harriett said. “Either way, he’s a threat to our kind, and he needs to be dealt with. I’m rooting for his wife to save me the trouble and kill him herself.”
Nessa hadn’t been listening. “Is he this good-looking in real life?” She handed her phone to Harriett.
The photo was an old one, and the man on the screen had black hair trimmed with gray. His eyes, which stared straight out at the camera, were unusually light. He wore a beautifully cut navy suit and a hostile expression. He seemed to resent having his photo taken.
“Yes, he’s handsome.” Harriett took another drag off her blunt. “But your friend the cop is hotter. It’s more fun screwing people with souls. Speaking of Franklin, we should tell him to come over so we can give him the 411.”
Nessa reached for her phone, and Harriett sat up to hand it back. “I sent Franklin a text thirty minutes ago,” Nessa said, scrolling through her messages. “I don’t know why he hasn’t gotten back to me.”
“Relax.” Harriett spread her long body out on the sofa again. “He will.”
Nessa sensed what would come next and suddenly wished Jo hadn’t gone home. When they were alone, Harriett could make Nessa spill beans she’d rather keep in their can.
Harriett took another puff off her joint. “You like him. Admit it. When are you planning to get some?”
“What?” Nessa felt her face burning. “Never!”
“Why not?” Harriett seemed to enjoy torturing her. “You kissed him, didn’t you?”
Just the thought of Franklin’s lips touching hers gave Nessa a jolt. “Can we just talk about Spencer Harding and Ponzi schemes?”
“I’ve told you everything that I know for the time being. So why don’t we take this opportunity to have a chat about your sex life? I don’t think you’re embarrassed. We’ve both lived too long for that.”
Nessa thought it over. “You’re right. I’m not embarrassed,” she concluded. “I guess I’d say I’m confused. I always thought women disappeared when they reached our age.”
“Disappeared?” Harriett coughed the word out and took another toke.
“You know, to men,” Nessa said. “I spent my whole nursing career getting my ass grabbed by dirty old bastards in hospital gowns. There were quite a few days when I wished I could disappear. It’s a relief not having to deal with that anymore.”
Harriett tilted her head back and released a smoke ring like the Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. “If you want to be invisible now, you can be,” she said. “But why would you want to hide from handsome Franklin Rees?”
Nessa shrugged. “I don’t know what he’s interested in, anyway. I’m nowhere near as attractive as I used to be.”
Harriett’s head rolled back down and her gaze fell on Nessa. “By attractive, you mean young and thin?”
“What else would I mean?”
“When someone calls you attractive, it means you draw people to you,” Harriett said. “You think a tiny waist and wrinkle-free skin are the only things that can do that?”
“Yes, I know. I have a lovely personality.”
“I’m not joking. Do you know how beautiful it is to be alive? Do you have any idea how few people really are? You’ve got a spark. And even now, after everything you’ve been through, it’s as strong as ever. That’s what keeps Franklin fluttering around you like a lovesick moth.”
“You’re high, Harriett.”
“True,” she said. “I am indeed very stoned. But I was also in advertising for twenty-five years. Ad people like me are the ones who convinced women that being attractive was all about rosy cheeks and red lips. You know why? Because we could sell lipstick and bronzer and Botox and juice plans. There was no way to make money off the kind of allure that I’m talking about. So we sold a version of attractiveness you could buy instead. And over time, people forgot there was any other type. But some of us don’t need all the crap at Sephora to draw others to us. And like it or not, you are one of those people, my friend.”
“So you think that’s what Franklin sees in me? My spark?”
“You’re fucking hot, Nessa. Just like Jo. Just like me. And unlike Jo and me, you have that gorgeous big ass.”
“Thank you,” Nessa giggled.