Susan looked out the windshield and crossed her arms. “Maybe this will teach you not to open my mail,” she said.
Henry sighed audibly as he slid the car in front of a hundred-year-old brick building in the cultural district of downtown Portland. The front door of the building was framed with Corinthian-style columns and a hunter green awning featured a white crest with the letters AC.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Susan said.
“It’s safe,” Henry said, getting out of the car. He walked around and opened the passenger door for Susan to get out.
“It’s the Arlington,” said Susan. “It’s a social club for capitalist geezers.”
“The mayor’s a member,” Henry said, opening the back door so Bliss could climb out of the backseat.
“I think I’ve protested this place,” Bliss said, climbing out of the car and looking up at the brick fa?ade. “Do they still make women wear skirts?”
Henry’s face steeled. “We can control access. You’ll be comfortable.”
Susan was still sitting in the car. “I’m not staying here,” she said, crossing her arms.
Henry squatted down next to her and gripped her upper arm hard. “This isn’t a joke. Do you not think that she won’t kill you?”
“That’s a double negative,” Susan said. “You should keep it simple. ‘She will kill you.’ Direct. Scary.”
Henry glared at her. “Archie’s worried about you. It will make him worry less if you are nearby.” He ran a hand over his shaved head. “And that will make me worry less.”
“Archie’s staying here?” Susan asked.
“Yep,” Henry said.
She reached over and released her seat belt. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Henry sighed again and led Susan and her mother through the club’s oak double doors. The wainscoting and crown molding were white, but the walls were painted incongruously with a light salmon that had been sponged on in an attempt at texture. An ornamental table, festooned with flowers, squatted in the middle of the entryway below an enormous shiny brass light fixture. A grand staircase led upstairs, its treads covered in blue carpet. The once grand fireplace had been fitted for gas and the oriental rugs were threadbare. Susan had heard about the Arlington Club, but this was the first time she’d been inside. It was a little disappointing.
She looked around for power brokers and saw only a single old man sitting on a sofa in front of the gas fireplace reading the Wall Street Journal under a painting of Mount Hood that hung on the wall in an old gilt frame.
The only sounds were hushed voices and clinking silverware from the restaurant upstairs.
A tall, skeletal man appeared from behind a desk at the back of the room. He was dark-haired and wore a suit and his tie was affixed to his shirt with a silver stickpin. Henry flashed the man his badge. The man waved his hand. “Please put that away.” He slid a look over at the old man reading the paper. “The members.”
Henry shut the badge and bent his head at Susan and Bliss. “This is Susan Ward and her mother, Bliss Mountain.”
Bliss leaned toward the clerk. “My given name was Pitt,” she explained.
The clerk glanced down at Bliss’s Indian tunic pants, red rubber Crocs, and the breasts that hung free underneath her vomit-stained QUESTION EVERYTHING T-shirt.
“They’ll be staying on the sixth floor,” Henry continued.
The man’s face was frozen in a half-desperate, half-welcoming expression. “Yes, sir. Good afternoon, ma’am. Right this way.”
“I’m twenty-eight,” Susan said. “And I’m single. So you don’t have to call me ‘ma’am.’”
“Yes, well.” His forehead creased as he pushed the button for the elevator. “You’ll be ‘ma’am’ while you’re with us.”
Susan narrowed her eyes at Henry.
CHAPTER
29
The pain in Archie’s flank had become so constant he could almost block it out, like the ticking of a clock. Almost. Then he would breathe and the pain would bloom into a sharp ache and he had to steady himself to keep from wincing. So he took more pills. It was ironic, he knew, that the very chemicals causing his pain were the only thing that gave him any respite from it.
They had been given a two-bedroom suite. It was painted baby-shit yellow. Squash, Debbie had called it. She was with the kids now, getting them to sleep in the twin beds of their new baby-shit bedroom. She was scared. And more than that, Archie knew, she was furious.
“Do you want to watch TV?” Claire asked. She had come directly from the hospital and had been sitting there for over an hour, pretending to look interested in a coffee table book on Portland’s bridges that she had found in the room.
“You don’t have to stay here,” Archie said.
“I’m your security detail,” Claire said.
Three dead bodies in the park. Gretchen on the loose. And his people were busy minding him, instead of out there doing their jobs. “There’s a uni in the hall,” Archie said.