He doesn’t usually let emotion dictate his business moves. But it seemed so simple at first. Gather some intel on her current situation, then blackmail her. He wasn’t greedy, but a 10 percent finder’s fee seemed about right. Twenty, to make up for what she did ten years ago. Only who could anticipate that she would walk out on her family? That husband better watch his back, Irving thinks, and maybe the kid, too. Ditmars once suggested to him that the issues with the other kid, those were her fault.
Eight weeks ago, the plan had seemed foolproof. Buddy up with the husband, then blackmail her with the threat of exposure. When the family took off for the beach all of a sudden, Irving had agreed with Adam that such a friendship would be easier to jump-start at the shore. Easier for strangers to come into your life on vacation. Then they would return to Baltimore and Adam would insinuate himself into the family’s routines, maybe start double-dating with them, whatever people do. The husband, even if he knew about her current scam, was the best way in. She was a sharp cookie and her life as a stay-at-home mom didn’t offer her much exposure to new friends, male or female. That’s another reason Irving thinks he’s right about her. The very lack of friends, the way she keeps to herself. She has secrets. And now that she’s left the new husband, she has to be on the verge of leading Irving—finally, finally—to an almost literal pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
So why hasn’t she? Is he throwing good money after bad? What does that phrase even mean? If you’ve spent bad money, you continue to spend bad money, right? The money doesn’t become good once you realize how foolish you’ve been.
He walks to the front of his office, peers out the window at Route 40. This strip of commercial highway was never nice, but it had been respectable in his childhood. There had been a Korvette’s across the street—whatever happened to Korvette’s? Also a reliable place for steamed crabs, back in the day. Then that soft ice cream place closer to Ingleside. Gino’s, Hot Shoppes Jr. Now everything’s just a little sleazier, a little trashier. Through the 1970s, there was a girls’ school, looked like a castle to him, near the city-county line. But that closed long ago. Why do things have to change? And why is it always for the worse? Yes, he gets that the world has to keep moving, but movement is not necessarily progress. They put a man on the moon, so what? They still can’t cure cancer. If they could cure cancer, he wouldn’t be a widower at age sixty-three.
He turns to Susie, typing away.
“You know what never changes, Susie?”
“What, Mr. L?” she asks, still typing. Such a good girl, industrious, capable, never idle. Is it okay to call her girl? You can’t call a black man boy, he knows that. This world makes his head hurt.
“People. What they wear changes. How they talk, maybe. But people never change and that has made me a rich man by most people’s measure.”
Although not, he thinks, as rich as he should be and that’s on her. She stole his money, he can’t help seeing it that way, even if no cop would agree. Would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that chance encounter last fall. Then she surfaced, hiding inside a suburban mom, and he saw that she was playing a very long game. Maybe waiting for him to die? She was going to be disappointed then. He’s only sixty-three, which might seem old to her, but his people are long-lived, their memories sharp to the end. Now and then, especially when he’s paying Adam Bosk’s invoices, he starts to forget why he wants to get her back, why it matters so much, then he reminds himself: It’s the principle. Even if no one else knows or remembers what she did to him, he does—and he’s going to get what was his. That’s the thing about being rich. You can afford a few principles.
He just hopes that wherever she parked the money, she’s getting a good interest rate.
Interest. Yeah, she always got a lot of interest. Is Adam sleeping with her? Probably. Unprofessional, but that one does things to men. She’s a witch. He tries to tell himself he doesn’t get the appeal, but he can’t lie. Back in the day, even when she was heavier, she had a glow about her. He would try to prolong his visits to the house, arriving when he knew Ditmars wasn’t there yet, asking for a glass of water, acting kindly toward that scary, sad kid. He was never sure how much she knew. At the time, she seemed kind of dumb to him. Incurious, to be more accurate. Her entire life was that house and that kid. It was grim, and being married to Ditmars didn’t make it any better, although Irving doesn’t believe all those things they said about Ditmars, after. Guy didn’t have it in him. Sure, he was probably a putz in a lot of ways, and a bully, too, but he wouldn’t have hit a woman. Besides, she could have left, anytime. It’s not like he had her chained to the radiator.
When Adam sent him the photos from the beach, he was stunned by how much better-looking she was now. At first, he wondered if that meant she had started tapping into the money. Transformations like that, when a woman’s in her thirties—they don’t just happen. But, yeah, she probably did drop weight, given her circumstances. In her case, that was enough. Lost the weight, grew her hair out, let it go back to its natural color. Ditmars had made her dye her hair blond, the stupid oaf. The way she looks now, she could have done better than the second guy she married. Apparently she got knocked up. Again. He wondered why she just didn’t decommission the equipment once and for all. But some women worry that they’ll stop being women if they do that.
He goes back to his desk, pulls out those photos again, a treat he tries to indulge no more than weekly. Okay, daily, as of late. She’s wearing a one-piece, cut very low in the back. She’s helping her new kid build a sand castle. The way she’s posed—her rear end tilted up in the air—it’s like she knows someone’s watching her. Not necessarily Adam, who took these photos. Boy, if she had any inkling who Adam is, who he’s working for, she’d pull up stakes and leave that sleepy little Delaware town. He’s starting to think that may be the point for her, seeing how long she can go without leading Irving to the pot of gold at the end of this endless rainbow.
Then he wonders if she thinks of him, ever.
He remembers their one time. It was her idea, but it wasn’t really that great and he realized—later—that it was a part of setting him up. “Could you help me get a policy on Ditmars?” Sure, of course, but doesn’t the FOP—“It won’t be enough. Because of Joy. The thing is, Ditmars doesn’t want it, says it’s a waste of money, but I’m smart with the household budget, I can carve out the payments monthly and he’ll never know. I just need someone, you know, friendly. Who won’t sweat the signature. Who will let me slide on whatever medical tests are required. You must know someone like that. It’s mainly for my peace of mind. You know how, if you take an umbrella, it never rains, but when you risk it, you get soaking wet? Besides, Ditmars is healthy as an ox.”
Of course, even an ox can’t survive a knife through his heart. But Irving wasn’t deconstructing her words just then. Irving was on top of her, showing her how friendly he could be. Sure, I’ll find someone to write you a policy. A million dollars for some dumb cop’s life. Why not? It wasn’t like an arson investigator put himself at that much risk, not one like Ditmars. The only way Ditmars put himself in danger was by sleeping with other cops’ wives, hanging out with drug dealers and murderers. Irving doubted she’d be able to make the monthly payments anyway. Then, when Ditmars did die, he assumed she wouldn’t be able to collect, given the circumstances.
But she had outsmarted him by making the daughter the beneficiary of that policy. And now she has outrun him, or tried to. She seemed so weak, so vulnerable. She had needed him. Briefly, just for one afternoon, he let himself think that she wanted him. He knows better now.
He sighs, writes a check to Adam Bosk for his July expenses, then pays the August retainer. He’ll give him until Labor Day, then pull the plug.
Maybe in the end, all money is bad money.
15