A Glimmer of Death Read online

  Studebaker. An old car, elegant in its day but long gone from the showroom. It was a cruel quip that made me wish I had the power of my cousins to lay this man flat on his fat behind with a nod of my head. But then, as if summoned by thought, the nutmeg drifted back—and I realized that my minor gift was all I could handle.

  “Real son of a bitch, isn’t he?” whispered Vinton, who left his spot next to Juda to settle back with me and Bertie. “He married that tart right around the time Juda thought he was going to propose to her. Nasty thing to do to somebody like J, sensitive as she is.”

  “Well, love does have its way,” I said, unable to think of anything else to say.

  “Humph.” Vinton wrinkled his nose like an aging rabbit. “I know what love is. I don’t know what they got, but it ain’t love.”

  The pain in Vinton’s eyes surprised me. Even without consulting Aunt Phoenix, I knew that love was the source of the glimmer that never left him.

  Nobody, including me, shared anything about our personal lives with others in the office. Most of my coworkers knew I was a widow but never asked about my loss and I never discussed Darryl. My feelings were still too raw to share with those I didn’t know. Vinton must have kept his pain inside him, too, and except for his spats with Bertie, never revealed much about himself. What about the others, I wondered. What hidden hurt were they keeping inside?

  “Mrs. Odessa Jones!” Charlie Risko bellowed my full name from behind the closed door. Everybody stiffened and avoided looking at me. “Mrs. Odessa Jones, it’s time for us to talk.”

  “On my way, Mr. Risko,” I said, hating how obsequious I sounded. This repulsive fool can’t bully me! I said to myself but was whistling in the dark. My fate was in Charlie Risko’s hands, and that scared the heck out of me. I gathered up my pad with my rental leads, took a deep breath, said a prayer, and went in to meet him.

  Chapter 2

  Charlie Risko’s office was the same curdled-milk color as the larger room, but its leaded windows and exposed ceiling beams gave it an old-fashioned, distinctive charm. The room was twice as large as the one I’d just left, with a back door that opened to the alley outside, and a private restroom. We had to use the disgusting public bathroom down the hall, which was supposed to be kept locked but was routinely broken into, and I avoided it. Risko sat in a luxurious black leather chair in front of a mahogany desk flanked on each side by chairs covered in red velvet. I chanced a look at the motorcycle gloves, resting in the space where he was known to place his gun, and shuddered. Thankfully, the gun wasn’t there. A third chair, straight-backed and cushion-less, was directly in front of the desk. He nodded toward it, and I sat down. The smell of nutmeg stopped me short. I took a breath and coughed.

  Risko looked me up and down like a soiled suit on the cheap rack, then chuckled like the joke was on me. “Don’t worry. I ain’t going to demand the money you’re going to owe me for your desk and insurance today. You got two months. Tell her what a nice guy I am,” he said to Tanya, curled like a cat in the plush chair on his left. She glanced up lazily, answering with a kittenish smile. “This is private, baby. I’ll get back to you in a hot minute.” When she stood up to leave, he gave her a hard slap on her behind with a lecherous wink that made me cringe. “Hope that didn’t offend you, Mrs. Jones. You ain’t one of those churchgoing ladies, are you?”

  I gave him an enigmatic smile, wishing again for my distant cousins’ knock-down skills.

  “I guess you know what this is about.” He narrowed his eyes. His stare entered the marrow of my bones. “I have a rule in this place. As you know, I give people six months to make a sale. You’re just about there. I can’t carry you people forever. Can’t have deadweight hanging around using the phones, typing on computers, drinking the Poland Spring . . .”

  “Breathing the air,” I mumbled, immediately regretting it.

  He gave me a lopsided grin. “That, too, I guess. You got to get off your ass and make some money. Make us some money. Somebody buys the cake, I get a slice, Uncle Sam gets a slice, you get a slice.”

  More like a crumb, I thought but kept it to myself.

  “So are we on the same page here, Mrs. Dessa Jones?”

  If he was expecting a response, he didn’t get it. I was too busy staring at the oaken beam just above his head. The nutmeg smell was coming from there; there was no mistaking it. Startled, he followed my gaze, then shivered like a wet towel had been slapped across the back of his neck. He quickly shifted his attention to a stack of papers on his desk. “Like I said, I’m just able to give you a month or so, then I’ll need to let you go. Or show you my gun,” he said with a smirk. “That will put some fire under you, right? Wish I could say the same for that bike-riding crook. No hard feelings?”

  “Right,” I mumbled.

  “That’s all I got to say. Get my wife back in here, okay?” he said without looking at me.

  Something had spooked him, and it had to do with the nutmeg. I studied the ceiling. Was a beam destined to fall down on him? That didn’t seem likely. It was an old building and they’d been up for years. An earthquake, maybe, breaking the windows?

  I glanced back at him. “Listen, Mr. Risko. I got a couple of good leads. I’ve made an appointment to show a two-bedroom rental next Monday, which looks like a winner, and I got more leads from Bertie and Harley. . . .”

  He scowled. “A rental? That’s no money. Don’t mention that thug Harley to me again, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  I wondered what was going on between him and Harley but knew better than to ask.

  “My wife. Don’t forget to tell Tanya, okay? Don’t forget, okay?” He sounded like a spoiled kid begging for candy.

  “I won’t. Thank you, Mr. Risko,” I groveled as I stood up.

  “Call me Charlie. Everybody does.” A boldfaced lie. Charlie was the last thing people in this office called him.

  “Okay . . . Charlie, thanks again!” I forced out the words, said a silent prayer of gratitude, and fast-stepped out of the room.

  Tanya Risko, grinning, was perched on the edge of the cubicle belonging to Dennis Lane, who apparently had just come in. Her high-topped boots casually touched his chair as she twisted a strand of hair, little-girl fashion, around her finger. Dennis studied her with a bored, tolerant smile. He was blond and clean-shaven, with long-lashed eyes and arched eyebrows, obviously shaped in a salon. I knew that because I’d spotted him in one down the block. Dennis’s jeans, as tight as Tanya’s leather pants, and his well-cut, studded denim jacket made him look like a rock star between sets with Tanya as his adoring groupie. They were two peas in the same spoiled pod, I thought uncharitably. Dennis scowled as I approached them. Tanya gave me a weak, surprisingly authentic smile.

  “Mrs. Jones, I’m sorry Charlie was rude to you.” She extended a hand too delicate for the oversized diamond weighing it down. “Sometimes he’s mean. Even to me. Especially when he’s having a hard day. Especially today. He didn’t try to scare you with that stupid gun, did he? Half the time, it’s not even loaded.”

  I shook my head that he hadn’t, and she looked relieved.

  “Every day is a hard day at Risky Realty,” Dennis muttered, turning on his cell phone.

  “Not every day, Denny. You know what happened two years ago. You were here then.”

  “What happened, Mrs. Risko?” I always put stock in significant anniversaries.

  “Please don’t call me that. It makes me feel old. Tanya, okay?”

  “Sure, Tanya. What happened?”

  “Stuart happened,” said Vinton from his cubicle, his subdued tone strangely reverent.

  “Stuart?” I asked.

  “Stuart Risko, his older brother, happened. He killed himself two years ago today. That’s what happened here,” said Vinton.

  “How?” I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me. Even as a kid, someone was always yelling at me to mind my own business. Pure and simple nosiness, Darryl called it.

  “Hung hims
elf,” Dennis said flatly. “On one of those beams in Risko’s office. Hung himself dead. Laverne was here that night, weren’t you? Working one of his damned crossword puzzles. He had to cut the guy down. Glad I was late. You remember that day, don’t you, Vinton? How you had to cut the guy down?” He said it with a sneering meanness that had no visible effect on Vinton but made me cringe. Why be so cruel with no reason? But I was right about the nutmeg; it had something to do with those beams. Yet that was two years ago.

  “Did you say something, Lane?” Vinton said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. He turned off his laptop, tossed a newspaper and a page of listings into his briefcase, and pushed his folding chair into his cubicle. “If the bastard asks, I’ll be back later to follow up. Tell him that,” he said.

  Dennis Lane watched him leave. “Hey, man, don’t forget that laptop. It’s a nice piece of equipment. Well, pretty ladies, I got an appointment. One of many,” he added, throwing Tanya a playful kiss as he stuffed papers into a briefcase. “Be good, Juda. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. And if you do, keep it to yourself. Tell your old man—I mean you, Tanya, not her—that we’ll talk later about what he said. Okay? Don’t forget.”

  Tanya nodded, strangely obedient.

  Dennis Lane’s request to Tanya reminded me of Risko’s, which I promptly delivered. “He sounded kind of desperate,” I added.

  “He’s always kind of desperate,” Tanya said, with a lingering glance in Dennis’s direction.

  I didn’t need the gift to tell me there was something going on between them. The uncomfortable silence that followed Dennis’s departure told me everybody else knew it, too. I glanced at Juda, feverishly studying her listings, and snuck a look at Bertie, who put down her hot-pink gloves just long enough to watch Tanya switch into her husband’s office. A look of concern and worry suddenly appeared on her face. I’d have to ask her about that concern when we were alone. It was hard to tell what any of these people really felt. I rocked back in my chair, asking myself once again just who these people really were.

  * * *

  When I took the job, I imagined I’d be coming to an office like the kind you see on TV—filled with lighthearted talk, good-hearted laughter, secrets kept and shared. It would be a place, I had hoped, that would help me get out of myself, somewhere I could escape the sadness that often hovered near—a comfortable space to cope with my lingering grief. But there was no warmth or camaraderie here—no shared drinks, birthday celebrations, holiday parties. Folks came in the morning, made calls on their cells, dashed out to lunch, and went their separate ways. People often got testy, like Bertie and Vinton this morning, and occasionally cruel, like Dennis’s words about Risko’s brother’s suicide. But mostly there was just a tense, polite silence that hung over everything. I knew next to nothing about these people I saw every day, and they knew less about me. There were two exceptions, however: Harley Wilde and Bertie Jefferson.

  Harley, always toting two latte grande coffees, usually came in late in the day. He kept one cup for himself and brought the other for me. The caffeine, along with his wide grin, always spiked my spirits. I didn’t know how Harley got his name but suspected it was because of his bike, which he loved with abandon. He was a generation or two behind me and Darryl—too old to be a son, more like a younger brother. Yet I suspected he was like Darryl had been at that age, floating cheerfully through life as if some benign spirit was keeping an eye on him.

  I resented Risko calling him a thug and was angry with myself for being too much of a coward to defend him. Harley was nobody’s thug, whatever that meant. A playful soul lurked behind the dark sunglasses, worn leather jacket, and helmet that topped his short dreadlocks. Like my cousin Samuel, whose wits never healed from a stint in Afghanistan, Harley, too, had left the war with injuries: He had a slight limp and occasional bouts of PTSD, but he’d bettered himself, and managed to earn an associate college degree. He was quick to anger and quicker to apologize, and, according to him, had done some bad things in his young life. I never asked what they were, and he never told me.

  Bertie Jefferson was nice to me from the first, probably because I listened to her when nobody else would. I chuckled when she told corny jokes and nodded sympathetically whenever she complained about Louella, her “heaviest burden.” When I finally met her daughter, I knew what she meant. Aunt Phoenix’s “glimmer” shadowed the girl like fog. It was deep purple, more blue than red, and I was grateful nobody else could see it. Despite the glimmer, Louella was a remarkably pretty girl with long-lashed dark eyes, curly hair, and flawless skin the color of milk chocolate. She’d been a beauty queen in college, and there were still hints of it in her graceful walk. Yet she was as wounded a spirit as I’d ever seen. When I was younger, I’d always assumed the glimmer was one of my aunt’s cherry-brandy inspired imaginings until I saw it floating around an evil uncle at a family gathering. Uncle Tim’s glimmer made my skin crawl; Louella’s made me cry.

  Bertie claimed that Louella, a high-achieving student athlete, had been “perfect” until she graduated from college. A few years later, she ended up pregnant with a baby, then strung out on OxyContin. Her habit pushed her out of her mother’s heart and into places Bertie said she didn’t want to know about. Bertie was overly protective of her granddaughter and prayed that she wouldn’t end up like her mother. I didn’t think Bertie had to worry. Erika, a distinctive-looking child with caramel-colored skin dotted with random freckles and gray eyes, struck me as an independent little soul who brought a smile whenever I saw her. I never asked how Louella got addicted, and Bertie never told me. I just knew that she’d thrown her daughter out of her house, and Louella had ended up spending time in a homeless shelter and occasionally on the street.

  And it was from that street whence Louella came this lazy afternoon. Vinton, back from wherever he’d been, was typing feverishly on his laptop. Juda was talking seductively to somebody on the phone. Bertie was surfing eBay, looking for a bargain. Dennis Lane was still at lunch. The Riskos were doing whatever they did. I was drowsy and felt like a nap. I’d missed lunch—that nutmeg smell had killed my appetite. Harley was late with my caffeine fix. When the front door opened, I hoped it was him, but it was Louella. Her glimmer surprised me. The purple color was nearly gone, far less than it had been before, hardly noticeable if you weren’t looking. Maybe whatever was tearing her down was losing its grip. Maybe something good was going on in the girl’s life. I threw Bertie a smile, but her face was tight with anger. Whatever Louella wanted to tell her mother, Bertie didn’t want to hear it.

  Slamming her laptop closed, she stood up, screaming at her daughter. “Didn’t I tell you never to come around here no more? Didn’t I tell you . . . ?”

  “I need to talk to you, Mom. I finally need to make things clear. You need to understand. . . .”

  “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. You are a curse to me and your daughter. Whatever you think is going to happen never will!” Bertie shot out the words, and Louella ducked them like bullets. “Get out of here. You’re not getting her back. You’re not getting back in my life. You’re not fit.”

  I assumed Bertie was talking about Louella caring for Erika—a running battle between the two.

  “I can take care of her now,” Louella said quietly. “I need her in my life. She’s my child, not yours. She can heal everything, everyone. Everything will be better. Mom, I’m trying to make . . . amends. I’m trying to make amends. I understand how I failed and who failed me. I need to make amends!”

  Her anguished words brought tears to my eyes; they didn’t have that effect on anybody else.

  “Ah! Amends! That magic expression,” Vinton muttered from his computer. “The girl must be in some kind of twelve-step program.”

  “Shut up, Vinton, and mind your own damn business. Ain’t nobody talking to you!” Bertie turned to face him in a rage.

  “Put your business in the street, somebody’s going to pick it up,” said Vinton.

&n
bsp; Cruelty is always contagious. Dennis had passed it earlier to Vinton, and now Vinton was passing it on to Bertie. Bertie hung her head, too weak to fight back.

  “I can’t talk in here, Mom. I don’t want to,” said Louella, her voice low.

  “Then go on back where you came from!”

  “I need to tell you things before they come back. I should have done it by now. I need to tell you everything that has happened, so you understand it all. Everything has changed now; it’s a miracle. What has happened is a miracle.”

  Miracle. I wondered what kind of miracle the girl was talking about, but the glimmer was different; maybe something special had happened.

  “There’s no miracle. Just a nothing wanting to ruin my life,” said Bertie.

  “I need to tell you before they come back,” Louella whispered.

  “Before who comes back? Who are you talking about?” Bertie’s voice was louder, harsher than before.

  Who was she talking about? I wondered. Tanya and Charlie? Harley? Dennis? All of them?

  “Why don’t you listen to your daughter so we can get some work done?” snapped Vinton.

  “The hell with you!” Bertie snapped back. Louella ran from the office and Bertie followed behind her. “The hell with all of you!” she screamed, then slammed the door.

  But the door wasn’t heavy enough to block the arguing, yelling, and crying that went on between the two women, and nearly an hour later Bertie returned, alone. She sat at a cubicle far away from everyone. Her head was hung low and she wrapped her arms around her body as if protecting herself from blows as she rocked from side to side. The glimmer that Louella had worn seemed to have settled on Bertie, who suddenly began to tremble so violently I moved closer to her, wanting to offer comfort.

  “Bertie, you okay?” I asked. She stared at the table as if she hadn’t heard me. “Can I do anything to help?” She shook her head, waving me away.