She told Mom she was going home for her robe and toiletries and was there anything else she needed. Marj said, with a feeble smile that stabbed Joan’s heart, that all the jewelry was gone, even the wedding ring Hamilton designed. Joan said not to worry, not to worry about anything but getting better, everything was insured, and that she was here now, her daughter was here, and wouldn’t leave her, all she wanted was that Marj use her energy to get better, that was the only thing that mattered. OK, Mom? So is there anything else you need? Anything you can think of? Marj said there were a few books by the bed, one about Jesus and his visit to India, another about Christian missionaries. Also, if she’d keep an eye out for her addressbook because she wanted to phone Cora and check on Pahrump but couldn’t for the life of her remember the number. Joan said she had it in her Treo, she had Cora’s number, and Stein’s too, and anyway she’d just seen Cora and would give her the message when she went back to Beverlywood. But did she want a special blanket or quilt? Something homey? Marj just smiled and shook her cracked, distended head, thanking her. You are the most wonderful daughter. Joan knew that she wasn’t and it broke her heart all over again. They cried and hugged. Marj said to be careful with the addressbook because tucked inside was a fortune cookie message “with important numbers” that she used whenever she bought a lottery ticket at Riki’s. Joan smiled and said, “Your secrets are safe with me, Ms Morningstar.”
THE house was musty. She opened a window. Then, suddenly mindful of the violent, mysterious intruder, slammed it shut; the glass trembled and paint flecked off the old wooden frame. She would get the detective’s take on all of it — who was this person, and was he likely to come back? Shouldn’t they be dusting the car for prints? That sort of thing.
A dress was on the bathroom floor, crumpled and soiled. There were new bags from Neiman’s and Barneys, with extravagant receipts inside. That seemed uncharacteristic. The tub was filled with dirty water. Stockings and underthings floated like ratty, lifeless swamp creatures. Everything smelled of excrement. Joan wrung them out and drained the bath.
She wandered from room to room, each one somehow permeated by her mother, as if she were walking through Marj’s body itself, and even though Joan had been there recently, it was such a long time since she’d actually looked with her eyes and her heart, so long since she’d stepped outside the castle of Self to consider Marjorie Rausch Herlihy née Donovan as a separate, living being, fading balletomane, frail and mortal, with longings, dreams, and desires, who’d suffered abandonment by one husband and death by another and the abandonment/death of her children too. Shame washed over her; Joan no longer recognized who she was. She may as well have been the thug who had violated the woman who bore her. Here and there were things from India she’d grown up around and still remembered from girlhood. Here and there were photographs, her father, Raymond, carefully excised, the technique divorced women sometimes favored, memories halved or quartered, images of Joan and her brother at an early age without either parent, when the proper editorial couldn’t be surgically achieved. There were unopened boxes of incense, and little wood-and-copper Buddhas that she liked to give away as “friendship” gifts.
On her mother’s nightstand, a tidy stack: The Life and Works of Jesus in India, The Da Vinci Code: The Illustrated Edition, The Automatic Millionaire, and Die Rich and Tax Free! Joan smiled when she saw a picturebook of the Taj Mahal, and decided to bring that along; maybe they’d make the trip afterall. Is that her consolation prize for the beating? You wretched cunt? You are such a cunt. Who are you who are you who are you—
It took longer to find the addressbook. The fortune cookie adage was indeed tucked within. Tiny lottery numbers — the last digit altered by Mom’s quivery cursive — were printed beneath: LOVE IS AROUND THE CORNER.
WHEN she returned to Midway, the detective was already talking with Marj — though it was hard to understand her through the clenched jaw — who was propped on pillows, and seemed animated, enjoying the company of a gentleman. Joan shook his hand then kissed her mother on the forehead and showed off the little suitcase she’d retrieved. (The same one Marj had packed for New York.) She pulled out the addressbook too, with a corny magician’s flourish, eliciting a broad, pained smile; then set everything down beside the chair. Joan noticed the IV had backed up with blood and rang for a nurse. Just then, the old woman was brought a liquid supper. (The fracture had been scheduled for repair tomorrow afternoon.) Joan said she was going to have a talk with her “gentleman caller” and would be right back. A volunteer, close to Marj’s age, helped arrange the tray on an overhanging bed table.
Detective Whitsell had a folder with a few phony documents Marj had been given by the people who had drained her savings, and assaulted her — he was convinced they were one and the same group. He shared everything he’d been able to piece together to date, which, in such a short time, seemed quite a bit: the initial, elaborate “Blind Sister” lottery scam; the “reload,” where Mrs Herlihy was asked to virtually empty her accounts; the “recovery room,” with an FBI twist, promising justice and restitution — the victim even brazenly asked to participate in capturing those who defrauded her; and finally, the blackmailing that began with the impersonation of Joan herself, the chaotic traffic accident and “miscarriage,” the superfluous on-scene personal injury attorney, and so forth, ending with the robbery of precious jewels and aberrantly sadistic beating of the helpless mark. The detective had only meager remnants of the gang’s handiwork (he’d worked a case 10 months ago that bore a striking resemblance) — receipts and other effluvia tucked in Marjorie’s pocketbook; she’d handed them over when he arrived — and doubted that a search of the house would reveal much more because the team would have wisely erased the paper trail, covering their evidentiary tracks. They were very, very good.
Joan hyperventilated as she listened, unable to suppress her rage and her soul sickness. She told Detective Whitsell that she had spoken with the lady at the “bank” and been completely fooled. He said the gang excelled at “phonework,” even using sound effects to make it seem like they worked out of large agencies or offices. He called them “stormchasers,” elaborating how they exploited any form of natural disaster or human weakness. For example, he knew that a splinter gang associated with the group that fleeced her mother was still working Katrina, siphoning money from bogus Web sites. “You can’t tell their homepages from the Red Cross’s. Some are Aryan Brotherhood, believe it or not—extremely well done. They’ve got viral embeds: click on ‘Hurricane Rebuild Update’ then Zap! your personal info is history. Your identity’s gone and you’ll never get it back. One guy set up a site before the storm hit Louisiana! (They should have made him head of FEMA.) Other scams are a little ‘dirtier,’ like the Nigerian stuff we see, the ‘419s.’ Misspellings, boldface pleas for money — is it boldface or baldface? — it’s baldfaced, right? — ‘I lost everything including my wife.’ That sort of deal. I’ve even heard of crews going down there to pick through garbage. And I don’t mean Mardi Gras ‘krewes.’ What they’re looking for are water-logged bank statements, Social Security cards, driver’s licenses, and the like. Hell, a buddy of mine caught one up at Lindy Boggs — the hospital? They go right in the nursing homes and pick through patient records. It’s pretty much beyond the pale.