"Do you have a shredder here?" Charlie asked.
"No. What's with you? Do you always work this hard? Doesn't your wife complain?"
"I'm not married."
"Figures." Wow! Cassie's heart soared. No wife. She was actually truly excited by the news, even as she realized that what interested Charlie in the garbage were Mitch's old computers. It hit her that that's where her husband may have hidden his foreign bank account numbers.
"When does the garbage truck come?"
"Not till Friday."
"Good." Charlie had his briefcase with him.
Cassie wasn't good enough at this spy stuff. She should have thought of this sooner. "What's in the bag?" she asked.
"Price lists."
"Oh, gee." She shook her head. This guy was a maniac. "There's not enough in two hundred cases of wine to make up your missing millions," she said. A few hundred thousand, maybe.
"You never know." Charlie smiled. "You could hide anything in those cases. Cash, diamonds, cocaine." He shrugged.
"Oh please. Now he's a drug dealer. Why are you doing this tonight? Do you really think I'm like Mona, that I'd move anything today?"
He pointed at the computers.
She pointed at the National Geographics. "I was just cleaning up. Really."
"Well, you might have thrown out something important. Sorry, Cassie. I really am."
"Oh, go to hell." He was here for the spy stuff. Disgusted, she turned and went into the house, wanting to kick herself for not thinking of those computers first. Numbered accounts. If she'd had a brain, she could have found them herself. Cash in the cases, she'd never thought of that, either.
He followed her in, the suddenly unmarried man. "Was it a rough night?"
"Yes, Charlie, it was a rough night. Everybody loved him. I'm really tired."
"Me too." Charlie sat down at the table in the kitchen.
Cassie pressed her lips together. "Really tired, Charlie. I can't do this tonight."
"Me too," he repeated. He got up for a moment and she thought he was going to leave after all. Her first real prospect in thirty years was taking a powder. Suddenly she felt terrified, let down, as if she'd messed up an important date. But he just took off his jacket, hung it on the back of his chair. Loosened his tie, unbuttoned the button-down collar of his shirt, pulled the tie over his head, and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. Charlie was pretty obsessional. Almost as an afterthought, he unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt, too, then sat down again.
What was going on? Cassie was barefoot now. She was wearing black silk pants, a little black sleeveless knit top. Nothing too dressy. Her old Sublime perfume. Her plain gold wedding ring. She felt a little sick, wanted that wine, the food Marsha had put in the refrigerator. She didn't want to think about cash or stock or company woes, or anything else. She wanted to go to bed with her spy. The thought struck her suddenly: Sex was her very first choice.
Charlie had something else in mind, though. From his briefcase he pulled out the stack of credit cards he'd taken from Mona's jewelry box. He removed the rubber band and examined the receipts folded around them. Barneys, Bergdorf's, Armani, Sulka. He smiled, then picked up the phone.
"What are you doing now, Charlie?" Cassie's heart was beating in her cheeks again. She had these ideas. They made her stomach ache and her head spin.
"What's Mitch's date of birth?" he asked, producing his PalmPilot.
"Eight, eighteen, forty-five." She was nothing if not obedient. Touch me, she thought.
"Social Security number?"
"034-98-8441."
"Mother's maiden name?"
"Charles." She blushed.
"No kidding?" Charlie laughed. He responded to a few prompts and finally spoke to a human. "Oh yes, hello, Rita, this is Mitchell Sales, account 3458-93-67-0112. Uh-huh. Charles. 8441. Zip code…" He turned to Cassie. "Darling, what's our zip?"
Cassie gave him the zip code of the warehouse. Her heart was beating, beating. The spy had called her "darling." She liked it. Him. Really liked him. She could smell the starch in his shirt, still there after the long day. She wanted to taste him, to kiss the blue eyes. What was she thinking?
Charlie passed Mitch's privileged information along to Rita at American Express. "Uh-huh. Thank you. I'd like to close down the account… no, no. There's no problem, Rita, none at all. I just don't want any more charges to the account until it's paid off. Thank you. I know it's a revolving account. I still want to close it." He put the black American Express Centurion card on the table and picked up the platinum one.
"Yes, Rita, there is something else you can do for me. I have another AmEx account. Yes, that's it. I want to close that account, too." A few minutes later he put the platinum card on the table. He went through the exercise with all the major credit cards, speaking to Ronnie, Roberta, James, Alfred, Betty, Sandra, and Tim.
While he was working, Cassie ran downstairs to the cellar for a bottle of wine, which she promptly opened. She took out two balloon glasses. Huge ones. The wine was supposed to breathe for a while, but she couldn't help herself. She poured some into both glasses, swirled hers, stuck her whole face into it, and breathed deep. The passion of her whole long-lost life filled her with its bouquet. Gimme that wine, she thought, just like Bob Marley. She couldn't wait a second longer. She took a sip, rolled it over her tongue and around her mouth, allowing the complex flavors to fill her palate. She swallowed and savored. The plummy earthiness lingered on. Wow. This was a big wine. Next to her was a big man, too. Both were very good vintages. She nodded at his glass and he sampled, nodded.
"Good, huh." She continued sipping and swirling and savoring while Charlie worked. She marveled at the way men could get away with anything. Anything at all. She hadn't even been able to change her own telephone number. Mitch had been the account holder of that, too.
Charlie poured himself his second glass and made a pile of department store cards with customer service departments that were open only between nine and five. "Tomorrow," he promised her. "Feel better now?"
"Very impressive. Thank you. Tomorrow? Really?" Cassie was inflamed, seriously aroused, by the wine, the show of power, and goodwill.
"See, I'm not such a bad guy." He gave her one of his smiles, patted her hand, left his hand over hers, raised an eyebrow. Was it all right?
Sure. She turned her hand over so their palms met. Sure, it was all right. He had a warm hand, strong, with long, slender fingers. He laced their fingers together, and heat flamed through her. Oh my, where did that huge feeling come from?