The room itself—with its enormous fireplace, leather-upholstered chairs, and English landscape paintings—provided a bizarre contrast to the Lolita-like figure who might soon inherit it. Or maybe not such a contrast after all, considering that the house was probably no older than Alyssa, and its outward appearance no more than a clever contrivance.
“Kinda like a museum,” she said, “but the sofa is nice and soft. I love the way it feels on my legs. Try it.”
Before he could choose a place to sit—anywhere but the sofa—his phone rang. He checked the ID. It was Madeleine, right on time. He stared at the screen with an expression of consternation, as though the caller were the last person he wanted to hear from, before pressing TALK.
“Yes?” He paused. “No.” He paused again before repeating, angrily now, “I said no!” He pressed END CALL, put the phone back in his shirt pocket, looked at Alyssa and erased his frown. “Sorry for the interruption. Where were we?”
“We were about to get comfortable.” She sat at one end of the sofa and gestured invitingly toward the cushion nearest her.
Instead he sat in a wing chair, separated from her by a coffee table.
She let a pouty little look come and go. “You want something to drink?”
He shook his head.
“Beer?”
“No.”
“Champagne?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Martini? Negroni? Tequini? Margarita?”
“Nothing.”
The pouty look again. “You don’t drink?”
“Sometimes. Not now.”
“You sound so tense. You need to—”
His phone rang again. He checked the ID, confirmed that it was Madeleine. He let it ring three more times, as though intending to let it go to his voice mail; then, in an apparent burst of impatience, he pressed TALK. “What is it?” He paused. “This is not the time … For Christ’s sake …” He paused, looking increasingly annoyed. “Look. Please. I’m in the middle of something. Yes … No … NOT NOW!” He pressed END CALL and replaced the phone in his pocket.
Alyssa gave him a sly smile. “Girlfriend problems?”
He didn’t answer, just stared at the coffee table.
“You need to relax. All that tension, I can feel it over here. Is there anything I can do?”
“It might help if you got dressed.”
“Got dressed? I am dressed.”
“Not noticeably.”
Her lips parted in a slow, deliberate grin. “You’re funny.”
“Okay, Alyssa. Enough. Let’s get to the point. Why did you want to see me?”
The grin was replaced by the pouty look. “No need to sound so unfriendly. I just want to help.”
“How?”
“I want to help you understand the reality of the situation,” she said earnestly, as though that answer clarified everything. When Gurney just stared at her and waited, she switched back to the grin. “You positive you don’t want a drink? How about a tequila sunrise? I make a fantastic tequila sunrise.”
He reached with obvious casualness to his hip, scratched a nonexistent itch, and switched on the digital recorder affixed to his belt, awkwardly hiding the soft click under a loud cough.
Her grin broadened. “If you want to shut me up, sweetie, that’s the way to do it.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Beg pardon?” There was a glint of cold amusement in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” He projected as best he could the expression of a guilty man trying to appear innocent.
“What’s that cute little thing on your belt?”
He glanced down at his side. “Oh, that’s …” He cleared his throat. “That’s actually a recorder.”
“A recorder. No shit. Can I see it?”
He blinked. “Uh, sure.” He unclipped it and held it out across the coffee table.
She took it, studied it, switched it off, and laid it on the sofa cushion next to her.
He put on an anxious frown. “May I have that back, please?”
“Come and get it.”
He looked at her, at the recorder, back at her, cleared his throat again. “It’s a routine thing. I make a point of recording all my meetings. It can be very helpful in avoiding disputes later about what was said or what was agreed to.”
“That so? Wow. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to record this meeting, too.”
“Yeah? Well, like Santa said to the greedy little boy, fuck you.”
He looked disconcerted. “Why is it such a big deal?”
“It’s not a big deal. I just don’t like being recorded.”
“I think it would be better for both of us.”
“I disagree.”
Gurney shrugged. “Okay. Fine.”
“What were you going to do with it?”
“Like I said, in case there was some dispute later …”
His phone rang for the third time. Madeleine on the ID. He pressed TALK.
“Jesus, what now?” he said into the phone, sounding thoroughly ticked off. Over the next ten seconds he imitated a man about to lose it completely. “I know … Right … Right … Jesus, can we talk about this LATER?… Right … Yes … I said YES.” He took the phone from his ear, glared at it as though it were the source of nothing but problems, poked at a spot close to the END CALL button without breaking the connection, and put the still-transmitting phone back in his shirt pocket. He shook his head and shot Alyssa an embarrassed glance. “Jesus.”
She yawned, as though there were nothing more boring on earth than a man thinking about something other than her. Then she arched her back. The movement raised what little there was of her shirt, exposing the bottom of her breasts. “Maybe we ought to start over,” she said, nestling back into her corner of the sofa.
“Okay. But I’d like my recorder back.”
“I’ll hold on to it while you’re here. You can have it when you leave.”
“Fine. Okay.” He gave a sigh of resignation. “Back to the beginning. You were saying that you wanted me to understand the reality of the situation. What reality?”
“The reality is that you’re wasting your time, trying to turn everything upside down.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“You’re trying to turn the bitch loose, right?”
“I’m trying to find out who killed your father.”
“Who killed him? His whore cunt bitch wife killed him. End of story.”
“Kay Spalter, the supersniper?”
“She took lessons. It’s true. It’s documented.” She articulated the word reverently, as though it had magical powers of persuasion.
Gurney shrugged. “A lot of people take shooting lessons without killing anyone.”
Alyssa shook her head—a quick, bitter movement. “You don’t know what she’s like.”
“Tell me.”
“She’s a lying, greedy piece of shit.”
“Anything else?”
“She married my father for his money. Period. Kay is a money-fucker. And a general slut. When this finally dawned on my father, he told her he wanted a divorce. Bitch figured that’d be the end of the good life for her, so she ended his life instead. BANG! Simple.”
“So you think it was all about money?”
“It was all about that skeeve getting whatever she wanted. Did you know she was buying Darryl, the pool boy, presents with my father’s money? She bought him a diamond earring for his birthday. You know how much she paid for that? Guess.”
Gurney waited.
“No. Really. Guess how much.”
“A thousand?”
“A thousand? I wish! Fucking ten thousand! Ten fucking thousand dollars of my fucking father’s fucking money! For the fucking pool boy! You know why?”