“What game?”
“The only one men my age care about—relevance. But don’t worry. I’ll deal with him. Right after I go see a friend of mine.” He handed Matty the joint. “Better hide that.” Then he stood and brushed out the creases from his pants. “Meanwhile, you better get inside and change into fresh clothes—your mother’s coming home.”
Oh, right. Better take a shower, too.
Teddy left in his car. Matty went into the house and was stopped before he made it to the bathroom.
“Well?” Frankie said.
“Twenty-eight, eleven, thirty-three,” Matty said.
18 Teddy
Somehow, without noticing it, he’d stopped throwing himself into love with a new woman every day. He’d forgotten his habit like an umbrella left behind in a restaurant, unmissed because the rain had stopped. It was absurdly late—late in summer, late in life—to realize that he’d abandoned his quest for a daily fix. Yet here he was, alone in a gleaming fortress of a kitchen on a Sunday morning, feeling like he was sitting in sunlight. All because of a random encounter with a woman in a grocery store.
Since Maureen had died he’d felt no need to get to know a woman, only to love her, briefly and intensely, and move on. And it was clear, after entering this house, that even if Graciella managed to love him, she wouldn’t be happy sharing his ramshackle life. Just look at this room! A quarry’s worth of granite, interrupted only by hunks of stainless steel, set on a plain of ceramic tile. His coffee cup rested on a slab of teak as big as a drawbridge. In these modern mansions, the kitchen served as both factory and showroom, like one of those Toyota plants staffed by robots. Even the phone he was talking on felt more expensive than one of his watches.
“That’s my final offer,” he said. “One test.”
“I’m bringing in Archibald,” Destin Smalls replied. “That’s nonnegotiable.”
A child ran into the room, yelling something about batteries, and stopped dead when he saw Teddy. It was the smallest one, about eight years old, the one he’d seen at the soccer game. Alex? No, Adrian. Teddy hadn’t seen or heard the other two boys since entering the house. He doubted he could find them if he went looking for them; the estate spanned time zones.
“You’re Teddy,” Adrian said.
“Mr. Telemachus to you. And I’m on the phone.” To Smalls he said, “So do we have a deal?”
The agent took a long time to answer. Smelling a trap? Maybe, but he was so hungry.
“Deal.”
Teddy hung up the phone, satisfied. One task finished—or at least on hold for now.
“Mom says you do magic,” the boy said.
“I do magic tricks. There’s a difference. But I only do them for money.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Oh, you have money,” Teddy said. “Just look at this house.”
The kid didn’t get it. “Can’t you show it to me for free?”
“Sorry. No cash, no trick.”
“That’s mean.”
“Yes, but it’s the kind of mean that teaches you something.”
Graciella reappeared from the basement, holding that green cartoon lunch box. The boy wheeled toward her and said, “He won’t show me a magic trick.”
“Leave Mr. Telemachus alone. We’re going to tae kwon do now. Go get your uniform.”
“What’s in there?” the boy asked, reaching for the lunch box.
She lifted it out of his reach. “Robe and belt. Go!”
She watched him run out of the room. “He doesn’t understand what’s happening. I’m trying to do the right thing, but I’m never sure what they can handle. If they were older, they might be able to handle it.”
“You never stop worrying,” he said. “You never stop being their parent.”
She sat down absently, still contemplating the damage. Being this close to her intoxicated him. He loved the way she smelled. The gleam of her tanned legs. Her painted toes. He even loved the way her brow furrowed.
“Take my grown son,” Teddy said, to distract her from her nervousness. “He’s got himself into a mess.”
“Buddy? He did seem a bit…”
She didn’t want to finish that sentence, and Teddy let her off the hook. “Naw, Buddy’s just crazy, it’s Frankie who’s the trouble magnet. I’m just hoping his bad habits haven’t rubbed off on Matty.”
“He’s in trouble, too?”
“He’s been experimenting a little,” Teddy said. “Got mixed up with the wrong kind of people, drew some attention from the authorities.” This may have been the finest nonexplanation he’d ever delivered.
“Is that why Irene’s upset?”
“Irene’s upset? Did she say she was upset?” He’d kept his daughter out of all of the Matty business. He needed her focused on the Nick thing, not worrying about spies and agents.
“She hadn’t called me since she came back from her trip, so I called the house,” Graciella said. “She gave me an update on what she’d found with the company papers, but she sounded…wounded.”
“Irene’s touchy. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Graciella’s frown was there and gone in an instant. He didn’t know how to interpret that. If they were playing poker, it would have telegraphed that she’d picked a bad card, and he would have bet against her. But in the game of Real Women, he was forever a novice.
He said, “She’s sure working hard on those papers, though.”
“I guess that’s something.” She handed him the lunch box. “Hold this, I need to round these boys up.” She went to an intercom and pressed a button. “Adrian! Luke! We’re going to tae kwon do! Julian, you better have your homework done before I get back!”
A burp of static, and a voice said, “It’s a holiday weekend, Mom.” He sounded bored.
“Done before Sunday night, that’s the rule. The rest of you, I’m leaving in thirty seconds. Twenty-nine!”
She looked at Teddy. “Only a week into school, and Julian’s already behind.”
“He’ll be fine. You said the new school was better, right?”
Graciella walked Teddy to the front door. She glanced at the lunch box, winced. “I don’t like this, showing them to him.”
“He’s not going to believe unless he sees them. It’s too crazy otherwise.”
“So let’s say he believes, and he makes his promise. How do I believe him?”
“That’s why you’ve got to let me do the negotiating. I’ll know if he’s lying. I’ve got my secret weapon.”
“I’m sure Irene is really happy you talk about her like this.”
“You gotta admit, she’s a pistol. And not just for the mind reading. That girl’s a financial wiz.”
“I need her,” Graciella said. “No matter what happens in the trial Tuesday, the real estate office has to be clean from now on.”
The defense was about to rest. Bert the German and several others had already implicated Nick Junior in the murder. If Nick Junior didn’t testify against his father—and there was one last chance for him to take the stand, on Tuesday—then it was on to final arguments. The jury could hand back a verdict by the end of the week.
“Nick’s going to jail, or his father is,” Graciella said. “Either way, I’m not going back to him. I can’t have all this follow my boys around for the rest of their lives like a bad smell.”
Teddy wasn’t sure a grandson of Nick Pusateri Senior was ever going to smell like roses, but he kept that to himself. “You’re doing the right thing,” he said.
She unlocked the front door, nodded at the lunch box. “You think if I held on to that, he’d break into my home?”