He climbed into the truck and drove on to the Acropolis. Each time he saw the building, he liked it more: spend $50,000 on minor refurbishments and it would be a palace. Repoint the bricks, freshen up the stucco. A gang of Mexicans could work wonders in a week. Possession of the big, old, stately building had mysteriously enlarged Charles O’s own character; its air of permanence in the world was now his. Just looking at it made him feel bigger, older, grander. After parking across the street, he spent five minutes sitting in the truck, window down, drinking in the sight. Swollen with feelings he found impossible to name, he walked over and took the creaky elevator to the seventh floor.
Lucy was in. Dressed in tight jeans and a black silk blouse, she looked flustered.
“Look, Mr. Lee — about the video thing, I’ve been thinking, and—”
He held up his hand commandingly and said, “No video! Must ask you something!”
She crossed the room, sat down at her desk — a litter of papers, books, and pictures. “Yes?”
He remained standing. He needed the advantage of height.
“Maybe this come as big surprise but—”
“If it’s our l-l-l-lease—”
“No!” She mustn’t interrupt, or he’d lose his thread. “First time I see you in this apartment, I know you’re smart. You a writer — good writer. I read what you write about Bill, you got him all figured out. You a born American — know stuff I don’t. So I gotta ask you.”
“Yes?”
“Washington is community property state. You know community property?”
“Precious little, I’m afraid.”
“I got book about it. Means all assets and property acquired after marriage belong to man and wife, fifty-fifty. Book say that. Like I get married, make a million dollars, spouse get five hundred K. I buy parking lot, apartment building, spouse own half. Big money!”
He had her attention now. She was interested, smiling.
“Spouse get rich — assets and property commingled! Word in book, I looked it up. ‘Commingled.’”
“I can see how that might be a problem.”
“No problem! See, guy like me, guy with property, need spouse. Time to marry! Need good homemaker. Like entertaining, I got business associates, dinner party, reception, all kinda stuff. See? I need wife. Look at Bill — him and Melinda. Sam and Helen. Time is come. Lucky this is community property state, huh?”
“Well, depending on how you look at it, I suppose.”
“I think lucky.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
She was really smiling now. She’d got his drift. No more fluster, she was listening keenly.
“Not generous. Make good sense. Spouse be nice to big guy from like New York, D.C., whatever — more money in bank! Fifty-fifty, like I said.”
“So who are you planning to marry, Mr. Lee?”
“Lucy, moment I see you, voice inside me say ‘She the one.’”
“Mr. Lee! Please! D-D-D-D-Don’t—”
“Stop! I finish!” He shouted her down. She sat tensely on her chair, smile frozen on her face, staring. “You old — no problem. You little big — no problem. You got Alida — great. Smart kid like that, I pay for Harvard College. Fifty-fifty, Lucy. Commingled.”
“Mr. Lee!” Her voice was a shriek.
“Come like shock, huh? Big decisions I always sleep on like overnight. Time to think, right? I give you time to think. Lucy?”
Her hand was at her mouth, her shoulders shaking. She was overcome with emotion — of course she would be, hearing it for the first time like that. Charles O knew from movies what to do. He stepped across to her, was about to put his hands on her shoulders and draw her close, when he saw she wasn’t crying. She was laughing.
10
“OH GOD,” Lucy said to Tad in his apartment, five minutes later. “It was word for word out of that scene in Pride and Prejudice when the ghastly Reverend Collins proposes to Elizabeth Bennett.”
“Or Titania and Bottom, except the other way around, if you see what I mean. Remember my Bottom, at the Rep?”
“I was in hysterics. It was like, oh Jesus! we’re really fucked now — at least Alida and me. The guy’s Chinese. I swear I read somewhere that to laugh at a Chinese man is practically punishable by death. I couldn’t have insulted the poor bastard more. He slammed the door so hard I thought he’d ripped it off the hinges. Then running down the stairs like a fucking avalanche. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! My stupid fucking fault. I just couldn’t control myself.”
Tad had his arms around her. “Everybody corpses sometimes. And it’s always the worst time. Love scenes and death scenes are the ones that bring it on. I corpsed once in the middle of Juliet talking sweet nothings about Romeo — I was the nurse, in drag. Just couldn’t help myself. It was terrible: I was in purdah for weeks.”
“Why did he have to pick me? I must be nearly twice his fucking age!”
“Well, along with all your other charms, he wants your citizenship.”
“What d’you mean?”
He told her about the Office of Vital Statistics, the call from the bank, the stolen Social Security number.
“Well, aren’t you the clever gumshoe? What are you going to do, then, turn him over to the INS?”
“Have you ever seen the INS jail down by Union Station? They’ve got hundreds of Hispanics locked up in there. You see them standing at the bars like animals in cages, crying, yelling out messages to friends and relatives. Every time I go past, my blood ices up. I hate the INS. I hate the INS more than I hate Lee, even more than I hate the fucking FBI. For pure, cold, bureaucratic cruelty, I’d give the INS a perfect ten. So no, not yet, not now, and if and when I do, I’ll hate myself even more than I hate the INS.”
“I don’t see the use of knowing he’s an illegal unless we can get him deported.”
“Try thinking like your new pal Kissinger. Lee’s got the bomb and we’ve got the bomb: mutual deterrence, mutually assured destruction. Détente. I kind of like the idea of playing Henry — Iago with a funny accent.”
Later, he told her, “I copied everything and put the papers in my bank, so you’ll know where they are. Just in case.”
She said, “I don’t see how we can go on living here, not after what happened.”
“So maybe we move out. But if we move, we move on our terms, not his.”
When she said we she meant Alida and herself; when he said we he meant the three of them — the family. Lucy was surprised by the comfort she took from that.
FINN, back in school, looked strangely older, paler, and even, Alida thought, a little thinner, though his smirk was permanently in place. His home PC had been confiscated, and he was forbidden access to the computer lab. The boys mobbed him with questions.
“The FBI don’t do juveniles,” Finn said, in the new vocabulary he’d acquired over the last two days. “It’s like federal law. They’re gonna send my papers to the state prosecutor. Guy’ll read ’em and see if he’s got a case.” He saw Alida on the outskirts of the group. “Who you staring at, dude?”
Even the teachers seemed in awe of his fame. There was no “Wake up, Finn!” or “Let’s hear from Finn — just this once.” Alida’s mom had shown her a whole article about Finn — again, he was disappointingly unnamed — in The New York Times that began right at the top of the front page: “11-Year-Old Hacker Has Experts Puzzled.” At morning assembly, the principal had warned the entire student body not to speak to reporters. Two policemen now stood outside to shoo away the TV vans that had tried to merge with the parents’ SUVs as they waited in line to drop kids off.