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“Do you think Cash would kill Jimmy?”
She looked lost for a moment, almost in tears. “I don’t know. But if Jimmy had money on him . . .” She shook her head. “Money is Cash’s crack. Hell, he took his mother’s money. Who does that?”
That was a good question. “Did you give him any?”
“I didn’t give him squat.” She was quiet again and then she said, in a very low voice, “If Jimmy had money, Cash would go after it. He thinks he’s owed. All the money, all the power, all the attention.” She met my eyes again and said, “And Liz. He thinks he’s owed Liz, that she’s his soul mate, or something.”
She poured more vodka in the glass and checked her watch. “I’ve got to get ready for some friends. Are we done?”
I had one more question. “Is Cash using?”
She took a deep breath. “He’s getting crazier. Yeah, I think he’s using. Coke, mostly. He’s just fucking scary now. And so are you, Cooper. You can go now.”
The vulnerability I’d seen when I’d told her about Jimmy was gone now, so I wouldn’t be getting anything else from her.
I got up and walked toward the door, but added over my shoulder, “Don’t tip the doorman at Christmas.”
CHAPTER 28
After I kissed Vince good-bye, I went to the factory to finish sorting the papers. An hour later, I was numb from looking at invoices and sales reports and shipping reports, all business paperwork. Not a hint of personality in any of it, not even the odd note or grocery list on the back of a letter. Cleve must have had a great deal of self-control; I write all over any paper I can find.
I sat down in the old leather desk chair which could fit two of me—Cleve had been a large man—and leaned back. The wheels were a little squeaky and the back a little stiff, but it seemed fixable. I wondered if Cash would let me have it if I asked. My uncle’s chair. Then I wondered what he’d want in return and decided not to ask.
The afternoon light filtered through the big eye windows, peaceful and warm. The floors were hardwood, in need of polishing but otherwise in good shape. The proportion of the room was restful, not too big, not too small, the walls in that lovely blue, including the bookshelves. Okay, the walls were cracked and peeling, but still, a pretty blue.
I did wonder about the books, if maybe Cleve might have used something personal as a bookmark, but there were hundreds of books, it would take forever. Cash would either throw them out when he took over this office or just leave them for the look of them, three-dimensional wallpaper.
I got up to look at the bookcases, walking slowly in front of the shelves of business books and reference books and almanacs. I couldn’t see anybody reading them, but I decided I was going to have to go through all of them anyway. Three hours later, I got to the last section at the end of that wall. There was something odd about the books on the top shelf.
The first one was big, oversize, lying on its side:The Big Book of the Blues,part of a series called The Big Books of Music. I hadn’t known Cleve was interested in music, let alone played an instrument.
On top of it wasThe Blue Book: A Uniform System of Citation, from Harvard University. On top of that,The Blue Zones,a book about how to live longer;Walk the Blue Line,a book about cops;Blue Ocean Strategy, a book about marketing;Blue,a book on the science of the color; and on top of everything else,The Blue Fairy Book.
I might be able to justify the others on Cleve’s shelves on a stretch, but a book of fairy tales?
I dragged over a chair, climbed up, and took the whole stack down.
I was going to start with the biggest book, the one on jazz, but the fairy book slid off, and when I picked it up, it felt odd. I opened it and began to leaf through it, but twenty or so pages in, I found the problem: Part of the interior had been cut out to fit a smaller book with a blue hard cover with nothing written on it.
I pried the small book out and opened it. It was an accounting ledger. My mother had one where she kept every penny she ever earned or spent. Having looked at enough documents in the past two days, I recognized the ink and the weird way the writer had made his 5s: Cleveland Blue. Assets and debits and lots of numbers and dates. The left column was just three letters. Obviously, Cleve had known who each group stood for. He had written something in some kind of code and then hidden the book inside another book.
I looked about, half-anticipating Cash to come barging in and demanding to know what I was doing. I slid the blue journal back insideThe Blue Fairy Book,closed it, and put it into my bag.
Then, suddenly feeling very nervous, I got the hell out of there.
* * *
I drove backto my house. “My house”, that was a great phrase. It was different going there this time, I knew the way, I was getting used to how it looked, and I was even kind of liking the twelve steps up, a twelve-step program for leaving everything behind but me, just me. And I realized that was probably why Vince liked to go up to the ravine and sit on the railing.
Maybe I could get him to switch to my back porch. It was over a ravine, too.
My back porch.
“I have a back porch,” I said to myself, and then somebody knocked on the door, and I put my laptop bag down on one of the squishy chairs—must get side tables, I might have been too fast throwing the rickety ones out—and went to see who it was.
It was a complete stranger in a UPS uniform, carrying a tree. A small tree, granted, but one I recognized on sight. It had the same leaves as the one in my mother’s front yard.
“You Elizabeth Magnolia Danger?” the guy said.
