with civilized lighting and table service. That’s not asking so much for a birthday.
She applied pressure and I said
Gaylene stormed across the Magic Cart Company parking lot, demanding to know who this Vernon Scharp was who’d shown up saying I promised him a job.
“He’s a process server.”
“And how does serving processes qualify him to build golf carts?”
“I felt sorry for him,” I said. “Bringing people bad news must be a sad way to make a living.”
Gaylene stared up at me and twitched. She’s fifty or so and about four ten, and the plant workers are scared to death of her. Much of my fear of fiery little women stems from Gaylene.
“You plan on hiring every sad case you feel sorry for?” she asked. “Because if you are, I’m going to work for R. J. Reynolds.”
I’d hoped to mention Babs and Lynette, but this didn’t seem the time. “I won’t do it again.”
“Write the checks, Sam. Leave running the shop to me.”
Mrs. Gaines told me Billy was in Atlanta at the Sport Shoe Trade Show. I’d never met the woman and didn’t know if Billy had told her my story, so I felt funny about saying, “I’m your husband’s bastard son and your legitimate son tried to kill himself in my garage last night.” There’d been enough life-shattering conversations lately; I couldn’t handle another one.
“What should I tell Billy this is in reference to?” she asked.
“His name came up as a possible judge in the Coke versus Pepsi competition.”
“Billy only drinks root beer. Caffeine makes him irritable.”
“I’ll make a note of that.”
Moses Cone Hospital was only too happy to accept my credit card. I talked to a woman in patient billing and I’m not sure but I thought I heard a smirk behind her voice. The whole staff was probably gossiping about the man who fathered two babies in one day.
She asked my relationship to the patients and I said, “Benefactor.”
Next I called the Dyn-o-Mite Novelty Company to cancel the As-God-Is-My-Witness bumper sticker. So much for my anti-monogamy pledge. From now on side sex would be fraught with guilt, which is how it should be, I suppose.
Wanda’s voice crackled. “Have you no gratitude?”
“Hi, honey.”
“After all I sacrificed for us as a couple, you have the unmitigated gall to break into my home and steal my property.”
“My property, actually.”
“You did me wrong, Sam, and now you
“I notice you saved the autographed copy of
“The novels are trash, Sam. Only a whore writes genre fiction.”
“I saw your little video setup.”
Wanda’s controlled breathing oozed over the line. “My Art Erotica is none of your business.”
“Haul me into court and we’ll let the judge decide who’s creating art and who’s a whore.” I couldn’t help but wonder how charging Sam’s and Sammi’s births on my credit card would go over at a divorce hearing. Didn’t take a writer’s imagination to foresee messiness.
“I know you too well, Sam. You don’t have the balls to fight me.”
“Want to bet?”
She hung up.
Shirley poked her head through my office door.
“A man’s roaming the halls, looking for you.”
“I’m not here. Send him to whoever I would send him to if I was here.”
She scowled as if I’d insulted her intelligence. “I already did. He says he has to meet with you, personally. He looks like a politician.”
“Oh, God, it’s Cameron Saunders.”
“Should I tell him to go away?”
“Hell.” My mind raced through the boundless implications. Unlike Skip Prescott, who ran on heat and steam, Cameron wasn’t the type you could dodge until he lost interest. “Send him in.”
Tall, bald Cameron glided in on Cole Haan shoes. I own a pair, but I’m not pretentious so I don’t wear them. Cameron wore a three-piece suit that fit him perfectly and a tie so tasteful I could spit.
He said, “Mr. Callahan.”
I said, “Mr. Saunders.”
He stepped forward and spread a deck of Polaroid prints across my desk. I picked up the one on my far left, carefully, by the borders, so as not to smudge the picture of Katrina and me entering room 247 of the Ramada Inn. They all followed the same vein—Katrina and me coming out of room 247 with her hand on my butt, Katrina in her red-and-white cheerleader outfit, walking into the Manor House, a through-the-window shot of Katrina dancing while I hang naked on the wall with a pom-pom on my crotch. In each photo, she was smiling and I wasn’t.
“You hired another detective,” I said.
Cameron flashed his ice blue smile, smug as a snake on a rat. “Frankly, my man was following Katrina. You came as something of a bonus.”
I stood up and moved to the window. From behind a row of pines, a Piedmont Airlines plane lifted off, headed west, where I should have been.
Cameron spoke to my back. “My ambition is to run for Congress, for a start.”
“I knew you were a politician.”
“And I cannot afford a business partner whose wife causes scandals.”
“What does Skip think of you spying on his wife?”
“Skip doesn’t think.”
“He doesn’t know.” I watched the weather and waited for whatever was coming next. The problem, as I saw it, was I’d let myself fall into the hands of an unethical man who hated me while I loved his daughter. I smiled at my reflection in the window; that was nice, I loved his daughter.
Cameron leaned forward with three fingers forming a tripod on my desk. “Bottom line, buster. You are to leave Greensboro. You are never to speak of the incident in question to anyone. No newspapers. No TV. You better not even tell a priest, because I will find out and I will destroy you.”
One last look at the plane disappearing west, then I turned to face him. “Did you think to ask politely? I never intended going on TV.”
“This matter cannot be left to a bastard’s discretion. Politics is expensive, the party cannot risk you turning wise-ass the week before an election.”
“That’ll be the Republican Party?”
He said, “I needn’t spell out the consequences.”
“Spell them out anyway.”
“Skip Prescott.” Cameron’s upper lip glistened with a light film of sweat. I’d seen the same film on Gilia and thought it lovely.
“To tell the truth, Mr. Saunders, I’m not afraid of Skip. What exactly could he do?”
“His money can hire you a gob of grief.”
“My money can sue his shorts off.”
Cameron strummed his fingers as he studied the photos. His eyes came up to meet mine. “Gilia.”
