of the cut crystal glass. She had stopped putting in ice two hours ago, and now, as she swallowed it, she sloshed some of the clear liquid on her pink robe. She looked down at her painted toenails. The last delicate appendages on Anita Richards, they were attached to plump feet and stocky ankles. Suddenly her toes went in and out of focus.
'Shit,' she said out loud, 'I'm drunk.' Then she closed her eyes and got a bad case of bed spin. She opened her eyes and the room swung like a chandelier in a windstorm.
'Anita is elated,' Haze was saying happily on TV. 'She and I have worked long and hard for this day. It's her victory as much as mine.'
Anita held on to the bed and her sanity with tearful desperation.
Chapter 45
It was just before sunset when Lucinda ran the rubber Avon up to the dinghy dock in Avalon Harbor. The harbor reminded her of an Old World painting. The ba y w as a huge horseshoe with red-and-white mooring can s s trung in the water in semicircular rows like party decorations. A brightly painted green pier and a turn-of-the — century dance hall stood guard on opposite sides of th e b ay. It was the off-season and the boat traffic was light.
She tied up the dinghy and walked on bare feet into the tourist section of town and asked an island policeman to direct her to a good meat market.
'Tannyhill's, on the corner of Descanso and Third, is my favorite. They're open till ten,' he answered.
'Thank you,' she said. 'And is there a hospital on the island?'
'Right up Falls Canyon Road.' He pointed at a narrow street that wound up the hill.
She decided to go to the hospital first. She needed to find a doctor soon to look at Ryan's leg.
The Avalon Municipal Hospital was a Mexican-style one-story structure with an arched front door and a red file roof. Lucinda opened the screen door and looked into a bare but clean reception area.
'Anybody here?' She heard a door slam, and then a young woman wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt came in from the back and stuck her hand out.
'I'm Dr. Andrea Lewis.'
'I'm Lauren,' Lucinda said, suddenly deciding it would be a mistake to give her real name.
'How can we help you, Lauren?'
'My boyfriend has a bad leg and it was sewn up by a doctor back east, but it may need to have the dressing changed, and I was wondering if I could bring him in here and you could look, at it.'
'I'm not a specialist, but I'll be happy to have a look,' Dr. Andrea Lewis said, smiling. 'What kind of 'bad leg'?'
'He was in an accident a few days ago. It got ripped open and they had to do a lot of reconstruction.'
'Sounds like he should be in a hospital. Where you staying?'
'The motel in town,' Lucinda lied, beginning to realize these questions could be dangerous if somebody came looking for them.
'Which motel?'
'The. . uh. . the little one. . '
'The little one,' Andrea repeated flatly, the smile fading.
'Okay, look, we're not married and his parents are real strict, and he's afraid they're going to make him come home if they find him,' she said, realizing how stupid it sounded the minute she said it.
'If you want, I'll look at him. What's his name?'
'Bill. Bill Williams.' She was fucking this up terribly. She felt her face reddening. 'Maybe we could come in the morning. . '
'I'll be here,' Dr. Lewis said. Lucinda smiled, then turned and got the hell out of the hospital. She could feel the doctor's eyes on her back as she moved down the road.
She bought the steaks at Tannyhill's Market, and some frozen vegetables she could zap in the microwave, lettuce, and the ingredients for salad dressing. She got California Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon and watched as the clerk bagged it all and took fifty dollars of Elizabeth's money. As she left the market, she saw a pay phone across the street. Suddenly, she felt she had to talk to her mother. She crossed to the phone, took some change out of her pocket, and dialed her home in New Jersey. She could feel her heart pounding. If Mickey answered, she would just hang up, she reasoned. Her hands were shaking, but she needed to hear her mother's voice. The phone rang five times and she was about to hang up when Penny came on the line.
'Mom, it's me. I wanted to tell you I'm okay and I'm sorry if I've made you worry.'
'Lucinda, where are you? I want you to come home.'
'I can't, Mom. I just can't. You have to trust me. But I miss you and I love you. And I'll call again, soon.' 'Come home, Lucinda,' Penny said, her voice cracking w ith emotion. 'I miss you, honey.'
'I can't, Mom. Please understand. I gotta go now, but don't worry about me. I just called to say I love you.' She hung up quickly, unable to endure her mother's plead-. ing.
She headed the small Avon into the light swells, and after a mile could see the ketch, lit by mastlight and moonlight. She pushed away her worries as she hurried back to fix Ryan's dinner.
Mickey scrolled the Pin Tel until he found the number that had just called. He'd removed the phone speaker from the headset in his office two days ago, so his breathing would not betray him as he listened in on random calls. He had just overheard the conversation between his sister and mother. Lucinda had not given away her location, but the Pin Tel did.
He picked up the phone and dialed the number on the printout screen. Mickey let it ring almost twenty times before a young man's voice came on the line.
'What's happenin'?' the unfamiliar voice said. 'Where is this phone?'
'Pay phone, man. I was walking by, I picked it up.' 'Where is it?'
'Catalina Island, across from Tannyhill's Market.'
By ten o'clock that night, the Ghost was on his way to California to finish the job Thirteen Weeks and New York Tony had both bungled.
Chapter 46
Haze Richards and A. J. Teagarden left the Memphis Hilton at four-forty-five A. M., before anybody was awake. They rode in silence in the back of the hotel limousine in a dense fog, traveling down mist-wet streets toward the Memphis International Airport. They had a bi g p roblem to solve.
They arrived at the private jet terminal a few minutes before five and were let out onto the field. The limo parked under the wing of their rented 737 and Haze and A. J. climbed the steps into the back of the empty plane.
'This is fucked,' Haze finally said when they were alone.
A. J. was not sure how much to tell him. 'How badly do you want to be President?'
'Cut the shit.' Haze slumped down in his window seat. 'If she drags you through a divorce, it's over.'
Haze said nothing.
'She doesn't think you're fit to govern. . Her words, not mine. This is a public relations nightmare. The press will feed on it. She'll get forced onto TV. She'll be angry, she'll accuse you of stuff, your female demographics will drop lower than a midget's balls.'
'Get off it.' Haze glowered.
