superior, a guy who happened to have a reputation as an office scoundrel and souse. She was literally squirming with discomfort.
She wasn’t talking so he amused himself by doing a boozy profile. She probably felt like an enabler, helping him lube up as fast as he could.
And she was probably falling for him. He could see it in her eyes, especially the first thing in the morning when she came into his office. Most women succumbed eventually. It wasn’t boasting, just a fact.
Right now she probably hated him for who he was and wanted him simultaneously. He did that to women.
In the small glow of a kerosene table lamp, his body compressed and softened like an unfired clay mold left outdoors on a scorching day. His face sagged, his shoulders rounded and he slumped on the shiny vinyl banquette.
“You’re supposed to talk to me,” he slurred. “You’re just sitting there, watching me.”
“Do you want to talk about the case?” she asked.
“Fuck no, anything but.”
“What then?”
“How about baseball?” he suggested. “You like the Mets or the Yankees?”
“I don’t really follow sports.”
“That so…”
“Sorry.” Through the windows she watched the running lights of a powerboat crawling past at headway speed until it was out of sight. His head was lowered; he played with the ice cubes in his drink, sending them into a vortex with his finger and when the glass was empty he crudely waggled his wet finger at the young waitress.
He tried to sharpen Nancy’s blurring features by scrunching his forehead. “You don’t want to be here, do you?”
“Not particularly.”
He made her flinch when he banged the table with the heel of his hand, too hard and too loudly for decorum, turning heads. “I like your honesty.” He scooped up some nuts and crunched on them, then brushed the salt off his greasy palms. “Most women aren’t honest with me till it’s too late.” He snorted as if he’d just said something humorous. “Okay, partner, tell me what you’d be doing tonight if you weren’t babysitting me.”
“I don’t know, helping with the dinner, reading, listening to music.” She apologized. “I’m not a very exciting person, Will.”
“Reading what?”
“I like biographies. Novels.”
He feigned interest. “I used to read a lot. Now I mostly watch TV and drink. Want to know what that makes me?”
She didn’t.
“A man!” he cackled, “A goddamned twenty-first-century male Homo sapiens!” He slammed more nuts into his mouth, truculently folded his arms across his chest and curled his mouth into a toothy shit-eating grin. From Nancy’s stony reaction, he knew he was going too far, but he didn’t care.
He was getting good and drunk and too bad if she didn’t like it. The waitress had a small gold crucifix which swung and knocked against the top of her deep cleavage when she put down another scotch. He leered at her. “Hey, you wanna come home with me to watch TV and drink?”
Nancy had had enough. “I’m sorry, we’ll take the check,” she said as the waitress scurried off. “Will, we’re leaving,” she announced sternly. “You need to go home.”
“Isn’t that what I just suggested?” he drawled.
The “Ode to Joy” rang from his jacket. He groped until he was able to extract the phone from his pocket. He squinted at the caller ID. “Shit. I don’t think I should talk to her right now.” He handed it to Nancy. “It’s Helen Swisher,” he whispered as if the caller were already listening.
Nancy pushed the talk button. “Hello, this is Will Piper’s phone.”
He slid from the booth and weaved toward the men’s room. By the time he returned, Nancy had paid the bill and was waiting for him beside the table. She decided he wasn’t too wasted to hear the news. “Helen Swisher just got David’s client list from his bank. He had a Las Vegas connection after all.”
“Yeah?”
“In 2003 he did a financing for a Nevada company called Desert Life Insurance. His client was the CEO, a man named Nelson Elder.”
He had the appearance of a man trying to steady himself on the deck of a storm-tossed boat. He swayed unsteadily and loudly pronounced, “Okay then. I’m gonna go out there, I’m gonna talk to Nelson Elder and I’m gonna find the goddamned killer. How’s that for a plan?”
“Give me the car keys,” she demanded. Her anger pierced his inebriation.
“Don’t be sore at me,” he implored. “I’m your partner!”
Out in the parking lot their senses were clobbered by warm gusts of salty wind and the pungent bouquet of low tide. Ordinarily, this one-two punch might have made Nancy dreamy and carefree but she looked like she was in a dark place as she listened to Will shuffling behind her like Fran-kenstein’s monster, drunkenly mumbling.
“Going to Vegas, baby, going to Vegas.”
17 SEPTEMBER 782
I t was harvest time, perhaps Josephus’s favorite season, when the days were pleasantly warm, the nights cool and comfortable, and the air was filled with the earthy smells of newly scythed wheat and barley and fresh apples. He gave thanks for the bountiful proceeds from the fields surrounding the abbey walls. The brothers would be able to restock the dwindling stores in the granary and fill their oaken barrels with fresh ale. While he abhorred gluttony, he begrudged the rationing of beer that inevitably occurred by midsummer.
The conversion of the church from wood to stone was three years complete. The square, tapering tower rose up high enough for boats and ships approaching the island to use as a navigational aide. The squared-off chancel at the eastern end had low, triangular windows that beautifully illuminated the sanctuary during the Offices of the day. The nave was long enough not only for the present community, but the monastery would be able to accommodate a greater number of Christ’s servants in the future. Josephus often sought forgiveness and did penance for the pride that bubbled up in his chest for the role he played in its construction. True, his knowledge of the world was limited, but he imagined the church at Vectis to be among the great cathedrals of Christendom.
Of late, the masons had been hard at work finishing the new Chapter House. Josephus and Oswyn had decided the Scriptorium would be next and that the structure would have to be greatly expanded. The Bibles and rules books they produced, and the illustrated Epistles of St. Peter written in golden ink, were highly regarded and Josephus had heard that copies made their way across the waters to Eire, Italia, and Francia.
It was mid-morning, approaching the third hour, and he was on his way from the lavatorium to the refectory for a chunk of brown bread, a joint of mutton, some salt, and a flagon of ale. His stomach was rumbling in eager anticipation, as Oswyn had imposed a restriction of only one meal a day to strengthen the spirit of his congregation by weakening the desires of their flesh. After a prolonged period of meditation and personal fasting, which the frail abbot himself could scarcely afford, Oswyn shared his revelation with the entire community which had dutifully assembled in the Chapter House. “We must fast daily as we must feed daily,” he declared. “We must gratify the body more poorly and sparingly.”
So they all became thinner.
Josephus heard his name called. Guthlac, a huge rough man who had been a soldier before joining the monastery, caught up with him at a run, his sandals slapping on the path.
“Prior,” he said. “Ubertus the stonecutter is at the gate. He wishes to speak with you at once.”
“I am on my way to the refectory for supper,” Josephus objected. “Do you not feel he can wait?”
“He said it is urgent,” Guthlac said, hurrying off.
