rather hear it from the horse’s mouth. When will you be back in L.A.?”
“This weekend. But I’ll be back here on Monday morning.”
“Would you like to meet on Sunday?” he offered, and Tallie sighed, thinking about it. She wanted to spend her time off with Hunt, not Victor, but she knew he’d drive her crazy till she agreed to meet with him. She might as well get it over with, and figured she could do it on Sunday morning when Hunt played tennis. It wasn’t how she wanted to spend her Sunday, but she agreed to meet him at ten-thirty at his office to answer his inquiries. He promised he’d make it quick. Brianna liked to go to the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel for Sunday brunch, and she wouldn’t be happy about his working either.
When Tallie went back to L.A. that night, Hunt had good news for her, and he was making a wonderful dinner.
“Well, we passed the audit with flying colors.” Hunt beamed at her. “Mr. Nakamura is happy with everything, and they’re going to draw up the papers next week. I guess that means that neither of us is going broke, nor a crook.” He kissed her and she smiled too, and told him about her meeting with Victor on Sunday. “I had one of those meetings with him this week too. I swear, he wants to know everything I ate at every restaurant and was I talking business while I did.” They both laughed about their persnickety accountant, but Tallie commented that she was sure he was why she had never had an audit by the IRS, because he was so precise and so honest, and Brigitte kept such good track of her books. Problems with the IRS would be a headache, and she had always assiduously avoided them by being honest and cautious. So it was worth putting up with how thorough Victor was, and sometimes how annoying.
“I’ll meet with him when you play tennis,” she told Hunt. “He said it would be quick. The last thing I want to do is spend my Sunday with Victor.” They both laughed at the idea.
Hunt and Tallie spent a relaxing weekend. Tallie caught up on some errands and things she wanted to do. It was nice to have some time in the city before she had to go back to Palm Springs again. She visited her father on Saturday afternoon, and spent several hours with him. He wanted to hear all about how the film was going, and they sat in his garden and chatted while she filled him in. And on Sunday, when Hunt went to play tennis, she went to Victor’s office for the meeting she had promised him. He was waiting for her in a suit and tie. Tallie was wearing torn blue jeans, her high-tops, and a faded sweatshirt whose only virtue was that it was clean.
“Thank you for coming in on Sunday, Victor,” she said politely. “My schedule is crazy right now while we’re on location. It sounds like everything went great with the audit. Our investor notified us on Friday that he’s satisfied. I really appreciate everything you did.”
“That’s my job,” he said, as he adjusted his glasses and sat down. He had a list in front of him on his desk. The questions that applied to the California Use Tax were on the top of his list. He reminded her that it applied to her daughter too, and that anything she bought in New York and brought back to California had to have state tax paid on it. It seemed like a terrible burden to Tallie, but it was the law. And she said that Brigitte kept a careful record of everything they bought out of state and reported it to him. Victor was relieved and said that many of his clients forgot and got in trouble for it later on. He had questions about employees, several independent contractors that he wanted to verify with her. And as he droned down the list, Tallie found herself thinking that he could have done a lot of it with Brigitte. He had recategorized the apartment in Paris as a personal rather than a business expense, and he reminded her that she could only take Max as a dependent as long as she remained a full-time student, which Tallie already knew. He had told her several times. And then he scolded her for the amount of money she spent in cash every month.
“I can’t use it as a tax deduction when I don’t know what you spend it on,” he complained.
“Ice cream, parking meters, Starbucks. I don’t think you’re missing any big deductions, Victor,” she said with a rueful look.
“You must drink a lot of Starbucks then. From what I can tell, you’re spending about twenty-five thousand dollars a month in cash.” He tried not to look disapproving, but he was unhappy about it. That was a lot of deductions to miss.
“Twenty-five
“That’s what I show. There are checks made out to cash, and they’re being cashed at the bank. Do you leave the cash lying around the house?”
“Of course not. Half the time I have to borrow money for coffee, especially when Max is here. She helps herself in my bag, but not to twenty-five thousand dollars. That has to be a mistake.” She was certain of it.
“No, it’s not,” he insisted. “That’s why I wanted to have this conversation with you. I’m concerned about the lost deductions, and even more so if you don’t know what you’re spending it on, or don’t know what you spent.” He made it sound as though she were irresponsible and careless and couldn’t keep track of her own money.
“Look at my credit card statements. For anything over five or ten dollars, I use my card.”
“Then how would you explain a twenty-five-thousand-dollar cash expenditure every month? Is Brigitte using that much cash for you?”
“No, Brigitte uses a credit card too. We have a joint card for anything she buys for me.” He knew that, he saw it in her accounts. “I don’t think she uses much cash either.”
“Well, somebody is spending it. You need to find out who, if you’re not.” He was visibly worried about it on her behalf, and Tallie was concerned too. To Victor, it was a black hole in her accounts. “If you round that up, annually, over the last three years, it comes to close to a million dollars. You can’t just lose track of that kind of money.”
“Obviously,” she said, mystified. “I’ll talk to Brigitte. Maybe she’s paying for something in cash that I don’t know about. Since she pays the bills, I don’t know what she’s using the credit card for, or checks, or maybe cash. I’ll ask her,” Tallie said, although she looked less concerned than Victor. She was certain that there was a reasonable explanation for it. And Brigitte kept a very careful record of her accounts. Victor had always been satisfied before. But the recent audit had allowed him to do some fine-tuning, and look at the overall picture more carefully, and he never liked to press his clients about what they were spending unless they were in financial trouble, which Tallie certainly wasn’t, but he didn’t want her to lose track of that much money either. It was a very large amount. He didn’t like his clients using cash for just that reason-no one could ever remember what they spent it on, and Tallie was no different. Victor was sure the money had been spent legitimately, but he wanted to know for what, and by whom. Tallie promised to find out. She knew without a doubt that Brigitte would have the answer to his question.
After that, he ran down a list of bills that he wanted to verify with her, to double-check that they sounded accurate. Clothing for Max, some artwork Tallie had bought in New York, and several gifts for Hunt, among them a gold watch. He was always very generous with her too. And at the end of the list, several travel expenses, airfare, and the local hotels that he had also questioned Hunt about.
“Hunt explained to me the other day about the local hotels.” He was no longer concerned about that, but he had wanted to be sure. Victor could see from her accounts that they frequently stayed at several local hotels, although they had stopped showing up on her credit card statements for the past year. They had been on her credit card bills for about three years before that, and now they were only on Hunt’s. Apparently Hunt was paying for the hotels now since the charges still showed up on his statements right up to the present, and no longer on Tallie’s.
“What local hotels?” Tallie asked in answer to what he’d said.
“The ones where you stay with Hunt.” Victor was prepared to move on. He was meeting Brianna for lunch, and he had covered all the ground he wanted to with Tallie, particularly the cash.
“I don’t stay at local hotels with Hunt,” she said simply. “I only stay at hotels out of town, when I’m traveling or on location, like right now in Palm Springs. I have a room booked there for a couple of months, but that’s a business expense.”
Victor looked surprised. “You have a few charges at the Bel-Air, and quite a lot of them at the Chateau Marmont and the Sunset Marquis. I’ve got three years of charges there on your statements, although none for this year. And Hunt has them on his statement too. He says he rents rooms sometimes for meetings with foreign investors, and that he stayed there with you.”
