The Extinction Event Read Free Page B

“We were having a cocktail, chatting to the girls—Frank was waiting for his favorite kid to come back to the line-up—and there was this salesman there from down south, Pittsburgh, Detroit—”
    â€œDetroit’s not south,” Jack said.
    â€œâ€”who kept asking one of the girls to do a somersault.” Robert ignored Jack. “The girl says, A somersault ? The guy from down south says, You know, you put your head between your knees . And she says, Mister, if I could put my head between my knees, I wouldn’t have gotten married four times .”
    The waiter delivered the rye and bitters, which Robert slugged back.
    â€œI assume the cops are going through Frank’s files,” Jack said. “For leads.”
    â€œYou mean who’d want to kill a lawyer?” Robert asked. “Who wouldn’t?”
    â€œI wish you weren’t leaving the firm,” Jack said. “With both of us gone—” Jack shrugged. “Until I get back, Five Spot needs all the help she can get.”
    â€œIf you get back,” Robert said. “Why do you call Caroline Five Spot?”
    Ignoring the question, Jack said, “The ink on her diploma isn’t dry. She’s never had a case on her own.”
    â€œYou had most of the interesting work,” Robert said. “Most of what I was doing were little fix-me cases. Someone’s brother gets busted, drunken driving, someone’s kid gets a speeding ticket…”
    â€œYou won’t reconsider?”
    â€œAs my daddy says, only the captain goes down with the ship . Frank was the captain. He’s gone. You were first mate. I’m in the lifeboat. Jack, the mess you’re in, you’ll be lucky if they let you into court for your own trial.”
    3
    Caroline stood in the high double doors of her uncle’s Hudson River mansion, Tabletops, her eyes closed, her face raised to the mild breeze. Up the river, the Rip Van Winkle Bridge lights looked like a leftover Christmas decoration strung across the Hudson. The lights of Mycenae, half a mile downriver, cast a sulfurous glow in the sky. Clouds were massing over the Catskills. A storm was brewing. Caroline remembered the stories about how thunder was caused by the ghosts of Hendrick Hudson’s men bowling in the mountains.
    Behind her, the parlor was filled with Empire furniture. In front of her, the French doors led to a colonnaded gallery with an ironwork balcony. Beyond the gallery was a formal garden. The statuary in the garden, satyrs and nymphs, voluptuous goddesses and priapic gods, was pocked and chipped. The immortals had seen better days.
    Caroline said, “Hibiscus.” She took one last deep breath before turning back into the room. “That smell always makes me feel sixteen years old. My first dance. Willie Jerome sent me a hibiscus corsage. A big red blossom. He was so nervous when he put it on, he stabbed me with the pin and stained the dress, that beautiful organdy dress, with blood.”
    Caroline’s uncle, Devitt Wonder, called Dixie, was mixing a drink at a wicker bar cart. Dixie was a healthy eighty-six. Tall, thin, vigorous, although deceptively fragile looking, in his white linen suit, he had an almost ghostly appearance, a specter from the Gilded Age.
    Dixie said, “The secret of a Ramos gin fizz is—”
    â€œâ€” cold egg whites,” Caroline said. “Dixie, every time you whip up one of those concoctions, you say the same thing.”
    â€œAnd every time I say it, Sweetpea, you tell me I’ve said it before.”
    Caroline’s sister, Nicole, swept in. She was a darker, more sultry version of Caroline. The folded inner canthus of her eyes gave her face an oriental cast. Her hair hung below her waist.
    â€œCome on, you two,” Nicole said, “dinner’s waiting.”
    â€œWait on us a moment, Nicole. I have to quiz your sister on something.”
    Nicole glanced from