The Assistants(13)

She leaned back in her chair again, then rocked herself forward and brought her voice down to a mannish whisper. “I don’t want any money and you don’t have any to offer me, princess. All you’ve got to offer is access.”

The salads arrived, and for Margie, the waiter set down a grilled lobster.

“Ah, lobster,” Margie said. “They say they’re the cockroaches of the sea, but man-oh-Manischewitz are they delicious.”

Emily and I left our salads untouched.

“First things first,” Margie said. “I’m not part of this. I have enough hard evidence to put you both in jail tomorrow, so don’t f*ck with me. Being pretty isn’t going to help you here. Understand?”

For a split second I was actually distracted and flattered by the fact that she’d implied I was pretty.

“You’re not part of what?” Emily asked.

Margie smiled wide. “There’s an assistant in Accounting, her name doesn’t matter. She’s the best kid I’ve ever known, smart as a whip. Works really, really hard, never had a break in her life. You’re going to help her pay off her debt just like you’ve helped yourselves.”

“How much?” I asked.

“Eighty thousand; a real bargain, considering she had no help from her parents. She’s been dutifully making payments since graduation.”

Emily’s neck was speckling with hives as pink as her dress. “You’re insane. You think Robert Barlow isn’t going to notice all this money disappearing?”

“You weren’t so concerned about that when it was for your own benefit,” Margie said.

“I was.” I raised my hand. “That’s why we were about to stop. I think Emily’s right, this is going too far. And Robert doesn’t deserve this.”

“Robert,” Margie said, “is a warmonger, neoconservative imperialist. He’s a bully with no interest in helping anyone but himself. And more than all that, he’s a thief. A bigger thief than any of us in a million lifetimes could ever be. Trust me, I know. I keep his books.”

“I think you’re exaggerating just a bit,” I said, offended on Robert’s behalf.

“Oh, you think so? You think I’m exaggerating?” Margie slid her plate in closer and cracked open her giant lobster. “Want to talk about his tax shelters?”

“Not really,” I said.

“I didn’t think so.” Margie was acting smug, but she was wrong. In spite of what Robert’s most vocal critics claimed, all of his island accounts were perfectly legal. He was just smarter than everyone else, and people resented him for it.

“Do you honestly think a man like Robert would do something as dumb as cheat on his taxes?” I said. “With so many people watching him?”

But Margie was finished with that argument. “Look,” she said. “This is the deal I’m offering you. You do this for me or I turn you in. It’s as simple as that.”

I turned to Emily and had never seen her looking so pale beneath her suntan. “I really don’t understand,” she said. “Making us do this. What’s in it for you?”

“Nothing,” Margie said. “Can you imagine that?”

“There has to be something,” Emily said. “Your assistant can’t be that good.”

Margie looked directly at me. “Because the game is rigged and nobody does anything about it; not to mention, I know you can get away with it. And I guess the honest-to-God truth is, I’ve always dreamed of being a class hero.”

Then she let out a roaring burp for all of Michael’s to hear.





5




THE NEXT MORNING, Emily and I both called in sick. Instead of facing the horror of going to work, we lay on my bed side by side in our pajamas, me in my leisurely stripes and she in her lace Chanel two-piece. Emily had trickled her stuff into my apartment from the back of her Range Rover little by little so that before I knew what hit me, “we” owned stemware, kept a hair dryer in the bathroom, and drank mimosas for breakfast.

“I know we’re in a situation that will most likely lead to life in prison for both of us,” Emily said, swirling the juice in her glass. “But can we talk about Kevin Hanson for just a minute?”

“What about him?”

Emily sat up. “He doesn’t like me, no matter how much I flirt with him.”

“You’re twenty-eight years old,” I said. “You’re due. Humbling rejection comes with the Saturn Return; you’d better get used to it.”

“You don’t understand. I think he likes you, Fontana. He’s seen us together and keeps asking about you.”

The look we shared was one of mutual bewilderment, like we’d just encountered a talking cat or one of those Sudoku puzzles—or even something not so bafflingly Japanese. “That can’t be right,” I said. “He must need me for something, from Robert.”

“I thought that, too, at first. But how would that explain his dis-interest in me?” Emily said it like the dis had been painfully extracted from the interest.

She had a point.

We both jumped at the sound of my buzzer, spilling a little mimosa over the side of our crystal flutes. I peered through the dusty horizontal bars of my venetian blinds just in time to catch a black Grand Marquis pull away from the curb. “I think the FBI is here,” I said.