Two Girls Down(14)

“Of course.”

She laughed a curt little laugh.

“You know what, though, Mr. Caplan?”

“What?”

“I think this would almost be easier if he was a nice guy, but he’s not. He was when we got married a million years ago, but he’s been a jerk for a long time. We had a fight two weeks ago, and he called me an asshole. Who talks to their wife like that?”

She seemed to wait for Cap to respond, so he said, “It’s very disrespectful.”

“Yes, it is. And now, it’s like, okay, I’m free. I get whatever I want because I have this tape. I get the kids. I win. Who cares.”

Pause, thought Cap. Let her breathe.

“You married?” she asked.

“Divorced.”

Mrs. Svetich nodded.

“I’m sure you don’t have anything to tell me that makes this moment easier.”

There was, actually, a great deal Cap could tell her. What he really would like to say was, Two years. You’ll be a basket case for two years. Then you’ll start feeling like a normal person again. You’ll start enjoying the taste of coffee and watching your kid’s school play. But for two years you will be a schizophrenic. Angry, guilty, sad.



Instead he shook his head.

“Yeah, I thought as much,” said Mrs. Svetich. “Yes. So. Your bill,” she said, opening her purse.

“I can send you an invoice.”

“No, thanks. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d like to pay now so I can never think about you again.”

Cap nodded and handed her the invoice. She pulled out a checkbook and a pen and scribbled the numbers and words, ripped the check out, and held it out for Cap to take, the paper shaking in her hand. Cap took it from her, and Mrs. Svetich stood up to leave, so Cap did too.

He tried to think of something else he could say.

“Don’t worry,” said Mrs. Svetich. “There’s nothing you can say.”

She laughed again, but oh, her eyes. He could see drops hanging off the lower lids. One blink would make them roll. He walked with her to the door.

“Thanks, Mr. Caplan,” she said in a strange high voice. She didn’t blink and didn’t look at him as she left.

Cap shut the door, rolled his shoulders back, and made a sound like “Gah.” He checked his watch, 12:15. Really too early for a beer. He sat back in his chair and scrolled through his emails.

He clicked on one with the subject line “Inquiry” from an address he didn’t recognize:

Mr. Caplan,

I am interested in retaining your services. Please write me back at this address and let me know your availability for a conversation.

Thanks,

A. Vega

New business is good, he thought. What had just happened with Mrs. Svetich was the hardest part of the job. Everything else: tracking down people who weren’t candidates for Mensa to begin with, filling out paperwork for the retail outfits that hired him, making his own hours, leaving his old Sig in a MicroVault in the closet, not waking up with his jaw locked from tension—this was all the good part.



So he wrote back:

Hello,

I am available to speak now until 2:30 p.m. this afternoon or otherwise after 7 p.m. tonight. Also I am free tomorrow between 9 a.m. and noon. If those windows don’t work for you, please let me know what times might.

Thanks for your interest,

Max Caplan

He hit Send and leaned back. Sipped his cold coffee and opened the folder for the skip. He flipped through the pages: the driver’s license photo of Brandon Haas, last known street address. Trouble finding this one. Didn’t want to pay child support for his two-year-old twin boys, so he moved out of his apartment and ditched his cell. Only after he’d insisted on a paternity test because he told the mother of his children, “Can’t be mine, they look colored.” The mother had said to Cap that Brandon was full of shit because he knows she would never sleep with a black guy. Good, good people.

And now he heard the doorbell from the front of the house and figured it was UPS. He found himself feeling relieved that he could step out of Brandon Haas’s life for a moment as he went through the door that led to the rest of the house. Through the hallway and living room and to the front door. He glanced through the window and saw a woman there, no one he recognized. He opened the door and there she was. She was slender but not small, big eyes taking up most of her round doll-like face, little makeup, brown hair pulled back. Pretty in an unadorned way.

“Max Caplan?” she said.

“Yes?”

“I’m Alice Vega. You just sent me an email.”

Cap looked around.

“You got here pretty quickly.”

“I was close by.”

Cap tried to read her. Clothes were a giveaway for the type. Mrs. Svetich’s blouse with the boat neckline and khaki pants showed that she had dressed up, that she had maybe once held a job where she wore these clothes, even if she was a stay-at-home mom now. The mother of Brandon Haas’s children, Hayley, wore stained jeans and an extra-small T-shirt.



Then there was the face and body: eyes, lips, hands. That will tell you the state of mind. Mrs. Svetich was all tight neck muscles and pleading eyes—desperate, sad, tense. Hayley Haas twitched and ran her words together and screwed her lips up into crazy angles—angry, unpredictable, drunk.