The next six weeks were interesting.
For starters, it came to Emma’s attention that California was a community property state. A small army of lawyers and accountants descended upon her from Middleton’s corporation. Smelling a buck, another small army of lawyers and accountants leaped into the fray to defend her honor.
Utter lawyer-apocalypse was averted when Emma made it clear she wanted no part of her husband’s corporation, and if they could just show her where to go to cash out, she’d happily remove herself from the equation. Naturally, the board of directors found this decision acceptable.
Even after being appropriately gouged by lawyers and accountants and state, federal, and local taxes, Emma found she was now worth several hundred million dollars. She sat down with her new checkbook and immediately showed Francis again the depth of her character.
The checks were in the mail the next day. But to Francis, it was the personal notes that added that little extra touch.
Marcus Clay was a junior at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. With his check for $25,000 was the brief note I heard your car was stolen from the airport. Maybe get a better one with this? Take care and study hard.
To the old couple who’d lost their mom-and-pop filling station, she’d written, I hope we can leave a different impression the next time we pass through your town. Probably they’d had insurance, but the check was big enough to completely rebuild.
Ron Kowolski did not receive a check. As an employee for Aaron Middleton, his gunshot wounds would earn him a nice monthly payment for the rest of his life, over and above his police retirement. But he did get a telegram from Emma that read, You seem like the kind of guy who’d say he was just doing his job. But I still want you to know we appreciate you. Ron had then been asked to step outside of his little house. His jaw dropped upon seeing the brand-new Boston Whaler 420 Outrage sitting on a trailer to be taken to the harbor of his choice, where a permanent slip would be purchased for him. The boat had already been filled with top-notch fishing gear.
Emma wrote checks like this late into the night, emptying half a bottle of Wild Turkey, the checks getting slightly bigger with each shot. Then she’d declared the slate clean and had gone to bed.
The next morning, she announced she was perfectly cool now with spending some of that money on herself. Fortunately, there were several high-end shopping districts in San Francisco that were more than happy to accommodate her.
* * *
Enid had nearly finished passing out the flyers.
Acting with the traveling show had turned out to be a bit of a drag. Sure, she had a good supporting role. She was acting, and that beat the shit out of waitressing every time. But she hadn’t realized the actors were also responsible for setting up and breaking down the stage. Packing away the costumes and loading the trucks. She often found herself working a lot harder than she had back at the diner.
And now she was handing out flyers that advertised the show.
Ugh.
This street was packed with boutique shops and rich people throwing their money around. Enid had given away most of the flyers in less than an hour, but she wanted to hang on to the last couple for a special purpose. This weekend’s show was the last one, and Enid would need to find a new gig.
Unless she found a rich guy first.
But the problem was that the people with all the money were all so old. Most of the women coming in and out of the shops had had a lot of work done and still weren’t fooling anyone. The few men she’d seen had either been a lot older or wearing red valet parking jackets.
Wait. Who was that?
She spotted him coming out of a shop, clearly young and hip, jeans and some kind of snakeskin boots and one of those western shirts with the overdone scrollwork and a really cool leather jacket. He was walking away from her, and she followed, wondering if he were a good candidate. She’d only got a glimpse of him from the side, but he seemed good-looking.
And then he got into a parked car close by. It was a perfect, bright red Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner convertible. It was a gorgeous car, and Enid knew classic car restoration was a rich guy’s hobby. Maybe he was some up-and-coming country music star.
She unbuttoned an extra button on her blouse and approached the car, flyer in hand.
Enid put her hands on the passenger-side door, leaning into the car in a way she knew would give him a glimpse down her blouse. She turned her smile up to full volume.
“Hey, you,” she said. “I’m inviting people to the big show this weekend and—”
She looked at the man’s face. Blinked.
“Francis?”
“Enid. What are you doing here?”
“Well … uh … the show. The run ends in Frisco,” she said. “We’re at the Orpheum.”
“That’s awesome,” Francis said. “Congratulations.”
Enid ran her hand along the side of the car. “Did you get a promotion?”
Francis laughed. “I quit that job.”
“You found a better one, I guess.”
He shook his head. “I’m sort of between things right now.”
She thought about that a moment, smiled again. “Well, then, you have time to come see me in the show. You know, I was thinking we could catch up, maybe get a drink or something.”
“Darling, there you are,” came a new voice. “You know if you leave me alone in the shop, I’ll lose track of time.”
Enid turned to see her, stunning and young and obviously the source of the money.
“Pardon me, dear.”
Enid stepped out of the way so the woman could put the shopping bags in the back seat of the Fairlane.
She wore an exquisite retro tea-length cocktail dress with a rich floral pattern of red and black. Her hair was the same bright red as the flowers on the dress. Lines up the back of her stockings, also very retro. Red gloves up to the elbows. Enid wondered if the Fairlane had been purchased specifically to go with the outfit.
“Now, darling, we discussed your talking to strange women on the street.” She turned to Enid, offered a tolerant smile. “I’m always shooing pretty young things away from him.”
“Oh, I, uh … I mean, I didn’t mean to … uh…” This wasn’t going as Enid had expected.
“Enid is an old friend from New York,” Francis said. “Her show is at the Orpheum.”
“An actress. How exciting for you.” The woman circled the car to the driver’s side. “Scoot over and let me drive, will you, Frankie darling? You know I love to feel the rumble of the engine up my thighs.”
Francis scooted.
She took Francis’s face with one gloved hand and pulled him possessively into a long kiss. When the kiss ended a year or so later, she looked back and saw Enid still standing there.
“Ta-ta, Enid. It was nice to meet you,” the woman said. “Have fun with your show. I’m sure you’ll be just an enormous hit.”
She cranked the engine, and the Fairlane moved easily into traffic. Enid stood and watched it go, wondering what exactly had just happened.
* * *
Francis found the image of Enid in the rearview mirror with her mouth hanging open to be vaguely satisfying, but really he just wished her well and planned not to think much about her in the future. It seemed impossible she’d ever been important to him.
He looked at Emma, who had a big satisfied grin on her face. “Laying it on a bit thick, weren’t you?”
“Girls got to learn they can’t come sniffing around my property.” She gave his leg a squeeze. “How’s the shoulder?”
“Hurts.”
“Take the pills,” she said. “That’s what they’re for.”
Francis shrugged. “I feel like I want to wean off them.”
Emma glanced at the $24,000 Cartier watch on her wrist. “We still have two hours before we pick up Mable. How about a medicinal glass of wine?”
“Can you get us in someplace?”
“If not, then I’ll buy the joint.”
Francis didn’t know if she was kidding or not.
They’d found a special preschool for Mable, a place where she could play with other kids and all the normal things, but also sessions with therapists. She’d had a shock, but like most kids, she was more resilient than expected. More than writing checks, more than shopping, Emma had spent the bulk of her time with her daughter. It was hard to convince her to let Mable go for just the few hours a day to go to the preschool, but Emma had seen it was good for her.
Emma was a mom. Francis loved her for it. Loved her for so many reasons.
“Yeah, I could go for a glass of wine.”
“It’s not really economical to buy it by the glass,” Emma said. “Better to get a bottle.”
He grinned. She drove. She quite obviously enjoyed being the pretty girl in the convertible. He felt like they were in a really esoteric perfume commercial.
“Hey,” she said. “Are you sure that you gave me the right numbers for the third code?”
“How many times are you going to ask me this?”
“But are you sure?”
“I told you I don’t remember giving you the final code,” Francis said. “I was pretty much out of it. But when you told me the numbers back the next day, yeah, those were the numbers.”
In the end, it had all come full circle back to Marion Parkes. The final code commanded the software to turn on itself, to seek itself out wherever it might be stored, and erase itself from existence. Parkes was a crusader from the grave. Time would tell if the software was safe behind the NSA firewall, but Francis liked to think that one day Agent Gunn would log on to his computer back in Washington, DC, and find that all his hard work had gone up in a puff of cyber smoke.
It was a happy thought, but if it ever actually happened, Francis doubted he’d hear about it.
He could live with that.
“We should take a vacation,” Emma said. “When she has her next school break. We should all go somewhere together.”
“We could go white-water rafting.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
“But I’m so good at it.”
“She likes Frozen,” Emma said.
“You’re thinking Disneyland?”
“I was thinking Norway.”
Francis laughed.
She shot him a sideways look. “What?”
“I just love you.”
She sighed, shaking her head. “I guess I love you too, dink.”