Forget to Remember, page 13
Besides, Mr. Ault might be the sugar daddy she needed. As opposed to a relationship with Adam, a liaison with Ault probably wouldn’t require actual sex. Some diddling and groping, perhaps, but she could live with that. Nobody would get hurt.
She pulled up to the gate she had recently climbed over, impressed with her feat. It looked taller than she remembered. This time she talked to Kyle through the intercom and he opened the gate for her. This was a lot more civilized. He also met her at the front door. She said hello to him and offered him her purse to check.
“That won’t be necessary. You can have a cell phone as long as it’s turned off. I didn’t know you before. I check men like Beard, mostly to make sure they’re not carrying a gun. I even pat them down. Beard’s pants were so tight I knew he wasn’t packing. I think he likes to be patted down.” Kyle smiled a knowing smile.
“Was Beard extremely mad at me?”
“I take it you’re not mixed up with him. He was using you for his own shady purposes. After I found out you’d bolted but hadn’t taken anything, I managed to keep Beard in the dark long enough so he wouldn’t be able to find you. He was pissed, but what could he do about it? My advice is, stay away from him. He’s bad people.”
“Thank you. I will.”
So, Kyle had abetted her escape. He was also part bodyguard. At medium height and build, he wasn’t in Beard’s class as far as size was concerned, but underneath his suit he must have a muscular body. She could tell by the way it flowed when he moved, almost like a dancer’s. He probably had a gun under his jacket. He was, perhaps, in his late thirties, with short, sandy-colored hair and a smooth face.
Instead of leading her to Mr. Ault, Kyle looked at her with a quizzical expression and then spoke again. “There are very few people who wouldn’t have taken Mr. Ault for everything they could.” He paused as if waiting for a response, but Carol couldn’t think of a suitable one. “I Googled you. The only reference to a Carol Golden I found with a picture that looks remotely like you is of a woman who has amnesia.”
He paused again. Carol avoided telling people she had amnesia. It felt like what she imagined telling someone she had AIDS would feel like. She wasn’t often tongue-tied, but she was now.
When she didn’t say anything, Kyle continued. “I haven’t told Mr. Ault. However, I have no doubt he’d do everything in his power to help you.”
“Thank you.” That wasn’t a suitable response, but Carol couldn’t think of anything else to say. She didn’t want Mr. Ault to know. He might be repelled; he might think of her as unclean, or at the very least less than a woman. For some reason, it was important that he be entranced by her.
“Come into the living room. Mr. Ault will meet you there.”
Carol followed him into the room with the high ceiling and wall-to-wall windows looking out at city lights. She felt as if she were in the home of a giant in some fairy tale, overseeing his realm. In contrast, Mr. Ault looked diminutive when he wheeled himself through an archway in his wheelchair. He was dressed impeccably and had a smile on his withered face.
Carol leaned over and placed her cheek against his with her arms loosely on his shoulders, afraid of hurting him. He returned her embrace, running his hands lovingly over the new red sweater Tina had insisted on buying her for this event.
“It’s sweet of you to cater to the whims of an old man. I love the feel of a woman’s sweater. It brings back memories…”
Touched by more than just his hands, Carol was prepared to let him explore all of her fuzzy red landscape, but he stopped before reaching the hills.
He rang the bell he carried with him. “Kyle wants me to communicate by cell phone, text message, all that shit, even within the house, but I haven’t gotten used to those new-fangled electronic gadgets.”
The woman who served them dinner during Carol’s previous visit appeared in the doorway. Mr. Ault addressed her as Hildy and asked for iced tea. Carol decided to match him, tea for tea, instead of drinking the wine he offered. Hildy disappeared and returned quickly with a tray containing a pitcher of tea, a sugar bowl, and two glasses. She placed it on the table where Carol had gambled with Mr. Ault. She obviously kept a pitcher available.
Ault poured glasses of tea for each of them while holding the pitcher with both hands. He drank his tea straight. Carol put sugar in hers. He had been chatting about inconsequential things. Now he proposed a toast. “To a beautiful friendship.”
They clicked glasses. Carol wondered what he meant. He looked at her directly with his green eyes. “Tell me about yourself. You’re the mystery girl. All I know about you is you’re a hustler who doesn’t hustle and are drop dead gorgeous.”
Uh oh. She appreciated the compliment, even knowing he probably said that to all the girls, but she didn’t want to talk about herself. She said the first thing that came into her head. “I was a majorette.”
Ault’s face lit up. “My first wife was a majorette. We went through high school together.” His eyes had a faraway look. “She was the love of my life.”
Carol wondered what had happened to her. How many wives had he had?
He answered one unspoken question. “She died of leukemia.” He looked pensive, then snapped back to the present. “Can you still twirl a baton?”
“Sure.” The answer was more positive than she felt. She hadn’t done that badly at the football game, but she was rusty. At least she wouldn’t have to prove her prowess here.
“I kept all her batons.”
Oops. Carol began to get apprehensive when Ault rang his bell. Hildy appeared, and he asked for Kyle. When Kyle entered the room, Ault asked if he knew where the batons were. Kyle hid his surprise well and cast a glance at Carol. She tried to telegraph Kyle to forget it, but he was too good an assistant to pay attention to her silent plea.
He thought for a moment. “I believe they’re in the storage area above the garage.”
Kyle ran off to look for the batons. Fortunately, Ault didn’t ask her any more questions. Instead, he told her all about his first wife. In great detail. From junior high school until her death at age twenty-eight. She must have been a wonderful woman. She certainly held a position of honor in Ault’s memory.
He talked about her all through dinner while guzzling iced tea. She tried to be a good listener. He was a lonely old man who needed someone to talk to—someone to listen to his story. Carol wondered why he hadn’t written his memoirs. By the end of dinner, she’d forgotten about the batons. They got up and returned to the living room.
That’s when Kyle marched in, triumphantly holding a silver baton. His tie and coat were gone and his immaculate pants had dirt on them. “They were where I thought, but it took a little digging to unearth them.”
Ault was overjoyed. He took the baton and held it gently, as though it were a precious jewel. He handed it to Carol. “Would you like to give us a demonstration?”
The caffeine in the tea must have been affecting her, because she had a what-the-hell attitude. She held the baton and gave a few exploratory twirls. “Sure, why not?”
“Can Kyle make a video of you?”
She froze, momentarily, but then relaxed and glared at Kyle. “All right, but if you laugh at me, I’ll throw this at you. One more thing. If this video ends up on YouTube—or any other tube—I’ll kill you.”
Kyle pushed the air between them away in a no-problem gesture. “You have enough of a reputation here that I believe you’d do it. Don’t worry.”
He went to get the camera. Carol kicked off her shoes. The hardwood floor felt solid under her feet. Her skirt was longer than the majorette skirts she was sure she’d worn, but it gave her plenty of freedom of movement.
When Kyle came back, she asked if he could provide some marching music. He fiddled with a sound system that would have done credit to a rock band and somehow was able to play “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
Carol felt pumped up when she heard the inspiring music. Now she knew for sure she’d done this before. All in all, she didn’t perform badly. She twirled using both hands and even made throws as high as the domed ceiling would permit. She hummed along at one point, smiling at the words she apparently remembered from high school: “So be kind to your web-footed friends, for a duck may be somebody’s mother…”
She only dropped the baton a couple of times, including the time she fell while trying to catch it and her skirt flew up to her waist. When she was done, Ault and Kyle applauded.
She gave a comic bow. “I suppose you recorded the whole thing, even when I fell on my ass.”
Kyle grinned. “That was the best part.”
“You were magnificent.” There was no sarcasm in Ault’s voice. “Kyle, I wrote a poem once called ‘Majorette.’ Could you make a copy of it, please?”
Kyle disappeared again. Carol tried to think of ways to amuse Ault without talking about herself. Remembering he liked to play games, she asked if he played backgammon. He said he did, and he produced a backgammon set from a wooden cabinet. She declined to play for money. When he missed some fairly obvious moves, she was sure his mental processes weren’t working the way they had at one time.
After they’d played several games, Kyle returned with the poem, and Carol read it.
She's coming! Strutting down Main Street, USA;
Pulling the band behind, her toy on a string.
Head high, back straight, legs lifting, this is her day,
In the red and gold of fall or the green of spring.
Her baton flashes silver bright in the morning sun
As it soars and spins its way to dizzying heights;
And when the arc's described, the spin is spun,
She plucks it from the air as it alights.
Boys watch, agog; they whistle and walk beside,
Ogling bare legs, tight tights and a fancy hat.
She smiles within, but never breaks her stride,
A vision, a Venus, the town's aristocrat.
Carol was impressed. “I’m no literary expert, but I really like this. I’ve read your other poem several times.”
“Thank you.” Ault bowed his head. “That’s high praise coming from a real majorette.”
“I’d better go. It’s a long drive home. Thank you so much for a lovely evening.”
Ault reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a wallet. Carol saw a flash of hundred dollar bills. Although this was the moment she thought she’d been waiting for, when he started to extract some bills from the wallet a knife went into her heart. “No.”
“I just want to pay you what you won the other night—”
“No. I won’t take money from you. I’ll…be your friend, but I won’t—I can’t take money from you.”
Carol gave Ault a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. She said again what a lovely evening she’d had and walked briskly out of the living room. Kyle intercepted her in the hall. In spite of Ault’s insistence on low technology, it occurred to Carol that Kyle had the house bugged and heard everything they were saying.
Kyle opened the front door for her. “Don’t be too hard on him. He’s not trying to buy you. You brighten up his life.”
Carol considered a retort, but what came out of her mouth was completely different. “Is somebody making sure he isn’t taken advantage of?”
“I am. There are others, also. Beard isn’t welcome here again.” Kyle hesitated. “I don’t often feel I have to justify myself, but somehow with you…I have an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA. I’ve been with Mr. Ault for ten years. I do more than just open doors.”
“Right. You make movies.” She was beginning to like Kyle. She smiled at him. “Don’t enjoy the one you made tonight too much.”
“It’s on my top-ten list for the year.” As she descended the steps, Kyle called after her. “Let me know if you need any help with your quest—need any strings pulled…”
Carol waved and slid into the car. Could he find a DNA match for her? As she drove home, it occurred to her she’d learned two things from her association with Sebastian Ault: She wasn’t a scam artist and she valued her freedom more than money. If the fact that everything she did was illegal equated to freedom. But she now had a higher opinion of herself.
CHAPTER 22
The driveway was quite long since it went between two other houses, back to the Ramirez lot at the edge of the cliff—the location that gave it such an extraordinary view. The garage door opened to Carol’s touch of a remote attached to the car visor, and she drove inside. The two-car garage was detached from the house. She had to exit from the garage and go in the front door.
Outside lights guided her. She was about to climb the two steps to the door when she saw movement in the bushes that grew next to the house out of the corner of her eye. She glanced in that direction, wondering whether it was a raccoon, possum, or skunk and realized it was too large to be an animal.
She instinctively jumped away from the shadow just as a loud noise like a firecracker sounded. She felt a burning sensation in her arm as she ran back toward the garage. She had been shot. A second shot went wild. The garage door was still open. Carol had the car remote in her hand. She clicked it to unlock the driver’s door as she approached, then opened the door, reached inside, and ripped the garage remote from the visor in a single motion.
She slammed the door shut and dove over the front of the car in her haste to get out of the line of fire. She slid down the slope of the hood and hit the concrete floor hard, rolling on her shoulder, managing to keep hold of both remotes. She clicked the garage remote, and the door started rumbling downward. Then it stopped and headed back up. The person who had shot at her had tripped the laser beam that kept the door from coming down on someone. He was in the garage.
She frantically pressed the button again. The door started down. She looked under the car and could see the man’s feet by the light that automatically turned on when the door opener was activated. He had stopped near the entrance, probably scanning the interior of the garage, wondering where she was. Ernie’s car was also in the garage, so there were multiple places to hide.
Carol found the panic button on the car remote by feel and pressed it. A loud beeping started. Rigo’s car was parked in the driveway; he was home. Hopefully, the horn would get his attention and bring him out here. The man broke the laser beam again with his foot, and the garage door headed up. He was afraid of getting trapped inside.
He quickly went to the window of Tina’s car and looked in. Carol was glad she hadn’t obeyed her first impulse to get into the car. She simultaneously pressed the garage remote again and skittered around to the other side of the car, staying opposite him. The deafening beeping drowned out her movements, but she heard somebody yell from the yard, between beeps. It must be Rigo.
If the man continued around the front of the car she was prepared to race out of the garage. She could stop the door’s descent since she controlled the remote. Just as she was considering doing this, the man’s feet headed back toward the entrance as the door descended. He dove under the door and disappeared. The door started up again. Carol, who was moving back toward the front of the car, clicked the remote and watched with trepidation for his return as the door came down one more time.
Just before it closed, she saw someone else’s feet run past the garage. Rigo was chasing him. A new fear assailed her. The man would shoot Rigo. She pressed the remote to open the garage door. She had to help him.
***
Rigo was home from the restaurant and drinking a glass of milk while he waited for Carol to return from her dinner. He felt like an anxious father waiting for his daughter to come home from a date. He shouldn’t feel like this; she was an adult. He had a hard time admitting to himself there might be a twinge of jealousy involved.
His first clue Carol had arrived was the sound of the garage door opening. He could hear it because a kitchen window was ajar. The nights were still balmy. He had a desire to meet her at the front door but repressed it. Instead, he put his feet up on a chair at the breakfast table and tried to look casual. She would see the light in the kitchen and come find him.
He was in this position when he heard a shot from the front of the house. He wasn’t quite sure it was a shot, but after a brief hesitation, he jerked his feet off the chair and stood up. While he was doing that, he heard a second shot. Now there was no question what it was. Someone was shooting at Carol. Rigo raced through the house to the front door and opened it.
Here he hesitated, not wanting to run into the line of fire. The garage door was going down. The panic horn on Tina’s car started beeping. Carol must have triggered it. He felt momentary relief she was able to do that. A man appeared in the garage doorway and tripped the laser beam, causing the door to head upward. He went back inside. The door immediately started down again.
Rigo followed, but he’d be a sitting duck if he went under the door and entered the garage, silhouetted by the outside lights. He yelled “We’re going in” at the top of his voice, hoping to distract the gunman, and then moved sideways toward the bushes fronting the house so he wouldn’t be a clear target.
The man dove under the door, out of the garage, and ran along the driveway. Rigo hesitated and then ran after him. The man had a lead of fifty feet, and it was increasing. The problem was Rigo had taken off his shoes and was only wearing socks. He stepped on a small stone and broke stride as pain surged through his foot. By the time he recovered, the man had reached the street and was headed toward a car parked a hundred feet downhill from the driveway.
The car’s lights flashed as the man clicked a remote. Rigo had no chance of stopping him, but he needed to get close enough to identify the car. The man climbed in, and the engine roared to life as Rigo approached. It started down the short street and made a right turn, away from Hawthorne Boulevard, the direction sheriff’s cars would probably be coming from. Somebody must have called 911 by now.
The car was a compact, but Rigo couldn’t tell the make or read the license plate by the glow of the infrequent street lights. He couldn’t even be sure what color it was. A dark compact. There were only a few million of them in L.A. So common that he hadn’t noticed it when he passed it driving home from the restaurant.
