Page 21 of Shopping for an Heir
Marie pressed a button.
The Carpenters came on. The opening chords to the song “Just Like Me” filled the room.
“EWWWWWWW,” Pam and Marie called out in unison.
Marie pushed a button.
Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” started.
Pam and Marie turned on the old man, both of them frowning.
“Seriously, James?” Pam asked, as if he’d personally offended her.
“What?” he asked groggily, opening his eyes slowly. “Pammy, you look good when you’re angry.” He licked his palm and reached for Spirtzy, slicking back a shock of hair that stuck up.
“Please tell me you have some kind of music other than easy listening,” Marie moaned.
Pam pressed a button on the complex stereo. It looked like the control panel for a 747. Gerald hadn’t seen a stereo set-up like that since he’d visited a Vietnam vet’s house for a BBQ and gotten a lecture on all the electronics he’d brought back from Japan in 1973.
“So help me God, if ‘Girl from Ipanema’ comes on, I’ll—”
It did.
“You’ll what, Pam?” Marie asked.
Pam just laughed.
Rummaging through vinyl album after vinyl album in a long, thick row that constituted James McCormick’s record collection, Marie squealed with horror until she perked up, clutching a familiar release.
Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.”
“Where did you unearth that?” James growled, opening only one eye.
“Someone has good music taste,” Marie declared. “It’s not you!”
“Andrew?” Pam wondered aloud.
“Elena,” James said.
Pam went quiet. Gerald watched her, fascinated.
“She liked classic rock?”
“Where do you think Andrew and Terry get it? She used to take Terry to concerts when he was younger.”
“I always thought Elena was an uptight blue blood,” Marie said.
“She was. And she enjoyed Led Zeppelin, Yes, and all those other crazy performers.”
“Good for her,” Pam said softly. “I wish I could have met her.”
“I wish I could have had more years with her,” James confessed.
The opening notes of “Comfortably Numb” filled James McCormick’s living room.
“This pop music crap,” McCormick said, though a smile twitched at the corner of his lips.
“James,” Marie asked slyly, “how are you feeling now?”
“Goooood.”
“Excellent.” She sidled in next to him. Gerald heard her whisper, “You know, we’re good friends. And as your friend, I’d like to talk to you about that $700,000 my husband gave back to your casino. I think it’s all just a big misunderstanding.” She patted his hand.
McCormick’s eyes flew wide open and he glowered.
“Not so comfortably numb now. You’re harshing on my groove, Marie.”
She shrugged, as if to say it couldn’t hurt to try.
“Gerald, would you make some Rice Krispie Treats for us?” Marie asked sweetly, eyes round like buckeyes, changing the topic masterfully.
“With Cheetos,” Pam added.
“And anchovies,” James insisted.
Gerald nodded, retreating to the kitchen, relieved to be out of sight where he could laugh and react to the absurdities.
As he checked the cupboards for supplies, the front door opened.
On high alert, he put his hand on the butt of his gun in the holster beneath his jacket.
“Hello?”
That voice was unmistakable.
Terry McCormick.
Gerald stood down.
“What happened? Is Dad okay?”
That was Andrew McCormick.
“Oh, man!” James McCormick groaned. “Who invited them?”
Declan appeared behind Andrew. Terry wore a paint-stained Rush t-shirt, while the other two brothers were in fine cashmere suits, one on either side of Terry, like Jackson Pollock and his bankers.
Terry glanced at Declan and Andrew, shrugged, and sat down on the couch, reaching for the joint.
“Terry!” Andrew bellowed. Gerald watched him carefully. The guy wasn’t horrified.
He was jealous.
Terry just shrugged. He took a long hit off the fattie and his eyes flew open as he hacked up half a lung.
“Amateur,” James muttered.
Terry barked out a coughing laugh. “This isn’t pot!”
“What?” Andrew and Declan snapped in unison, Declan’s emotions moving swiftly across his face, from stunned shock to suppressed amusement.
Terry bent over, his head between his knees, shoulders shaking with uncontrolled laughter. “This—” he wheezed, “isn’t pot. It’s not marijuana.” He looked up, eyes bloodshot from crying, not from THC, and announced to Pam, James and Marie, “You’re all high on oregano.”
“I wondered why I have a sudden craving for garlic bread,” James declared. He turned to Gerald. “I’d like you to go to the North End and get me—”
“Oregano?” Marie squeaked. “OREGANO?” She stood, mouth dropping open in outrage. “Agnes told me this was the finest weed her grandson could get his hands on.”
“I’ll bet it is,” Declan said, smothering a smile.
“I gave Agnes six free yoga classes for that dime bag!”
Never barter with Agnes, Gerald thought.
“Maybe it’s homeopathic marijuana,” Terry choked out, which only made Marie turn red with fury.
“You mean we’re not really high?” Pam asked.
“No,” Terry said. Gerald watched Declan, who leaned against the arm of his father’s wingback chair, one hand in his suit pants pocket, the other thumbing through messages on his phone.
“That explains it, then,” Marie announced. “I’m normally horny as can be when I’m high, and I’m dead below the waist right now.”
Without a single word, as smooth as Gene Kelly in an old 1940s musical movie, Declan spun around on one shoe and left the room, the back of his head visibly shaking to and fro, a loud sigh echoing through the foyer. The click of the front door snapping shut came soon after.
Nothing like hearing your mother-in-law announce that.
“Me, too!” Pam announced.
Andrew made a strange retching sound and suddenly became deeply fascinated with a stray string on his shirt cuff.
Ding! Doorbell.
“I’ll get it!” Andrew announced, practically shoving Gerald aside in his hurry to escape the room. Gerald folded his hands at the waist and waited, trying not to react to the unfolding scene before him.
And then in walked the last person he ever expected to see standing in James McCormick’s Back Bay home.
“Suzanne?” he rasped, her heels click-clacking on the marble floor. Spritzy jumped out of James’ arms and ran over to Suzanne, sniffing her ankles.
Too bad Gerald couldn’t display that kind of public enthusiasm.
Andrew walked past her, poured himself a coffee, and settled in on the couch next to Pam, crossing his legs, face filled with a combination of disruptive anger and marvel.
“Someone found Mom’s old album collection,” he said with approval.
“Well, damn!” James’ voice boomed through the room, deeper somehow, closer to Terry’s bass. The sound was loud enough to make Suzanne flinch slightly, frown, then look at the old man.
“I’m sorry, James. I had no idea it was oregano,” Marie said again, clearly flummoxed.
Oregano? Suzanne mouthed to Gerald.
Why are you here? he mouthed back.
James’ face screwed up in contemplation. Everyone looked at him, waiting.
“If that had been real reefer, I might have had my first threesome!” he exclaimed, looking directly at Gerald. “Does anyone in the room know how to get the real stuff?”
Suzanne’s single eyebrow arch said everything and nothing.
“Suzanne?” Terry asked, the surprise on his face evident. “What—it’s great to see you, but what are you doing here?”
“James asked for me.”
“Is this about our mother’s trust fund?”
She gave him a quizzically apologetic smile as her eyes tracked James, who now held the joint aloft and studied it, mumbling, “Are you sure this isn’t real?”
“I’m afraid,” Suzanne said, clearly not, “that I can’t talk about why I’m here. But James asked me to visit him in an official capacity.”
“I forgot. My apologies, Suzanne. I’m indisposed,” James said, waving toward her.
She stared at the joint in his hand. “I see that.”
Andrew started laughing. Gerald watched as Terry joined him.
She turned to Gerald. “We have a two o’clock at my office,” she said, in earshot of Andrew, who frowned.
“You two know each other?”
“Sort of,” said Suzanne.
“Yes,” said Gerald.
Terry stopped laughing and watched them.
“James,” Suzanne said. “This looks like a bad time for our meeting. Why don’t I have my assistant call yours for a reschedule? I can help with Elena’s family trust any time.”
“Oh,” James said, eyes closed, head against the back of the couch. Spritzy was on his chest. “This isn’t about the family trust.”
“Then what?”
“It’s about buying that secret artifact Harold Hopewell’s been hiding from the world all these years.”
Chapter 10
