As for the latter, he could still see her soft, tanned inner thighs, almost feel her breasts close to his chest. And smell her perfume. She must have managed to touch him somewhere. The perfume was clinging to his jacket. It made him want to laugh. She was sexy like an Italian, bringing out the big guns for him as if he could be swayed by anything she had to offer. Her little patter about compliances didn't fool him one bit. Something was up at that place. He had an insider's eye view, and his own. The warehouse was too big even for the volume of sales on their returns. Any lamebrain auditor who had a chance to see the place would pick up the fact that they were moving more product than they reported. Obviously, Mitchell Sales hadn't been expecting visitors. But why should he? Only about 1 percent of tax returns got audited, and of those usually the audit was limited to a single transaction, and the query on behalf of the service was done, mercifully, by mail.
Charlie kept thinking about the curvaceous Mona Whitman and the way she'd said, "IRS agents are toads." It annoyed him, it really did.
If she'd done anything wrong, he'd hang her out to dry; crazy Cassie, too. He was distracted by the sight of young Taj out in front of the only yellow house on the street on an all-white-house street. He was washing one of the three robin's egg blue limos parked along the curb. The music pounding out of his boom box sounded like Spanish rap again. He'd done something new to his hair. One side was gone. The other was green. Along this portion of Lake Avenue the air was filled with the pungent aromas of Indian cooking. And Ogden was on the lawn, jumping up and down.
"You okay, you okay. Taking it easy. Taking it easy." Taj Sr., wearing a white warm-up suit with red and blue chevrons on the legs, was chattering excitedly and banging the old man on the back, desperate to get down just a little lower whatever he'd given Ogden to eat that had caught in his faulty esophagus.
"Ah, Charlie home," Taj screamed.
Ogden's face cleared and he stopped jumping. "Hi, son," he called. He loped into the street between two limos to meet Charlie at the car. Just then, Taj Jr., engrossed in the joy of the moment and the beat of the music, let out a whoop. He twirled around with the spurting hose as his microphone and dance partner and sprayed the old man in the chest. Revenue Agent Charlie Schwab was home.
CHAPTER 25
THE ART OF WAR was on Mona's mind when she got home from the walk-in. She was no t afraid for herself. She was terrified for Mitch. Anyone who reacted to rejection in such an insane fashion as Cassie did was more dangerous than she'd ever imagined. Mona was breathing freely, but she was scared enough of Cassie to decamp. Mitch had been right when he'd told her Cassie was a toxic person. Even before Mona had opened her front door, she'd known she had to get out of there. Cassie turned out to be more than just a toxic, passive-aggressive, secret ball breaker. Cassie was a genuine killer. No wonder Mitch had been apprehensive about leaving her.
Cassie's driving Mona around for all of fifteen minutes while Mona faked an asthma attack was a nonevent compared with her murdering her vulnerable husband on life support in the hospital just because he wanted to leave her. Mona would not let Cassie hurt either one of them. She unlocked her front door, glanced quickly around in case Cassie had returned, then raced upstairs for her makeup case. She found it in the bathroom still packed for the trip to Paris. She stowed it in the car. Then Mona raced upstairs again and foraged around in the closet long enough to locate two pairs of Hermès alligator pumps and two alligator purses in red and purple. Mona believed she didn't care about things. She was a frugal person. Even as she stowed away the expensive accessories, she told herself she'd give up everything she had with the snap of her fingers to save her honey. She grabbed the few bills that had accumulated since Friday and left the junk mail on the table. That was it. She was traveling light, hurrying to save her man.
Three minutes from start to finish, she double-locked the front door, checked the street for Cassie and the Mercedes, dove into her car, and took off. She was still wearing the work shirt and black pants she had donned for Cassie, but she had another outfit for the hospital at her new house. She headed down the hill to Roslyn Harbor, then turned onto Northern Boulevard, heading east toward Matinecock. At Wheatley Plaza, Mona turned north again on Glen Cove Road and drove past all the new stores that proved Glen Cove was coming up in the world.
Sometimes she liked to travel on Hegeman's Lane, then take Chicken Valley Road through the horse farms and grand estates, backtracking to Duck Pond Road. But today she went the shorter way, down Glen Cove and across Duck Pond.
Mona was in a hurry. She skimmed along Duck Pond, which was visually and fragrantly at its best in spring, but she didn't respond to any of its attractions. All she could think of was Mitch in peril. The stone house he'd named Le Refuge, with its natural stone swimming pool, tennis court, guest house, pond, waterfall, and five-car garage, was halfway across Duck Pond, sited on ten delightfully landscaped acres that Cassie had always particularly admired on garden tours of the area.
Mona caught a glimpse of her roof and chimneys from the road. The old-timers in the area called the house Chimneys because there were so many of them. Ten in all. She turned in at the brand-new wrought-iron gates with the crossed swords, shields, grapes, wine barrels, and Sales logo in gold. The graceful S of the driveway and towering oaks that lined it were over ninety years old. Seeing it now almost broke Mona's heart. The house had been built just before World War I, and getting it before it ever appeared on the market had been a major coup. She had especially admired the lawns-acres of green garnished in spring by huge clumps of daffodils.
The daffodils were finished now. The flowers were withered and dry. The spindly leaves, too, had a limp, bedraggled look. Later in the season, variegated hosta would wreathe each tree with white and green that would spike with purple flowers in the summer. Mona knew all about how gardens should look, because she'd been listening to Cassie talk about plants and fucking trees ad nauseam for many years. Mona had a gift for listening and picking things up. She rounded the circle, pulled up by the front door, and turned off the engine.
In the last six months she'd almost always come here with Mitch-to discuss decorating plans, to supervise the painting and wallpapering, the hanging of the drapes, positioning the furniture, and to make wonderful love. The first night they'd stayed there, back in March, Mitch had made a fire in the bedroom. They'd sat in front of it wrapped in new silk dressing gowns, eating beluga caviar off a spoon and sipping '90 Grande Dame Champagne from Baccarat flutes. When the caviar was gone, she'd taken out the Kama Sutra massage oil and rubbed Mitch's hands and feet, trying to envision and articulate every bone. Then she'd moved on, to his neck and shoulders. She'd rubbed and pulled his arms straight out of their sockets as hard as she could. He'd lain on his back moaning happily, attended to like the prince he was meant to be.
She'd drizzled the sweet oil down the hair on his chest and massaged it into his thickening waist, between his strong legs, up behind his balls. His eyes had been half closed as he'd watched her work on him, twitching her robe open from time to time for a better view of her breasts. She remembered it as if it were yesterday. He'd built the fire high. It had crackled and roared up the fireplace, drawing the smoke up and out of the room like a real champion. Candles had flickered all around them. On her knees, Mona had poured oil into her hands, warmed it between her palms, and gone to work on his towering cock.