CHAPTER 36

CASSIE SPENT HER DAYS VISITING MITCH in the hospital and with lawyers for the ho spital, with Mark Cohen, and with Ira Mandel. It turned out at the best of times it wasn't so easy to turn off the respirator of a brain-dead person. No one-two-three procedure at all. Despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the insurance company officials quickly informed Cassie it took to keep Mitch ensconced in his glass cocoon day after day, no one at the hospital would give the okay to let him go.

In those meetings, just like in the conspiracy that had gone on for years before the stroke, no principal in the matter mentioned the circumstances of the situation. The girlfriend wanted the vegetable intact because New York State recognized his wife as his heir. The wife wanted the husband dead so she could move on. The IRS matter was now on the back burner. The life-and-death debate centered around the malpractice issue. An army of doctors and lawyers were mobilized to analyze and consult on the potential lethality of Mona Whitman versus the world on the viability-of-Mitchell Sales-as-a-human issue. In other words, was he brain-dead, or not?

In her first meeting with Ira in his office on Fifty-sixth Street in Manhattan, Cassie did not waste her time complaining about Mona's potential lawsuit involving Cassie's alleged harassment and kidnapping. She now knew such a suit could not even be filed, much less won, without a police report and witnesses.

"All I want is justice," she told Ira, pounding the long mahogany table in his boardroom.

"Cassie, baby, I know just how you feel," he replied, all neutrality. "You look wonderful. I don't know how you do it. Did you lose weight, change your hair?"

Cassie was wearing a simple black linen sheath. She had on big fake gold earrings. New copper-tinged sunglasses dangled from her hand. The old Cassie had disappeared. No one recognized her anymore. Friends failed to recognize her at the supermarket, at the post office, on all her daily rounds. No one recognized her at the bank or Sales Importers, where she went to check things out and get money. Not only that, all the people who hadn't been looking at her for fifteen years were turning their heads when she walked by. The big irony was that the only person who was oblivious to her new face and figure was her husband. The "refreshed" face that was supposed to have rekindled Mitch's love and tolerance for her, have them dancing cheek to cheek on cruise ships and energetically leaping over streams holding hands like the geriatric lovers in Centrum commercials left him absolutely cold. But then, he was in a coma. Cassie smiled.

"I might have lost a few pounds, Ira, over the years. But you haven't seen me in such a long time. How would you know? Your loyalties seem to have shifted in the last few years."

"No way, Cassie. I've always had the greatest respect for you." Ira gave her an oily smile.

Cassie thought it was amazing how men could think women were so stupid. She'd just repeated for the fourteenth time all the things that Mona had done to her, and he was acting as if they were having a walk in the park.

"I want justice. I want those credit card bills paid off and the cards canceled now. This is not a difficult problem."

Ira sat across from her. There was a thin sheen of moisture on his forehead. "Actually, Cassie, this is a difficult problem. I didn't know anything about this debt of yours until you brought it up."

"It's not a debt of mine," Cassie said slowly. "It's a debt in my name. I want the bills paid and my name cleared."

"I'm not sure how you expect me to do that."

"Somebody has the money to pay those debts. You told me Mitch was very rich. Mona must have money, too."

"Yes, but these things take time. It will have to be done in some kind of settlement, down the road. We have to think of the tax consequences."

"Ira, I don't want it done down the road."

"But you're going to have to wait a little while, stay calm, and be mature about this."

"Mature?" Cassie didn't like the sound of that.

"Well, look at it this way. Your inheritance will cover the debts and then some. I feel certain that if you behave in a dignified manner and don't excite further interest from the IRS, you'll probably be able to keep your house and sustain your lifestyle." He said this looking her right in the eye as if maintaining her modest lifestyle was Cassie's only wish.

"Isn't peace and a reasonable settlement with the greater enemy, without nasty lawsuits, the best justice for us all?" he finished.

Cassie stared at him coldly. "No, Ira, I don't think that's the best justice for us all." She kept her dignity but only just. She was the injured party, the wronged wife. She wasn't accepting the debt. No. Period. End of story. She wasn't accepting it.

Now she could see how people were driven to murder. She could just imagine how the fifty-something Jean Harris had been driven to shoot her lover when she'd found out he'd stolen her diet cookbook and left her for a younger woman.

Mona, the disgusting pig. The girl who'd never been as pretty as she in the first place had been knocking her husband's socks off for years. With just her ass and simpering smile, she'd found a way to steal Cassie's man, her purchasing power, her dignity, her very identity. And then Mona changed herself to fit it. She'd influenced their friends and their doctors, their lawyer, their accountant. Now everyone was telling Cassie to be mature.

She opened her mouth to let him have it, but Ira held up his hand. "Stop, think for a moment, Cassie. Think about the consequences of what you're saying." There it was again. That little think.

"Ira, listen to me carefully. I will not accept the debt. Mona is a thief. I'm not going to let her get away with this."

"Cassie, Cassie, Cassie." Ira shook his head. "Don't get vindictive. You're in a precarious situation here. Think of your future. Don't hurt yourself now."

"I am thinking of my future, Ira."

"Then be reasonable. Be smart. Smile through your tears, honey. How about a cup of coffee? Huh? Make you feel better."

"I'm not smiling through my tears, Ira," Cassie told him angrily. "I don't want coffee." I want revenge, she didn't say.

"I understand, you want to play hardball. Then let me be perfectly clear. Any action you take now could sink the boat, you got that? Mitch did a few things I didn't know anything about, and I still don't. We're all in trouble, okay." Ira shook his fist at her. "You girls are driving me crazy."

"What?"

"Forget I said that." He became instantly soothing. "Look, I'm telling you as a friend to trust me on this. Give me the receipts and whatever else you have. I'll find a way to take care of you, you have my word on it."

You girls are driving me crazy? Give him the receipts?

"Okay. Fine." Once again, Cassie understood the situation perfectly. She could no more trust him than she could trust that snake Parker Higgins. She put on one of those new fake smiles of compliance she'd learned recently and said goodbye. She was grateful that she'd already gotten the incriminating files and receipts out of the house and into a safe-deposit box.