14th Deadly Sin

CHAPTER 100

YUKI HAD PICKED the perfect venue to toast our crime reporter friend on her return from her triumphal book tour.

I parked the car at a metered spot on Market and walked a couple of blocks to the historic Hearst Building.

The doorman escorted me down the stairs to the subterranean room that once housed the San Francisco Examiner’s printing presses and was now a dark and glamorous club.

The ceilings were high; typewriters lined the walls; the long bar was of polished wood, with rows and rows of wineglasses hanging on overhead racks by their stems. Looking around the perimeter of the room, I saw red leather booths facing white leather swivel chairs across white marble tables, and a number of huge presses were still on the floor, adding to the 1950s feel of the place.

I released a long sigh.

I was going to drink and laugh tonight, that was for sure.

The doorman showed me to our table, and I was about to sit down when Yuki appeared and fairly danced across the floor.

I was reaching for Yuki when Claire called out “Hey, you two,” and joined us in a three-way hug.

When we were seated, we said “Phones off” in unison, and when we had done it, Claire said to Yuki, “I heard you’ve got big news.”

Yuki had already called me about her settlement for her client, but it was a great pleasure to hear her telling the story to Claire, using her hands, imitating Parisi’s voice.

“When he signed the agreement, he said to me, ‘You really are a little shit, Yuki.’ And I said, ‘I learned from the biggest and the best.’”

And then Yuki laughed her joyous, infectious chortle, and we laughed with her, loud and long. When she got her breath, she said, “Then he winked at me.”

“Did he?” I asked.

“He did. He winked. He smiled. He passed the document across the table and said, ‘Have a good day. I think you will.’”

“He adores you,” Claire said. “He still totally adores you.”

Feeling her presence before we saw her, we looked up to see Cindy wearing slinky black, smelling of lilies of the valley as she leaned down, hugging and kissing all of us.

“Who still adores you?” she asked Yuki, sliding in beside her.

Yuki got to tell the story again, and as Cindy had been out of the loop, she heard the long version. She laughed and asked for more detailed explanations, which broke up the dramatic flow, but hell, Cindy is a reporter and facts are her thing.

Then Cindy said, “I’ve got a little news of my own.”

“We know your book got great reviews,” Claire said. “What else you got?”

Cindy said, “I found this next to my clock this morning.”

She pulled a black velvet box from her handbag and put it on the table. There was a collective gasp. We’d seen this movie before. The first time, Richie had gotten down on one knee in the nave of Grace Cathedral. He had proposed and had given Cindy his mother’s ring. In her telling at the time, the angels sang and doves flew through the church and she knew she was blessed.

Then, after the pre-honeymoon period, when the conversation turned to children, she and Richie had hit a thick brick wall.

What had changed?

Cindy opened the box and pulled out a fine gold chain with a sizable diamond pendant.

“This was the ring,” she said. “Richie had it made into something different. Just for me.”

Cindy fastened the chain around her neck, then held the stone in its simple setting and slid it back and forth on the chain. That stone was a gasper then, and it was a gasper now.

“So you’re not engaged?” Yuki asked Cindy, the only one of our group who was still single.

“There was a note with the necklace,” said Cindy. “Richie wrote, ‘When we’re ready to get married, we’ll pick out a ring together.’”

“Beautiful,” said Claire. “The diamond and the note.”

“That calls for a drink,” said Yuki.

The waiter appeared and recommended several house special cocktails named for people, places, and headline events in the newspaper business.

We toasted everything: Cindy and Richie’s renewed commitment, Yuki’s settlement for the Kordells, Claire’s baby girl’s admission to first grade—and as for me, we toasted the fact that nine months after Julie was born, I could pull off a skinny red dress—“fabulously.”

It was customary for the four of us to discuss our cases, but I just wasn’t up for sharing Numero Uno and the Windbreaker Crew. Not tonight. I held up my phone.

“I’m just calling my husband to say I’m on my way.”

I punched in Joe’s number, and when he answered, I said, “Hey. I’ll be home by nine.”