In Death's Shadow

CHAPTER FIVE

The doorman at the Hotel Washington gamely held a black umbrella more or less uselessly over Paul's head as he leaned his elbows against the passenger side window and bargained with the cabby. Dressed in an international yellow foul-weather suit he normally reserved for sailing, Paul looked like the Gloucester Fisherman, but whatever this fisherman was selling, the cabby, it was clear, wasn't buying. I could tell from the expression on the driver's face that he wasn't keen about taking a group of shipwreck survivors on board. His eyes darted from one of us to the other, clearly weighing the advantages of a three zone fare, plus a dollar fifty for each additional passenger, against how wet his seat covers were going to be by the time he got us to the intersection of Connecticut and Nebraska and paid him off, plus tip.

At the restaurant, two cabs later, we peeled off our sodden rain gear and left it to drip dry in the glass-enclosed vestibule. The hostess led us past the booth seating to a long rectangular table covered with thick, white tablecloths where the rest of our party were already pulling out chairs and getting settled.

Miranda didn't care for the booster seat the waitress had brought her. She tucked her chin to her chest and whined, "I'm a big girl, Daddy." Brian smiled apologetically and waved the waitress away, watching with a paternal grin as Miranda hauled herself up onto the chair. Brian pushed her in, but her dimpled chin barely cleared the edge of the table. Her lower lip quivered. "I can't see!"

Connie shot Dennis a look that said, plain as day, Thank heaven she isn't our kid, and I caught Dennis winking back.

Valerie leaned toward her daughter. "Would you like to sit on a phone book, sweetheart?"

Miranda nodded, and in a few minutes was elevated to eye level with the rest of us, perched on a copy of the Metropolitan Washington yellow pages, seriously studying her menu. It was upside down.

Paul ordered wine, then surveyed the group over the top of his reading glasses. "Everybody like spicy?"

"I do," said Valerie, "the spicier the better. But not for Miranda. Do they have something milder, like Pad Thai?"

"Is the Dalai Lhama Buddhist?" Dennis quipped.

Connie cocked her arm and aimed a playful jab at her husband's rib cage. "He's been working too hard," she said. "Poor boy needs a vacation."

Dennis had, in fact, been working hard. A series of robberies, the last resulting in a triple homicide, had every convenience store clerk from Glen Burnie to St. Mary's City clamoring for bulletproof vests.

Dennis poured his wife a half glass of pinot grigio, then turned to Valerie. "We haven't been away, really away, since our honeymoon." He filled Valerie's glass, then passed the bottle to Paul.

I dipped the corner of my napkin in my water glass and used it to wipe liquefied Goldfish crackers off Jake's chin. "Brian and Valerie just got back from a fabulous trip," I said.

Emily smiled across the table at Valerie. "I was wondering where you got the terrific tan!" She folded a large cloth napkin into a triangle and tied it loosely around Chloe's neck. "Where'd you go? The Caribbean?"

Valerie laid her menu on the table. "We went on a cruise."

Before she could continue, the waitress appeared to take our order.

Brian looked up from the menu he'd been sharing with Miranda and said, "What do you recommend, Paul?"

"Everything's good," Paul replied.

"Why don't you order for us," Dennis suggested. "Community table, right?"

Nods all around. Soon Paul was locked in a serious discussion with the waitress, who, scribbling furiously, took down every word he said in Thai script.

"Dennis and I honeymooned in the Caribbean," Connie commented after the waitress had disappeared into the kitchen with our order. "What islands did you like best?"

"Actually," said Valerie, "we never stopped in the Caribbean. We went straight from Lauderdale to Cartagena in three days! Can you believe it?"

"Where's Cartagena?" Emily asked.

I stared at my daughter in mock horror. "Where's Cartagena? After four years at Bryn Mawr you have to ask? That was money well spent!"

Emily stuck out her tongue.

"It's in Colombia," Brian told her, laughing. The wine had reached our end of the table and he paused to pour me a glass. "On the Atlantic side of the canal."

By "canal," I presumed Brian meant the Panama Canal. No geography whiz myself, I was confused. I'd seen Romancing the Stone three times. I thought Cartagena was in Chile. Maybe there were two of them.

While Valerie and Brian described highlights of their cruise, interrupting each other excitedly from time to time, I nibbled on my Thai Room Special Chicken-a crab-stuffed drumstick, deep fried to a golden brown-and wondered about Valerie's insurance settlement.

During the Stone travelogue, platter after platter was brought to our table. In addition to Pad Thai and the delectable bean threads I'd been lusting after, there was Lemon Grass Soup, Larb, Satay, Beef with Ginger Root, Chicken with Hot Chili and Garlic, Pork with Spicy String Beans, the sort of rough-hewn, lip-blistering fare one might encounter at the home table of an expatriate Thai cook. As each new dish arrived, we'd ooh and ahh and somehow rearrange the table to accommodate it, before falling upon it with dueling chopsticks like ravenous villagers. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

Meanwhile, I tried to figure out a tactful way to bring up the question of Valerie's good fortune. Say, Valerie, speaking of the Shrimp in Red Curry Sauce, weren't you going to tell us about your recent windfall?

Instead I ate silently and studied portraits of the Thai royal family that hung on the wall behind the well-stocked bar, while Valerie went on and on about the beauties of New Zealand, the mysteries of the Orient, the oppressive heat of India and Africa, and how disappointed she was that they got to spend one day-only one day!-in England, and in Southampton, at that. What was there to see in Southampton, for pity's sake?

"Wow!" said Emily simply after Valerie had talked the QE2 from Southampton back to New York Harbor. I jabbed my chopsticks into a spicy squid salad that was delicious but so spicy that it made my eyes water.

"Wow, indeed," said Paul.

"And you…" I pointed my chopsticks in Paul's direction. "You never take me anywhere!"

Paul held up a hand. "Not true! Remember the BVI?"

I settled back into my chair and chewed thoughtfully on a carrot curl before replying. "Yes. Well, there was that."

Several years before, Paul had been accused of sexual harassment by one of his students, an allegation both the Academy-and I-had taken very seriously. After putting everyone through months of hell, she'd withdrawn the charges. Exhausted by the ordeal, we'd chartered a sailboat in the British Virgin Islands, where, floating silently over the crystal blue, impossibly clear water of Manchineel Bay, the rifts in our troubled marriage had finally begun to heal. I smiled, remembering Paul's daily ritual: standing on the bow in his bathing trunks, gazing down the Sir Francis Drake Channel as the sun rose over the hills of Cooper Island behind him. How he'd turn to me with a goofy grin and sing like Jimmy Buffett, "Ah! Just another shitty day in Paradise."

According to Valerie, they'd had 120 days-none of them the least bit shitty-in Paradise.

Connie and Dennis were gazing meaningfully at one another. Based on our recommendation, they had honeymooned in the BVI. From the signals that were passing, like electricity, between them, I was betting their memories were X-rated.

I blushed and turned away, noticing that Chloe was using her fingers to arrange individual grains of rice into a design on her plate, making sure the noodles didn't touch the rice.

"Damn!" Dennis patted his waistband, pulled out his beeper and checked the screen. "Sorry, all. Gotta make a call."

Connie pouted. "Perfect timing, as usual."

Dennis kissed the top of his wife's head as he eased between her chair and the wall. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll be back before dessert."

I spooned rice into Jake's mouth while he reached for the dish holding the spicy squid. Jake would eat anything. Emily tried to persuade Chloe to try a shrimp, but my granddaughter was having none of it.

I turned to Brian. "Valerie tells me you've won some sort of lawsuit."

Brian glanced up from his noodles. "Not exactly." He gave Valerie a narrow-eyed look that would have turned Leona Helmsley to stone.

Valerie ignored him. "We cashed in my insurance."

"Your life insurance?"

Valerie nodded.

"I didn't know you could do that," I said.

Brian reached out and covered Valerie's hand, where it rested on the table, with his own. I knew the type. Now that she'd let the proverbial cat out of the bag, he would go all masculine and take charge on her. "It's a plan that became popular during the AIDS epidemic," he explained. "Here's a theoretical for you. Let's say I'm gay, terminally ill, with no dependents. And I've got this monster life insurance policy. Who's going to get it when I die?"

Connie balanced her chopsticks on the rim of her bowl. "Your family?" she suggested.

"That's one scenario," Brian continued. "But suppose your nearest and dearest believe that homosexuality is an abomination before the Lord? Suppose they've disowned you? What if you don't want them to get one red cent?"

"Change your beneficiary," Paul said.

Brian pointed a finger. "Exactly! That's exactly it! Change your beneficiary."

When we looked puzzled, Brian pushed his plate aside and leaned forward. "So let's say you're gay, you're terminally ill, your family's a bunch of homophobic shits, and your medical bills are sky high. You've also got a $500,000 life insurance policy. Why shouldn't you get to use that money now, when you need it most?"

"It's called a viatical," Valerie interrupted.

"Viati-what?" said Emily. She unwrapped a straw and plunked it into Chloe's milk.

"Viatical. It comes from 'viaticum.' That's Latin. It means preparations for a journey," Valerie said.

Brian nodded. "So this is how it works. You get a doctor to certify that you're going to die, you take that information to a financial services company that specializes in viatical settlements, and they buy your policy from you. Cash on the counter."

"I get it," said Paul. "You sign your policy over to them, they pay you for it, and when you actually die, they get their money back."

"Right. And you get to spend the money any way you want," Brian added. "Medical bills. Clothes. Cars. Trips. Whatever."

"Wait a minute!" Paul held up a hand. "How does the company make any money on the deal?"

"Well, they don't pay you the full value of the policy, of course. It's on a sliding scale, based on their estimate of how long you have to live." He patted his wife's hand. "As you know, Valerie's prognosis was grim. The doctors gave her six months. A year, max. So the payout was about eighty percent."

Valerie shifted in her chair, as if uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. "Yes," she chirped with artificial cheerfulness. "But I didn't die, did I, darling?" She smiled. "So we paid off my medical bills, and with the money we had left over-” She paused, glancing at Brian as if seeking his permission to go on.

"We bought the house and splurged on the trip," Brian finished for her.

"It's ironic, really," Valerie added, grinning broadly. " 'Viatical' means preparation for a trip. Well, it was for a trip." She giggled. "It's just that I didn't end up at the morgue."