Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money Read online

  It was 4:30 pm on a trading day. The markets were closed, the bullpen in the post-coital lull that follows the closing bell: Brokers cleaning up their desks, doing paperwork, chatting softly, amicably; traders horsing around like the self-satisfied adolescents they seem always to pride themselves on being. All of this varied activity, all in anticipation of tomorrow’s opening bell, while still riding the ebbing high of the day’s trading. I knew this was one of the things I’d miss.

  “Carter?”

  “Sorry Sal. I was just thinking.”

  “I asked what you’re going to do.” I noticed that the corner of Sal’s mouth was twitching, as it does when he’s worried about something. I wondered if I might be the cause.

  Sal was my boss, but he was more, as well. My father died when I’d only been at Merriwether Bailey a couple of years. Sal hadn’t tried to be a father to me after my Dad was gone, but he’d slid into the senior-male-figure in my life position comfortably. Watching me closely through heartbreaks and workaholic periods. Prodding me when I seemed to spend too much time at the office or forgot to eat. He worried about me. I could see it on him now.

  “I don’t know,” I told him honestly.

  “Just not this, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “Jack,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “I guess,” I looked again at the empty desk, allowing my eyes to scan to the place where Jack had fallen. Self-indulgent, self-punishing, I made myself stop. “And it just doesn’t make sense to me anymore. Not so much.”

  He hugged me then. I hadn’t expected a hug, not from Sal. But we both needed it: the touch of another human. The world was changing. Jack’s death was the grand finale for me, but Sal and I had both seen the changes coming for a long time. You don’t get to be an old racehorse without learning to recognize the sound of the starting gate. Or, for that matter, the feel of the finish wire.

  Sal pulled a strand of hair away from my eyes, tucked it behind my ear. “We’re gonna miss your smiling mug, kiddo. I always said you were too pretty to be a broker.”

  I made a shooing motion with my hands, though I couldn’t stop the grin that slid over my face. It was an old line with us. Lady brokers were seldom slender, 5’11” blondes with lots of unruly hair. I’ve never thought of myself as gorgeous — attractive, sure — but in the early days, the guys gave me a fairly hard time. After a while, once I’d earned my stripes, it turned into good-natured ribbing. These days it was all around Barbie. If I made the company a lot of money, they’d call me Vacation Barbie, as in, I’d earned a vacation. Or if word leaked out that I was seeing someone, the guys would say: How’s Ken?

  The Barbie stuff didn’t irritate me perhaps as much as it should have. The trading floor is always tense. As a result brokers get their laughs as cheaply and easily as possible: there’s no time or energy for sophisticated humor, not during working hours.

  Now Sal said, “Good luck, Barbie,” And, despite the teeny inside joke, I could see the sentiment was sincere. “You always know where I am.”

  And I did.

  *

  I was disappointed when, a couple of weeks after I’d quit my job, I didn’t feel any better and I started getting seriously worried about myself. Was this what had happened to those crazy ladies you saw pushing shopping carts filled with all their possessions? Did it start with some sharp, personal tragedy from which they never recovered? The moment that seemed like an achingly clear forecast of my future, I pulled myself out of bed and made a conscious effort to do something. Anything. And in those first few days of stumbling recovery, a walk around a couple of blocks chased my breath away. But it helped. It was like there was a light ahead somewhere, if I only squinted diligently enough.

  My timing on choosing to return to what was left of my life was flawless. About when I could manage a whole meal, cared enough to shower every day and felt strong enough to catch up on my laundry, my co-op sold and I knew that the time for introspection was over. In 30 days new people would be moving into my apartment and would expect me not to be living there. I had to do something. I just wasn’t quite sure what.

  Chapter Two

  I felt apprehensive until my lungs met the air outside the terminal. Inside it hadn’t felt very different from the plane or JFK before that. But right outside the building, thinking about finding a cab, it hit me in an amazing wave. The smog, almost dense enough to cut with scissors, the moist heat after the air conditioned neutrality of the airport, the smell of the sea and, inexplicably and faintly, the scent of something vaguely tropical and sweet. This, to me, is the smell of Los Angeles: thick and moist and slightly mysterious beneath the dirt, though the dirt is real. I smiled as I hailed a cab. The cabbie smiled back as he stopped for me. I’d never been in the city before, but I knew I was home.

  Before I’d decided on Los Angeles I’d considered Seattle, but that would have been going back. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I knew that retracing my steps wasn’t it. I had a brief fling with the idea of Canada — cool and clean — but even though a lot of Canadians speak English, it’s a different culture and I didn’t feel up to that. I saw some program on television about Sedona, Arizona. It looked so pretty, so new. But I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get daily Times delivery out there and, if I decided to stay involved with the markets, that would be key.

  By then I knew I wanted west and warm and new. It wasn’t that big of a leap to think of LA. I’d heard so much about the place. Not all of it had been good, but I’d been living in New York City for over 10 years: adversity didn’t daunt me. Especially not at a steady 70 degrees.

  “Where to?” the driver asked, still smiling, when my stuff was stored in the trunk and I was settled in the cab.

  Where to, indeed? Sal had given me a lead on an apartment in a friend’s house out in Malibu, but I felt the need to touch the Earth and regroup a little bit.

  “The Beverly Hills Hotel, please.” It was cliché and would probably be expensive, but I was here and I needed somewhere to land while I scouted a course of action. What better place than that famous landmark? More, from what I knew about it, like a museum than a hotel.

  I didn’t have a reservation, but it was midweek in March, I knew they’d find something for me. And when they did, it was all about airy lightness and so exactly as I’d imagined — right down to the pool and the palm trees I could see out my window — that I pulled off my clothes, flung myself onto the pillow-top bed and slept off my six hour flight. Welcome to L.A.

  Giving Los Angeles six months had felt like a good idea. If I hated it, there were other places: my life was portable now. Before I’d left New York I’d sold practically all my stuff. Everything that wouldn’t fit easily into a box or suitcase. I hadn’t had that much to begin with, but it felt good and right when it was mostly all gone and my life was very light. And when Jack’s face would pop into my mind I’d push it away and move on to the next aspect of my big, new project: my newly revamped life. A work in progress.

  I needed a place to live. The hotel was wonderful, the perfect respite, but staying there for more than a week or so wouldn’t be a good idea. I had enough money, but I wouldn’t for long at four hundred a night. And I needed to think more about what I was going to do for gainful employment. But this was L.A. For the first time in my adult life, I needed a car.

  My second day in Los Angeles I asked another cab driver to take me to where “a lot of car lots” could be found.

  “What kind of car?” he asked.

  I shrugged. I knew I didn’t want an old car, and I wanted it silver and not terribly expensive. Beyond that, I didn’t feel fussy.

  I bought the first new, silver, domestically-priced automobile I plunked my eyes on, quietly delighted at the power that buying a new car without a lot of fuss made me feel. My own magic carpet. And it was easy to rationalize the purchase: I kept thinking that part of my Chagall had paid for the whole vehicle. Viewed in that light, it was a good swap.

  Driving mys
elf back to the hotel wrapped in the scent of new car, I felt positively Californian. Even when I took a wrong turn off the freeway and ended up lost, I still felt exhilarated. When you’re not in a hurry to get anywhere, even being lost can feel like sightseeing. It’s all in the way your mind frames a situation, that was the first thing I discovered in L.A.

  A few days later, this new, brighter frame of mind carried me out to Malibu to meet Sal’s friend and look at the apartment he had for rent. He’d actually called it a “guest house” on the telephone, which I took to be localese for “really, really cramped and small.” But he also said it had a view and privacy and both of those things sounded good to me — as did the price — so we set a time and I headed out to see it.

  I fell in love with Malibu before I got there. The Santa Monica Freeway very abruptly turns into Pacific Coast Highway and, as you head north, the city falls away. The closer I got to my destination, the more peaceful things became until, when I started driving up Las Flores Canyon as directed, I found myself on twisty mountain-style roads. After crowded Beverly Hills, it was like a beautiful moonscape.

  I saw the address I’d been given, but couldn’t see a house: just sort of a widening in the road and a post with the street address on it. I pulled over, got out. Sure enough, there was a house there — a big one — down the cliff. Precarious stairs led me down. Sal had told me his friend with the Malibu house was named Tyler and that they went “way, way back.” Nothing more. And nothing Tyler said on the phone when we set up an appointment for me to come out prepared me. But when he opened the door, I recognized him instantly. There are very few film directors that the average person can identify on sight. Tyler Beckett — director of Spirit of the Flame and Thanks for Midnight and I don’t-know-how-many other movies — is one of them. I would have recognized the inky hair, cheerful single eyebrow and assertively stooped shoulders anywhere.

  If he noticed me trying not to ogle him, he was cool about it. “You’ll be Madeline,” he smiled as he took my hand. “Sal told me to keep an eye on you out here on the big, bad Coast.”

  “That’s Sal,” I smiled back. “My self-appointed guardian. He’s the sweetest guy. How do you two know each other?”

  “We were at Neighborhood Playhouse together. About a million years ago, I guess.”

  “Neighborhood Playhouse in New York? The acting school?”

  Tyler laughed at my obvious amazement. Nodded.

  “Sal was an actor?”

  “Well,” Tyler was grinning widely now. “Let’s just say that, as an actor he was a pretty good stockbroker.”

  “Wow. Sal an actor. Bizarre.”

  “I guess that’s what some of our coaches thought, too. Poor old Sal,” he said affectionately. “I shouldn’t talk though. I wasn’t so great on that end of things myself.”

  “And you guys have stayed in touch?”

  “He handles a lot of my investments. And we’re old friends. Which is why he figured this would work out. He knew the guest house was empty and that we have plenty of room in the house for actual guests. Let me show you the place.”

  The apartment was teeny. And perfect. Tucked under the big deck we’d walked over to get to the stairs down to it, the guest house was so impossibly private you would have missed it if you didn’t know it was there.

  “This used to be the governess’ apartment. My daughter is 17 now. No governess. It’s been empty for the last couple of years and my wife suggested we rent it if we could find the right person. We’re gone a lot and it seemed like a good idea to have someone around. Keep an eye on things, you know.”

  I did. With a 17-year-old daughter around, you could have problems that your security company wouldn’t be able to handle. Having once been a 17-year-old girl myself, I knew the game. I smiled at Tyler. “I get it: you’re hoping for a deterrent.”

  “She’s a good kid, really,” he spread his hands helplessly. “Just some of her friends… With someone — an adult — down here, it might keep things from getting out of hand.”

  The apartment charmed me. Four small rooms — counting the bathroom and the closet — lead off the guest house’s own deck, big enough for a barbecue or a lounge chair, but not both. The front door brought you into a tiny living room — the kitchen little more than an alcove in one corner — which opened into the bedroom which opened into a closet. The rooms were small, but the view was huge. Each room, even the closet, had floor-to-ceiling windows. The house was perched above Las Flores Canyon and what you saw from the apartment, was — literally — a bird’s eye view. It made you feel as if you were soaring.

  “I love it,” I said, drinking the view.

  Tyler smiled, “And you haven’t even seen the bathroom.”

  “There’s a bathroom?” I joked, following him. It was right next to the entrance. When the door to the apartment was open, the bathroom door was hidden, which was how I’d missed it. Though as small as the rest of the place, the bathroom was charming, with a clawfoot tub and a pedestal sink. I could imagine candles lit around the room, a glass of wine balanced on the edge of the tub and me looking like a glamourpuss from an old movie, bubbles up to my armpits and a satisfied smirk on my face.

  “Now I love it even more. And I’d like to take it but, to be honest with you, I’m not anything like a baby-sitter. I like kids OK, but I haven’t spent a lot of time around them.”

  “Oh, no,” he assured me. “We’re not looking for anything that…” he hesitated, looking for a word, “pro-active. We were just hoping to find someone responsible — someone we know something about, obviously — to be around. Like you said,” he grinned engagingly, “a deterrent.”

  I grinned back. “I can do that.”

  “Sal told me you worked with him until recently. He didn’t tell me how.”“I’m… I’m in stocks.” The hesitation surprised me, though it shouldn’t have. I was in the middle of redefining myself.

  “A stockbroker?” he asked.

  “I was. Until recently. I’m not anymore.”

  Tyler looked at me speculatively. He had kind eyes so it wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling. “You’re a day trader?” he asked, as though this would be the most natural thing in the world. I shook my head — no — but I could feel something inside me taking root, growing, but if Tyler saw me hesitate, he gave no sign. “And the stuff about being a deterrent didn’t scare you?”

  “Naw,” I replied. “Seems like a good idea, actually. And it seems to me that you’re looking for someone who looks grownup enough that they won’t party with your offspring, but who also looks as though they can stand up for themselves.” It had occurred to me that, since the deck was above me, any partying that went on would be directly above my head. I mentioned this, as well.

  Tyler smiled. “I think you’ll fit the bill pretty well. So, if none of what I’ve said scares you,” he hesitated and I shook my head, “I think you’ve found yourself a room with a view.”

  Tyler had me fill out a rental agreement, I wrote him a check and, even though it was more than a week until the end of the month, Tyler said I could move right in. “It’s empty anyway.” And so I did. Right after I did some shopping.

  The nice thing about living in a small place is that you don’t need a lot to fill it. The bed was built into an alcove along one wall, so I only needed a mattress. I bought a dresser. A small wood dining table and two chairs filled the kitchen and overflowed into the living room. A couple of tall stools would give me a place to have breakfast or make phone calls at the back of the kitchen counter. I bought a Metropolitan Opera poster for Die Zoberflötte featuring a reproduction of The Magic Flute by Marc Chagall. I had always loved this image: an angel playing music for, perhaps, all of the animals in Eden. It was peaceful, colorful, cheerful. And since beautifully framed and matted it cost me less than two hundred bucks, it was a bit of a personal joke. The rare and beautiful early etching had brought me $25,000, but reflected something no longer real to me. Same artist, different phase. For both of u
s. I liked the way that felt as much as I enjoyed the color the poster added to the room.

  I got a big desk and placed it in front of the living room window: I’d be able to watch the world while I worked. I got a big computer to put on the desk. The very same kind I’d had in the office in New York. It seemed like the right way to go. I got myself a comfy office chair. All these purchases made something clear to me: though I had yet to acknowledge a plan to myself, it certainly seemed to include some serious work.

  I had just taken delivery of the last piece of furniture — the dresser — and was celebrating how nice everything looked by stretching out on the bed and alternately looking around the apartment and looking at the view, when I heard a loud snuffling. It sounded to me like a badger closing in on its prey. I pulled my duvet over me and listened. And didn’t hear it again, though I listened hard. I relaxed: it must have been my imagination. And just as I felt the tension begin to drain out of my body, I heard it again. Not imagination. And louder this time. Closer. Inside my apartment, I was sure.

  Instinct squeezed my eyes shut, accelerated the pounding of my heart. I was going to die here in my new apartment, with my books and my clothes still unpacked. My phone wasn’t even connected yet.

  The snuffling got louder. Closer. Fetid breath touched my face.

  I chided myself for my cowardice. If I was going to die here, eaten by some strange and exotic beast, the least I could do was fight back or, better still, make an attempt to run. I opened my eyes to find another set of eyes looking back at me. Kind, amber canine eyes. And the opening of my eyes caused a tail to wag.