I tried to expand it, so it would sound better. “If there are existing issues in your ledgers, then I would try to determine how they occurred and work with you to correct them, so they wouldn’t happen again.”
“You really don’t let things slide.”
“No,” I said firmly. I didn’t and I’d never had a client who wanted me to. Sure, some of them wanted me to fudge…oh.
“I would never do anything remotely unprofessional, and that includes anything which falls outside the boundaries of the law,” I stated.
“Ok. Thanks for coming in.” When August stood, he handed back my CV and the interview was over. I looked over again at Levi, wondering what was going on.
Chapter 4
“You know how I’ve been saying that things feel wrong? Like, I was complaining that the sun wasn’t as bright, maybe due to some kind of solar storm? And I said that I wasn’t sleeping well and I was tired all the time, and that could have been a reaction to the new mattress. Also, I was always getting tearful and it must have been because of your dander and an adult-onset allergy. Remember?”
Coral looked at me balefully, but I pressed on.
“That was how I felt in the nightclub,” I told her. “It was off. Wrong. And I could be wrong now, too, but I’m fairly certain that Levi’s friend August was asking me if I would be willing to do something with their books that I wasn’t supposed to. Cook them,” I clarified.
She hissed and I figured she’d had enough. But who else was I supposed to tell? Hernán would have been upset, because one of the things I’d gleaned from our many conversations (lectures) was he was very serious about integrity and honesty. I also knewthat his daughter’s important job included a level of government security clearance, of which he was very proud. He wouldn’t have wanted to be mixed up in anything that might have, even peripherally, threatened her success.
Anyway, the two of us didn’t talk about anything personal—or, I didn’t. I knew all about his divorce, how he’d struggled financially in its aftermath and how much he missed his ex-wife and blamed himself for their break-up. I knew about the health problems of his parents, about his daughter’s last few boyfriends, and about his own fears that he would struggle with aging and that Lucía would end up as lonely as he was.
But me? No, I hadn’t shared in the same way. There just wasn’t much to tell.
I had talked to Levi after my interview with his friend had concluded. I’d tapped him on the shoulder, signaling that it was time to go, and he’d helped me up the horrendously long set of stairs. “I won’t be taking on August and this club as a client,” I’d stated when we were back outside on the dirty sidewalk.
“Why? Did he come off badly just now? He’s ok,” Levi had told me.
I didn’t say more until we were in the car. “Is that guy up to something sketchy?”
“What?” He’d seemed slightly startled, but he hadn’t automatically said “no.” Instead, he’d asked, “Why did you say that?”
“Does he have the proper licenses for the club? You said that its appearance on the street was a ‘cover.’”
“I only meant that he was making it seem like a speakeasy to be a hook for guests,” he answered. “He hides how it looks underground so that they feel like they’re doing something secret. But I don’t know about his licensure and I never thought to ask. Does that matter if you’re only doing his books?”
“Is he selling drugs down there? Promoting prostitution? He could also be laundering money,” I mused.
“I don’t think he’s doing any of that. Why are you saying these things?”
I explained the same thing that I later said to Coral: I thought that August had been asking me to do something illegal. Levi was more interested in the story than the cat had just been, but he was very doubtful.
“He’s successful, which doesn’t mean he’s a criminal,” he told me.
But it might have. “How well do you know him?” I asked.
He explained again how they had hung out in the pretty park together when they both should have been in class, and how they’d been friends ever since. He didn’t know much about August’s current business except that it was profitable, based on the car that the guy now drove and the house he lived in. Then Levi had gotten quiet and when he’d dropped me off, he hadn’t said anything about our reciprocal deal of me helping him develop and pursue life goals and him being my friend.
Later, I had looked up business licenses for the address of the nightclub, and there was nothing. But I had found that his oldfriend August had served time. It was only brief and it was for relatively minor stuff, but there it was.
“It’s another thing that doesn’t speak well of Levi,” I mentioned to Coral. “This is the kind of person he chooses to associate with?” She ran off into the other room and got under the bed to hide, so the conversation really was over.
Another thing that didn’t speak well of him, in my opinion, was his absence. I was supposed to be his career and financial coach…well, we had never really set that in stone. He had vaguely agreed to come over, but he’d never directly said yes to it. I’d poured over our conversations, which I’d transcribed onto my laptop. I couldn’t find a place where he’d stated, “Yes! I want to be part of a productive relationship in which I end up as a professional, successful, law-abiding participant in society and you get stable relationship bonds.” He hadn’t communicated anything like that affirmative statement.
Lately, I hadn’t heard much from him and, of course, this was how men acted. They forgot to text, they forgot to call, and they forgot you. Once you were out of sight, you were often out of mind. I had been out of Grant’s mind. When he was with his boys, for example—
My phone chirped since I left the notifications on all the time now. I heard and Hernán across the hall probably had, too, because I’d turned to volume way up. I grabbed it to see who had texted me.
“Hi! This is Ava Blanchette. I hope you don’t mind that I got your number.”
