Faking It Read online

  DOWNSTAIRS IN the gallery, Pippy Shannon sang “He Is,” the phone rang, and Gwen discovered to her disgust that the answer to M, “sweetheart,” was “tootsy wootsy.” “Goodnight Gallery,” she said, still frowning at the puzzle book.

  “Gwen? This is Mason Phipps.”

  “Oh.” Gwen shut the puzzle book and tried to sound bright and innocent. “Hello.”

  “I wanted to thank you for last night.”

  “Oh, my pleasure,” Gwen lied. “Really. Like old times.”

  “I’d like to show my gratitude by taking you to a late lunch tomorrow,” Mason said. “You can get away from the gallery on Sunday, can’t you?”

  I’ll never get away from the gallery. “I don’t know—”

  “I would truly appreciate it if you’d join me, say about two?”

  Gwen thought she heard some vulnerability in his voice. The poor man was living with Clea. That could leave anybody flayed and bleeding.

  But he’d want to talk about Tony, On the other hand, if she didn’t eat lunch with him, she’d be eating it with a Double-Crostic. “Tell me an eight-letter word for ‘capable of sin’ and I’ll go.”

  “All right,” Mason said, sounding taken aback. “Any other clues?”

  “Begins with P, ends in E.”

  “Give me a minute,” he said, and there was a smile in his voice, and she thought, This is a nice guy. I should go to lunch.

  “It couldn’t possibly be ‘peccable,’ could it?” he said finally.

  “Peccable?”

  “You know, as in ‘impeccable,’ only the opposite?”

  Gwen opened the crostic book. “Hang on.” She filled in the letters and then transferred them to the quote squares. “I’ll be damned.”

  “That’s it?” Mason said.

  “I’ll also be having lunch with you,” Gwen said, laughing at the absurdity of it all. “I can’t believe you got that. Because I was never going to.”

  “I was motivated,” Mason said, the smile in his voice growing bigger.

  “You are my hero,” she said.

  They talked about Double-Crostics for a while, and he thanked her again for the night before, and when she finally hung up the phone, she was looking forward to seeing him again. I wonder if that’s a date, she thought.

  It’s just lunch. But Clea isn’t coming along. I wonder . . .

  The door opened as Pippy did her big finish, and Gwen saw Ford Brown, now forever a cowboy in her mind with the soundtrack to match: Do not forsake me, oh, my darling. “Oh,” she said to him, trying to ignore the music in her head. “Is everything all right upstairs?”

  “It’s fine.” He looked around the gallery. “Nice place.”

  Gwen looked around at the dingy walls and cracked window and dull wood floors. “Uh-huh.”

  His lips twitched in that not-grin again. “I was being polite.”

  “That only works when there’s some possibility it might be true,” Gwen said, wondering what he was up to. She hadn’t known him long, but she knew he was being abnormally chatty.

  “So why isn’t it?” He wandered past the Finsters, his hands in his pockets.

  “What? Nice?” Gwen shrugged. “No money.”

  Ford stopped at the cracked window. “Wouldn’t take that much.”

  “Are you a contractor?” Gwen said.

  “You could say that.” Ford turned back to her. “I was heading for lunch. What’s your favorite restaurant?”

  “Lunch,” Gwen said.

  Ford nodded patiently. “You tell me where the best place to eat is, I’ll pay you back by bringing you lunch.”

  “Do I look hungry or something?” Gwen said. “Because you’re the second guy who’s offered to feed me in fifteen minutes.”

  “People eat,” Ford said. “Usually about this time. Even in Florida.”

  “Imagine that. I figured you all lived on the fruit in the drinks with the little umbrellas.”

  “What is it with you and the umbrellas?” Ford said.

  “Just looking for a way out of the rain.” Gwen went back to her Double-Crostic. “Try the Fire House. Great seafood. You’ll feel right at home.”

  An hour later he brought her back a piña colada with an umbrella in it. “Extra fruit,” he said when he put it on the counter. Then he went upstairs.

  “Damn,” Gwen said, surprised, and tasted it.

  It was delicious.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  WHEN DAVY and Tilda got into Jeff’s car that afternoon, Davy said, “Here’s the way this goes. When we get there, I go to the door. You watch me. You will stay in the car, unless I do one of three things, then you come up with me.”

  “Three things,” Tilda said.

  “If I motion you up and call you Betty,” Davy said, “be a ditz. I’m the one in charge, I’ll patronize you a little bit while you search through your purse.”

  “Big purse,” Tilda said, holding it up. “Is Betty a ditz because I was such a mess in the closet?”

  “You were not a mess in the closet,” Davy said. “You were Vilma in the closet. If I need somebody to jump my bones, I’ll call you Vilma. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to come up this afternoon. If I call you Betty and say we’ve been together a year, you put a hundred-dollar bill in the mark’s hand and then you look for a second hundred.”

  “The mark?”

  “Pay attention,” Davy said sternly. “If I say we’ve been together one year...”

  “I put a hundred in the mark’s hand and then start digging for a second hundred,” Tilda said.

  “Right, if I say we’ve been together for two years ...”

  “I give her two hundred,” Tilda said.

  “Good girl.”

  “Why?”

  “Because once she has the money in her hand, it’s going to be really hard to give it back. If you hand it over while you’re looking for the second bill, she’ll take it automatically and we’ll have her.”

  “We can’t just offer her the money?”

  “Yes,” Davy said. “We can. That’s what I will do. If that doesn’t work, you come up.”

  “Okay.” Tilda looked a little uneasy. “One. Betty. Ditz. Money.”

  “Two is I look at my watch. You come up and tell me we’re running late and we have to go.”

  Tilda nodded. “Am I nice?”

  “Take your cue from me. If I call you Veronica and act like I’m afraid of you, be a bitch.” Tilda sighed. “If I call you Betty and snarl, you grovel. We’re putting a time lock on the deal, and if the mark doesn’t hurry up, he’ll lose it.”

  “Time lock. Okay. What’s three?”

  “I put my hands behind my back, and you come up and be the enemy.”

  “The enemy,” Tilda said.

  “If I can’t get the mark on my own, I’m going to have to give him a reason to bond with me,” Davy said. “The fastest way to do that is for the mark and me to confront an enemy together. That’s you.”

  “Okay,” Tilda said. “What do I do?”

  “Take your cue from me again. If I call you Veronica and cringe, say I couldn’t get the painting, whatever, bitch me out. Say you knew I couldn’t do it. Bully me.”

  “And that works how?” Tilda said, frowning at him.

  “If the person at the door lives with a bully, he’ll side with me. Now if the person at the door is the bully, I’ll call you Betty and you come up whining.”

  “I didn’t whine in the closet.”

  “No, you didn’t. Be as annoying as you can be without challenging me. Put me in a position where the guy at the door thinks I should be bullying you. Whine that we don’t need the dumb painting, that we should be spending that money on you.”

  “Okay, I think I’ve got it.” Tilda sat frowning for a minute and then nodded. “So Betty’s a ditz, and Veronica’s a bitch, and Vilma’s a slut. I had no idea you thought so much of me.”

  “You’re not concentrating, Matilda,” Davy said. “I’m going to try