LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER THREE

      I called Lucy first thing. She was not in the least bit impressed with my story about Tina and the night visitors.

      “They were going to show up eventually, that was a given, she announced.

      “They were pretty pissed,” I told her.

      “Did you think they were going to be delighted to hear that they’ve been disinherited? I didn’t.”

      “Man, Lucy, do you always have to be so mean about everything?” I said, already sick of this. Lucy, she’s, no kidding, it’s very impressive how capable she is but honestly sometimes I think she just thinks everybody should sleep on rocks. Plus I had a whanging hangover. I was in no mood for all this steely resolve.

      “Just because I knew they were going to show up, that doesn’t mean I’m particularly happy about it,” she replied. “I think this could get pretty complicated pretty quickly and I don’t see any point in being naïve about that.”

      “Yes, yes, okay,” I said. “Actually what I meant was couldn’t you be like a little worried that I was stuck in this apartment by myself and these two big guys showed up and scared the shit out of me?”

      “They frightened you?”

      “Well yeah of course they did!” I said. “I was sound asleep, all of a sudden there are two big guys in this empty apartment with me, I didn’t know who they were, it was terrifying.”

      “Did they threaten you?” Lucy asked, only idly curious about this.

      “They were both drunk and, yeah, they threatened me; they threatened me a lot,” I said. This cheered her right up; she went from being vaguely interested to downright perky.

      “That is absolutely unacceptable,” she said. Now I could hear her typing.

      “Are you taking notes?” I asked, kind of wanting to strangle her.

      “I just want to have everything on paper, for the lawyers. We’re going to have to have a paper trail, if they get aggressive. No point in putting it off,” she said.

      “One of them is kind of good-looking,” I admitted, apropos of nothing.

      “Great,” Lucy acknowledged. “Listen, I have to run into a meeting.”

      “You’re running into a fucking meeting? What am I supposed to do if they come back?”

      “Tell them to call our lawyer,” she reported. “Let’s seeLong, tell them to call Stuart Long, you met him yesterday, he was Mom and Bill’s lawyer, he put together the will.”

      “Yes, I remember, but I don’t have his number.”

      “They’ll know who he is, Tina,” Lucy said. “Listen, I really do have to run.

      “Wait a minute. Would you wait a minute?” I said. “There’s somebody here.” And there was, there was somebody in the apartment.

      “Who is it? Is it them?” she asked.

      “I don’t know, but it’s someone,” I whispered. I was all the way in the back, on that little couch and television island where Bill and Mom had drunk themselves to death. But it was like all the air in the back of the apartment was moving differently, like someone had opened a door far away and that affected the whole place, like the wind comes just before the train in a subway station. And then I could hear somebody moving somewhere far away, but inside. I could hear it.

      “Tina, go find out who it is, and then if there’s a problem, call me back,” she instructed me, only half interested. “I’ll tell my assistant to come get me out of my meeting if you really need me. All right?”

      “Can you just hold on a minute?” I said.

      “No, sorry, I actually can’t. For heaven’s sake. It’s not like it’s the middle of the night and they’re walking in and threatening you. I can understand why that upset you, but this should be easy. Handle it, would you? You’re not a child.”

      “Look, don’t talk to me like that, okay?” I said, really annoyed now. “I don’t appreciate it. We’re all in this together.”

      “That’s my point. If you need me call me back.” Okay, she said that, and then she hung up. No kidding. She hung up on me, without saying goodbye.

      “I hate my family,” I said to myself. I knew calling Alison would be useless in the complete opposite direction: she would just get all uptight and start freaking out and have no idea what I should do and then she and Daniel would come by and he’d try to take over everything. I was not terribly interested in that option, so I just thought I’d better head back to the front of the apartment and see what the hell was going on.

      I heard another sound, kind of like pots banging in a kitchen, six miles away. “Hey!” I yelled. “Who’s in here?” Which was not particularly sly, but I wasn’t looking for the surprise element since I assumed it was just those two boneheads, or one or the other of them. “You need to get out of here!” I yelled. I was charging through the maze of rooms now, all determined and cocky. The apartment looked considerably friendlier in the morning light. Even though there wasn’t much furniture and the carpeting was shitty, the walls were really all painted beautiful colors, which glowed in the morning light. It gave me courage, which was good because I didn’t have much else to go on. “Get out of here and call your stupid lawyer and stop bothering me!” I shouted, charging into the giant room at the front of the apartment.

      “Helllooooo,” said a man. “Who are you?”

      Okay, I practically jumped out of my skin. Because I turned the last corner and there was a man, a different man now, standing in the middle of that giant empty room. This one was not tall, he was actually quite short, and he was very tidy, like a tidy little person in clothes with dirt all over them. I half expected him to evaporate but he didn’t evaporate, he just stood there and stared at me until I recovered the part of my brain that wasn’t completely hung over and flipped out.

      “Who am I?” I said. “Who are you?”

      “Oh wait, oh wait,” he said. “I know who you are. You’re Tina! Alison, Lucy and Tina; you’re Tina. Olivia showed me pictures. I’ve seen pictures of you.

      “You’ve seen pictures of me?” I said.

      “Look at you, you’re pretty, you’re much prettier in real life, you don’t photograph well. I think that’s strange, don’t you, how some people look just lovely when you meet them, and then you see them in pictures and you think, Well that just didn’t translate. Well, anyway. I’m Len! Your mother…didn’t…? Didn’t she?”

      “Didn’t she what?”

      “Nothing,” he said, kind of sad. “Oh well. She said you didn’t talk; I didn’t realize that meant you didn’t talk at all. You didn’t talk at all?”

      “Listen,

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