The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [210]
Annie rubbed at the back of her neck. “You didn’t think I was your baby when you visited Sam that night at Pilgrim’s Rest and helped me with my algebra and she told you I was Jack’s daughter?”
She shook her head. “No. I just remember thinking how lovely you were, and how lucky you were to have Sam. I figured Jack had met someone, had a baby with her. But in St. Louis, when I saw you…and I, I don’t know, I just knew.” She was quiet a moment. “I went to St. Louis trying to help keep that idiot Jack from getting himself killed, which is exactly what Feliz was ready to do to him. Jack was sure he could get out of his gambling mess by selling Feliz La Reina. It was another one of Jack’s crazy schemes. But Feliz seemed to fall for it. Like I say, the idea of making a big gift to the Church appealed to him. I did what I could to scare you off. Back in Miami I reamed Jack out about the whole thing. I told him if he didn’t back off from you I’d see to it that he was locked up for twenty years.”
Annie thought about this for a while. Then she asked Ruthie if she’d ever really met Claudette Colbert.
She said that she had. “Briefly.” In Barbados, during her pregnancy. The movie star had been very kind and helpful to her.
Annie felt a bitter taste. “Everything was ‘briefly’ with you, wasn’t it?”
“No.” Ruthie looked at her, then with a wry smile, added, “I say this not ruthlessly, and not without rue.” Annie immediately thought back to the night in the Pilgrim’s Rest kitchen, the glamorous stranger punning on the word “Jack” during the peculiarly intense Scrabble game with Sam. “I’ve done serious work for a quarter of a century. That’s not brief. I’ve worked with the agency, always undercover.” Ruthie called to the waiter for her check. “For years, I’ve been passing along to our government useful things about Feliz and his friends. To find those things out, I make Feliz trust me. That’s my work.” Ruthie took another cigarette from a pack in her purse.
“You shouldn’t smoke.” Annie leaned forward as the waiter left. “Okay. The negative is in your jacket pocket now.”
Ruthie nodded; the wry smile widening into a version of Annie’s smile. “Good for you.”
“By the way, Trevor Smithwall told me you had my back.”
The woman frowned, shaking her head. “He shouldn’t tell you things like that. I’m the mistress of Feliz Diaz.” The waiter set down checks at both their tables. Ruthie gave him money. “And you, you train flyers on combat jets for the Navy. I heard that from Sam. I called her once, just to see how she was. She told me about you and the Navy. Of course, she’s a peace freak but she’s very proud of you.” Her hand moved forward, brushed past Annie’s.
Annie paid her own check. “Are you in danger from Diaz?”
Ruthie shook her head. “The irony is, Feliz loves me and I’m actually…fond of him.” She touched her pocket into which Annie had slid the negative of the photograph at The Breakers. “At the right time, this will help. McAllister Fierson has started to distrust me. He’ll find out he was right…” She glanced around the plaza again. “We’ve been sitting here a little too long. You need to go. Your friend Dan Hart? In Miami, they say he’s a very good cop.” She smiled. “Getting fired can be a sign of a good cop. You two look fond of each other.” She bent toward Annie’s table, moved her hand over to hers and this time let it rest there for a little moment, her fingers moving quietly, like a heartbeat. She said in her lovely voice, “I thought the world would be different.” She took off the sunglasses again and her eyes wetted to a darker blue.
Annie touched her mother’s fingers. “The world is different. I had it easier.” As she said this, she felt a clear sense that what was real between the two of them had little to do with