The Unquiet - J. D. Robb [74]
Charlie opened and closed his mouth. This wasn’t going to go over well. He got that cornered-kindergartner feeling Oliver was so good at provoking. “Hey, you’re the one always telling me to get out more, do this, do that, mingle with the peeps.” The best defense was a good offense. “And look what happens when I do—the third degree!” He retreated to the kitchen.
“Grandfather,” Oliver said, following. Who called his grandfather “Grandfather”? Nobody but Oliver. “This is one 900 number. One peep. What, or who, is M. Romanescu?”
“You hungry? I got doughnuts.”
“Who is M—”
“Romy, her name’s Romy, and she’s a friend of mine, okay?” He started rummaging in the pantry. “Chocolate, I got glazed, I got sprinkles. . . .”
“Romy?”
“Madame Romanescu to you. We could split a cruller.” He heard a thump—Oliver falling back against the counter.
“A psychic. My God. A telephone psychic.”
“What? I can’t have a friend? We talk, that’s all. She tells me things.”
“I bet she does.”
“Real things. Stuff she couldn’t know!”
Oliver made the pained face that always made Charlie, who was seventy-seven, feel like seven. “We talked about this, Grandfather. We agreed. You said you’d stick to the new budget—no more shopping channel, no catalogs, no online poker.”
“This is different. I’m being sociable.”
“You’re being—” Oliver pinched the bridge of his nose, making a big show of summoning patience. “I know it’s been rough on you the last couple of years. Losing Nana, moving here—”
“Shoulda stayed where I was. Perfectly good house, should never’ve listened to you. Should never’ve . . .” He trailed off, didn’t say “given you my goddamn power of attorney.” He’d lose that argument, but only because Oliver didn’t play fair. He liked to bring up things that ought to be water under the dam, couple of unfortunate little financial incidents, could happen to anybody. Water under the dam.
“You haven’t given this place a chance,” Oliver was saying in his tolerant voice. “All the activities—”
“I hate activities.”
“—and golf, you haven’t even tried your new clubs.”
“I hate golf.”
“You don’t. You used to love golf.”
“Used to. Now I hate it.” He stuffed a doughnut hole in his mouth.
“Look,” Oliver said, glancing at his expensive wristwatch. Always with the schedule. He started cleaning up the bills, the Medicare and Social Security forms, all the stuff he brought over once a month for Charlie to sign. Or explain. “I have to go, Grandfather, I’m sorry. I’ve got a thing this evening, but before—”
“ A party!” Charlie pounced. “Some job you got. Wish I had that job.” That always got to him. Oliver was some kind of big-deal energy lobbyist on Capitol Hill, but all he did was go to cocktail parties—or so Charlie liked to needle him.
“But before I go, I want you to promise me you’ll quit calling this psychic. I mean it, Grandfather, this has to stop. You know better.”
“What? What do I know better?”
“That it’s bogus! A scam. These people prey on the elderly, the—well, frankly, the gullible. It’s what they do.”
“Romy’s not like that.”
“Promise me.”
“Or what, you’ll cut off my allowance?” He would, too; he’d done it before. “You don’t take after me,” Charlie said testily. “I don’t know who you take after. Nobody in the family I can think of. I think it’s very likely you were adopted.”
Oliver just looked at him.
“All right. All right! Christ almighty, what a wet blanket. Talk about a killjoy.”
“Sticks and stones,” Oliver said, smiling again. He got his suit coat off the back of the chair, where he’d put it so it wouldn’t wrinkle. The fact that he was wearing a suit hadn’t tipped Charlie off that he had somewhere else to go this afternoon because Oliver always wore a suit. He probably took a shower in his suit. He put all the papers in his snazzy briefcase, put the briefcase under his arm, and threw his other arm across Charlie’s shoulders, presumably to show there were no hard feelings. “You know,” he said, oh so casually