Smile Like You Mean It - 8. Eight

After Waylon left, Bruno, as seemed to be his constant state lately. was torn in wildly different directions by his feelings: relieved that Waylon cared enough about Bruno’s safety to risk his career, excited by the idea of Waylon coming back here tonight, resentful at the detective’s high handedness, worried that Waylon’s career could be seriously damaged if anyone found out. But enough time to add these new anxieties to the ones already raging inside; Right now, Bruno wanted to make sure Casey really was all right.

After a quick shower, Bruno drove to the hospital, taking a call from Seb as he fought his way through traffic.

“Hey,” Seb said. “I saw the news on nola.com about Casey. How is he?”

“He’s fine, or at least he will be. He was shot, and he hit his head when he fell. Because of the head injury he doesn’t remember a thing. He has a concussion though, but should be fine..”

“Do the police know what happened?”

Bruno remembered the official version he had been given by Waylon and Detective Rodriguez. “They think it was just a burglary gone wrong.” Thankfully, he wasn’t talking to Seb in person; Bruno could get away with lying over the phone, but he was the kind of person whose every thought was broadcast over his feature; lying in person rarely worked for him.

“Look,” Bruno said, wanting to cut the conversation short before he managed to leak something he shouldn’t. “Traffic’s bad so I need to concentrate. Thanks for checking on Casey.”

“Just let me know how he’s doing, okay?”

“No problem.”

By the Bruno got to the hospital, Casey was awake and alert and had been moved from ICU to a standard room. Well not a standard room; Shane, using his connections, had managed to have Casey moved into the Pamchenko wing of the hospital, where the rooms were more like hotel suites than hospital rooms.

Shane and Linda had gone home to get some rest, but Chad was there. Along with what looked like the entire exotic flower inventory of New Orleans. The blond was in obvious pain, but looked so much better than he had, lying cold, pale and motionless just that morning, that tears sprang into Bruno’s eyes.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” he said, hugging his friend as gently as possible.

“I don’t intend to. But I have to give major props to Nancy Drew: every book she gets knocked on the head, gets a concussion and pops right back up. I don’t know how she does it; I think I’m going to be down for a while,” Casey said, gingerly touching his bandaged head.

“He won’t get a chance to scare us like that again,” Chad said. “From now on, I’m not letting him out of my sight. I should have gone with him last night.”

“Hey,” Bruno said. “I know how you feel, I’ve been blaming myself. You’re the not bad guy. I’m not the bad guy. The asshole who did this is the bad guy.”

“Why would you blame yourself?” Casey asked.

Bruno hesitated, but couldn’t bear to keep the knowledge his friend. If Casey had known about Sammy….maybe he would have been more careful. So Bruno told the other two about Sammy connection to Loren and how the waiter had stalked Bruno after swearing them to secrecy.

Casey had been as indignant as Bruno had feared, but his weakened physical state kept him from releasing all of his rage. “Just you wait until I get out of this bed,” he had muttered darkly. “Then I’ll show you what happens to alleged best friends who keep the good T to themselves.”

Bruno had intended to stay longer, but he could see Casey was weak and tired by the visit. Bruno saw that his friend was also in good hands and could leave with a clean conscience. If the blond continued to improved, Casey would be released into Chad’s care in the next day or two. Bruno was as vague as possible about the state of the shop, and vowed to get it as close to normal as possible by the time Casey saw it.

Bruno had worried that Waylon’s presence in home might be awkward, but it wasn't. That first night, they settled into a routine, moving easily around each other in the kitchen preparing a quick meal, settling in front of the tv for just another documentary, talking about nothing in particular, just enjoying each other’s company.

They talked, too, about the case. Waylon was frustrated by the lack of progress, by his inability to track down Sammy.

Later in bed, naked, wrapped in each other’s arms, they talked about more personal things, like Bruno’s mom, and Waylon’s sprawling Catholic family.

Waylon’s family was a huge part of his life. A group of what he described as “Italian rednecks,” they lived on the northshore. Two brothers, both married with children, his parents, grandparents. They were close, getting together on every major holiday and most weekends. Waylon’s living on the south shore and his limited availability to visit because of his erratic work schedule was a sore point. They were proud of what he did, his drive to help people, but they pressured him to transfer to Covington, to a job at the sheriff’s office.

“That’s what finally drove Rob away,” Waylon told Bruno. “He could deal with my being in the closet at work, he could deal with me being a detective, he could deal with our limited outings….but every holiday, every Sunday….my mother would pressure me to show up….and I usually caved. It wasn’t fair to him.”

“And you don’t think they’ll get over it if you came out?”

“Maybe….but I don’t want to risk it. My uncle came out….it was in the 80s...his parents disowned him….I don’t Mom’s ever tried to get in touch with him. She never talks about him.”

Bruno kept his store closed the next few days. Casey’s store was still a crime scene, and Bruno didn’t feel like entertaining ghoulish shoppers, coming by for scoop. He did however, put together a team to restore order in the vintage dress shop once he got the all clear from the police, contacting Casey’s cleaning crew, the woman who did repairs and alterations, locksmiths, and the alarm company. He also helped settle Casey, still shakily recovering, into temporary quarters with Chad.

Still, Bruno couldn’t ignore all his professional obligations. And so a couple of days after the attack on Casey, he put on a suit with a fitted floral print shirt, neatly tied his auburn curls into a pony tail, gathered together some samples and pictures of Shane’s work and drove to Sylvia Girod’s.

The elderly woman had called the day after Loren’s memorial to make an appointment for Bruno to come to her new condo on Bayou St. John to make some suggestions about furnishings and art. Bruno almost rescheduled, but he needed the money right now, and he hated to disappoint Mrs. Girod...she had been so excited about her new home.

And seeing her enthusiasm, as well as the sleek, modern unit with large glass windows that overlooked the bayou, Bruno was glad he came. She had excellent (and expensive) tastes and had sold or given away most of her furniture before moving in, so there would be an extensive shopping list of modern furniture.

“I told my daughter….no more antiques, I’m tired of antiques. I want to be the only antique rattling around this place,” she said laughing.

After a few hours of discussing what Mrs. Girod wanted the place to look like, examining samples, looking at the images she had tagged in design magazines, Bruno felt some of the stress of the past few weeks lifting. He had needed this break.

As he gathered his things to go, Sylvia Girod asked, “Would you like some tea before you head out? Or better yet a martini? I make a mean martini and it’s past five o’clock.”

“A martini actually sounds great,” Bruno said.

While Sylvia bustled around the bar, Bruno casually examined the photos, framed in ornate silver, that lined an acrylic console. He noticed one of two young women smiling broadly at the camera, standing in what looked like a dressing room.

“Is this you?” he asked as Sylvia walked toward him with a frosted glass.

“Yes,” she said, taking the picture and smiling fondly at it. “Amanda and I. Or I guess I should say “Dominique” and I. That’s what she was going by then.”

‘You were actresses?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, dear. We had delusions of becoming stars, but sadly lacked talent. For me it was just a bit of a lark, but Amanda really did want to act. She even ran away from home and changed her name to “Dominique DuBois.” a I never made it past the chorus or extra bits, which was fine by me, but she snagged a few lines here and there.

“She was so beautiful,” Sylvia sighed. “I wasn’t exactly chopped liver back in those days, but nothing compared to her. Eventually she caught the eye of an Italian producer who flew her to Rome. She did a few of those sword and sandal pictures. Luckily, she didn’t even have to learn the language...all she had to do was look gorgeous in a toga, and the studio dubbed her voice. She got me a role in her first one as a handmaiden, but I quickly learned movies weren’t for me.”

“No fun?”

“Nothing but standing around waiting. At any rate, I’d had enough of ‘la vie boheme’ and was ready to come back to New Orleans and settle down.”

“What about Amanda?”

“She made few more of those films, then she met Giancarlo.” Sylvia sighed again, clearly lost in the past. “He was a prince, an actual prince. Younger than she was, but so handsome and sophisticated. Swept her off her feet and established her in this beautiful apartment in the heart of Rome. He bought her the most gorgeous jewelry. And The Moonstone...it was magnificent.”

“Moonstone?”

“It was a huge diamond set in a pendant. Pear shaped. According to legend it had been stolen from the forehead of an Indian idol in the early 1800s by a British soldier and was cursed. Thrilling stuff, but complete nonsense.”

Bruno rose and walked over to the table of photos, selecting one he had noticed earlier, the same portrait that he had first seen at Loren’s home of Amanda wearing a large jeweled pendant.

“This necklace,” he asked. “Is that the one you’re talking about?”

“Yes, that’s the one”

“But it’s not real, I’ve seen it. Casey examined with a loupe.”

“Giancarlo had a copy made by the same jewelers who set the real diamond. That’s what you did in those days if you had real jewelry that was too valuable to travel with. She only wore the original on special occasions, and she stopped wearing it all together after they parted ways.”

Bruno sat, only half listening. His mind reeled as he tried to estimate the value of an actual diamond as large as the fake in Casey’s safe. He knew that nothing like that was part of Loren’s estate, and he assumed Shane would have mentioned something about a legendary diamond if his friend was aware of it. Dimly, he noticed that Mrs. Girod had paused to sip her martini, but seeming to wait for a response. Bruno dragged himself back to the conversation.

“If they were so in love, why did they split up?”

“His parents were still living in Medieval times. He had to marry some virgin from the right bloodlines. Certainly not a divorced woman older than him...especially an actress. He put off marriage as long as possible, but finally, the pressure was too much.”

“Amanda had been married before?”

“It was a shotgun wedding. She got pregnant in senior year….her parents were very religious and insisted the couple get married, which they did, but she lost the baby right after the wedding. At that point, she high tailed out that one horse town, changed her name and headed to New York.

“After Giancarlo left, he gave her a generous settlement, in addition to the jewelry. She took it, moved to New Orleans to be close to me, changed her name back to Amanda Corey and settled down as as respectable widow, since her first husband had passed away by then. Eventually she met Senator Brooks.”

“Did she ever see Giancarlo again?” Bruno asked.

Mrs. Girod hesitated. “I really shouldn’t say, but I guess it doesn’t matter now. It was so long ago and everyone involved has passed away.” Sylvia sipped her martini. “She did. In the 80s he toured to the U.S. to promote his family’s vineyard. He came to New Orleans, they went to dinner and…..” she made a graceful gesture with one bejeweled hand. “In fact…..” Mrs. Girod hesitated again, shrugged, drained her martini and continued, “...she became with child. Amanda was in her 40s and never even considered it as a possibility, so she take the proper precautions. In fact, at first, she thought she had entered early menopause when the symptoms came.”

“What did she do?”

“She considered an abortion...after all, she was engaged to the Senator, but she had always wanted children….and she couldn’t dispose of Giancarlo’s child….so she hid the pregnancy. Luckily the Senator was busy fundraising, and the fashions were much more blouson than today. He just thought she had gained weight. In fact, when she finally couldn’t hide it any longer and left town, she convinced him she was going to a fat farm to lose weight and possibly get a tummy tuck. After the child was born, she gave him up to be raised by some of her distant relatives that couldn’t have children.

“I never understood that part. I mean, her whole family was so narrow minded, so judgemental. That’s why she had run away. And after this….one of the conditions for adopting the boy was that Amanda never come near him again so he wouldn’t be tainted by her sinful ways. Still, she wanted him to have at least some family ties around him. It broke her heart, though. That was one of the reasons she became so close to Loren. He really was like the son she couldn’t have.“

After Bruno left, he ran a few errands, stopping by Whole Foods to buy some chops for dinner and pick some items for the store at the framers, including the collar from Loren’s costume.

As he drove home, Bruno found it hard to concentrate….there was something there...something lurking just beyond his consciousness. The more he fought to isolate the thought, the murkier it became. Giving up, he turned on the radio. The station was playing songs from old movies, and the strains of the theme to “Laura” began, and Bruno hummed along. He loved old movies, especially those from the 40’s like “Laura” and “Gaslight.”

“Gaslight.” Bruno almost swerved into the next lane as he remembered the scene in the attic where the villain discovers the lost jewels sewn onto the dead diva’s opera costume. No, he thought, this is too wild. But then again, this whole episode in his life seemed like some sort of thriller.

Luckily, Bruno was almost home, and when the ginger reached the house, he quickly parked and pulled the bulky shadow box holding the collar from the back of his suv. Ignoring his groceries and the other art, Bruno rushed inside.

He wrestled the frame down on a dining table near the portrait of Loren as Cleopatra and ripped off the protective brown paper wrapping. The framed piece was large, almost 4 square feet. The seamstress that did restoration work for Casey had cleaned and repaired the collar, stitching down loose beads and replacing those that were missing. The gold lame shimmered like new against the white raw silk background Bruno had chosen, and multicolor sequins, beads, and crystals glittered in the light. But nothing could compare to brilliance of the huge, sparkling pear shaped stone set in the center of the collar.

As he was staring at his discovery, twinkling bells announced that someone had entered the shop. Damn it, Bruno cursed to himself. In his haste, he had forgotten to lock the door behind him. A customer was the last thing he needed to deal with right now. Besides, it was almost 7, long after his posted hours ended. Pasting on a polite smile, Bruno turned to deal with not a pushy customer, but Seb.

The handsome lawyer looked tired, dark smudges under his crystal blue eyes. Eyes as blue as those of Loren Hunt. Eyes as blue as those of Amanda Brooks. Shit, thought Bruno. What the fuck do I do now?

“Hey,” Bruno said, and winced inwardly at how unnatural his greeting sounded. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to check and see how Casey’s doing. I stopped by the hospital, but he’d been discharged. I wanted to get his address to send some flowers.”

“Oh….yeah….he got out today. Actually he’s staying with Chad. I’m not sure what Chad’s address is. Let me text him.”

Carefully shielding the screen, Bruno pulled up Waylon’s number and texted: in danger, it's not Sammy. Please help.”

“Are you okay? Everything all right?” Seb asked.

“Yeah...just with everything happening...I’m not myself. I was about to head to the kitchen to fix a drink, do you want one?”

“No thanks.”

“Be right back,” Bruno headed toward the kitchen and the backdoor, but once he reached it, he stared in horror at the empty deadbolt on. The deadbolt that needed a key to open. The one that usually rested in it was on Waylon’s keyring, and Bruno’s own was lying on the table next to the collar.

As Bruno’s mind raced with what to do, a voice behind him spoke.

“Bruno?” Seb said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Just a lot on my mind” Bruno said as he turned to face the other man “I couldn’t decide what I wanted. I usually do Jameson, but I had a gin martini with a client, so maybe I should stick to gin. But I’m not really in the mood for gin.” In horror, Bruno could hear himself babbling and see the look of confusion on Seb’s face.

"You know what, I think what I really want is a beer, but those are upstairs,’ Bruno said. “I’m going to need to grab my keys.” He had made a plan. He’d grab his keys and make a run for it out the front to his car. He had just reached for them when he heard Seb speak.

“What’s this?” the lawyer asked, walking around the table, moving between Bruno and the door.

Bruno didn’t look up. He was an awful liar and knew that if Seb saw his face, the gig would be up.

“It’s just something I picked up at a garage sale. Some Mardi Gras costume.”

“It looks like……” Seb trailed off, and Bruno glanced up, instinctively. The ginger saw the other man look from Loren’s portrait to the framed collar, and Bruno clearly saw the moment knowledge struck the brunet, both the presence of the Moonstone and Bruno’s awareness of it. Bruno also clearly saw the pistol Seb produced from a pocket.

“So you know what it is?”

“Yes.”

“And you know who I am?”

“I think so. You’re Amanda’s son...Amanda Brooks and Giancarlo….I don’t know his last name.”

“It doesn’t really matter….he didn’t give it to me, so it doesn’t belong to me. But that diamond. It does. It’s my birthright, and I’ve earned it. While my real parents and my cousin lived like royalty, I spent my childhood in poverty, even before my parents threw me out. I’ve had to work for everything I’ve ever had. I earned that diamond the hard way. Do you understand me?”

“Of course…..take it...I don’t want….”

“I’m going to take it, don’t worry. Give it to me.”

“Of course, but will take a while to remove the back.”

“Then break the glass.” At Bruno’s hesitation, Seb screamed, spittle flying, “Break the goddamn glass.”

Frantically, Bruno searched for something to shatter the shadowbox and spotted the bronze statuette of an angel mounted on a block of marble. He took the heavy object and drove it into the glass. Heedless of the shards that cut his hands, Bruno ripped the gold lame collar loose from the backing, blood from his wounds staining the cloth dark and flowing around to coat the Moonstone.

Seb was leaning forward, watching Bruno struggle. He was focused intently on the collar, and Bruno kept alert as he worked on the collar, waiting for an opportunity; in the corner of his eye, the ginger caught movement behind Seb. It was Waylon, moving silently through the store.

Seb noticed the direction of Bruno’s gaze and turned, firing his pistol at Waylon.

Bruno seized the opportunity and grasped the bronze angel. He brought the statuette down with all the force he could muster, and the heavy marble base crashed into Seb’s skull with a nauseating crunch.