The Wizard's Butler Read online

Vinnie shrugged and punched a few keys. A printer in the next room whirred into action. “What d’ya mean he doesn’t exist?”

  “No social media footprint. No news articles. No Wikipedia page. He’s not listed in Dun and Bradstreet. Hell, he doesn’t even have a LinkedIn profile.”

  Vinnie took a pull from his bottle and shook his head. “Even I have a LinkedIn profile. Don’t use it, but keep getting notifications every damn day. Given what you’ve said, I’d be surprised if he’s got internet.”

  “Yeah, that’s not the same thing. His name doesn’t show up. At all.” Roger shook his head. “Old coot, I wouldn’t expect him to have a profile himself, but a rich old coot with a reputation for being eccentric? Yeah, I’d think somebody would have snapped him on Instagram or Facebook or the society pages somewhere.”

  “You find the niece and nephew?”

  “Yeah. Nephew is junior partner in a boutique law firm downtown. Niece is on a dozen boards around town. Banks, development corps, a couple of philanthropies.”

  “No job?”

  “Not that I saw, but she’s old money. Her father owns half the waterfront and most of the industrial zone on the other side of the loop.” He shrugged. “Probably lives off the income from her portfolio and scraps from Daddy’s table.”

  “So they’re good for the mill,” Vinnie said.

  “Hard telling.” Roger looked at his beer and, seeing the bottle empty, slid it into the middle of the dinged-up table and sighed. “Rich peepo. Stocks, bonds, futures, options, real estate, you name it, but they gotta borrow a buck for a coffee because nothing is liquid.”

  “Speaking of liquid.” Vinnie pushed himself up from the table and shambled off to the other room. Roger heard a light switch click and the sound of Vinnie returning his share of the beer to the water table. “What’s his name?” Vinnie asked, his voice echoing from the bathroom tiles.

  “Who?”

  “Her old man.”

  Roger pulled up the search on his phone as Vinnie came back, sliding the pages over to him.

  “Fresh off the press,” Vinnie said.

  “Bruna,” Roger said.

  “Othello Bruna?” Vinnie asked, dropping into his chair with a thump.

  Roger nodded. “Yeah. Should I know him?”

  “Probably not. You don’t read the finance pages. He’s in court a lot these days but it’s all white collar. Regulatory bullshit.”

  “He in trouble?” Roger eyed that million-dollar payout with a more skeptical eye.

  Vinnie shrugged. “Maybe, but the kid’s gotta be good for it on her own hook.”

  “I’d hate to drain her trust fund,” Roger said, shrugging. “With that house and property in her purse, she’ll earn it back ten times over.”

  “You think that’s it?” Vinnie asked.

  “Old guy won’t last that much longer. Prices are only going up. Pull him out of the house. Get named guardian until they can plant him?” Roger shrugged.

  “Assuming they inherit,” Vinnie said. “They the only relatives?”

  Roger slumped in his chair and shrugged. “They’re the ones making the arrangements. Gotta figure they’ve got fingers in the pie somewhere and some reason to think they won’t have to share.”

  “Sounds reasonable.” Vinnie frowned and stared at the screen before slapping the laptop closed.

  “You don’t say that with much confidence,” Roger said.

  Vinnie grimaced and emptied the last of the lager down his throat. “So many things sound reasonable. Right up until you’re airborne at 800 AGL with a full load-out in the dark.” He tilted his head back and belched at the ceiling.

  Roger snorted and stood, gathering his paperwork. “Thanks, man.”

  Vinnie waved him off. “If you need a groundskeeper, let me know.”

  “You looking for work?” Roger asked, stopping at the door. “I thought you were set up.”

  Vinnie shrugged and stared at his feet stretched under the table. “Never hurts to keep an eye open for new and exciting opportunities.”

  Roger laughed. “Keep talking like that and you’ll be re-upping after all.”

  Vinnie flipped him the bird as Roger slipped out the door.

  He skipped down the stairs to the ground floor and strode out into the chilly night. It had to be pushing midnight, but the city never slept. Car noise from the arterial filtered between the apartment houses—punctuated with the occasional downshifting semi or the revving whine of a rice burner. A cat stared at him from the alley when he walked by.

  He shook his head, hunching into the navy surplus peacoat and picking up his pace. It was only a few blocks to his apartment, and he had a lot to think about. Mostly about how Vinnie was right. Too many things sounded reasonable until you found yourself hundreds of feet above ground level, falling through the night with half a ton of gear and only a nylon umbrella to keep you from becoming people-paste on the rocks.

  On the flip side of that coin, he really had nothing else. The balance on his checking account lay perilously close to the red. The bastards at Mid-City Medical Transport had blacklisted him for punching out the drunk husband. Nobody wanted to hire a vet with “anger management issues.” He snorted and dug his fists deeper into his coat pockets. Bastard had it coming. Drunk or not, nobody beats someone they’re supposed to love like that.

  He thrust the memories out of his mind, kicking an empty can so it skittered across the sidewalk before falling into the gutter with a rolling clatter.

  He looked up at the moon. Nearly full. Nearly midnight. “A fucking butler,” he said to the man in the moon. “Really?”

  * * *

  He rang the bell promptly at ten o’clock.

  She must have been waiting because he didn’t hear her heels before the door opened. “Mr. Mulligan. Come in.” Her scarlet blazer had been replaced by a classy white bolero with gold buttons and trim. It would have looked good on a downtown doorman but her assets rounded it out nicely. He glanced down and felt mildly disappointed that she’d skipped the pumps.

  “I said ten,” he said, waving the folder containing his revised contract.

  She smiled and held the door for him. “Let’s get Thomas to look at it. I’m certain it will be fine.”

  He stepped in and made sure he was clear of the door. He gave it the once-over and revised his opinion of it. It thumped closed with the solid finality he’d never heard outside of a secure facility.

  She led the way back to the parlor or whatever the hell the room was called.

  Thomas—a tiny china cup and matching saucer on the table in front of him—looked up, his focus going to the folder like that of a dog expecting a treat.

  Roger took his assigned seat and slid the folder across the varnished surface.

  Thomas flipped open the cover and started reading.

  “Coffee, Mr. Mulligan?” Naomi asked. “Espresso?”

  “Grande mocha?” he asked. “Two shots?”

  She gave him a sour look.

  “Coffee. Black is fine. Thank you,” he said.

  She crossed to the sideboard and pumped a cup of coffee from one of those fancy restaurant-grade carafes with the lever on top. She handed him the cup and saucer before taking her place beside Thomas. “Have you given our offer more consideration?” she asked.

  He took a sip and had to give her credit. It was good coffee. “I’ve added some conditions to the contract, but yes. If we can reach an agreement on the terms, I’d like to meet your uncle.”

  Her eyes widened for a moment at that. “Conditions?” she asked, glancing at Thomas.

  “I learned never to trust those open-ended requirements that wind up as ‘whatever we say’ because, you know? I’m not going there. Been there, done that. Gave the T-shirt back because it was two sizes too small.” He took another sip of the coffee. It really was quite good. “House blend?” he asked, lifting the cup.

  She shrugged. “Whatever Uncle stocks.”

  “Who’s been doing it for h
im?” Roger asked.

  “His last butler,” she said, glancing at the paperwork as Thomas flipped the fifth page.

  “So, he’s running low on supplies?” Roger asked.

  “No, a standing order. It’s delivered weekly. Staples. Meals,” she said.

  “He feeds himself, then?”

  She frowned at him. “Of course he feeds himself.” She huffed. “He bathes and dresses himself and uses the bathroom unattended. Just like a real person.”

  Roger let the sumptuous aromas of coffee and leather surround him as he settled back in his chair. “Real people sometimes need help with all those things, Ms. Patching. Particularly as they age.”

  Thomas finished reading, flipping the last page over face down. He looked up. “One question.”

  “One answer,” Roger said.

  “Authorized to hire additional help as required?”

  “Plumbing, heating.” Roger shrugged. “Cook, valet? Chauffeur. If Uncle Perry wants to take up polo, I’ll want to hire a stable manager. Skills and tools that I don’t possess. Or should I refer all those requests to you?”

  “Why would he need a chauffeur, Mr. Mulligan? Can’t you drive?” Naomi asked.

  “I can, yes. I even have a valid driver’s license, but if I didn’t?”

  “The household has a budget for those expenses, Mr. Mulligan,” Thomas said. “If you exceed that budget, you’d have to arrange for additional funding on a case-by-case basis with either Naomi or me.”

  “You control his finances?” Roger asked.

  Thomas glanced sideways at Naomi then shrugged. “We’re concerned that Uncle not spend beyond his means.”

  Roger heard the message that Thomas probably didn’t want him to hear. “I understand,” he said.

  “I found nothing objectionable in this contract,” Thomas said after staring at Roger for a moment. “I’m willing to sign it if you are.”

  “No other quibbles? Nothing you’d like to negotiate?” Roger asked.

  Thomas gave Naomi another side-eyed glance and a small smirk. “Nothing I wouldn’t have added myself were I in your chair.”

  Naomi turned her sour look on Thomas. Roger wondered how she’d make the tweedman pay for that remark.

  “I would like to meet Uncle Perry before I sign it,” Roger said. “He may not like me.”

  Naomi’s smile came back at full wattage. As fake as it looked, he began to wonder about the reality of her other assets. “I’m sure he’ll hate you,” she said.

  Roger blinked. He had not seen that coming.

  Thomas snickered. “He hates everybody. Even us.”

  Roger considered that for a couple of long moments, his estimation of Uncle Perry rising a little with each tick of the ornate clock on the mantel. “Fair enough. Thanks for the warning.”

  Naomi rose. “Shall we?”

  Roger scooted forward and took one last sip of the coffee before placing the saucer on the table. “Let’s,” he said, standing.

  Thomas picked up his espresso and leaned back. “I’ll wait here,” he said.

  Naomi gave him the look again. “Coward.”

  “I just enrage him, Nay. Best I stay out of sight.” He sipped his coffee, pinky raised and a smug look on his face. “Good luck, Mr. Mulligan.” He raised his dinky little cup in a toast.

  Roger liked the old man more and more.

  “This way, Mr. Mulligan,” Naomi said, leading him out of the parlor—if that was what it was called—and up the stairs to the next landing. She walked down a short corridor and opened the door near the end. “Uncle, I have someone I’d like you to meet.”

  She breezed into a room decked out like a library. Bookshelves, sure. Who doesn’t have bookshelves built into every wall except the north one, with its big windows—no doubt “for the light.” But a card catalog? One of those pedestal things, with a dictionary big enough to need it. A heavy wooden table stood in the middle of the floor with solid chairs around it. As he scanned the room, Roger picked out a cabinet with low, flat drawers and even a glass display case holding some nasty-looking old books that seemed to drip ‘don’t touch me or I’ll crumble’ vibes. The room smelled of ink and leather.

  What really caught his attention was the man in the wheelchair. He had a plaid blanket over his knees and a heavy tome on his lap. He peered over his spectacles at Naomi like she’d just urped a hairball on his rug. “What now?”

  She stepped to one side and made that game-show hostess gesture with her free hand. “Mr. Mulligan has agreed to be your new butler.”

  “That’s not true,” Roger said.

  She rounded on him. “You said you’d sign the contract.”

  “I will, but only if Mr. Shackleford and I come to an understanding about my role in his household. He may decide I’m not suited, in which case I will, of course, not impose myself.”

  Shackleford’s eyebrows rose and he started to grin but suppressed it before Naomi turned to see.

  “Where’s my applesauce, Maude?” Shackleford asked.

  “You’ve upset him,” Naomi said, her voice low and hissing. She turned and smiled. “I’m Naomi, Uncle. I’ll get your applesauce shortly. It’s almost time for luncheon, after all.”

  “Naomi? You can’t be Naomi. She’s just a small girl.”

  Naomi looked at Roger, one elegantly plucked eyebrow rising carefully. “Perhaps you’d like to get acquainted?” The eyebrows came together above an evil smile. “I’ll just pop down to the kitchen and fetch his applesauce and cookie.” With that, she swept out of the room, leaving the doors open, perhaps hoping he’d bolt to freedom.

  Roger looked at the old man studying him. “She is Naomi, sir,” he said.

  The old man nodded and waved his right hand in the air as if dispelling the cloud of her presence or something, but the door snapped shut behind Roger. “Of course she is. Viper. What did they offer you?”

  “Room and board, five thousand a month, and a million if I last the year, sir.”

  “You accept it?” he asked.

  “Not yet. I wanted to meet you first, sir.”

  “Thomas downstairs, too?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He doesn’t know I keep the good scotch here in the library. Idiot man. Don’t know what she sees in him.”

  “In-house counsel, perhaps, sir.”

  He started as if surprised and then chortled. “In-house counsel, indeed,” he said. “Have a seat, man. Let’s talk.”

  “She’ll be back with the applesauce soon, sir.”

  He nodded with the devilish grin of a ten-year-old who knows he has a frog in his pocket but nobody else suspects. He pointed at one of the library chairs. “Sit, man.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Roger turned one of the chairs to face the old man and sat.

  “They told you I’m insane, I take it?”

  “Yes, sir. Dementia, actually. A technical difference.”

  His eyes narrowed as he regarded Roger over the top of his wire-rimmed spectacles. “Ex-military? Army?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why do you want to be a butler?”

  “I don’t, but I like eating and I’m running out of funds.”

  “That all?” the old guy asked.

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  The old guy just raised his eyebrows and waited.

  “I got tired of people trying to kill me. It seemed like a decent career move, sir.”

  Naomi breezed in with a small silver tray. “Here’s your applesauce, Uncle.”

  The old man exploded, all but screaming at the hapless Naomi. “Maude, how many times have I told you to knock and you know I hate applesauce. Whatever possessed you to bring me that pablum? Like I can’t chew my own food? It has to be ground up for me? Take it away. Take it away. I’ll ring when I need you.”

  “But, Uncle—”

  “Take it away, I said. Get out.” His color had turned ruddy and small flecks of spittle flew through the air.

  She cast
Roger a knowing look and backed out. “Of course, Uncle.” She made good her escape and closed the door.

  The old man turned back to Roger, the tip of his tongue tasting his lower lip. “Where were we?”

  “My career change, sir.”

  He nodded, his whole upper body nodding along. “Yes, yes. Tedious woman. She told you I’m a wizard?”

  “Not precisely, sir.”

  “What then?”

  “She said you think you’re a wizard.”

  Shackleford sat back in his chair. “Oh, that clever girl. She’d have made a vicious lawyer in her own right if she had any gumption at all.”

  “She seems pretty ambitious to me, sir.”

  He nodded. “Oh, ambition. Yes. She has ambition by the bucket but she wants somebody else to carry the pail.” He paused and lowered his head, leaning forward. “I take it they started flinging money around to distract you?”

  “Naomi seemed upset that Thomas mentioned the million, but yes, sir.”

  “Thomas has little patience for the niceties of negotiation,” Shackleford said. “Miserable trait in a lawyer, but it works well enough for the bloodsuckers he works with.” He shrugged. “You got anything against being a butler?”

  “It’s not something I’ve given much thought to, to be honest, sir.”

  “No family?” Shackleford asked.

  “My parents live in the burbs but ex-army isn’t the only ex- in my life, sir.” Roger shrugged. “Three tours in Afghanistan. She couldn’t take it. I don’t blame her. She sends me a Christmas card every year.”

  “Quaint,” the old man said. “You’ve met me. What d’ya think?”

  Roger sized the man up, taking his time to look at him—sparse gray hair, trimmed beard. Reminded him of Sean Connery in that archaeology flick. His face and hands looked like an old man’s, wrinkled, with liver spots and some arthritis in the joints. He wore a brown wool blazer over a starched white shirt and argyle vest, a perfect reverse Windsor holding the regimental tie. The toes of brown wingtips peeked out from under the hem of the blanket on his lap, polished and well cared for—save for a scuff mark on the right toe. Roger looked back into the old man’s patient eyes. The eyes of a man who’d seen more than even Roger. He knew Roger was looking at him and didn’t shy away from the inspection. His eyebrows twitched as he stared back, almost a dare.