Chapter Four

    Karen had met Samir on the way to the ladies' room at the Blue Martini in Birmingham.

    He said, "I'm Samir." He took her hand and kissed it. "Where do you want to have dinner?"

    Karen said, "I'm with someone."

    "Now you're with me." He said it like a guy used to getting what he wanted.

    She liked his confidence, thinking he could stop someone, a stranger, and ask her out. She found him attractive, but she was also curious. Who was he? Karen went back to the table and told her date, a stockbroker named Jon Uffelman, that she was leaving. She'd heard enough about economic indicators, the devaluation of the dollar and the risk of deflation. Uffelman was talking to her like he was giving a seminar. It was their first and last date.

    He said, "What're you… kidding? We just got here."

    She stood up and said, "It wasn't going to work anyway," and walked across the room past the scene makers, up the stairs to the foyer. Samir was standing by the door ready to open it for her, Omar Sharif from Doctor Zhivago, dark hair going gray and a silver mustache.

    A car was waiting, a white Mercedes, and a man in a suit was standing at the rear door holding it open. Karen got in and Samir got in next to her, close but he didn't crowd her. They had dinner at the Lark. Karen asked him how he could walk in and get a table at a restaurant that was booked for months in advance.

    Samir said, "There must've been a cancellation."

    He owned the big Mercedes and had a chauffeur, but he was cool. He made fun of himself. He was in the grocery business. He sold fruit and vegetables and owned a few stores around town, and then it hit her: he was the guy that owned a chain of gourmet markets called Samir's. Karen said, "You're that Samir?"

    He said, "I'm a greengrocer, like my father."

    That's what Karen liked about him. He was a down-to-earth rich guy with no ego. She liked his accent too, and his deep voice that sounded gentle.

    He said, "What about you?"

    He was staring at her tan legs, crossed and sticking out of a black miniskirt. "I model," Karen said.

    "You mean fashion?"

    "Sportswear and swimwear, and I do TV commercials."

    "Where would I see you?" Samir said.

    "I just did a Chevy spot," Karen said. "I'm driving a red Corvette convertible on the Pacific Coast Highway north of Malibu."

    "That was you?"

    "And a few weeks ago I did a swimwear spread for Lands End," Karen said. "Do you get the catalogue?"

    "You think that's the way I dress?" He said it serious, but smiled.

    She touched the sleeve of his sport coat. It was custom-made. She could tell by the buttonholes, they were real. One was unbuttoned, the way it was done. "You dress well for a guy who sells fruit and vegetables."

    He smiled again.

    "How did you get into modeling?"

    Karen told him it was a long story that started the night her father was killed. "He was a manufacturer's rep. He sold injection-molded parts, door trim panels and center console assemblies to Chrysler and GM. How do you decide that's what you want to do with your life?"

    "It's luck or timing or maybe bad luck," Samir said. "You do what your father did. Or you get a job, get married and get stuck in something. I sell fruit and vegetables. You think I planned it?"

    "My dad was driving home after having dinner with a Chrysler purchasing guy," Karen said, "and was hit head-on by a drunk driver, killed instantly at forty-four. I remember him in the kitchen, tying his tie, getting ready, excited because he was sure he was getting a contract for the new X platform cars. With the commission we'd be able to move to a bigger house." She paused and sipped her wine that tasted like butterscotch. Samir's eyes were on her as if he couldn't look anywhere else. "It's strange because when I think about that night, I think of the movie Grease. I was watching it with my mom and sister, Virginia."

    Samir said, "Travolta was skinny then with a pompadour."

    "He reminded me of my dad, who was still a greaser from high school-slicked-back hair and a black leather jacket. He could've been an extra. Travolta was singing a duet with Olivia Newton- John when the Garden City police came to the door. I remember my mother was hysterical while they were belting out You're the One That I Want.'"

    Samir met her gaze and reached for her hand.

    "I'm not a big fan of musicals," Karen said.

    "Me either."

    She didn't tell him about the funeral home, her dad's life told in photographs displayed around the visitation room. Shots of a skinny teenager in a bathing suit, someone squirting water from a hose outside the frame. Her dad in a white tux on his wedding day, smiling, holding a drink, his bow tie hanging from one side of his collar. Her dad posing with his bowling buddies—four dudes decked out in their red King Louie shirts with black trim. In another one, her dad was holding up a center console assembly.

    Karen had been a senior at Garden City High at the time. She'd planned to go to Michigan State and major in advertising. It looked like a fun business. She liked TV commercials, the funny offbeat beer spots like the Bud Light spot where the only word of dialogue is "dude." She had $1,700 in the bank, money earned working part- time at Meijer's Thrifty Acres in the toy department, wearing a red vest, making $7.25 an hour.

    After her dad died Karen knew she'd have to postpone college for a while and get a job and help support her mom and sister, Virginia. But doing what? Friends had always told her she should model. She had a unique look and a great figure. Karen would stare at herself in the mirror, thinking she didn't look bad. Five seven, a hundred and fifteen, and she was in shape. She was a former twirler and started on the volleyball team.

    Rumor had it that a girl in her English class, a tall quiet brunette named Stephanie, was modeling and making a lot of money. Maybe it was true. She was five ten and good-looking, and she drove a BMW. Stephanie, as it turned out, was surprisingly nice and helpful. She knew a photographer who agreed to take some shots of Karen for her comp sheet, and helped arrange interviews at talent agencies around town, and two weeks after graduation Karen was posing for Hudson's fall catalogue.

    Samir fixed his kind dark eyes on her, sitting close, a table against the French doors, and touched her arm. They'd been together for maybe an hour and she was relaxed, comfortable with him, like they were old friends.

    Over dinner-four courses-Samir told her he'd been married for twenty-three years, divorced for five, the marriage arranged by his father and a friend of his in the village where they lived outside Beirut. He didn't even know the girl, who was only sixteen at the time, and he, twenty.

    Karen said, "How can you marry someone you don't know?"

    "It was custom, tradition," Samir said. "You didn't have a choice."

    "Was she good-looking?"

    Samir took a sip of wine, holding it in his mouth as if he was trying to decide.

    "Very," Samir said. "I couldn't believe my good fortune. But she didn't speak English and my Arabic was not so good."

    "Maybe that was a bonus," Karen said.

    Samir smiled at her and said, "She didn't know how to cook, either, and that wasn't a bonus. I said to her one day, what do you know how to do?"

    "What did she say?"

    "She looked at me and said, 'I know how to shop.'" He finished his wine, picked up the bottle, poured some in her glass first and then his own.

    "Girls are the same everywhere, huh?" Karen said.

    Samir said, "Exactly what I thought."

    "So what happened?"

    "It didn't work," Samir said. "We had nothing in common."

    "Twenty-three years," Karen said, "and you had nothing in common?"

    "You go along and suddenly ten years pass by, and one day I thought, I can't do this anymore."

    "Do you have kids?" Karen said.

    "Two. Both grown."

    Karen said, "Where's your wife live?"

    "Ex," Samir said and grinned. "She bought a condo in Naples."

    Karen said, "Italy?"

    "Florida," Samir said.

    Karen said, "Do you ever see her?"

    "No reason to," Samir said.

    The waiter appeared with plates, rack of lamb Genghis Khan, and served them. Samir picked up his knife and fork, cut a piece of pink lamb and put it in his mouth. "You're not going to believe it."

    Karen picked up a lamb chop and bit into it. He was right; it was delicious.

    After dinner they went back to Birmingham and had a drink in the Rugby Grill at the Townsend Hotel. Samir said, why don't we get a room? Karen said she liked him but it was way too fast for her.

    They started going out, seeing each other a few days a week, and then every day. There was a trip to Napa, and another one to France: Paris, Bordeaux and Burgundy-tasting the latest releases from the top vineyards. It was a new experience-traveling by private jet and chauffeured limo.

    After that Karen moved into Samir's West Bloomfield compound. He asked her to quit modeling and be available. He took care of her and showered her with gifts. They talked about getting married. He was fifty-two and she was thirty-six. That was close enough, and they had a lot in common. He asked her to call him Smoothie, the affectionate name all his close friends used, but Karen couldn't do it.

    She had three hundred grand in a mutual fund that wasn't doing well-money she'd saved working as a model for eighteen years and asked Samir what she should do. He offered to invest it for her. Thought he could double it in three years. She said, are you kidding? Karen sold the fund and gave Samir a check for $299,560, her life savings. How could she miss with him handling her money?

    Six months later their relationship started to unravel. Samir wasn't the kind, patient listener he first appeared to be. He was surly and chauvinistic and wanted to know where she was every minute. He'd call her ten times a day to check up on her. The other problem was living in the house with Samir's people—all his hangers-on. She couldn't do it anymore and told him she was leaving and she wanted her money back.

    He said, "I leave you, you don't leave me."

    She said, "Watch me." He hit her in the face with his fist and she went down on the marble floor of the foyer.

    He said, "Get out."

    That's what she did. Got up and walked out the front door and got in her car. She looked at her face in the rearview mirror. Her left cheek was bruised and beginning to swell but she felt relieved. She'd known for at least a month that it wasn't going to work, but was too nervous, too afraid to make her move. Now she'd never have to go back there and pretend again.

    She'd kept her condo, a rental in Birmingham, the one smart thing she'd done, figuring if things didn't work out she'd need a place to go, and went back there now. She'd left most of her clothes at Samir's. That didn't bother her, but what did was getting her money back. She had no proof she'd given it to him. No forms or receipts or anything. Not even a canceled check with his name on it. At the time, he said, what do you need a receipt for? You think I'm going to steal your money? She'd made the check out to cash like he suggested, which, in retrospect, was pretty dumb. She tried calling Samir, but never got him on the line. She wrote him a letter but never heard from him. Why not give her money back? He was rich. It wasn't going to change his life. But she'd insulted him and he was an old-fashioned guy, and you didn't do that.

    She talked to Robert Schreiner, an attorney who lived down the street. Based on his knowledge of contracts—and he was no expert in the field—she was up to her ass in alligators and somebody had drained the swamp. But he agreed to give it a try, and Karen didn't have to pay him unless he got results, and if he did, Schreiner's fee was 20 percent.

    "That's fifty grand," Karen said.

    Schreiner said, "The standard fee is a third."

    She studied him. He was wearing a tee shirt that said Make Love Not Law Review in bold type. She stared into his puffy eyes. He didn't give her much of a feeling of confidence. He needed a shower and some clean clothes for starters.

    Schreiner said, "How much you got now?"

    "What?" Karen said.

    "You don't want to cut me in for 20 percent, but how much do you have now? Nothing."

    He had a point.

    "Come in have a toke," Schreiner said. "We'll discuss your legal travails."

    What did she have to lose?

    First Schreiner sent a registered letter on his Robert R Schreiner Attorney at Law stationery, telling Samir he had a week to give Karen Delaney back her $299,560 or he'd file a complaint with the Oakland County Circuit Court. The way Schreiner told it, he went to work a few days later and there were three dark-haired guys in his office who looked like they were beamed from the streets of Fallujah. They surrounded him as he walked in. The one who did the talking wore a track suit and had a lot of chains, and looked like he worked at a party store. He told Schreiner if he filed a lawsuit or ever contacted Mr. Fakir again, they'd come back and break his legs. This was the warning.

    Schreiner asked them who they thought they were talking to? He was an officer of the court and if they threatened him he'd have them arrested for breaking and entering and intent to do

    great bodily harm.

    That's when the guy in the track suit stepped in and hit him in the side and took the wind out of him. Schreiner said he bent over, trying to draw a breath. He told Karen the whole story when he stopped over the next day, moving like he was in pain, showing her white tape the doctor wrapped around his fractured ribs.

    Karen said, "Did you call the police?"

    Schreiner shook his head. "I'm going to file your lawsuit next week."

    "If you do, it's going to be your last." She admired Schreiner's tenacity, but there was no way she could go through with it. "Next time they're not going to break something, they're going to put you out of business." She wasn't going to let Schreiner get hurt or killed over the money. She'd have to figure out another way to get it back.

    He said, "Fuck them. They can't get away with this."

    She said, "I agree with you, but it's not worth it."

    They became friends after that. They had dinner occasionally and smoked weed and watched movies on Schreiner's plasma TV.

    Then she met Lou.