Simple Simon

by William Poe

  “Everyone in the office has been working late the last few days. But don’t worry, we’ll devote plenty of time to Mitsui’s case. The New York district attorney wants to use the prosecution of Reverend Moon to get noticed. Mitsui put himself in the line of fire.”

  “I need to explain something,” I said, “even though I’m sure what you are saying is true about the district attorney.”

  Maury pointed me toward a chair. I had to remove several volumes of the Federal Reporter in order to find the cushion. Maury wasn’t accustomed to having clients in his office. Stacks of books leaned against every wall, their edges obscured by a profusion of yellow sticky notes.

  “Are you aware of the divisions within the Unification Church?” I began.

  Maury smiled. “Kind of undercuts the name, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to the Unification Church,” I said.

  “Joseph said almost the same thing when he came out here.”

  “Did Joseph say anything about Abbanim?”

  “You mean that the man wants to take the organization away from Reverend Moon?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Joseph told me what he suspected.”

  “These are rough times, Maury. I don’t know who to trust.”

  “I work for you and Mitsui,” Maury confirmed. “Joseph kept me apprised of the grand jury hearings. I even spoke to the lawyers that Bozeman hired—losers with a losing strategy. It will help to read the transcripts so I can better understand the DA’s arguments.”

  We carried in the boxes from the reception area and spread the documents on a table in the library. Almost immediately, Maury zeroed in on a possible issue.

  “The translations of Mitsui’s answers don’t seem to be clear responses to the questions. If the DA hired an inept translator, we may be able to get the testimony quashed. Did they make tape recordings?”

  “They’re in this other box.” I tore open the lid of the smallest parcel.

  “Perhaps we can keep the most damaging statements from reaching trial,” Maury said with some excitement.

  “So, you think a trial is inevitable?”

  “Oh, there’ll be one,” Maury said assuredly. “Grand juries commonly go forward to allow a criminal indictment.”

  Maury seemed to know quite a bit about Mitsui’s case.

  “Were you told to work on this before?” I asked.

  “Joseph wanted me to. That’s why we spoke to Bozeman. But it was clear his lawyers didn’t want to hear my suggestions. Joseph had no authority to hire me directly.”

  “Well, I’ve got all the necessary paperwork. You’ll be paid by a church business in Korea.”

  Maury nodded, but his attention was on the transcripts. The legal machinery in his mind had already kicked into high gear.

  “We’ll work on several fronts,” Maury decided. “First, the issue of the taxes. The worst charges are the ones about conspiracy and perjury. Those could put Mitsui and Reverend Moon in jail for quite a while. A great deal hinges on whether Mitsui understood what he was being asked about that ledger book.”

  Just then, a peck at the door announced Sandra’s entrance. She wore a scarlet sweater unbuttoned halfway down and tucked into a black leather skirt. Stiletto heels added to her already tall stature.

  “I thought I’d bring you two some refreshments.” Sandra set down a tray with cans of Pepsi and glasses of ice. “Do you need anything else before I leave?”

  Maury checked his watch. “It is late, isn’t it? Simon, you should go. We can meet again tomorrow morning. I’ll spend time tonight going over these transcripts.”

  “Shouldn’t you get home to the wife and kids?” I asked.

  “Monique gave up on me years ago,” Maury offered. “She says I’m addicted to work.”

  “Scott and I want to take you to dinner,” Sandra interjected. Maury’s mention of his wife seemed to have made her uncomfortable.

  Maury scowled. “Simon isn’t Joseph, Sandra.”

  Sandra ran a finger along my shoulders. “What I hear is that Simon is the one righteous man left in Sodom. We couldn’t corrupt him if we tried.”

  People in Maury’s office definitely knew too much about our beliefs—and, seemingly, about me. Sandra’s use of the word Sodom had not gone unnoticed. She must have meant it merely to emphasize my reputation. After all, she had called me “righteous.”

  Sandra dangled the fingers of her right hand in front of me and sliced plastic fingernails against each other as she encouraged me to hurry. On the way out, Scott joined us. He was a few years younger than me, about the same height, but of a slighter build. Thick black hair fell in unruly curls over his collar. Sandra kissed Scott on the forehead.

  “Don’t use me as a warm-up,” Scott protested. “There’ll be plenty of guys at the bar.”

  “You’re going to a bar?” I questioned. “Can you drop me off at the hotel on your way?”

  “It’s just a restaurant, honey,” Sandra said. “Come on and have dinner with us.”

  It seemed only polite to join them. Sandra led us to the parking lot, and we got into her sleek Trans Am. I scrunched into the narrow backseat and gawked out the window as we drove along Sunset Boulevard. A sense of horticultural shock overtook me as I observed strange trees with red blossoms shaped like bottlebrushes and others with green bark and spikes that looked like material medieval craftsmen might have used to construct a mace. I’d never seen such a landscape!

  Sandra sped along Doheny Drive, making a right turn onto Santa Monica Boulevard and heading toward what she described as the Delta Towers in Century City. We parked underground and made our way to the Princess Lounge, a posh restaurant and piano bar. Sandra had the looks and poise of a movie star. As we entered, several men eyed her, not just lustfully, but knowingly. I wondered if they thought she was somebody famous. Scott, by contrast, was unkempt. One tail of his wrinkled white shirt hung over his belt, and his loafers needed a shine. I hadn’t noticed at the office how unshaven he appeared. He shoved the shirttail into his pants, but his hair was beyond the aid of a comb.

  The host greeted Sandra by name and then escorted us to a table near the piano. Scott made a request and put a dollar bill in the fishbowl tip jar. The pianist switched from a Burt Bacharach song to a rendition of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.

  The waiter had already spotted his regulars and brought Sandra a glass of Chivas Regal on the rocks. “And your water back,” the young man said, setting down a glass of water. Next, he placed a snifter of brandy in front of Scott. “And you, sir?” the waiter asked me. “You’ve not been here before, am I right?”

  “Bring him a Coca-Cola,” Sandra said, pulling the waiter close to whisper something.

  In no time, my drink appeared on the table.

  After one sip, I dabbed my lips with the edge of the cloth napkin. “Hey, there’s more in this than Coca-Cola.”

  “Oh, honey,” Sandra said, tapping the rim of my glass with a glittered fingernail, “there’s nothing in a cuba libre that’s going to hurt you.”

  I took another sip and coughed. Scott and Sandra laughed.

  “Joseph told us that a drink of alcohol now and then is okay,” Scott said.

  “That’s true, but we think it’s better not to drink at all.”

  Sandra placed her hand firmly on my arm. “We won’t let you overdo it.” She looked at Scott, then fixed her attention on me. “I’ll keep a close eye on you.”

  I fished the slice of lime from the drink and bit into it, hoping to dilute the bitter taste of the rum. Suddenly, the strangest feeling of déjà vu struck me. Scott and Sandra had become Jake and Jewell.

  “You look positively weepy,” Sandra said, brushing my cheek with the back of her hand.

  “See?” Scott said. “One sip of alcohol and he’s already crying. That’s just how it started with Joseph.”

  “I admit to being a lightweight,” I said.

  Sandra too
k a sip from my glass. “It’s not even strong.”

  “It’s plenty strong for a teetotaler,” I argued.

  After a few more sips, I didn’t taste the rum and decided that Sandra must be right. It wasn’t a strong drink.

  My companions had thrown back three drinks by the time I downed the one glass.

  “Are you two hungry?” I asked. For my part, I was starving.

  Before answering, Scott excused himself to the restroom. Sandra began flirting with a man sitting at an adjacent table. I felt ignored. The pianist finished two more attempts at playing classical music and then launched into a unique interpretation of “That’s Amore.” The waiter, noticing my empty glass, rushed off to bring another. I was finishing it when Scott reappeared. Soon after, things became a blur, except that I am sure we ate steak flambé and that Sandra ordered bananas foster for desert. The image of flames resonated with vague thoughts of hellfire.

  At some point, we left the restaurant and made our way to a bar on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. Sandra and Scott challenged me to keep up with them as they threw back shots of an Eastern European brandy called slivovitz.

  “I can’t believe you’re holding up so well,” Scott said at one point, his breath smelling of the fiery-sweet liquor. “Joseph passed out after one shot. You’ve had three!”

  It took great effort to comprehend what Scott was trying to tell me. “Oh yeah,” I slurred, “Joseph the Moonie.” I swirled on the stool and fell sideways, somehow managing to right myself before hitting the floor.

  “That guy sure figured out how to party,” Scott said. “Drank like a fish, ole Joseph. He just had to take up with that woman. Met her right here at Dan Tana’s, didn’t he?” Scott whirled around to find Sandra, but she had moved two stools away and was trying to escape the advances of a middle-aged man with a half-open polyester shirt revealing a mass of gold chains.

  “Come on, baby,” Gold Chains insisted, “I know you’re a working girl. Come on, work with me.”

  “Get away from Sandra,” I insisted, leaping to her defense.

  The man reared back and coldcocked me to the floor.

  Sandra screamed.

  “Come on, Simon,” Scott said, helping me up.

  Sandra gave Gold Chains a vicious look, but he was already harassing another woman. “We shouldn’t have introduced Simon to slivovitz so soon,” Sandra said to Scott on the way out.

  The bartender, who had watched the scene intently, followed close behind to ensure that we actually left the bar. At the door, he told Sandra, “Your men have to behave themselves.”

  Scott pointed his finger at the bartender and said, “Bang! Bang!” then blew on the end of his finger.

  Sandra shook her own finger in Scott’s face.

  The bartender rolled his eyes in disbelief.

  Compared to Scott and me, Sandra was downright sober. She took us by the arm and marched us to her car. “Let’s go to your hotel,” she said.

  “Sure, if you want,” I agreed.

  Sandra started the engine and drove miraculously well as we made our way through Hollywood.

  Along the path to the bungalow, I snapped off a bird-of-paradise flower and handed it to Sandra.

  “Pour moi?” she said, tapping me on the head with the blossom’s beak.

  “You must be my fairy godmother,” I slurred.

  The next thing I knew, Scott had taken the key from my pocket, and the three of us were in the room. Sandra threw off her shoes and lay sideways on the bed. Scott called room service and ordered champagne.

  I struggled to remain conscious as I lay on the bed near Sandra. She touched the nape of my neck.

  When the champagne arrived, Scott made a production of popping the cork. Foam spewed everywhere. He filled a glass for each of us.

  Sandra offered a toast. “Life’s a bitch!”

  Scott clinked his glass against Sandra’s. “And then you die.”

  I raised my glass and added stupidly, “And here’s to what’s in the middle.”

  Scott and Sandra laughed so hard they blew champagne through their noses. Scott scooted close to sandwich me between his body and Sandra’s.

  “Did I hear you say something about wanting to be in the middle?” Scott purred.

  Then the lights went out—literally and figuratively.

  When I awoke the next day, I was in the bed, naked and alone. The odor of stale champagne flooded the room. I switched on the light to find shards of broken glass covering the floor. Evidently, we had thrown our glasses against the wall. Coiled in a chair, my trousers looked like a snake ready to strike.

  I checked the receipts in my wallet and summed up that the evening had cost a couple of hundred dollars, all charged to the Diners Club card. I managed to convince myself that the expense didn’t matter, that it wasn’t church funds—not money earned through the toil of brothers and sisters.

  Where were Sandra and Scott? Why had I awakened as naked as Ham’s father?

  My jaw ached, but it wasn’t broken. At least Dan Tana’s gold-chain ape-man hadn’t done much damage.

  I pressed one of the towels strewn about the floor against my face and found the odor of sex. Horrified, I threw the towels in the bathtub and turned on the water.

  “Life is a bitch!” I said aloud. “I evidently committed the worst sin of my life—and don’t even remember it!”

  Sandra was hard at work when I arrived at Maury’s office. For her, it was just another day in LA. For me, it was the first morning on a journey toward the unknown.

  “You look like a million bucks,” I told Sandra. “How do you do it?”

  “Practice,” Sandra giggled. “Don’t worry. You’ll get better at it.”

  Better at what? Did I want to know what she meant? I rushed off to find Maury in the library.

  “I hope you went home last night,” I said. “This is exactly how I left you yesterday, poring over transcripts.”

  Scott came into the library with court papers for Maury to sign and winked at me when Maury wasn’t looking. He, too, seemed rested—alert, even. I couldn’t imagine how that was possible. It took all my strength not to expel the quick breakfast I had grabbed at the hotel.

  “I’ve been on the phone to some Japanese language translators,” Maury said. “They need to hear the tapes. And looking over the transcripts, I found other issues to explore.”

  “What?” I asked. Discussing legal matters relieved me from having to think about the wages of sin.

  “Let’s talk about them later,” Maury suggested. “Why don’t you take the afternoon to see Los Angeles? By tomorrow, I’ll have some meetings set up. We can start traveling.”

  “Traveling?”

  “To interview experts. Now, go on. Let me study these transcripts.”

  When I approached her desk, Sandra held up a finger to signal that she was almost done with her typing. Then she opened a dainty purse and took out a compact mirror to guide a generous application of lip gloss.

  “Let’s go put some miles on that Diners Club card,” Scott said, sneaking up behind me.

  “But it’s barely twelve o’clock,” I protested.

  “And?” Scott and Sandra voiced in unison.

  “And, well,” I stammered, “don’t you have work to do?”

  “Honey,” Sandra cooed, “this is Beverly Hills,” as if that fact alone explained everything.

  “You coming or not?” Scott insisted.

  I found myself shoved toward the door before I could answer.

  After we left the office, Sandra took my hand and held it until we got to her car. We first drove to her house in the Valley, where she changed into tight Jordache jeans with a clingy white blouse and short black jacket. Scott had clothes stored in the guest bedroom. He changed into white pants and a blousy yellow shirt.

  Sandra shrieked when she saw me standing next to Scott in my dour wardrobe. She found a pair of men’s jeans and a silk shirt in a closet and said, “Here, put these on, sweet
heart.” Fortunately, I was the same size as a recent boyfriend who had left clothes at her house.

  Scott went through Sandra’s tape collection and put on a new Cars album. “Shake It Up” echoed off the hills beyond the patio doors. But we didn’t have much time to listen to music. As soon as Sandra was done applying makeup, she rushed us along to the car. We took Sunset Boulevard from the freeway, then zipped down Doheny to Santa Monica. Our first stop was Dan Tana’s for happy hour.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “If Scott can keep his gun in its holster,” Sandra said.

  “Okay, but keep that mean ole bartender away from me,” Scott pouted.

  “And you, Simon?” Sandra said firmly. “Will you behave?”

  “I’ll behave,” I said, recognizing what a bizarre turn of events it was that I should be making such a statement. “But it is a brave new world to have such people in it.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Scott moaned as we got out of the car. “At least Joseph didn’t talk in riddles.”

  “The Tempest.” Sandra smiled.

  “Correct,” I said. “Maury is Prospero, Scott is Caliban, and you”—I touched Sandra on the head—“you are Miranda. Hmm, guess I am Ariel.”

  Scott scurried ahead to get away from whatever it was we were talking about.

  The thick-browed bartender greeted Sandra with a friendly kiss. “No trouble tonight,” he said, giving Scott and me a stern look.

  I nodded compliantly. It was like receiving a scolding for coming into the house with muddy shoes, only this time it was my soul that had been dirtied. What a strange overnight demotion from Commander Powell, witnessing center director, to suspect barfly!

  The bartender brought out shot glasses and a fat bottle of slivovitz.

  “I can’t do this again,” I protested.

  “Sure you can,” Sandra cajoled, taking my hand. “Didn’t I hear you say it’s a brave new world?” She lowered her voice. “You know, right, that Miranda had just seen beautiful men for the first time in her life? Dan Tana’s was my Prospero’s island when I first arrived in LA. I never used to party like this in New Orleans!”