Funeral Platter

by Greg Ames

  “Who does?”

  “Work. They’re short staffed.” I placed my hand on Mike’s shoulder. “No, Mike, don’t get up. Eat dinner with Paige.”

  “Declan,” Paige said. “What are you doing?”

  “They want me to come in.” I rolled my eyes. “Perez says they’re pulling an all-nighter in the office. Wish I could say no but let’s face it, I’m a lowly functionary who can’t afford to cross the wrong people.”

  Mike rose to his feet, preparing to head out. “Well,” he said. “Some other time.”

  I laid a firm hand on his shoulder and shoved him back down. “Stay,” I said. “All that delicious food. Shame to let it go to waste.”

  “For real?” Paige looked up at me. “You’re leaving?”

  “Bummer,” Mike said.

  “I agree with Mike’s astute assessment,” I said. “But don’t let this little setback ruin the party. You two can still hang out. Oh man, I almost forgot.” I darted into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of champagne. “Look what I found. Who wants bubbly? Here, Paige, pass these flutes around.”

  “Where did you get that?” she said.

  “This bubbly?” I said, tilting the bottle to read the label. “It was just in the kitchen there, in one of the cabinets.”

  “No, it wasn’t. I’ve never seen that bottle before. And stop saying ‘bubbly.’”

  I popped the cork, releasing a cascade of foam. “Hold out your glass, Mike,” I said. “Attaboy. Right to the top.” I filled Paige’s glass as well. “There’s two dozen oysters on ice in the kitchen and a free-range chicken roasting in the oven. Nothing to worry about.”

  Paige rose from the couch and smiled at our guest. “Excuse us for a minute, Mike.” She followed me into the bedroom. “Dude. You’re acting like a psycho. What’s up?”

  “Work. Always work.” I grabbed my wallet and keys. “I’ll be home by eleven-thirty.” I kissed her forehead. “Midnight at the latest.”

  Before I left, I caught a glimpse of my fiancée’s face. I paused. At that moment I wanted to drop to my knees, to confess, to put a stop to Phase One, but the plan was in motion. Paige, I reminded myself, would benefit in the end. That was all I’d ever wanted.

  At a sports bar on Fifth Avenue, I took the stool next to Adam Kennedy, my big brother in Kappa Sig. I’d been out of college for almost a year but Adam continued to act as a sort of unofficial adviser and surrogate father. He was twenty-six years old, three years my senior, and the only person I confided in without reservation.

  “Give me the rundown,” he said. “Where we at?”

  “Well, I think I found the guy. His name is Mike Balducci. They should be cutting into the chicken right about now.”

  “Balducci? Italian?” Adam Kennedy frowned. “Give me some stats.”

  I shrugged and waved to the bartender, who didn’t see me or else ignored me. “Good-looking guy from my gym. Mid to late twenties. Medium height. Can bench press a ton. Wears a suit well. Doesn’t talk much, though.”

  “Talking’s not that important,” Adam said. “Women don’t care much about talking. Okay, we’re in business. Phase Two begins this Friday. I hope Ballsacky is ready for this.”

  “Balducci,” I said.

  I frowned at my reflection behind the bottles, my face bisected by a groove where two mirrors had been joined. In Hollywood movies doom always awaited the two-faced man.

  “Look, Adam,” I said, “I’m having second thoughts about this.”

  “Perfectly natural,” he said, not looking at me. “You’ll get over that. Just stay the course.”

  “I’m serious. This doesn’t feel right. I started with good intentions but Paige is a nice person, you know? An amazing person. Did you know that she—”

  “That’s cool.” Adam motioned to the bartender with the slightest tilt of his head. Two more pints of beer arrived almost immediately. Adam took a long, thoughtful sip and wiped his lips with the back of his tie. “You’ll be free of this entanglement in no time. I’m putting the Adam Kennedy guarantee on this. Have you been subtle like I told you?”

  “You should have seen how I took your call tonight. Cool as ice. They don’t suspect a thing. Even though you called early.”

  “Good. Perfect. I called right on time, by the way. And just before the game ends on Friday night”—he waved vaguely at the TV suspended above the bar—“we’ll dial it up a notch for Phase Two.”

  I studied his face, the solid swoop of his jaw, the confident eyebrows. “What does that even mean?” I asked him. “Why won’t you tell me everything at once?”

  “Need-to-know basis, brother. Patent pending.”

  Adam Kennedy had always been secretive. Even in college, when the fraternity was giving out bids, all the other pledges knew before I did. Adam didn’t tell me until the following morning, letting me sweat it out for an additional twelve hours. But say what you will, Adam Kennedy always got results. As a junior, he became fraternity president and increased our chapter’s overall enrollment by forty percent. He was the first of our brothers in his graduating class to be offered a good job in Manhattan. At commencement he drove up in a brand new Range Rover while most of us were still riding single-gear bikes.

  “What time did you tell her you’d be home?” Adam asked me.

  “Midnight. I promised.”

  He laughed and glanced at his heavy gold wristwatch. “Roll in at four.”

  I drove around town for several hours. I stopped at a burger joint, threw darts at a biker bar, bowled three games at Melody Lanes, and stumbled into our apartment well after two o’clock in the morning. Paige was propped up in bed, reading Modern Bride magazine.

  “How was your dinner with Mike?” I said.

  “Where have you been?” She looked at me over her reading glasses. “I was worried about you.”

  I threw my keys and wallet on the dresser. “Did you enjoy dinner? How was Mike?”

  “Whatever,” she said. “He invited us to a Knicks game Friday. But I don’t care about basketball.”

  “You would if you knew the rules. I bet Mike knows all the rules.”

  Paige put down her magazine. “You really like this guy, huh?”

  “Michael Jordan? Michael ‘row the boat ashore’ Balducci? What’s not to like?”

  “I’m just saying. It’s a little creepy. It’s almost as if you’re—”

  “Okay, I admit it. I do feel kind of inadequate around him. And not just because Mike’s hung like a horse, according to this guy named Karl at the gym. But Mike’s brilliant, too. I think his IQ is something like 182.”

  “Those tests are totally inaccurate,” she said and flicked a page of her magazine.

  I dumped loose change on the dresser and reminded myself to be subtle. “Dozens of attractive women are chasing after Big Mike Balducci. But Mike says he’s waiting for the right gal. He’s kind of old-fashioned that way. He believes in love, romance, a beautiful wedding by a lake, a fleet of limousines. He’s a catch. He won’t be single for long. Mike.”

  “Well, I guess we could go to the game. If you want to go.” Paige grinned at me. She shut her magazine and laid it on the bedside table. “Unless you have something better planned.”

  “Me?” I laughed. “No, I can never think of anything fun to do.”

  I pulled off my shirt and sat down heavily on the bed. Bending over to untie my shoes, I knew that I was making big ugly gut rolls for her to look at.

  On Friday afternoon around 3:30, I called Paige at work and told her I wouldn’t make it to the basketball game.

  “Why?”

  “Work. That’s all I ever seem to do, to the exclusion of all my loved ones.”

  “Well, whatever,” she said. “Call what’s-his-balls and tell him we can’t go. I can’t say that I really care. Basketball’s not my cup of—”

  “Oh, but those tickets are so expensive,” I said. “And I bet they’re great seats, knowing Mike. Probably one of the starting players hooked him
up. No, no, you’d better go with him.”

  “What? I don’t want to go to a Knicks game on a Friday night with Mike!”

  “You think I like it? I hate it. I’ll be so jealous. Both of your hands in the same bag of popcorn. But what can we do? Think about poor Mike.”

  “Why doesn’t ‘poor Mike’ take one of his numerous lady friends with him?”

  “Let’s not hurt his feelings,” I said. “Mike’s sensitive. He’s strong but sensitive. That’s what you might not understand about him. Mike’s an enigma. Nobody knows the full story of Mike. The book of Mike is a mystery novel waiting for an intelligent female reader to deconstruct.”

  “Are you shitting me?” she said. “Look, I can’t talk right now. I have work to do.”

  “What I’m saying is don’t judge a book by its cover. You’re looking at Mike and seeing a muscular, athletic, handsome man, and you’re not alone. People in the gym stop and watch him dead lift. He’s that strong. But Mike’s sensitive too, and this might hurt his feelings. If we both turn our backs on him now, he might not go to the game at all. He might stay at home, thinking we don’t like him anymore.”

  “Is this some kind of prank?” she said. “This is getting so weird, Declan.”

  “I’m the one that’s weird.” I nodded in agreement. “I’m flighty and moody and kind of a kook. Unstable as all get out. But Mike? He’s solid and dependable.”

  She hung up.

  Five hours later, at the bar, I gave Adam the rundown. “Phase Two is in effect. Very smooth transition. She’s at Madison Square Garden with Mike.”

  “Nice work, bro.”

  “So what’s the next part of your exit strategy?”

  Adam motioned to the bartender, held up two fingers. “Time to talk Phase Three.” He glanced left and right, making sure that nobody was eavesdropping. “I call it Bound and Gagged.”

  Two beers arrived. The bartender plucked a few bills off Adam’s stack and moved away again.

  “We’ll watch the Knick game here,” Adam said. “Toward the end of the fourth quarter we’ll go back to your apartment and smash the shit out of everything. Then I’ll tie you up and slap you around a bit.”

  “Now, wait a second,” I said.

  “Trust me, bro,” Adam said, watching the game over my head. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s essential.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I’m doing this for you, goddammit. My ex-girlfriends have all moved on without blaming me at all. They think they broke up with me. They think they hurt my feelings.”

  “But why does this have to be so … you know … macho?”

  Adam flicked a peanut off the bar. “You should chat with a Vietnam vet who was airlifted out of Saigon and tell him you think my exit strategy is a little too macho.” He pulled out his cell phone. “You know what? I’ll get my uncle Frank on the horn. The man’s missing a leg. Tell Frank what you think.”

  “Jesus, don’t call any disabled veterans.” I grabbed the phone out of his hands and laid it on the bar. “I’m listening.”

  He snatched up his phone and polished it with a drink napkin. “Nobody touches Adam’s phone,” he said. “Nobody.”

  “So you tie me up,” I said, trying to calm him down. “Fine. Great. And then what?”

  “You sack up like a goddamn soldier and wait for your backup. When they see you like that, completely emasculated, you’ve already got one foot out the door. Super Mike storms onto the scene, unties you, consoles Paige, and three months from now, the Italian Stallion rides to victory in your former bed.”

  “In my bed? Mike Balducci?”

  “Shit yeah. You’ve moved out by then. You think they’ll go to hotel rooms out of respect for you?”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. I didn’t like the sound of any of it! Paige was not some pawn to be used in such a brutal game. Emotional intimacy was certainly difficult and maybe even impossible for me, but I didn’t want her to suffer for it. The truth was, I just wanted Paige to be happy and contented and adored by a partner who didn’t have my glaring defects of character, my immaturity, and my meager earning potential.

  Adam’s pint of beer was empty. He glared at mine, still half full.

  “And then what happens?” I said. “Mike moves in. Paige marries him instead. Remind me what I’m getting out this again.”

  “Oh, just a little thing called freedom,” Adam said. “How does that sound, hero?”

  The gym sock was clean. I insisted on that, even though Adam wanted to use the dirtiest one—“for verisimilitude,” he argued.

  I sat on a stiff wooden chair in my living room. Adam tied both of my hands behind my back with a bungee cord. Then he shoved the gym sock in my mouth and wrapped duct tape three or four times around my head.

  I gagged.

  The tape was too tight, and I grunted to indicate this, but Adam ignored my pleas. “Close your eyes and brace yourself,” he said. The punch came before I expected it, his rough knuckles pounding my right cheekbone and eye socket. Pain shot through my body. My right eyelid burned hot, as if he’d taken a scalpel to it.

  Shaking it off, I watched in horror as Adam ransacked our kitchen. He poured orange juice on the floor, lit all the dishtowels on fire, and kicked over a six-tiered bookcase, scattering our books. He swept my laptop off the kitchen counter onto the floor. He stomped our coffee table into splinters.

  “This is starting to look real,” he said, his eyes dark and wild. “Yo, Dec, which closet is Paige’s?” He headed toward the back of the apartment. “And where does she keep her panties?”

  I rocked from side to side, growling into the sock, but my objections went unheeded.

  A few minutes later, Adam returned to the kitchen with a smile on his face. He removed deli-wrapped envelopes of ham and cheese from the refrigerator and built himself a towering sandwich, three layers high, with sliced tomatoes and ruffles of romaine lettuce. He slathered on mayo and mustard. He pillaged a twelve-pack of beer, tucking it under his arm. Then he swung open the door, calling out, “Sit tight, hero. This is going to work like a charm. Trust me.”

  I tried to free my hands but the knots were too tight. For two hours I had no choice but to stare at the wreckage of my life. I wondered if there were any better ways to handle it. Should I have risked a thorny conversation with my fiancée?

  I suppose I could have said, “Paige, I love you, but I might not be ready to get married yet. I’m scared, that’s all. We’re just so young, you know? I think we should maybe slow down. What do you think?” But I loved her too much to hurt her like that.

  My eyelid had swollen shut. My wrists burned. Minutes ticked off the clock while I waited for them to return.

  Finally, the door opened. I couldn’t believe it. Paige was alone.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, rushing to me. She untied my hands and removed the whisker-uprooting tape and pulled the sock out of my mouth. “Oh, oh, oh,” she said, hugging me. “Are you okay, babe? What happened?”

  “Where’s Mike?” I said, gasping for air. “Is he parking his cool BMW?”

  “What?”

  “Balducci!” I said, my voice ragged. “Where is he?”

  “Dropped me off. Told him I had a headache. Oh, baby, now I know why you didn’t show up. We were both so worried about you. I’m sorry that I got angry with you. I didn’t know!”

  I looked at her through my one good eye. “How was your night? Did Mike take you out for a cocktail or dancing after dinner?”

  She shook her head.

  That cheap son of a bitch, I thought. “He just dropped you off?” I rubbed my abraded cheek. “Didn’t he even try to kiss you?”

  “Kiss me? Of course not. He was a perfect gentleman.”

  I nodded, smiled. “Didn’t I tell you he was a gentleman? Mike’s old-fashioned. And women respond to that. He was dating this model for a while before she moved back to Barcelona. Keep it under your hat. Mike’s pretty modest about that kind of
stuff.”

  Paige bent down and cupped my face in her hands. “Your poor face! Should I take you to the hospital?”

  “No, I’m coolio.”

  “Call the cops right now. How many were there?”

  “Just one,” I said. “One little guy.”

  “Can you make a positive identification?”

  “Oh yeah. I’d know that miniature bastard anywhere. He was probably five-five with a receding chin, a milky left eye, and a deformed right arm. It was like a flipper. You know, like, hanging off his shoulder?”

  “Really?” she said, baffled. “Jeez. What did he want? Why did he break in?”

  “I don’t know. I was hiding under the bed and he pulled me out by the ankles.”

  Paige chewed her lower lip and laid her hand on my chest. “Call the cops.”

  “Nope,” I said, smiling at her. “I have a better idea. I’ll call our mutual friend, Mister Deadlift himself.”

  Paige and I cleaned up the place as best we could, but the intruder had caused a lot of damage. A framed photo montage of her family—brothers, sister, parents—had been shattered beneath Adam Kennedy’s boot heel. She held the pieces in her hands and cried.

  I bent over her, pressed the back of my hand to her hot cheek. I felt compelled to admit my duplicity, and I started to say something—“Paige, listen,”—but I was interrupted by a knock on the door, which she had left ajar.

  “Mike!” I said, spotting Paige’s future husband in the doorway. “Come on in, my man. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Dude,” Mike said, looking around at the scene. I nodded, waited for more. “Duuuude,” Mike added.

  “Look at this mess!” Paige said. “Can you believe it?” On her hands and knees she looked up at us, her two men, with an expression of murderous rage on her face. For a moment she had stopped being sympathetic to my plight—my recent brush with an intruder—and had moved on to rage at the midget aggressor. “Little bastard smashed my pictures.”

  “Bummer. They steal anything?” Mike asked. The sleuth was on duty.

  “Perceptive question, Mike,” I said. “No. Strangely enough. They—he—didn’t steal anything. Except, well, a ham and cheese sandwich and some domestic beer.”