“That’s right, Thomas, I’m a perfect example of what Doris doesn’t want. In fact, she’s already shown herself to be smarter than I was. You’ve given her some valuable jewelry and you give her enough money every month for her to splash it around a bit, and you’ve rented her an apartment in Tribeca. My place in SoHo is nice, but pretty modest.”
“Are you complaining, Olivia?”
“Oh no! Why would I do that? I admire the girl. She’ll be rich before she’s thirty,” Olivia said with absolute conviction.
Her words struck me. How could Doris make herself rich if she had no talent at all? She only had one way out—for a stupid, rich man to fall in love with her. Or had Esther promised her money if she helped to…? No, my wife is too intelligent to trust someone like Doris.
Esther took them out to dinner once the commercial was edited. First she organized a small meeting with the agency team, to which she invited Olivia and Doris. Then the three of them went out to eat at Cipriani.
“Doesn’t it seem a bit much to take them to Cipriani?” I complained, a little upset at being left out.
“When did you start to worry about the money we spend on softening up the people we work with? Olivia and Doris have done a good job: you’ve seen the ad. I’m sure it’ll be successful.”
“This is the first time you’ve taken a couple of models to Cipriani,” I persisted.
“Well, they’re more than a couple of models. Or aren’t they?” My wife looked at me defiantly.
“If you say so.”
“Come on, Thomas, don’t antagonize me. They were great in the shoot. Plus, going to Cipriani is a way for them to be seen by people who matter. Let’s leave it at that.”
And so my wife and my two lovers are having a great time together and I know there’s a link between them: the extent to which they hate me. Although I try to resist thinking that Doris hates me. She might be apathetic toward me, but I haven’t given her any reason to hate me aside from a couple of slaps whenever her stupidity irritates me too much.
But I’m not going to let Esther and Olivia win the match. I’ve decided to play it to the end, even if I lose my life in the attempt. If they manage to kill me they won’t be able to enjoy my absence, at least not right away. After my last conversation with Professor Johnson, I made a few decisions.
I handed a sealed envelope to my lawyer with instructions to request an autopsy in the case of my death. My lawyer will have to give a copy of the autopsy report to the district attorney along with a letter in which I assign responsibility for anything that might have happened to me to Esther and Olivia. If I die, then it will be investigated. Maybe they won’t find any proof to use against them, but at least they won’t be able to celebrate their freedom for a good while. They will be under suspicion for murder. Esther won’t be able to use our money to pay for lawyers and Olivia…Well, I don’t think Jerry is going to help her. Jerry is a simple, self-made man who won’t be able to deal with someone under suspicion of committing a crime.
As for Jaime, I know him well: he’s a coward and he would be horrified to think that Esther could have killed me. He might regret it, but he’ll leave her. I know. My brother is too principled. He wouldn’t be able to look at Esther without thinking that she might have caused my death. My stupid, kindhearted brother, who looks so much like good old John. His father, my stepfather.
I’ll leave all my money to Professor Johnson. Well, to his department at NYU. The university’s lawyers will fight to make sure that they don’t miss out on a single dollar. Esther will fight them, and will call in Dr. Douglas and Dr. Taylor. They’ll say that I suffered from a persecution complex and will call on Dr. Austen to bear witness to their claim, as well as Paul Hard. But the shadow of suspicion will be difficult to lift.
This is my revenge. I might die, but they won’t win the game.
They’ll hate me, yes, they’ll hate me, but can they really hate me any more than they already do? Paul says that Olivia has reasons to hate me, but Esther simply doesn’t love me. What does he know? I can see it in my wife’s eyes. I know her well. I’ve suppressed my own nature to have her by my side.
—
How much time has passed since I last thought I was dying? Barely a couple of weeks. Esther has breakfast with me every morning, and even has dinner with me every now and then, watching me carefully to see if she can detect the shadow of death on my face. I go to see Olivia every day and scrutinize her movements as she serves me whiskey or a piece of cake that she doesn’t try herself.
Yes, they are poisoning me. Perhaps they put something in my food, or my coffee, or the whiskey I love so much. They know that I know.
A few days ago Dr. Douglas insisted that I see a psychiatrist, and even gave me phone numbers for a couple of them, but I became angry and asked him to test my blood for the poison they’re using to kill me. It’s a useless dialogue we’ve been having for months. He shrugs. He thinks I’m crazy, even though I had another “episode” a few weeks back that affected me more than usual and put me in the hospital for a week. While I was unconscious I felt the presence of Yoko and Constance next to me again. They told me that soon I would be with them, that the next time they would come and find me and take me away for good. Lisa was there as well. She held out her hand and laughed at me.
Esther and Olivia came to see me. They entered the room together and said they had run into each other in the elevator. There was nothing in their eyes that could be considered a sentiment akin to love, or affection, or even compassion. Nothing apart from impatience. I paid Doris well to spend time with me in the room. Esther didn’t seem to mind the girl’s presence; she even seemed pleased that there was someone other than her who would watch over me at the hospital. My wife explained that she couldn’t stay for very long because she had so much work at the agency. She praised Doris for keeping me company.
“It’s lucky for us that Doris is such a good friend. That girl’s a treasure,” she said, and added, with a touch of cynicism, “When I’m at work it puts me at ease knowing that she’s here with you.”
Dr. Douglas didn’t want to believe me when I insisted in a faint voice that my collapse had not been spontaneous.
“Thomas, if you continue to say these horrible things, I will have to ask you to find another doctor. Your wife calls me every day to find out how you’re progressing. She’s very worried that you’re having these cardiac episodes.”
“The anticoagulant, Doctor…”
“You’re on the right dosage; it’s completely under control. I don’t know how to make you understand that your lifestyle is what’s hurting you.”
The day he let me leave the hospital he treated me like a naughty little boy, slapping me on the back and giving me the same speech as always.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you, Thomas. I’m sure that if you look after yourself your health will flourish. No one in his right mind with heart problems would eat a bowl of spaghetti carbonara and a T-bone steak in a single sitting, much less smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. I really think the problem is in your head as well. If you don’t address your own obsessions then something really will happen to you,” the stupid doctor preached.
Esther insisted that I do nothing and devote myself instead to relaxing. It was her way of making it clear that my presence at the agency was not essential and that if we continued making money, it was due to her. I didn’t care. I let her work. At the end of the day I check all the accounts and there’s not a single dollar that escapes my scrutiny.
She’s been sleeping at home ever since I left the hospital. She gets back late, it’s true. I know that when she leaves the agency she goes to my brother’s house and spends a good deal of time with him and the children. When she gets home, she’s absent. She asks me mechanically how I am and whether I need anything. After giving me the pills I need for the night, she retreats to the guest bedroom.
I felt bad again four days ago. It was after having lunch at Olivia’s. She’d invited me, asking
me to come and try her latest culinary creation, meat cooked with pineapple and other tropical fruits and with a sauce whose flavor I didn’t recognize. Even so, I ate it all and the next day I came over without warning. But instead of getting annoyed she offered to make me something to eat, because, as she said, “You look terrible. I’m sure having something to eat will help.” In fact, quite the opposite. Scarcely had I finished eating before I had to go home. I was sweating profusely and felt so dizzy and nauseated that I was shaking.
This morning, when my wife gave me my anticoagulants, I caught her looking at me, and there was a special gleam in her eye. She said she would be working late that night. I know she knows I don’t believe her. She’ll be at Jaime’s, because one of his kids is sick, or he’s organized a family dinner.
I’ve called Doris. And here I am in the apartment I’ve been renting for her, right in one of Manhattan’s prime neighborhoods. I like the place. It costs me a fortune, but it’s more comfortable than going from hotel room to hotel room. I’m not going to live much longer and it’s good for me to spend my money on these little caprices. But tonight is dragging on forever. I told Doris to watch some television. In the meantime I’m going to try to put down some of my memories in writing, and I can’t stop asking myself if this life would have been better, the one I didn’t want to live because I preferred to be a son of a bitch. Yes, I had a choice. But I never wanted to be anything other than what I am. Would I have known? What would this life have been like, the one I didn’t want to live? Would I have been happy?
Doris is chattering away at my side, but I don’t listen to her. I’ve been trying to master the sickness, the cold sweat that covers my skin, the vomit that is trying to climb from my stomach to my throat, but I want to keep on writing. I’m terrified of my own thoughts. I think I could die tonight. Yes, I think I’ll die tonight.
The stupid girl doesn’t notice anything.
“You’re a bit pale. Well, if you try to do this kind of thing, at your age, in your state…”
I told her to shut up. She’s used to it. She stared at the television for a while and then started talking again as if nothing had happened, and offered to pour me a whiskey. “To get your spirits up,” she said. I didn’t pay her any attention, but I was alarmed by her look as she picked an ice cube to put in my drink. Then she stirred it. Suddenly I realized that this was what Olivia and Esther did as well. They fish around among the ice cubes, take a couple of them, and then stir them into the whiskey. Why do they stir it? Why hadn’t I realized earlier? Could they be poisoning me with the ice? It’s easy; I drink several whiskeys a day. Suddenly I remembered that in the documentary they said that you could kill people using ground glass, crystal. They might be killing me with ground glass in my ice cubes. Now I realize that Doris is looking for particular cubes in the ice bucket. Have Olivia and Esther made her their accomplice? But why would Doris want to kill me? Money. Olivia told me that Doris would be rich before she was thirty. Esther must have promised her a good chunk if she helps get rid of me. Yes, my wife and my lover might have bought the little bitch. She looks at me with a smile and hands me the glass and waits expectantly for me to take the first sip.
I laugh. Doris looks at me without understanding why I’m laughing. I drink the whiskey in a single gulp and ask her to pour me another one. Meanwhile, in my mind I go through the scene that will certainly take place. As soon as I die, my lawyers will open the sealed envelope with my precise instructions demanding an autopsy, and will make public my suspicions that my wife and my lover were conspiring to kill me. The district attorney will immediately get involved. My last testament will request that my suspicions be made public. Once the DA is in possession of the documents, my lawyers are obliged to inform the press. I can imagine the headlines: PROMINENT ADMAN DEAD IN SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES: LEAVES LETTER ACCUSING HIS WIFE AND LOVER. Yes, it’ll be a big scandal that will drag Esther and Olivia down, and they’ll be under suspicion for the rest of their lives. Knowing that I’m able to destroy them is what makes the idea of death not so terrible. I’m enjoying their suffering in advance. I still have time to put Doris’s name into the documents. No, she won’t escape either; I won’t let her enjoy my money.
They are killing me, even though no one believes me. Or am I mad? Maybe both at the same time. There will be no real answer until the day after my death.
ONE YEAR LATER
“All right, Mrs. Spencer, once these last formalities are out of the way you’ll be able to access the money and the accounts that have been frozen up to now. The autopsy and the police report exonerate you from…from your late husband’s unfounded suspicions.”
The lawyer, looking straight at Esther, couldn’t find a single flicker of emotion on her face. Her impassivity made him nervous.
“I’m sorry for what you have had to go through, but you must understand that our obligation was to fulfill Mr. Spencer’s wishes. If you would be kind enough to sign these papers…”
Esther took the documents that the lawyer held out to her and read them slowly, as if she had all the time in the world.
“Yes, it has been a difficult few months,” the lawyer murmured, addressing himself to Paul Hard this time, who was sitting silently next to Esther.
“Yes, indeed it has, Mr. Hill,” Paul agreed.
“The important thing is that it’s all over,” the lawyer insisted in his honeyed voice.
Paul glared at him. The man was trying to minimize the importance of what had happened.
“An exhaustive investigation of Mrs. Esther Spencer and Ms. Olivia White as a result of an unfounded accusation of poisoning…as well as forcing several important doctors to make statements, with me myself brought into it as well, and the scandal in the papers…All because Mr. Spencer wouldn’t listen to his doctors’ instructions and refused to follow the proper regimen for his heart condition, thus making his illness worse.” Paul’s voice betrayed his indignation.
“We can’t do anything apart from carrying out our client’s instructions.”
Esther lifted her eyes from the papers and seemed to hesitate for a few seconds before signing them. Once she had done so, she handed them over to the lawyer.
“Well, that’s it. Of course, Mrs. Spencer, we will be at your disposal for whatever you might require. We would like to continue serving your interests in the same way that we have up to now.”
Esther said nothing. She stood up and, taking Paul by the arm, left Thomas’s lawyer’s office. When they reached the street she looked at Paul and gave him a kiss.
“Thank you for coming with me, thank you for being by my side all these months, thank you for helping me face this nightmare,” she said, hugging him.
“I don’t know about you, but I can’t forgive Thomas for what he did…To accuse you and Olivia of trying to kill him! And all because he didn’t eat what he should, drank like a fish, and didn’t follow any of his doctors’ recommendations.”
“The anticoagulants didn’t agree with him; he had to change them several times,” Esther said.
“Are you really trying to excuse his wretchedness?”
She didn’t reply. They walked slowly to Rockefeller Center. Paul had lost some of his former vigor and leaned on a cane.
Olivia and Doris were waiting for them impatiently, sitting at a table.
“It’s over,” Esther said as a greeting.
Paul ordered a couple of gin and tonics for himself and for Esther. Olivia and Doris already had theirs.
The three women looked at one another and raised their glasses in a silent toast. They were drinking to their freedom, and in the face of Paul’s confusion, they all burst out laughing.
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r /> Julia Navarro, Story of a Sociopath
Story of a Sociopath Page 84