And I’d reply, “Haven’t you figured out yet that she’s insane on her best days and totally psychotic on her worst?”
And then he’d say, “She’s not the first psycho we’ve hired. Most geniuses have emotional abnormalities. It’s in their DNA.”
Maggie was still asleep when I got back to the hospital. I had already arranged to have her return to the rehab center in Malibu. Since she was returning after only six months, she was allowed to have visitors after only two days and she was allowed one sleepover visitor (preferably a spouse, a longtime lover, or partner) once a week.
I bought a magazine in the gift shop, and the cover pictured an unlit cigarette. The caption read, “Are Tobacco Manufacturers on Life Support?” I turned to the article. It more or less summarized the last six months of congressional hearings into the hazardous effects of smoking. The Surgeon General and respected medical professionals throughout the country agreed that cigarettes were the contributing, if not the primary, cause of heart disease and cancer of the mouth, throat, and lungs. The nicotine in cigarettes was as addictive as heroin.
I started to laugh as I looked at pictures of concerned congressmen questioning tobacco executives. The sons of bitches were better actors than Olivier and Burton combined. In truth, every congressman on the committee received money from the very executives they were questioning. It was just a big show — a bargaining tool to extort even more money from Big Tobacco. In six months, the findings of the committee would be buried deep inside all the major newspapers throughout the country. The only journals and magazines that would give appropriate exposure and analysis to the recommendations and findings of the committee were medical and scientific publications — and who read them? Certainly not the sanitation worker addicted to three packs a day.
Maggie was awake when I walked back into her room. She looked so pale and fragile that I was at a loss for words. I sat on the bed beside her and took her hand.
“Pretty soon you’re going to get tired of saving my life. What am I going to do then?” she asked. “At least this time I didn’t bankrupt my family.”
“Did you really try to kill yourself, Maggie? Or was it an accident? Remember our pledge to each other.”
“I was craving the drug so much I tried to drown it out by drinking some wine, not the wisest choice. Two bottles later, I bought a bag of twenty pills. I was only going to take one, but one led to two and then three, and then I just swallowed a whole bunch, hoping I’d never wake up.”
“During this entire episode, did you think at all of how difficult it would be for your kids to grow up without you? If something happened to you, don’t you think that they might consider themselves somehow responsible for your actions? Did you once think of that?”
“They’d be much better off living with their father than with a junkie for a mother.”
“And how about me, Maggie? Would I be so much better off without you in my life?”
“It would be a lot easier on your wallet,” she said with a nervous laugh.
“When did you become so selfish?”
“Please, Joe, don’t go there. I didn’t ask for this.”
I let go of her hand and placed my hands on her shoulders. “If you didn’t look so frail, I would shake you so hard. Hopefully I could reawaken whatever brain cells were still alive in that head of yours.”
She leaned back on the pillows and I took a seat in the chair. I flipped through the pages of the magazine and couldn’t help seeing the connection between Maggie’s situation and the millions of people addicted to cigarettes. Nancy was right. I was the conduit, the messenger, the street pimp pushing a deadly product. I rolled the magazine tightly and looked back at Maggie, then got up and held her tightly. I could hear her heart beating against my chest. “I love you so much … so very much.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
I left the hospital and drove directly to the office. It was just starting to get light outside, and at that moment I wasn’t quite sure of anything.
The building seemed emptier than usual. The night watchman was asleep behind the lobby desk. As I got off the elevator and walked toward my office, the lights were on in Jack’s office, but thankfully the door was closed. I entered my office and looked at the board outlining the ad campaign for the cigarette company — targeted groups of disadvantaged teens born with one foot already in the grave. It represented everything my parents would consider reprehensible, everything that would secure me a permanent place in hell. It was everything Nancy said it was. I was a pimp disguised in an expensive wardrobe and a fancy title.
I grabbed the board and smashed it repeatedly against the desk, then walked directly to Jack’s door. I entered without knocking and found Jack at his desk drinking Russian vodka and smoking a cigar. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see me. On the floor behind him were five young women asleep on mattresses. I doubted their combined ages reached the century mark. It was like a scene out of a World War II movie.
I sat down. “Jack, I want off the tobacco campaign.”
“Why?”
“Do I need a reason after all this time? I want off and that’s it!”
“Growing a conscience, are we, Joe? They insisted on you.”
“They all insist on me.”
“That’s the price for being the best.”
He poured me a glass of vodka. “Fine, you’re off. They’re nothing but a bunch of capitalistic leeches, anyway. I’ll give it to someone else.”
“Capitalistic leeches,” I repeated, as I reached for my glass and shot down the vodka. Jack looked at me like Nancy would, like he was observing a lab rat.
“What’s that on your chin?”
I looked at my reflection in the bottle of vodka. “Oh, I nicked myself shaving. What’s the big deal?”
“You sure about that?”
“Of course I’m sure. What, you’re afraid I’m sick with that virus?”
“Well, you are married to the deranged scientist who developed it.”
I shook my head as he poured me another shot.
“Relax, Joe. Enjoy your life, because you never know what tomorrow might bring. My old man loved the ponies. He spent more time at the track than with his family. And he was the unluckiest man ever born. Couldn’t pick the winner in a one-horse race. The last bet he ever made was on a hundred-to-one shot. After placing the bet, he took a few steps away from the booth and dropped dead of a heart attack. That winning ticket was enough to pay for his funeral.”
I drove home and sat down at my desk. I took out the file for the tobacco campaign I kept at the house and started ripping it into pieces like a madman. I suddenly looked up, startled by Nancy, who was standing beside me.
“What are you doing here, Nancy?” I asked in a near panic. I had no idea how long she’d been there.
“I live here, and I’m married to the most loving and adorable man in the whole world. Besides, it’s Sunday.” She picked up the trashcan and held it as I dropped all the torn pieces and the rest of the file into the can. She took me by the hand and led me over to the couch. We sat down, and I lay my head on her lap as she ran her hands through my hair.
“When am I going to get you back?”
“Soon, Joe. Very soon.”
“And do you think one day we might start a family?”
“Yes.”
I fell asleep. When I woke up, Nancy was still there. After all, it was Sunday.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The con was simple. What was unusual was that Maggie was only twenty-nine. Most victims were middle-aged women, recently divorced, still hungry for attention, and very rich. The other thing was the brutality of the con, which left the victim not only financially ruined, but also addicted to a deadly drug.
The con artist, the gigolo, the engineer of the scheme, was usually a guy in his mid-thirties to early forties, very good-looking, superbly and expensively dressed, worldly, knowledgeable, and with an endearing and trusting personality. He came to a tow
n like Los Angeles and rented a home in an affluent area such as Malibu, Bel-Air, or Beverly Hills. He leased a glamorous car like a Ferrari and selected a few high-class restaurants frequented by an elite clientele. He befriended a couple of waiters and bartenders, usually servers addicted to gambling and in constant need of extra money, and made it known that he was interested in a certain type of lady — a lonely divorcée, very rich, who drank and dined alone at the restaurant consistently a few times a week. He made it perfectly clear that he was willing to pay handsomely for information, and he always left great tips.
Maggie’s routine after her second divorce was fairly consistent. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, she visited a popular and fashionable restaurant in Brentwood after work. She usually sat at the bar, ordered a salad, two very expensive glasses of wine, and left great tips. Maggie was always talkative and social; no doubt the bartender knew more about her life than he needed to.
The bartender, a degenerate gambler, passed Maggie’s routine information to the con artist. The con artist persuaded the bartender — for a mere $1000 — to drop a pill into Maggie’s wine right at the time he appeared at the bar and made her acquaintance.
The bartender offered up this information — and the possible location of the con artist — right after both his hands were shattered by a baseball bat that made more contact with his hands than Ted Williams ever made with a baseball. He was then rewarded for his cooperation with a swift blow to the mouth with the butt of the bat. Needless to say, his bartender days were over and a pair of false teeth were certainly in his future if he could possibly afford such a luxury.
The drug gave Maggie a sense of euphoria, and instead of staying only for her usual two glasses of wine and departing, she stuck around until closing, talking to the con artist. They made a date for the following night, same place, same time, and so started the con, Maggie’s addiction to the deadly drug, and her financial ruin.
After successfully siphoning off the victim’s assets, a con artist typically would skip town, but this piece of shit got greedy and instead simply relocated to a zip code only a few miles away. After all, no city in the country has a greater abundance of profitable targets — lonely, rich ladies — than the city of Los Angeles.
The former bartender’s information was invaluable. Late one night, as the con artist was escorting another target up the stairs to his newly rented Malibu home, the car alarm on his newly rented Porsche went off. Being a gentleman, he let the lady into the house and went back down to check on the car. As he unsuccessfully tried to shut the alarm off, the two gentlemen who had visited the bartender came strolling by, and with one swift swing of the same baseball bat to the car’s dashboard, the alarm instantly went quiet.
The piece of shit was dragged behind a bunch of bushes and had his face rearranged, tongue removed, genitals forever made useless, and knees broken in such a way to cripple him for the rest of his life.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, in the hospital the son of a bitch was booked on possession of drugs with intent to sell, blackmail, grand larceny, fraud, and possession of illegal firearms. If he had any desire left to see freedom and the light of day again, he would never have the opportunity after being convicted on all these charges.
I insisted on Maggie assigning me power of attorney over her estate and appointing me her guardian. Usually it’s a husband or relative, but I was the closest thing she had to either one. She would not be allowed to leave the Malibu Rehab Center until I felt comfortable with the state of her recovery and consented to her release. I had to come up with a plan to help her resist inevitable temptation, even if it meant that she, the children, and their nanny had to move into my house. For now, with her safely tucked away in Malibu, I had some time to think of a solution that wouldn’t cost Maggie her life at the hands of Nancy and would maybe also spare me whatever was left of my manhood.
Chapter Thirty-Five
When Nancy first told me that I would be getting her back soon, I was overjoyed. Then I remembered that in Nancy’s mind “very soon” might mean ten years because, in the history of the planet, ten years was little more than a blip.
Just a few days ago, she handed me a stack of paychecks, forty-four to be exact, that she hadn’t cashed since starting work for the Department of Defense. She asked me to deposit them into our account, and when I told her that most checks needed to be cashed within ninety days, she replied, “Nonsense, they’re marked DOD. It’s not like they’re going out of business.” The total amount, after taxes, came to $67,000, and she was right — the bank had no problem depositing the checks.
Just over a year ago, Nancy had been three months behind in her rent. Now she was worth millions, and her carefree attitude toward money hadn’t changed. It was baffling to me that a woman who believed that mathematics was the one pure science that explained everything could not — or refused to — keep track of her own money. Since getting married, she had not once withdrawn money from any of our accounts, and I was quite sure she had never checked how much she was worth. She ridiculed me for not buying her a new computer for the house and her own car, but never once did she threaten to go to the bank and simply take out the money and buy these things for herself.
Maggie’s new visitor policy at the rehab center was convenient for me. No more sneaking in the back way, and certainly it helped her recovery to see her children every day, along with other visitors I trusted to be supportive and helpful. Since I didn’t have a wife to go home to after work, I drove out there and visited Maggie five nights a week. George visited in the mornings after driving Jack and his entourage around all night. The children and the nanny visited after school, so she had several guests each day and no chance to feel unloved, forgotten, or left behind. Between us we made sure Maggie knew she had a life to come home to once she was well and ready.
After three weeks, I ran into George there on a Friday night. I didn’t think anything of it. He told me Jack didn’t need him that night; he and his entourage had decided to order in and stay in the office.
The three of us talked for a number of hours and when I was about to leave, I asked George if he wanted to walk out with me. It was getting late and Maggie looked tired. He told me that he was Maggie’s overnight guest, and, as I was trying to process this piece of information, Maggie said, “And we’re planning on getting married, so it’s time to relinquish your power of attorney and guardianship over me.”
“I don’t think so, Maggie. I’ll do that on the day the two of you get married.”
George remained silent as Maggie remarked, “You really have lost all faith in me.”
“No! It’s just that you mean so much to me that I refuse to take any chances with your well-being. I couldn’t be happier for the two of you. It’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time.” I shook George’s hand and congratulated him, then kissed Maggie on the cheek and whispered, “This is a very wise choice. I am really proud of you.”
Three days later, George and Maggie were married at the Malibu Rehab Center. Before getting into my car after the ceremony, I turned one last time and looked at the beautiful bride, who smiled back as she reached down and touched the crucifix around her neck.
I opened the door to my house and was greeted by my gorgeous wife, who threw her arms around me and kissed me for what seemed like a blissful eternity. She was now all mine, like she had promised. In two weeks, she was invited to the White House where the President of the United States was going to award her with a medal — in a private ceremony — for her outstanding and notable service to our country.
It was an amazing amount of good news to process in a short time. Maggie married to the one man I knew had always been in love with her. I knew George would look after her and protect her from herself. He could handle any outside forces that might pose a threat. Now I could focus my full attention on my Nancy, who was finally free after being a guest of the military for nearly a year. I was sure the whole thing about receiving a medal from the Pr
esident had to be a joke until I remembered that Nancy did not lie — a fact she had proven time and time again.
Since she was going to be free, I asked Nancy if she might reconsider going to Jack’s wedding in a week. After all, I was the best man and didn’t have a date. She laughed and whispered, “I still have samples of the boil virus. You wouldn’t want your boss spending his honeymoon in the hospital with prolonged paralysis to his genitals … As for you, my darling, I have faith that you will behave properly, and, although I will miss you dearly, I’m confident that you will be home at a reasonable hour.”
It would be an understatement to say that Jack’s wedding was unusual. The bride was dressed in traditional Russian attire. She wore a white Kokoshnik headdress and veil, and her gown was made of white satin adorned with gold silk roses. The five bridesmaids and maid of honor wore similar gowns but no headdresses or veils.
Jack, not to be outdone, wore a gaudy robe, which did nothing to hide his bulging stomach, and a lewd and bedazzling silk overcoat that, if I didn’t know better, I would have thought he’d stolen off the body of Peter the Great. I wore a traditional black tuxedo.
After the lengthy church ceremony, we were driven to one of Jack’s former wives’ home. She was currently out of town and kind enough to let Jack hold the reception there. The house had ten bedrooms, which was convenient because the maid of honor and bridesmaids were deftly mixing business with wedding bliss.
There were 200 guests, including Maggie’s fan club, who were disappointed that Maggie couldn’t make the gala reception. I lessened their disappointment by paying for the first round of bridesmaids.
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