Rosie O'Dell

by Bill Rowe

  “Jesus, what a cesspool it all was. And Rosie a little teenager trying to sort it all out. Well, I’m not surprised if her healthy sense of justice has come to the fore again. Listen, Brent. I’ll go this far along with you for now: tomorrow, we’ll trundle on over to The Pines and say hello to the revered patriarch and size up the lay of the land.”

  “Revered? I wouldn’t call him that if I were you, even sarcastically. When I told him I was marrying Rosie, he said, ‘Are you nuts? The only reason that she and your great buddy Sharpe aren’t in jail already for murdering Rothesay is because when Sharpe was fired from his law firm he wormed his way into the Department of Justice and started bonking that prosecutor at the trial… ’ What was her name?”

  “Do you mean Lucy Barrett?”

  “Yeah, Lucy. ‘She’s old enough to be Sharpe’s mother, ’ he said, ‘but that didn’t stop him from climbing aboard her. Anything to stay out of jail. But all that’s going to blow up soon, ’ he said, ‘and you’ll be making conjugal visits to your new bride in the clink. Unless she and Sharpe are sharing a cell.’ Tom, remember when you used to find my dad kinda humorous?”

  “Yes. I should have listened to you when we were ten. I’ve got to say, Brent, you’re putting me in the mood to help solve your financial problem in a hands-on way.”

  “Good.”

  Brent and I looked at his copy of the will and the other documents, and by the time Rosie called us into the living room for our coffee, I had the Orwellian sensation of holding two opposing beliefs in my head at the same time. One: I would not commit a heinous crime for love nor money; no, not even if I threw away the opportunity to avoid disgrace and penury and to sustain a relationship with the woman I’d loved all my life. Two: I would do anything, even risk the rest of my life in jail, to avoid disgrace and penury for a well-off life of love with the one woman in the world I’d always wanted and who was now miraculously becoming obtainable again at last.

  Rosie smiled at me: “Still a cream-and-sugar man, Tommy?”

  Brent looked at me, and when I nodded, he said, “Some memory on ya, Rosie.”

  “Lucky guess,” said Rosie. “What do you take in yours, Brent?”

  Brent let out a hoot of pure enjoyment. “You’ve gotta love her,” he said.

  Chapter 18

  THE POSSIBILITY HAD NOT escaped my notice that my oldest friend in the world and the only true love of my life were about to screw me. Their proposal was no different in principle from the scam that had put my partner in the madhouse and left me facing bankruptcy. If the matter had been brought to me by a client for legal advice on where he stood if he joined such a plot, I would have advised him that Rosie and Brent’s plea for a solution to their problem was just another version of an email from Uganda or Nigeria. The details of the complications faced by the desperate widow might be different, but the concept was the same. “This stinks,” would be my advice. “Don’t touch it with a barge pole.”

  But my situation was different, I said to myself, recognizing even as I did so the last-refuge argument of the true, self-deluding sucker. But wait, there were real differences. The crucial one was that it would not cost me any money. I did not have to lay out a cent of my own or anyone else’s. The problem was at the other end: there was no way I could ensure that I would receive my share from my devoted friends, even if our operation was successful. A legally enforceable contract or contingency fee arrangement was obviously out of the question. In fact, everything about my end of the thing was dubious. How could I even be sure that either of them, father or son, was dying? This could easily be a scheme for Rosie and hubby to get their hands on the old guy’s money early, go on to live the life of Riley in parts unknown, leaving me behind as the empty-handed fall guy, maybe even peering out from behind bars.

  But was that a reasonable possibility? Their story’s elements all rang true to me. My gut-feeling was good. Was either of them really capable of deliberately concocting elaborate falsehoods designed to leave me in the lurch? Well, yes, come to think of it. Brent—a best friend who had lusted long and secretly to take over my girlfriend for himself. And were those hints of true jealousy I got from him this afternoon? After all this time? Christ, that was pathological. Rosie—she could not trust herself to return here once because of her lasting love for me? More likely lasting hate. Were those little hints of her real resentment that leaked through this afternoon under the guise of fun? Oh, she was good at resenting someone long and hard. Where the hell were they for all those years, anyway? Bloody decades. And now all of a sudden, out of the blue, I was Mr. Indispensable. The old guy—the lying, nasty, conniving bastard—his presence in the piece was the best of it, though—I sincerely wouldn’t mind being in on offing him. But didn’t he want to be done in? Could he even be part of the plot to suck me into ending his suffering before it started, leaving Brent with clean hands to inherit legally under the will?

  Okay, before I went paranoid altogether, what was the worst-case scenario for me here, anyway? I got no money and I got nailed for offing the old guy. But even assuming those were the results—so what? That would make no big difference in my life. I didn’t even have anyone close enough to be ashamed of me, except Dad, and he was immune by now. But did we really have to terminate old man Anstey, or was there another way that I couldn’t see because I was blinded by the anticipated satisfaction of his demise?

  Searching my brains all night, waking up from a fitful sleep, I could see no alternative. There was no way around it, the old man had to go first, which meant soon. And this wasn’t a moral problem. I could cheerfully throttle the old bastard myself tonight without a pang, as I’d told Rosie, especially if I thought I wouldn’t get caught. I dropped off for a final time that night thinking there was no reason we’d get caught and Rosie and Brent would live up to their undertaking to me, and Suzy’s depiction of their noble characters to me years ago was the true one, even if she did like Brent more than me… Bitch, she ruined my life.

  I woke up and looked at my bedside clock. Seven-thirty. I’d slept an hour and a half longer than I had for the past year, whether workday or weekend. I waited for the old black cloud of melancholy to settle on my mind and heart, as it had every morning for months. It didn’t come. In its place was a sense of certainty over what I would do. I stood up from the bed with this beautiful concept dancing through my head: it was high time that I brought some real money and some real love back into my doleful life.

  I went down and had an orange juice and a coffee. Both tasted exquisite. It was only eight o’clock on a Sunday morning, but I called the phone number Brent had given me for the house. Rosie answered. I said good morning without frills or half-assed witticisms and asked for Brent. He was in the bathroom. He had a rough night, she said. The pain had gotten worse and he didn’t want to dope up till his affairs were in order.

  “Rosie, tell him I’m ready to see the man whenever he is.”

  “He’ll be very glad to hear that, Tom.”

  I WENT OFF WITH Brent to scout out the lay of the land at the nursing home. When he brought me into the room where his father was sitting in an easy chair, he said, “You remember my best friend, Tom Sharpe.”

  “Oh, good,” his father said, “finally, you brought someone here to finish me off, or at least who wants to.”

  “I should have done that years ago when the urge first hit me,” I said. “Unfortunately I’ve mellowed out with the passage of time. I’m just here to say hello because Brent mentioned that you were not very well.”

  Brent said, “Tom is acting as my local lawyer, Father, to make sure everything is in accordance with Newfoundland law. He may have a few questions for you and he may drop in to see you here from time to time, if anything needs to be straightened out. You okay with that?”

  “I’m okay with it, but you might have gotten a lawyer who’s not up to his neck in shit with the Law Society.”

  I said, “Well, at least I wasn’t suspended and almost disbarred, like
the poor bastard who acted for you on that fraud on Revenue Canada.”

  “Touchy, I mean touché. You know, Tom, if you had acted for me on that, though, you’d be way further ahead than you are now in your practice. That guy turned out to be an idiot. You would have been smart enough to nail everything down and cover our tracks. We could have had a great lawyer-client relationship together. Especially with Brent gone and not getting uppity every time I put someone else’s nuts in the wringer.”

  “Once a day I could take,” said Brent. “But three or four guys screaming, ‘Oh me balls!’ every morning?”

  We laughed. Then the old guy said, “I’m getting tired. Could you fellows give me a hand getting back in bed? No sense asking one of the staff to come in and help. I wouldn’t even be able to grab her ass with you two here looking on.”

  We got him to his feet and onto the bed. By now he was wheezing with the effort in spite of the oxygen tube in his nose. When he settled down, he said to Brent, “By the way, your boys phoned me to say they’ll be here on a visit in a couple of days. That’ll be good.”

  “They didn’t tell me they’re coming so soon.”

  “No, they were wondering if I thought it was a good idea for them to stay at the house before they called you.”

  “They’re not fucking staying at the house. The way those two little pricks have treated Rosie.”

  “That’s what I figured. So I told them to stay at a hotel. I’ll pay for it. I’ll pick up the cost of their tickets, too.”

  “Did you ever ask yourself why they never have any money, those two?”

  “Easy come, easy go. But I do want to see the little shaggers one more time. They’ll get some money under my will, as you know. But I’m depending on you to make sure they never hit the jackpot in one fell swoop. They need it doled out to them if they’re going to survive. How come they’re so goddamned stupid, anyway? Where did they get that from? I think it’s your fault, Brent. You had a right to stick your organ of generation into a better cow. I told you when you were a boy that you and Rosie should have children. They would have been superb specimens. But Rothesay and this guy here got in ahead of you and buggered up her maternal instinct.”

  “Okay, enough with the good old days,” said Brent. “I’m going to take Tom out to the office and have him okayed for visiting you without me. He’ll be back for a few questions after I introduce him.”

  Outside, Brent said, “The boys coming here this soon is bad. Christ knows what they’ll weasel out of the old man or what they’ll think when they see me. They haven’t seen me for a few months. They may see the difference in me and start wondering. I think we need to do it before they come. What do you think?”

  As soon as I’d heard that the boys would be here in a couple of days, a desperation rose in me, a sense of impending disaster, that my—our—opportunity for salvation would be missed.

  “I’m ready,” I said, “especially after that friendly chat with the old bastard. I’ll go back in and watch for a good chance. You keep them busy at the desk.”

  “Yeah, this is a good day—Sunday. Lots of visitors occupying the staff.”

  I sauntered back into the old man’s room. Looking at him and remembering, I felt something of the homicidal loathing and rage from thirty years ago when I tried to kill Moose Mercer.

  He opened his eyes and said, “That was quick. What do you want to know?”

  “Is it true that you want to be euthanized?”

  “Yeah. But painlessly. Like every other bullshitting bully, I’m a coward under all the bluster. But who wants to go through this, getting harder and harder to breathe for the next six months, just worse and worse? Got any ideas?”

  “Yes, I do. I wouldn’t mind putting you down myself.”

  “Ha ha. That’s a good one. A wuss like you. I thought you had promise when you were a boy. But I saw later that you and Brent were a bad influence on each other. All kindness and consideration and do or die for each other. Christ, he porks your old girlfriend for twenty years and here you are, back good friends with him. Figure that one out. It’s verging on sick, or the two of you are up to something. By the way, do you think Brent is all right? Sometimes he strikes me as… not very well.”

  “No, he’s great. He ran three miles this morning. But I think that seeing you like this is taking a toll on him. You know, the old kindness and consideration shit. Or maybe you don’t know.”

  “I’m starting to like you again, Tom. I hope you do drop in fairly often, and not just to ask questions. For a good gab. What are you doing?”

  “I’m fluffing up your other pillow for you.” I looked at the door. No sign of any activity nearby.

  “Don’t fluff my pillow up. I’m paying this place an arm and a leg to keep my pillows fluffed the fuck up. Wait now. What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to put you down like a dog, you rotten old fucker.” I placed the pillow over his face, concentrating my hands on the nose with the tube in and the disgusting mouth. With those lungs of his, this shouldn’t take long.

  He started to hump up and down and brought his hands up to my forearms. I bore down with all my weight and strength. With what I can only describe as a superhuman effort, he lifted my hands and the pillow off his face. He turned his head sideways and started yelling and shrieking. “Help, he’s trying to murder me! Help, he’s smothering me with my pillow!”

  I stood there paralyzed and he knocked my arms away and kept shouting and screaming that I was murdering him. I heard squeaky-shoed running out in the corridor and I backed away from the bed, throwing the pillow to the side of his head. In ran a nurse in uniform, followed by Brent, who caught my eye in alarm.

  “He tried to kill me, Brent. Did you put him up to this?”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Father? Why would anyone try to kill you? You’re dying anyway.”

  “Because he hates me. He was trying to get revenge.”

  “But killing you would be doing you a favour, not punishing you.’

  “Don’t be such a goddamned simpleton, you idiot. We’re talking control here, not end results. Nurse, call the police. I want to lay charges against this psychopath for attempted murder.”

  “Oh, sir. He’s your lawyer. He wasn’t trying to kill you.”

  “He’s not my fucking lawyer. I fired him as my lawyer years ago for being an incurable moron. He’s my son’s lawyer. Two well-matched retards. Look at this side of the pillow here. It’s got my spit and snot all over it from where he was pushing it down on my face. Call the police, I said.”

  “Sir, you know you like to pull the pillow over your head to pretend you’re asleep when your friend down the hall knocks on the door. I’m not calling the police. You said your doctors were trying to kill you yesterday when they gave you that prostate exam.”

  “Just because you like it when some guy shoves a digit with a condom on it up your anus, doesn’t mean I’ve got to. Give me that phone.”

  “Sir, we are not calling the police. Don’t you remember accusing me of trying to murder you when I had to insert a catheter so that you could pee properly?”

  “I didn’t say you were trying to murder me. I said you were trying to rape me. I said you were only sticking that thing in my dick to make it stiff so that you could have your way with me. No wonder patients die like flies in the custody of health care workers when you can’t even remember the difference between murder and rape. And what the fuck happened to patient confidentiality, by the way? Anything else private and embarrassing about my medical condition you would like to disclose to the world?” He reached for the phone. “I’ll call the police myself.”

  “Sir, you’ll have to talk to the supervisor before you call the police. We can’t have the police traipsing about this home alarming the other residents and their families on a Sunday afternoon for absolutely no reason.”

  “Attempted murder and breach of the privacy laws—that’s no reason? Oh, this is good. Pay ten grand a month so
that you can be treated like a serial killer in a maximum-security prison. Supervisor? Warden, you mean. Get that fucking warden in here so that I can report to the authorities a blatant attempt on my life by a man who already has in his record the murder of a highly esteemed doctor back in the seventies.”

  Brent said, “Father, keep quiet. Just stop it.”

  “Oh, I forgot. My son’s highly esteemed wife was implicated in that, too. So we’re all getting a bit touchy here.”

  “I’ll fucking murder you myself if you don’t shut up.”

  “I’ll shut up when your friend, the homicidal maniac, gets out of this suite and never comes back. Any permission I gave for that menace to the sick and the dying to come in here is hereby revoked.”

  Brent made a little motion towards the door with his eyes and I walked out, shaking my head as if more in sorrow than in anger and pretending that my heart was not jumping out of my chest and that my legs were not trying to buckle under me. Outside the door, another staff member who’d been looking in said, “Sorry, sir. We’ve been having a little more trouble than usual with him lately.”

  “I understand completely,” I said. “He’s very ill and we always have to remember—there but for the grace of God go I.”

  Her eyes went moist. “Thank you for your thoughtfulness.”

  I continued walking towards the exit. Twice I casually looked back. No sign of Brent.

  Outside the entrance to the building, I slumped against a wall. A complete disaster. I had totally failed. If it wasn’t for the dumb luck of the staff believing the old guy was a crazy curmudgeon, I’d be in irons now for attempted murder. But success would have been just as bad. I’d been offered deliverance from my ruined life, and in my panic that the sons would arrive too soon, I’d become like a man possessed, doing something remarkably foolish—and far too easily discovered—even if it had worked.