“Conway Sax,” the big man said. “Now don’t you dare say you don’t remember me.”
“Mensa Mulligan. You crewed for Ricky Craven when he was running Busch North.” I introduced Donald, but he and Mensa ignored each other.
“Knew it was you,” Mensa said. “Been ten years, easy. Where you been at?”
“Around. Got my own shop now. Mostly Japanese stuff. How about you?”
“Workin’ on them ricer cars, huh? I get it. Pays the bills. I’m a tech up at Florio Jeep-Chrysler. When Craven got his Cup ride, the weasel dropped me like a bad habit.” He squinted. “Tryin’ to remember when’s the last time I seen you race. Didn’t you have a Busch ride?”
“I had a cup of coffee, yeah.” I shifted on my feet. I looked at my watch.
Mensa snapped his fingers. “Hell yes! You had a primo ride. Won some races, am I right? Yeah you fuckin’-A did, pardon my French. Your ass had Cup wrote all over it. Then you disappeared.”
“Your takeout’s getting cold, Mensa, and I need to split. You see any of the old boys, you say hi for me, okay?”
He looked half-pissed, half-puzzled as he made for a Jeep Commander with a COURTESY VEHICLE sticker on its rear window.
“Hot diggity damn,” Donald said. “You used to drive race cars, you cracker? You got to translate that conversation for me. What’s bush? What’s cup?”
“You kidding me? Where you’re from, it’s hard to not know at least a little about racing.”
“I take all necessary steps to avoid that cracker shit.”
“‘Cup’ used to be Winston Cup. Now it’s Sprint Cup, the NASCAR you see on TV. Busch Grand National, B-U-S-C-H, like the beer, has a new name too. It’s one rung down the ladder. Think of triple-A baseball.”
“Were you on TV?”
“Sure.”
“How fast did you go?”
“We ran one-eighty-five at Daytona.”
“Were you scared?”
“Not in the car.”
“Crash much?”
“I crashed about the right amount.”
I saw the question in his eyes.
“You can drive around in circles and cash paychecks,” I said. “Or you can push hard and wreck once in a while.”
“And you weren’t about drivin’ in circles.”
I shrugged.
“Did you make it to the big leagues, the Whatchamacallit Cup?”
“I drank myself out of a ride.”
“This is interesting, Sax. Side of you I didn’t see coming. But I do believe you’d rather be talking about anything else.”
“It was a long time ago. And I need to get to Sherborn.”
“Your redneck buddy there, Mensa, made it sound like you dropped out hard and fast.”
“I walked away from a good ride in the middle of the season.”
“Why was that?”
“Team owner heard I was drinking before I climbed in the car. I walked before he made me run.”
Long pause. “You were driving drunk. At a buck-eighty-five.”
“I need to go, Donald.”
“One last question. Your buddy didn’t look like no Einstein. He called Mensa because he’s some kinda weird genius, what they call a savant?”
“No. He was the stupidest guy anybody knew. Too stupid to know his nickname was an insult.”
“Who made up the nickname?”
“I did.”
“You proud of that?”
I climbed in my truck and drove east.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Read a text from Randall while I traffic-thumped toward the Biletnikov house:
Holmes: Have arrived solo at scene of crime in selfless bid to comfort mourning stepmom. No sacrifice too great. Yr hmbl & obt & etc Watson
I shook my head. In spite of everything Donald had told me, which had my head spinning, I guess I smiled.
I parked behind Randall’s Hyundai. The main door of the guesthouse was open, and I heard their voices. So I opened the screen door …
… and barged in on a three-alarm flirting session.
Giggles. Arm touching. Big-eye making.
Spare me.
“Fix yourself a drink,” Rinn said without looking my way.
I waved off the drink and sat across the room from the pair of them. She was sunk deep in an armchair. He was as close as he could get to her in a sofa that ninetied up to the chair. His left knee kept bumping her right.
I said, “When’s the funeral?”
It hushed them up.
“Tomorrow at ten,” Rinn said, shooting eye lasers at me for killing the vibe. “Pilgrim Church, right up the road. Randall says your AA friends … Barnburners, was it?… will make their presence felt. They’re welcome, of course.”
“Peter okay with that?”
“I’m okay with it,” she said. I’d gotten to her—her eyes flashed. But only for half a tenth of a second. She was good.
“Yeah,” I said, “and what’s okay by you is okay by Peter. Or else. So I hear, anyway.”
“For crying out loud,” Randall said.
“What exactly do you hear?” Rinn said.
“I hear you lead him around like a baby goat on a very short strap,” I said.
And stared at her feet, picturing them in Donald Crump’s boots.
“Conway, old chum,” Randall said. “A moment outside?”
I ignored him, locked eyes with Rinn. “I hear you won a bet. Tell me I’m wrong. Or tell Randall about the bet.”
She said nothing. But her eyes went angry again, and this time they stayed there.
Push. Don’t let her off the hook.
“Show Randall the matching Harleys,” I said. “The matching BMWs.”
“What’s he talking about?” Randall said.
Rinn said nothing for a long while.
Then she set elbows on knees, buried her face in her palms, and began to cry.
Soon enough, the tears turned real.
Rinn sobbed something into her hands.
“What?” Randall said, popping up and grabbing a Kleenex box from the kitchen table.
“Everybody hates the trophy wife,” Rinn said.
No mercy. Push push push.
“Tell him,” I said.
“‘I am your spaniel,’” she said, addressing Randall. “‘And the more you beat me, I will fawn on you. Use me but as your spaniel. Spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me.’”
I said, “What?”
Randall said, “‘What worser place can I beg in your love, and yet a place of high respect with me, than to be used as you use your dog?’”
I said, “What the hell?”
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Rinn said.
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
“No,” Randall said, “Helena. To Demetrius.”
They made big eyes at each other.
“I’m guessing you’re not Helena,” Randall said to Rinn.
“Of course not. Peter was Helena. Is.” She put her chin on her fist and leaned toward Randall. I might as well have been in the neighbor’s yard. “He was supposed to be a big visionary, but the first thing he ever did that I knew of was rip off a bullet list from my job application.” She explained what she’d told me already—that Thunder Junction’s perfectly timed shift to green tech was her idea.
“So you knew he was a poser from the get-go,” he said. “That’s a bad place to start as far as respect is concerned.”
Rinn nodded. “When we became a couple, I turned cruel.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” Randall said.
I found it difficult not to barf. But kept my mouth shut.
“I began putting Peter through torture tests,” she said. “Spurnings and strikings.”
“Like what?”
“Okay, here’s one. I’d drag him to these dive bars, then flirt like mad with the biggest jock I could find. If Peter ignored the flirting, I’d berate him for letting his girlfriend get hit on in the Chicke
n Bone Saloon. But if he stood up for me, I’d call him a jealous prick and sic the jock on him.”
“Oh.”
The story had cooled Randall some, I saw.
Rinn saw it, too. “That wasn’t me, I swear to you.” She took his hand in both of hers. “It was a strange, confusing time. I was seeing a man twice my age. Things were getting serious. And there were … other factors.”
I put a thumb to the side of my nose and made a huge, exaggerated sniff.
“You’re such a jerk,” Rinn said.
“I see,” Randall said.
“And Peter was buying,” I said. “For the three of them. Open bar, an all-you-can-snort buffet.”
“You’re such a jerk,” Rinn said.
“The bet,” I said.
“I would like to hear about that,” Randall said.
It was quiet maybe twenty seconds.
“Around this time,” Rinn finally said, “I was getting to know Gus.”
“And Donald Crump,” I said. Saw Randall’s puzzled look. “He came on the scene around the time Peter and Rinn started dating. Made himself very chummy. Always looking for an angle, like any self-respecting con man.” I glanced at Rinn. “I got that right?”
She waved an impatient hand. “That little … yes, you’ve got it right, but Donald’s not important to the story. To this story. Which you’ve succeeded in prizing from me, so I’d appreciate it if you’d shut up while I tell it.”
Fair enough.
“Peter introduced me to Gus, of course. He was a sweetheart, and so was his best friend, Brad. We became quite a trio. I spent nearly every weekend at UMass. Sometimes with Peter, but usually without.”
“Did those trips have anything to do with this?” Randall said, and touched his nostril the way I had mine.
“Of course,” she said. “It was a wild year, a whirlwind. But it wasn’t all about the drugs. We had a Three Musketeers scene going. It was genuinely fun. It was sweet.”
Then she stared past him long enough so that Randall said, “But.”
“Yes, but. Or until, actually. Gus didn’t have a lot of affection or respect for his father. The three of us used to amuse ourselves, in callow fashion, I concede, by talking about what a fool Peter was. We had a ball congratulating ourselves on how we were using the squaresville sugar daddy. It sounds awful when I say it out loud, I know. Anyway, we used to dream up spurnings and strikings. The idea was to see how far I could push Peter before he pushed back.”
“What was the bet?”
“For a hoot, Brad, Gus, and I went on an honest-to-God hayride one weekend. I think a sorority put it together. The hayride ended up at a square dance in a barn, and all the local couples were dressed in matching clothes. It was the funniest damn thing we ever saw.”
Rinn forced a laugh, looked around to see if it caught.
It didn’t.
“You know, the way those chubby Midwestern cruise-ship couples wear identical Hawaiian shirts. It was so … Walmart!” She tried again with the laugh.
“I know what you’re talking about,” I said. “Not my style, but I think it’s kind of nice.”
“Of course you do.”
“It’s almost like the couples care more about each other than about what some douche-bag college kid thinks.”
She skated past that, but her face went red. “Gus and Brad made me a bet right there. My assignment was to go all-in on the matching shtick with Peter. We knew it would horrify him and his BSO/MFA crowd. But would he put up with it? For li’l ole me?”
Randall read the question in my eyes. “Boston Symphony Orchestra. Museum of Fine Arts.”
“The finish line,” Rinn said, “or the money shot, as charming Brad called it, was a square dance in the same barn two months later. To win the bet, I had to bring Peter and do-si-do all night in matching duds.”
Whatever else came out of this meeting, one thing was for sure: Randall was taking a hell of a fresh look at Rinn Biletnikov. “And you … did this?” he said. “You put thought and energy into this endeavor?” He probably didn’t realize it, but as he spoke he reached down and rubbed his prosthesis.
“Damn you,” Rinn said to me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“They started with identical running outfits in a five K,” I said, speaking to Randall but locking eyes with Rinn. “Then she walked him up the ladder. His-and-hers cowboy hats, matching Harleys, identical cars. Like that.”
“Who told you all this?” Rinn said. “Donald or Brad?”
I said nothing.
“For what it’s worth,” she said to Randall and only Randall, freezing me out again, “I’m not proud of that period. I’m ashamed, in fact. A lot of history led up to it.”
“I’m listening,” he said.
Rinn looked at her lap, pulling her story together.
“There are many nice things about dating older guys, as I always have,” she said. “Money is the obvious one. In high school, my girlfriends were lucky if their boyfriends paid for their Burger King. I was eating at L’Espalier and finding diamond earrings on the dessert cart. An older man fortunate enough to get in a young girl’s pants will do anything to stay there. Anything.”
“Spurnings,” Randall said. “Strikings.”
She nodded. “But there are downsides, too. Think about the older men a girl meets. Coaches, teachers, family friends. Taboos, taboos, everywhere you look. I lost my virginity when I was fifteen, to my across-the-street neighbor. My parents had known the family forever. My first home wrecked, my first shrink sessions.”
I said, “He in jail now? I hope?”
“You’re missing the point, as they all did. I’d had a massive crush on Mr. Freed forever. I seduced him, and believe me, he played hard to get. But my parents and the police couldn’t accept that. Even the shrink kept trying to turn things around. Eventually, I gave up explaining.”
Randall said, “Can we skip from Mr. Freed to Peter?”
“It’s a long way to Tipperary,” she said. “I want you to have the whole picture. There are also certain … physical disadvantages to seeing older men. They are not, generally speaking, stallions. Sorry about the icky background. I’m trying to establish that where tending to older gentlemen is involved, I’m something of an authority.”
“So?” Randall said.
But something had clicked for me. “Peter Biletnikov couldn’t get it up. Can’t.” I said it as much to myself as to them.
They looked at me.
Randall said, “You serious?”
At the exact same time, Rinn said, “How did you know?”
I shrugged. “Everything about him points that way. He’s all front, all shell.”
Rinn said, “That’s an impressive intuitive leap.”
“For you,” Randall said.
I tried not to smile, looked at Rinn. “Keep going.”
“Peter was, shall we say, unable.”
“Even in this age of chemical miracles?” Randall said.
Rinn snorted, waved a hand. “Viagra, Cialis, Levitra. Hypnotists, fortune tellers, oysters, powdered stag antler, eye of newt, something flown up from Mexico that gave him hives. You name it, we tried it. Colossal failures all. This turned out to be a lifelong issue for Peter. The problem was up here”—tap tap—“not down there.”
“Bummer for you.” Randall said it with soft eyes.
Rinn smiled and shrugged. “I was encouraging and helpful and understanding. At first, anyway. Peter grew angrier and angrier, frustrated, mean as a snake. He lashed out, tried to blame me.” Her eyes hardened. “I set him straight on that.”
“Dumb-guy question,” I said. “If this was a long-term deal, where’d Gus come from?”
“Not to mention Emma?” Randall said.
“Even a stopped cock is right twice a day,” Rinn said, then looked around for laughter that wasn’t there.
I said, “You met Peter when you interned at Thunder Junction, right? I’m surprised he was interested. Giv
en what you’ve said.”
“Peter had a long tradition of using interns as beards.” Rinn half-laughed. “Heterosexual beards, to make the other dudes think he was a hound dog just like them.”
“Dudes still think that way?” Randall said.
“Empty ones,” I said. “Ones who’re all shell.”
“For us it was different,” Rinn said. “With the others, the arm candy, Peter hadn’t dared broach the impotency topic. I don’t know if he fell for me or what—”
“He fell for you,” Randall said. “Trust me.”
I rolled my eyes.
Rinn ignored Randall and plowed ahead. “From the start, he said I was the one, that he wanted to have kids with me. I think he believed I could … cure him. The promise of a family was part of his sales pitch. He assumed I wanted kids, just as he assumed I wanted a big white-dress wedding.”
“Was he right?” Randall said. “Did you want either of those things?”
Rinn started to speak.
Then stopped. Stared at nothing.
Randall let the silence grow. I followed his lead.
Rinn finally said, “Am I allowed to pass on the question? To say I’m not sure what I want? May I plead youthful indecision?”
“I do believe I’m younger than you,” Randall said.
“You don’t seem it. And that’s a compliment.”
Randall smiled. “I’ll rephrase. Was it reasonable for Peter to believe you wanted the big wedding? The big family? The big house in Sherborn, the slightly smaller one in Chatham?”
“It was indeed reasonable. I let him believe I was just dying to have two or three wailing, puking, shitting joy-bundles.”
“Why?”
“He wasn’t the only one doing a sell job. Peter is an empty suit who stumbled into a pot of money. He’s a copycat in an industry that’s about vision. When he dumped his first wife and married me, he was imitating a thousand other fiftysomething business swamis. Pumping out a baby or two with the trophy wife is part of the pose.”
“Wailing, puking, shitting,” I said. “That’s how you think of your daughter?” Tried to keep the disgust out of my voice. But failed.
“I love her!” Rinn said.
Randall and I said nothing.
“I love her,” Rinn said.
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