Fallen Idols

by J. F. Freedman

  “So what was the change?” Clancy asked guardedly.

  She glanced at the page again, then looked back to him. “It was redone so that when she retired, all of her benefits would come to her. Had she passed away first, which from an actuarial perspective was unlikely, given that she was younger and a woman, he wouldn't get anything from her plan.”

  “I see,” he said slowly. He didn't, not yet.

  “His plan, on the other hand,” she continued, “remained as it had been.”

  “So if she died first,” Clancy said, thinking this through, “he wouldn't get any of hers, but if he died, she'd get some of his.”

  She nodded. “That is correct. And that's not uncommon,” she pointed out. “His package was substantially larger than hers, so that if they both retired, they could still live comfortably on his partial benefits and her full ones; but the opposite wouldn't be true, because her benefits were much smaller, so if he had taken his plan in full, as she'd done with hers, she would have gotten less if she had survived him. Much less,” she added.

  This is a surprise, Clancy thought reflexively—both the alteration of his mother's plan, and his father's unselfish magnanimity in maintaining his own. His father wanted to make sure his wife was properly taken care of in case he died first.

  Clancy felt a surge of good feeling toward his father. It was the first feeling like this he'd had for months. “Yes,” he said, now understanding. “He didn't need any of her money. He had enough of his own.” To live as he had then, not as he was now. That was still a major obstacle. “And he has his book deals, lectures. He has years of quality service still ahead of him.”

  It sounded strange to his ears, proclaiming this defense of his father. He realized that he hadn't done that for months; just the opposite.

  Rebecca Duckworth nodded vigorously. “Of course he could. He should. He's a valuable resource. Men like your father shouldn't be discarded because of a tragedy that was not of their making.”

  The insurance agent, Milt Longoria, had known Walt and Jocelyn Gaines for almost thirty years, from shortly after Clancy was born and the young couple bought their first life insurance policy. He and Clancy squeezed into a small booth in a restaurant a block from the state capital, near where his office was located. It was lunchtime—the café was crowded with politicians and their staffs. Snippets of conversation floated in the air affirmative action policies at the university, funding for this or that bill, deals to be cut, the dumbness of Washington politics that they had to deal with on the state level; the usual swapping and embellishing of stories. Brett Favre and the Packers were prime topics of discussion—they had a real shot at winning the Super Bowl this year. Just like in my own joint, Clancy thought as he listened to the boisterous caterwauling Sports and politics, the dual American secular obsessions.

  “So how's your dad doing out there in La-La Land?” Longoria asked as he peered over Clancy's shoulder to see the specials listed on the chalkboard.

  “He's doing fine,” Clancy answered flatly.

  Longoria nodded. “He's a survivor. It takes a strong man to overcome what he's gone through.”

  The waitress set glasses of iced tea in front of them. Longoria dumped two packets of sugar into his, stirred it with his spoon. “Why do you want to know about your parents’ insurance policies?”

  Clancy was prepared for this. Prying into someone else's finances, even if that person is your parent or another blood relative, carried the possibility of raising a red flag where there hadn't been one.

  “Dad isn't teaching right now,” he explained. “He might in the future, but he isn't presently. He has his pension from the university, and there's a book deal pending, but he isn't bringing in as much income as he had been. And living in southern California is more expensive than here. My brothers and I want to be at ease that he's on solid ground financially, in case he doesn't go back to teaching.”

  “Tell me about the cost of living in California,” Longoria replied. “It's through the roof. None of my clients are retiring there anymore. Now it's all Florida and the Carolinas, which aren't that cheap, either, but nothing like California.” He paused for a moment as the waitress put their sandwich plates on the table. “Anyway, he living there, so he must be able to afford it.” He took a bite of his club sandwich.

  Clancy speared a French fry, dipped it in the ketchup he'd shaken out onto his plate, popped it into his mouth.

  “I guess mom's life insurance policy came in handy with that.”

  Longoria shook his head. “Not that much. It wasn't a big policy. Neither of them carried much insurance, it wasn't cost-effective.” He swigged down some tea. “Their retirement packages from the university were their safety nets. I steer clients like them away from buying expensive life policies, it's a waste of money. Costs me on commissions, but my obligation is to see that my clients have the proper amount of coverage, not the most.”

  “So they didn't have large insurance policies.”

  “No, they didn't.”

  “May I ask how much?”

  “Why don't you ask your dad this?” Before Clancy could answer, Longoria grinned. “Because he wouldn't tell you, he's too stubborn. He's a super guy, I admire him greatly, all he's done, but he can be intimidating, I wouldn't want to ask him, either.” He took another bite out of his sandwich. “Two hundred and fifty thousand.”

  “Each?”

  Longoria nodded. “Yes.”

  “That's all?”

  Longoria's mouth was full; he nodded.

  “How long did they have their policies?” Clancy asked.

  The broker put up a hand—he was still chewing. After swallowing, he said, “Twenty years.”

  “And they didn't add on to them later on? Amend them?”

  Longoria, in mid-bite, nodded. “There was one amendment, a few years ago.”

  Clancy's antennae went up. “What was that?”

  The broker swallowed. “Originally, half went to the surviving partner, the other half to the children. They changed the policies so that each was the sole beneficiary of the other.”

  “So my brothers and I were going to get half of it?” Clancy asked.

  Longoria put up a hand like a traffic cop. “Don't get upset,” he said with alacrity. “It's common practice.”

  “It is?”

  “Jesus, I should've kept my mouth shut,” Longoria said, chagrined. “Yes, it is. On a policy of that size. One third of one hundred twenty-five thousand? That's forty thousand bucks, it's not significant. But a hundred twenty-five to one beneficiary, that would be.”

  Tell that to my brother Tom, Clancy thought. Forty thousand dollars would be over the moon for him.

  “In the end, you guys’11 get it all,” Longoria went on. “And now you don't have to worry about your dad. Not that this was his golden parachute,” he reiterated. “His pension was his nest egg.”

  Clancy rearranged the fries on his plate. “Whose idea was it, to change the beneficiaries?” he asked. This was important. “Mom's or dad's?”

  Longoria smiled. “Neither. It was mine. Your parents told me how well you and your brothers were doing — you with your rehab practice, one brother a bond trader, the other finishing his Ph.D.—you young fellows didn't need the money. An older person, such as your father or mother, would.” He paused. “It's their money. They earned it,” he gently reminded Clancy.

  Clancy sat back, a feeling of relief washing over him. If his father had initiated the change in the insurance policies, he would have been even more distressed than he already was. Now, for this piece of the puzzle at least, he didn't have to be.

  CHICAGO

  It was a slow evening at Finnegan's. The after-work crowd had come and gone, and it was still early for the after-dinner regulars. Tom, manning the bar by himself, polished a wineglass, squinted to make sure there were no water spots on it, and slid it into a notch in the hanging rack above his head. Two weeks on the job and had the mannerisms of a veteran barten
der down cold.

  He was enjoying working here. His brain was on holiday; remembering how to mix drinks was the most taxing part of the job, and that wasn't difficult, compared to the kind of work he had been doing. Pete had been happy to cut back on his hours. After decades of being on his feet eight hours a day, his legs were going. He had been wearing support hose the past few years, but the varicose veins still throbbed.

  The older man had spent two days giving Tom a basic tutorial, more about organizing his space than fixing cocktails. There had been more than enough training for what was needed—most of the hard-liquor drinkers who imbibed here went for the basics—martinis, sours, whiskey with mixers, like 7&7’s and rum-and-Cokes. The dog-eared Mr. Boston bar guide in the cash drawer bailed him out when he was stumped.

  Earlier, Will had stopped in for a drink after he'd finished up at the office. The brothers sat around and shot the breeze for a short while. They were getting along well. It was easy for Tom, living with his younger brother. Will didn't make him feel like he was an interloper. The few nights Tom had been off since he'd started they had hung out together, once double-dating—Will had introduced Tom to a woman who consulted with his firm. The evening had been pleasant, but nothing more. Which was okay with him, he wasn't ready to get involved. Sorting his life out was as much personal work as he could handle. And he still had Emma on his mind, though as the days went by he was handling that better. He didn't think about her as much now. He didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  Will was gone now—he had a date to see a play, with a woman who lived on his block. She was too much of an urban princess for him to want to date with any regularity, Will had told him, but she had season tickets to the Goodman, and he liked her dog.

  Rhonda, the young waitress who worked a couple evenings a week and Sundays, ordered up a pitcher of draft Heineken and half a dozen shots of Crown Royal for a group of college guys who wanted to drink depth charges. Tom drew the pitcher and poured the shots. Pretty early in the week to get plastered, he thought. But when you're young, like these guys, barely old enough to think legally (Clancy was a stickler for checking IDs), you're dumb. And invincible.

  As he looked over at them, laughing and carrying on, he saw himself seven or eight years ago. Where does the time go, he thought? He wasn't even thirty yet, but he was feeling the weight of his years; the years he had wasted, the way he saw it now. He had gone into something he thought he loved, and it turned out he didn't, and he had wasted five years finding that out. Now he had to make up the time he had lost. Except you never do, it's gone forever.

  And yet. If his mother hadn't been killed, his father would still be teaching at the university, still carrying on with his research. (The problematic situation at La Chimenea needed to be ferreted out, but he was certain that was connected to his mother's killing, too.) And if his parents’ lives hadn't been ripped apart, his own life wouldn't have changed, either. He would still be unhappy, but he would have swallowed it. The death of his mother had been an earthquake with far-reaching fault lines.

  Despite these fundamental changes in his life, though, Tom was feeling good about himself. He liked living in Chicago, with the art galleries and jazz bars and funky restaurants and people from all over the world. He liked being close, for the first time since Clancy had gone away to college, to his brothers. He even liked bartending. It was a people occupation, constant interaction. So different from his old, cloistered life.

  Last night he, Will, and Clancy had gathered at Clancy's apartment to mull over the information Clancy had gleaned from his trip to Madison. That their father had left a lot of money on the table by bailing out early could be construed as rash, even irresponsible, but it wasn't venal or criminal. Walt hadn't been thinking rationally then, he was running on emotion. There were too many memories in Madison, and with the cloud over his head, he had lost his zest for his work. Under the same circumstances, each of them might have made the same decision. There are times when the heart prevails over the brain, and this had been one of those times.

  The rest of what Clancy had learned was confusing, because it was heartening, and they hadn't been heartened by their father's behavior this past year and a half. He had sacrificed money for his old age so that his wife would be properly taken care of. That was a bighearted thing. It spoke of his love for Jocelyn, and his feelings of protectiveness toward her.

  Two steps forward, a step back. That's how they were feeling about this investigation. They couldn't let go of their suspicions and fears, there were far too many unanswered questions that seemed to be leading down dark corridors. But they wanted to think well of their father. They wanted, badly, to continue loving him the way they always had. He could be too large, too domineering, too selfish, too critical; but he always had been. He could also be generous and supportive. Even his criticism, like his flailing at Tom for not finishing his doctorate, came from his intense feeling that his sons were special, that had been put on the planet to do special things, that they weren't supposed to—no, not supposed to, they were not allowed to be ordinary. They were his sons— perforce, they couldn't be ordinary.

  “Because that would make him ordinary, by proxy,” Tom had pointed out. Being ordinary was the worst epithet Walt Gaines could imagine being applied to him. He would rather be known as an assassin or a lunatic than to be thought ordinary.

  “Another pitcher and another round of shots,” Rhonda Called out from the serving station.

  “How many rounds is this?” Tom asked as he grabbed a pitcher from the cold storage bin behind the bar.

  “Three.”

  “Last one, then. They can drink more beer, but no more hard stuff.”

  “I'll tell them. They'll be glad to hear it,” she said sarcastically. She hefted the tray with the pitcher and the fresh drinks and weaved her way across the floor.

  Tom watched her hips sway as she walked, balancing the heavy tray. She was sweet. A couple years out of college, moonlighting here while pursuing her master's in primary education and getting her teaching certificate. If he didn't work here, he would ask her out. But he did, so she was off-limits. That was a rule of Clancy's, and it was a good one: don't date the help. It comes to hurt feelings in the end, which is followed by the aggrieved party giving notice. Clancy didn't want to lose valuable staff over hurt feelings.

  If—when—he moved on to something more substantial, he could ask her out. That was a question looming on the horizon, but not yet imminent. What was he going to do now? Law school was a possibility. He had checked the application forms over the Internet for Northwestern and the University of Chicago. He had also bought an LSAT prep book. Getting into law school would be a piece of cake for him, with his background and smarts. The big question was, should he? He had already taken one wrong turn. He didn't want to do that again.

  He had time. He could take the boards next month and send in his applications. He wouldn't have to make a decision until spring, five months away. In five months he would have a better feeling for what he wanted to do.

  The dog had left a calling card on the living room floor. Not on the Persian carpet, luckily, Tom saw as he squatted down to examine it, but on the wood floor, up against the stand that held the thirty-six-inch high definition television, the VCR, and the DVD player. All new, purchased when Will moved in. His brother also had an excellent music system. Along with a few cases of premium California Cabernet, Will possessed the necessary accoutrements for a young man about town.

  The dog, an excitable young beagle hound, jumped up and down on his hind legs, darting from the floor to the couch, then back down again, trying to get Tom to play with him. He yipped, rather than barked, a high sound like a bird call. His leash was on the entry hall table, next to a woman's small beaded evening purse and her stylish lambswool jacket.

  From Will's bedroom down the hall came the low, lush sounds of a couple in some phase of coitus, Tom couldn't tell which, before, during, or after. Moans and squeals,
bursts of female laughter.

  “What's your name, boy?” he asked quietly, hunkering down and rubbing the dog behind the ears. He looked at the dog's tag. “Rachmaninoff? You poor little mutt. No wonder you crapped on the floor.”

  He scooped up the small dry dog droppings with paper towels and deposited them in a Ziploc bag, which he dumped into the garbage can under the kitchen sink. He went back into the living room and sprayed Lysol on the floor where the dog had crapped. Going into the kitchen again, he washed his hands and poured himself a short snifter of Hennessy. Then he opened the sliding doors that led to the small balcony and stepped out. The dog followed, sniffing the cement floor as if tracking an animal.

  He sat on one of the two wicker porch chairs and took a pack of American Spirit cigarettes out of his pants pocket. Popping a wooden match with his thumb, he put his feet up on the rail and inhaled, then slowly let the smoke drift out of his mouth. Since he'd moved to Chicago he had started smoking again, limiting himself to three a day, none before dinner. Working in a bar and living in a downtown apartment was conducive to having a smoke now and then. He didn't even feel guilty about it. He went to the gym a couple of times a week, ran almost every day, and rode his trail bike along the waterfront. In a few months, he'd quit. He wasn't an addictive personality. He was in a state of flux, he was allowing himself small pleasures. He took another drag and sipped his cognac.

  The dog jumped into his lap. He scratched the pooch behind his silky, floppy ears. “Who asked you up here?” he asked. The dog rubbed up against him. A low rumble came from his chest, almost like a cat's purr. Tom smoked and drank and looked out at the city lights and rubbed the dog's ears. Law school might not be that bad, he thought. Lawyers make money. It would be nice to have money, a good apartment, a devoted pet like this mutt. An urban princess to have sex with on the side.