THE UP AND COMER

by Howard Roughan

  There it was.

  With no more than a second to spare I felt it, grabbed it, and stuffed it away in my pocket. Later I would burn it.

  Ally-ally-in-come-free.

  When I looked up, it was Raymond I saw first. He had rushed into the room along with another hotel employee, a guy in a dark business suit. Behind them, I could see two onlookers, tourists probably, poking their heads in from the doorway. They would definitely have a good story to tell their friends back home.

  I watched as Raymond took in the room, his eyes ricocheting from me to Connor to Jessica and back to me again. One girl, two guys, and a fair amount of blood. Knowing what he already knew before that day, I was almost sure Raymond had put it together instantly. My affair had ceased to be a secret.

  "Is he...?" asked Raymond, his voice tailing off.

  "Yes." I nodded.

  He was.

  THIRTY-THREE

  There was a time when I liked the word aftermath; liked the ring of it, liked what it stood for. It usually applied to a court case, a court case that I had won, and the aftermath was what fell under the heading "To the victor go the spoils." Back slaps, high fives, and the ridiculing of opposing counsel for their ineptitude. All of that on top of a huge fee or settlement being deposited into the firm's bank account — the same account from which I drew my bonus.

  How things change.

  I no longer like the word aftermath.

  When the police arrived they did exactly what I had told Jessica they would do. They immediately split us up and questioned us separately.*

  Footnote *The manager on duty at the hotel was accommodating enough to make two additional rooms available to the police. The one that I was escorted to turned out to be a room that I'd previously been in with Jessica. I knew by the water stain left by an ice bucket on the bedside table. Jessica had pointed it out to me as being an example of how sloppy the hotel was with its upkeep. I believe she was on top at the time.

  Yellow tape got strung up across the room's entrance, and a bunch of middle-aged, out-of-shape men showed up. One with an evidence bag, one with a camera, and one who appeared to do nothing more than stand there and smoke a cigarette. They were offset by two young and fit paramedics wielding a stretcher and a white sheet to pull over Connor's head.

  That I was shaken up I didn't have to fake too much. I told the truth and nothing but the truth, all of it in short, measured sentences that suggested a ticker tape. My only sin was that of omission. Yes, I was having an illicit affair. Somehow the husband found out. (He must have followed me, I conjectured.) He had a gun and said he was going to kill me; those exact words, in fact. Fearing for my life, I charged him and we struggled. The gun went off accidentally. I was lucky and he wasn't.

  "Did you know the husband personally?" asked one of the cops.

  "Yes, he was a frie—" I started to say. I caught myself. To finish that last word would've raised an eyebrow or two. Some friend, they would've thought. "Yes, I knew him personally," was my rethought answer.

  More questions followed, most likely the same questions that had already been asked of Jessica in whatever room they had taken her to. Had she stuck to the game plan? With each nod of the cops' heads to my answers, I grew more confident that she had.

  Way to keep it together, Jessica.

  They would need my fingerprints, of course, to match up with those from the gun, as well as a sworn statement from both Jessica and me back at the precinct — not the same precinct as that of my detective friends, Hicks and Benoit, thankfully. (Talk about making their day.) I called the office from inside the hotel and got hold of Jack to meet me. While there was no "here we go again" underpinning to his voice, I knew the repercussions this time would quite possibly sink my career at Campbell & Devine. If not my entire career. To have thought otherwise would've been nothing short of delusional.

  As I walked through the lobby heading for the Doral Court's revolving door, the same revolving door that I had spun through so many times after being with Jessica, my thoughts turned to Tracy. My soon-to-be-ex wife. I wondered how I was going to tell her. What words I would choose. Or would I just spew, not choosing any? I glanced at my watch. Three-twenty-five, it read. If everything continued to go smoothly at the police precinct, I figured I'd be arriving home around the same time I usually did after work. I'd walk into my soon-to-be-ex loft, and Tracy, as she had done a thousand times before, would ask, "How was your day today, honey?"

  I'd pause for a second, extract a deep breath, and maybe, just maybe, I'd begin, "Funny you should ask…."

  It seemed as good a way to start as any.

  But all of that became terribly irrelevant by the time the whoosh of dank air hit me as I stepped out onto the front steps of the hotel. There waiting for me were three local news camera crews, each fronted by a charging piranha sporting capped teeth. Amid the slight drizzle that lingered after the earlier rain, the reporters jostled for position while thrusting their microphones in my face.

  "What happened in there, Mr. Randall?" shouted one.

  "Is it true you were having an extramarital affair?" shouted another.

  "Did you always meet Ms. Levine here at this hotel, Philip?" shouted a third.

  They would take their footage of me and my "no comment" stare and, along with the facts they'd been able to gather or guess at, piece together breaking news segments for their five o'clock broadcasts. Were Tracy not actually tuning in on her own, someone was sure to be picking up the phone to call her about it. I'd be surprised if she hadn't already changed the locks by the time I came home.

  * * *

  Jessica and I remained separated at the precinct. For a fact, I never saw her the whole time we were there. Just as well. I was sure she had gotten in touch with her mother, and I'd be loath to have to look Mrs. Levine in the eyes. All along the poor woman had thought she had only one problem child. In light of everything, her boy, Zachary, didn't seem so bad.

  Jack showed up. A different Jack from the one I knew. This was not the kind of spotlight he lived for, and his incredibly subdued manner was one that I'd never seen from him before. His expression somewhat reminded me of my father's when I took his Volvo without permission and crashed it my junior year in high school. It was the desire to make sure I was all right fighting mightily with the desire to wring my neck. A bitter pill that strangely resembled a quaalude.

  With Jack spotting me, my defense of self-defense held up. The powder residue on my hands was also found to be on Connor's, proving that the gun was in both of our hands when it went off. Throw in the state of New York's rather liberal guidelines for the use and interpretation of deadly force when your life is in jeopardy, and it became clear that for the second straight time in a week I would avoid the prospect of being gang-raped in jail.

  Praise the law.

  The last thing the police wanted to know was whether or not I had any plans to leave the country. As questions went, it was kind of like when they ask you while checking in for a flight whether or not your bags have been in your possession the whole time. Purely perfunctory.

  I was a free man.

  The reckoning, however, was just beginning.

  When Jack said good-bye to me as we left the precinct via the back door, he told me to take a couple of days off. "Then," he said, "we'll talk."

  I thanked him for his help and apologized profusely for the circumstances. I wanted him to throw me a bone, to say something along the lines of it not being as bad as I thought, or that these things happened. I knew better. While these things did happen, they were supposed to happen to the clients we represented, not to us. The only thing Jack told me in response was, "Get some rest."

  Not much of a bone, I was afraid.

  My key to the loft worked. Tracy, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found. Also missing was her large Tumi suitcase and a decent chunk of her wardrobe. Gone to Greenwich, I presumed.

  I didn't want to stay in the loft either. Nonetheless, the alternative �
�� a hotel — was something I'd had enough of for one day, thank you very much.

  Besides, maybe it would be me who would change the locks. I'd claim squatter's rights and turn the place into my own fortress of self-pity. Come and get me, Lawrence Metcalf, if you dare! I'm not afraid of you and your army of lawyers! I have Patton with a legal pad on my side, and he'll slap each and every one of you silly when all is said and done.

  With that I looked down to see that my glass was empty again. I went to pour myself another scotch. Was that four glasses or five in the past twenty minutes? Ah, fuck the glass. Who needed it? Straight from the bottle seemed to be far more efficient.

  I passed out by maybe ten o'clock.

  Though instead of everything going black, everything was white.

  White everywhere.

  There was a big white room with a big white table, and me dressed head to toe like I had raided Tom Wolfe's closet. Around the table were seated various women, women that I knew or recognized. There were Tracy and Jessica; the prostitute-restaurateur duo of Alicia and Stefanie; Rebecca, the hostess from the Gotham Bar and Grill; and finally Melissa, last seen throwing a drink in my face at Lincoln Center. They were all laughing, having an uproarious good time, and when they weren't laughing they were eating, stuffing their faces with what looked to be a glorious feast of food laid out in the center of the table. They ate with their hands — no forks, knives, or spoons — and what they ate was whatever you could imagine. Roast pig, game hens, and Chateaubriand. Lobster, oysters, and tuna sashimi. Peaches, plums, and nectarines.

  I was sitting there and watching them while they paid me no mind. At first, all the food — the way they were ferociously devouring it — was making me ill. However, the more I watched them, the way Tracy was licking her lips and Jessica sucking her own fingers, the way juices were rolling down Alicia's and Stefanie's naked breasts, trickling over their fully erect nipples, and how Melissa was feeding Rebecca little shreds of meat, dangling each morsel over her beautiful face and deep-set eyes, the more hungry I got. I wanted to join them, to partake of their feast, to know what it was that they were laughing about and to laugh with them.

  But I couldn't reach anything. The food looked so close, and yet when I would extend my hands, each and every calorie was always a few tantalizing inches out of reach. I stood up, determined to get something for my mouth, except the more I walked toward the food, the farther away it all appeared. Tracy and Jessica, Alicia and Stefanie, Rebecca and Melissa. Their food and their laughter. Everything beginning to fade from view and slip to quiet until I saw nothing and heard only the sound of my own breathing, fast and heavy. I was running, trying to catch up to them, to sit down at the table again. I was trying and trying, and failing and failing. Exhausted, I fell to the ground gasping for air, rolling on my back and gazing up at the huge expanse of white that hovered above me.

  Out of nowhere, I saw another woman. She was older looking and tall, thin as a swizzle stick, with alabaster skin and white hair pulled back tight behind her ears. I had never seen her before in my life, and there she was standing over me. She was neither happy nor sad. I was looking up and she was speaking to me. I could barely hear her.

  "You must be Philip," she was saying.

  "Yes," I answered.

  The woman reached out her hand to me, and there was something tucked between two of her fingers. It was also white, and it was small and rectangular. Slowly, I took it out of her hand.

  "My name is Evelyn Simmons," the woman said, her voice echoing, "and I've been retained as the listing agent for this apartment."

  I was no longer dreaming.

  In fact, I had awakened to a nightmare.

  I was lying there in bed wearing nothing but my boxers and unable to remember ever taking off my clothes. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I gradually focused on what turned out to be her business card. It announced Evelyn Simmons as a real estate agent with the Pickford Group. They were a Manhattan outfit that dealt strictly in two-comma properties ($1,000,000 and up).

  Evelyn jiggled a set of keys in her hand. "Sorry about letting myself in like that," she said, "but I was instructed to do so."

  She didn't say by whom, nor did she need to. I knew all too well whose name was on the title to the loft.

  She continued: "I've come to look around the place so we know what to list it at. It shouldn't take too long."

  She had to be fucking kidding me.

  More or less, that's what I was thinking. As groggy and hungover as I was, it quickly occurred to me that that was exactly what Lawrence Metcalf would hope I'd be thinking. He was probably sitting snug in his Greenwich home at that moment, looking out on the water, a big Bloody Mary in his hand and his Precious still lying comatose in her old bedroom upstairs from the two Ambiens she had needed in order to fall asleep last night after crying her eyes out. Yes, Lawrence Metcalf wanted me to throw a fit, wanted me to toss his real estate agent out on her bony ass. He knew perfectly well that an angry man dug his own grave that much faster.

  I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

  I looked up at Evelyn Simmons after finishing with her business card. "Take all the time you need," I told her with a disingenuous smile.

  She nodded and stole a quick, uncomfortable glance in the vicinity of my boxers. That's when I saw that I'd been hanging elephant the entire time.

  I got up, put on some pants, and did my best to ignore my morning houseguest, who was walking around with a clipboard and making notes. When she was leaving ten minutes later, I was pouring myself a cup of coffee.

  "You had a nice place here," she said, strolling by me. "Too bad."

  Too bad?

  Had Lawrence Metcalf really told her what had happened? I doubted it. Her line was spoken more like someone who had seen a news broadcast. Or, perhaps, had read the morning papers.

  Ah, yes, the tabloids.

  After showing Evelyn Simmons of the Pickford Group out, I threw a sweatshirt on and headed to the nearest newsstand, eyes down all the way. There was a chance the story had fallen through the cracks, I tried to tell myself.

  I was far from convincing.

  "Affair Turns Deadly" was how the Daily News put it. Other than spelling my first name with two l's instead of one, they essentially got the facts right. Accompanying the brief story was a picture of the entrance to the Doral Court. While I didn't think such publicity would damage the hotel's reputation irreparably, I did surmise that it would put a real crimp in their extramarital-affair business.

  Meanwhile, the Post had their own unique spin. "Fatal Love Triangle" was their headline. What's more, they had managed to scrounge up photographs of all three of us, positioning them, accordingly, in a triangle. How ingenious. While Connor's and Jessica's pictures looked to be recent, mine was apparently lifted from my Dartmouth yearbook. To the casual observer, it must have looked as if Jessica had been robbing the cradle with me. As for the story itself, it said that she and I had "reportedly" been caught in the act by Connor. Given that the act was what Connor had actually wanted us to do in front of him, the old adage seemed proven once again. Truth was always stranger than fiction.

  I had taken the papers back to the loft and read the stories there over a breakfast of aspirin and more coffee. The lone consolation was that in both papers' opinions, I wasn't front-page news. That distinction went to Donald Trump, who, as the pictures of him showed, had fallen down while dancing with some supermodel at a swank benefit. "Thump Goes Trump!" declared the Post. "The Fall of the Donald" announced the News.

  I was steps away from throwing both papers in the trash when I got to thinking about my parents — how they had kept a scrapbook of both me and my brother while we were growing up. Any time either of their two boys made it into the local paper, the entire article would be clipped and pasted into this brown fake-leather album that they proudly kept on display in our den. From time to time I'd catch one of them flipping through it when they thought no one was around.

 
I wondered if it had ever occurred to my parents that the news wouldn't always be good.

  Eventually, I'd have to break it to them.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Sitting around in the loft while trying to avoid every mirror was starting to take its ignominious toll after two days. A truck would backfire out on the street and I'd hear the gunshot. See Connor falling to the floor. Feel the weight of his body in my arms.

  While I had always thought of my life as anything but routine, oddly enough it was the absence of the little things that were, in fact, my routine that underscored the severity of what had happened. The morning shave. Picking out a suit. Matching a tie. All so mundane, and yet all so reassuring. I never would've guessed. Not having to do any of it had become one of the more unsettling indicators of how much my life had suddenly changed. And would keep on changing.

  I decided to call Jack.

  Maybe I was forcing the issue. If I was, I didn't care. Should my days as a senior associate at Campbell & Devine be numbered, I wanted to know. Sooner rather than later.

  Like I said, I was a terrible waiter for things.

  I could picture Donna sitting outside of Jack's office when I dialed. As she spoke to me she was pretending not to know anything and doing a lousy job at it. The giveaway, in between her gum chewing, was that she was far too polite.

  When she told me to hold the line, I expected the next voice I'd hear to be Jack's. Instead, Donna came back on. "He wants you to come in at the end of the day, around six-thirty. Can you do that?" she asked me.

  I could, I told her.

  For not having actually talked to me, Jack had managed to tell me plenty. The first thing he had told me, by scheduling our meeting after hours, was that he wanted there to be as few people around the place as possible when I arrived. That seemed to jell with the second thing — that the nature of our discussion was such that he didn't want to get into it over the phone.