The Straight Man - Roger L Simon

by Roger L. Simon

  "Him? He's dealing with a different social class. Completely. He doesn't understand what I'm doing, doesn't trust me for a minute, does he, Kim'?"

  "No, Eddy," she said.

  "I mean, what does he know about where we come from, Moses. The idealism and then the disillusionment. And then everybody out for the big score, a society like a big lollipop waiting to be licked. No wonder we all want in. Who wants to be in an old VW van when your buddy's in a Mercedes? Have a Nakamichi tape deck that really plays the blues.

  Every fucking exercise machine in the Sharper Image catalog. What can a Korean evangelist know about that? That's not his scene. That's Mars to him. He knows about midwestern gray-haired ladies and lost teen·age Jesus freaks. He doesn't know about us. But he had a great scam going and I knew it. And he knew I knew it. Ever since we got married, he's been looking for some way to disown me. But now he's afraid. We know too much about his business. We're franchised. We're a religion, too. They can't touch us. Soon we'll be bigger than he is."

  I made a move forward, but he waved the remote control in my face as a warning and I stopped. By now King, Chantal, and Drill were on their feet too, a few steps behind me.

  "Look, Moses," Sandollar continued, "why don't we get smart and all share in this? There's plenty and more to come. You're sick of being a private dick, right? I mean, it may sound crazy, but in the long run we're doing these Africans a favor. Charity can cure cancer, maybe, but it can't cure poverty. All it can do is postpone things, cause human over-grazing, you know, like cattle out in a field that wasn't meant for livestock. That just makes things worse. Or it fosters dependency, like a father who keeps supporting his son until he's forty-five. Who wants that? In the end, they're both fucked. I mean, Wine, you know. Did the Chinese ask for charity? And are they starving? I'm teaching the Africans a lesson, increasing their ultimate chances of survival by not giving them the money. And the rest of us, we'll be happier listening to the sounds out of Neutron City anyway. Right?"

  "Those of use who are still alive."

  "Hey, man. I'm not a murderer. I didn't want any of this shit to happen. I just didn't have any choice. If Mike hadn't been so jealous, he could've made a killing too. I would've cut him in. But he went so crazy over me and Emily, he would've spilled everything. And this is the modern world. These things happen. It's just common situational ethics: you don't go and ruin a man's livelihood over a little libidinal excess. I mean, it didn't bother Kim. Did it, baby?"

  His wife shook her head. "And Nastase. That Romanian fruitcake I met through my father-in-law. All I wanted was for him to let us in the Picasso suite. I didn't tell him a thing. Or his Glendale Christer buddy, that Billy kid. I didn't know they'd go bonkers the minute you sent that old bloodhound nosing around."

  "Burckhardt? What bush did you bury that poor bastard under?"

  "Hey, what choice did I have? If I'd had any brains, we'd've offed Billy, too, but I don't have the stomach for this stuff. Not like this guy." He gestured toward King.

  "You don't, huh?" I said. "You had enough stomach to have Carl Bannister butchered with a kitchen knife and arrange for Otis to take the fall."

  "What? Now that's really crazy! What the hell would I do that for?"

  "No good reason, white boy. You're absolutely right. You didn't do it," said King calmly. Sandollar turned toward him in amazement at the precise moment King shot him in the face. The remote control dropped to the floor, away from the crumpling Sandollar, and Kim started to scream.

  "All right. Enough of this bullshit," said King, suddenly pointing his pistol into my side. "Drop it!" I let go of my gun. "You too, bitch!" He slammed the Special out of Chantal's hand, then nodded to Drill, who picked up our weapons and walked out. King gestured for us all—Chantal, Kim, and me—to back up in the small room, behind the money. There was more of it than I had ever seen, even in display windows in Las Vegas, piled in packets of thousand-dollar bills that came up to the waist.

  "Gonna retire, King?" I asked.

  He laughed softly. Then he looked at us a moment before speaking. "You know, when Otis was a three-year-old kid, our mama went out to turn a trick and left the gas on by accident. Little Otis started choking, but he didn't know what the fuck to do. I mean he didn't know where it was coming from. How could he? At that age. So he keeled over and passed out."

  I heard a noise and looked over to see Drill coming down the corridor with a large baggage carrier on rollers. He was followed by the injured Omar and Lancaster. They parked the carrier directly in front of us and started to load the bills. King kept his gun on us and atched them do it for a moment before continuing.

  "And by some stretch of luck," he said, "just when he would've died for sure, I was coming back from a basketball game for something to eat—I was eight at the time—and opened the door and nearly passed out myself. But I was smart enough to realize what was happening, so I opened the window, grabbed Otis, and stuck his head out. No big deal, but all his life he thought I was his savior or something. Maybe 'cause his mother was a junkie whore and his father was a jailbird, but even though I might've been the worst dope-dealing motherfucker in the Bronx, to Otis I was more than a brother. I was his God and I was his parents. Even when he came to Hollywood and started to be a famous comic. Every night he'd call me up, tell me how much he needed me, how lonely he was. 'The Tears of a Clown,' like Smokey says. Even that girl friend of his couldn't help him. Only Daddy King and cocaine. Cocaine like a mother and his brother like a father. So when that Malibu shrink made the mistake of using me as a guinea pig, of making my safety and livelihood his way of controlling Otis by threatening to reveal intimate details of my business, that shrink didn't know it, but he was a dead man. I couldn't tolerate that. And I couldn't tolerate what he wanted from Otis—contractual servitude for life. He even wanted to be in his will. Can you believe it? And he was gonna get it. I know. 'Cause Bannister was fucking with my brother's mind in the worst way, making him into a slave just when he had a chance, for the first time, to be free. Free of that Malibu Mephistopheles, free of me, free even of that motherfucking white powder. That's why I had him come to New York. So he wouldn't be around when I had Bannister mashed. Hell, I even had 'em use a weapon from the bastard's own house. But even that didn't work out, as it turned out." He shook his head. "You know—it's funny. The only thing that made me really hate who I was and what I did was Otis's loving me so much."

  King stopped and looked over at his men. The money on the carrier was stacking up. "But that's over now. This is going to be it: redemption! I have to make restitution for my life. To my brothers everywhere. And to my own brother. First of all, this is a signed statement of my guilt with everything spelled out in enough detail so there won't be any question. I want you to give this to the police." He handed me a sealed envelope. "Congratulations, Mr. Wine. You just made yourself fifty grand. I understand it's not the first time you've profited well from a corporati0on." He half smiled before continuing.

  "You know, that asshole Sandollar was right. Charity's not the answer. Not for anybody. But especially not for black people. It's self-determination. All those starving sonsofbitches in Africa are only gonna get better when they take control for themselves. They don't need a Botha or some other white asshole, Christian, U.N., or otherwise, power-tripping them with their armies and their so-called laws. Even their so-called good deeds. They got their own motherfuckers for that, and when the time comes, they're gonna deal with them, too. But right now they got a war on their hands, a race war, and I want to help them win it. That's why I contacted that dude over there." He gestured toward Drill. "His real name isn't Drill. You'll never know what his real name is. Never! But he works with an organization in Soweto, South Africa, that's going to make good use of this money, every penny of it, in that war. And I'm not talking about charity, motherfucker. I'm talking about freedom! .. . Uhuru!" he shouted. For all I knew, it was the only African word he understood. And with that, he shoved the barrel of his gun i
n his mouth and blew his brains out.

  22

  "A famous comic murdered. Another held and released. His notorious brother a suicide. The dead comic's wife now indicted. And a young so-called philanthropist behind it all. Mr. Wine and Dr. Nathanson, how would you—"

  "I've had it!" said Sonya. I was sitting in my living room with her, Chantal, Jacob, and Simon, watching the telecast. "What is this? A road show'? We've sat through three of these this week. This is the last time I'm going to listen to that shrink reduce all criminal behavior to some mother forgetting to breast-feed her baby at three months! Besides, I thought you said you'd given up psychotherapy?

  "Come on, Sonya," said Jacob. "They're not discussing 'nature versus nurture.' This is an analysis of the psychological ramifications of one particular crime."

  "Psychological ramifications," she snorted. "Proudhon should turn over in his grave. The root of all crime is economic. How many times have I had to tell you?"

  " 'Property is theft.' " Jacob rolled his eyes. "But there's still something I don't get." He turned toward Chantal and me. "How come Emily Ptak hired you in the first place?"

  "Because," said Chantal, "like most Californians, she had been seeing a shrink for years. And when all the trouble started to happen, she was afraid Nathanson knew too much. So, in order not to create waves, she had no choice but to go along with his suggestion of hiring a detective."

  "But then she fired my dad when Bannister got it."

  "Panic," said Chantal. "Emily stood to make a fortune from her boyfriend Sandollar and she didn't know what to think. And, of course, at that point Nathanson began to suspect her too."

  "Is that right, Dad?" said Simon. "Did Nathanson suspect her?"

  But I didn't answer right away. My mind was elsewhere, back a couple of weeks earlier at my last session with Nathanson. I was sitting in his office, the ochre light of his Tiffany lamp reflecting off his face.

  "Well," I had said. "Now at least you won't have to worry about getting Bannister's license revoked."A large grin spread across the psychiatrist's face. "You understood that, did you?"

  "It took a while, I must admit. I played with every possible theory to explain your behavior. And then when you ran off to Koreatown to talk with Reverend Wu"—I shook my head—"I didn't realize you were looking into Bannister's real estate holdings."

  "How'd you solve it'?"

  "Figure and ground." I smiled. "In this case, the figure being the matches from the Bonaventure."

  "And the ground?"

  "The book it was sitting on." I pointed to the volume of licensing requirements from the Board of Medical Examiners that still sat at the edge of Nathanson's desk. "As you said, it was always in front of my eyes. And considering that Bannister had been one of your pupils, it's not surprising you would go to such effort to see him disenfranchised."

  "My prize pupil," said Nathanson, for the last time pressing the servo-control that brought him erect in his chair.

  "Moses, I think you're getting better."

  "I'm feeling better. Action is therapy."

  "Yes, that's all there is in the long run—action." He looked off thoughtfully. "Inside these walls, all I see of the real world is only a guess."

  "I'll miss you, too. But who knows? Perhaps circumstances will bring us together."

  "Dad, where are you?" Simon was shaking my arm.

  "Don't you want to see the wrap-up?"

  I snapped out of my reverie and looked at the TV. I was on split screen with the moderator, the words "Los Angeles" supered under my face and "Washington, D.C." supered under his.

  "One last question on this case, Mr. Wine. As far as you know, is there any truth to the rumor that a large sum of money—millions, in fact—was sequestered somewhere in the bowels of Cosmic Aid in Ojai?"

  The camera zoomed in straight for me.

  "Not as far as I know," I said.

  "Well, there you have it. This is Larry King Live for Cable News Network. Good night."

  "Thank God you didn't blow that one," said Sonya.

  I looked over at Chantal and smiled.