The Investment Club

by Cooper, Doug

  Max took a few more steps inside and inhaled through his nose. “Whoa, that’s pretty ripe. Hopefully we don’t find any bodies.”

  The contractor, still trying to make up for earlier, kicked his foot against the carpeting. “We can rip up all this old stuff and disinfect and power wash the floor. That should take care of the smell.”

  Max roamed further toward the center, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. Amanda, still holding the door, called out. “Max, be careful. Who knows what was left behind? You could trip and hurt yourself.”

  As the warning flowed from Amanda’s lips, the real estate agent flipped the breaker. The lights above buzzed and crackled. Faint light drifted down, increasing in intensity with the passing seconds. Except for some overturned tables and chairs, a pile of empty cardboard boxes, and several large rolls of bubble wrap, the floor was open space.

  Max stood in the middle of the room. Head back, eyes closed, arms outstretched at his side, he rotated in a circle as if he were basking in sunlight. “I think this place will do just fine.”

  The lights radiated at full capacity. What moments ago had looked eerie and ominous became shoddy and dilapidated. From the pile of boxes, two rats ran in opposite directions.

  The real estate agent walked toward Max in the center of the room. “The place has been empty for two years, so it’s going to have some unwanted guests.”

  The contractor joined them. “Nothing an exterminator can’t take care of.” He opened his notebook and scribbled down some text.

  Amanda looked down at the open-toed sandals she was wearing. “Maybe I should wait outside. I didn’t exactly wear rat-friendly footwear.”

  “Nonsense,” Max said. “They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.” Another rat shot out from the pile of boxes, this time running right at them. Max charged in its direction. The rat diverted course and ran toward the back. “See, what I’d tell you?” He turned and walked toward the front. The others filed in behind him. Amanda hurried alongside, her eyes fixated on the floor, scanning the surrounding region. Max stopped in front of the boarded-up entrance. “I liked the tinted glass that was here before, but make sure it’s stronger or partitioned so that if some other drunken idiot crashes through, it doesn’t destroy the whole front.” The contractor recorded every word, or at least he translated it into the language he would understand later. Max turned and faced the open room. “We’ll set up three production lines, right, left, and center. Shipping and receiving will be in back. Add two truck bays onto the back of the building. One for incoming and one for outgoing.” Max walked to the left, where the bar was still pretty much intact, including the stools, tables and chairs.

  The contractor said, “We can rip this out, no problem.”

  “No, I kind of like it,” Max said. “We can use it as a lunch and break area.”

  The real estate agent said, “A bar in the office? Where do I sign up?”

  Amanda, as legal counsel, stated the obvious: “No alcohol of course.”

  “Of course not,” Max said. “Well at least not out here. Can’t say the same for my office.”

  They proceeded through the tour in that fashion. Max barked out ideas of what he wanted, the others offered their opinions, Max made a decision, and the contractor wrote it down to include in his estimate. For two and a half hours they covered the entire property from the kitchen to the restrooms to every single one of the hotel rooms. At the end, the contractor had over five pages of notes. They had seen fourteen rats, although some of them could’ve been the same ones, two bats, and one dead animal carcass, which looked to be a rabbit at one point or maybe a cat. It was too decayed to tell. In the rooms they found everything from used needles and condoms to stuffed animals and an empty shopping cart with no wheels. No one was really sure what had come before and what had come after the hotel closed.

  At the end they reconvened on the sidewalk under the mostly cloudy skies of the seventy-degree winter day. Max, with minimal trepidation, made one of his most significant business decisions, definitely the largest purchase at least, with relative ease. Normally extremely impatient and in a hurry to finish one thing to get to the next, he was strangely at peace. He stepped back to the edge of the curb and scanned the building from back to front and top to bottom, waiting for the real estate agent to lock up. The contractor flipped through the pages of notes, reviewing what he had written and making his final marks. Amanda removed a wipe from her purse and cleaned the dust and dirt from her face first, then her arms and hands and any other exposed skin, using six of the formulated cloths in the process.

  The real estate agent twisted the handle to ensure it was locked, and spun around. “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Make an offer,” Max said, his voice calm and confident.

  “Full asking price?” she asked.

  “Full price. I want to close within a week. Construction estimate within two days. Amanda, make sure all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed.” Everyone looked at each other and just nodded. Max nodded back. “Good work today, people.” He turned, put his hands in his pockets, and walked down the sidewalk like a third grader on his way to his bicycle after a good day at school—that is if the new Tesla he bought to replace the Maserati was a bicycle and a good day at school was the same as spending $5 million.

  Dow Jones Close: 16,154.39

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2009

  Dow Jones Open: 9,830.63

  Crystal stood next to the hospital bed, clutching her mother’s hand. The respirator pushed air in and out of her mother’s scarred lungs in a soothing, yet menacing rhythm. Each gentle whoosh signaled one more breath she was alive, but also another one that could be her last. It also mirrored Crystal’s ire. One second it would swell as Crystal questioned how her mother never revealed how sick she really was. But in the next instant, as the anger heightened, compassion and the fear of what Crystal would do without her seeped in. She blamed herself. If she had never left, her mother could’ve never hid this from her.

  Crystal had just finished rehearsal when Maura called. Since landing the part and moving to Vegas, Crystal hadn’t talked much to Maura. Hearing the familiar ringtone triggered a smile. She lifted the phone to her ear. “Checking up on me?”

  “Hey, kid.” Maura’s voice was low and deliberate. “How are things?”

  Crystal recognized Maura’s bad news voice. This was the tone she always used when things didn’t go as they had hoped with an audition or performance. But Crystal knew rehearsals were going well. The choreographer and musical director had both just told her how pleased they were with her. She attempted to lighten the mood. “You know me, making the world a better place, one plié at a time.”

  “I’m afraid I have some unfortunate news,” Maura said. “Your mom’s in the hospital.”

  “What do you mean? I just talked to her yesterday. Everything was fine.” Crystal said, recalling the conversation, scanning her memory for any indications to the contrary.

  “That’s the thing.” Maura said, hesitating. “I guess things haven’t been fine for a while.”

  “But I don’t understand. Why didn’t she say anything? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Honestly, kid,” Maura said, “I didn’t know. I hadn’t seen her in a while. She turned down the last few gigs I had for her, but all she told me was that she was tired and couldn’t go like she used to. Nothing more. I guess she just didn’t want to worry us. You know how your mother is. She knew you would come home if you had the slightest inkling there was something wrong with her.”

  Crystal steadied herself. “Maura, how bad is it?”

  “Well, they have her resting comfortably now, but you need to come home, kid…today.”

  Crystal didn’t have to hear any more. The fact that her mother had hid it from her and that Maura was telling her
to leave a paying job was all she needed. Things couldn’t get much worse. Without even telling anyone the reason or getting permission, she left directly for the airport from the theater. Nothing mattered more than her mother. She didn’t pack a bag and didn’t even arrange a ticket. She just went to the airline that had the first available flight to LAX and bought a one-way, which wasn’t an easy feat. With all the increased security measures, a person wanting a ticket with such short notice and no luggage created all sorts of warning signals.

  Maura picked her up at the airport. She explained on the way to the hospital that it was an autoimmune disease called sarcoidosis. “The good news is that it’s not cancer or contagious.” Crystal flooded her with follow-up questions, most of which Maura couldn’t answer. But she did warn her, “I have to tell you, kid. She doesn’t look good. She has these small, purple patches on her face and arms, and her left eye droops something terrible.”

  Tears streamed down Crystal’s face. The panic followed by the adrenaline to get home had kept all other emotions buried. But in the car with Maura, Crystal released them all—sadness, regret, guilt—they all came pouring out. She knew once she got to the hospital, she would have to push them back down again and be strong for her mother’s sake.

  “I should’ve been home with her,” Crystal said to Maura, walking to the elevator in the hospital parking garage. “How did you find out?”

  “The hospital called me,” Maura said. “I guess she has me listed as her emergency contact with her doctor. Apparently she collapsed with a respiratory failure at the market.”

  Crystal shook her head, miffed that her own mother was still so protective of her that she didn’t have her listed as the contact. She knew her anger was misguided and thin, but it was easier to latch onto than all the other feelings bubbling to the surface. She asked the question that she had been avoiding. “Is she going to be OK?”

  Maura said, “The doctor said the percentages are in her favor, but she’s been ignoring the symptoms for so long, it’s spread from the lungs to the skin and nervous system and potentially other organs. They’re doing more tests, and in the meantime, they’re treating her with a combination of sedatives, antibiotics, and anti-inflammatories. We’ll know more in the next seventy-two hours, depending on how she responds to the treatment.”

  Aside from using words like “alveoli,” which Crystal learned were the tiny sac-like air spaces in the lungs where carbon dioxide and oxygen were exchanged, “granulomas,” microscopic lumps of a specific form of inflammation that can form there, and “fibrotic,” when the tissue becomes scarred, the young male resident attending to Valeria repeated what Maura had told Crystal as they stood over her mother, who was still sleeping due to the sedatives. Crystal’s main question was, “What caused it?”

  The doctor said, “The cause is unknown. Symptoms can come and go with or without treatment. Based on the pervasive symptoms with your mother, the disease has been affecting her for many years.”

  “But how could she hide this?” Crystal motioned toward the rashes on her mother’s face. “I would’ve noticed.”

  “Unless a chest X-ray, CT scan, or biopsy is performed, sarcoidosis can be really difficult to diagnose. The early symptoms, like fatigue, dry cough, shortness of breath, red or teary eyes, and swollen or painful joints, are fairly common and can be attributed to other things.”

  As the doctor listed the warning signs and symptoms, Crystal was thinking, Check, check, check. Her mother had complained about all of them, but she had always attributed whatever was bothering her to picking up some bug from one of the kids at the preschool where she was still teaching music. Anytime Crystal urged her to go to the doctor, she just said, “I’ll be fine,” and Crystal never heard anything else on the matter.

  Since there was nothing more to be done until the tests results came back and the doctor could evaluate the efficacy of the treatment, she encouraged Crystal to go home and rest. But there was no way Crystal was leaving the room. She had left her mother once. She was going to be there in case her mother woke up or the doctor had any additional news. Eventually relenting, the doctor permitted Crystal to stay in the room. The nurse even brought in a cot so Crystal would be more comfortable than in the chair.

  So all there was to do was wait. Crystal just stood over her mother, watching her chest rise and fall. She thought about what she would say when her mother woke up, promising herself she wouldn’t scold her for not going to the doctor sooner, for not telling her she wasn’t feeling well, for not having her as the emergency contact…much, she wouldn’t scold her much. But for now, she just wanted her mother to open her eyes.

  Crystal glanced at the cot, feeling the emotion of the day giving way to sleepiness. She squeezed her mother’s hand, not wanting to let go. Locating the remote control with her other hand, she shut off the light, climbed into the bed and curled up next to her mother. If she couldn’t talk to her, she wanted to at least feel her body next to hers like she used to every night.

  Dow Jones Close: 9,748.55

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Date: Sunday, September 1, 2013

  Dow Jones Open: Closed

  When Bill called, Hughie answered the phone sounding hopeful. “Mom?”

  “No, it’s your dad.”

  The line was silent. Both men knew the next words to be spoken, but neither wanted to be the one to say them. Hughie finally spoke. “When did it happen?”

  “This morning. They had just brought her breakfast, but she sent it away because she didn’t want to move all the pictures of her and me and you and Grace and the kids. She picked up the frame with the pictures of the three of us from the wedding day and with you all at the hotel. She just stared at it for the longest time. I asked her if she needed anything. All she wanted me to do was read to her. You know how she loved those People magazines. As I was reading, she pulled the picture to her chest and closed her eyes, saying she thought she would take a nap. A few seconds later she was gone.” Bill fought to hold in the emotion, to be strong like he knew he should, but saying it to Hughie was too much. He wept into the phone.

  Hughie said, “I’ll catch the next flight out.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Bill tightened, swallowing the emotion. “Your mother left very specific instructions on how things should be handled. She wanted the last time you saw each other to be how you remembered her.”

  “But what about the funeral? You have to at least be having some type of ceremony.”

  “She didn’t want one. Last rites were performed at the hospital, and she will be cremated. Her ashes will be stored until I die, then our ashes will be disposed of together.”

  Hughie’s tone sharpened. “You sure this isn’t just what you want?”

  Bill fired back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I find it a rather big coincidence and very convenient for you that her wish completely cuts me out of everything. I guess you finally got your way. Congratulations.”

  Bill said, “I know you’re upset about your mother, so I’ll ignore that.”

  “Of course you will,” Hughie said. “You’ve been doing it for years. Well, if you think this is going to get me to apologize, you’re crazy. I’m not sorry for what I did. I was a kid who needed a father. But you know what? I got used to not having one, and my life is just fine. Let’s see how you deal with having no one.”

  The line went silent. Bill knew Hughie wasn’t there anymore, but he still held the receiver to his ear. His voice cracked as he spoke. “I’m sorry.” Hughie’s anger and his words weren’t what hurt. Bill had beaten himself up far worse over the years. Besides they weren’t accurate. No doubt that facing Hughie would’ve been tough for Bill because he would be forced to feel the full pain of the loss and also guilt for all the lost years and the memories he had deprived Darlene of by never reconciling with Hughie. But even though he wouldn’t go back
to the hotel with her and Hughie on the day of their wedding, he would’ve made amends with Hughie if Darlene had wanted him to. All she would’ve had to do was ask. For whatever reason, she just didn’t. Bill figured she was just looking out for him and making things easy just like every other day of their life together. What ripped Bill apart on the inside in that moment was that he couldn’t bring himself to say the words to Hughie before, and that he wasn’t willing to call him back now.

  Dow Jones Close: Closed

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Date: Thursday, May 1, 2014

  Dow Jones Open: 16,580.26

  Penny awoke, naked and wrapped in a beige bed sheet, stretched across a queen-sized mattress on the floor in a garage studio. It had to be around noon. The sun baked through the fiberglass panel garage door at the opposite end and blasted light through the domed skylights on the twenty-foot ceilings above. Canvases of various sizes and degrees of completion were scattered throughout the humid, rectangular room, smelling of paint and turpentine. Murals of pastel flowers and mushrooms sprouted on the windowless cinderblock walls with cartoonish butterflies and snails moving throughout the garden landscape. She hated waking up here.

  Flinging off the sheet, she rolled toward the middle of the bed facing the long, lean body of Neck Tattoo, uncovered and naked on the mattress. The star tattooed on his neck was the beginning of a trail of stars that curved around and extended down along his spine, decreasing in size and disappearing into the crack of his ass. She couldn’t deny, he was a beautiful and sexy man. He was just too young. She didn’t really remember where she ran into him the previous night, but she knew it was probably her doing. She always called him when she got drunk and didn’t want to go home to her empty house.