“I can’t talk to you about Dermid.”
“Living with amputation is easier than living with the obsession that demands it.”
That afternoon I had three straight hours of marriage counseling that began with Wes and Ellen Hillistrom. Wes was a professor of finance at Everglades College and liked me to call him “Doctor.” When I asked Ellen a question, he answered for her, and so I’d ask her again. Wes thought that Xanax was the solution to Ellen’s current marital discontent. Xanax would grant her the serenity to accept what she could not change.
Mr. Finn Wallace owned a lucrative chain of electronic stores where you probably bought your wide-screen TV. He could afford his expensive prescription drug habit. This was the Wallaces’ first session. Linda said she wanted her old husband back. Finn said he was happy with his addiction, if that’s what you want to call it, and with his assortment of hangers-on. His pals all had culinary nicknames: Sloppy Joe, Captain Crunch, Hoppin’ John, Big Mac. Like that. “I won’t lie to you,” he said. “I want to live until I die—balls to the wall.” I asked him why he was here. He said, “For Linda. Her happiness is the second most important thing in my life.” When I asked him what he wanted out of counseling, he said he wanted Linda to let him have a mistress. When I asked Linda, she said she didn’t want him to die.
Bill and Dottie Aubuchon walked in holding hands and smiling, so I assumed they’d done their homework and dealt with Bill’s recent infidelity. He’d been seeing Ellen Hillistrom since the two of them met in my waiting room a month ago. I wasn’t sure if Ellen knew that I knew, and, of course, I couldn’t say anything that would violate confidentiality. Dottie said that Bill had apologized, and she had accepted the apology, and they were ready to move on. “I know that every husband cheats,” she said. When I told her that wasn’t true, Bill flashed his brows and rolled his eyes at her like, Isn’t he a card?
Bay and I were sitting in the grandstand at Tropical Racetrack catching the last three races. I’d bet three long shots to show. I looked up to see Crooked Letter drifting serenely around the far turn eight lengths behind the pack.
I told Bay that in every dream I’d had the night before someone or other in the dream mentioned a guy named Willard Daggett, so when I got up in the morning I Googled Willard. He goes by the name “Tuck” and doesn’t look anything like I expected him to. He wore a black cowboy hat in all the pictures. Had a bristly mustache and bifocals. “What do you think this means, Bay?”
“Maybe he works for Malacoda.”
“You think I’m obsessed with Malacoda?”
Oxygen Man ran fourth in the eighth, but had me going until he faded in the stretch. Bay ripped up his tickets. I said of Malacoda, “How much money does a person need?”
“It’s not about money.”
“It’s about …?”
“Power. Money’s just how you keep score.”
“And a conscience would be a serious inconvenience for him.”
“He probably enjoys watching people suffer as much as he does making them suffer.”
When I mentioned Mickey Pfeiffer, Bay brightened and sat up. “I knew that clown when he was chasing ambulances and running commercials on News at Noon.”
The horses paraded out of the paddock. My horse, Shambles, was a gorgeous but skittish gray mare. Bay said he once played a house game with Mickey and Mickey’s cigar-chomping amigos and lost. “They were so bad I couldn’t figure out what the hell they were thinking. Then I realized I was the mark, and the boys were in cahoots. I bade them adieu.”
“How much did they take you for?”
“I left with a Rolex Tudor and a Hermès Cape Cod, so I figure it was a wash.”
“They didn’t come after you?”
Bay smiled. “I bet you know this Pfeiffer. He’s a wheel on the local charity circuit—splashy philanthropist, Republican fund-raiser—the governor was best man at Pfeiffer’s most recent wedding.”
And then I remembered: I had met him briefly, shaken his hand. He hosted a fund-raising event for the Everglades Arts Commission at his home, and I was there on behalf of the theater. “I’ve been to his house.”
“What did you think?”
“It was like an upscale eighteenth-century Venetian bordello.”
“Where the priests go on their Saturday nights.”
“He had his initials monogrammed on the cuff of his shirt, MVP.” Pfeiffer lived on the Intracoastal, owned a fleet of luxury cars and an eighty-five-foot yacht docked behind the house.
Bay said, “He has his own police force—off-duty Eden and New River cops and ESO deputies. Uses them as guards and as investigators.”
Shambles stumbled out of the gate, and my dream of a new iPad was over. By the time the horses crossed the finish line, Bay and I were the only people sitting in the grandstand.
I said, “Investigators for what?”
Bay told me that Pfeiffer made his first millions settling sexual harassment lawsuits. He figured that any guy with ten million bucks would be willing to spend two million to keep a mistress quiet. And three million if that mistress was sixteen. Mickey got half. And he was often the guy who introduced the young lady to the happily married big shot. And if the big shot wouldn’t play ball, Mickey took him up to his office and ran the video of the big shot fucking his mistress. He’d say, We can end this right now, or I can depose your wife. Do you think she’ll enjoy the movie?”
“And justice is served.”
“Or he’s had his cops hack a computer, bug a phone, make a video, go through the garbage.”
We headed to the clubhouse. Bay said that Pfeiffer owned Knives & Forks, a popular restaurant on Las Brisas where the wealthy and careless meet the blond and enhanced and where many a shady political deal had gone down. “I have to make one stop,” Bay said. “I just won the trifecta, my friend!”
I turned to look at the tote board. Bay had won $1,345.
“Dinner’s on me,” he said.
“I wish I could,” I said, “but I’m meeting someone.”
Heather seemed surprised when I shook her hand and introduced myself. I sat down and ordered a vodka martini for me and another Long Island iced tea for her. “So,” I said, “we meet at last.”
She pulled her head back and half smiled, like, what was I talking about? A man at the adjacent picnic table adjusted his tracheostomy tube and smoked his cigarette.
“What do you teach?” I said.
She flipped a strand of hair over her ear. “You don’t look anything like your photo,” she said.
“I know. I’m much taller and not so flat.”
Heather taught third grade at Dan Marino Elementary in Progresso. She wore an orange madras jumper over a white short-sleeve jersey. She said, “I Googled you.”
“On our first date?”
“There’s a photo of you with orange hair.”
I told her I had been in a play at the time, that I played an aging novelist with writers’ block who has a crush on a pretty young fan. He figures her amorous attentions might rejuvenate his prose. But he knows she would never fall for a guy with gray hair. “Do you enjoy the theater?”
“I’ve never been.”
Our drinks arrived. Heather finished the last of her first drink and handed the glass to our waitress, who had an intricate tattoo of a muscular snake coiled around her calf.
“You like that?” Heather said. “The tattoo?”
“It’s striking, isn’t it?”
“Why aren’t you on Facebook? Do you have something to hide?”
“It never occurred to me.”
Heather stirred her drink. “You look pretty hot.”
“Why, thank you.”
“No, I mean you’re sweating a lot.”
I wiped my forehead and neck with a napkin.
“You’re not married, are you?”
“No.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t be the first guy to lie about that.”
I found out that Heather owne
d a time-share at Disney World, that she, at thirty-seven, was already looking forward to retirement, when her real life would begin. Her dream was to own a Hallmark franchise, a card and gift store in a heavily trafficked mall. She said she collected pandas, and jiggled her dangly panda earring for me, and said that some days she’d just sit at home all day and watch like fourteen episodes of CSI: Miami.
I said, “Where do you live, Heather?”
She smiled. “Not on the first date.”
When I got home, I checked my e-mail. Phoebe had pasted Heather’s e-mail to my account:
Sorry, Riley, I guess I’m looking for someone younger and, I don’t know, peppier, funnier. Thanks for the drinks and good luck on your search for a soul mate.
To bolster my flagging spirits, I suppose, Phoebe attached a thatsamore link to another woman in the area looking for romance. The profile indicated that she loved “to live life to the heights, making the most of every day” and that she spoke English with a charming accent, was fluent in Bulgarian, had some Russian and Polish. She was looking for a polite and interesting man “to hang up with.” She finished by saying that while she was by no means a “religious fantastic,” she would “like more a guy” who follows in the footsteps of the Lord. “And while we all sin, I just want one who makes the effort to not. I would like to live a pure life, get married, and then get to the freaky.” And there was Marlena’s photo.
13
I asked Red if he’d ever given any thought to marriage. He peeked at me over the top of his newspaper and said, “Yeah. I have so much to offer a woman.” He folded the paper and placed it on the grass by his chair. He freshened our coffees from the carafe he’d liberated from IHOP. We were dining al fresco, sitting at a card table he’d rescued from the Melancholy Library Dumpster and revived with wood-grain contact paper. Scrambled eggs, bacon, and grits.
“Bay’s girlfriend needs a green card.”
“Then he should marry her.”
“It’s not in his constitution.”
“You should marry her.”
“He’ll give the willing groom ten thousand dollars.”
“I can’t use the money.”
“And a condo.”
“Condos come with fees and commandos.”
“I told him I’d ask.”
Red told me that his first marriage was tepid, aimless, and mercifully brief. The second was prosperous and pleasurable, and he’d still be married to Barbara Ann if only he hadn’t started snorting coke. He told me he’d been the CFO of an IT start-up, owned a four-bedroom home in a gated community in Houston and a vacation cottage on Lake Livingston. He drove a Lexus and a Tahoe fish-and-ski boat. He squandered it all, squandered it quickly, and found himself among the lost and foundering.
“You’re okay now.”
“Detox, rehab, halfway house, twelve-step meetings. I have a second chance. Peace of mind. A happy ending.”
“Are you afraid that drinking will send you back to the life?”
“No, but I’m afraid money will.”
I was sitting alone on the couch in my office distracting myself with an L. Manning Vines novel, No Regrets, Quixote, and trying very hard not to imagine myself encased in Saran Wrap like Bay’s ex-partner. Things looked desperate for the four starving Alaska gold miners trapped in their tiny cabin at the mercy of a raging blizzard. Forget your waterboard; just bring out the box of Stretch-Tite, and I’ll tell you whatever truth you want me to tell you—right now. My shoulders and neck tensed; my heartbeat accelerated. Just then a propitious knock at my door delivered me from my diabolical imagination. I closed the book.
The stranger entered without waiting for my response. I said, “Please, have a seat.”
He said, “I understand you want to speak to me.”
I said, “Who are you?”
“Pino Basilio.” He sat across the coffee table from me in my therapist’s chair. “So talk to me,” he said.
Pino wore a black linen sport jacket, a starched white shirt, open at the collar, jeans, black tasseled loafers, and no socks. His hair was white, his eyebrows black. Luis must have given him my card. I told him about my marginal involvement in the Halliday murders. I explained my misgivings as to the official cause of death. “I know you were his partner—”
“You don’t know anything.”
“And I was hoping you could shed some light on the tragedy.”
“Why?”
“I’m trying to understand it.”
“There’s nothing to understand.” Pino sat with his hands folded in his lap. He looked around the office.
“But nothing about the killings makes sense,” I said.
He sat forward. “Why do you think anything has to make sense? Nothing makes sense. That’s a given, a starting point. Only children think otherwise.”
When I begged to differ, Pino brought a finger to his lips and shushed me. “Forget about this,” he said.
“Do you think he was suicidal?”
Pino shrugged.
“Did he seem despondent at all?”
“That is none of your business, my friend. Stick to what you know. You’re not a cop.”
“No, I’m not. I’m just bothered.”
“See a shrink.”
“I don’t think this was murder-suicide, but I don’t know why someone would kill the entire family.”
“Because they could?”
“Take innocent lives for no reason?”
“Sometimes the pleasure’s in the taking.”
I may have raised a dubious eyebrow.
“Yes, Mr. Melville, there is malice in the world. In your world, you can hold on to the illusion that you’re in some kind of control, that you know the rules. Only thing is, your world doesn’t exist. As long as you stay put, no one will give a shit, and you’ll be fine. But you get involved in what does not concern you, you will be dealt with.”
I wanted to be dauntless and say, Why, that sounds like a threat, Mr. Basilio, but I was afraid to.
“I represent the interests of the federal government in this matter, and I’m advising you not to get mired in this swamp.”
Frank Sinatra sang “Sentimental Journey.” Pino reached inside his suit jacket and retrieved his phone. He checked the display, punched a button, and returned the phone to his pocket. He stood. “Stick to what you know.” He held out his hand. I stood and we shook.
He squeezed my hand until I asked him to stop. I remembered what Bay had once told me—never let a stranger take your hand. Pino could have crushed the bones, but he smiled and released my hand. He patted my face. He pointed at my novel with his chin. He said, “All the miners die.” He walked to the door. He turned back to me. “That’s the only real ending, isn’t it?” He gave me a casual salute. “Adiós, mi amigo. Todos nos morimos.”
I was meeting Bay for blinis and caviar at Baikal. I’d called him earlier to report on my unsettling encounter with Pino. He told me he wasn’t having such a splendid day, either. He’d fill me in over lunch. I sat at a red light on Main. My phone rang—Georgia, who hadn’t talked to me in a year and only ever called to extol the pleasures and virtues of her perfectly exciting and delightful life. I didn’t answer. I called Phoebe’s cell, and she didn’t answer. I watched a disheveled man and a leashed pit bull cross the street. The dog carried a stuffed toy bunny in his mouth, and the man’s T-shirt read, HI! I’M YOUR MOM’S NEW BOYFRIEND.
Bay was already sitting at a shaded sidewalk table. He told me that he’d found out that morning that Marlena had a husband in Romania, one Ion Marcu, who was serving time in Jilava Prison for jewel theft. He wouldn’t be getting out anytime soon. Marlena couldn’t divorce Marcu from the States, but if she left, she couldn’t come back. And there was the visa problem as well. Bay said, “I have to do something, but what can I do?”
“If you’re not going to marry her, what’s the problem?”
“Trying to help her out of a jam. She doesn’t want to be married to Marcu. She’d p
refer an American husband.”
I said, “Where is she now?”
“I sent her to the day spa at the Silver Palace.”
Our food arrived. We raised our glasses and drank our shots of Russian Standard. Pretty soon we were talking about trust, and Bay was sour on the whole idea. I told him about Marlena’s thats-amore profile. He said he knew about it, but that it seemed unimportant in light of the new revelation. “She’s an enterprising girl.”
“She’s not who she said she is on the site, is she?”
“You can’t trust anyone, Wylie, not even me.”
“I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I have to.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“You’re just upset that Marlena lied to you.”
“Some people will use trust as a weapon. Malacoda would. The Lehman Brothers people. They cultivate your trust. They win your confidence. They arrange for your reliance on them. And they’ve got you right where they can fuck you.”
“I don’t want to live in a world without trust.”
“Then you’ll be conned and betrayed.”
“That’s the price I’ll pay.”
Bay moved his plate to the side, took a deck of cards from his pocket, and fanned them faceup across the table. He told me to cut the deck, and I did. He said they teach sociopathy in business schools. No right or wrong. Just the bottom line. It’s all that matters. He told me to pick a card, look at it, remember it, slip it back into the deck. Eight of spades. And then he went off on a rant about Ayn Rand and her cretinous drivel. He said Alan Greenspan was a felonious sociopath. Bay said sociopaths have the advantage—they know they’re right. Decent people always have misgivings. He never touched the deck. The check arrived. I said I had it, took out my wallet, and there was the eight of spades folded around my credit card.
“How the hell did you do that?”
He said, “The closer you get, the more you’re being fooled.” He reshuffled the cards, spread them faceup. He said, “Don’t pick one; just think of a card. Just picture it.”
No Regrets, Coyote Page 13