Lucky Bastard

by Charles McCarry

  Just the same, like the insecure and watchful bride that she was, Morgan called Jack many times a day at unpredictable times. In business hours she found him always with Danny. From nine to five, the friends studied together for the bar examination. Danny knew the law cold. He had found in it something that was almost as natural to him as sports had been. He loved the language of the law, its precision, its simplicity, its magisterial finality. Besides, memorizing codes and references had provided Danny with an escape from memories of combat.

  In their bar exam study sessions, Danny was the tutor, Jack the learner. Jack, who had never wanted to be a lawyer, had learned only enough at Harvard to get him through exams that were generally graded by professors who wanted him to succeed. But Jack was nothing if not a quick study, and when the friends took the bar exam it was Jack who got the much higher mark, just as he had done on the law school admission exam and every other exam they had ever taken together. This outcome confirmed what Danny had always believed, that Jack was the smart one. And the lucky one.

  He said, “Last week you didn’t know shit, and now you finish in the top five percent?”

  “Jes’ lucky, I guess,” Jack replied. “I’ve already forgotten half the answers. But I’ve got you, pal.”

  In high school, if Jack aced a math test after strenuous studying, he would forget all the theorems and equations soon afterward. There is no algebra in real life, he would tell Danny. No chemistry, no geometry. Just the green and the pink, moola and pussy, the more you had the more you got. Now, in their last hours as students, they sat around between study sessions, eating a large combo pizza for lunch and drinking Coca-Cola and Budweiser and recalling these good old jokes. Laughing. Danny had not been so happy in years.

  In the evening, Morgan found Jack at home less often. He went to the movies, he told her. Walked around. Through his senator he was in touch with the local political establishment. He was getting to know them: drinks after work, gossip, skull sessions, sometimes dinner in a steak house with hundred-dollar bills flashing. But was that really all he was up to after dark? Morgan could never be sure. No sexual partners had yet been lined up for him in Columbus, and he never approached Morgan for relief. They slept in separate rooms, and he had never so much as tried the doorknob in the night—grounds for suspicion in itself, as she herself was often tempted to slip down the hall. Jack could not live without sex. Jack being Jack, that could mean only one thing: He was providing for his own needs.

  Sex was not the only thing missing from their domestic life. Morgan would not cook as a matter of feminist principle and probably could not have learned how even if Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov himself had ordered her to report to the Cordon Bleu in Paris in the name of the Party to master the omelet and tripe à la mode de Caen. The bungalow was a shambles of unmade beds, unwashed clothes; the refrigerator was empty. When Morgan did come home, she would bring a pizza—plain cheese or with mushrooms. Then as afterward she and Jack lived on pizza except at breakfast. Jack ate jelly donuts in the morning; Morgan, nothing but coffee.

  Morgan and Danny saw little of each other. Even limited to glimpses, she recognized his charm. This made her even more wary of falling into the tiger trap of an incorrect friendship. When sitting down, as she usually saw him, Danny looked quite normal. But when he stood up and reached for his crutch, gripping the edge of the table with whitened knuckles, Morgan saw him as she imagined him to have been in Vietnam, reaching for his diabolical M-16 before firing a burst of tumbling bullets designed to mutilate and dismember freedom fighters.

  Cindy’s name was never uttered by either of the men. In her preoccupation with a growing circle of post-Barbie women, Morgan had all but forgotten that she even existed.

  4 At home, however, Danny discussed Jack with Cindy. The conversations were always marked by anger. In Cindy’s mind, the partnership between Jack and Danny represented betrayal, and the way in which they had planned it, deceit.

  “How could you have done this behind my back?” she demanded.

  “I didn’t do it behind your back,” Danny replied. “Ten minutes after his phone call, I told you the whole deal.”

  “After the phone call, without asking my opinion. When did you two first talk about going into practice together?”

  “After his grandmother’s funeral.”

  “That was three years ago. Why didn’t you tell me then?”

  “Why upset you?”

  “Then you knew it would upset me?”

  “Cindy, it was just talk. Why would Jack want to practice law in Ohio with me if he had a degree from Harvard? He could write his own ticket in New York or Washington. I was as surprised as you when he went through with it.”

  “That I doubt,” Cindy said. “But let’s just look at this for a minute. When exactly did Jack accept this offer from Whiplash, Kickback, and Backscratch?”

  Cindy was not trying to be funny; this play on words was her real opinion of the practices of the famous Washington firm, run by liberals for liberals, that Jack had been invited to join. Danny did not smile. He said, “I didn’t ask.”

  “Recently, would you say? Like maybe in the last three or four months when the big-time firms usually visit the law schools looking for the real shits in the class?”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “Okay. So at the time Jack didn’t want to practice law in Ohio with his old pal Danny. Is that a reasonable assumption?”

  “I guess so.”

  “And then he changed his mind and all of a sudden he can’t wait to move to Columbus and hang out his shingle with his old high school buddy. So what happened?”

  “He changed his mind.”

  “So he turns down a starting salary of thirty-five, forty thousand dollars in a Washington firm for the chance to earn nothing in Columbus, Ohio. Why?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t care about money.”

  “Ha!”

  “Cin, what difference does it make?”

  “A lot of difference. Maybe he told one too many lies and they got wise to him in the nick of time and passed the word, and he’s out in the cold.”

  “Got wise to what? Come on, Cindy, this is a law firm we’re talking about. What do they care about his veracity? Jack’s imagination would’ve been an asset to them. Just consider the possibility that he’s keeping a promise to me.”

  “You said there was no promise.”

  “Okay, an act of friendship.”

  “Altruism? Jack? Okay, let’s go to scenario number two: Jack isn’t keeping a promise to you but wiggling out of a promise he made to someone else and using you as his excuse. Would you agree that that’s at least a possibility?”

  “Come on, Cin.”

  “‘Come on, Cin,’ my eye. I repeat the question: Is it a possibility?”

  “Yeah, it’s possible,” Danny replied. “But that’s Jack.”

  “It sure is,” Cindy said. “I don’t know anyone else who’d stoop so low as to trade on somebody else’s war wounds to get whatever it is he wants this time.”

  “Low blow, baby.”

  “That’s a low blow? Let me ask you another question. Is there anything—anything—Jack could do to you that would wake you up to what a slime bag he really is and always has been and always will be?”

  Danny said, “Was he a slime bag when he came to see me every day in the hospital?”

  Cindy said, “Oh, Danny! Open your eyes.”

  Danny said, “Cindy, I know all about Jack.”

  “Are you absolutely sure of that?”

  She was on the point of tears.

  She lifted a hand, opened her mouth to speak, then let the hand fall helplessly to her side.

  Danny said, “Cindy, what’s really the matter?”

  “Nothing,” Cindy said, using a Kleenex. “Forget it.”

  “Jeez, Cin,” Danny said, “That’s a relief. For a minute there I thought you were going to tell me he raped you or something.”

  She paused, Kleenex at th
e corner of her eye. “No, Danny,” she said. “I’m not going to tell you that.”

  5 On the Saturday night after the results of the bar exam were published, Danny invited Morgan and Jack to dinner.

  Jack said, “Does Cindy know about this?”

  “She’ll be tied to her chair,” Danny said. “Try not to notice.”

  Cindy was everything that Morgan had expected: Doris Day in her Rock Hudson period, without the sunny smile. The women made no eye contact when Danny introduced them. Cindy did not even look at Jack before she led them into the dining room. Their places were marked with name cards in Cindy’s round, perfect penmanship.

  In frigid silence, dashing back and forth to the kitchen, Cindy served zucchini soup with a touch of curry powder, eggplant parmigiana, tossed iceberg salad with halved cherry tomatoes and blue cheese dressing, and a frozen lemon dessert she had made in an ice-cube tray.

  “Somebody must have told you I was a vegetarian,” Morgan said. “Everything was delicious. Especially the eggplant parmigiana.”

  Cindy did not break her silence. She poured more coffee, then rose from her chair, cleared the dishes, and disappeared into the kitchen. Morgan put down her napkin and followed. With a bright smile, Cindy took the plates from her hands and slid them into the dishwater.

  Morgan said, “It was a delicious dinner, but I think we’d better be going. Good night.”

  Cindy, washing the dishes, did not look up from her task.

  Back in their own apartment, Morgan said, “Jack, tell me what this is all about.”

  “I already have,” Jack replied. “The girl hates me. Always has.”

  “Why?”

  “Competition for Danny? Penis envy? Morg, I don’t think about it. It’s been going on for years.”

  “Don’t call me Morg. You’re telling me this is nothing more serious than a case of a bride being jealous of her husband’s best friend from high school? Bullshit, Jack. Tell me the whole truth.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “You know the answer to that. This ridiculous situation is a threat to the plan. What happened between you two, Jack?”

  “Okay. We had a little fling while Danny was in the army. I suppose she thinks it might happen again if we’re living next door.”

  “A little fling?” Morgan said. “You fucked your best friend’s lonely little wife while he was fighting for his country?”

  “Girlfriend,” Jack said. “At that time.”

  “Oh. That would make all the difference.”

  Under her relentless questioning, Jack told Morgan about the evening of Danny’s departure. With each answer—she dragged the entire episode out of him detail by detail, as I have already described it to you—Morgan’s eyes widened. At last she said, “And to you this was just another one-night stand?”

  Jack said, “More like a one-hour stand.”

  “Jack, you raped her.”

  He was shocked. “Raped her?” he said. “She dug her heels in my back and came like a fire engine.”

  “She was drunk.”

  “That was her own doing. Just like what happened later. She started it. These things happen.”

  “And it was just that one time?”

  “That’s right. This is the first time I’ve seen her since the fateful night. As far as I was concerned, it was over the minute it was over.”

  “For you, maybe. Not for her.”

  “I can’t help that,” Jack said. “The moving finger writes.”

  Morgan said, “Jack, you really are a piece of work. Don’t you ever touch her again. Do you understand?”

  6 The next morning when Cindy arrived at her office building, Morgan was waiting for her in the lobby. Cindy tried to walk on by, but Morgan seized her by the arm.

  Looking downward, Cindy said, “Let go. Right now.”

  Morgan held on for a moment, then did as she was told. She said, “You’re not a deaf-mute after all. Good, because we have things to talk about.”

  “Like what?”

  “The whole fucking situation.”

  Cindy said, “I don’t like that adjective.”

  “That’s a start,” Morgan said. “We’ve just agreed on our first ground rule. No dirty words. Here’s the second: If we can’t talk in private, we’ll talk in public.”

  “Why would I want to talk to you anywhere, about anything?”

  “Because,” Morgan said, “I know what Jack did to you.”

  They went across the street and sat down together on a bench by a parking lot. The conversation was surreal. Nearly everyone who parked in this lot seemed to know Cindy, and as they passed by, they smiled friendly Ohio smiles and said hello. Meanwhile, Morgan was describing the episode in the strip mine minute by minute, checking Jack’s version.

  “And then you got in front with him?”

  “Hi, Cin!”

  “He kissed you and you accepted it?”

  “Hi, Cin!”

  “He lifted your skirt, got between your legs?”

  “Hi, Cin!”

  “Even then you didn’t say no?”

  Cindy answered none of these interrogatories, but listened without expression, eyes steady, perfectly manicured hands folded around the handle of the briefcase she held in her lap.

  “You didn’t think you had to say no. You’d had a lot to drink. Maybe you didn’t really want to say no. You were mad at Danny. And then Jack banged you, his best friend’s girl. And it was different and you liked it in spite of yourself, and in the morning you just wanted to die.”

  A white-haired gentleman lifted his hat and said good morning to Cindy. She replied, “Good morning, Your Honor.”

  To Morgan, Cindy said, “Okay, now we know what the defense’s cross-examination would be like. Is that all?”

  Morgan said, “Not quite. No matter how it would sound in court, you were raped. We both know that. And I promise you, if he ever tries it again, we’ll kill the son of a bitch together. I mean exactly what I say.”

  Cindy nodded. “Fine with me. And in the meantime, what?”

  “I’m going to forget what I know.”

  Cindy said, “I sincerely doubt that.”

  “I mean what I say,” Morgan said.

  “Then you’d better get him out of town before you have to keep the promise you just made to me.”

  “Leaving town is not an option. That’s why we have to understand each other.”

  “Then we’d better get to the other ground rules,” Cindy said. “Bearing in mind that you’ve made the point you really came here to make.”

  “Which is?”

  “That one way or another you can ruin my life, and it’s up to me to choose the method.”

  Morgan did not contradict her. She said, “Suit yourself.” She stood up. So did Cindy: every hair, every seam, every expression in place. Morgan said, “You’re fucking immaculate.”

  Cindy turned on her heels. Morgan caught her arm again. Cindy said, “Under Ohio law, what you’re doing to my arm is assault and battery.”

  “So call a cop,” Morgan said. “But first, a word of advice. Get help. Deal with it. I know some good therapists.”

  Cindy said, “Lucky you. You’ll need them.”

  Two

  1 The law firm of Miller & Adams prospered from the start. This had little to do, in the early stages, with us or our friends in the Unconscious Underground. It was Danny’s admirers who jump-started the practice. As Jack had foreseen, the community was eager to give Danny a helping hand. The local establishment sent business his way—real estate closings, wills, divorces, minor lawsuits, juveniles in trouble, a steady supply of public defender work.

  Morgan’s one-woman office was located next door to the law firm, with a connecting door to Jack’s office. She handled finances for Miller & Adams, which in return handled all the legal work for Morgan’s growing list of eccentric clients. This involved a good deal of litigation, because her radical women were always suing corporations and societies and
institutions of government on the theory that such lawsuits were revolutionary acts that, like a guerrilla war, simultaneously sapped the energy of the oppressor and opened the eyes of the people to the Establishment’s crimes and to its essential and fatal weakness.

  Morgan’s people usually won these skirmishes. Danny was a meticulous researcher of the law, and Jack was every bit as good in a courtroom as his law school mentors had anticipated. He won or settled case after case, some of them all but hopeless on the face of the evidence. Jack was by nature undismayed by facts. He had an instinct for the telling human detail, for the confusing diversion, for the subtle distortion that seemed to reveal a lurking possibility of chicanery. Witnesses trusted him. Juries liked him. His powers of negotiation in out-of-court settlements were impressive; those whom he bested went away wishing he had been on their side. Meanwhile, Danny, who never made a promise he could not keep, was building up for the firm an aura of reliability and trustworthiness. For his part, Jack attached himself to the political powers in the community and state, and as his usefulness to them increased he too began to bring in a fair amount of business.

  By the end of the second year of practice the partners were taking annual salaries of forty thousand dollars apiece. In those days that was an impressive wage for a young lawyer just starting out in Middle America. Added to Cindy’s growing earnings from her own job, it was enough to enable the Millers to buy a nicer house in a suburban development. Morgan and Jack remained where they were, in their modest bungalow within a stone’s throw of the slums, and within walking distance of the law offices of Miller & Adams.