Good Friends

by Leeanne Moriarty

  Fetching himself a bottle of water from the fridge he sat down in the living room. He gazed out into the night but could see only the string of bad choices that had left him stranded out here far from the known world.

  69

  Michael lay on the sofa in the living room. After Tin had left he’d stared blankly at Netflix for an hour then showered again. He couldn’t face their bed, so he came back downstairs.

  His phone lay on the table beside him. He’d tried Caroline’s number every fifteen minutes. Her message already like a remnant of something passed. The more time that went by the farther away she felt.

  As he stared at the ceiling his fingers found the cracked silkscreen ink on the Jim Morrison T-shirt Caroline had bought for him years ago. She’d bought it because she said he resembled the dead rock star.

  He rubbed at Morrison’s face like he was rubbing a security blanket.

  Knowing it was useless he dialed her number again, and ended the call when he heard her message.

  Michael tried to imagine where she was and what she was doing. He couldn’t.

  He felt as if he hardly knew his wife at all. Even before the accident she had allowed him very few glimpses of her interior life.

  Her short story collection, Confection, had been only somewhat illuminating. It had been dedicated to him. Given the nature of her writing, the dedication had felt almost like an accusation.

  In the stories, men—husbands, lovers, fathers, brothers, bosses, friends, strangers—all seemed to play an antagonistic role, often unwittingly. As if their mere existence were vexing and troublesome.

  He remembered the titular story the most vividly. A woman in her late thirties had lived her entire life with her mother who was now dying a lingering and agonizing death in a hospice. It was the mother’s birthday and the daughter spent a day making an elaborate cake with many layers and a glazed frosting, shrouded in a nest of spun sugar.

  She put it in a pink box with a cellophane window and carried it down to the bus stop, ready to travel across town to her mother. She placed the box carefully on the aisle seat beside her and was then distracted by something in the street. A thickset man in a cheap suit, smelling of sweat, beer and pickled onions, flopped down onto the seat and squashed the cake.

  A destroyed cake was not a near-fatal car wreck and a dead baby, but had Caroline recognized the whisper of precognition in these stories of the incongruent lives of men and women?

  Is that why she’d stopped writing?

  Michael stood and went into the kitchen. He opened a cupboard and took down a sealed bottle of Makers Mark. He’d kept the liquor for guests that had never come.

  He uncorked it and poured a shot. He liked the little glugging sound the liquid made. It reminded him of happier days, so he emptied the glass and poured a second shot.

  Carrying the glass over to the sofa he sat down and raised the drink to his lips, sipping slowly this time.

  As he drank he saw her Caroline hanging upside down from the seatbelt in the wrecked SUV, her blood dripping into the snow through the shattered window.

  Suddenly the Scotch tasted bitter as poison but he downed it anyway.

  70

  The warble of his cell woke Michael, and in his haste to answer it he bumped it from the table and it clattered to the floor, face down. As he lunged for the phone with clumsy fingers he sent it skidding away across the tiles like a hockey puck.

  He sprang from the sofa and seized the cell, praying to see his wife’s name on the face.

  But it was Tin calling.

  “Hi,” Michael said, looking out at the early morning light over the ocean.

  “Mike, listen, there’s been a development.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll be with you in a minute, okay?”

  Tin was gone. Michael grabbed the Scotch bottle and the glass and took them to the kitchen. He drank water from the faucet and spat it out. He washed his face at the sink and dried himself on a kitchen towel.

  He heard the purr of Tin’s Porsche in the driveway. It was followed by a silver police car. Michael’s gut contracted and he felt like puking.

  He went to the front door and opened it, watching as Tin stood up out of his car. The police vehicle was driven by a man in uniform. Captain Vee stepped out of the passenger side. She, too, wore a uniform.

  Michael felt the cold breath of karma on the back of his neck.

  He stood tall, facing his visitors.

  The male cop carried a kitbag, as if he were coming back from a workout. Tin pointed to him and said he was a major from Patong. The policeman, a thickset man in his fifties with one silver tooth, waid. Michael made a clumsy reply.

  “Patong?” he said.

  “It’s just a jurisdictional thing,” Tin said.

  The lawyer looked pale, his skin stretched tight over his cheekbones.

  Michael retreated and let them into the house.

  Tin walked over to the dining room table and said something to the major, who set the bag down on its surface. Captain Vee stood beside him, looking solemn.

  “Mike, the major would like you to take a look at a couple of things and identify them.”

  “What’s happened, Tin?”

  The lawyer spoke softly. “This bloke is doing you a courtesy coming here, Mike. Normally you’d have to go down to the station. So let him do it his way, okay?”

  Michael nodded and the cop unzipped the bag and removed a few items wrapped in plastic.

  Michael felt a fist clutch at his heart when he saw Caroline’s bag, wallet, taupe pants, white shirt, sandals, underwear, and the Cartier watch he’d bought her for her last birthday.

  “Those are my wife’s,” Michael said.

  Tin said something to the major who nodded. He removed Caroline’s passport and placed it beside the other things.

  “Where is she, Tin?”

  “Let’s sit, shall we?”

  They took their seats.

  The major said something to Captain Vee and she opened an iPad on the table.

  “What you’re going to see was captured by Patong Beach CCTV cameras, Mike,” Tin said, “I’m sorry, mate, but it’s disturbing.”

  Captain Vee roused the iPad and Michael was looking at footage from a camera mounted opposite the beach. The time stamp read 21:25:03 as a taxi stopped beside a currency exchange kiosk and Caroline stepped out. She wore the clothes that lay on the table.

  The taxi drove away and she waited for a minibus and a motor bike to pass her and then crossed the road, walking beneath a gnarl of black power cables. Her limp, though slight, was unmistakable. Passing under the camera Caroline exited frame.

  The camera at the entrance to the beach caught her as she left the sidewalk and stepped onto the paved walkway, her shirt orange from the streetlight. She disappeared into the night down the path that led to the ocean.

  A third camera, recording in greenish night vision mode, showed Caroline emerging from a line of palms near the shuttered food stalls and trinket kiosks on the beach. Her pale hair flared in the infra red as she stood a moment beside a row of folded deck chairs. She was the only person in view.

  Caroline looked to her left and her right before she crossed to where the waves gently lapped the sand. She stood without moving for exactly forty-three seconds, staring out at the black water.

  Then she kicked off her shoes and sat down. She opened the bag and removed a bottle of water and an object that was invisible to the camera. Lifting the object with her right hand, she poured something into the palm of her left.

  Michael knew that it was the vial of OxyContin.

  She took her hand to her mouth and swallowed a long draft of water. She repeated the movement twice. Pouring something into her palm and taking her hand to her mouth and drinking.

  Caroline sat immobile for fifty-five seconds before she unbuttoned her shirt and dropped it to the sand. She stood and stepped out of her pants. Her next movements suggested that she were unhooking a bras
siere and rolling down underwear.

  Her body was a pale flare in the enhanced light.

  Caroline walked toward the water and waded out, lowered herself into the waves and swam slowly away from the beach.

  Swam until she disappeared into the darkness.

  The screen of the iPad went black.

  The lawyer and the two cops were looking at Michael.

  He could find nothing to say.

  “As soon as this footage was intercepted the police went to the beach. They found Caroline’s belongings.” Tin indicated the things lying on the table. “Her phone was not among them. They suspect she got rid of it earlier, because she didn’t want to be traced. At first light boats and divers went out looking for her. So far they’ve found nothing. These blokes are first rate, Mike. They’ll do everything they can.”

  Michael couldn’t breathe.

  He stood and went to an open window and sucked air.

  Tin was beside him. “I’m sorry, mate. I’m so sorry.”

  Michael tried to speak but couldn’t find his voice. He cleared his throat. “What happens now?”

  “They’ll carry on searching. You’re going to have to go down to Patong to make a formal statement. There’s no rush, just sometime today. I’ll drive you.”

  Michael nodded. He turned back to the cops.

  “Thank you,” he said. He looked at Captain Vee. “I appreciate everything you have done.”

  She stood, and nodded. “I am so sorry.”

  The major gathered together Caroline’s things and put them in the bag.

  “They’ll need to hang onto those for a while,” Tin said.

  “Sure.”

  “Do you want me to stay with you, Mike?”

  “No, Tin, thanks. I think I need to be alone for a while.”

  “Okay. Call me if you need anything. I’ll give you a shout later about going down to Patong. If there’s any news I’ll call you immediately.”

  Michael walked out with them and watched them drive away. He went back into the house and sat down on the sofa.

  When he felt moisture on his face he realized he was crying.

  He didn’t know he still could.

  71

  Michael sat at the kitchen counter drinking coffee.

  Black no sugar.

  Penance in a cup.

  He was in a bowl of shimmering light.

  The afternoon sun struck the glass, the pool, the ocean; dancing, refracting, blooming.

  He was blind to it.

  He’d gone with Tin to Patong police station.

  He’d sat in an office with the major with the silver tooth and signed documents that Tin had translated for him.

  The police had not yet found his wife’s body but they were calling her a suicide.

  Tin had brought him home, and he’d refused the lawyer’s offer to come in.

  “No, Tin, Jesus, you’ve done enough for me. I’m the worst company.”

  Tin had purred off in his Porsche and Michael was left sitting drinking coffee that he didn’t want.

  When he heard a nail tapping on glass and looked up and saw Caroline outside the window by the front door he dropped his mug and it shattered on the floor.

  Michael was almost at the door when he realized it was Liz Keller standing in the wicked heat.

  “Michael,” she said. “We need to speak.”

  He stared at her.

  She looked completely different from last night at Blues.

  Her hair was cut into a bob, and was lighter, exactly the color of Caroline’s.

  “Liz—”

  “Not here. Let’s walk on the beach,” she said.

  “I don’t want to walk on the beach.”

  “Oh, you do, Mike. I promise.”

  She leaned in and her hands were on his body.

  He thrust her away in revulsion.

  Liz sneered at him. “You think I’m here for that?” She found his phone in his pocket and tossed it onto the bureau beside the door. “Come on.”

  He followed her out, past the pool and down onto the sand.

  There was a hot breeze blowing in off the water.

  She lifted her hand to move hair away from her face.

  Uncannily like Caroline.

  “I don’t know if you’ve heard?” he said.

  “Heard what?”

  “About Caroline.”

  “What about her?”

  “She drowned, off Patong.”

  Liz laughed and he stared at her. “Caroline’s fine, Mike.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have her.”

  He was gaping at her like a simpleton.

  “I’ve kidnapped her, you dumb fuck,” Liz said. “I’ve kidnapped your wife.”

  72

  Liz stood at her bedroom window and watched as Caroline, a scarf knotted under her chin, left her house and settled herself on the back of Charlie’s Vespa.

  Liz knew that the scarf would’ve been Charlie’s idea. One of his tired old movie star fetishes. It would have given him a kick to cast Caroline in his little fantasy.

  Charlie said something over his shoulder and Caroline laughed and wrapped her arms around his waist. He revved the scooter and they sped off, disappearing down the driveway into the dense green foliage.

  “Don’t fucking kill her,” Liz said. “Not yet, anyways.”

  She waited ten minutes before she left her house and walked down to the beach. She wore flops and a swimsuit with one of her bright cloths knotted at the waist. A toweling bag was slung from her shoulder.

  The heat took her breath away. She loved it. It made her want drink and do drugs and fuck strangers.

  Not today.

  Liz stood for a minute at the water’s edge, checking that the beach was deserted. Then she crossed the sand and climbed the steps to the neighboring house. She went around the front and made sure that Michael hadn’t made a sudden reappearance.

  The driveway was empty of cars.

  Taking a pair of surgical gloves from her bag she rolled them on, stretching her fingers. She found the spare keys in the bag and let herself into the house. Stepping out of her flops she stood a moment in the lobby, listening.

  The hiss of the sea. A bird gargling in the jungle. The measured smack of a wall clock.

  All was well.

  The day before Liz had summoned Noey after she’d finished cleaning here. She’d met the sullen woman on the steps of her house and given her five thousand baht and told her that her services were no longer required.

  Noey had looked like she’d wanted to say something then she’d waid in such a perfunctory manner that it was almost insolent and clattered away on her noisy old bike, leaving the funk of exhaust fumes.

  Liz climbed the stairs to the bedrooms. It was off-script, but she went into the first of the rooms. This must be where Michael worked. A desk and a chair. A bookshelf with a couple of middle-brow novels and coffee table books on architecture.

  She slid open his desk drawer and rooted inside. She found the earrings.

  Liz flashed back to Michael in the bar, his voice thick with liquor and lust, saying, “Keep them.”

  She’d nearly laughed in his face and said they were too fey for her.

  Too demure.

  Jürgen, whatever his failings, had known how to buy her jewelry. And he had not been afraid of ostentation. He’d been all about flaunting it, had paunchy, horny old Jürgen.

  Michael, though, was irritatingly modest. Even when Jürgen was at his richest, Michael could’ve bought and sold him a thousand times over, but he chose to live a petit-bourgeoisie life. He had a day job he didn’t need. He rented this beach house—nice enough, but nothing spectacular—when he could’ve bought his own fucking island. And he’d chosen a cold, repressed wife, when he could’ve had any woman he wanted.

  Liz felt him inside her on the beach, and for just a moment she put a hand to the wall and closed her eyes.

  What a fucking waste.
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br />   She pushed herself upright and turned on her heel and went into the main bedroom, dropping her bag on the stool of the vanity.

  Liz sat on the bed. She ran the flat of her hand over the sheet, the surgical glove whispering on the cloth.

  She guessed that Michael would do what men like him did and sleep nearest the door. Leaning down, she smelt the pillow, catching just a trace of his musk. She put her nose to the other pillow and inhaled Pure Grace, Caroline’s fragrance.

  So understated.

  So soap-and-water.

  So fucking sexless.

  Liz preferred lashings of Viktor & Rolf’s Flowerbomb. It made her smell like a courtesan in heat.

  She stood and crossed to the closet and opened the door. A nightmare in monochrome. Jesus Christ, not a primary color to be seen.

  She rifled through the wooden hangars and found a pair of fawn cotton pants that she knew would fit her, and laid them on the bed.

  Next she selected a white blouse and dropped it beside the pants. She lifted out a pair of leather sandals that bore the vague impression of Caroline’s heels and toes.

  She slipped one on and it fit perfectly. She kicked it off.

  Crossing to the bureau she picked out a bra and a pair of panties shocking in their plainness.

  Liz packed the clothes into her bag and sat at the vanity and stared at her split reflection in the wing mirror. A bottle of Pure Grace stood on the surface. She took it.

  “Call it a fucking method thing,” she said. “Total immersion, baby.”

  She laughed and slung the bag from her shoulder.

  Liz went downstairs and stepped into her flops. She checked that she was unobserved, and left the house, hearing the Yale lock click after her.

  She pulled off the gloves and shoved them into the bag as she walked back down to the beach.

  When she got home she cranked the aircon to maximum and sat on the sofa, feet tucked under her, and rolled herself a joint so small it could only be classified as medicinal.

  Just something to sand away the edges.

  This made her think of the man who now called himself Charlie. The author of this whole fucking trip.