Now he regretted introducing her to the women who he believed had poisoned her against him, even before she discovered his extracurricular activities. He wanted her to have friends who lived in Beverly Hills, Westwood, and Brentwood. But they had convinced her he was treating her as his slave, his alter ego. In the end they had convinced her to compete with him. He should have kept her locked up in some hick upstate New York town just as she’d once wanted.
Spilled milk, but he would cry over it now. She had the better lawyer; it looked like she was going to win custody of Justine; she lived in the house, and he had to provide support. And all because he had been caught with his pants down.
“What do we do now?” he asked his attorney.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Maybe we should go back over some things.”
“You can’t change facts, Scott,” he said. “We’ll present our side the best we can under the circumstances.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just what I said,” Michael Fein replied dryly. “See you ten o’clock on Monday.”
Even his own attorney wanted to get away from him as quickly as he could, Scott thought, watching the man hurry up the aisle.
As Scott started up the aisle, he saw that the gentleman in the rear of the courtroom had remained.
“Philip Dante,” he said. Scott took his small but long-fingered hand tentatively into his and shook it. Philip Dante smiled. He was only about an inch or so shorter than Scott, who stood nearly six feet tall. Dante’s dark blue pin-striped suit was custom fitted to his slim torso. He had a narrow waist and full, firm shoulders. He looked athletic and robust because of his crimson cheeks and lively gray eyes.
“I was passing through the courthouse and just had to stop in to see another poor fish get gutted,” Philip Dante told him. “It’s reassuring to know you haven’t been randomly selected to suffer a singular fate.”
“You’re here for a divorce, too?”
“I was, and like you, I was crucified on a cross of exaggerations, accusations constructed by my wife’s skillful and, I must confess, very talented attorney.”
“Yeah,” Scott said. “Despite what I was told, my wife’s got a better lawyer. I think mine feels worse for her than he does for me.”
“There’s a bizarre attitude about children and mothers in this society—the courts are heavily weighted in the woman’s favor. The truth is more children are ruined by their mothers than by their fathers.”
“Absolutely right,” Scott agreed. He liked this guy, liked the way he put feelings concretely into words.
“And a sharp lawyer can make Cinderella’s stepmother look like Mother Teresa,” Dante said.
“Tell me about it.”
“You look like you could use a drink,” Dante said. “There’s a little pub I’ve discovered nearby, a retreat I went to during the recesses. Care to join me?”
“Sure,” Scott said. “Why not? I don’t think she has her detective on my tail anymore, not that it matters.”
Dante laughed, a short, thin laugh through clenched teeth. He started out, Scott alongside.
It resembled a Dublin pub: small and cozy with what looked to be a regular bar crowd. No one there took much more than perfunctory interest in Philip Dante and Scott when they entered. They sat at a booth and talked, Scott more loquacious than usual because he found this stranger receptive and understanding, smiling and sneering at the right times. Also, feeling deserted by his friends, Scott had a great need to open up to someone sympathetic. He had no family here and Steve, his older brother back in New York, was like a stranger to him. They were so dissimilar, Steve always more settled, more responsible and reliable, the kind of man who seemed forty when he was only twenty. When Scott called to tell him about the divorce, Steve said he had expected it.
“Everyone who goes out there gets messed up in one way or another,” he said with his typical New York superiority. “The hedonism takes its toll quickly. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself, Scott. I’m sorry for you. Meg was a gem.”
The annoying thing was, Scott couldn’t refute his brother. He and Meg had become just another statistic, perhaps a predictable one.
“I can’t believe this is all happening to me,” Scott said. “I feel like I’m sliding down a greased tunnel…nothing to grasp…nothing to stop it, know what I mean?”
“Exactly,” Dante said.
“Two days ago, I called her. I wanted to get my computer. We have this temporary agreement set up that I have to call first.”
“I had that, too. I couldn’t come before nine in the morning or after six in the afternoon.”
“Yeah, I have the same limits.”
“Standard stuff. They all follow the same handbook,” Dante said. Scott nodded.
“Anyway, when I get there, I found she had put all my stuff in the garage: clothes, papers, even my pistol. Slowly but surely, anything and everything that’s related to me, that reminds her of me, she’s getting out of the house. Soon my daughter will wonder if I ever existed,” he added bitterly.
“I know,” Philip said softly.
Scott looked up, encouraged to go on.
“I was thinking of getting a photograph of her attorney and blowing it up to make a dart board. Did you hear him in that courtroom? His face haunts me. I mean, it’s as though she was his kid sister or something, for God’s sake.”
“He’s just doing his job,” Dante said with surprising tolerance and understanding. Scott’s eyebrows rose. “If you don’t respect your enemy, you defeat yourself.”
“I’ll remember that next time,” Scott replied. “Not that there’ll ever be a next time.”
Dante laughed.
“You’ll change your mind, buddy. Sometime down the road, you’ll run into another goddess and be ready to throw yourself on the sacrificial altar.”
“Not me,” Scott vowed. “Never again.” He sat back and closed his eyes. He hated himself for being so negative. He was only thirty-one and he felt as if life itself was a burden these days. The sun was never bright enough and the stars were never blazing anymore. It was as though some evil deity had thrown a filter over everything, turning white to gray and making everything else pale accordingly. He hated looking at himself in the mirror anymore. Staring back at him was this sad sack with bags under his sleepy, chestnut brown eyes, a complexion like a boiled potato, and dark brown hair that looked flat and dull. He had lost weight, picking and nibbling on T.V. dinners and fast food. Nothing tasted good anyway. Nothing pleased him. His attitude had affected everything, especially his work. When he caught the reflection of himself in the showroom windows, he saw a man who looked weighed down, overwhelmed, trampled. And he knew he couldn’t be a depressing pessimist and sell expensive automobiles.
“You’re a car salesman?” Dante asked him as if he could read his thoughts.
“Yeah. I’ve been with Miller Mercedes in Westwood as long as I’ve been in L.A. Me and the old man hit it off from the start. It was an unwritten understanding that as soon as the old man retired, his son Wayne would step into his shoes and I would become head of sales. I don’t think there’s much hope of that happening now.”
“Don’t count yourself completely out yet,” Dante said, offering the first note of optimism.
“It doesn’t look too good. The old man turned out to be a better witness for Meg than for me. I’m going to find myself on the grass in Santa Monica, sleeping beside other homeless people and lost souls.”
Dante laughed.
“It’s not funny,” Scott said. He didn’t like being the object of anyone’s humor, and this was really too serious to be humorous. Dante’s smile fizzled and his eyes became small, intense.
“No, it’s not,” he admitted. “I had the same black thoughts, but there’s a way out of this.”
“Sure. Suicide,” Scott said and waved to the waitress. “Another dry Rob Roy please,” he ordered. “You want another?”
“I’m fine,�
� Philip said.
“What do you do, Phil?”
“I sell insurance, and like you, my job was in jeopardy. Insurance companies want their salesmen to be straight down the road conservative—rocks of Gibraltar, family men, responsible, reliable, the whole nine yards.”
“What do you mean, your job was in jeopardy? It’s not anymore?”
“Things couldn’t be better for me,” Dante said, smiling.
“I don’t understand. I thought…”
“How old’s your daughter?” Dante asked quickly.
“Five.”
Dante nodded.
“A great age. They’re just starting to learn things in school; they’re full of questions and they dote on you. Every moment you’re with them is more precious than the moment before. I bet nothing beats the feeling you have when you’re holding her little hand and walking with her. I suppose you’ve taken her to Disneyland.”
“And Knott’s Berry Farm and Universal. I was going to take her to Magic Mountain the weekend…the weekend all shit broke loose.”
Dante shook his head.
The silence churned Scott’s stomach. Visions of Justine looking up at him lovingly when he came home passed through his mind and were quickly followed by the memory of her eyes moving over the pages of her children’s stories when she sat in his lap and he read to her.
The waitress served him his Rob Roy and he brought it to his lips immediately. Then he continued to stare absently at his random memories of Justine.
Dante began, slowly, softly, his voice building as he continued.
“Someday, another man is going to move into your house and sleep in your bed and kiss your child good night. In time, she’ll think of him as her father. It’s only natural.”
Scott fought back the tears building in his eyes. He felt as if his throat would close and he would choke to death at the table.
“It isn’t fair,” he whined. “I’m not the only one at fault here.”
“Oh?” Dante leaned in, obviously more interested in this.
“Sure. We had our minor spats like any two married people,” Scott continued quietly. “Then she got in with a group of women…the wives of some of my customers…female sharks.”
“And she changed, I bet,” Dante said, “just like my wife.”
“Yeah,” Scott said, grabbing onto this rationalization. It provided justifications and excuses and hope. What difference did it make if he stretched the truth a bit? He was fighting for his life, for God’s sake. “Yeah, she changed. Suddenly, she started comparing us to people in the neighborhood, like the Krammers who own a service station and have one of the biggest houses, drive expensive cars…Lillian Krammer was always calling Meg to tell her about something else she had bought…rubbing it in. ‘Billy Krammer barely graduated high school,’ Meg would say, ‘and look how they live. A lot of good your business degree and the promises the Millers make do us.’ Suddenly, what we once considered a great lifestyle was not good enough.”
“Before she married you, was she this money-minded?” Dante asked.
“Hell no. I didn’t pretend to be anyone I wasn’t or tell her I had a bundle hidden away. We met at my school. She knew what to expect. But we had passion then and it seemed to block out any other concerns,” he added sadly. “And Meg was certainly no gold digger.”
“Whose idea was it that she go to work?” Dante pursued as if he had assumed the role of Scott’s attorney and they were in court.
“Hers. Suddenly being a wife and mother was a…a form of slavery, demeaning. She started taking these courses over at UCLA, meeting younger, more aggressive women. I’d come home and find the house a mess.”
“Your spats grew more intense,” Dante said, anxious to get the story out.
“Exactly. She flitted from one thing to another—EST, Transcendental Meditation—she even flirted with The Church of Enlightenment, whatever the hell that is. Then she got this idea she was an inhibited artist and she was off taking art lessons and making trips up to Topanga Canyon to do nature scenes. But I put up with all of it, hoping she would come to her senses. She says she did all this because I ignored her,” Scott said. “But that’s her side of it.”
“I understand. Completely,” Dante replied.
Scott shook his head. “The way her attorney twisted things in that courtroom today, making me sound like a cell keeper.”
“You only wanted her to fulfill her responsibilities,” Dante offered.
Scott brightened.
“Yeah. That’s it. I was working twelve, fourteen hours a day to make the kind of income we now required. The least she could do was see after the house and our daughter.”
“So she went to work for…an architect?” Dante said. “Jonathan Sanders?”
“Yeah.” Scott paused and stepped back into reality. “How’d you know that?”
Dante sat back.
“I confess to being a little more interested in your case. In so many ways, it’s like mine.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well…” Dante looked down. For the first time, Scott noticed how long the man’s eyelashes were. Some women found that very sexy, he remembered. As Dante twirled his glass in his fingers, Scott noted the expensive-looking diamond pinky ring in a gold setting. It had a unique shape—triangular. “My wife Victoria caught me with another woman in almost the same way. She’s a dental hygienist and she came home from work unexpectedly.”
“Oh?”
“This architect your wife works for, Jonathan Sanders…handsome man. I’ve seen him.”
“You have?”
Dante nodded.
“Ever suspect there may be hanky-panky between them?”
“No.” Scott saw the smirk on Dante’s face and reconsidered. “But maybe I should have. Maybe I could have brought that up in court. Maybe…”
“It’s too late to bring that up before this judge now.”
“I bet you’re right,” Scott said anyway. “I bet Sanders was hitting on her. Now that I think about it, she couldn’t wait to go work for him and she always rushed off whenever he called.”
“Yes,” Dante said, nodding. “They’re not as pure in heart as they make out to be in court, eh?”
“No.”
“But you’ll be the one who suffers the most, not her. That’s the way the system works, even here in sophisticated California.”
Scott felt the anger in his stomach fester. He realized how hard he was glaring at his vivid recollections of Meg and her sharks and snapped out of his reverie. Dante was smiling.
“So what happened with you?” Scott asked forcefully.
“Oh, me.” He shook his head and looked down at the glass he was fingering in his hands. “You’d think I’d be safe…she had appointments, people’s teeth to clean. Unfortunately, one particular day she had some cancellations.”
“And came home early and found you next door humping the neighbor?”
“Yes. My son, Marvin…he’s four…a great kid, sharp as can be and very outgoing. We’re pals.”
“You didn’t take him with you when you went next door to do the neighbor, did you?”
“Oh, no. I left him alone in the house, which got her almost as angry as finding me with Maureen. That was the neighbor’s name, Maureen.”
“She married?”
“No. A divorcée. Beautiful, very sexy,” Dante added, smiling licentiously.
“Yeah, I had a divorcée recently. They can be very, very sexy,” Scott said.
“Exactly,” Dante said, widening his smile. “After getting it regular so often, they’re usually horny and, er…willing to do almost anything.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t sound like the same situation to me,” Scott said and downed the remainder of his Rob Roy. “Adultery is almost the national pastime. The court would still let you share in custody of your son.”
“Well.” Dante looked down again. “I couldn’t take that chance. Not with the attorney my wife had. He brought up
other things that would influence a judge, things that were distorted and exaggerated,” he added, looking up.
“What do you mean, you couldn’t take that chance?” Scott sat back. “How did you turn things around?”
“I was lucky. I ran into a friend who had also suffered through a divorce and custody battle. He told me about the Solomon Organization,” Dante said softly.
“The what?”
Dante leaned toward him, very conscious of anyone hearing them speak.
“How much do you love your daughter?”
“It’s stupid to even ask.”
“I can’t promise you they’ll help you, but they’ll give you a hearing.”
“Who will?”
“I told you, the Solomon Organization. It’s the court of final appeal for men like us, a private organization, funded by sympathetic, wealthy men.”
“What court? Who are they?”
“A couple of lawyers, one’s a judge, so they know how much the system’s tilted in favor of the wife. There’s also a doctor and a psychiatrist, and an educator, a very sensible and qualified group.”
“Why do they call themselves the Solomon Organization?”
“Don’t you know your Bible? Two women came to King Solomon, both declaring the child was theirs. He ordered the child cut in half and a half given to each, and one woman said, give the child to her.
“Solomon knew that woman was the true mother. She would rather another woman got the baby than the baby die.
“Such wisdom,” Philip said, shaking his head in admiration. “And that’s what they have—wisdom, the wisdom to know if something should be done and what should be done.”
“And you think this…organization…can help me?”
Dante shrugged.
“Maybe. They’ll consider your case, listen to your story, and decide. All I can tell you is they helped me.”
“How?”
“My son…he lives with me and my mother, not with my wife.”
Scott stared, hardly blinking. He realized he was holding his breath.
“Even though the court decided against you?”
“Well, the court never actually rendered a decision,” Philip said. “But there was no question what it would have been if it had. Just as there’s little question in your case.” Dante leaned forward again, his face filled with excitement. “Why don’t you make an appeal to the organization. I can set it up right now with a phone call.” He looked at his watch. “Time’s of the essence. They’ll need to read the transcript up to now.”
The Solomon Organization Page 2