I thought of turning it into a jest. But it wasn’t. And I wanted her to know that it wasn’t.
Do you really think that’s the right thing to do? she asked at last.
I didn’t care if it was right. I just needed something. Some connection to something other than my morbid thoughts. I needed it or I was going to…I didn’t know what. But it was going to be messy.
Yes, I said. It’s the right thing to do.
What about Kelly?
What about Kelly? I echoed.
Do you think she’ll be all right with that?
I don’t see why not.
Ricky, Ricky. Sometimes you can be so dense. The girl’s mother just died. You want to introduce a strange woman to the house? So soon?
You’re not a strange woman. Wait. I take that back. You’re a very strange woman. But she’s met you before. It won’t be that much of a shock.
I think you need to take this a little more seriously, Rick.
I really don’t think she’ll mind. She’s not like that.
You’d better do better than think. You’d better know for sure.
I’ll ask her, I said. Call you back in a few.
I hung up before she could protest.
Kelly! I called downstairs.
Yes, Dadster.
Come up here.
Okay, she said reluctantly.
It took a while, but eventually she ascended from her lair.
She looked depressed. Of course she was depressed. Stage whatever of the grieving process. Which seemed to involve never leaving the basement.
And she needed me less and less, it seemed. Another process. The growing-up one. Melissa’s death just seemed to have accelerated it a bit. Not a reversible process, I knew. Nor should it be. It was normal.
Which didn’t make it any less distressing.
Are you okay? I asked.
Sure, Dadster, she said, unconvincingly.
I’d like to invite my friend Dorita over.
Dorita? she asked with a cock of the head.
My friend from work. You met her in the office a couple of times. Tall. Loud.
Oh. Her. Yes.
Okay with you? I asked, as casually as I could manage.
Dadster, you gotta do what you gotta do.
She said it with enough of a smile to convince me that it really was okay. At least, enough for me to convince myself that it was.
I called Dorita back.
Come on over, I said.
You’re sure?
I’m sure.
Absolutely sure?
Just get over here.
Okay. Be there in a while.
I breathed an enormous sigh of relief.
In the hour and a half it took Dorita to arrive I managed to focus long enough to run to the store, pick up some stuff, prepare a meal. I grilled some prawns, soaked first in star fruit, ginger, cognac and some other things I’d never reveal to even the most assiduous interrogator. I cooked some fragrant jasmine rice to perfection. I called up Francis, my favorite local wine merchant. He found a bottle of Château Beaucaillou 1990 hiding in a back corner of the cellar. Send it over, I said. I set an elegant table, yet discreet. No candlelight. Nothing obvious. Just nice. Pretty. Ordered.
The bell rang. Kelly was closer to the door, and turned to it with a mischievous smile.
I cringed.
Kelly opened the door.
Hi, said Dorita. You must be the angel child I’ve heard so much about.
Daddy! reproached Kelly.
I’ve just been reading Philip Pullman’s latest, Dorita went on without a pause. I bet you’ll love it. I’ve brought it with me, she said, with a questioning lilt at the end of the phrase, a little ‘Is this okay, am I allowed?’
I love Philip Pullman, Kelly said.
Oh, I hope you haven’t read this yet. It just came out, Dorita said, pulling the book from her bag.
No, no, said Kelly. Thank you. Thank you.
I swear I saw a little blush. On both of them.
Another new side of Dorita.
This was going to take some getting used to.
We sat for dinner. Kelly and Dorita did most of the talking. There were some awkward silences. But not too many. I poured the Beaucaillou. I allowed Kelly half a glass. She was almost seventeen, after all. I’d started hanging at the local tavern at thirteen, I reminded myself.
Hey, Kelly? I said at one point.
Yo, Dadster.
Remember when you were eight or nine, and we arm-wrestled, and I told you how amazingly strong you were?
Sure, Dadster.
That’s what made you want to do wrestling, wasn’t it?
She looked me in the eye. She cocked her head. She smiled.
Dadster? she said.
Yes, angel child?
You’re seriously deluded.
Dorita left after dinner. Her departure was chaste. Free of innuendo. It felt good. I had deflected the demons til bedtime, at least.
WHEN I WOKE
, late the next morning, Kelly had already left for school. I was a little bereft. But I knew that it was a good thing.
My cell phone rang. I looked at the screen. Laura.
I have some results, she said.
I’ll be there in twenty, I said.
I grabbed a cab. It had a funky smell.
Despite my haste, she wasn’t there when I arrived. Called out on an emergency, they told me.
Emergency? All her patients were dead. Couldn’t they wait?
I was anxious. I wanted to know. I couldn’t sit still. I went out back. I had a smoke. I had three.
The back door opened. Laura stuck her head out.
Keep that up and you’ll be my next patient, she said, eyeing the cigarette.
I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have exploring my entrails, I said. You got something for me?
You won’t necessarily like it.
Well? I said, a touch impatiently.
It’s ambiguous.
Shit.
Sorry.
What do you mean, ambiguous?
We got a match. But it wasn’t with the semen.
What then?
A hair.
What hair?
A hair from the sofa.
Shit. That doesn’t mean anything. He’s been there. He’s been on that couch.
Which makes it even more ambiguous.
You can’t date a hair.
Not unless you’re really, really weird.
I paused. I wasn’t used to jokes from Laura. I tried to keep a straight face. But I couldn’t. The joke was just too goddamn stupid. I snorted. I guffawed. She smiled.
Well, I said, can you?
Within a day or two? No.
Damn.
Sorry.
Don’t be sorry.
Listen, Rick, there’s something else.
What?
I don’t want to tell you now. I want to run a couple more things. To make sure.
Laura, come on. You can’t do this to me.
Nothing serious, Rick. Just something a little strange.
Laura.
Seriously, Rick. These things come out funny all the time. Contamination and things. I just need to double-check. I’ll call you tomorrow.
Laura, you’re killing me here.
Rick, I went out on a limb for you. You can wait a day.
She had a point.
I WENT TO STARBUCKS
. I fired up the laptop. Dorita had sent me copies of the newspaper articles about Suspect Number One in the mysterious death of …my wife. It still didn’t sound right. ‘Death of my wife.’ It couldn’t be real. I’d found myself doing double takes every time a dark-haired woman walked by. Could that be her? May I please wake up?
The pictures were blurry, inconclusive. A high school yearbook
photo. The perp getting into a car, holding his hands up over his face. Certainly a resemblance. But not enough to be sure it was Jake. I realized that I hadn’t asked Dorita how she knew that this was him.
I called her up. I told her about Laura’s results.
Hm, she said. Ambiguous.
Exactly Laura’s word, I said. Anyway, how the hell did you track him down?
I hate to reveal my secrets.
Sure. Save it for the ADA. How’d you find him?
The Guild.
The Actors’ Guild?
Exactly. They’ve got a record of stage names.
Isn’t that confidential information?
Sure, Ricky, it’s private, she laughed. As soon as I heard that, I gave up.
Sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to impugn your investigative skills.
I accept your apology. Listen. I got the name. I did a search. These articles turned up. The ages matched. He’s a mystery guy. Here’s a mystery. It all fits. Could I be wrong? I could. But I seriously doubt it.
It would be quite a coincidence, I agreed. But I’d rather have something more concrete.
We could fly to Podunk, interview the locals. Go the whole nine yards. Or, we could just ask him.
Sure. And he’ll say, ‘Yeah, sure, I’m a sister-fucker. And I’m dying to expiate my guilt.’
Expiate. Nice. Are you Catholic?
No, but I’ve considered it. Answer the question.
There wasn’t any question. But I’m telling you, if he’s Brendan, we’ll know. We’ll know in two minutes. He’s a drunk. At least, you told me he was. We’ll get him liquored up.
I love you. ‘Liquored up.’ Who else would use that phrase?
After we get him liquored up, we spring it on him. He won’t see it coming. He has no reason to think anything’s cooking. We’ll see it on his face. Instantly. Then, he spills it. Or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, we fly to Podunk, get the goods. He does, we save the trip.
Podunk has an airport?
I can always count on you to keep your eye on the ball.
Thanks. It’s one of my better qualities.
Set it up.
All right. I’ll set it up. But tell me, darling. How is it that you got to be so goddamn smart?
Sex. Lots and lots of sex. It stimulates the brain.
You have no idea how depressing that is.
Don’t worry, we’ll fix that.
I KNEW JAKE WOULD BE
at the Wolf’s Lair that night. It seemed like he’d moved in.
We talked some poker talk for the first few drinks. I complimented his play. He complimented mine. We talked about the others in the crew. Mike bluffed too much. You’d lose a few to him. You’d have to fold. You didn’t have the cards. But you knew if you were patient you’d catch him. You’d have a big hand. You’d re-raise. He’d re-re-raise. You’d get into a bidding war. He’d never back down. It was an ego thing. You’d win more in that hand than he could make all night on your folds. Riverstreet was cagey. You had to watch him close. He had a tell or two. A twitch in his neck when he had the goods. A very slight tremor in his left hand when he didn’t. You paid attention, you could make him pay. Andrea and Butch were imperturbable. You didn’t look to them for profits.
This went on for an hour or two. We discussed strategy. We talked about personalities. We talked about what made a good game. We could find a better one, we agreed. Some rich guys, eager to give their money away. We could be a team. Play them like a yo-yo. They wouldn’t know what side was up or down.
Drunken bravado. There was nothing like it to bond a guy to you.
Dorita got there, almost too late. We’d got so drunk I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to play my role.
I didn’t need to worry. She was in her element. She didn’t need me. I’d set him up. She could take it from there.
She put her arm around me, asked me to introduce her to my handsome friend. She posed. She postured. She seduced him with salacious conversation.
What is it that makes a lover? she asked. Not just a guy that can convince you in the bar that he’s cool? A guy that can convince you later that
you can’t live without his touch?
Dorita put her hand on Jake’s.
He didn’t have a chance. A man with an ounce of ego couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
He put his hand over hers. She smiled. He tried to smolder. He did a fairly decent job of it.
The fish was hooked.
We talked, we laughed. We drank. We drank some more.
Let’s all go to your place, Dorita said to me.
I don’t know, I said. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with that.
Oh, I’m sorry, she said. I’m so insensitive. Jake, let’s go to your place.
We flagged a cab. We all squeezed in. Dorita in the middle. I felt her long strong thigh against me.
Jake looked ready to pass out.
By the time we got to his place he’d recovered a bit. He was able to fish out his key. Only two or three tries to get it into the lock. Once we got into his apartment, black and white and stark, he was almost normal.
He made some drinks. We all sat down. He and Dorita on the couch. Me on the chair. Dorita chided him for his decorating skills, or lack thereof. He looked around, befuddled.
What’s wrong with it? he asked.
Nothing that a month’s remodeling wouldn’t cure, she said.
Maybe you can help with that, he said.
He was looking off into the distance. I wasn’t sure if it was too much drink, or just his usual vacant thing.
I don’t do windows, she said. But I can recommend somebody.
That’s great, he said. As long as they’ll work for free.
We’ll see about that, Dorita laughed. Maybe Rick’ll pay for it.
Sure, I said, no problem. I’ll get a second mortgage.
Dorita leaned toward Jake, cupped his face in her hand.
Jake, she said softly.
Yes? he said.
I really like you.
I really like you, too, he said, with a glance at me.
He looked scared. Asking for my permission. I nodded my head approvingly.
There’s just one thing I need to straighten out, Dorita said.
What? said Jake.
His eyes were half closed.
What’s with this incest thing?
Jake froze. His eyes opened wide. He looked at her. She took her hand away. He looked at me. He sobered up fast.
What the fuck? he said.
The incest thing, she repeated. I need to know about it.
Jake’s eyes narrowed. His brow furrowed.
What the fuck are you talking about?
I had a second’s doubt. Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe the names were just coincidence.
I’m talking about your sister, Dorita said quietly. Your sister and you.
Her face went calm, impassive. He got up abruptly. Went to the kitchen. Opened the freezer. Took out a bottle of Stolichnaya. Poured a huge glassful. Dropped the glass. It shattered on the tiles. He ignored it. Got a plastic cup. Filled it. Took a gulp. Looked at us. Shook his head.