A California Closing

by Robert Wintner

  The detective sergeant is just thinking that he has few options remaining if he hopes to collar a perp on this one, and he’s not looking forward to the damning testimony of Ms. Burnham, who happens to be in the waiting room. Herself is getting to know her daughter and her daughter’s beau—and the beau’s nephew and the nephew’s dog, who will be like a son and a son’s dog to them and, in the best possible world, a grandson and dog to her, someone to whom she can pass on the values and tenets held dear by this great country we love so much. Hearts and flowers never opened so brightly. The kid appears eager to learn.

  Meanwhile, Betty takes a lead from Juan, make that John, and presses her front side affectionately against Michael Mulroney’s on passing, assuring him that, “I love you. Since the first time I saw you on your bicycle and thought you were Billy Bob. But more than that: Michael, you saved my ass. Pardon me, but that’s how I feel, and nothing will ever change it.”

  Mulroney returns a polite smile, wondering where life might have led if he hadn’t walked around the corner and up the road bent on grant funding. The actual grant application was what, about one minute all told? And for what? So far it’s for nothing but a heaping baggage cart, teetering precipitously with a steamer trunk full of guilt and a double duffle of poor Allison, not to mention an oversized bag bulging with Allison’s revenge. That doesn’t count the sheer peace of mind that went out the window on some brief flexing and wincing, followed by a messy aftermath any man would hope to avoid. The fuck. Mulroney is depressed, which shapes up as the moment, bloody and bowed, when a true player at the pro global level squints at his corner man’s mug and gets the message: “These are the championship rounds.”

  In a mere matter of minutes, the incident is over—not exactly over, but resolved on criminal charges. Case closed. Detective Sergeant Ryan nearly bangs the gavel on this one; so urgent is his need for dismissal. And so it is, hardly a moment after Betty B says, “Oh, no! I didn’t mean that Michael, you know, emitted his seed down my throat this morning! That was last week! I mean it seems like yesterday, but it wasn’t. I was choking on yogurt. I always have a yogurt in the morning for my regularity, you know. I carry it in the car if I go out early. I have a little cooler for it, in case I’m going to be out past eight. So I was having my yogurt on the way home, like I sometimes do, and I walked in on John and … we were both frightened, and I choked. Michael guessed correctly; it was lemon yogurt. Some people don’t like lemon, but I do. I like meringue too, in case you’d like to know. Michael thought it was the other, you know, spermatozoa, because I’d cleaned my shoes out back. Remember, I had dog dukey on them. Well, the only thing out there was a bottle of Clorox bleach, which I would never use, because it eats away the fabric. But the Lysol is under the sink, and I didn’t want to take my shoes off, but I would have, but then I heard the commotion inside and ended up tracking dog poop inside anyway. And I already had the bleach soaked into a rag and on my fingers, and I must have touched my neck, which is what Michael smelled. You do know, Officer, that Clorox smells like splooge? Oh, dear,” she titters. “That word makes me laugh. It’s Michael’s word, you know. He is so funny.”

  Leaving Detective Sergeant Ryan to repress his own assessment, eyes down yet again, not to hide his admiration for a slick witness but to rub his temples and summarize, “Oy vey.”

  XIX

  Betty Burnham Gets Benevolent

  Michael Mulroney consoles himself as only a world-class closer can do, that his utter indifference to Marylyn Moutard and the Brady Bunch as well as Judy the Snoot Layne can only make the property look better, as if he might just change his mind and take it off the market and live in it forever, maybe even happily ever after, though he has yet to sort the details on that scenario. And he suffers the short-termer syndrome; once out in the head and heart, he’s out for good, let the dollars fall where they may. He’d sooner hang himself with slit wrists and a plastic bag over his head than live there forever, truth be told, or worse yet, go bankrupt there forever or until foreclosure, whichever comes first. The steep cliff looms perilously near, as if real life is accelerating down Hazel Dell lickety split.

  But potential buyers don’t know that; buyers in California want more than anything what is clearly just out of reach—so much more with a dramatic back story to share with friends over the great good times and cocktails daily and the views, views, views. Oh, God.

  Consolation is marginal in a reality that seems altered. A night and a day have warped perception like a front-door peephole. Traffic past the house is not only bumper-to-bumper nonstop; people slow down while passing so they can point and laugh over Big M, billions, blowjobs, and the United States Senate. He’s not laughing, though he finds the shambles laughable. Worse yet, he’s ahead in the polls.

  Allison is not home. Who knows? Maybe she’s off with an artistically minded photographer, seeking the perfect pose.

  So sits a forlorn small business magnate in what his wife blithely calls the Blue Sky Room. Assaying the damage, Mulroney knows he’s done but can’t quite tell where to go or what to do. Or what he’s lost. On the bright side, his fame is growing and sure to trigger a bump in sales—why buy a used car just anywhere when you can go to Big M for a great used car with a juicy story?

  He has a personal stake in the California Republican Party and the exploratory committee looking into his viability. And he has much, much more, which is most often deemed desirable in the neighborhood. Then again, on the dark side …

  At this shadowy, foreboding juncture, happy as a meadowlark on a fence at sunrise, up from her sanctuary flaps Betty Burnham, chirping a love song of her own, “Oh, Michael. It was a terrible misunderstanding. On the lemon yogurt, I mean. I mean it was lemon yogurt, not jizzbang—not yours or anyone’s really. You’re free. Free to go. We’re free. What was it that colored man said, ‘Free at last?’ That’s how I feel. It’s been so awful. At least our love is known. That’s something.”

  “Yeah, that’s terrific.”

  “Oh, you. I can tell when you’re joshing. I know how you feel. I can’t blame you. I never meant to cause any harm. It’s just that the heart falls when you least expect it.”

  “It’s not your fault, Betty. What happened down there? With the detective.”

  “I told him. I was choking on yogurt. You’re the one who said it was sperm. Sperm doesn’t taste like yogurt. It doesn’t even look like yogurt, really. Not even lemon yogurt. You really should try it sometime. Might save yourself a little grief.”

  Mulroney chews on developments, agonizing with a surge of regret that this entire chaos turned on his wrong presumption of bratwurst remoulade, when it was only lemon yogurt with a whiff of Clorox.

  “Couldn’t you taste the sugar?”

  “Well, I wasn’t exactly tapping the taste buds for analysis, if you don’t mind. Okay, okay. It was an honest mistake, maybe, but it was bush league to say the least and still a mistake. Yogurt. Fuck.”

  “Come on, Michael.” She pulls him up by the arm. “I know a wonderful little bistro in the neighborhood where they won’t bother us. It’s why I go there. Oh, don’t you worry. We have ways to deal with celebrity. It’s awful, but we can get by.”

  Mulroney is easily led. He’s hungry, tired, and tired of it, wanting nothing more than to be told where to go and what to do.

  In the months to come he’ll look back in admiration on that brief interlude of an hour or two, what Betty calls “luncheon with just the two of us.” And he honestly can’t believe that Betty Burnham and Big M can take a tasteful table for two in a lovely corner of the terrace with nary a gaze or even a single head turning.

  Maybe things are changing. Maybe things are only aging. Mulroney can no longer tell, though he does note that the bib salad is extraordinarily good, a flavor sensation he finds pleasantly confounding in its simplicity: a few parsed leaves, a faint sprinkle of … thyme? Some oil and vinegar—that was it! No balsamic! Hallefuckinlujah! Christ on a crutch; the asshole who ever thou
ght that shit tastes good ought to be drawn and quartered—“What?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just like to watch you thinking.” Her bliss verges on bilious, but he cannot deny her happiness. “Don’t you just love this place?”

  Then comes the cream of squash bisque, which sounds revolting but isn’t. It hits the spot and assuages the distraction preempting their lives. Betty B can’t help it; she’s a homespun gal at heart, so she pays homage to reality by plainly stating her feelings for Michael Mulroney. The “Big M” will always be welcome in her house—maybe forever, if that’s what he wants because, you know, she does have some formidable means that most men would find compelling. That and their apparently mutual affection could lead to years of fun! And no matter how he feels about this proposition in the long run, she surely hopes he can find about fifteen minutes after lunch for another go on what she, for one, would consider the perfect desert.

  Michael tries not to slurp, but damn that stuff is good. He savors it, allowing Betty the sanguine smile of a man who must defer to practicality. “You know I had a few million of my own, Betty. But I didn’t manage so well on that one either. Frankly I like the soulful connection of living closer to the ground, like you do. But I owe so much to Allison, and I don’t say this to hurt you, but I love her.”

  Betty touches his hand and then pats it; nothing further needs saying, so she calls for the waiter to ask if he has any of that fabulously decadent chocolate split layer cake today. He does, which works so well in palliating the moment with sweetness.

  Yet dessert must wait for an interim course, a surprise perhaps, one that Betty prepared a few days ago and wanted to share, but then events got so wild in their little neighborhood. Which, by the way, has truly become home for this aging filly, and so she delivers her surprise sweetness in a soft murmur: yes, she wants to buy Mulroney’s house—make that intends to buy Mulroney’s house—for three point five or five point three. “Or whatever the fuck it is.” She giggles. “You’re so bad, and now look how you’ve made me talk. Like you!”

  Mulroney’s heart soars as his head shakes. “I can’t take your charity, Betty.”

  “Not! Now hush!” She says the extra dough will be as a down payment on a half interest in Big M OK Cars. “But I might want to change the name to Big M & B OK Cars. I have to tell you: what you did for Lombard was a real hit. Never have I heard such resonance on a party donation.”

  “You knew about that?”

  “I’m a Republican!”

  Moreover, the package deal on the house and used car business will work perfectly for the new family she’ll want ensconced just down the road and around the corner, meaning Rose and John and, of course, little Panchito and the dog. “The kid’s name is actually Steven, but he likes Panchito and wants to keep it. And I suppose John can sell used cars as well as anybody.”

  “Do you mind?”

  But Mulroney eases into the warmth of the moment, loving Betty B on a level far greater than any blowjob could achieve. Then comes chocolate split layer cake, which he loves far more than the squash bisque, and he wouldn’t have thought that possible. For gallantry, chivalry, and the Republican standard, he attempts resistance once more. “You don’t have to do this, Betty. It’s a great house, if you want it. But don’t buy it to help me. It’s nearly sold. The business I can sell in a wink. Maybe.”

  “Oh, pshaw,” she says, pulling out her checkbook and filling in the blanks. “What is it?” She looks up for guidance. “Fuck it. I’ll make this for six. Have escrow credit me whatever’s left. You fill in the blanks.”

  Mulroney wonders what Big M OK would bring in a healthy market at, say, seven times earnings—no, no, okay: six times earnings. He thinks she’s about got it nailed. He doesn’t know why, but tears well up, as he reaches over the table softly—make that lovingly—to whisk away a pesky crumb of split layer from the corner of her mouth.

  She whimpers. The tear rolls.

  “Oh, you,” she chortles. “I certainly don’t want to be a pushy mother-in-law, but they’ll have that little place in the city as well, the one Rose is all excited about. I still can’t figure out how she put that one together, but the mortgage wasn’t too bad so we got rid of it, and now they can have a place in Noe Valley for, you know, that kind of fun.” She makes the check for an even six, complaining that nobody ever yet invented a check with enough room for the zeroes, or maybe came up with an abbreviation for six zeroes. “You know?” Mulroney ponders the market on a bold new check with enough room for six zeros, as he asserts a C-note under a crystal goblet to cover a lunch well served. She looks up and asks, “Payable to you?”

  “That would be great. But actually, you should make it payable to the escrow company.”

  “Oh, right. How dumb of me. I knew that. But I do trust you. You’d do the right thing. I know you would.”

  “Yes, I would do my best. But we need to keep the others happy.”

  “Yes, we do. Marylyn Moutard and Judy Layne. What a couple of cunts—I’m telling you. I think I’ve been around you too long.” She blots the check and hands it across the table. “But I saw what those bitches were putting you through.”

  “Well, they can’t blame everything on me.”

  “Don’t worry. That’s why I like hanging out with you, so I can watch you slaying Philistines. Tell me something, Michael. Do you think we can ever, you know, visit again? I mean, I think we could use the little Victorian place in the city.”

  Mulroney smiles sadly. He takes her hand to tell her he must think of getting his wife back. His wife of many years. So they sit in communion, reflecting on years and love, till he asks the poignant question that may extricate him at last while preserving everyone’s best interests in escrow: “Do you remember when the Hump told Ingrid Bergman, that of all the barfly dumps in the whole motherfucking world he had to pick the dump she was hanging in? Then he said he wanted to bang her forever but couldn’t because of love and all that?”

  “Well, yes. I do.”

  “That’s how it is, doll. You know what I want. You know what we can’t have, on account of life and the feelings of others.”

  She squeezes. Then she swallows, so to speak, hook, line and sinker. Mulroney feels a huge weight rising from his shoulders and his heart—gone is the guilt of doing his wife wrong, gone is the burden of a Betty B blowjob, gone is the anxiety over being caught. And begun today is the first step toward resolution for a wandering, lonely man on an affluent ridge.

  “I’m in your debt, Betty. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “I won’t forget it, Buster Brown. Just don’t you forget it too. Okay?”

  “Don’t you worry,” Mulroney assures, seeing the profound wisdom of a direct departure to a remote archipelago way yonder, over the horizon, out in the middle of the biggest ocean in the world.

  Sorting and settling should be matter-of-fact but, in fact, are not. Michael M takes small comfort in the Brady Bunch’s full pop offer, along with their claim that the listing contract requires the seller to sell to any party offering the listed price.

  He wants to tell them to blow it out their ass or to buy something they can better afford, but he merely says, “Too little, too late. We have a full price offer that precedes yours.” He does not remind them that the prevailing offer will as well avoid a sales commission paid by the seller. Nor does he remind either agent in the scrum, because he doesn’t need to.

  The Brady Bunch ask for a price to beat, but Big M Mulroney knows fickle markets, knows that the seasoned veteran shuts down the boiler room at the first opportunity and gets out of Dodge. What, they’re going to outbid the Burnham billions? Not. Besides, he feels good, doing the right thing by his friend, she who supported him through thick and thin. He ponders a delay in the action to accommodate and savor—nay, to wallow in a bare-knuckle bidding war. He thinks Betty B wouldn’t mind and would likely enjoy the sport of the thing, would likely call out, “Fuck it! Whatever!” But what could be gained, other than Betty B fork
ing over a few more hundred thousand? Okay, another million or two, as these things sometimes go. She wouldn’t care about that either, but then would come exposure to phantoms and variables, because that’s what happens when a process is prolonged. Anything could unravel or turn against him. Besides, the effective operator follows the corollaries, chief among them: take the money and go.

  Judith Elizabeth Cranston Layne with Coldwell Banker Clifton Baines takes the news harder than her clients and harder than the Brady Bunch and much harder than Marylyn Moutard, who insists that she will still get a hefty commish based on a claim that she first showed Betty B the house. Mulroney resists, but Betty Burnham pre-empts resistance to better keep peace in the neighborhood. “Fuck it. It’s chump change for a chump. Let her get a new Beemer in chartreuse. It doesn’t matter.”

  Judy Layne comes to Mulroney practically downtrodden to say that the truth of the matter is that Ms. Burnham first saw the house because of her, Judy Layne of Cornforth Baines. Mulroney reads the play and shuts it down. Game over. He assures Judy Layne that her accessories are as well suited as ever he’s seen. He’ll remember her for that, but he can’t go back on the truth as it’s already been established, so he must decline her offer of prior representation. Any further discourse on the subject should be between herself and Ms. Burnham’s legal staff.

  “Fuck,” says Judith Elizabeth Cranston Layne with Coldwell Banker Clifton Baines. “We both know what she’ll say.”

  “Only because she’s already said it. You’re late.” At that moment, on a serendipitous phrase, Allison arrives home looking radiantly pleased that the deal will soon close; next stop hula skirts, coconut bras, mai tais, and tropical splendor.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean mai tais. I’m going to try to stop. I know I’ll need your support. Is that okay?”