The Three-Day Affair

by Michael Kardos

  He was launching into a story about a party he and Meghan had gone to last weekend when I said, “Evan, hang on a second.”

  “What is it?”

  “Let’s sit in the car,” I said. “We need to talk.”

  We put the suitcase and golf bag in the backseat and got in my car. With the engine running, I explained that Jeffrey, Nolan, and I had gotten ourselves into serious trouble. And that we had no clue what to do about it.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  I really wanted to. It was good to see Evan, extremely comforting, and I felt a strong desire to unburden myself and tell him every­thing. But I knew I shouldn’t, for his sake. Luckily for him, he’d gotten tied up at work just long enough to be uninvolved. And I knew that the right thing was to keep it that way. “I can’t,” I told him. “It’s bad, though.”

  “How bad?”

  “Really bad.”

  The train chugged to a start and left the station. We watched it go. When the station was quiet again, Evan asked, “Did one of you kill someone?”

  Three hours earlier, the question would’ve seemed absurd.

  “No.”

  “Look, whatever’s going on, Will, you need to tell me. You’ll need a lawyer.”

  “Maybe so.” I tried to word this delicately. “If you learned that a crime was being committed . . . you know, in progress . . . you’d need to report it, wouldn’t you?”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “Then I can’t tell you anything else.”

  A quarter mile down the track, the train rounded a curve and blew its whistle. Then it was out of sight.

  “Then what the hell am I doing here?” he asked. “I mean, if you can’t even tell me . . . Look, maybe I can offer you some hypothetical advice?”

  Hypothetical advice, it suddenly occurred to me, was exactly what he was doing here. “A hypothetical situation would be okay for me to talk about?” I asked.

  “Just be careful what you say.”

  “All right.” I paused, considering my words. “Let’s say that, hypothetically, three men had gotten themselves involved in a situation.”

  I was looking out the front windshield. Stragglers were getting into their cars and leaving the parking lot for a well-earned weekend. Early Monday morning, they’d be standing at this same train platform, carrying the same briefcases.

  “Are the three men equally responsible for their . . . situation?”

  “Say that one man is most responsible, but the other two didn’t do anything to make it better or to stop him.”

  “Go on,” he said.

  “And say that what happened was inadvertent.”

  Evan looked at me. “What does that mean?”

  “It was an accident.”

  He was shaking his head. “I’m already skeptical. You’d be surprised how many so-called ‘accidental crimes’ aren’t so accidental. You bring a loaded gun where it doesn’t belong, the gun goes off by accident—that isn’t really an accidental crime, is it?”

  “Then I guess I mean it wasn’t planned.” I wasn’t going to get into details. “So now these three men want nothing more than to set things right. But they aren’t sure how, without . . .”

  “Without facing the consequences.”

  “That’s right.”

  The small ticket office by the platform was shutting down for the evening. Out front, a gray-haired woman in a large yellow sweater briskly swept a broom across the pavement. A man of about the same age was on his knees by the door, tying twine around stacks of unsold newspapers. I couldn’t help wondering about tomorrow’s front page.

  “Maybe there are mitigating circumstances,” Evan said, more to himself than to me. His eyebrows raised. “Was there a car involved?”

  He must have seen the surprise register in my face.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “And I’ll bet there was drinking.”

  “A little,” I said. “Nobody was drunk, if that’s what you mean.”

  But he’d evidently come to a conclusion. “Time is critical.” And just when I thought that, impossibly, he’d figured out about the kidnapping—that maybe he’d already heard about it on the radio—he said, “In New York, a hit-and-run is a third-degree felony. That’s three to five years in prison. Doesn’t even matter if anybody’s injured. I’m sure the law is similar in New Jersey.” He watched me closely. “The driver of the car is probably terrified, but he needs to understand that the longer he waits to turn himself in, the worse off he’s going to be. And that by waiting, he’s making things a lot worse for his friends.”

  We watched the man from the ticket office stack more newspapers.

  “If he wants to help his friends,” Evan said, “he’ll confess. He’ll take the blame. Maybe even suggest that his friends tried to get him to stop the car, but he refused. Do you understand this hypothetical advice I’m giving you?”

  I was thinking about Jeffrey, how when earlier he’d offered to take the full blame, Nolan and I had called him naive. We were wrong, though. We’d been naive. And how much time had passed now? I glanced at the clock on my dash. Almost two hours since she’d first gotten into my car. Sitting there with Evan, feeling the weight of each passing minute, I wished that I were back in the studio urging Jeffrey on. Write that confession! Take the blame! It seemed so obvious, now. He had gotten us into this trouble. Only he could get us out.

  “I need to get going,” I said.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me any more?”

  I wanted to, but I wasn’t going to. “Thanks,” I said.

  “Suit yourself.” He said he’d wait here at the station for the next train. We got his things out of the backseat.

  “I was looking forward to golfing this weekend,” he said, and put a hand on my shoulder. “I was going to play well. I just dropped four hundred bucks on a new Callaway driver.”

  “Some other time, I hope.” We shook hands.

  “You’ve got to remember,” he said, looking me in the eyes, “that these are lifelong decisions you’re making now. Decisions that you can’t unmake. So please, Will, if you think there’s any way I can help—”

  “I’ll let you know. I promise.”

  I got into the car, still wishing I could have told him more, yet relieved to have spared one friend. But before I’d driven even ten feet, he was waving his arms at me. I stopped the car and rolled down the passenger-side window. He jogged over.

  “Get rid of your cell phones! They can be tracked, even if they’re turned off.”

  I thought about the phone in my pocket. Nolan and Jeffrey must have had cell phones, too. I thanked him again, rolled up the window, and left him standing there in the empty parking lot with his confusion and his golf clubs.

  CHAPTER 10

  A brief stop for pizza and cigarettes—pack of Marlboro Lights for Marie, pack of Camels for myself, plus two lighters—and then back to the recording studio. Would Marie eat with freedom imminent? It seemed important to come through with the meal I’d promised. Especially after convincing the restaurant to change the order from “the works” to something called “crazy veggie.”

  I had a cigarette lit before the key was even in the ignition. As I drove, I smoked and listened to the radio. The whole way to the studio I kept switching stations but heard nothing of our transgressions. When I parked my car behind the studio it was 9:40. It’d been more than two hours now, so why no word? It seemed very strange.

  “Where’s Evan?” Jeffrey asked, seeing me enter the studio alone.

  “I told you, I didn’t want him involved.”

  “But we need him! He could’ve—”

  I held up a hand. “Save your breath. He’s already on his way back to New York, so there’s nothing to discuss. One of you, help me carry this stuff over to Marie.”


  Nolan watched me a moment, then took the bag of soda over to Room A. He opened the door and we slipped inside.

  “What’s this?” I asked. Two buckets were on the floor, one empty and the other partially filled with water.

  “I had to pee,” Marie said.

  “The other’s so she can wash her hands.” A roll of toilet paper was on the floor, too.

  “You couldn’t walk her to the bathroom?” I asked.

  “Marie,” Nolan said, “have as much pizza as you like. Will, let’s talk outside a minute.” We left her the box of vegetarian pizza and a liter of soda, as well as the cigarettes and lighter. I followed Nolan out to the main recording room. “No, I couldn’t walk her to the fucking bathroom,” he said. “This isn’t summer camp.”

  I knew he was right. “Sorry.”

  He nodded. “So you didn’t tell him anything?”

  “Not much. We kept things hypothetical. He said we should get rid of our cell phones. They can be traced.”

  Nolan’s eyes widened. “Shit, he’s right.” He looked around the studio. “Is there a hammer around here?”

  There wasn’t. But just off the main recording room was a storage closet containing heavy gear. “I have something that’ll work.”

  In the closet was a large canvas bag filled with drum hardware. I opened the bag and removed a metal cymbal stand. A minute later, our cell phones, batteries removed, were in the plastic bag that our soda had come in. The bag lay on the studio’s wood floor. The three of us stood over it.

  “Who wants the honors?” I asked.

  Nolan took the cymbal stand from me. “Stand back,” he said. And then he began to smash the bag. Each time the metal slammed into the bag of phones, the loud crack made me wince.

  After seven or eight smashes, he said, “I really needed that,” and then he gave the bag one final smash. Other than hitting a bucket of golf balls sometimes, I wasn’t the sort of person who relieved his anxiety with violence. Still, I regretted having been so quick to pass up the job.

  We looked in the bag to survey the damage. Satisfied, Nolan handed me the cymbal stand, which I returned to the canvas bag in the closet.

  Back in the control room, I relayed what else Evan had told me. “He said that you were right, Jeffrey. You ought to write out a confession, take the blame. And that way, maybe Nolan and I can negotiate some lesser crime. He said it’s worth a shot, anyway.”

  “Jesus.” Nolan massaged his forehead with his fingertips as if touching a crystal ball. He must have been seeing his own bleak future. “This is just . . . Jesus Christ.”

  “Sorry, Jeffrey,” I said. “I don’t like that the whole burden’s going to fall on you. But I hope you understand that’s the way it’s got to be. You need to write a confession and take the blame.”

  In Room A, Marie had finished a cigarette and was now eating a slice of pizza. I watched her take another bite, then bent down to get a notebook and pen from beneath the sound console so that Jeffrey could begin writing.

  “Yeah, I can’t do that.”

  I sat up. “Come again?”

  “I can’t. Not anymore.” Jeffrey chewed on his lower lip and looked up at the ceiling as if measuring his words carefully. Then he looked back at us. “I’ve had a little time now to think things over, and . . . well, you guys should’ve stopped this. Stepped in when it mattered. I lost my mind there for a minute or two—hell, I’ll admit that—but you should’ve stepped in. You’re supposed to be my friends, aren’t you? Will, you should’ve stopped the car, but you didn’t. And where were you, Nolan? You should’ve been concerned about the girl instead of your ­political campaign.” He shook his head. “No, it’s like you said ­earlier—we’re all to blame.”

  Nolan, who until now had been silent, was out of his chair in a flash. Before I could react, Jeffrey’s chair rolled backward and banged against a rack of sound gear. His hands flew up to his mouth, where he’d just been punched.

  Nolan swiped the notebook and pen from me and stood over Jeffrey’s chair, staring him down. “Write the fucking confession, you son of a bitch!”

  “I’m bleeding!” Jeffrey said through his hands.

  “Write it!” He threw the notebook into Jeffrey’s lap.

  For the second time in five minutes I felt jealous of Nolan. Even more than wanting to throw a few good punches Jeffrey’s way, though, I wanted a signed confession. “Nolan,” I said, “get Jeffrey a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom.” When he didn’t move, I yelled, “Do it!” He left the control room without a word.

  “He fucking hit me,” Jeffrey said, and slowly lowered his hands. The blood covered his fingers, his teeth, and his lower lip, which was swelling purple.

  “Are your teeth okay?” I asked.

  He felt around them with his tongue. “I think so.” He wiped his mouth with the bottom of his shirt. The shirt came away with enough blood to make my stomach twist. He looked at the blood and shook his head. “I didn’t deserve that.”

  I had no response.

  “All I was doing,” he said, “was explaining how simpleminded it is to think this was all my fault.”

  “How about we don’t talk right now. Let’s just be quiet, both of us, until Nolan comes back.”

  “Fine with me.” He tested his teeth again with his tongue. Marie caught my eye and looked away. Had she seen the punch? If so, it would only confirm her fear that sooner or later, something brutal was coming her way.

  “Anyway,” Jeffrey said, “I didn’t see either of you guys rushing to set her free.”

  “We were trying to protect you.”

  “Yeah, well if you really wanted to protect me you would’ve ended this as soon as it started. You could’ve stopped the car or driven—”

  “Just shut up,” I said. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  Jeffrey winced, then reached into his mouth with his thumb and forefinger, and tugged. “This one’s loose. I can wiggle it a little. Man, he’s going to pay for that.”

  I couldn’t sit there any longer. “I’m going to see what’s keeping him.” Jeffrey seemed more interested in his face than my immediate plans. From the doorway, my voice under control again, I said, “I’m sorry about your tooth. But Jeffrey?” I waited until he was looking at me, his fingers still in his mouth. “Write the fucking confession. And make it good.”

  The bathroom looked like it was straight out of a 1950s high school. Blue tile, two stalls etched and inked with graffiti, stained urinal. Part of my job was to keep the bathroom clean. Now and then we’d hire an intern for minimum, some college dropout with fantasies of recording platinum records at the Hit Factory, and the first thing I’d delegate was bathroom duty. The interns never complained, because their fantasy always began with paying their dues in exactly this manner.

  Nolan was leaning over the sink, splashing water on his face. “Hand me some paper towels, will you?”

  I did. He stood up and wiped his face. Balled up the towels and pitched them into the trash. “I don’t blame you for sending Evan home, by the way. It was a decent thing to do.”

  “Thanks,” I said, “but maybe it was decent and stupid.”

  “This is really something, huh?”

  I agreed. It was something.

  “Think he’ll write the confession?”

  “After the punch you threw?”

  “Oh, come on. He’d made up his mind already.”

  “You knocked one of his teeth loose.”

  “Good.” He was studying himself in the mirror now. Even after a full day—this day—his hair was perfectly in place. His shirt looked freshly ironed. He could’ve walked up to a podium and given a speech, and nobody would know he had concerns beyond his constituency. Still, he must have seen some nuance I’d missed, because he frowned at his reflection and turned away. “Why now?” he asked. “That’s
what I don’t understand. I was going to be a United States senator, Will. I was going to win that election. I had him beat.”

  It seemed likely. His rival was an aging baby boomer with unnaturally white teeth and the angry tan of a pro golfer. Before becoming a congressman, Stan Byers had run an insurance company into the ground. He called his state Missoura, winked a lot, and warned his God-fearing constituents that without his stewardship, they could kiss the Second Amendment good-bye. Which was ­nonsense—Nolan was hardly some urban liberal. He was born and raised in Missouri farm country and had won marksmanship trophies in high school. At Princeton he’d been head of the debating society, where he’d learned skills he’d put to good use in his current position as state senator for the Twelfth District.

  In a sense he’d been working toward this election for as long as I’d known him—paying his dues, working to perfect the strange art of becoming a national figure. The election was still half a year away, but his lead in the latest polls was more than the margin of error. Surely he’d begun letting himself imagine the confetti falling and the marching band playing in his victory parade.

  My own dreams lacked that sort of spectacle. But they were mine, and I’d been working toward them with quiet diligence. For a moment I entertained the idea of recording Jeffrey without his knowledge. Maybe I could coax him into a confession that exonerated Nolan and me. It wouldn’t be hard. The band this afternoon had left in a hurry, so the main recording room was already miked. If I could get Jeffrey into the recording room, and if I were in the control room alone and could load up the reel-to-reel . . .

  It would never work. For one, Jeffrey now seemed convinced that we all shared responsibility for what’d happened. He was being very egalitarian that way. But also, I knew I couldn’t scam my friend—even Jeffrey, even now, even if it meant saving myself. I had neither the talent nor the constitution for subterfuge.

  Nolan looked at his watch. “Fuck, it’s getting late. I should’ve called Ronnie before we busted the goddamn phones.” Ronnie was his campaign manager. “I know it’s bad timing, but if I don’t check in with him and he can’t reach me on my cell, he’s going to panic. And trust me—we don’t want Ronnie panicking.