by John Gaspard
“Well, gotta hit the bar and then the head,” he said. “You know what they say, you don’t buy beer, you rent it.” He winked and smiled and slipped away before I could point out he wasn’t drinking beer. But since that might have extended the conversation, I was glad I had kept my mouth shut.
There was an awkward moment with Trish. I broke the silence. “So, you and Dylan,” I finally said.
“Yep,” she said, agreeing unconvincingly. “Coming up on twelve years. To be honest, I’ll be surprised if we make it to lucky thirteen,” she added, her voice dropping in volume.
“Tired of bad boys?” I asked.
Trish nodded. “The trouble with bad boys,” she said sadly, “is that sometimes, deep down, they’re actually bad.”
Before I could comment on that dark aphorism, she steered the conversation away from herself and directly at me. “So, Magic Man, I see no ring upon your hand nor girlfriend on your arm. What gives?”
“Well,” I said, not sure how phrase my current situation, “I’m sort of on a break. We’re on a break. The woman I’m seeing and I are on a break.”
Trish leaned forward, looking interested and concerned. “And what exactly does that mean?”
Over the next twenty minutes, I did my best to explain what I thought it might mean. In the process, I detailed my divorce from the current Assistant District Attorney and her swift re-marriage to one of the lead homicide detectives on the force. I outlined how Megan and I had met, the bizarre circumstances that had brought us together, and how that had grown into what I had hoped would be a lasting relationship.
“You know how sometimes you just fit with someone? Like the two of you were somehow designed to be together?” I was having trouble finding the right words.
“Not from personal experience, no,” she said. “But I understand the concept.” She gave me a wry smile.
“But, in the end, I guess it was too much, too soon,” I said. “At least, it was for her. So we’re apart. For the time being. I don’t know. Maybe forever. It’s just bad,” I added.
Trish shook her head, once again dazzling me with her smile. “Eli, if I’ve learned anything since leaving high school,” she said confidently, “It’s that nothing bad lasts forever.”
I hadn’t planned to close the event down, but before I knew it the two bartenders announced Last Call, before packing up their liquor bottles and rolling their portable bars out of the room. Jake and I were one-upping each other, delighting Trish with our stories of high school humiliations. It was fun to make her laugh and we were both up to the challenge, with exaggerated stories of ritualistic hazings and inopportune public nudity.
The crowd had thinned considerably and Jake was just finishing a story of a run-in with a dreaded PE teacher, when Dylan appeared at our table. He looked bleary and a little unsteady on his feet. Jake cut the story short as Trish got up and took Dylan’s arm.
“Looks like it’s time to go home,” she said. “I think you’ve had enough fun for one night.”
Dylan smiled widely and then suddenly jerked his arm away, stumbling a bit as he backed away from her. “The fun’s over when I say it’s over,” he said, not quite focusing on anyone in particular. With that he turned and headed toward the door. Trish shrugged and picked up her purse.
“It’s pumpkin time,” she said. “But this has been really fun seeing you both.” She looked at me and smiled.
“Right back at ya,” Jake said before I could reply. “We’ll walk you out.”
As we followed her across the now near-empty room, Jake shot me a wicked smile, mouthing the words “She likes me.” I playfully punched him on the arm and he struck a boxing stance as we headed toward the door. Trish, keeping one eye on her husband ahead of her, turned and laughed at our antics. The four of us stepped out of the room and into the hall.
And that’s when I remembered that I was forty stories up and four feet away from an open railing. Although I couldn’t see over the edge, I knew what lay below me and I felt my stomach drop—not the full forty stories, but enough to make my throat go bone dry as my heart began to race. I thought for a moment of diving back into the room, but we were on the move and I couldn’t think of an excuse for breaking up our juggernaut. I looked ahead, seeing how much ground we had to cover before I could get away from the railing, and then I realized our destination was the dreaded bank of elevators. My head was spinning, from both the beer and the fear, as I looked around, desperately hoping to find a stairwell I could duck into. Walking down forty flights of stairs would be a cakewalk compared to stepping into that glass elevator again.
Seeing I had slowed, both Jake and Trish held back for a moment to let me catch up, each grabbing my arm as Dylan yelled from the elevator, “Our ride’s here, people. Let’s step it up.” The two of them pulled me along, laughing, and we rounded the corner and stumbled into the elevator. I was hurled forward, due to inertia, my hands pushing against the glass of the elevator to slow my momentum. This gave me an unwanted and stomach-churning bird’s eye view of the atrium and the dizzying distance to the ground. I involuntarily backed away from the glass, but the elevator door had closed and we were on our way, dropping with what felt like great speed.
And then we stopped. At the thirty-eighth floor. To let some more people in. Dylan and Jake had gotten into a conversation about elevators and the tallest buildings they had ever been in, none of which was helping my situation. I gulped, trying to breathe and coming up short. And then Trish’s hand was on my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly.
I shook my head. I was having trouble getting words out. “Heights. Not good with heights,” I finally stammered.
She nodded sympathetically. “My kid brother had a similar problem. Couldn’t go through tunnels. It was hell on family car trips. But this usually worked. Sing with me. Come on.”
She started singing Jingle Bells, slowly and softly. Sweat was dripping down the back of my neck and there was a buzzing in my ears, but I did my best to concentrate and listen to her sing.
Jingle bell, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh…
I did my best to sing along, my voice cracking and ragged, as she pushed on through the song, looking deep into my eyes as we sang. I started to breathe again and got caught up in the rhythm of the song, relieved to have something else to focus on as the elevator continued its plunge to the lobby. We made it through a verse, a chorus, and the next verse before the elevator finally came to a stop and the doors opened onto blessed, solid ground.
“What are you two singing back there?” Jake yelled as we piled out of the elevator.
“Eli was just reminding me of our school anthem,” Trish lied, throwing a knowing smile in my direction.
“Really?” Dylan mumbled. “Sounded like a Christmas carol to me.”
* * *
The valet brought their car first and we helped get Dylan into the passenger seat. He had mellowed in the warm night air and was probably asleep soon after we shut the car door. Trish handed a five to the valet and then turned to Jake and me.
“This was a lot more fun than it had any right to be,” she said with a glance toward her husband, whose head was slumped against the passenger window.
“I’ll look you up next time I’m in town,” Jake said. “Or you could always come spend a weekend with me in LA.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Trish said with a smile.
“Never say never,” Jake said.
“I’ll see you around,” she said as she got in the car. I was sure she had said it directly to me, but I sensed Jake would argue that point. We both waved as she pulled out of the hotel’s shrub-lined driveway.
“She’s a hoot and a half,” Jake finally said.
“Of course, she
is married,” I reminded him.
“Sometimes that makes it more fun,” he said with a grin.
“Yes. But she’s married,” I repeated, as much to him as to myself.
He gave his ticket to the valet as I watched Trish and Dylan, the not-so-happily-married couple, drive away. “Yes, Eli,” Jake conceded. “She is married.”
That was true, but only provisionally. The next time I would see Trish Lasalle, she’d be a widow.
Chapter 6
The ride home from downtown consisted almost entirely of a non-stop monologue from Jake. The subjects he covered alternated between his shame and embarrassment at bombing during his card trick, to his continued amazement at how beautiful and charming Trish was.
“You don’t see a woman like that very often,” he said wistfully as we made nice time heading south on Portland Avenue.
“Yes,” I agreed. “Good thing you came back to Minneapolis. I understand Los Angeles is bereft of beautiful women.”
“There are not as many as you might think,” Jake said defensively.
“So many that you have to come all the way back here to find one?”
“I don’t know about that,” he admitted. “But I will admit I have started looking outside of LA County.” He turned left on Forty-Eighth Street. Two blocks and one right turn later, he deposited me in front of Chicago Magic.
“Still can’t believe I screwed up that trick so badly,” he repeated for the umpteenth time as I opened the passenger door.
“It’s just a matter of practicing,” I said.
“I practice all the time,” he countered.
“Yes,” I said, “But practicing in front of a mirror is not the same as practicing in front of an audience. You need to get some actual crowd time under your belt. As Mac King always says, ‘Whoever has the most stage time wins.’”
“And how does one do that?”
I thought about it for a second. “Well, I could always get you into a First Thursday show.”
“What’s First Thursday?”
“Once a month, my uncle and his cronies take over the Parkway Theater,” I said, gesturing to the movie theater next to Chicago Magic, “and put on a show. It’s not highly structured or, for that matter, particularly well advertised. It’s just a chance for them to get in front of an audience and keep their magic muscles limber.”
“First Thursday,” he repeated quietly. “That might be a good idea. When is it?”
“Surprisingly, it’s on a Thursday,” I said, although my joke went right over his head. “And, as it turns out, it’s this Thursday.”
“And you can get me in?” he asked, clearly warming to the idea.
“I’ll see if I can pull some strings,” I said as stepped out of the car.
“Great. That’s just what I need,” Jake said, considering the opportunity. He then smiled his million-dollar smile up at me. “Well, as we say in the business, I’ll see you on the set.” I closed the car door and he executed a sharp u-turn, hitting the gas and just making it through the third second of the yellow light.
Not only did I fall asleep the moment I got into bed, I’d be willing to bet I was already in REM sleep before my head hit the pillow. It had been a long day ending with too much alcohol and way too much proximity to a forty-story vertical drop.
I was exhausted, so I can probably be excused for not hearing the front door to my apartment as it opened and closed. I also didn’t hear the bedroom door open. And I didn’t hear anyone walk across the room and lean over my bed.
The first thing I heard was my name, whispered softly. I immediately incorporated the sound into a dream, where I was backing away on the roof of a super-tall skyscraper, with only a thin railing separating me from what looked like a two hundred story drop. Someone called my name from somewhere above me, and then called it again, and then placed a hand on my chest—
I woke up with a start, grabbing the dream hand and realizing it was a real hand attached to a real wrist. In the dark room I could barely make out the silhouette of a figure leaning over me. She said my name again.
“Eli?”
“Megan?” I said, not sure if this was a new chapter in the dream or if I were actually back in my room.
“Yes.”
I recognized her voice and could start to make out her features in the dim light. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m not here,” she said quietly.
“You’re not?”
“I’m not here.”
“Okay…”
She leaned in and kissed me and I woke up enough to kiss her back. A moment later she was in bed alongside me and everything began to feel very familiar. Although somewhat rusty, we both got back in the rhythm very quickly and before I knew it, it was like she had never left.
Afterward, she lay next to me quietly, each of us listening to the other’s breathing as our heart rates returned to normal.
“So,” I finally said, “Here we are.”
“I’m not here,” she said.
“I think I could make a persuasive argument to the contrary.”
She rolled over and kissed me, then jumped up and grabbed her clothes as she headed toward the door.
“I wasn’t here,” she said one last time, and then the door closed behind her.
I lay in the bed for a long while. And then for a while longer. And then for a bit more. Finally, I rolled over and went back to sleep.
* * *
The next morning I turned off the alarm when it started ringing, deciding I deserved to sleep in, if only for a bit. Once I finally rolled out of bed, I took a quick shower, spending most of its duration trying to clean off the recalcitrant ink spot on my hand from the previous night’s reunion. I then made my way down the two steep flights of stairs to the magic shop, figuring Harry had already finished his breakfast and had opened the shop.
The lights were on in the store, but Harry was nowhere to be seen. I was about to turn around and go back up and check his apartment when the bell over the door tinkled. I turned, expecting to see Harry holding our traditional Saturday morning treat: a bag of warm croissants and two hot cups of coffee. No such luck. It was instead my ex-wife’s relatively-new husband, Homicide Detective Fred Hutton.
“Morning Marks,” he growled, his large frame filling the doorway and blocking the early morning sun.
“Homicide Detective Fred Hutton, to what do I owe the pleasure? Is this a personal call or are you here on business?” At one point I had promised to stop always referring to him by his full name and title, but some habits die hard. He didn’t seem to care one way or the other.
“You attended a function last night downtown, a high school reunion?”
“I did. I did indeed,” I said, getting a bit anxious about the reason behind his visit. “Is there a problem? Underage drinking, undocumented workers, excessive jaywalking or something more severe?”
“You spent some time with a Dylan Lasalle?”
“I did. Briefly. To be honest, I spent more time with his wife. But I did interact with him once or twice. Why? What’s he done?”
“He’s gotten himself killed,” he said dryly.
* * *
Homicide Detective Fred Hutton is not, by anyone’s estimation, a chatty guy, so it took me a while to pull the whole story out of him. The gist of it was that sometime around 2:00 a.m., Dylan decided to go for a late night run. His body was discovered by some early morning joggers, just a few feet from a running path near the Lake Calhoun condo he shares with his wife. He had been shot twice, once in the chest and once in the head. His wallet was found nearby, with ID intact but no cash or credit cards. He was assumed to be the victim of a mugging, but the police were contacting anyone who had interacted with him in the last day or so.
“He talked to a lot of people at the reunion,” I said after some
of the initial shock had worn off. “Well, he talked to a lot of women, at least.”
“Yes, we have a complete list of all the attendees. Since I recognized your name on the list, I thought I’d make you one of my first stops.”
“Well, I’m flattered, of course,” I said, forgetting for a moment that humor and sarcasm were foreign to Homicide Detective Fred Hutton’s experience. “But other than last night, I haven’t seen him since high school, and even back then we never traveled in the same circles.”
“What kind of guy was he?” he asked, flipping open a small notebook and then looking at me intently, waiting for my reply.
“Well, like I said, I didn’t know him well, then or now.”
“I’ve always known you to be an astute judge of character,” he said with the straightest of faces. “What was your impression of him?”
“Well,” I finally said, “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead. But he was sort of a creep. Then and now.”
“How so?”
I struggled to put the feeling into words. “I don’t know,” I said, groping for the right adjective. “I guess he always acted kind of…shady.”
“Shady. I see.” He made several notes, making me wonder what he was jotting down other than the word ‘shady.’ He looked up from his work. “And how well do you know his wife?”
“Really no better than I knew him,” I admitted. “Although I did spend more time with her last night than with him.”
“And why was that?” His question was completely straightforward and devoid of judgment, yet I couldn’t help feel trapped by it.
“I don’t know,” I said. “He was playing the room, so I sat and chatted with her. She was popular in school, I always found her interesting…” My voice trailed off, not sure how this information could possibly assist him in his investigation.
