The Lovely Chocolate Mob

by Richard J. Bennett

  “You talk about good old days, before you marry me?”

  “Well, they were the old days, and sometimes they were good, but sometimes they weren’t so good.”

  “Tell me what you mean.” Mae Ling understood and read well enough, but she still spoke English in a broken fashion.

  “An old flame came back into Randall’s life, and it seemed to upset him a bit.”

  David looked at Mae Ling, who didn’t quite get it.

  “An old flame is an old girlfriend,” said David. “This girl attended college with us also.”

  “Oh, you mean old, old days,” Mae Ling said, without catching the humor. David smiled. “Yes, I mean the old-old days, back when we were young, back when you were still a child.”

  Mae Ling waited for a story in anticipation. She’d wanted to hear about this mysterious Randall Owen, the engineer who lived by himself. “Why you no see Randall Owen? He your friend, right?”

  “Yes. He’s my friend. But he lives a different life than we do. I used to hang around him because we had something in common; we both were single and could share ideas; we knew people in common and thought the same in some ways. We both…” he stopped, then continued, “…but those days are long past, at least for me.” He hugged his Mae Ling. “You’ve made up for all my empty years.” Mae Ling smiled at this.

  “Why Randall Owen no marry?” asked Mae Ling, echoing the question Randall’s church ladies wanted to know. “Don’t he want to be happy?”

  David smiled. “I think Randall just wanted peace and quiet; that makes him happy. He once told me that if God had put Raquel Welch in front of him…”

  “Who Raquel Welch?” Mae Ling enquired. “She go to school with you?”

  David laughed at this. “No, Raquel Welch is a famous American movie star, and…”

  Mae Ling was staring.

  “She’s very beautiful, known for her beauty all through the land. American little boys loved her. So did American big boys.”

  “Oh,” said Mae Ling. “Beautiful woman make good wife.”

  David stifled another laugh. “She was beautiful and a rich and famous actress. She didn’t need Randall, or me, or anybody else to make her happy. But Randall told me once that if God set him down at a table, with Raquel Welch, at age 27, on the other side of the table, with an electronic button between the two of them, and said to him, ‘Randall, if you’d like to marry Raquel Welch, all you’d have to do is push that button.’ That’s all he’d have to do! No tricks, no dating, no wooing, no flowers, no candy… all he’d had to do was push the button… and Randall said he wondered if he would push it.”

  “What you mean?” asked Mae Ling. “Why he no push button?”

  “That’s just it, Mae Ling. Randall is turned off. He’s found he’s comfortable with the way his life is now. He’s seen his peers get married and the struggles they’ve gone through. Some marriages have folded, even with people we both thought had the best chances for success.”

  “Why you country have so much divorce?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we’ve had it too easy here. Maybe we work too hard to make and keep the things we’ve got, instead of focusing on one thing…”

  Mae Ling looked into David’s eye.

  “… the family.”

  Mae Ling answered, “We no have much. We happy.”

  David laughed at that. “I hope we do better one day, one day soon. I’d like to be able to give you more.”

  “I have more here than in my country. Here I live like queen.”

  This took a great deal off David’s mind. Being married to a contented woman, who happened to be good as well, gave him a sense of peace. One day, eventually, he’d earn more, he was sure of it. But not today.

  “What you talk about?”

  “With Randall?”

  “Yes.”

  “We talked about you! I told him all about you and your family and how you cook to make me food every day and make me happy every night.”

  Mae Ling laughed at this. “No! No you not say.”

  “I not say,” laughed David.

  “What you say?”

  “We talked about his old girlfriend, the girlfriend who has come back into his life.”

  “Why she come back? She no married?”

  “Yes, she’s married. She married a long, long time ago and has been gone for many years now. She’s raised a family; in fact, she’s still raising her family. Her husband has been giving her troubles at home.”

  “He get drunk? He beat her up?” Mae Ling said. This must have been something quite common in her home country.

  “No, he no beat her up. He have girlfriend.”

  “Oh, he bad man.”

  “Well, now, he may be a mixed-up man. He may be a confused man. He may be a little bad. All men are a little bad.”

  “You not bad.”

  “Yes, I’m bad, at times.”

  “You not bad, today.” Mae Ling made a funny.

  David chuckled at this. “I hope I’m not bad today. His girlfriend is very pretty.”

  “His wife no pretty?”

  David thought about this. “Yes, his wife is very pretty, too. She’s a few years older than the girlfriend, and the girlfriend has a lot of money.”

  “But wife have children!”

  “Yes, that’s true. Wife have children. Girlfriend have none, at least none that we know about.”

  “Why wife want Randall? She go back to him now? Make him happy?”

  “No, she just wanted to see him. She wanted to talk. She told him all her problems.”

  “She should marry Randall, make him happy man, give him children.”

  “She may be too old for children.”

  “Why she bother Randall now?”

  “She wants to keep her husband.”

  “How Randall do that?”

  “He’s an engineer; he can arrange things; he’ll fix it.”

  “He kill husband’s girlfriend?”

  David smiled to himself. “No, he no kill girlfriend. Kill girlfriend is bad. Is wrong.” David found himself speaking broken English a lot these days.

  “He tell you this? What he want you to do? You kill girlfriend?” Mae Ling looked worried.

  David reached out to calm Mae Ling. “No, I no kill girlfriend. That is wrong. God no like that.”

  “Why he tell you this?” said Mae Ling, searching for motives.

  “I think Randall was looking for someone to bounce ideas off of.” At seeing Mae Ling’s frown, he clarified, “I think he was looking for the right thing to do. He’s still looking.”

  “What is right thing?”

  “I don’t know what right thing is. I listened to him, mostly. I think he wants to do the proper thing, the appropriate thing. At least for now.”

  “She want him fix things? Why he do that? Why he listen to her?”

  “Because he loves her, Mae Ling. He still loves her, even in these bad new-new days.”

  Mae Ling frowned. “He not sound very smart. You keep away from Randall Owen; you be like him. My husband smart.” This made David laugh.

  “Randall is friend, Mae Ling. He located a paint job for me so we can have a little extra income. He may go overboard every now and then but basically he tries to do the right thing.”

  “What overboard?”

  “Randall … has a way of locking onto a problem, and not letting go of it until it’s fixed. That’s probably why he’s a good engineer; he stays with a design or problem until he finds a way to fix it. That’s why his employers like him so much. He has designed most of the underground water-drain systems in Lovely, and is known by most civil engineers in east Texas.”

  Mae Ling looked unconvinced. “Old flame not drain.”

  Decision

  The jukebox blared at Estella’s, Kim brought us a round of drinks, and we were comfortable in a now-familiar setting. The biker crowd was over at the bar near the television, older gentlemen with lots of leather and bandanas and f
lags who showed each other the latest in technology, e-readers, i-phones, who compared and contrasted the latest models to the most available ones. They were fun to watch; there were bikers and there were cowboys; there were blacks, Latinos, and white men gathered, but nobody seemed to mind if others were a different sort; they had all grown up; there was a lot of laughter. Walter knew most of them, and they knew him as well. He walked among them as though he were a biker himself.

  Walter began his report by saying, “I found the boyfriend of Mindy Burke, the fellow who supplied her with the photograph. His name is Myles Quine, a college student who is stuck in this area while she goes off to the high-dollar school during the fall and spring. I think they intend to marry, as soon as he can land a good job. Man, she’ll have to adjust to a new kind of lifestyle after what she’s been brought up with! I wonder if her old man even knows she’s dating a blue-collar security guard?”

  He held up a copy of the same 8” X 10” black and white that Helen shared with me weeks ago.

  “Helen showed me that,” I said. “It’s pretty good evidence that something was going on between Franklin and Miss Lovely.”

  “Yes,” said Walter, “but did you know Franklin Burke has been Cornelius Lovely’s personal on-call physician for years? This photograph was taken just hours after Old Man Lovely died. The whole family and personal staff had gathered at the hospital, and were all there with the Old Man, along with Dr. Burke. He’s been a family friend as well.”

  I thought for a moment. “You’re saying there’s the possibility that this kiss--not on the lips but on the cheek--is an emotional kiss of comfort to a family member, and not a romantic involvement kiss?”

  “It may be that way, boss. Mind if I call you boss? Heh-heh! Since you’re paying me, I figure you deserve that.”

  I was still thinking on this, looking at the photo. Was it possible that we had all been wrong about Franklin Burke, that we all suspected him of an affair because of this one photograph, by a machine that was situated to capture him in the parking lot? Was it possible that Helen and Mindy had gone through all this emotional turmoil for nothing? But somehow Mindy didn’t seem to think that her father was innocent. I wondered if she had seen the whole parking lot video.

  “Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the girl being kissed is be-a-u-tiful bikini model, heh-heh!” chuckled Walter, who was laughing in his drink. It seemed that he also believed Franklin Burke to be guilty.

  “What if we’ve been wrong here, Walter?” I asked. “Or to clarify, if Helen, Mindy, and I have been wrong? What if Franklin Burke really is innocent? We’ve done all this research to hang an innocent man.”

  “I’m not so sure he’s innocent,” offered Walter. “Look at his past record. We both knew him in college. He was a college hotshot back then, a pretty boy; all the girls loved him and wanted to be around him. Remember how they lit up whenever he walked into a room? Rich, popular, frat boy, live wire, never worked while in college, but being a pre-med type, he should have been deep into his books, anyhow. How pretty boy became a doctor is beyond me. Anyway, when he arrived at college, he made a beeline straight for your girl, the cutest girl on campus. Now check him out years later. I have my doubts he’s changed. He’s doing the same exact thing.”

  “Exactly what is that?” I asked.

  “Ah, come on Randall!” said Walter. “You’re too trusting in human nature; fortunately for you, I am not cursed with this malady. I think most people are rotten to the core, and he’s rotten! Here’s what I mean: Helen, although probably still a looker, wouldn’t exactly be the same creature she was while at college. Now the chocolate bikini-lady, she’s the real thing! She’s still in her prime, plus she’s filthy rich, and about to be filthy richer!”

  “You’re a cynic, my friend,” I remarked.

  “And darn proud of it,” replied Walter.

  “So now you’re saying that all the parts fit, given the pattern of Franklin’s past, to drop a girlfriend, in this case, his wife, in exchange for a younger and richer girlfriend.”

  “Now you’re getting the picture. Although we’ve never seen him drop a girl, it’s a sure bet he did while in high school, before arriving at college. Besides this photo, and our made-up motives, we need more proof. This pic is good, but can be explained away, just as you tried to do.”

  “How do we get more proof?” I asked.

  “Go straight to the source, Franklin himself.”

  At the Hospital

  A few weeks had passed; Franklin Burke was on the third floor performing his usual rounds at the city hospital, working on his 48th birthday. He was checking charts and talking to patients, and in a bit of a grumpy mood, the nurses had noted. He understood why he was needed at work, even if it was a special day. He was near the nurses’ station when he heard over the hospital loudspeaker, “Dr. Burke, Dr. Franklin Burke, you’re needed in the administration office”. This was unusual and out of the ordinary; the nurses were busy, and since this announcement had nothing to do with them, they paid no attention. He checked his watch, then headed down the hall towards the elevator. Stepping aboard, he punched the button for the first floor, where the administration offices were located.

  “Probably something about an unpaid bill; there must be some question about it,” he grumbled to himself. “Can’t imagine what it would be.” The doors quickly shut, the music played, and the elevator descended towards its destination. The light for the first floor never came on, Franklin noted, and the elevator door was a bit slow in opening. He grumbled a little more, but at least he wasn’t in a rush for time.

  The elevator opened and standing there to greet him were three men, all dressed in doctor smocks, wearing glasses and bushy eyebrows and plastic noses and mustaches and wigs and silly, pointed party hats, holding balloons which read, “Happy Birthday, Dr. Burke!” He laughed at the ridiculous sight, and suspecting a surprise party, said, “Heeey, what’s this? A greeting committee? What’s going on?”

  “We need you to follow us; we’re in a hurry, must diagnose patient, we need you A.S.A.P., chop-chop!” said the first “doctor.” The three men stepped toward Dr. Burke; one blew a party horn in his face and another threw confetti in the air and one put a silly birthday hat on Dr. Burke’s head. Then two of them took him by an arm and led him out of the elevator and into the hall, walking him down toward a room and blowing party horns and saying silly things like, “This patient has the flu; you’re needed for surgery!” “Only you have the knowledge which will save this patient!” and “Dr. Burke, calling Dr. Burke!”

  Donald Burke was laughing at all this silliness, playing along with the gag, until they reached the room they were to enter. It was then he began to realize that the layout of the floor was different, and said, “Hey, we’re in the basement!” while stepping into the room. All the balloons had kept him from seeing most of what was around him, but now he had figured his location. In the room were words on bright papers hanging on the wall, reading, “Happy Birthday, Dr. Burke!”

  He took a look around the room, most of which was bare, and said, “So where’s the cake?”

  That’s when he heard the door shut behind him. A lone chair sat in the middle of the room, and in front of the chair was a blank white wall. On the other side of the room was a high small opening for a pipe, next to the ceiling, which looked a little out of place.

  The room suddenly went pitch black, and from the small opening a beam of light emitted to the large white wall in front of the lone chair. A voice came from nowhere, from speakers located in the ceiling, saying “Have a seat, Dr. Burke. This is your life!” Music played, and the title, “This Is Your Life,” came up on the wall with such clarity that Dr. Burke thought his fellow doctors were using a DVD projector.

  “The administration must be in on this also,” muttered Dr. Burke, who found his way over to the lone chair and sat down. “This looks interesting.”

  Then the lettering changed to read “THIS IS YOUR LIFE, FRANKLIN BURKE.�
� Dr. Burke said, “Oh, now, come on… !” and laughed. Maybe this was some birthday surprise being pulled by his daughters, and if so, where did they hire the three men? They really shouldn’t be spending their babysitting money on such frivolous things.

  Photographs were shown in video-style; they faded in and out, moved across the screen, got larger and smaller, with popular music from the era of years past playing along, giving Franklin a feeling of sentimentality. Pictures of his high school days, photos of his wedding, with an unrecognized male voice narrating the happy occasions, one after the other.

  “This is Franklin Burke walking with his bride Helen Ceraldi just after promising before God and everybody to be loyal, ‘til death do us part,” with a photograph of himself and Helen happily walking through a hail of rice outside a church on their way to their honeymoon car. Photographs of the car were there. “Only Helen would have access to these pictures,” Franklin thought to himself. “She must have a hand in this.”

  “Then over the years the Burke household was blessed with the birth of four children, Mindy, Beth, Lucia, and J.R.,” a montage of each child’s photograph being shown to beautiful music, pictures over the years in which each child was shown smiling and laughing, until finally Franklin Burke himself was smiling and laughing with each photograph. He found that he had relaxed and was really quite enjoying the moment; he had completely forgotten work and at times seemed to be sniffling to himself from the happy memories being shown on the wall screen. “How have they done all this?” he wondered. “It’s really good. Obviously a projector is in the next room, with images being shown through the opening. Where is everybody?”

  Then came a montage of photographs with Franklin kissing his wife, from pictures in college, to pictures of wedding preparation dinners, with photos of him kissing his bride at the altar, and then again with pictures from family moments where he was caught kissing his wife over the next few years. This went on and on until one black and white photo filled the screen, when the sound of a needle scratch tearing across an old LP record came on the sound system.