The Sweet Golden Parachute

by David Handler

  Mitch uncorked a bottle of Gabbiano in the kitchen and returned to the living room with it and two glasses. He filled them and handed her one. “I’m glad you could make it out, Allison.”

  “Me, too.” She took a sip. “Hey, son, this is good wine. What is it?”

  “A Chianti Classico.” He sat next to her on the love seat and patted his lap. “Park ’em here. Time for your massage.”

  Allison narrowed her eyes at him. She wore altogether too much eye makeup, in his opinion. He wondered whether she’d look younger or older without it. “Mitch, are you the answer to my prayers or just a perv?”

  “Does that matter?”

  “Not really.” She swiveled around and plopped her pudgy feet in his lap. “I just don’t get why you’d want to.”

  “Please don’t take this as a rebuke,” he said, kneading the ball of her left foot with his thumbs. “But I don’t think you’re accustomed to being treated very well.”

  “Damn, I could get used to this in a hurry,” she groaned, squirming with animal pleasure. “Do all Jewish men do this or is it your own special thing?”

  “I don’t like to brag, but I possess certain skills.”

  “I guess our resident trooper would know about that.”

  “That’s not fair, the way you keep mentioning her. I haven’t said anything about the Kershaws.”

  “Kershaw,” she corrected him, gazing into the roaring fire. “I went out with Stevie for a while before he got sent up. He wrote me some letters from prison. When they got out, he wanted to get together. But it’s nothing serious between us. And I do not do both of them, if that’s what you were thinking. That would be skanky and disgusting. And, Mitch, my other foot is feeling really lonely over here.”

  Mitch went to work on it. Allison let out a soft moan, grinding her hips into the sofa cushion.

  “So you three didn’t spend the night together at the Yankee Doodle?”

  “No, we did. I’m just saying that squirrely Donnie crashed in a chair, not in bed with us.” Allison glanced at him curiously. “Trooper Des thinks they did it, doesn’t she?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I can only go by what Stevie’s telling me, which is he really wants to clean up his act, get out of the old man’s house. He’d like to move in with me. I told him I’ve already got a nice, clean roommate who pays her rent on time. Besides, wherever Stevie goes Donnie goes. But I told him, hey, if you’re trying to stay straight I’m all for that. Not that I’ve made him any promises or whatever. I have to be kind of careful, because I have this habit of letting guys use me. You seem nice enough, and you sure have good hands. But tell me, Mitch, are you using me?”

  Mitch gazed gloomily into the fire. “I sure hope not.”

  “Wow, you sound bummed all of the sudden. How come?”

  “I can’t stop thinking about my wife. I’ve started dreaming about her all over again, and it’s making me crazy.”

  “She died, didn’t she? That’s why you moved here. You’re still hung up on her?”

  “I can’t let go,” Mitch confessed, wondering why on earth he was sharing his most private feelings with Allison Mapes. Maybe it wasn’t so strange. He did need to talk it out with someone. Allison was here, and she did ask. “Maisie won’t let me go. In my dreams, I mean. I’m always leaving her, and she’s always begging me not to. I guess I’m feeling, deep down inside, that by being happy with someone else I’m abandoning her.”

  “You’re not,” Allison said vehemently. “You’re just living your life, son. If you were moping around the house all day going boo-hoo then you’d be abandoning her. Because you’d be giving up. No way she’d want you to do that. Enjoy it while you can. That’s what I say. Not that I’m any kind of genius.”

  He sipped his wine in brooding silence, staring into the fire. “It’s your life story, isn’t it? Justine’s book is about you.”

  Allison totally freaked. Scrambled up off the love seat away from him. “Is that why you invited me out here?” she demanded, her eyes darting wildly about. “To talk about that?”

  “I’m the one who’s been doing all of the talking. I’ve just confided something very personal to you. I’m hoping you’ll do the same for me.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because a man is dead, Allison.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “This is what I’m trying to find out.”

  She stared at Mitch in hurt, angry silence. “Justine told you?”

  “Not a chance. She keeps trying to make me think it’s her story. I just didn’t buy it, that’s all.”

  “Hey, thanks for the wine…” Allison snatched up her sneakers and jacket and fled for the door.

  “Please don’t go, Allison. We have to talk about this. I’ll make it easier for you, okay? I already know that your older brother, Lester, was heavy into dope back in high school. I know he’s living in a VA hospital now, minus the limbs and genitalia that he left behind in Baghdad.”

  “He got what was coming to him,” she said savagely.

  “I know what’s in the book, okay? I know all of it.”

  She let out a derisive snort. “You know jack.”

  “So tell me the rest. Please. This is your chance.”

  “My chance for what?”

  “For something good to come out of it. You can even the score now, and get on with your life. Just like you were saying I ought to do.”

  “Okay, do not try lumping us together, Mitch, because compared to yours, my life totally sucks.”

  “Grab hold of this chance, Allison. If you don’t, you’ll regret it for as long as you live. Trust me. Please, trust me.”

  Slowly, she returned to the sofa and sat, still clutching her jacket and shoes. She wouldn’t look at him. Only into the fire. He got up and fed it with two more hickory logs. Refilled her wine glass. Then sat back down, waiting her out.

  “Justine’s book pretty much says it all,” she said finally, in a voice that was flat and emotionless.

  “So you’ve read it?”

  “I wasn’t… I’m not as bad as the girl in her story,” she said, swallowing hard. “Justine bigged it up some. It happened a few times is all. And, believe me, I never liked doing it. I may have said that to her once, like I was bragging. There’s a lot I don’t remember. I was stoned all the time in those days. That’s what I liked—being stoned. Mitch, I was fourteen and stupid. My mom had split on us. My dad’s a long-haul trucker, and he was always on the road. Mostly it was just me and Lester. And his friends. And their dope. They were major, major stoners. I’m talking coke, meth, oxy. Once they started getting me high things just got out of control, okay? But after a few months my mom moved back in with us, and as soon as she found out what was going on she got me right into a drug program, and they set me up with a shrink. I was fine after that. I am fine. I smoke a little pot now and then, but I’m good.” Allison turned and gazed at Mitch steadily now. “Justine asked me if she could write about it and I said sure—as long as she changed the names and everything.”

  “It doesn’t bother you that she’s done it?”

  “I think it’s cool, actually, because it’s not about me. It’s about them. The phony assholes who are always lecturing us about family values and personal responsibility. I did a few of those fine, upstanding hypocrites, Mitch. That part’s all true. I did our high school principal right in his office. I did the resident trooper. He was the one who had the fishing boat. And, yeah, I did my minister. Once they found out about me they all wanted to ‘help’ me. They’re all just a bunch of horny married bastards who can’t wait to get over on a messed-up fourteen-year-old girl. Hell, I wasn’t even cute. I’m not cute. Not like Justine is. I know that.” Allison trailed off, hugging herself in morose silence. “I know too damned much.”

  “Did you know that you could still file criminal charges against them?”

  “I don’t even want to go there. That’s all behind me n
ow. These days, I try real hard to see the good in people. I work hard. I pay my bills. I stay healthy. And I let no one into my heart.”

  “You can’t live that way, Allison.”

  “You totally can. I do it every day.”

  “Justine’s book mentions a boy named Tommy who her character is madly in love with. Was there a Tommy?”

  “He wasn’t any boy,” she replied woodenly. “He was a married man. And, yeah, I was crazy about him. He was crazy about me, too, in his own sick way. Kept telling me I was too sweet and wonderful to treat myself like I was. That I was his princess. Pretty weird thing for a guy to call you when he’s banging you in a motel room, don’t you think? He took me with him on his business trips. He never traveled far. Just York City, Boston, Vermont a couple of times. We’d stay overnight in a motor lodge along the turnpike. He’d get us a bottle and we’d smoke a joint together and he’d just go and go all night long. I don’t think his wife ever let him have any. He did like to brag. Kept telling me he’d be really rich someday. And when I turned eighteen he’d leave his wife and marry me. I believed him, too. But he turned out to be as big an asshole as the others. Once he’d had his fill he dumped me. That’s when I really hit bottom. I won’t lie—I even thought about doing myself in. God, I was so into him. I still am. Every time I see him my little heart goes pitter-patter.”

  “He’s still around Dorset?”

  “Yeah, I bump into him all of the time. When he sees me he panics and runs.” Allison flashed a quick, uncertain smile at Mitch. “I guess we don’t have any secrets from each other now, do we?”

  “Except for one—his name. I think it might be important, Allison. Will you tell me?”

  She hesitated a moment. “I might. But there are certain conditions.”

  “Name them.”

  “You have to pour me some more of that wine.”

  “Done,” he said, reaching for the bottle. “What else?”

  “You have to play me something on your guitar.”

  “It won’t be a pleasant experience for you, Allison. Everything I play comes out sounding like “Purple Haze” and not in a good kind of way. But, okay, I can do that, too. What else?”

  “You have to let me spend the night with you.”

  CHAPTER 18

  WHEN THE CALL CAME it was just past three in the morning and Des was finally getting somewhere in the studio. Not on her dreadful damned self-portrait. Hell no. Tonight, she’d thrown herself headlong into a portrait of Pete Mosher. This was her life’s mission, after all—illuminating the victims she encountered on the job. Them, not herself. Sometimes, the job had a way of bringing that realization home to her with startling clarity. Because she was feeling it again. Wielding her stub of graphite stick like a sword as she slashed away at the drawing pad, all of her energy and passion harnessed in pursuit of the only goal that was worth going after.

  The truth.

  What was Pete Mosher’s truth? Why had this bright, handsome bastard son of great wealth, a multimillionaire in his own right, dissolved into someone who picked through other peoples’ garbage? Why could he find no peace? As she stared at the crime-scene Polaroids of Pete that she’d clipped to her easel, Des kept thinking that he already seemed at one with the forest floor. At long last, Peter Ashton Mosher had found his peace. But he hadn’t exited peacefully. Somebody—make that two somebodys—had been determined to get even, get rich, get what? Was this about the money, or was there more to it?

  And so Des drew. A few hours back, Mitch had called to say goodnight and to tell her that Mark Widdifield had withdrawn the last five thousand dollars in his checking account that day. Supposedly, he wanted to run off to St. Kitts with Danielle. Mitch had gotten this from Danielle, who he felt was in way over her head with her troubled brother-in-law. Which Des could be-lieve. But she wasn’t so sure whether Mark was as interested in Danielle as he claimed to be. Could be Mark was just playing Danielle—using her as a convenient cover for his cash withdrawal. True, he did appear to be a helpless soul in the midst of a genuine midlife meltdown. Yet he was also an intelligent, creative man who was still legally married to Claudia and therefore had a vested interest in the family’s financial affairs. How deep into this murder might Mark be? What had he gotten himself into? What had Mitch gotten himself into? Des wondered, because there had been an edge in his voice on the phone. There was something the doughboy wasn’t sharing with her. To do with what? That statutory rape business he’d dropped on her at lunch? She had her concerns. Mitch had a great big heart but he was a product of the MGM golden age. He had no idea just how far real people could go to get what they wanted. And his phone voice had sounded so strange that, well, she could have sworn someone else had been there with him. Which had to be her imagination.

  Didn’t it?

  She drew, feeling Pete’s madness and his sadness as Al Green cried about his own pain on the stereo. She was barefoot, clad only in the ancient, tattered West Point T-shirt that was almost long enough to cover her tattoo. The big fire in the studio fireplace kept her warm, as did The Balvenie twenty-one-year-old single malt scotch on the stand next to her. She’d set one spot beam on the drawing pad. Lit some candles. Beyond the studio, her house lay in darkness.

  Des drew, feeling weightless on the balls of her feet. Dancing like Ali danced back when he was still Cassius slaying the mighty Liston. She floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee, the tendons popping in her arm, her skin tingling. There was her and there was the page. Nothing else. She hadn’t felt this connected in weeks. And she owed it all to the Can Man. Des would give the man his props. She would find out who killed him. She would.

  She paused now to catch her breath and sip some scotch. Step back and take in the entirety of the page. Step back and…

  Bounce right off of Bella, who was standing right there behind her in the candlelight, scowling at her. Bella Tillis could be a bit of a jolt at 3 A.M. in her quilted pink bathrobe, hair net and plush, oversized bear-claw slippers.

  “Sorry if I woke you, girl,” Des gulped. “My music too loud?”

  “No, it’s all of that stomping around. Are you drawing or doing the polka?”

  “If you’re going to unleash the inner beast, you’ve got to use your whole body.”

  “And does your whole body have to be nine-tenths naked?”

  Des looked down at herself, frowning. “I’m dressed.”

  “You are not. That T-shirt has so many holes in it your twins are staring right at me. You’re not staging a nutty are you?”

  “Everything’s cool, Bella. I’m just feeling the—”

  “Wait one second.” Bella shook a stubby finger at her. “You’re stewed, aren’t you? How much have you had to drink?”

  “Half of that.” Des nodded toward the scotch on the stand.

  “Half of that bottle?”

  “No, half of the glass. Which I fully intend to finish.”

  “Did you have any dinner?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Come, I’ll make you a sandwich. And, for pity’s sake, will you throw something on? You look like a porn star.”

  Des fetched a hoody, still seeing Pete’s long, gaunt face before her eyes. She washed the shiny graphite stick residue from her hands in the kitchen sink while Bella carved breast meat off of the remains of a roast chicken. Bella had visited a friend in New Haven yesterday and brought back a challah from a Jewish bakery. She cut four thick slices, then began slicing up cucumbers, tomatoes and radishes, her chubby hands working with rapid-fire precision.

  “Now in the old days back on Nostrand Avenue,” she recalled, slathering the bread with mayonnaise, “you’d go with a generous schmear of schmaltz. Much tastier than mayo. On the down side, you used to keel over dead of a heart attack by age forty-eight. I’ll have milk with mine. Would you pour me a glass, please?”

  Des poured each of them a glass and leaned against the fridge, sipping hers.

  “I know what you’re afra
id of, Desiree,” Bella informed her as she finished assembling their sandwiches.

  “And we are now talking about?…”

  “Marriage to our Jewish gentleman, of course. Why you won’t say yes.”

  Des sighed inwardly. “Okay, what is it that I’m afraid of?”

  Bella handed Des her sandwich. “At first, I thought it was that whole independence thing of yours. How you’re in charge of your own life, your own career, your own orgasms—”

  “No, the big guy pretty much sees to those.”

  “But that’s all bull. Want to know what really scares you?”

  Des took a huge, starved bite of her sandwich. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “I’m just standing here waiting for you to tell me.”

  “That you’re still in love with Brandon.”

  Des put the sandwich down on the counter, her appetite instantly gone. “Bella, Brandon came this close to destroying me,” she said softly, her stomach knotting. “It took me so long to get over him, but I did.”

  Bella glanced at Des’s discarded sandwich. “Are you sure about that?”

  “I’m sure that I love Mitch.”

  “And Mitch loves you. Brandon didn’t, you know. Brandon never loved you.” Bella said this with such cold certainty that it was like a hard smack in the face.

  Des drew back from her, stunned. “How can you say that to me?”

  “I can say it because it’s the truth. Brandon never loved you. If he had, he wouldn’t have broken your heart that way. Desiree, I saw what that man did to you. Trust me, people don’t do that to people who they love.”

  Des’s mouth had gone dry, but she did not want to reach for her milk glass. Not the way her hands were shaking. “Girl, I am over Brandon, okay? I do not still love him.”

  Bella shrugged her round shoulders. “If you say so.”

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “I believe that you want to believe it. I just don’t think it’s true.”