by Peter Israel
Big bucks, like I said.
The auction, all in all, brought in a seven-figure total. The damage wrought to the property in its aftermath ran allegedly into the hundreds of thousands, although the ultimate settlement figure reached between the new owners, the estate and the auction house’s insurance company was in fact lower. I’d left before the worst of it, but even as I drove down the driveway toward the gates I could see people—kids mostly—running across the grounds in the fading light and more of them milling at the gates themselves, where the security guards had lost control and I had to keep the Fiero inching forward to get through.
A second, and posthumous, BashCon, I thought. But the extent of the carnage wasn’t clear until the next day, after the police had shown up, made arrests and sealed off the grounds. In between, windows and doors had been smashed, the auctioned-off cars dismantled, pieces of fence, pieces of house, even clods of turf ripped up, dug out and carted away.
I watched it on the Sunday night news. The footage was extensive, taken largely after the fact, and the headline ran: BASHARD: THE CULT CONTINUES
Latham died the next week.
A month more passed, the leaves fell off the trees, the dark of late-November nights settled in on the city, and you could begin to smell traces of snow in the air.
I was leaving the office one Monday evening, and in a hurry, when a bundle of energy, force against counterforce, tackled me at the knees. It was Muffin, the cocker spaniel bitch, acting like I was the long lost friend she hadn’t seen in a decade and dragging her leash as she jumped and pranced. I saw the Counselor’s Wife rushing after her from the Park Avenue corner, yelling, and I grabbed at the dog’s leash, caught it, then got pulled back toward her owner.
I hadn’t seen the Counselor’s Wife in some time.
“Hi, Phil!” She called, bending down to kiss the dog on the snout. She took the leash from me. “What do you think about it? I guess there’s no stopping love, is there?”
For a second I thought she was teasing me about the dog, which she often did. But it wasn’t that.
“Come on, Phil, tell me the truth,” she said gaily, swirling her blonde hair. “What did you really think when you read it?”
“Read what?” I said.
“You did read the paper yesterday, didn’t you? The society pages?”
No, I hadn’t. In fact the society section was fairly low on my Sunday-paper priority list.
“Oh, God,” the Counselor’s Wife said. “You haven’t heard, then?”
No, I guessed I hadn’t.
She hesitated, as though trying to gauge what I’d make of it, whatever it was, then tossed her hair again.
“Your girlfriend Grace, or ex-girlfriend … Grace Bashard? She’s getting married. It was in the paper: ‘… of New York and Palm Beach, daughter of the late Raul R. Bashard …’ I guess she bought something in Palm Beach, did you know that? But guess who she’s marrying!”
“I’ve no idea,” I said.
“Robert Price!” she said. “Robert Price, wasn’t that Bashard’s bodyguard?”
“If it’s the same one,” I said.
“Well, of course it’s the same one, silly!” Then, looking at me closely: “God, Phil, you don’t still care about her, do you?”
I don’t know what expression I had on. But inside I was thinking: Price, too. Holy shit, we’d let Price walk away from it, too. And in my mind’s eye I saw that ceramic smile on the dead writer’s face.
“Come on, Phil,” the Counselor’s Wife was saying, “come walk with us. I was both right and wrong about it, wasn’t I? We can talk about it.”
“I can’t,” I said automatically, “I’ve got a date.”
“A date?” She smiled prettily, then: “You never stop, do you? Who’s the lucky lady this time? What’s her name?”
“Never mind,” I said, but the dog by then was pulling her in the other direction and I don’t think she heard.
I stuck up my coat collar in the wind and headed west to Laura Hugger’s.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1988 by Peter Israel
Cover design by Mimi Bark
ISBN: 978-1-4532-9392-8
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