Compound Fractures

by Stephen White

  Amanda waited. Paul was not light on his feet. We knew when he made it down the stairs. Finally, I said, “That’s how it goes down?”

  “Not usually. Mostly it just happens. It’s comfortable. People want to have a good time. Do people understand the work you do, Alan? Your business?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Same for this business. People don’t understand the work we do.”

  With Paul gone, my interest in Sasha dissolved. I didn’t care.

  “Raoul and Lauren,” I said. “You are sure? Completely sure?”

  I hadn’t rejected the pairing out of hand, the way I had with Lauren and Diane. I already knew about Lauren and Joost, Sofie’s father. I felt myself chiseling this new pairing into stone in the part of my memory that stored things in granite. I was nearing the kind of certainty that would have required Amanda to talk me out of believing it.

  “I am sure,” she said. “That night in the condo? I thought you knew, and then I was afraid you didn’t. If you didn’t know, I felt someone needed to tell you.” Her eyes were wet. “It should have been Lauren. Or him. Not me.”

  I felt defeat. Despair. All the grief I’d felt since the shooting evaporated. My loss felt new. Raw. I knew I would need to start grieving again from the beginning. The grief would be different the second time. The rage quotient would be so much higher.

  Amanda said, “Raoul is— With the situation with Diane, all the legal problems, her health. His financial issues. He can’t be your friend. Mostly because of what he did. But you know all that. Now.”

  Amanda still loved him. She wanted to excuse him.

  I said, “Apparently Raoul hasn’t been my friend for a while.”

  She said, “You were good to me.” I saw a fat tear forming in her left eye.

  “I understand,” I said. “I do.” I had an inclination to add the words thank you. But the sentiment seemed wildly inappropriate to the circumstances. I asked, “The damn building Raoul was developing downtown? On Pearl Street. Is this why Lauren was so determined for us to move there? To be near him, his home?”

  Amanda nodded. “That was their plan. His office would have been there, too.”

  God. “I should go,” I said. I got up. The second I stood I had more questions. “How long have they been …” I tried on the word fucking. It seemed to fit. But—perhaps because of the bizarre circumstances, or the Louboutin-clad messenger, or the peculiar location, or because of Sasha and Paul’s failed tryst—I chose a different word.

  “… involved. How long?”

  “A while,” Amanda said. “Before me. I didn’t know about her at first. Later, when I figured out that he was involved with a friend of Diane’s, I thought that I was supposed to be a solution to that problem. That it was my job to give Raoul a reason to …”

  Her thought drifted away. Or drifted into a place she didn’t want to expose to me.

  “I get it,” I said. “You were supposed to break them up?”

  “No. Yes,” Amanda said. “I was to fulfill him. To complete … him.”

  “Diane knew?”

  “She did.”

  I thought my friend’s gradual psychological decline had been precipitated by Las Vegas. Her kidnapping. Her trauma. Later, by her anxiety about all the damn wildfires. By Raoul’s money problems. The irony of the truth was that, of all my friends, Diane was the one who considered me the most naïve sexually. It turned out she had been an expert on the topic: she had known more about that naïveté than anyone. Save for Raoul. And Lauren.

  I asked, “Do you know when she knew? Diane?”

  “A while.”

  “What while? A long while?” I struggled with the time frame. A while meant it hadn’t been an indiscretion. A moment of weakness. A mistake. A while meant it was an affair—a part of their lives that provided a piece missing from some other part of their lives. The other part of their lives was their marriages. My marriage. A piece of that.

  “Yes, a while,” Amanda said. “Years.”

  “Diane knew about you and Raoul? All along?”

  “I don’t know when she knew. Raoul had outside interests. Always. I wasn’t the first. Lauren wasn’t the first. Diane knew that.”

  I felt so wounded that I was surprised I wasn’t bleeding.

  31

  AMANDA LOCKED THE DOOR to the apartment. She told me to wait as she disappeared behind the staircase to stash the key. I didn’t wait. I mumbled something about needing to get home to the kids.

  I walked away from Amanda and away from the Pine Street incall in a dull daze, heading in the direction of Pearl. I remembered to power up my phone after I crossed Pine. Anyone paying attention to my digital footprint would find that my signal reappeared on the grid while I was opposite the entrance to the Boulderado Hotel.

  Reboot complete, my phone pinged. I had a text waiting from Kirsten.

  Check your email.

  The night had turned cold as though some meteorological switch had been thrown. I stood outside the old courthouse while I clicked through to the email. Kirsten had written it on her professional account, not her personal account. She had arranged for me to be represented by a prominent Denver defense attorney. She used two unnecessary sentences to sing the lawyer’s praises. She had determined, she said, that it was preferable for me to go outside Boulder for representation. The local defense bar was “incestuous.” The attorney was, Kirsten said, expecting my call.

  My new lawyer’s name doubled the chill I was feeling. The roster of famous and infamous defendants represented in the recent past by the attorney rolled through my vision like credits at the end of a movie. I never thought I would see the day when I would have anything important in common with Colorado’s more infamous criminal defendants. But that day had come.

  I pecked the keys that would move the attorney’s information into my contact list.

  It was the first step to calling him and making him my lawyer.

  That, I knew, would be the last step I would take while Sam and I both still had clean hands.

  I HAD ONLY ONE PATIENT scheduled the next day, a woman I’d seen on and off for almost five years. She lived her life in blissful oblivion. She was the only one of my remaining few patients who had never mentioned seeing my name in the news, despite the reality that my name had become a staple in the local news.

  I had been treating her, in part, for her isolation. That day I almost envied it.

  She left my office at three forty-five. I sat in the quiet room with my old grief, my new grief, and my growing entropy.

  I felt paralyzed trying to decide how to respond to Kirsten’s email from the previous evening, and about whether I should call my new lawyer. I started composing a reply to Kirsten five times. I deleted my efforts five times.

  I was rescued from my ambivalence by my cell phone buzzing with an incoming call. Caller ID showed an unfamiliar 818 number. Although my inclination was to allow it to go to voicemail, I picked up. Grace was visiting the home of a school friend whose parents I didn’t know well. It was possible one of them carried a Los Angeles area cell phone.

  I said, “Hello.” A woman said, “Hey there. Remember me?”

  I didn’t but I did. Her voice generated the neural signals I get from a familiar smell—a food, a perfume. Something pleasant. Once gratifying, now elusive. I could have picked the woman’s name from a multiple-choice list on a test, but I could not have filled in a blank.

  She bailed me out. “It’s Amy. Amy Wise? Cara’s friend.”

  “Amy,” I said. To prove to both of us that I had it, I added, “LA Amy.”

  My animal brain attached an aroma, something slightly sweet, a blend of fresh sweat and subtle florals, warm flesh after a sunny day. That led to the bonus of a specific location—the crook of her neck, right at her hairline. My nose had been there, exactly there. That narrowed the list of possible women considerably.

  “LA Amy,” she said. “That’ll work. I’m glad you remember.”

&nbs
p; I remember most of the girls I almost slept with. After I’d confessed my complicated feelings regarding Amy to Sam Purdy—he and I had been in California at the same time years earlier when I met her—he’d started referring to her as the “fucking beguiler.” She was that.

  I leaned back on my desk chair, curious where the phone call was coming from, literally and figuratively, and where it was heading. My laptop pinged with an email. I glanced at it to assure myself I could ignore it.

  I could not. The new email was from ellbell—Elliot Bellhaven, written from Elliot’s personal email account, addressed to my personal account.

  I tried not to read it.

  I said, “How could I not remember you, Amy? We had the kind of unfortunate adventure that is hard to forget.” I wasn’t talking about her seduction. I was talking about some nonvolitional time we spent with a madman—a very mad man—in the Southern California desert after the attempted seduction.

  She said, “I don’t talk about that. This isn’t about that. Clear?”

  I considered myself warned. “Gotcha.” I wasn’t eager to go there, either.

  I read Elliot’s email.

  Alan, Elias Contopo was crushed to death last night by a horse inside his horse trailer on North County Road 23. Trailer had a flat. Something went wrong with the tire change, I guess.

  No need to send this to your attorney. Just a friendly FYI. Unless it isn’t news to you. Then you might want to call your attorney. Joke.

  Hope you had a good evening last night whatever you ended up doing.

  EB

  Amy was still talking. I had not been listening. I forced myself away from Elliot.

  “—if you would be happy to hear from me, given what happened. But I’m in your neighborhood, thought you might enjoy seeing an old friend.”

  I locked on to a fragment I could respond to. I said, “Boulder?” Cara, Amy’s friend, had lived in town.

  “I’m in Leadville—you know where that is? Sure you do. Still in the business. I’m second AD on a studio feature. I have a small crew doing exteriors up here. It’ll probably take a couple more days, though that’s up to the weather gods.”

  I was trying not to think about Elliot and a dead Elias Contopo. I managed to say, “Leadville? A feature? Big deal for you?” Leadville is a boom-and-bust mining town high in the Rockies. Not a big magnet, or a little magnet, for movie companies.

  Amy said, “The shoot is in Vancouver. I got the AD gig—assistant director—on that indie film I told you about. That led to another. I scraped together financing for a short, which got a tiny bit of festival attention in Toronto. DreamWorks noticed. And then, and then … This is my first gig as second AD on a studio film.”

  “Congratulations. Would I recognize the movie?”

  “Do you live on IMDb?” I admitted I didn’t. She laughed.

  My feelings about Amy retained some of the earlier complexity. The trill of her laugh retained its allure. I recalled the tender way she had ministered to a friend who was deteriorating before her eyes. I also remembered her naked breasts on my naked back as she gently spooned, prodding me out of a dream.

  Elias Contopo is dead. Jesus. But Elliot’s wrong; I had never met any of the Elias Contopos. I knew of him. People in Frederick called him Big Elias. Is Elliot suggesting a murder? Shit. I haven’t called my new defense attorney.

  I mentally moved the task to the top slot on my to-do list.

  “Are we breaking up? Alan? Hello. You there? Can you hear me?”

  Amy. “Better now,” I said. “I got you again. Is this clear?”

  “I was wondering how you are, Alan,” she said. I went quiet. She cooed, “Did I lose you again, or are you deciding whether to lie to me? In real time? You are.”

  I laughed. I said, “I am. Deciding that.”

  “I appreciate your honesty about your dishonesty. I saw the YouTube video. I doubt that I would be calling today if I hadn’t. I am truly sorry for your loss. And the circumstances? Heartbreaking.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The hurt on your face in that clip? Given what you’ve been through, I …”

  Given? Given how large the Contopo clan loomed in my life, it’s ironic that I never met any of the Contopo boys, all of whom were named Elias. Not Elias Contopo Senior, Big Elias. Not his Marine son, known to almost all as Segundo, who died in Afghanistan. Nor Segundo’s son, Elias Tres.

  “… pretty shitty? If you said otherwise, I wouldn’t believe you.”

  YouTube? Amy is talking about YouTube. “God. That video follows me everywhere.”

  Amy said, “I had no idea how badly you danced. I would absolutely not have crawled into bed with you if I did. Had to say that. You know, for my reputation.”

  I laughed. I stopped laughing abruptly when I realized that the person Elliot was thinking, or hoping, had killed Big Elias was me.

  I tuned back in as Amy said, “I am also happy for you that the whole adored thing worked out so well. You remember that? The nutty adored thing you told me about.”

  “I do,” I said. I hadn’t considered it so nutty. In trying to explain to Amy why, and how, I’d resisted the opportunity to hook up with her that night in LA, I told her that I wanted to wake up adoring the person beside me, and I wanted to go to bed feeling adored by the person I was kissing good night. I’d told Amy that having sex with her—as enticing as the prospect was—was certain to interfere with the adored thing ever happening with Lauren and me.

  “And?” she prompted.

  I was quiet. My mind drifted to Lauren and Raoul. Then back to Big Elias. The odd trio comprised a major impediment to my ability to recollect the specifics of the whole adored thing.

  “You’re doing it again. Deciding whether to lie to me. No need to get all twisted—I was talking about your daughter’s adoration. That little dancing girl adores her daddy. And her daddy, despite his dancing, adores his little girl.”

  “All true,” I said.

  “I have an offer for you,” she said.

  Oh God. I thought of Amy’s prior offer, overtly erotic. “Go on.”

  “Don’t go reaching for your running shoes. I know you can get skittish. If you would like to spend a little time with someone who remembers you fondly, I could stop in Boulder on my way to the Denver airport. I’ll buy you a drink, or even an entire meal.” Before I had a chance to speak, Amy added, “I promise to keep my clothes on.”

  “Well,” I said, “then the answer is a definite no.”

  Am I flirting? Big Elias was barely cold. Elliot was on my tail. I was flirting.

  I blamed it on Lauren and Raoul.

  Amy said, “I’m an old friend saying hi. Do you believe that?”

  “Sure.” Amy might believe what she was saying. I also knew from years doing psychotherapy that believing something like that is different from something like that being true. I said, “I’m not in a great place. Can I think about it? Get back to you.”

  “You’ll blow me off. Worst that happens is that we have an awkward drink someplace. That’s not the end of the world. Say yes.”

  I needed to deal with Elliot’s email. I said, “Okay, let’s do it, Amy. Old friends.”

  “Perfect. I’ll text you with a Leadville update, let you know when I’ll be heading to Denver. It could be as early as the weekend. Could be midweek next. It all depends on how the clouds behave over the Divide. The AD wants some moon and stars. The celestial kind.”

  “I thought you said you were the AD.”

  “I’m second. The first AD is my boss. Big difference.”

  “Thank you for getting in touch, Amy.”

  “Adi, Alan.”

  Ah, that good-bye. Adi, as in adios. I never knew whether the aloha-ish parting was an LA thing, a Cali thing, or merely a peculiar Amy thing. Maybe I would ask her about it once she was done chasing stars in Leadville.

  What was more likely, I knew, was that I would cancel the rendezvous.

  I had once managed to walk awa
y from a beautiful naked woman offering me lust and comfort.

  Faced with a similar opportunity Lauren had not. Walked away. I felt a flare of burning rage. Like the white-hot chemical flames that engulf the sulfur on the end of a match.

  Is that my soul on fire?

  Why not, Lauren? Why did you not walk away?

  I REREAD THE ELLBELL EMAIL.

  I used my laptop to locate North County Road 23 in Weld County. It wasn’t there. I checked Boulder County. Nope. The logic of the state’s system of county road numbering—if there was a system—had always eluded me. I tried Google.

  Google found North County Road 23 for me, but much farther north and west than I expected, in Larimer County in a rural location near the spot where the northernmost Front Range foothills melded with the high prairie, not far south of the Wyoming border. The closest major burg to that stretch of county road was Fort Collins.

  I had no familiarity with the terrain, but I assumed from what I was seeing on the map that Big Elias had been driving a rural route not too far from the road that traced the route of the Cache La Poudre River out of the Rocky Mountains.

  The ellbell email was specific about neither manner nor cause of death. Cause had to be a variant of trauma; when hooves meet human flesh and human bone, hooves tend to prevail. But Elliot was vague; he left open the possibility that the manner of Big Elias’s death could have been just about anything. The crushing could have been the result of carelessness or accident. It could have been the result of an MI or a stroke. Or it could have been a death by another’s hand.

  Big Elias Contopo had been in the horse business. I did not consider it a wayward leap to conclude that he had been in rural Larimer County pulling a horse trailer because he was doing some literal horse-trading. Nor did I have a reason to question the facile assumption that Big Elias, after years in the horse business, knew the ins and outs of horses and horse trailers the way I knew the ins and outs of my road bicycle and my derailleur. That simple conclusion left me no room to quibble with Elliot’s assessment that something had to have gone wrong for Elias Contopo to end up trampled to death by his own animal inside his own horse trailer on the side of a county road on the edge of nowhere in Larimer County.