All That Was Happy

by M. M. Wilshire

  “Excuse me,” the concierge said. “But one of the items on your list is a box of 50 cartridges of Winchester .38 Special ammunition...I believe the note specifies a half-jacketed hollowpoint tip. Is this some kind of a joke?”

  “Hey, I appreciate that you guys are into gun control, especially since you just turned the entire 30th floor into the Ronald Reagan suite, but let’s just say Senator Feinstein and I don’t share the same values as regards personal ownership of a handgun,” Beckie said.

  Having visited her room and changed appropriately into a pair of pretty, printed peg-leggers and a simple pink nylon Tee for her afternoon at the beach, Beckie headed across the massively constructed concrete bunker which surrounded the Plaza and which was flanked by the Shuman Theater and the ABC entertainment center--along with a bunch of high-end yuppie drinking establishments--and soon was headed upward via high-speed elevator into the northernmost of the landmark, triangular-shaped Twin Towers to the twenty-fifth floor, which brought her to quickly to Lauren Shane’s impressive corner office.

  “Bernie’s lawyers want to see us at 2 P.M.,” Lauren said. “They’re in the tower next door, on the 31st floor. He’s got a high-powered firm representing him. The founding partner was a real animal. Back in the late 70’s, the guy got a break when he represented a certain famous late show host’s wife. The late-show host was so impressed by the fleecing he received at the animal’s hands, he hired him to “do to his business competitors what had just been done to him”. Anyway, this original animal/lawyer who fleeced the late show host retired to his lair recently, but he somehow replicated younger versions of himself who continue the tradition, and who are about to attempt to come down on us like a bad case of plague.”

  “Cancel the meeting,” Beckie said.

  “Say again?” Lauren said.

  “I’m not dancing to Bernie’s tune anymore--I just got bailed out by a rescuing angel. Bernie thinks he’s going to squash me like a bug. He thinks he can shoot my dog and climb over my fence and go through all my garbage, the way he’s done to his business competition over the years. Well, he’s wrong.”

  “I’m not sure we should start delaying tactics,” Lauren said. “It may be viewed unfavorably in the future by the judge who will see you as being uncooperative.”

  “There’s something I want you to do,” Beckie said. “I want you to hire the best private investigator you can find and I want you to find out everything you can about the co-op Argon Tools is forming. Secondly, I want to know everything there is to know about four other people who may or may not have anything to do with any of this. I want credit reports, bank activity, travel destinations--the works. I want everything that’s legal--and otherwise--to obtain. And I want all this information by tomorrow morning.”

  “You should think over what you’re asking,” Lauren said. “You need to be aware that you’re possibly in what we call “court shock”--you’re making an emotional response to the stripping of your financial and property rights.”

  “You’re darn right,” Beckie said. “This is an emotional response to my husband’s actions, which have shown no regard for my life whatsoever. I’m on a wave of fury, and I’m going to ride it all the way to the shore.”

  “I have an excellent investigative agency,” Lauren said. “I’m assuming, when you said you’d been bailed out by an angel, that you have sufficient wherewithal to cover the costs?”

  Beckie pulled out her temporary money market checkbook. “Here’s a check for five-hundred grand,” she said. “Let me know when that runs out. We’ll meet again tomorrow and go over what you found out.”

  “And the names of the four people you want investigated?” Lauren said.

  “There’s a chick named Nolene,” Beckie said, “I don’t know her last name, but she used to work with Bernie as a mistress-slash-office manager and she’s probably driving around in my old silver Roadster. For all I know, she still works there. The other three I want checked out are Bernie’s brother in law, Ira and his wife Leah.”

  “You suspect your in-laws?”

  “I started thinking,” Beckie said. “We had dinner recently and at no time did either of those two encourage me to contact Bernie or seek a reconciliation. I think that’s abnormal--also, he’d moved in with them and they didn’t tell me about it--I had to force the information out of them.”

  “Okay,” Lauren said. “You said you wanted four people checked out, in addition to Bernie. So far, Nolene, Ira and Leah make three. Who’s the fourth?”

  “Huntington,” Beckie said.

  “Huntington?” Lauren said.

  “I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid,” Beckie said. “The man just wrote me a check for five million dollars with no strings attached. There’s only three possible reasons he would have done it. One, because he’s in love with me, two, because he’s insane, or three, because, by some bizarre turning of events, he’s somehow connected to my Divorce proceedings. When he gave me the check, he told me that I was free to dump my past baggage and leave everything to Bernie--after I thought about it, it kind of smelled of a payoff. I’m praying I’m wrong--I don’t really believe Huntington is involved, but I need to make sure.”

  Lauren removed her glasses and stood before the west-facing window, where the Pacific Ocean glittered in the sparkling sunshine. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it,” she said.

  “Sure it is,” Beckie said. “On the surface, that is--from up here, you can’t see the sharks.”

  “But that doesn’t mean they’re not there,” Lauren said.

  Chapter 28

  “It’s a good thing you’re so tiny,” Beckie said. “It makes it a lot easier to violate the No Dogs rule.”

  Mr. Boopers, hidden in the straw purse, showed no inclination to report the unjust violation of the law which found him on the Santa Monica pier. Perhaps he’d succumbed to bribery, being as how he was certainly enjoying the corn dog he’d been given to keep him busy where he sat at the bottom of the purse on top of the bag holding the hundred grand while Beckie strolled to the end of the pier, past the arcade and motley assortment of enterprises ranging from street artists who painted ocean scenes on tiny mirrors, to a Mexican restaurant where patrons could be seen enjoying traditional south of the border fare along with, of course the ubiquitous, blue-green margaritas, themselves the color of the sea over which they were sipped, and which sent waves of entirely another sort through the minds of those who sipped them.

  Away to the south, another in an endless string of Jumbo jets departed from Los Angeles International, giving rise within her to an urge to just up and chuck it all, and depart for some part of the world in which Argon Tools and its subsequent merging with whatever hydra-headed consortium was thus far unknown.

  Her life was trashed--that much she knew. The reality that her husband could, by proxy, hand her a piece of paper and start in motion a process whereby her worth as a wife could be decided by a judge was somehow repulsive, especially when it would be in a court where the judge--considered by some to be as a god--was most likely a god for hire by the right people--a player who could be counted on to lay the cards down at the right time and in the right way and thus seal her fate behind the scenes.

  She leaned against the rail, enjoying the feel of the breeze on her face, intrigued by the fisher people, always present, who dropped their lines and made their catches with the absolute faith of a Saint that they’d be rewarded for their meager attempts to fool a hungry fish or two. The edge of the western world was a great place to think--a place where one’s soul could face any problem, drawing strength as it did so from the incredible energies imparted from the surrounding depths. Where a troubled mind could drop a line to God and perhaps reel in a good idea or two.

  In the long run, Beckie knew, it would be the unwritten rules of the road which determined her outcome in Divorce Court. Of course, she could take her money and run--Huntington’s generosity had seen to that. She had no obligation to brawl at length with Bernie’s l
awyers, to become embroiled in a case which would cost so much and take so long it would bankrupt her a second time.

  She knew she’d made a major mistake--for twenty-nine years, she’d allowed her husband to control the money supply. Now, when her marriage was at its end, she realized that she had no idea who her husband really was. Had Bernie, over the course of many years, managed to hide, or conceal assets from her? Was the man who shot guard dogs and rooted through dumpsters the kind of man you could trust to suddenly stand up and reveal all to an ex-wife’s plea for discovery of assets?

  Mr. Boopers thrust his head out of her purse, a surprisingly long tongue protruding from his pointy snout, the better to cleanse the remnants of his corn dog with.

  “It’s a man’s world, Mr. Boopers,” she said. “You men can spend our money, sell our houses and steal our jewelry and our clothes. A woman born in America today can look forward to a lifetime of being financially dependent on men, one way or the other.”

  She finished the last of her corn dog, careful to nibble away the tiny circle of flesh stuck to the stick, before reeling in her spirit and beginning the return walk to the parking lot.

  “In a pigs eye, Mr. Boopers,” she said. “In a pig’s eye.”

  Chapter 29

  “Bernie has been so upset,” Leah said. “This morning, when he left here, I think I saw a tear in his eye.”

  “He’s not upset,” Beckie said. “Troglodytes don’t have emotions. He was crying because I canceled my appointment to meet with his lawyers. He was hoping to enjoy the sight of them having me for lunch. You know he cut off my bank account and credit cards and left me without resources.”

  Beckie, on the hands-free, having cut her trip to the beach short, was high-tailing up the 405 to the Valley, taking advantage of her new cell phone to call Leah in Agoura.

  “What will you do?” Leah asked. “You can’t exist without money.”

  “I’ll think of something,” Beckie said, preferring to suspend the flow of information pending hearing from the newly-hired investigator who was, even as they spoke, digging up all of Leah’s life history to date.

  “I’ll throw Bernie out,” Leah said. “You can stay with us and use my car. Do you need me to pick you up somewhere?”

  “Thanks, Leah,” Beckie said. “I’ll manage. Listen, Leah. The reason I’m calling is I need to ask you a question. I ask this not out of disrespect, but out of my love for you, and out of our twenty-nine years of close friendship.”

  “Ask me anything,” Leah said.

  “Leah,” Beckie said. “Are you or Ira in any way connected to what Bernie is trying to do to me? I want a truthful answer--if you are, tell me now--don’t wait for me to find out on my own. If you lie to me, and I find out, you’ll be sorry.”

  There was a slight pause. “Beckie, you know better than to ask me that,” Leah said. “We’re best friends, remember?”

  “Thanks Leah,” Beckie said. “I hope you’ll forgive me. But let’s face it--Ira and Bernie are blood--and you’re Ira’s wife. I had to ask. I’m under a lot of stress. There’s just so much I don’t understand. I guess I’m getting a little paranoid.”

  “It’s okay, doll,” Leah said. “Call me if you need anything at all.”

  Beckie punched the gas to take the hill which divided the Valley from West Los Angeles. Leah was lying to her. Beckie could feel it. The pause before she’d answered the question had been just a fraction too long.

  “Good-bye, Leah,” Beckie said.

  She left the freeway and made her way up Sepulveda before turning down Saticoy and into the Argon Tools parking lot. It was there--her old Roadster--parked right beside Bernie’s silver Jag. So much for Ira and Leah’s bull about Bernie ending the affair--that was just a lie to keep her from looking too closely at Nolene. Bernie and Nolene weren’t even trying to hide it. She checked the rounds in her gun, and added a fifth bullet. It was time. She could walk right in and execute Bernie and if she hustled, she could make a plane for someplace before anybody recovered enough to catch her. She left the Roadster idling and ran up the walkway and through the front door. The place was deserted, save for her husband, whom she could hear shouting at somebody over the speakerphone in his corner office. The door behind the reception area leading to the warehouse opened and Nolene walked in, a diet Pepsi clutched in her hand. Beckie had to give Bernie credit--Nolene was a beautiful girl, slender--no hint of pregnancy--with long dark hair and impossibly bud-like lips set beneath an uptilted nose that lent a spoiled-brat cast to her otherwise foxy face.

  Nolene stopped dead and her face paled, her eyes lowered. Beckie realized suddenly what Nolene must be seeing--an angry woman with a shaved head and a black eye, holding a small stainless steel pistol with combat grips.

  “He took everything,” Beckie said. “The house, my car, my clothes, my pots and pans, my credit cards and my cash. You should think about what he did to me. You’re about the same age I was when he married me. He thinks he can go back and start over, but he can’t.”

  Nolene’s face had grown increasingly frightened and she seemed to shrink somehow, as though looking for a place somewhere in the air around her in which to evaporate.

  “God only knows, I probably wouldn’t have asked him for all that much,” Beckie said. “Just the basics. Just enough to keep me going until I could have started a new life. God only knows, he could have left me a little. When I married Bernie, it was back in the days when a woman was brought up to believe that they shouldn’t achieve too much. We were expected to mainly be a good little housewife. Working outside the home wasn’t encouraged--our men didn’t want their women to be too independent. But you’re probably different than I was--you probably have no sense of guilt for doing what you’re doing--you probably don’t think there’s anything wrong with having another woman’s husband. But let me tell you, it hurts me, what you’ve done--it hurt me so much I had to start seeing a therapist--she says I need to work on my rage problem--she says that I’m likely to kill you and my husband before this is all over unless I attend therapy every day.”

  Nolene dropped her Pepsi and made a quick, crab-like move for the warehouse door.

  Beckie raised the gun. Bernie was still shouting at somebody on the phone.

  Chapter 30

  “I must have snapped,” Beckie said. “But I realized something--I don’t have what it takes to kill someone just because they’ve hurt me. I had Nolene in my sights, but I couldn’t squeeze the trigger. I let her get away.”

  “They may try to have you arrested,” Lauren said. “You could be charged with brandishing a weapon. I don’t have to tell you what this will do to your character assessment in court.”

  Beckie, heading back to the Valley was peremptorily advising Lauren of her incident at the warehouse, wherein she’d nearly lost it and re-formed the divorce proceedings into a much more literal war where the death toll of innocents might have become a deciding factor in the division of assets.

  “I’m thinking I’m going to walk away from all this,” Beckie said. “Perhaps Huntington was right--I should grant Bernie’s wishes as they stand and leave the playing field for good.”

  “I’m not going to minimize what you did,” Lauren said, “but in reality, you didn’t fire your gun, you merely brandished it, and you didn’t verbally threaten anyone with it. It wasn’t actually pointed at anything. And you do have a permit to carry it.”

  “It was stupid what I did,” Beckie said. “I suppose I could wind up going to jail.”

  “If it comes up, we’ll deal with it,” Lauren said. “I’m not a criminal attorney, but we’ve got somebody who handles those kinds of cases for us, and she’s excellent. We won’t leave you hanging.”

  “I don’t want to be stuck in this thing forever,” Beckie said. “I nearly killed someone a few minutes ago. I have no choice but to take myself out of this nightmare. I’m calling off the dogs. Just find out what Bernie wants and I’ll comply. I don’t trust myself to make it throug
h this thing in one piece. Today I nearly took a life and risked losing my own. What if Bernie had come out and seen me with the gun? Bernie is a dangerous man--a gun fanatic--he’s got a carry permit and he always has his nine-millimeter on his belt. What if the two of us had wound up busting caps at one another? This entire episode could have become fodder for Channel 5.”

  “How did a guy like Bernie get a concealed carry permit?” Lauren said. “They’re almost impossible to get.”

  “We helped the founder of the Beverly Hills Gun Club get his start,” Beckie said. “The founder used to serve on the State parole board--he had enough clout to get Bernie and me a permit in exchange for Bernie’s contribution of startup capital to the Gun Club. There’s a bunch of us who got permits from the guy when we chipped in.”

  “You’re in a lot of fear,” Lauren said. “The fear of abandonment and financial insecurity runs deep in all of us. We all feel it. Some experts believe it’s encoded in our genes. In your case, it would seem the fear is profound. In some ways, you walking in there with a gun was your way of showing your husband just what a personal crisis he’s put you in--in a strange way, it’s as though you were trying to break through to him.”

  “I nearly broke through his skull with a hollowpoint bullet,” Beckie said. “I’m starting to freak out. My hands are still shaking. I don’t think we should talk about this anymore--I know I’m taking the coward’s way out, but I don’t care--I want you to put an end to the divorce as soon as possible.”

  “You’re in a crisis,” Lauren said. “It’s a time of immense emotional upheaval--I’ll do as you ask--but only after you sleep on it--ask me again this same time tomorrow.”

  “Fair enough,” Beckie said. “I’ll give it one more day.”

  “By the way,” Lauren said. “I’m starting to receive some information from the investigators, do you want an update?”

  “Okay,” Beckie said.