by Dan Taylor
“No, it’s no bother.”
Not wanting to walk to the intercom to buzz me in again, or have any more of her Sunday taken up by Eugene Turner than is necessary, Mrs. Anderson is now insistent that I don’t go back to my car to get my ID badge. “Don’t be silly. I’ll just go and get Dean.”
I walk back and stand by the door.
A man with bushy eyebrows and penetrating eyes greets me after thirty seconds or so. “Dean Gordon Anderson. My wife said something about a tax audit. And on a Sunday.”
“I realize the timing isn’t great. Hey, I’d rather be watching The Seahawks, but we have a backlog this year…”
“What the hell’s wrong with your voice? Is there something stuck in your throat? Should I get you a drink of water?”
In an effort to sound the part, I’ve put on a nasal voice, but it came out sounding like Lisa Simpson.
“That’s not necessary, sir. It’s this part of Texas, terrible for my allergies.”
“I see. I suppose you better come in.”
I’m almost at the threshold when Mrs. Anderson calls over. “He forgot his ID badge, if that’s what you two are quibbling about.”
Dean Gordon Anderson, who had stepped to the side and made way for me, stands in the middle of the doorway again, shoots me a skeptical look. “ID badge?”
“That’s right. I can go and get it if you like.”
“Since when do tax auditors carry badges?”
“New regulations this year. With us coming out on Sundays and all.”
“ID badges for coming out on Sundays?”
“Hey, I don’t make the rules.”
Dean Gordon Anderson thinks a second. “Eugene Turner? ID badges because you come out on Sundays now? This sounds like a script for a bad porno.”
He goes to close the door, but I manage to get my foot in the way, creating a wedge between it and the threshold.
“What are you doing, you freak? Get the hell off my property.”
“We can either arrange the tax audit now or I can arrange for my assistant, Cherry Aidriana, to do it.”
His eyes narrow and he leans in close, talks quietly, “What did you say the name of your assistant was?”
“Cherry Aidriana.”
39.
Three years ago
DEAN GORDON ANDERSON’S indiscretion started the way most middle-aged men’s indiscretions do, with his wife organizing something with her girlfriends to which he wasn’t invited.
It was a game of bridge in this instance, a tournament that his wife participated in every year. The difference this year was that she was hosting.
As soon as Dean found out, his mind turned instantly to the pussy that he could hopefully score.
He’d never asked to participate in the bridge game, and had overheard that it was a husband-free zone—this had been when she’d been downstairs on the phone, he in bed. So his first tactic for getting away with the extramarital pussy he could possibly arrange was to ask if he could join them this year.
“Why the hell would you want to play? Why don’t you arrange something with a couple friends for the weekend?” Mrs. Anderson said, knowing full well he didn’t have any. “Besides, who the hell would we make jokes about if you’re sitting right there?”
“I suppose I could arrange something with Neil from the surgery.”
“Okay, that’s good, honey.”
There was a Neil at the surgery, but Dean didn’t think he would be game enough to go to Vegas period, let alone go to Vegas and score some strange.
Dean googled ‘Things to do with fifty-something male friends’ and came up with a number of alibis. He went with his favorite, a brewery tour in Colorado, during which Dean and Neil would stay in a cozy cabin for the night, drink the brewery’s acclaimed craft beers and talk shit with other beer geeks.
In fact, it did sound good. He very nearly decided to go, after jerking off thinking about the pussy he could get in Vegas, but he soon got horny again.
The plan was to fly out on Friday and stay downtown at the Golden Nugget. Then move to the Strip on Saturday, The Bellagio, do some gambling, and then see if he could arrange a call girl. He wouldn’t arrange for her to come to The Bellagio, but would rent a room in one of the seedy motels east of the Strip.
Sounded like a good plan. And if he backed out, he could always go to a strip joint and then watch one of the hotel’s adult movies in his room and jerk off.
But that would be a disappointing waste of this opportunity. Debbie Anderson had been playing in the bridge competition for years, and this was the first time she was to host it. Who knew when the next time would be? Dean thought he could be in a box by then, at least have a few angioplasties under his belt.
No, he was going to do it.
He left work early on Friday, took the three-fifteen to Vegas, and arrived at the hotel at eight-thirty. He phoned his wife, told her he loved her, then ordered a scotch and craft beer from the hotel bar.
He was quite drunk by nine, so decided he’d eat in the hotel bar, get an early night.
After jerking off in the shower the next morning, he backed out again, but by the time he was downstairs eating from the breakfast buffet, he’d changed his mind again.
He checked out of the Golden Nugget, tipped well but not too well, then drove his rented Toyota Prius to the Strip and checked in to The Bellagio.
Having never been much of a gambler, Dean hit the slot machines, threw away $156.70 in the space of two hours and fifteen minutes, then called it a day for gambling.
He set about arranging the call girl. He enquired at the reception desk if they provided girls for massages, and was told that maybe he’d be better suited staying in one of the motels downtown. Google was no help, either. There were some girls listed on Craig’s List, and a few on a website called Meet for Sex, but with it being Saturday, they were all booked for the evening.
He decided “fuck it,” and went with plan B.
There was a strip joint on the Strip, and he could sit there and get a bit drunk, watch some porn in the hotel room, then be able to go back and kiss his wife without feeling like a complete asshole.
Dean drank cocktails, and didn’t pace himself well, got to the stage where he was chatting up strippers like they were fair game. Fancied himself a singer, too, Frank Sinatra or some other crooner.
Upon getting kicked out, he decided he’d take a drive, supporting his unsteady arm with his knee so he could drive straight. He drove east of the Strip, got a room at a motel called The Tropicana, and slept for fifteen minutes, in order to sober himself up.
He thought of many things before deciding to go curb crawling—his upcoming fifty-fifth birthday, whether or not his wife had cheated on him during their marriage, and why it was that his grownup daughter rarely visited now that she was at college.
The streets in Las Vegas on a Saturday night were either mobbed by drunk hobos, pimps, and tourists, or deserted. But he found what he was looking for, a hooker in a two-dollar outfit, talking to men in cars as they sidled past. He watched a few approach her before mustering up the courage to do it himself.
As he approached, glare from an overhead streetlamp impaired his vision, so he didn’t get a good look at the hooker. Didn’t get much of a view at all.
“Lookin’ for a good time, sugar?” the hooker said, before he heard the sound of a police siren behind him.
He looked up at the sky, said, “Fuck,” felt that weird prickly feeling all over his face a neck you get when you know you’ve fucked up big time.
The two officers introduced themselves as Officer O’hare and McNally, then one of them asked him, “Are you aware that it appears you’re soliciting this person for sexual activity?”
Dean said, “I’m aware that it may look that way. But I was merely asking for directions. To the circus.”
O’hare and McNally looked at one another, shook their heads. O’hare said, “Are you trying to clown us, sir?”
“No, O
fficer. I’m not.”
“Have you been drinking, sir?”
“I had one cocktail, and then I slept it off for fifteen minutes at The Tropicana.”
O’hare and McNally shared a look of disbelief, then McNally asked, “Sir, can you get out of the vehicle?”
“I can.”
“And can you stand by that car and spread your legs, sir?”
Annoyed, Dean said, “All right, all right, I haven’t even got out of the car yet.”
“Not you, but this other gentleman.”
It took a second or two for Dean Gordon Anderson to realize who the other gentleman was. “Oh fuck.”
“Don’t listen to these pigs, sugar, I’m all woman,” the transsexual hooker said, who Dean later learned used the alias Cherry Aidriana.
40.
“SO, WHAT DO you want? I take it you’re not working for the IRS, and that Cherry Aidriana isn’t your assistant,” Dean Gordon Anderson says.
We’re in his office.
I say, “You’re right to assume those things.”
“You can drop the silly voice.”
“Consider it done.”
“Is that your real voice?”
“No, my identity is to remain a mystery to you. I’ve done some unethical things to get you alone in this room. So this is the voice I’ll be using.”
“You sound like a clichéd British guy.”
“How do you know I’m not British?”
He doesn’t answer, just looks at me strangely.
Then he says, “If you’re worried I might be recording this conversation, don’t. I didn’t ask you to come here, so how would I have set up recording equipment without foresight of your visit?”
“I’d rather just play it safe. Plus, you chose the office. Not me. This could be the room you have prepared for visits by people like me.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“Call it what you want.”
“Are we going to get down to why you’re here?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Again, he looks at me strangely.
I say, “I’ve come on behalf of Megan Books, daughter to Barbara and Charles Books.”
He thinks a moment. “Names don’t ring a bell.”
“I implore you to think harder. They made sizeable donations to your organization. Back in nineteen-ninety.”
“That’s a long time ago.”
“It is. But I’m willing to bet you remember these two. I don’t know what you do, or what Barbara and Charles received for their money, but I’m willing to guess a husband and wife both requiring your services is somewhat of a rarity. Not to mention Charles Books’s subsequent fame.”
He thinks again. “I’d need to speak to my receptionist, so that she can have a look at a few files.”
I shake my head, open the ledger I have with me, start reading from it. “Upon questioning, despite giving a different explanation for why he approached the gentleman in question at the scene, Dean Gordon Anderson stated that he didn’t know what curb crawling is, and that when he approached the gentleman in question, he thought he was standing by the road, flagging down cars, because he was questioning drivers about the whereabouts of a lost cat. Dean Gordon Anderson—”
“Okay, okay. I’ll tell you everything.”
“—had seen a cat drive across his path, and was being a good Samaritan—”
“Stop. I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
“That’s the best decision you’ve made all day.”
“Just one thing before I tell you.”
“Shoot.”
“How are you going to use the information?”
“That depends on the info.”
“It has the power to destroy not only the lives of Barbara and Charles Books, but their daughter’s, too.”
“Their secrets are safe with me.” I hold up the ledger. “And yours, too.”
I can see he doesn’t trust me, but what other choice does he have?
“Okay. Here we go.”
Dean Gordon Anderson takes a deep breath, and tells me a story that blows my mind.
41.
WOW!
I was not expecting that.
If I didn’t hear it with my own two ears, I’d have told you that it’s bullshit, or, as I said to Dean Gordon Anderson, “Codswallop.”
I nearly didn’t believe it, until everything that I’d found out during the weekend all fit into place. Plus, if he were to spin me a yarn just to get rid of me, he would’ve told me one a lot more believable than the one I just heard.
I decide to leave Megan at Sister D’s a little while longer. I’m going to drive back to Rodeo, contemplate how I’m going to use the information during the drive.
It’s a difficult one.
Dean Gordon Anderson’s right. It’s a familial atom bomb, the nuclear fallout of which would devastate for years.
The drive isn’t long enough, and before I know it, I’m sitting outside of the Books family home, scratching my chin.
I get out the car, go inside, go through to the living room, find Barbara and Charles fussing over Cedric and Fredrick.
I say, “Hello, Judy and Paul.”
42.
I’VE TOLD BARBARA and Charles everything or, if I were refer to them by their original names, Paul and Judy.
About my being a PI.
About Megan hiring me.
About where I obtained the information.
And finally, that I’m not a Harvard medical student or Megan’s boyfriend.
Seems like I’ve landed Megan in shit, right?
I have, but I needed to come clean about this to Barbara and Charles, so they would tell me everything. Their side of the story.
And I know that they’ll forgive Megan in time, and that they will never tell Megan that they know she hired a PI to investigate their pasts.
It’s a hell of a story. Here we go.
43.
PAUL AND JUDY were highschool sweethearts. Though he was small, albeit with broad shoulders, Paul was the quarterback of the football team. Judy was the cheerleader that’s chosen to stand on top of the pyramid and shake the shit out of her pompoms. She was chosen for this job despite her height because she had an unbelievably beautiful face. A face that could’ve gotten her any guy in the school, and probably have most of the faculty risking their jobs, if she were to flirt with them, including the women. But she chose Paul.
They were perfect for each other.
He would get a football scholarship, she a cheerleading one, and they would both graduate at the top of their classes, get the best internships, and end up working for top firms, live out in the suburbs—white picket fence, flourishing roses, the works.
But life doesn’t always turn out like that.
Paul got ligament damage in his knee the last minute of the last game of the season for the high school team, The Newtown Nebulas. The prestigious—but not Ivy League—school canceled his scholarship, but the dean pulled some strings to get him a place in a lesser school, though this was nothing more than a polite fuck off.
Paul and Judy were irreparably in love at this point, and Judy followed him. They got mediocre qualifications from a mediocre college, got mediocre internships, and ended up in mediocre firms.
Instead of living out in the suburbs, they rented an apartment in the city, and instead of a white picket fence and flourishing roses, they had withering plants on a dilapidated balcony, and a bum that slept in the apartment building entrance from time to time.
They were struggling.
To make matters worse, Judy started feeling discontent. Not with the living situation, or with Paul, or with the mediocre job in a mediocre firm, but with herself. As though she didn’t feel right in her own skin. A feeling that she should be someone else, living a different life.
But she kept this to herself. At the age of twenty-five, she knew what the solution was, but her salary was never going to pay for it.
&
nbsp; The opportunity came when her parents died. One and then the other. Her father died of a sudden heart attack, and her mother of a broken heart three months afterwards—though the latter wasn’t the official cause of death signed off on by the coroner. They left her a handsome inheritance, enough so that she could now pay for the solution she’d wanted for years.
On a rainy day, she told Paul, “I want to become a man.”
Paul said, “Are you fucking with me? Because that’s one hell of a shitty joke, Judy.”
“No, I’m not.”
Paul vomited for the next five minutes as Judy cried.
When he came back, as he wiped vomit from his mouth, he asked, “Is this the end of us?”
“I hope not.”
Judy had always wanted them to be a proper family, so they agreed that they would wait until they had a child before Judy would go through with the operations.
Megan was born, and for two glorious years, Paul thought that her arrival had made Judy content, that she no longer wanted to have a sex change. But he was wrong.
Judy waited for another rainy day, told Paul, “I still want to become a man.”
They had prepared a bucket this time, and Paul spent the next five minutes retching into it as Judy cried.
When relieved of the contents of his stomach, Paul asked, “Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Then I’ve made a decision. I’m going to become a woman, so that we can still be together as a normal family.”
This revelation surprised Judy, and she hugged Paul, told him thank you as she kissed him repeatedly.
They did their research, found the finest sex reassignment surgeon in the country: Dean Gordon Anderson.
Over six painful operations and hormone therapy, Judy became Charles Books, a country-looking man with a square-jaw implant and dashing eyes. And over five and a half operations and hormone therapy, Paul became Barbara.
Wanting to start afresh, they moved to Rodeo, Texas. They threw away any photographs that featured them, and their child Megan accepted, after a troublesome period, Barbara and Charles as her father and mother, just reversed in the roles that they had previously held.
