Dead Money (35 page)

So you know, he said.

This was almost too easy. I’d anticipated hours of sparring. Turning the screws. Letting the evidence out piece by piece, until he had no choice but to succumb.

We do, said Dorita.

Shit, he said.

He looked down at his shoes. He gulped his vodka. I looked at Dorita. She wasn’t taking her eyes off him.

Jake began pacing back and forth on the kitchen tiles, mumbling to himself.

Watch your feet, said Dorita.

He looked up.

What? he asked.

He had the vacant look again.

The glass, she said.

Oh, he said, looking down again. Fuck that.

He kept pacing. He walked over the glass. It crunched on the tiles. He walked to the end of the apartment, to the window there. He stood for a while. He leaned his forehead against the pane. Far away.

My glass was empty. It felt lonely. I went to the kitchen for a refill.

All right, said Jake.

He came back to our end of the room. He pulled an armchair over, facing Dorita. He sat down.

I’ll tell you the story, he said. But first I need to know who you are. What the fuck do you care about my life?

He was talking directly to Dorita. It was as though I wasn’t there.

We were just curious, Dorita said. We did a little search. We found some newspaper articles.

Curious? he said, his voice rising. Who the fuck are
you?
I just met you tonight.

Rick was curious, she said. We were talking. He said he met this actor guy. I did an Internet search. Nothing came up. It seemed you didn’t exist.

He curled his lip.

I exist all right, he said.

That seems clear enough, she said. But nothing came up. We thought it kind of strange. For an actor.

I never said I was a
successful
actor, he said, with a mirthless chuckle.

Silence.

So I checked with the Actor’s Guild, she said. And I got your real name. Did a search. And there it was.

But why do you care? he asked, a note of pleading in his voice.

I don’t, Dorita said. But Rick does. Rick likes you. And Rick’s my friend. He wants to help, if he can.

Help? How the fuck can you help me? he asked, with an angry look at me.

I don’t know, I said. All I know is that you’re living with a secret. And that isn’t good. It warps you. It makes your life hell. Believe me. I know.

Yeah, he said, with a sneer. I know you know.

What does that mean? I asked.

He paused. He looked straight at me. He seemed to be weighing his options. He shook his head.

You know what I mean, he said.

No, I don’t.

Silence.

All right, he said at last. Whatever. You know about me. You read all that bullshit in the papers, anyway.

That’s why we’re talking to you, said Dorita. We know what’s in the papers is never right.

Who the fuck
are
you? Jake asked her again, half angry, half resigned.

He looked at me for help.

I’m Rick’s friend, she said calmly.

Friend?

My only friend, actually, I said. Other than you, I added quickly.

He softened.

Okay, he said. Will you let me explain?

We maintained an expectant silence. The moment was excruciating. One wrong word and he could clam up. Throw us out. Disappear.

It’s not like they said in the papers, he said.

Dorita nodded. I nodded.

She was eight years older than me, you know.

I noted the past tense.

The whole thing was stupid beyond belief.

We waited.

She was twenty-two. I was fourteen. I mean, imagine.

He shook his head. We waited some more. I reminded myself that he was an actor, self-described.

We loved each other, he said quietly.

We waited.

Not that way, he said. Jesus Christ. Not that way.

Not the way the papers said? asked Dorita.

Not that way, he repeated. We loved each other so much.

Tears appeared in his eyes.

So what happened? Dorita asked gently.

My dad, he said, choking on the word.

Your dad?

He was an operator. A political guy. He could never get enough of it. Power. Influence. He wanted to be the big man in town. I mean. I didn’t see it then. I see it now. But it was so stupid. It was just a little town in the middle of nowhere. Why the fuck did he care?

He stopped again. If he wasn’t overcome with emotion, he was doing a bang-up job of faking it.

And? asked Dorita, almost whispering.

And he got tangled up with this developer. Ryan. Josh Ryan. A big fat asshole. I don’t know all the details. I don’t want to know.

It started coming out of him in a rush.

Ryan was a big shot. He’d come over to the house. Dad wanted us to like him. To treat him good. He’d give us instructions before Ryan got there. Say this. Say that. Make him happy. We all hated his guts.

Ryan?

Yeah. The guy was so full of himself it made us sick.

Us?

Me, Randy, Mom. We hated the fucker.

Randy?

Short for Miranda.

Okay.

And then one day, Randy’s off at college, Mom and Dad are talking. On the patio, in the back. And there’s shouting and screaming. And I hear stuff breaking. And I run out back there. And Dad’s on the ground. And Mom’s standing over him. And she’s got a big flowerpot in her hand. And she’s about to smash it over his head. And I yell out, and I run over, and I grab her arm. And she screams, and starts crying. And Dad gets up. And he slinks back into the house. And Mom’s crying.

Jake/Brendan’s eyes filled with tears.

I’d never seen her cry before, he said. Never.

We waited.

He looked up at us. His eyes were red.

You’re sure you want to know all this? he asked.

Only if you want us to, said Dorita softly.

He gazed at Dorita. He looked at me. Or through me. He continued.

I don’t even know what set it off. Some stupid deal my father brokered for this guy. Somebody tried to screw somebody. Maybe they were all screwing each other. Probably. I don’t know. And Mom knew it before Dad. She was trying to tell him. To warn him. And he wouldn’t listen. But later he finally figured it out. And Ryan and my dad ended up hating each other.

Making it unanimous, I said.

Right. And nobody was happier than Randy. We didn’t have to pretend anymore. Because Ryan had been hitting on her. He got the idea that she was his property. Dad was his, and if Dad was his, so was Randy.

Gross, said Dorita.

Beyond gross.

Jake paused. He wiped his eyes. He looked exhausted. Excuse me, he said. He went to the bathroom.

Dorita looked at me. I looked at her. We heard the water running. She shrugged. I shrugged. We weren’t sure.

I hope he doesn’t throw himself out the window, she said.

There’s no window, I assured her.

Jake came back.

What more do you want to know? he asked, looking at me.

Dorita cut in before I could respond.

As much as you want to tell us, she said gently.

Jake took a deep breath.

Ryan was a major-league prick, he said. He wanted to get back at Dad. For whatever. And at Randy. For disrespecting him.

How had she disrespected him? I asked.

Not marrying him. Marrying him?

He wanted her to marry him. It was like an arranged marriage thing, in his head. Dad owed him. He was going to take Randy. As payment.

Jesus, I said.

Yeah. And before the big fight, Dad was almost on his side. It was a sick situation. But it got sicker.

Jake wiped sweat from his forehead. We waited.

I don’t know how he did it. But he got a picture. Must have had some PI guy or whatever. He got a picture.

What was in the picture? Dorita asked.

Randy. Naked. And me. On the bed. In her room.

Were you naked too?

No. I was in my track shorts. Listen, I know it sounds bad. It looked bad. He gave it to the paper. But it wasn’t what it looked like.

We waited.

Jesus. I never told anybody this.

What? said Dorita gently. What didn’t you tell anybody?

That I’m gay, he said.

I almost choked on my Scotch. This was not where I’d thought it was going.

Nothing wrong with that, Dorita said.

No. Not here. Not now. But then. And there. You didn’t tell people that. You might as well just kiss your life goodbye. So when the picture came out. What was I going to do? We loved each other, Randy and me.

He looked at me with pleading eyes.

But not like that, he said. She was the only one who knew. About my…thing. We shared everything.

His eyes misted up again.

I was trying to reconcile this revelation, if that was what it was, with the Jake I knew. The poker-playing, backslapping, hard-drinking guy. I thought back. Yes, I could see it. It could be. All that angst. All those hints of deep dark secrets and the unfairness of the world. The drinking. It all fit.

Though it fit some other theories too.

We were in her room, he said. I was her kid brother, for God’s sake. She knew what I was. She knew she could be free with me. She knew she could share anything. God.

His voice choked up.

We waited while he composed himself.

She was always very self-conscious. Sure, she was the star. The valedictorian. The girl the guys all wanted to take out. But it never was enough for her. She wanted more. She wanted to be a
real
star. Out in the world. Somebody at the college had approached her. Asked her to model. That was going to be her start. She was going to the big time. But she was still so insecure. She never thought of herself as beautiful. It didn’t matter how many guys asked her out. Drooled over her. She never believed it.

We smoked a little dope, he continued. We stole a little gin from Daddy’s stash. We were pretty wasted. I was trying to convince her she was beautiful. She thought she was too skinny. A bag of bones, she said. I laughed at her for that. Look, she said. Look at me. She was out of control. She took off her dress. She had nothing underneath. She liked to be that way. Nobody ever knew but me. She could sit there in church, and only she and me would know.

He broke down. He cried. Dorita went to him. Put her arms around him. He melted in her arms. She looked at me. She raised her eyebrows. I shrugged. Damn.

Once he’d calmed down a bit he went on.

So she’s standing there in front of the mirror, naked, and she’s yelling, ‘Look at me, I’m nothing.’ She was hysterical. I’d never seen her like that. I was trying to calm her down. And I guess that’s when the bastard took the picture. He was at the window. He had to have been there. Next day a bunch of reporters show up. Jesus.

He told us the rest of the story. The police. The newspaper stories. Daddy found dead with the top of his head on the bedroom wall. Mom breaking down, inconsolable. Catatonic. They took her to the hospital. She never spoke again.

Their lives were ruined. They couldn’t even look at each other. It was all too painful. They got the hell out of town. He went to Chicago. She went to L.A. They didn’t talk. They didn’t write. They needed to expunge, erase, forget the ugly past.

Jake, I said when he was finished. There’s something that doesn’t make sense to me.

What? he said.

He was tired. Resigned.

You said you were gay.

Yeah?

When Dorita was hustling you, tonight?

Yeah.

You weren’t acting like a gay guy.

He looked at me like I was stupid.

I was trying to impress you, Rick, he said.

Oh man. What else had I missed?

I found out soon enough.

Mom died, last year, he said. And I thought about it all. I thought to myself, I said to myself, we were all we had. Randy and me. I had her. She had me. We didn’t have anyone else. Back then. And I still didn’t have anyone. Anything. I had this stupid acting thing. It was going nowhere. Auditions. Humiliation. Building bookshelves.

He gave me an ironic smile.

I smiled. I nodded my head.

So I decided to look her up. I’d find her. It wasn’t that hard. I knew where she’d gone. I called some people. I traced her from L.A. to here.

And?

And I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure if she’d want to see me. I didn’t know what kind of life she’d built here. How deep she’d buried the past. So when I found out she was married, had a kid, had a life, I figured I had to go slow.

Of course, Dorita said.

Of course, I echoed.

So I checked it out.

Reconnoitered, I said.

Right, he said. And I found out you hung out at the Wolf’s Lair.

Right, I said slowly, puzzled at the change of subject.

He looked at me. He spoke directly to me.

I figured I could get to her through you, he said. Gradually.

I stared back at him. What the hell was he saying?

He saw my confusion.

Jesus, he said. You didn’t know?

Know what? I said.

My stomach turned over.

I thought you knew, he said. I thought that was the point of all this.

Knew what? I asked.

Though by then I knew.

Melissa, he said. Melissa was Randy.

Oh my God, said Dorita.

Oh Jesus, said Jake. I thought you knew.

I WAS SHAKING
. I had to get away. I told Jake I was sorry, I had to go. I had to think about this. He said he understood. His eyes said something else. He looked lost, afraid. I didn’t have the energy to deal with that.

I had a million questions. Had he contacted Melissa before the day he’d come over? Since? Did he know anything about her death? About who might have …

I couldn’t ask the questions. It was already too much.

We went to Trois Pistoles, Dorita and I. I ordered onion soup and a bottle of cheap Burgundy. I ignored the soup. I drank the wine. I chainsmoked cigarettes.

Well, I said gloomily, that explains the phone calls, doesn’t it?

It sure does.

They were talking. He probably came over. How would I know? I’m never in the goddamn house.