All That Was Happy (17 page)

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 lawyers, 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 through 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.

“
You may be glad to hear that
Huntington is absolutely in the clear,” Lauren said. “Of course, I
knew that all along, but the agency has given him a clean bill of
health.”

“
That’s a relief,” Beckie
said.

“
And may I say something else,” Lauren
said, “woman to woman?”

“
Of course,” Beckie said.

“
I’ve known Huntington for many years,
so when I say this, I hope you’ll appreciate it’s value--I’ve never
seen him so happy in the entire time I’ve known him. Beckie, I
think you’re the cause of that happiness.”

“
Wow,” Beckie said. “It’s a big jump
from brandishing a weapon at someone you dislike to hearing news
like that.”

“
Sometimes it takes a crisis to provide
an opportunity for growth,” Lauren said. “Good-bye,
Beckie.”

Beckie came out of cyberspace to find she’d
negotiated the traffic-crammed route from the Valley to Century
City unconsciously, as though somebody else had been driving while
she explored the slippery slopes and low crevasses of her inner
realms, a terrain with which she was becoming increasingly familiar
and a place she wasn’t sure she liked all that much. It was with
relief that she headed for her hotel suite and her rendezvous with
a long hot bath and careful preparations which, if not interrupted
by determined police intent on taking her to jail, would prepare
her for the upcoming evening soiree ala charity upon the arm of one
Huntington whom, the experts said, was real--at least on paper,
which was more than she could say of herself, or anyone else she
knew at that point, excepting the aforementioned Mr. Boopers, who
was by the very fashion of him, a creature of perfection and not
given to sweating out the small stuff of feelings of abandonment or
urges to kill.

Chapter
31

“
I’m having a Beefeater martini, a
drink which I mixed myself with ingredients from my wet bar,”
Beckie said, “while I finish soaking in this incredibly huge marble
tub, into which I’ve put a lot of bath fizzies, and from which I
can see the sparkling pre-sunset lights of downtown. By the time
you pick me up, I may be too relaxed to move--you may have to
simply sling me over your shoulder.”

“
L.A. is a playful place,” Huntington
said. “I doubt if anybody would say a thing if a man in smart
evening wear traipsed through their hotel lobby with his woman in
tow as you suggest.”

Beckie, on the phone to Huntington, arranging
the details of her pickup by him prior to the charity dinner, was
winding down from a hard day of emotional clashing with her
present, eclectically unstable world of uncertain relationships and
even more uncertain places and things. The rich appointments of the
three-room suite--trapped out as it was by a recent remodeling coup
by the new owners--in designer fabrics and warm fruit woods,
invited one, if one chose--and could afford the tariff--to take a
complete break from the rigors of divorcing, asset stripping,
hunting and gathering and just being a dues-paying member of the
pain-in-the-tail It Takes A Village life in general.