Crack-Up (27 page)

“Then what happened?”

“I went to the liquor cabinet, and I got good and drunk.
 
Clearly, I’d become the target of a very clever blackmailer.
 
But on the positive side, I felt proud of myself.
 
Proud that I’d had the gumption to pull the plug to the computer.
 
I thought maybe I’d called his bluff, you know?”

“His?” I said.
 
“How did you know—”

“Him, her, they,” Bernard said, waving a dismissive hand in the air.
 
“I had no idea.
 
I still have no idea.”
 
He removed a white silk handkerchief from his breast pocket to dab his tears.

“But you not call bluff?” Hideo said to Bernard.

“No,” Bernard said.
 
“I stayed off my computer until the next evening, when I told myself it would be safe to use, that is, so long as I stayed off the internet.
 
I went back to doing my taxes.
 
About half an hour later, I left the room to use the bathroom at the other end of the hall.
 
When I came back, my printer was printing.
 
Of its own accord.
 
Spewing out page after page.
 
Already, there was a huge pile scattered on the floor . . .”
 
Bernard stared at a barren spot on the floor below his printer, transfixed.

“What was written on the pages?” I said.

“Three words,” Bernard said.
 
“The same three words on every page.
 
Centered.
 
In big, black type.
 
The biggest font there is, I think.
 
I suppose you want to know—”
 
I nodded.
 
Bernard sighed, paused.
 
Meanwhile, his face turned every red shade of maple leaf in autumn.
 
Then he said, “ ‘Bernard sucks cock.’ ”

Hideo was puzzled again.
 
“Suck what?”

“Later,” I whispered.
 
The furniture man’s pain had dissipated my anger some by now.
 
Yet I wasn’t so kind as to wait until the flush left Bernard’s complexion before saying, “You were contacted again?”

“Yes,” Bernard said.
 
“Immediately.
 
The printer was still churning out pages when that blasted photograph reappeared on my monitor.
 
This time there was a type-written message super-imposed at the bottom.
 
It said—I don’t recall exactly—but, something like, ‘This photo has just been forwarded to your wife’s email address.
 
If you wish to have it removed before she sees it, Bernard, you will start to do as you’re told.’ ”
 
Somewhere at the other end of the house, a door slammed shut.
 
“That’s my wife!”

“We’re not leaving,” I said.
 
“We’ve just begun with you.”

“Please!” Bernard said.
 
“Please!”
 
His wild eyes raced back and forth between my stern face and a spot only his mind could see, somewhere beyond the solid walls of his study, but inside the house, where his wife was fast approaching.
 
That sexual secret he kept from her had to be thirty years old.

“I repeat,” I said, “we’re not leaving.”

“We can talk later,” Bernard said.
 
“This afternoon.
 
At my store.
 
I’ll tell you everything, I promise!”

I shook my head, so Bernard changed course.
 
“Okay, okay, alright.
 
Now.
 
We’ll finish our business now.
 
But please!
 
Please pretend to be someone normal in front of my wife, the both of you!
 
Please, please, please!”

“ ‘
Normal
,’ ” I repeated.
 
“That may be difficult.”

“Bernnnie!” called a woman in a sing-song voice.
 
Her soft steps padded down the hall.
 
Bernard’s pleading eyes unmoved me.
 
Mrs. Simpson entered the study, wearing a Christmas red jogging suit and brand new, bulky white sneakers, high-tops that appeared to be a by-product of NASA research, and they came to a quick stop when she saw visitors.

“Oh!” she said.
 
“I didn’t know . . .”

Hideo bowed to her.
 
“Hello, Mrs. Simpson.”

“And who might you be?” she said.

“Hideo Mori.
 
I am gardener.”

“Yes!” Bernard said.
 
“That’s right.”

Mrs. Simpson looked to me, and I said,
 
“I’m, uh . . .”

“Chet!” Bernard said.
 
“He’s Chet.
 
Mister Mori’s assistant.
 
Darling, you won’t believe this, but I’d forgotten all about the appointment I’d made for this morning with Mister Mori.
 
As you know, dear, I’ve been thinking about the possibility of putting in a Japanese garden.”

“No, I don’t know,” Mrs. Simpson said, stepping in front of her husband.
 
“You haven’t discussed that with me, not once.”

“Haven’t I?”

“Bernie, really!
 
You’re going absolutely senile!”

The four of us left the study through a pair of diamond-paned double doors.
 
From the look on Bernard’s face, he hadn’t counted on his wife joining us in the backyard.

We crossed a wide, newly mowed lawn, walking in pairs.
 
I stayed with slow-moving Bernard and his cane.
 
I wasn’t sure who limped more—him or me.
 
Mrs. Simpson, whose first name turned out to be Patricia, linked elbows with Hideo and led the way.

Patricia was no more than sixty, but one hundred percent white-haired.
 
That was one thing, at least, that wouldn’t change if she ever learned about her husband’s secret carnal visits to
Baltimore
.
 
I wondered if the carefree demeanor would survive.

I overheard her say, “ ‘Neewah?’ ” to Hideo, trying to repeat a Japanese word he’d uttered.

“Yes,” Hideo said.
 
“ ‘Niwa’ is Japanese word for ‘garden.’
 
Means ‘pure place.’ ”
 
He halted us in the center of the yard and then pointed to a small patch of purple orchids near the edge of a small fish pond.
 
“No good.
 
Must go.”

Patricia clutched her chest.
 
“My beautiful orchids?”

“Flowers must go,” Hideo said.
 
“Should be no bright colors.
 
Japanese garden is place for quiet reflection.”

“Quiet reflection,” Patricia said, nodding.
 
“Well, we certainly don’t have enough of that.”

Hideo pointed to his own feet.
 
“Winding path start here.
 
Path made of flat stone.
 
Path and new trees I plant provide meigakure.”
 
He noted Patricia’s confusion.
 
“May-gah-koor-ay,” he said.
 
“Translation difficult.
 
Things in garden must be hidden from view at first.
 
Imitates life.
 
Represents life’s mysteries.
 
Nothing is seen clearly at first.
 
Sometimes not for long time.”

“How true,” Patricia said.
 
“How true.”
 
I gave Bernard a meaningful glance.
 
Bernard avoided my eyes.

I said, “Mister Mori, what do you think about one of those stone bridges stretching across their little pond?
 
You know what I mean, don’t you, Bernard?
 
The kind with a severe arch the shape of a cat’s spine when it’s cornered?”

“Yes,” Bernard said, meekly.

“Hmm,” Hideo said, contemplating, stepping toward the pond.

Patricia trailed him.
 
“I like it!
 
I like it!”

I considered ending the charade, commencing the Simpson marriage meltdown, just to have it over with.
 
But a glance at Patricia prevented me.
 
I felt she should learn the truth, but that truth, I also felt, should be delivered in the most humane way possible.
 
From her own husband.

It will come from her own husband
, I thought.
 
In time.
 
Because I’ll see to it
.
 
I whispered into Bernard’s ear.

“Your store.
 
One hour.”

After my follow-up meeting with Bernard, behind a closed office door in the back of his downtown
Baltimore
furniture store, Hideo drove us back to
Washington
.
 
It was late morning by now, and well past the time when Hideo should have taken up his normal, caretaker responsibilities with the lawns and gardens of
Georgetown
.
 
But he was on his way to work now and would drop me off, I’d arranged, at the Rosslyn metro station in
Virginia
, just across the Key bridge from
Georgetown
.
 
During the drive, my mind replayed bits and pieces of Bernard’s strange tale.

“One night,” Bernard had said, “around
nine PM
, I received a strange phone call at home.
 
At first I thought it was just one of those irritating, electronic-voiced telemarketers, and I was about to hang up when the electronic-voice spoke my name, and called me ‘queer,’ and asked me why I’d stopped driving my Mercedes-Benz to the street corner where I . . . where I . . .”

“Used to go,” I said impatiently, “to find nameless, faceless, sex partners to give you head and so forth.
 
Get on with it, Bernard.”

“That was the night we met,” he said.
 
“You and I, Mister Ward.
 
The electronic-voice told me where to go—to Randolph House, of course—and what to say, and who to say it to—you, I mean.
 
I was provided a thorough description, including what you were wearing, down to the last detail, even the design of your necktie, and then I was ordered to embark upon my journey without delay—Immediately!—or else.
 
Or else, specifically, a large stone would come crashing through our living room window at that very moment, with a copy of a certain photograph scrolled up and tied to the rock with a red ribbon.
 
My wife was knitting in the living room, you understand.”

“What did you tell your wife?”

“I said the alarm company that protects this furniture store had called, reporting a system error, and that they needed my building key to reset the alarm.
 
She bought it.
 
Always does.
 
She never doubts me.
 
It’d break my heart if she started to.”
 
He tossed a loud bugle note into his handkerchief.
 
“I told her not to wait up, and I went out, and when I stumbled home drunk, hours later, after giving you the message—that horrible message—she was fast asleep.”

“Don’t you know blackmail never ends?” I said.

“Don’t say that!”

“You were promised it would end, though, weren’t you?”

“Yes.
 
If I did this thing right—this one thing—I’d never be bothered by that photograph again.”

“And were you?”

“No.
 
I received an email, though, the next morning, asking me how things had gone at
Randolph
house, if I’d succeeded, how you’d seemed, how you’d responded.”