Elliot Allagash (17 page)

“Until that moment, Dr. Highsmith had struck me as a particularly unsentimental man, a straight shooter whom I could see eye to eye with. But when I suggested he remove all four kidneys and pick the best one, he protested.

“‘What would you have me do with the remaining three?’ he asked.

“‘Give them away,’ I said, ‘to some charity hospital.’

“‘We’d be caught instantly,’ he said.

“‘Then I’ll keep them on hand,’ I said, ‘in case my wife needs a spare.’

“‘They’re not
sirloin steaks,’
he said. ‘They don’t “keep.”’

“‘Then throw them in the garbage,’ I said. ‘Put them in a trash bag and throw them in the garbage can.’

“There was a long pause.

“‘Sir,’ he said. ‘Purchasing organs is already incredibly illegal, by any standard of the law. But to buy organs and
discard
them…’

“I thought about my lovely young wife, chatting with her old man about the advance of Stalin’s army.

“‘I don’t have time for this,’ I said. ‘Tell me within ten seconds.’

“I was about to hang up when I heard him clear his throat.

“‘Well, all right,’ he said. ‘But this is going to affect the fee.’

“And so we flew to Thailand. We bribed the proper officials, we purchased the correct equipment, we hired the right doctor and bought the right kidneys, we chose the best one and threw away the rest. And then she died anyway.”

• • •

Terry relit his cigar and casually resumed smoking.

“That was a terrible story,” he said. “I should have told you the one about the bear.”

He gestured at the gigantic stuffed beast.

“That one’s quite fun.”

“How old was Elliot?” I asked. “When all of that happened?”

Terry shrugged.

“Who ever knows with that one?”

“He never told me that story,” I said.

“He doesn’t know it,” Terry said. “I hope someday he’ll think to ask.”

He poured himself a large drink.

“I don’t spy on him, you know,” he said.

“What?”

“I could easily hire a spy,” he said. “I have three full-time private investigators on retainer. I could have him tailed, but I don’t. Not anymore. Because I don’t care, Seymour. I couldn’t care less. James writes me weekly reports—he’s been doing it for years—and I throw them in the garbage. I throw them in the trash.”

The sun had gone down, but Terry hadn’t turned on any lights. I stood up and made my way across the darkened study.

“Stay!” he said. “Have a seat, have a brandy.”

“It’s getting pretty late,” I said.

“I’ll tell you about the bear,” he said. “It’s a good one!”

“I really need to—”

“It takes place at a circus and involves a professional fat lady.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“It’s sexual.”

“I can’t.”

“Would you…like to see a painting? I’ll show you a painting from my collection—something no one’s ever seen before!”

“Mr. Allagash, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go home. My parents are probably getting worried.”

Terry blinked a few times and smiled broadly.

“Fine,” he said. “That’s just as well. That’s fine.”

I walked out into the hallway, my eyes burning at the brightness, and closed the heavy door behind me.

• • •

For as long as I could remember, my parents had been communicating with me through Post-it notes. They usually left me two or three bulletins a day, telling me who had called or where in the fridge I could find dinner. The notes were always a revealing indicator of what my parents thought of me. It wasn’t what they wrote—they could only fit a few words onto those tiny yellow squares. It was where they placed them in the house. For instance, when I was in eighth grade, they posted all my Post-its on the Oreo cabinet, clearly determining that it was the one place in the apartment I was guaranteed to visit. At some point in high school, they had started tacking them to my bookshelf—convinced, evidently,
that I had turned into a scholar. Lately, though, they had begun to plant the Post-its on my mirror.

I ignored the top note and stared at the bottom one, convinced that I had misread it. How had Jessica even found my number? The class directory still listed the one from our old apartment. I peeled the Post-it off the mirror and held it up to the light. It felt irrationally substantial in my hands, as if her name had infused the paper with added mass.

I took out the directory, looked up her number, and dialed.

“Laura?” she asked.

“Um, no,” I said. “It’s Seymour?”

“Who?”

“Seymour?”

“Oh!”

“You called, right?”

“Oh, yeah! Mr. Hendricks gave me your number. He said, ‘You need a tutor for the French test,’ so I said, ‘How about Seymour? He knows everything!’ and he said, ‘Okay,’ so then I called you up!”

I covered up the receiver and cleared my throat.

“Can you believe how many tests there are?” I tried. “It’s so
lame.”

Jessica laughed. It was a miraculous sound, like coins falling out of a slot machine.

“Stop,” she said, giggling. “Stop! Quit it!”

I heard some rustling, followed by some sharp squeals.

“Jessica?”

“Sorry,” she said, panting. “Lance is being a jerk.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Are you free on Wednesday? Because the test is on—”

She squealed again—louder this time—and dropped the phone onto some kind of hard surface. I could hear both their voices now, but the sound was too muffled to make out any of the words. I felt like hanging up, but I didn’t want to be rude. So I just sat there for a couple of minutes, waiting for them to finish whatever it was they were doing.

There’s no way I could tutor Jessica—it would be a disaster. How could I teach her a language I didn’t even speak?

Jessica sighed into the receiver.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Listen, Jessica—I don’t think I can.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I’m just too busy.”

“Okay, what about Tuesday?”

“No, I can’t at all. I actually have to go.”

“Oh, okay. Hey look, I’m sorry for bothering you! I just thought, you know, since you were good at French—”

“Yeah, it’s okay. But I have to go now. Bye.”

“Okay, bye—”

I closed my phone, shut the directory, and tossed the Post-it note into the garbage.

I should have known that’s why she had called—what other reason could there possibly be? I pictured her in Mr. Hendricks’s office, solemnly jotting down my phone number. And Lance doing God knows what while she reluctantly dialed it. But there was no time to think about all that—I had bigger problems. When Jessica told Mr. Hendricks I had refused to help her, he’d call me in for a meeting to ask why. I’d have to have some concrete alibi ready, so he wouldn’t get any more suspicious than he was already. I took out my notebook and a pencil and called Elliot.

“Where were you?” he demanded. “I called your cell phone, your home phone, left messages on your voice mail and with your
mother…
I mean,
I
didn’t actually physically do any of these things. James did, on my behalf. I’ve been in a custom-made bathing pool for the past four hours. But still, that’s time James could have spent inventing me new cocktails.”

“We have a problem,” I said. “Jessica called and…she asked me to tutor her. I said no, but when Mr. Hendricks finds out—”

“Good God,” Elliot interrupted. “
That’s
why you’re so addled?”

“I don’t speak French, Elliot!”

He laughed.

“I take it from your tone that this has less to do with Hendricks than with Jessica.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Give me some credit, Seymour. You thought, for a split second, that maybe she was calling because—”

“Elliot, this is serious, okay? My teachers are getting suspicious.”

I made sure my door was locked and continued in a whisper.

“I’m not like
you
, okay? People actually care whether or not I’m lying to them.”

Elliot scoffed.

“You think nobody keeps tabs on me? Come on. Terry thinks my attendance record at Glendale is ‘stellar.’ I have to bribe James every week to falsify his reports.”

“It’s different, though. I mean—your father doesn’t even read those reports.”

There was a pause.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“He throws them away. He told me.”

“When did he talk about me? What else did he say?”

“Do you really care?” I asked.

“Of course not!” he snapped. “I was just curious, but forget it.”

There was a knock on my door.

“I have to go, Elliot—we’re having dinner.”

“Right now?”

“I’ll talk to you some other time.”

“Wait! Hold on—I’ll help you with this Hendricks thing.”

“Not now.”

“I have a solution, but it’s complicated—come over and we’ll map it out.”

“I can’t. I got to go.”

“You’re going to want to hear this one, Seymour! I’ve been saving it—it’s the perfect way to take him down!”

“Goodbye, Elliot.”

“But—”

“Goodbye.”

Figuring out the dynamics of the Allagash family was like trying to solve a complicated math problem: If Terry paid James
x
dollars to write him a weekly report about his son, and Elliot paid James
y
dollars to falsify that report, and Terry threw that report in the garbage, who came out ahead? How much would they save by simply talking to each other?

These are the questions I asked myself that night at dinner, as I ate with my parents in silence.

• • •

“I think this one is probably the most fucked up,” Ashley said.

“Maybe,” I said. “But it’s useful research.”

“It’s a chart of Mr. Billings’s shits.”

“You said you’d help me,” I said, grabbing my notebook out of her hands.

“I’ll help, I’ll help,” she said. “But you have to tell me why you have this.”

I pointed a finger at her.

“If you tell
anybody
about
any of this—
”

She laughed.

“I know, I know, you already threatened me.”

“I shouldn’t be talking to you at all,” I said. “Honestly, I have no idea why we’re even talking.”

“Seymour, why would I tell on you?” she said. “I mean, who would even believe me?”

I hesitated.

“Okay. But
no interruptions.”

I spread open the book and propped it up against the water tower.

“Mr. Billings is the high school registrar. That means he gets a copy of every final exam in advance.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, so he can file them away for future reference. He also gets every student’s report cards.”

“Wow.”

“I know. So obviously, it’s important to know when he’s going to be away from his office.”

“So you can break into his desk.”

I hesitated.

“Jesus, Seymour, relax!” she said. “There’s nobody up here.”

“Okay. Well…basically, there are two important things to know about him. The first is that he always eats lunch at twelve thirty. The second thing is that he has irritable bowel syndrome. Now usually after lunch, he goes straight to the fifth floor bathroom for about ten minutes. But on
these
days—”

I pointed to the calendar.

“He goes to the
eleventh-floor
bathroom. For over half an hour.”

“Why?”

“I think because it’s more remote. The eleventh floor is only accessible by Staircase B, and almost no one uses it. I guess he wants privacy for whatever goes on in there.”

“No, I mean, why does it take him
so long
on those two days? What’s special about them?”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, that’s when the cafeteria serves pizza.”

She started to laugh out loud, getting louder and louder with every breath.

“Ashley!”
I whispered.
“Shh!”

She scrunched up her eyes and banged both fists against the water tower. I kept trying to shush her, but my pleas only seemed to make her laugh harder.

“What’s so funny?” I demanded.

She tried to answer, but every time she caught her breath, the hysterics returned and she couldn’t get any words out. Eventually, she grabbed my pencil and scribbled something onto my chart.

He eats the pizza
anyway!

It
was
pretty amazing; Mr. Billings knew
exactly
what pizza did to him, but twice a month, he threw caution to the wind and went for it.

Ashley collapsed in her chair, spent. Her lips were parted and her chest was heaving. She eventually caught her breath. But when she opened her eyes and looked at me, it set her off again—and then we were both laughing, stomping our feet against the tar. She started shoving me and I grabbed both her wrists to make her stop. We tried to regain control of ourselves, but whenever we made eye contact, we started laughing again. When we were finally finished, I could feel an ache in my stomach, like I had just done a hundred sit-ups. There were tears in my eyes.

“Did Elliot think of that chart?” she asked, after we had caught our breath.

“Actually, that one was mostly my idea.”

“Well it’s pretty good,” she said.

I blushed.

We ran through the answers to Douglas’s history final until the ten-minute bell clanged softly in the distance.

“Do you want to hear something crazy?” I said, before heading down my tunnel. “It never occurred to me until now that there was something funny about that chart.”

Ashley nodded solemnly.

“That
is
crazy,” she said.

• • •

Elliot wheeled up the dumbwaiter and took out two items: a battered cell phone and a copy of the Yellow Pages. He flipped the book open to the Male Escorts section, grabbed the cell phone, and began to dial numbers. After about five calls, he put both objects back into the dumbwaiter and wheeled them down. Then he took out his Enemies book, unscrewed his pen, and made a little check mark.

“A waiter,” he explained. “He tried to correct my pronunciation.”

“Oh,” I said.

Elliot took out a pink handkerchief and dramatically wiped his face. I could tell he wanted me to ask a follow-up question. “How did you get the waiter’s cell phone?” for instance. Or, “How will those calls you made affect his life?” But I wasn’t in the mood for a story.