The Coaster (12 page)

“Yeah, you did, but I'm glad.” My entire body filled with guilt and dread just from hearing the sound of her voice. “How's your trip going?”

“The usual deal. The kids are having a blast and Carol and I are enjoying our time and our wine together. But as always happens after a few days, I'm ready to come home.”

I jumped on that a little quicker than I would have normally. “True, but you promised the kids four days. You always say you feel guilty that you don't get to spend enough time with them.”

“This is true. But I wish we hadn't gone so rustic. This place is really roughing it and I hate that I have to drive fifteen miles of mountain roads to make a phone call. But that means the office can't reach me either, which I'm always grateful for. So how'd it go with Corny? Is that why you're asleep at eight-thirty? Please tell me he didn't nail some bar skank in my guest bedroom.”

I forced a chuckle. “Nothing like that.” Actually, exactly like that. And you'll never guess what happened in
your
bed. I made a note to myself—wash the sheets and walk every square inch of the house for evidence collection. “But we did stay out drinking pretty late and I'm just beat from that. He left this morning. Are the kids with you?”

“No, they send their love, but they stayed back to play games at the ranch.”

“Well, tell them I love them. Tell them I love them a lot. And I love you, too.” I realized this was completely out of character as soon as it left my mouth, but guilt conjures strange feelings, and I couldn't help myself.

Fortunately, Sarah's a woman, so she wasn't suspicious, just pleased. She misconstrued it as romantic. “Gee, I should wake you up more often. I love you, too, and I'll see you tomorrow.”

With newfound energy, I stripped the sheets from the guest room bed and threw them in the laundry room. I walked back to the master bedroom and entered the chamber of horrors for the first time since this morning. I stood there and viewed my boudoir like a cop at a crime scene. The makeup on the pillow, Corny's footprints everywhere in the carpet where he filmed “the action.” Our wedding picture still lying down but wiped clean. It all made me want to puke again. I'd dug my own grave in this very room and wasn't even conscious when it happened.

I pulled the comforter off the bed and stripped the sheets and pillowcases and threw them in a pile by the door. I picked up the comforter and gave it a sniff. Yep, there was Lexi. The perfume smell hit my male nose and I knew it would knock Sarah's female nose into next week. Since it was not something I could buy a covert replacement for, I took it outside and hung it over the deck railing, hoping it would air out. I carried the sheets down to the laundry room and, along with the guest room sheets, shoved it all into the washer. This was not something I'm very experienced at, so I hoped I was doing it right. The last thing I needed was some kind of
Mr. Mom
laundry disaster to call attention to the fact I was washing the sheets.

I did one more once-around the house, cleaned up all the dishes, and got the towels out of the bathrooms and threw them in the laundry room. I checked the showers for telltale Lexi and Natalie signs and opened the windows to air out the master bedroom. I lay down on the family room couch. Somehow, I didn't feel worthy to sleep in my own bed. I was putting myself in the penalty box for the night.

I examined my options. (1) Bring the wife under the tent and hope she understood. Not ideal, but the cover-up's often worse than the crime. Every veteran sitcom-watcher knows it would be easier to explain that you accidentally made two dates for Halloween than to run back and forth changing your costume every five minutes. But this was a little more serious than that. I'm pretty sure I didn't really do anything wrong, but none of it would have happened if Corny hadn't told me about him and Sarah. My heart was hardly pure. And the pictures were really horrible. I was passed out, but you couldn't tell.

(2) Sign off on the damn deal and hope Corny would do the right thing and give me all of the copies of the photos once I'd done what he asked me to do. Possible, but unlikely, because blackmail doesn't work that way. They just keep bleeding you and bleeding you.

I didn't have a (3). What I needed was a (3). (3) should have been
Fight back. Make these bastards pay and come out a winner.

It wasn't just the specifics of this particular nightmare situation that I couldn't handle. I was at that stage in life where men often start to feel a kind of existential angst. You begin to realize that this is it, you're doing whatever you're going to do and you're not going to achieve any of your dreams. You feel like you've wasted your life and squandered whatever talent you might have had. This is the point when men get sports cars, wear toupees, and have affairs.

I knew I wasn't that kind of guy. For one thing, I didn't have the initiative. For another, a long-term affair seemed crazy to me, like having two wives, but with the added hassle of keeping one of them completely secret.

My mind continued to wander. I was semi-dozing and thinking of all the things I wished I could do over. But what I could have or should have done didn't matter anymore. What was I going to do now? The next play is the only one that matters. Control what you can control. Don't let one bad shot affect the next shot. Don't look back except to learn something. No regrets. Clean slate. What steps could I take?

Chapter Fifteen

I spent the morning double- and triple-checking my cleaning efforts and as far as I could tell, nothing was amiss. Sarah and the kids arrived home without incident, and we spent a normal evening together as a family, although I had my head on a swivel like an NHL defenseman anytime they entered a room that might contain incriminating evidence in spite of my forensic sweep of the house.

Even though the horses we keep are Sarah's, I often do the night check, which mostly involves going down to the barn and feeding them. Just a couple flakes of hay per horse. Sarah is usually feverishly working on her laptop every night, trying to get a few more things done before she goes to bed. So I do the horses. Someone familiar with my schedule would know exactly where to find me at ten at night.

The truth is I volunteer for night check duty because I enjoy it. We have a beautiful barn. It probably cost more than our house. I know it's better cared for.

I like to survey my property like a land baron. The clear sky and fresh air, the smell and sounds of the animals. It feels substantial, like I really have accomplished something, and haven't been just wasting my time, treading water while everyone else swims past.

It was a nice night for winter. Crisp, but not cold. I walked into the barn and was tossing hay over the gates into the stalls when I heard a noise outside in the darkness. It was a male voice singing softly.

You can't hide your lyin' eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you'd realize
There ain't no way to hide your lyin' eyes

I walked over to the barn door. “You're a riot, Corny. Come on in.” When he stepped into the light, I could see that he was holding a DVD. He was dressed all in black—watch cap, turtleneck, jeans, gloves.

Despite Corny's recent transition from friend to foe, the only way I knew how to relate to him was the way we all did in college: giving each other a bunch of shit. “O.J. called, Corny. He wants his stalking clothes back.”

“Hey, it worked for him. He got away with murder.”

“Why are you here?”

“Just like Glenn Frey said, Bobby. You can't hide your lyin' eyes.”

“I disagree. I hide my lyin' eyes all the time. Constantly, in fact. My eyes are way more likely to be lyin' than tellin' the truth. Even when I haven't really done anything.”

He tossed the disk up in the air like he was flipping a coin. “Well, in this case, you
have
done something and it's all right here in vivid Technicolor in the new DVD format. In the old days, a blackmailer had to carry around a bulky videotape cassette. Nowadays we have CDs, DVDs, flash drives, mpegs, jpegs, mwavs, there's been a real technological revolution in the extortion industry.”

“I'm happy for you, Corny. It would be a shame to see technological advancements wasted on upstanding citizens. Maybe we can divert some of that R&D money from cancer research to illegal spy gadgets.”

“We can always hope. But I'm here, Bob, because you haven't kept up your end of the bargain.”

“Bargain? What bargain? A bargain is ‘buy one get one free.' A bargain is not ‘you do something for us or we'll tell your wife you cheated on her.'”

“Okay, you haven't lived up to your end of the coercion. Is that better?”

“Yes, because I didn't agree to do anything. I said I'd think about it.”

“And have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Thought about it?”

“Yes.”

“Did you come to some kind of a decision?”

“Some kind, yes.” I was stalling, but Corny didn't seem to notice. He loved to banter. I'd really been doing nothing but stall for the last couple of days. I was basically running the old North Carolina four corners offense for the whole game, a tactic that made college basketball so boring they added a shot clock. Dean Smith used to do it even with superior talent, but that's because he thought he was smarter than everyone else. When other coaches do it, it's a desperation ploy by a team that's hopelessly overmatched. In this case, me.

But this time I was stalling for a reason. After Corny entered the barn, I thought I heard the back door to the house open followed by the running footsteps of my beloved dog Max. So I was biding my time until the moment when Max would burst into the barn and rip Corny's throat out.

“Well, what was it?”

“What was what?” Max was just outside the door.

“Your decision?”

“It's complicated.” Max leapt at Corny.

“How can it be complic—hey, it's my old buddy, Max. Come here, boy, there's a good boy.” Max curled up in Corny's arms like a baby. Like an evil, traitorous baby. He was licking the face of my worst enemy while staring at me across the barn. I decided Max just didn't know any better. He thought Corny was my friend.

“I think you're a prick but my dog likes you,” I said.

He nuzzled the top of Max's head and scratched his belly as he held him. “He does, doesn't he?”

“It's not surprising. Max has always had terrible judgment.” Max obligingly licked Corny's face.

Corny snorted and set Max down. “All right, I've had enough of your bullshit.” He started toward me in what I would describe as a menacing manner. I had never actually been menaced before and this didn't look like something Dennis would do to Mr. Wilson until he was a tattooed and pierced teenager, but I was being menaced. “I need to know if you're going to play ball.”

Corny's tough guy act was legitimately scaring me but this made me laugh out loud. “Play ball?”

“What's wrong with ‘play ball'?”

“Nothing, if you're a gangster in an old black and white movie.”

“What do people say now?”

“You tell me. You're the bad guy.”

He stepped in close again. “How about this? Any more fucking around and I am going to beat the living shit out of you.”

“Much more effective.”

“Thank you. I meant it. So let's hear it. What's the verdict?”

“I'm not going to do it.”

He waved the DVD in my face. “Okay, then I hope you've got some popcorn because I'm just going to head on up to the house and invite Mrs. Patterson to a special midnight screening of
SpongeBob NoPants
.”

“Nice title.”

“Thanks. I've watched a lot of porn. They always take a real movie title and make it dirty, like
On Golden Blonde
or
Good Will Humping
.”

“Whatever. Go ahead and show it to her.”

Corny was at a loss for words. No pithy comeback for once. He probably looked a lot like I looked when called on at a business meeting when I didn't even know what the discussion was about. But unlike me, he was frustrated and angry instead of charmingly self-deprecating. He started toward me with what looked like intent. Max, as ever attuned to the mood of the room, trotted alongside him, panting and wagging his tail. Corny turned and kicked him. Violently. He booted him like Adam Vinatieri trying a fifty-yard field goal. He kicked
my dog
as hard as he possibly could.

We all have our limits. Unfortunately, kicking the crap out of my dog is apparently below mine, because I stood there like I was one of Cruella de Vil's henchmen. Max yelped and hurriedly limped away down the long barn aisle. Now we were alone.

“You don't get it, Bobby,” Corny said and backhanded me across the face like he was Roger Federer. It reminded me of one of Federer's backhands because you could admire the power and grace even as you were getting your brains beaten in. In my case, literally. I think he'd done this before.

Okay, now I was scared. I hadn't been in a fight since I got my ass kicked on the playground in third grade. I spat blood out of my mouth. I ejected the snot out of my nostrils one at a time, a method we used to call the “coach's handkerchief” in high school. My cheek was numb, which made talking more challenging than usual. “You're wasting your time with this show of force, Corny. I already know you're tougher than me. Everybody's tougher than me.”

“You're right about that, Bobby. But you're wrong about a couple other things. First, you may have been drunk, but those pictures are real. That scene wasn't staged. You brought that girl home with you. And second, you don't realize it, but I'm the best fucking friend you have in this deal.”

“With friends like you, who needs enemies?”

“You think the people I work for wanted to try this shitty blackmail scheme?” Corny asked. “I talked them into it because I said I knew you and further escalations were unnecessary. I told them you'd cave, Bob, and now you're making me look bad in front of my employers.”

“What do I care?”

“You do
not
want to fuck with these people, Bobby. After this little project, I'm getting out. Even I'm afraid to work with them.”

He was standing directly over me. His eyes were bulging from their sockets and the vein in his neck was throbbing. I was beginning to get the idea that Corny didn't just coke up for fun on blackmail nights. “Now you're going to do what I tell you or I'm going to cut off your head and put it on that shelf so you can watch your body run around like the chickens you butcher on this farm.”

“It's a horse farm, Dave,” Sarah said from the barn doorway. “We don't raise chickens.”

***

Corny whirled around to face the voice. “Well, if it isn't the lovely Mrs. Patterson!” Corny singsonged. “What brings you to our party tonight?”

“I started to think Bob ran into trouble feeding the horses, and then I heard you talking and started listening from the tack room door.” She wasn't intimidated by Corny. Women are often braver than they should be in the face of physical violence, to their own detriment as well as that of the husbands whose asses get kicked in bars because they won't shut up. Attractive women are so used to men ogling them that they lose their fear. They're like lion tamers. They're accustomed to bossing around powerful animals.

“I'm glad you're here.” Corny held up the DVD. “I've got something to show you.”

I interrupted him. “There's no need to show her the DVD, Corny.”

Corny turned back to me and smiled. “So now you're ready to ‘play ball'?”

“No. You don't have to show it to her because I already told her.”

***

“Bullshit,” Corny said. It was true, though. I did tell Sarah, after dinner when the kids went to watch TV. There were quite a few tears, but eventually she calmed me down.

“It's true, Dave,” Sarah said. “Bob told me and I believe him. My issue was more related to his being a fucking moron for getting together with you in the first place.”

“That's right,” I said. “I told her and it was easier than you'd think. I couldn't start doing whatever you wanted me to. Trying to keep the incriminating material secret by doing what the blackmailer says is a temporary solution to an ongoing problem. Blackmail doesn't stop.”

“With all due respect, Bob,” Corny said. “What the fuck do you know about blackmail?”

“I know that it doesn't work if the blackmailee doesn't care if the ‘evidence' comes out. You don't really want to show my wife the video. Once you do, your leverage is gone. So if I tell her myself, game over.” I smiled at Corny and continued. “I realized living in constant fear of Sarah finding out was much worse than what would happen if she actually found out. So I told her. It was like ripping off a band-aid.”

“And Sarah forgave you,” Corny said derisively. “Just like that.”

”Come on, Corny. Sure, you had some mildly incriminating photos, but there was no dead hooker, no real sex act.”

Sarah jumped in to help. “Plus, I know he couldn't pick up a pretty young woman and get her to have sex with him if his life depended on it.”

I glared at Sarah. “Unnecessarily cruel, but true.” I turned to Corny. “It was an obvious setup. You must have slipped something in my drink at the bar. No wonder my hangover was such a killer.”

“We were prepared to do that if we had to, but there was no need. You drank yourself into a stupor on your own.”

“Glad I was able to help,” I said. “Now you won't have to go back to Walgreen's before your next date-rape.”

Corny paced back and forth in frustration. “Look,” he said. “You two think you've cleverly defused this blackmail thing, but you have vastly underestimated my employer. That little video was not their normal MO for getting people to do what they want. I came up with that so as not to cause my old pal Bobby any undue pain and suffering.”

“So you blackmailed me for my own good.”

“I wouldn't put it exactly like that, but in effect, yes. I did it to help you.” Corny lifted up his stalking sweater and pulled out a document in one of those clear report covers you used in high school. He had it tucked into the front of his pants like an NFL offensive coordinator. “Now that the blackmail ship has sailed, you're going to need to sign this Letter of Intent to Invest right now or pain and suffering is definitely back on the table.”

“A document signed under duress doesn't mean anything.”

“Oh, yes it does. It will stand unless you say it shouldn't and if you say anything, I'm going to make ‘under duress' seem like a walk in the park for you. You're going to lie awake at night dreaming of the days when you were ‘under duress.'”

I shuffled a few steps to my left. Corny began to ease the space between us so he could keep one eye on Sarah. His brain told him we were a benign threat, but his criminal experience made him act like all three of us were pointing guns at each other in a Mexican standoff. Our stance had backed him up against the opening of the new horse's stall and the stallion was interested in him. The horse was pushing his nose into Corny's back, trying to decide if he was friend or foe. Like most stallions, Rex was suspicious of any male he considered a potential rival for the affections of the females in the herd. Corny kept pushing the horse's head away but he kept coming back: sniff, jerk away, sniff, jerk away.