The Man Who Loved Women to Death (13 page)

“No, Tuttle, I believe that once you’re born into this world you just keep on living forever.”

“You believe in hell, in other words.”

“Exactly. Not a bad tie, by the way. Really picks up the red in your eyes.” It was an old school tie. Our old school, actually. I found myself staring at it, wondering if it had been wrapped around Laurie London’s throat. I found myself staring at
him.
It had been a while, and time had not been on his side. Not that Tuttle Cash was a terrible-looking man in middle age. But you had to know how good he once looked to know just how bad he looked now. His lean, hard body had grown fleshy and suety. His clean, handsome features were melting, like wax that someone was holding a match to. The narrow, chiseled nose had grown coarse and blotchy, the blond hair thin and dull. I suppose it was his eyes that bothered me the most. Not so much that they were puffy and bloodshot. It was the look in them. Where once there had been a spirited certainty, now there was only confusion and defeat. Everything Tuttle Cash did he had to do better than anyone else. Right now what he was doing was failing. His breath was sour there in the small, hot space, as if something was eating away at his insides. He wore a good shirt. A gentleman always does. It was a blue chambray with a tab collar, a bit snug at the neck. His jacket was a lush herringbone tweed. The suede vest he had on made for a jaunty, chesty appearance. He looked plenty prosperous and dapper. That was his job. It was not his job to order the beef or get the napkins cleaned. It was his job to be Tuttle Cash, the great American golden boy. He nearly pulled it off, too. Provided you didn’t know him.

He put the gun down on the desk. He reached for a bottle of pills in the top drawer. He popped two of them in his mouth and poured three fingers of Courvoisier into a snifter and chased them down.

I reached for the gun and hefted it. I’m always surprised at how heavy they are. I dropped it in my coat pocket and said, “Rather inconsiderate way to go, Tuttle. Just think of the mess.”

“Oh, I was,” he assured me, brightening. “They’d have to repaint, redo the plaster, the rug … and imagine the publicity.”

“Who is this
they?”

His eyes looked past me at the door. “The partners. Place is running in the red at the rate of seven thousand dollars a month. Pretty expensive little clubhouse, even for four really rich assholes. They’re trying to decide whether to pull the plug on the whole damned place or just on me.” He poured himself three more fingers of brandy. “They don’t seem to feel I’m worth a whole hell of a lot anymore.”

“Hell, I could have told them that.”

He let out a short, jagged laugh. There was an edge of hysteria to it. I didn’t know it. He held the bottle out to me. “Drink?”

“Had one, thanks.”

He raised his eyebrows at me. “I don’t remember you ever saying no.”

“That puts you one up on me. I don’t remember anything.”

“They were right, you know.”

“Who was?”

“The people who told us that all of those drugs would fry our brains.”

“Well, of course. That was the whole idea, wasn’t it?”

He caught my eyes flicking around the tiny space. “What are you looking for?”

“The computer. I thought all restaurants were computerized now.”

“Oh, we are. It’s out back—I won’t use it. Turns out I’m something of a Luddite in addition to all of my other problems.”

Lulu ambled in and nosed around briefly before she decided the bar was more fertile territory. I didn’t blame her. I closed the door after her. I sat down.

“What’s it been, Doof? Two years?”

“At least. You hear anything from Ezra?”

He let out that laugh again. “Not too much chance of that happening, is there?”

“Why not?”

He watched me curiously from across the desk. “You don’t know?”

“I don’t believe so, no.”

“Yeah, you do,” he insisted. “You just forgot. Ezra doesn’t speak to me anymore, Doof. Goes back to that night you flipped your Morgan.”

“It does?” I had no recollection of this fact. None. “What—?”

“I’ll let him be the one to tell you about it.” Tuttle crossed his arms in front of his chest, stretching his jacket so tight I thought the material would tear. “How is she, Doof?”

“Merilee’s fine, thanks.”

“Fuck Merilee,” he said roughly.

“Oh, I do. And, lately, in the oddest places.”

He glared at me in cold silence. He was waiting for an answer.

I gave him one. “I wouldn’t know, Tuttle. We haven’t heard from Tansy in quite a while.”

“Have you tried calling her?”

“Merilee’s left a million messages. She never calls back.”

He raised his chin at me. “I’m surprised
you
haven’t called her.”

“Why would I do that?”

“You trying to tell me you never had a load in your pants for her?”

“I am. That was my wallet.”

“Sure, Doof. Whatever you say.” He sat back in his chair with his hands clasped across his thickening stomach, a wistful glow on his face. “Tansy and me … that was the best time in my life.”

“You didn’t say that then,” I reminded him. “You said you felt like you were drowning.”

“I didn’t appreciate what I had.”

“I suppose that explains why you slept around on her.”

“I was wrong.”

“And why you beat the crap out of her.”

“Once.
One time, that’s all.”

“Oh, cut the bullshit, Tuttle. You turned her into a punching bag. She’d walk into the Gotham Bar & Grill with a black eye and people would say, ‘Oh, hi, Tansy. When did Tuttle get back into town?’ It got to be a running joke. All that was missing was the humor.”

“We loved each other, Doof,” he said stubbornly.

“Maybe you did.” And maybe I should have done more. I had tried to steer him into counseling. I had even offered to go with him. He wouldn’t go. Maybe I should have taken a more active role. Maybe I should have taken a baseball bat to him. I’d wanted to.

“She won’t answer any of my letters,” he said. “Why won’t she answer my letters?”

I frowned at him. “I thought the judge said you weren’t supposed to contact her.”

“The restraining order says I’m not supposed to phone her or approach her. It doesn’t say anything about writing her.”

“I see,” I said, liking this less and less. And I hadn’t started out real up about it. Already, I could feel myself getting sucked in.

“Why won’t she forgive me, Doof?” he asked pleadingly. “Why won’t she give me another chance? I made a mistake. I’ve paid for it. When convicts serve out their sentence, they get a second chance. Why can’t
I
get a second chance? I still love her. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?”

“It’s over, Tuttle. You have to accept that.”

“I can’t.”

“You have to.”

“She belongs to me.”

“She does
not.
You don’t own her. She’s not a snowmobile.” I was starting to raise my voice in frustration. A too-familiar response. I crossed my legs, smoothed the crease in my trousers. I lowered my voice: “I take it you haven’t met anyone else?”

Before he could respond a buzzer sounded.

“You’ll have to excuse me a second—duty calls.” Tuttle got to his feet and squared his shoulders. Cleared his throat. Jutted his jaw manfully. Then he threw open the door and went striding through that doorway like it was a hole in the line of scrimmage and there was nothing between him and the goal line but daylight. He was King Tut now. And, outside, there were whoops and hearty hellos at the sight of him, jokes and laughter all around.

Briefly, I recalled with horror my trip out to the coast after the first novel got hot. An agent with a taste for kitsch took me for a drink to Alan Hale’s Lobster Barrel on La Cienega. When the two of us walked in we found the burly, white-haired actor who’d played the Skipper on
Gilligan’s Island
hunched over a drink at the bar, staring morosely into it. When he heard us he struggled heavily to his feet and gave us a grin and a hearty handshake, followed by a booming, “Ahoy, little buddies! Welcome to my restaurant!” Then he went back to staring morosely into his drink.

I suppose, in one way or another, we all end up as actors playing ourselves. I knew that then and I know it now. But that doesn’t stop it from being sad. After all, I’d seen Tuttle when he was something swift and sure and beautiful out there.

Me, I searched the man’s desk. Those pills in the top drawer were Valium. Vitamin V and Courvoisier—the unofficial adult Happy Meal. There were a couple of business cards in there. One belonged to an editor at
Sports Illustrated,
the other to an HBO executive. Both were women. I found no account books or receipts or anything that had to do with the running of a restaurant. I did find his address book, of worn tan leather. I searched through it quickly. There was no listing for a Laurie London. Or a Diane Shavelson. I kept hunting. I found a pair of bifocals, a sewing kit from the Sheraton, a shoe rag, an electric razor. I found pills, pills and more pills—Naprosyn for his knee, Zantac for his stomach, Urispas for his prostate, Prozac for his head.

His topcoat, a hooded navy-blue duffel coat, was tossed over the filing cabinet. I checked the pockets. Nothing but a package of condoms.

Then I heard voices and I sat back down and he returned.

“A couple of advertising execs from Chicago,” he said, shutting the door behind him. And dropping the golden smile. “One of them was a year ahead of us.” He made his way back behind the desk, limping slightly from the pain in his knee, and sat. “What were we saying?”

“Women. I was asking if you were holding up your end.”

“Nobody special. The models who come in here want guys twenty years younger than us. The women our age want security, which I can’t offer them. I have nothing to offer them, actually. Them or anybody else.” His face tightened grimly. “The truth is, I can’t even figure out who the fuck I am anymore.”

“Oh, hell. If you’re going to sit around feeling sorry for yourself, I’m going to leave.” I started to get up.

“Please don’t, Doof!” he begged, suddenly panicky.

I remembered the gun in my pocket, and what he’d been doing with it when I came in. I settled back down. There, I was good and sucked in now. “Who do you want to be, Tuttle?”

He didn’t seem to hear that. He was lost in his thoughts now. “These guys, they come in here with their fancy jobs, their six-figure salaries, their stock options … and all they want to do is suck my dick because of some tackle I broke twenty fucking years ago against Dartmouth.” He shook his head in befuddlement. “I’ve had to declare bankruptcy, Doof. I’m three months behind on my rent. I haven’t bought a new suit in I don’t know how long. I take all my meals here because they’re free. I need another operation on my knee, only I got no health insurance. My only luxury is the health club, because I have to keep up appearances. And I’m not even doing a very good job at that.” He reached for the bottle of Courvoisier and poured himself some more. “I feel like shit. I look like shit. I
am
shit.”

“Try water if you want to sober up.”

“Who wants to sober up?” he said harshly.

“Okay. Fine. Just checking.” He’d gone through a quarter of the bottle just in the short time I’d been there. How many bottles in a whole day and night, I wondered. “How’s the Triumph running?” I asked. It was a ’79 Spitfire, dark blue. Nice car. Not much trunk space, but Diane Shavelson was small.

“I wouldn’t know,” he replied. “Sold it to some stockbroker last summer. Aren’t you listening—I’m broke!”

“I can let you have a couple thousand to tide you over.”

“I don’t want your money, man.”

“Good. It wasn’t a sincere offer.”

He let out a laugh, a real one, like the old days. And for a second there was a spark of life in his blue eyes. But then it flickered and went out. And he sat there slumped in his chair, quietly stewing in his own melancholy.

“Are you doing any writing these days?” I asked.

He gave me a puzzled look. “Why would I want to do that?”

“You were good at it. You got pleasure from it.”

“I get no pleasure at being ordinary at anything in life.”

“In that case, you must take no pleasure at being alive.”

“My own sorry conclusion, before you so rudely interrupted me.”

“Maybe I should just give this back to you,” I said, taking the gun out of my pocket. Until I saw the way he was staring at it—like it was a T-bone steak, medium rare, with onion rings and creamed spinach. The man was practically salivating. I put it back in my pocket. I’m not a big believer in author-assisted suicides. At least, not this author. “My wheels are right outside, Tuttle. Maybe we should run you over to Smithers. Let them have a look under the hood.”

“No, I don’t think so, Doof.”

“C’mon, it won’t hurt a bit. There might even be a lollipop in it for you.”

“No,” he snapped, his jaw hardening. “I said
no
!”

“That’s right. You did.” We stared at each other across the desk. I swallowed. My heart, I discovered, was pounding. “Tuttle, are you sure you’re not writing something?”

“Of course I’m sure.” He sat back in his chair, flexing the bad knee gingerly. It made a nasty popping noise. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

“Someone’s been sending me chapters of a novel they’re writing. Anonymously. Quite good stuff, actually. I rather thought it was you.”

“I wish. But it’s not. I haven’t written a thing in years.”

“About that old Olivetti of yours …”

He furrowed his brow at me. “My typewriter?”

“Do you still have it?”

“Christ, no. Got rid of it years ago.”

“You sold it?”

He shrugged his big shoulders. “I really don’t remember. No, wait … I do. I put it out on the street so some homeless guy could sell it, maybe make a couple of bucks. Why are you so fucking interested in my old typewriter?”

“Where were you last Monday night, Tuttle?”

“That’s my night off. I was home.”

“Doing what?”

“I watched the football game. Raiders-Chiefs. Good game for a change.”

“What else?”

“I did my laundry.”