The Wrong Kind of Money (46 page)

“Hell, I don't know what I mean by that. Maybe you'd feel better about what's happening now is what I mean. The present circumstances is what I mean.”

The two sit down again and sip their drinks, and another silence falls.

“And no kids,” Noah says at last.

“Never wanted any. She said she'd had enough of kids when she was a schoolteacher. Seen how tough they were to raise. In today's world. Kids get promiscuous real young these days.”

“They do?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Then Noah says, “So how does it make you feel, Frank? Knowing that you've never cheated on your wife. Does it make you feel—proud?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I guess it makes me feel proud of myself for having resisted the temptation.”

“Lead us not into temptation. That's what the Christian prayer says.”

“Right! So what about you, Noah? You ever cheated on Carol?”

“Let's have another drink,” Noah says, rising to collect their glasses.

“Damned good scotch. You got a winner here, buddy. So answer me. You ever cheated on Carol? You've been married longer than I have.”

“Yes,” he says, pouring the whiskey, splashing a little on the countertop as he does so.

“You make it sound like it was kind of recent.”

“Do I? I didn't mean to make it sound that way.”

Frank smiles slightly. “Was it that Jackie from the Louisville office? She looked like she was trying to put the make on you at the kickoff cocktail party the other night.”

Noah laughs softly. “No, it wasn't Jackie from Louisville,” he says.

“But seriously, Noah. That's the thing about you, you see. I mean, you're a really nice-looking guy. Me? Well, hell, I know I'm no Robert Redford. Losing my hair. Gut's not as flat as it used to be. But you, you've kept yourself in great shape. So you've probably had a lot more opportunities than I have—not that I haven't had quite a few opportunities. Just last night, in fact. Hooker at the bar. And your family owns this company. That makes a difference, too, in the way women look at you.”

“You think it does, Frank?”

“Hell, yes! That sort of thing turns women on. I've heard a lot of women say you turn them on. Why, I bet there's not a woman works for this company who wouldn't hop into the sack with you if you asked them to—including Edith, your secretary.”

“Aw, Edith's an old maid.”

“What's that got to do with it? I'm talking about the way women are when it comes to wanting to hop into the sack with the executive v.p., with the boss's mother. I mean son.”

Noah studies his friend's worried, homely-handsome face. “Well, maybe,” he says at last. “You know you're very loyal, Frank. That's a fine quality you have. You're a very loyal human being. Someday you're going to be executive v.p., Frank—you know that? Beryl is damned lucky to have you, if you ask me. And if she's really serious about this divorce business, she's throwing over a damned good thing. She's behaving like a goddamned fool, and you can tell her I said so.”

“Maybe, but you see, this is what's thrown such a curve at me. Knowing I've never cheated on her and now finding out she's been cheating on me.”

“But you don't
know
that, Frank,” he says, handing him his drink. “You don't actually know that, do you?”

“What else could it be?”

“A lot of things. Sometimes women—women and men, too, I guess—just get tired of a relationship. The old fire just fizzles out. And when the flame dies—”

“Smoke gets in your eyes. That's from a song.” He brushes his fingertips along the skin under his eyes once more.

“Maybe it's time to try courting her again. Have you thought about that?” But somehow his words sound loose and hollow and without conviction. “Hell, don't listen to me,” he says. “I don't know what I'm talking about. Talk to a lawyer.”

Frank shakes his head slowly back and forth. “She says her mind's made up,” he says. “She says she wants no further discussion on the subject. Those were her exact words. No further discussion. I'm to move out of the apartment. That's it. Jeez!”

Noah sighs. “Well, it's a helluva note,” he says. “It's a helluva note, all right.” He takes another swallow of his drink and stares darkly into his glass again. The whiskey is not taking him where he wanted to go tonight. It is not being his friend. In the odd evening stillness of this anonymous hotel suite, with the garish anonymity of this Atlantic City hotel furniture, flocked-velvet wallpaper, swagged window valences trimmed with hundreds of fluffy, puffy little cherry-sized red nylon balls, with his old friend Frank sitting there, he is just not going where he wanted to go. Where was that? The old days. The memory of college conviviality, and what it was like to be young and drunk in the places where they all used to go to be young and drunk together—cobwebby places with dust and dim lights, with initials carved in tabletops with Swiss army knives, or traced on ceilings with candle smoke, places with beer labels pasted on windowpanes, places noisy with talk and the clatter of glassware and good times, and singing, places that smelled of beer and piss, and then the long walks home afterward past the lighted doorways of the dorms in winter, or the longer, wilder rides into the night with his friends on their bikes. And the easy sex, with your rolled-up pants to prop up her ass on the grass. Loretta, Lorena, Louella, Louisa, whoever you were. But all those places and people have eluded him tonight. Instead, he is filled now with an infinite sadness for both Frank and himself. Loretta-Lorena-Louella-Louisa was no more than seventeen years old at the time. And there is another seventeen-year-old girl waiting for him now beyond that bedroom door in this piss-elegant Atlantic City hotel suite. “Shit,” he says. “They wanted the old man to give them free booze. That's all they wanted.”

“Who? What're you talking about?”

“Fraternity brothers. Dear old Delta Chi Epsilon.”

“I bet it's a younger guy,” Frank says. “It's gotta be, don't you think? A guy with a full head of hair and a flat belly. Don't you think? That's what Beryl used to like. My flat belly.”

“Hell, I don't know what to think,” he says angrily.

“Don't bite my head off, buddy!” Frank says.

“Sorry. I'm getting piss-assed drunk, and all you can talk about is your flat belly.”

“Ha-ha. I was piss-assed drunk when I got here, and now I'm more piss-assed drunk.”

“So fix yourself another drink. We're both gonna get piss-assed drunk. To celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“Not the word I meant. I meant commiserate. With you for the loss of your flat belly, and with me for my fall from grace.”

Frank stands up carefully, goes to the bar, and splashes more whiskey in his glass.

“There's more scotch in the cabinet under the sink. More in a storeroom downstairs. Lots and lots. Cases and cases. Plenty of scotch.”

From the kitchen, Frank says, “You know you've been acting kind of funny these past few days. I guess you know you've been acting kind of funny.”

“Funny? Funny how?”

“Sticking to yourself. Do Not Disturb signs on your door.”

“Presentation. Been working on this goddamned presentation. For the goddamned meeting tomorrow afternoon.”

“It's damned good stuff, I'll tell you that much.”

“Yeah. Top me up while you're at it.” He holds out his half-empty glass. “More's under the sink.”

“So how many times you cheated on Carol? Lots of times?”

He shakes his head. “Uh-uh,” he says.

“So how many times?”

“Once.”

“You only cheated on Carol once? Just one time?”

“Just one girl. Woman. Girl.”

“Carol find out about it?”

“Uh-uh.”

“You're lucky. They usually do. Wives.”

“You think so?”

“They notice little things. That's one reason I never cheated on Beryl. I knew she'd find out about it if I did. Beryl's smart.”

“You saying Carol's not so smart?”

“Hell, no. I'm not bad-mouthing Carol. I'm crazy about Carol, you know that. But, you know, Beryl was a schoolteacher and all that.”

“I thought she was just a teaching substitute.”

“Yeah, but it takes a lot of higher education even to be a substitute.” He hands Noah his glass. “Beryl's got an M.A.”

“So does Carol!”

“Quit biting my head off! Boy, you're a bundle of nerves tonight, aren't you? You're as jumpy as a hen with ticks. All I said was you're lucky—”

“Forget it. It's the goddamned presentation tomorrow. And I'm taking my nerve medicine.” He takes a swallow of his drink. “You ever been impotent, Frank?”

“No …”

“If you ever are, this stuff will cure it,” he says.

“So how did you feel about cheating on Carol?”

“Feel?” he says. “Feel?” He is staring into his glass again.

“Yeah, besides feeling lucky she didn't find out about it.”

“Frank,” he says at last, “am I your best friend?”

“I think so.”

“Are you my best friend, Frank?”

“I hope so.”

“Okay. Remember the first day we got here, the girl who was sitting in the lobby you thought looked like—”

“Like that Melanie, your daughter's friend.”

“Melody. Her name is Melody. Her mother heard a song. That was her.”

“You mean—oh,
Jesus
!” He sinks back into the armchair. “Jeez, Noah—she's just a little girl!”

“That's right.” I have betrayed myself, he thinks, and I have betrayed Carol, and now I have betrayed Melody. And why am I hoping that, behind that closed door, she is listening to all this? But I am. Listen to me, Melody. I'm speaking the truth.

“You brought her here to sales conference? But you know the rules—no wives, no—”

“Don't tell me about rules, Frank. I wrote the rules.”

“Jeez. Then that Estelle was right!”

“Estelle? Who's Estelle?”

“That hooker I told you about. In the bar. She works here at the hotel as a maid. She said you had a young girl in your room. She said she walked in and saw a girl typing. She said she found a woman's things in the dresser drawers. She said the next day when she came in there was a girl singing in the shower. She said—Jesus, Noah, she's not still
here,
is she?”

Noah says nothing, merely stares at his glass.

“Jeez, Noah! Jeez! How did you get involved with her?”

“It doesn't matter how, does it? What matters is I did.”

“Oh, Jeez, Noah!”

“That's why we're sitting here getting drunk. That's why I am, anyway.”

“What you just told me has sobered me up. Jeez, Noah, what if the girl blabs? If the girl blabs, you could be in—”

“She won't blab.”

“How can you be sure? If she does, her parents could—”

“She won't blab. But that makes me a real bastard, doesn't it? So let's drink to me being a real bastard.”

“Jeez, Noah. What are you going to
do?”

“Do? What is there to do? Except sit here and be a bastard and get drunk. The worst bastard is a drunk bastard, and so I guess you could say I'm the worst kind of bastard there is.”

“Jeez, Noah. I don't know what to say. What if Carol finds out?”

Again he says nothing.

“Don't ever tell Carol, Noah. Carol would kill you! Don't ever tell anybody else about this, Noah.”

“Still, I'm kind of glad I told you,” he says.

“I'll never tell another living soul, Noah, I swear to God. I swear to God I'll never tell another living soul.”

“I believe you, Frank. That's why I told you. I had to tell somebody. Had to get it off my chest. I knew you'd never tell another living soul. Because you're loyal. Loyalty is your middle name. Frank Loyalty Stokes, who's never cheated on his wife.”

“Now, don't be sarcastic, Noah. I meant it. I am loyal.”

“Sorry. Didn't mean it to sound that way. You are loyal. But me, I'm a full-fledged, licensed, card-carrying bastard. Of the first order. So let's drink to that.”

“Listen, Noah, the first thing you've got to do is get yourself out of this mess. I mean, I'm sure she's a nice little piece of ass. She's a cute little trick. Nice tits, nice bod, but—”

“Please don't talk about her that way, Frank.”

“But you gotta get yourself out of this mess, Noah. I mean, she's a
minor,
and—”

“What if I don't want to get out of it?” he says.

Frank stares at him. “You mean—?”

“What if I'm in love with her, Frank? What do I do about that? What if I'm thinking about chucking Carol, my job, my career with this company, my whole life and family, and just—”

“Jesus H. Christ, Noah. That's crazy talk! You don't mean that.”

“Shit, I don't know what I mean,” he says. “I don't know what I think. I don't know what I feel. If I'm in love with her, that means I'm also a crazy bastard on top of everything else, doesn't it? The only thing I know is I'm piss-assed drunk.”

“I'm really worried about this, Noah,” Frank says earnestly. “I'm really worried hearing you talk like this. It worries me seeing you like this. In all the years I've known you, I've never seen you like this before, letting something get to you like this. It scares me, Noah.”

“Scares you. It scares me, too. But I'm glad, Frank.”

“Glad about what?”

“Glad I told you, Frank. I'm drunk, but I'm glad I told you, anyway. I'm glad you're my best friend. It's good to have somebody to talk it over with. Especially you, Frank. You don't seem to be blaming me. Not particularly, anyway, and I'm glad of that, Frank. I'm grateful for that. Your loyalty.”