Colin Harrison - The Havana Room

"I always figured," I said.

"You, however, always kept your whistle clean."

"I'm a conformist," I said. "Dull as dishwater."

He grunted.

"Anyway, Mindy's dad."

He was eager to talk about it, I could see. "It's a crazy thing, Bill. Something you'd never expect. Mindy's dad calls me up three weeks ago, says he wants to play golf. I say okay, and so we go out to the National in East Hampton. Beautiful. He's a pretty distinguished guy, made a mint in the seventies with the airlines. He's got to be worth like two hundred million bucks. Can live off the interest of the interest."

"Does some of it go to Mindy?"

"Yeah, someday, but this guy's going to live till he's ninety, minimum. His resting pulse is fifty-four, blood pressure ninety-four over seventy."

"Nice guy?"

"No. Not at all. A bastard. A manipulator. Doesn't have enough to do with himself. Wife died ten years ago, and now he has this beautiful Japanese lady who lives with him. There's Japanese stuff all over the house. Bamboo rugs, jade things. Plus fish and rice every night. He looks great, looks relaxed. She takes care of everything, is my bet. That whole thing about the compliant Asian woman is a bunch of shit. She's the one in control. He's given up control."

"Well, he still controls two hundred million bucks."

"So we play a couple of holes. I keep waiting. Nothing. He's playing well, me, nothing. I'm all over the place."

"Nervous."

"Totally. So there's a bench near the sixth tee. He says let's have a seat."

"This was it."

"Yep." Dan nodded as the entree arrived. "We sit down. He takes off his golf glove and puts it on my knee. Says, Listen, I know you're fucking another woman besides my daughter, maybe even more than one."

"He use that word?"

"Yes, fucking, which is a bad sign, of course. Because it's angry."

I agreed. "Visceral."

"I'm thinking, Oh no, he's angry, he's going to hit me with his seven iron. He says, Don't ask how I know, but I do. The world's a small place."

"So were you?" I asked.

Dan raised his palm. "I'm going to plead the Fifth Amendment, senator."

"Fine."

"So then he says, I know Mindy is a pain. I raised her. I know what she's like. But you can't leave her. I'm just about crapping in my pants at this point. I say, Okay. He says, No, I really mean it. I know she's gotten overweight. Actually he said fat. He used that word, about his daughter! I sort of waved my hands, you know, it's no big deal. I'm fat, too, of course. But she has gotten fat. Really fat. Purposefully fat, even. I mean, Bill, it creates a copulatory impediment. A sexual handicap. The only thing that works, frankly, is from behind."

I put my hands up in front of me. "Hey, I'm not asking you to tell me this- not that it's not incredibly fascinating."

"Don't worry, this goes somewhere. It connects to your future, in fact."

"The sexual position you use with your obese wife impinges on my future?"

"Well, in a manner of speaking. Just listen. So, Mindy's father looks at me and says-"

At that moment my phone rang.

"Quick, get it." Dan was irritated. "They don't like that here."

"Martha?" I answered, taking a guess. "You change your mind?"

"Yo, fuckwango!" came a male voice. "You got the wrong number!"

"Excuse me?"

"Hey, I'm looking for this guy, he gave me this number. In Brooklyn."

Dan was watching me.

"Is this Helmo?" I asked.

"Yeah. I got that address for you, the one we was talking about? Rainey shows up again this morning, swung the bat for a hour. I followed him home. I want my three hundred bucks."

"What's the address?"

"Who you think I am?" he hollered in my ear. "Give me the three hundred first!"

"Let's meet," I suggested.

"Half hour in front of the batting cages."

"I can't do that."

"What the fuck?"

I worried Dan could hear the voice in my ear. "How about three this afternoon?"

"Be there. Or I'm telling Rainey about you."

I put the phone away.

"Who was it?" asked Dan.

"Some guy who'll probably double-cross me."

He nodded flatly. "Okay, so where was I? So Mindy's father, right. We're on the bench near the sixth tee. And he says, I know everything that you are or will be thinking right now. I know it. So I'm sitting there, I'm shish kabob. I'm cooked son-in-law. Then he says, I understand who you are."

"What?"

Dan nodded vigorously, mouth full of food. "He says I understand who you are. Then he says, But you can't leave her. I say, I have no plans to leave her, it would hurt the kids too much. He's not fooled. He says he's heard twenty or thirty of his friends say the same thing over the years. They always leave their wives anyway, soon as the kids are out of the house. Mindy will never leave you, he says. She doesn't have it in her, even if she wanted to. She's weak. That's true. Plus, he says, plus she loves you too much, not to mention the kids. I feel like a pig when he says this. He's right, of course, Mindy with her moon eyes, mooning after me, seeing if I'm happy, seeing if I have a drink. She'll do anything for me, Bill, suck my freaking toes, anything… which I hate, Of course! She's lost all her self-respect, she just wants to be loved, filled up, like the new four-hundred-and-fifty-gallon oil tank I got in the basement in case of shortages. Huge, extra capacity! Mindy's like that, she lies there in bed with her fat legs out and calls to me, like, Oh just please come love me, please, please, waving her arms and moaning, Oh come tell me everything is okay. And it sort of breaks my heart but also sort of makes me hate her." Here Dan paused, eyes narrowing, mouth an evil little smile. "I like those thin girls who are tough cases, manthe sly, mean ones who you got to crack open."

He breathed out heavily, gulped his drink.

"Hey Dan," I said. "We're barely done with the soup."

"Yeah, then he says, I want to make you an offer. I say okay, what? And he says if you don't make the deal now, you will never get this offer again. Ever."

"And?"

"He says, two million dollars and you promise you will never leave my daughter."

"Two million?"

"I can't even open my mouth. It's not a lot of money to him, remember. He says, I know you want to know what the catch is, what the conditions are. I say well, sure. I try to be relaxed saying it but it sort of squeaks out. He says, I'd never tell another man he couldn't sleep around. That's unrealistic. You have to let the big dog hunt, and all that. So here're my conditions, he says. Number one, you never leave Mindy. Never. Like that. A little scary. Number two, you get a vasectomy. So even though you do fuck around, you don't get anyone pregnant, and number three, you use the money in the exact way I tell you, don't just eat it up."

"Don't buy a vineyard."

"A vineyard, a castle in Scotland, whatever."

"So?"

"So he says, Think about it while I tee off. After I hit my ball, he says, I'm going to come back to the bench and get your answer. If you have no answer, he says, I'll assume no deal. If you say no, I'll never offer it to you again. Ever. "

"And you believe that."

"Totally."

"Is he going to tell you how you have to use the money before you agree to take it?"

"I asked that. The answer was no."

"Tough game."

Dan nodded, though not without some appreciation for the old man. "Then he goes, If you say yes, I'll write you a check and assume that you'll be good to your word. Plus, you'll send me a copy of the vasectomy bill." Dan shot his hands in the air, fork above his head. "Bill! He wants documentation that they chopped up my nuts! Then he goes over and puts down his golf ball, takes out his driver."

"He's forcing an answer."

"Yeah, and I'm a little pissed off, plus a little shocked."