Stephen Cannell - At First Sight

Oh yeah, and I had begun drinking much more than before. It started almost from the first day I got back to L. A. after Chandler's funeral. I'd pound down a few shots before noon, to get the knots out of my stomach, toss back a couple more at lunch, and then engage in some serious elbow-bending in the evening. By six, I was usually giving my tonsils a good shellacking. I don't think I started drinking like that just because I killed Chandler. I think it was also because I longed to get in touch with Paige and now I couldn't. After the funeral and my run-in with that rumpled cop, I was afraid. Half a dozen times I almost called, but froze, my hand shaking as I gripped the receiver, trapped between longing and fear. So I got drunk instead.

Evelyn started calling me an alcoholic. I wasn't quite up to taking social criticism from a woman who spent her afternoons between the legs of a semi-literate steroid monkey. And she wasn't even trying to hide it anymore. So, when she called me a drunk, gentleman that I was, I called her a cock-sucking, wall-dancing whore.

We were really having a ball, Evelyn and me. I swear, if I coulda gotten away with it I would have strangled her. I was starting to fantasize about murder. But before you make a big deal out of that, let me say I believed I was way too smart to fall into that kind of trap. So in the beginning, every time I thought about killing her, I just pushed the idea aside.

Anyway, the four months after I ran over Chandler were a living hell.

Only one bright spot. Remember Marvin Worth, the CFO at bestmarket. Com? Well, he'd managed to convince one of our large account receivables, a movie-production company, that it would be better to take over our dot-corn than to let it slide into Chapter 11, where they'd only get ten cents on the dollar for what we owed them.

Gladstone Pictures was the name of the outfit. It was a Canadian conglomerate and a producer of action movies. We'd sold hundreds of thousands of their DVDs and were into them for four mil, plus a mil in interest, before they cut off our credit and started screaming at us.

Somehow, Marvin Worth had managed to talk these Canucks into taking over my company for the five million dollars we owed them. Hardly a thrilling prospect, because as you may remember, a few years ago my dot-com was valued at six hundred million, but I'd also been down as low as two with that ridiculous offer from Walter Lily. So the five mil sounded okay under the circumstances. Trouble was, the deal stipulated that we had to assume all the current liabilities and indemnify Gladstone against past debts stemming from old disputes and future lawsuits. As I told you, we owed over eight million, so the bottom line was after the sale, I'd be left with an unrecoupable deficit of around three mil.

Then good fortune struck. The leaseholder on the buildings and warehouses we rented went broke. A complete bankruptcy. Since they were no longer a corporate entity, Marvin found a way to break our lease, which was on our books as a four-million-dollar liability.

Putting it all in context for you and leaving out the legal subsets-because, while fascinating, they're probably way over your head unless you have a high degree of business sophistication-I could now sell the company and stand a good chance of coming out of it almost two million dollars to the good.

Two million dollars. Not exactly a fortune, but at least enough to get me started again-enough to set up some new offices and get a new game going.

Maybe you can see where this is heading. My problem now was going to be Evelyn. If I didn't divorce her, I was pretty sure that as soon as she saw the two mil in the bank, she would divorce me. California is a community property state, so she would get half. Once I paid the freight on both our lawyers and their expenses, my two mil was going to be cut down to almost nothing.

That was the box I was in. "Barkeep, 'nother round, please."

Anyway, despite all this, I was determined not to do anything stupid. I mean, the easiest, cheapest way out of this would be if Evelyn just sort of left the picture-if she married Mickey D. But even I couldn't hope for that kind of luck. Evelyn was way too smart to marry a poverty-stricken weightlifter, no matter how impressive his cuts. She would wait until she had her half of whatever I managed to salvage, then she'd move in with him. See the problem?

So that left murder.

But, as I've already discussed, that just wasn't a viable option. The husband is always the prime suspect, and I'm not anxious to end my life fighting off a squad of tail-gunners at Soledad State Prison. Chandler aside, I'm not a killer. So I knew I had to stop thinking about killing Evelyn. It wasn't an option, because I knew I'd get caught. I knew that. So let's move on. We're moving on. Okay?

The day we were going to sign the deal with Gladstone Pictures, I had to drive Evelyn's car because she had stolen mine. Why did she take my car? Because Mickey D liked the Porsche Targa, that's why. He thought he looked sexy in it with the top down; he and Evelyn cruising around in muscle tees and wraparound shades. Whenever they went to the beach, he'd always talk her into stealing my car. I'dgo out to the garage and the fucking Porsche would begone. No note from her, no "May I borrow your car, dear?" It was community property, and as she'd already so plainly told me, she could do what she wanted with it.

So with the Porsche gone, I had no choice but to take Evelyn's Mercedes SL600. But she never washes it, and the thing was filthy. I knew I might have to take one of the Gladstone executives to lunch after the signing, so I stopped at a car wash on the way to the office. I went to the drive-through on Adams.

To begin with, this place is an ethnic war zone-a sinkhole. It's staffed mostly with pissed-off African-American parolees-black teenagers in blue jumpsuits who glower as you pull in. You're white meat. They're the meat-eaters. Let the games begin.

They don't want to work there, and they squeegee your windshield like they're swinging a razor at you, but they have to hold down a job or their P. O. S will throw their criminal asses back in the pecker palace.

I ordered the wash and hot wax, and was standing by the manager's office, watching Evelyn's gold Mercedes convertible go through the whirling brushes. Behind me, through an open door, I could hear the manager, a Hispanic man called Juan, in a discussion with two other men. I glanced around and saw them. Juan was a fat, short Mexican with bad skin. He was sitting behind the desk. Across from him was a middle-aged, overweight white guy, who, it turned out, was a county parole agent. He stood next to a sullen black teenager-ripped and muscled. This kid was projecting enough silent anger to start a riot.

Here's the story I overheard while waiting for Evelyn's car: The black banger was ready to get out of jail on state paper and needed a job to make his parole requirement. His P. O., the white guy with the big gut, was saying, "Delroy has good recs from his CUS," which he explained was his custody unit supervisor.

I heard some papers rustle and then the manager said, "Says here you got a history of violent crimes, Delroy. Carjacking, pulling guns and shit, threatening people's lives… I run a car wash. I can't have you standing around here scoping other people's rides."

"My homies put me up on that, man. But once I got popped and did my nickel, I know dat ain't for me. I ain't gonna fall behind dat kinda shit no mo, know what I be sayin'? I ain't about to be go an get myself rolled up on no major felony, dat's for damn sure."

Or something like that, 'cause to be honest, he spoke so low and with such a ghetto accent, it was very hard to understand him. It sounded like pure jailhouse bullshit to me.

"Says here, you shot a guy once when you were jackin' his ride," Juan said.