William Lashner - Past Due

“Here we go,” she said, bringing over two mugs and the pot. “How do you take your coffee?”

“Straight.”

“Puts hair on your chest that way, I suppose.”

“I sure could use it.”

She poured, fixed up her mug with milk and sugar, sat down, took a pensive sip.

“You mentioned a suggestion,” I said.

“So I did,” she said, and as she smiled at the remembrance she popped an Oreo into her mouth.

Tommy Greeley, that scamp, that… that scamp. As I drove along the nicely serpentine Lincoln Drive, I couldn’t help but admire his gumption. A suggestion, Sylvia called it, slurring the g’s and overemphasizing the middle syllable just enough to indicate what the suggestion might have entailed. Oh come on. Let’s just try it. Open your horizons. It could be fun. You never know. No, you never do. The logic of it is inescapable, at least to the male of the species. I mean if two breasts to suckle and fondle, to rub your face between are the great obsession of the young, four would be the grand salami of boyhood dreams, right? Four legs to caress, four lips to kiss, two belly buttons to lick clean, two tongues to suck their way across your flesh, four hands to explore, to massage, to tickle and pinch and grab. And the scent of it all, oh my, no thin solo but a veritable symphony. Tommy Greeley, that dog, that scamp.

Of course sometimes things don’t work out quite how you had planned.

“He brought her over,” said Sylvia. “A very pretty girl, quiet, strangely passive, besotted, it seemed, with Tommy. I had seen her before, knew who she was, had always thought her pretty. But this night she sort of glowed. Tommy opened a bottle of wine. We drank and talked and laughed, a sort of forced laughter. There were candles, if I remember, and incense. I felt like I was twelve again. Tommy was very charming, ever the ringleader. And I couldn’t take my eyes off the girl. She was so, so pretty. In the candlelight. We finished up one bottle, were on to the next, and I was feeling it, the alcohol, the tension, the expectation. And then he put his arm around me and kissed me. Right in front of her. A long passionate kiss. And I was embarrassed. I could feel the blood rising through my face, the prickly sensation, which was unusual for me, for I was not the blushing type. Then he took my hand. And we stood. And he led me through the hallway to the bedroom, his arm around my shoulders, like he was ushering me into a whole new world. And I looked back. And she was following, through the dark hall. She was holding a candle and following us, the candlelight dancing across her features, following us like a ghost.”

“And?”

“Well, yes, and. Definitely and.”

She laughed, a rich, good-natured laugh and I couldn’t help but laugh with her.

“I don’t think Tommy enjoyed it as much as he had hoped,” she said. “Oh, he made all the required gestures and sound effects, yes, snorting and neighing, a veritable barnyard of sounds, but eventually there was a touch of petulance to it all. He wasn’t at the center anymore, you see, he was simply one bend on a triangle, and felt maybe like a child who suddenly discovers that everyone in the world isn’t dancing to his tune, that there are other tunes being played.”

“And for you?” I asked.

She didn’t answer right off, but then she didn’t have to. There was a footstep at the entranceway, the scrape of a key, the front door being opened, and then it all became clear as rain.

She had said she didn’t like smoking reefer, that after a few hits all the fears she was trying not to deal with would flood over her. And later, she had hoped her hoped-for marriage to Tommy Greeley would settle things. But some things are not so easily settled, and some fears are not so easily outrun. Especially when the fear is of the truth and the hard uncertain future that its acknowledgment would demand. I could imagine Sylvia Steinberg wrestling with her demon, chaining it tight, stuffing it into a dark corner to keep it quiet, glimpsing its face only in restless dreams or flights of drug-induced paranoia, winning the struggle, winning, until her lover comes up with a suggestion. A suggestion. Oh come on. Let’s just try it. Open your horizons. It could be fun. You never know. And there is alcohol. And there is candlelight. And there is a pretty girl along for the ride. And when the demon finally breaks free, smashing out of its chains with a startling ferocity, it is different than she ever expected. Bright not dark, soft not hard, warm not cold, and its embrace is not one of despair but of acceptance and ease that settles over the soul like a mother’s sweet breath.

The front door opened, the bustle of domesticity, the soft yapping cry of a baby, and then a woman came into the kitchen. She was tall, blond, with a thin, pretty face and a baby held at her hip. She leaned over and gave Sylvia a long kiss on the lips.

Sylvia made the introductions. I was Victor Carl, the lawyer asking about Tommy Greeley. The blond woman, whose nose wrinkled with distaste at Tommy’s name, was Louise. The baby, their baby, was Donna.

“Isn’t she cute?” said Sylvia. “Isn’t she just the cutest?”

“Yes she is,” I said, thinking it true so long as they kept the slobbering little bundle away from my suit.

“She’s been fussy,” said Louise.

“She’s just hungry,” said Sylvia, reaching out for the baby. “Aren’t you, sweetie pie. You’re just hungry, yes you are. But not for long. You don’t mind, do you, Victor?” she said as she unbuttoned her shirt.

“Not at all.”

The shirt opened, Sylvia flopped out her right breast. I got a good look before the baby latched on and began moving her tiny jaw in time with her desperate swallows.

“Is Sylvia being helpful, Mr. Carl?” said Louise.

“Very.”

“What is this all about?”

“I’m trying to find out why Tommy Greeley disappeared.”

“It will come to you, I’m sure,” said Louise. “It’s not so hard to figure out. I’m taking a bath.”

“Nice meeting you,” I said to her back as she walked out of the kitchen.

“What did she mean?” I asked Sylvia.

“She doesn’t think much of Tommy. The drug dealing, the parties in Atlantic City, the way he cheated on everyone. From all she’s heard she assumes he was asking for it a hundred different ways. But she never met him. There was a sweetness there, and an energy, and a brash confidence that was infectious. He seemed freer than other people.”

“Who was the girl?” I said. “The girl with the candle.”

“One of the people in Tommy’s other life. Her name was Chelsea. Ah, Chelsea. So pretty. I have to admit I fancied myself in love with her. I followed her around like a puppy for a while, which is sort of usual when you break through. Nothing came of it, of course, just a few nights without Tommy, which were very nice, lovely, yes, but nothing more. It would still be a number of years before I was ready to handle something serious.”

“Like Louise.”

“Yes, or like a few before her. But with Chelsea, a strange thing happened. Right in the middle of it, a man came to my apartment, rough-looking, with all this hair, his beard, wild eyes. He came to tell me, and this is what was so peculiar, he came to tell me that Tommy was cheating on me. Cheating on me with his wife. He wanted me to get all angry and to do something about it. But it turned out he was married to Chelsea. Which put me in a funny situation, since I had been with her too and wanted, desperately, to be with her again. The man seemed upset at my failure to react, when what I was really trying to do was hide my reaction at learning that my Chelsea was married to him.”

“Was he angry?”

“Oh yes. Quite. It was frightening, really. I tried to tell him he needn’t worry about Tommy, that Tommy was already infatuated with someone else, but he wouldn’t listen. Left very agitated.”