John Goldbach - The Devil and the Detective

‘In the six years you two were together, can you tell me some of the companies he owned?’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘But he wouldn’t always own the companies outright. Often he’d invest with a group of investors, though sometimes, occasionally, if it was a small company, or a restaurant or something, he’d be the sole investor.’

‘Would the investors he went in with always be the same group of people?’

‘Often, but not always. There were a few, though, whom he worked with often.’

‘I’ll need a list of those names.’

‘Sure,’ she said.

She told me about the bottle plant, the flour mill, the sawmill, the restaurants, the ice cream cone factory, the tire factory and all the other different types of businesses that Gerald had invested in. He was very rich, she said, richer than he let on — and he didn’t live frugally, I thought, from what I’d seen, even though he didn’t live in a mansion. It was a nice house, though, a good size, not too big, and the location was excellent. They had two BMWs in the driveway, too, but Elaine said Gerald could’ve easily afforded a fleet of BMWs, and I imagined that, a fleet of bmws …

She said, ‘Can I tell you something, Rick?’ And I said, ‘Sure, but my name’s not Rick.’ I told her that the R. in the R. James Detective Agency ad stood for Robert, and Elaine said that she hadn’t seen the ad, and that she’d called me Rick because Detective O’Meara did. ‘O’Meara’s an asshole,’ I said. She agreed. I asked her what she’d wanted to tell me and she started telling me a story that Gerald, her now-dead husband, told her when they met.

They were in the lodge, sitting by a roaring fire, drinking expensive XO cognacs. It was snowing outside and getting darker but the snow kept things light. Gerald, after many drinks, while holding Elaine’s hand, said to her, Elaine, I’ll tell you something my grandfather told me, shortly before he died of lung cancer. He said to me , she said he’d said, ‘ Gerald, take what you can get! Don’t end life in the negative. You want to outdo your grandfather — and your father — because you want to be in the green, not the red, when all’s said and done, ’ she said he’d said. Gerald told Elaine that his grandfather had told him that morality’s a lie, through and through, and simply an impediment to man’s success. Gerald said that he thought his grandfather was harsh but that much of what he’d said was true. ‘ Weak people, people who stand to lose something, try and convince you that it’s wrong to do whatever it is that might hurt them, ’ she said he’d said. ‘ That’s how you know you’re a threat, if people tell you that what you do can’t be done — that’s when you know that you’re getting somewhere! ’ she said he’d said.

‘Gerald’s grandfather, his father, Gerald — they were warriors,’ Elaine said, ‘for better or for worse.’

‘For example?’ I said.

‘Gerald read people well, for example, and would have nothing to do with them if and when they tried to use him or cheat him. He wouldn’t directly confront them, necessarily, but he’d have his revenge. Success. He made a lot of money. Same with his father. Same with his grandfather. De père en fils . But Gerald made more money than either of them.’

‘Did you ever see Gerald behave aggressively toward anyone?’

‘Many times,’ she said.

‘Tell me about one.’

Elaine said that an old business associate, whom she refused to name, had made a deal, buying a small company, telling the seller that Gerald was in on it — so, trading on Gerald’s name, though he had no intention of telling Gerald. Anyway, she said, Gerald knew but played dumb, and then never let that guy in on a deal again, cut him off completely, and made sure others did, too, and basically ruined the man’s life. Elaine dabbed at her eyes. The bar was almost empty but no one was pushing us to leave. We kept ordering drinks but Elaine said she didn’t want to talk about Gerald anymore, or his business affairs, which weren’t that interesting, she said, though he travelled a lot for work. I asked her about her childhood, where she grew up, though she answered only what she wanted to answer. Her maiden name was Jefferies. Elaine Jefferies. She grew up in a small rural town, surrounded by other small rural towns, which together made up quite a large county, a county she didn’t get out of much, but while living in said county, she said she covered every square kilometre. She loved the open spaces. She said it was beautiful, especially when the clouds’ large shadows drifted across the golden wheat fields. Her childhood was on a farm, though her father worked in town, too, as a pharmacist, and they kept livestock. Her teenage years were wild, she said, a lot of drinking, some drugs, a lot of sex. Her grades were always good, though, and she went on to university, for three years, and received a BA. She’d studied history and French. It was nice to get away from home, she said, but she didn’t want to go on in school. And then she moved out west, and after two years, she met Gerald Andrews.

‘And you know the rest,’ she said.

‘I don’t know anything,’ I said.

She was beautiful, without a doubt. I didn’t want to ask questions about her husband or her former lovers. To some extent, I was jealous of her husband, even though he was dead. I told her we didn’t need to talk about case-related stuff anymore. I told her that I realized she must be exhausted. She thanked me. We decided to have one more drink, then call it a night. She must’ve dropped me off at home. I woke up, on my couch, fully clothed.

One thing was clear to me shortly after waking, on my couch, fully clothed: namely, I was in love with Elaine Andrews née Jefferies. I brushed my teeth and gargled mouthwash in an attempt to rid my mouth of the acrid taste of several whiskies. I think I’m in love with Elaine, I thought. And she did drive me home, I thought. For a long time, though, I wondered if I’d tried to kiss her when she’d dropped me off at my apartment; or if I’d invited her up to my place; or if I’d tried to kiss her and she’d accepted, then came up to my place, and I’d passed out on her; or if I’d tried to kiss her and she’d told me to get lost; or if I’d done more than try to kiss her, if I’d in fact told her how I now believed I felt about her — that is to say, if I’d told her that I love her! There was no point in fretting, I thought, I’d know soon enough if I’d behaved badly; after all, she was my client — she’d hired me — so things would be okay, I thought. After brushing my teeth and gargling mouthwash I drank several glasses of ice water and then looked for Elaine Andrews’s number in my wallet but found nothing save a receipt, no money and no number, and I remembered spending the last of my money at the bar, buying the last round of drinks, the last round of neat single malts. It surprised me that I didn’t take down a number, a number where I could reach her, her cellphone number, for example. Her cellphone, too, had been sitting on the table, while we drank drink after drink and talked about her now-dead husband, Gerald, their brief courting period, his shady-sounding business dealings, and about her childhood and adolescence, a childhood and adolescence I found myself fantasizing about jealously, picturing the vast open spaces she’d described, the beautiful golden fields of wheat, the sun shining down brightly in the blue sky, with large billowing sun-spiked clouds moving fast over the vast wheat fields, while she had sex with boys in pickups and in said fields, as the clouds’ shadows drifted across the golden seas of wheat. Elaine’s youth seemed distant from me — distant and exciting and irreproducible. I imagined making love to her in the hayloft of her parents’ barn. I imagined making love to her in her parents’ farmhouse. I imagined making love to her now, in the back of her BMW, as I lay back down on my couch — I couldn’t believe I hadn’t gotten a number. She was my client, after all; perhaps, I thought, it would’ve been wise to have taken down a number where she could be reached. I did remember her address, however: 19 Tower Street. It was twenty minutes by taxicab, which wasn’t bad. The cab came to $24.45, but I got a receipt, because I’m on a case. Even though I was in love with Elaine Andrews, I thought, I still had to charge for expenses, though I’d of course buy her the odd drink, and perhaps even dinner sometime. I hope she calls today, I thought, while lying on the couch, with my eyes closed, determined to sleep some more, determined to escape my hangover, and then I fell asleep for a few more hours.