Bad People (6 page)

“I did.
She
wouldn’t let me.”

“Don’t be hard on your Mom, it’s been rough…“

“He was
my
Dad.”

“Of course. I’m not trying to say it’s been easy on
you
.”

“She’s all, ‘there will be drinking.’ Most of my friends don’t even drink, or do anything. Then it’s all, ‘then we have to invite all their parents, and the whole thing’s out of control already…’”

“That doesn’t sound like your Mom.”

“I know!”

“So maybe, really, cut her some slack.”

“She said she wanted it to be all family, but I see the same old suits that show up at all your parties.”

“A lot of these people had relationships—”

“
Business
relationships.” Stephen-David broke in.

“Relationships nevertheless. A lot of these people had relationships going back with your father for years.” Barry took a swallow and felt an sharp stabbing above his eye. Too much English beer in the middle of the afternoon. “Your parents are much loved people.”

Stephen-David ground his jaw. “I’m a much-loved person too, and I don’t have to sell myself to be it.”

“What does that mean?”

“
My
friendships are not built on commerce.”

Barry shook his head. So that’s what this was about, adolescent disgust for the institutions of adulthood. “I was sixteen myself once.”

“Oh, were you really?”

“And my parents were wealthy—well I thought they were—and that had to be wrong, with so much misery in the world. Unrest. Poverty. Homelessness. “

“Homelessness? What’re you…? Whatever Barry.”

Barry felt himself blush, but he kept trying. Connie would never accept anyone who couldn’t get along with Stephen-David. “Okay, maybe I don’t understand. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that someday
you
will understand, when you’re older, but you will. You’ll see. It’s not so simple—so simple as it looks when you’re young, and if I don’t understand what you’re going through, maybe you can help me understand.”

“That’s it, though. I can’t talk to you,
because
I haven’t talked to you. We can’t get to know each other because we don’t know each other already. See? That is why I
need
…
my
…
friends
.” He looked past Barry at something and then back at him directly. “You and Connie are friends, you and my Dad were friends. You were all mixed up together since whenever. Mom leans on you.”

“She does?”

“You’re all like some hippie granola co-op, and that works for you, and all your other friends.”

“We’re a bit younger than the hippie era.”

“Dude. It’s a metaphor. What I’m saying is that it’s that way for me too. You can’t picture your life without my folks because they’re your friends. I have
my
friends. I’m sorry my Dad is dead. I’m sorry some social deviant crushed my Dad’s face in, and I’m sorry Connie lost her husband and you lost your best friend. And I apologize that I am supposed to have some other feeling that I don’t even know what it is. You know what Robb meant to you. To me, as long as I remember, Dad was the dude that glared at me when I glared at him. Like Clint Eastwood and shit, only he didn’t have guns to sling, so he slung money, and a car. Whatever. But now, today—because some fucking miscreant…“ Stephen-David had trouble getting the words out “…
murders
Robb, I’m supposed to figure out what all that shit between us my whole life is supposed to
mean
?”

Barry didn’t know what to say, but finally managed to say
something
. “Did you read about that in a book somewhere?”

Stephen-David’s shoulder slumped. Then he laughed abruptly. “Yeah. I think on facebook.” He sat the soda down on the floor between his feet and left it there.

Connie came up behind Barry. He didn’t notice her until she was almost at his shoulder.

“How are you guys getting along?” she asked. She was smiling. She was radiant, actually. Barry would have said so had circumstances permitted. The wake had drained the tension from her; she looked like she could breath again, for the first time in days and days.

Stephen-David said nothing to his mother’s question and Barry did not want to speak first, so he shrugged. Connie hovered a moment.

“Am I intruding?” she asked.

“Of course, not. How could you?” Barry said. He offered her a chair.

She sat and looked at them. “Your aunt was happy to see you,” she said finally to Stephen-David.

“Good,” he replied.

“When’s the last time…? You must have been three or four, not in school yet.”

“I’ve never met her before.”

“You just forgot.”

“No I haven’t.”

“You don’t remember but that’s because you were little.”

“No,
you
don’t remember. Dad once said I’d never met her.”

“He must have been mistaken. No, I remember it.”

“Why must I be mistaken? Why can’t it be you that’s mistaken?”

“Stephen…“

“Answer me.”

Barry interrupted. “Come on Stephen, don’t talk to your Mom that way.”

“No one is speaking to you,” said Stephen-David.

“Now look…” said Barry.

“Stephen—excuse me Barry—Stephen, no more. All right? No more today.”

“Really, your Mother…“ said Barry.

Connie put her hand on Barry’s arm. “Will you excuse us now please?”

Barry nodded and kept silent. Connie put her head down, and again said, “Barry…”

The point dawned on him. “Oh right. I’ll get myself another,” he said, standing up, feeling red-faced. He backed away, dejected. He headed to where the bar had been set-up, but now nothing was left, so he had no real destination. He placed his empty in the one remaining trash can the catering staff had left out for the stragglers, then walked to the far end of the hall without knowing what to do with his empty hands.

Looking back, trying to act casual, he saw Connie and Stephen-David still engaged, Connie whispering with animation, Stephen-David looking at her passively. Barry thought he might go, then decided he wanted to stay. He really hadn’t had a moment alone with Connie, she’d been so preoccupied with the wake, and now with Stephen-David’s behavior.

The doors to the hall stood propped open and Barry stepped out into the sunlight, intending to linger there casually. Connie would come out eventually, and then he’d be able to hug her goodbye.

Some of the catering staff, two men and a woman, were hanging out by their van, vests open, bow ties loose. They smoked and bantered back and forth, work done now, all except collecting the check. Still, they did not seem desperate to grab that check and get away. Rather, they basked content in the warm sunshine. Hours of afternoon still before them.

Chapter 7: Connie, Tommy

The morning after Robb’s wake, the police came for a longer interview, asking Connie more questions. Strange questions, questions that must be about some other Robb entirely. They sat in her living room, their big cop legs looking clumsy and cumbersome above the line of the coffee table. They declined beverages, even coffee. Cops supposedly liked coffee.

The old one, Tommy Brussels, who looked like he’d never been in the vicinity of a fruit or vegetable, let alone ever ingested one, and putridly ugly, asked the most questions.

His entire body seemed to hang loosely on his frame, like he’d recently had all the muscle and some of the fat sucked out of him. And maybe he had; though he was still obese, the brown belt he wore around his gray knit slacks had several new buckle holes punched into it, possibly with a nail. The tip of the belt hung slack, curling out to reveal the belt’s rough underside. His weight loss did not look like the type that anyone would be happy about, nor compliment one on. It looked like the other type, the type that people shook their heads and murmured about. Poor man. Now Connie felt guilty for her feelings of disgust; this man wasn’t going to be around much longer, she felt certain.

That did not make his questions any easier.

“It’s part of the investigation, Mrs. Hart. What about trips? Mr. Hart had been going out of town a lot recently, is that right?”

“We both do. For business,” said Connie.

“Does he have a lot business in Las Vegas?”

“Las Vegas?”

“Did you know Mr. Hart made multiple trips to Las Vegas in the past few months.”

She didn’t. “How do you know that?”

“Receipts,” he said.

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“We found some things in his office. Kind of you to let us have free reign in there. It really helps.”

“It really does,” said the not-bad-looking cop. His name was Ethan Starvold.

There was so much to do, now that the wake was over and the pieces of not only her family life but also her business life had to be picked up. She spent much time with Robb’s business paperwork, although Barry had been over it once or twice. She hadn’t been able to think about that stuff. It seemed wrong to care about all that, even now. “Excuse me, what were you saying about Vegas?”

“You and Mr. Hart kind of went your own way mostly, I guess,” said Brussels. No implication there.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Brussels opened his hands in an whatever-you-think-it-means gesture, no implication there.

Starvold broke in, and defused the burgeoning tension. “You and your husband invested in real estate, is that right?”

“Initially.”

“And you do a lot of public speaking as well.”

“Yes.”

“Would it be fair to say that Mr. Hart handled one end of the business and you another?”

“There are three of us…”

“Right,” said Brussels. “Mr. Taupe. Like the color?”

“Tawwwp.” She corrected.

“Mr. Top. Right.”

“It seems, Mrs. Hart, from the looks of it, “ said Starvold, the gentler man, “that you really run two different businesses. Your public speaking business, and Mr. Hart and uhh…Barry Taupe’s real estate investment concerns. Taupe does most of the day-to-day management of the holdings, you focus—or focus
ed
, I should say—on your speaking and workshops. Mr. Hart was sort of out there on the fringe.”

“The fringe?”

“I don’t know what you’d call it. The big thinking? Looking ahead for future investments?”

Starvold was kind, but he didn’t know how to talk about business. “Yes,” she helped him. “That’s very fair to say.”

“I guess that does help explain why you didn’t know he made six trips to Vegas in the past month,” said Brussels. Snidely.

“He went to Las Vegas for business. There’s a firm down there that develops golf courses. Robb was working with them.” Wanting to work with, anyway. “I didn’t realize it was that many trips,” she said, not knowing why she should feel defensive.

“Did he ever mention any gambling debts to you, a drug problem recently?”

“Jesus.” Vegas, gambling, drugs. “Just come out with it already.”

The two men looked at each other. Surely it couldn’t be that bad. Not to them, in there line of work.

“Jesus!” Connie said again.

“Okay, okay,” said Brussels. She could tell he didn’t like her any more than she liked him, which suited her fine. “Mr. Hart racked up two-hundred grand in gambling losses the last few months. That’s money we know of, money he took out of your business unbeknownst to you it sounds like. He could have other debts beyond that, which is one reason we asked if he’s been seen with a lot of cash. You also need to know that Mr. Hart was an intravenous drug user.”

“Oh come on! Are you insane?” She looked at Starvold for help but now he just looked back passively.

Brussels continued. “You wouldn’t have noticed. The coroner found an excess of forty track marks between his toes. He maybe hadn’t been at it all that long, and he certainly took steps to hide if from you, by not shooting anywhere else on himself. And more importantly for you right now, Mrs. Hart—”

“He wouldn’t even know where to get needles. That’s ridiculous. You don’t go from drug free to needles in a couple months without anyone knowing.”

“You’re right. He must have had a friend.”

“What do you mean
friend
?”

Brussels paused. He looked around the room, as if regarding her quaint suburban upper-middle-class lifestyle in disdain. Oh he loved it, seeing the veneer ripped off like a scab, and he gloated over the raw nerves beneath, freshly exposed to the stinging air. “Somebody who showed him a whole new world and how to get along in it. That’s how he got into it, Mrs. Hart, you’re right, there’s no other way to explain it. Okay, ‘friend’ is an euphemism, okay. Forgive me for attempting to spare your feelings and not calling it what it is. We found business cards in his wallet for several escort services. Numbers for more of the same in his phones.”