No Way Back (26 page)

I try to do the impossible – evaluate my own appearance with complete honesty: my hair, coarse and greying at the temple; my nose, not overly large, but nevertheless awry, from some
long-forgotten drunken stumble or fistfight.

I am not an ugly man. But neither am I handsome. I possess one of those faces that, when woman try to be charitable say,
shows character.
But the character it shows depends entirely on
the story that goes with it. Long ago – when I first met Libby, when I was a young executive, on my way up, when Libby and I walked into restaurants together, when we came home after a long
day and tugged on each other’s pants – this face would have told a story of a businessman, a star on the rise, a young man with talent, and ambition, and the world spread below him,
available for his taking.

Now the cragged lines on my face, the disjointed nose, even the missing pinky, tell a different story – a story of wear and waste and attrition. And failure.

The water gurgles into the sink. Outside the bathroom door, I hear sounds. I shut off the sink, and just barely detect the last echo of a telephone ringing in the bedroom. Libby is speaking to
someone. I try to listen, to discern the sound of lovers’ whispers, of a secret affair, of a hurried, ‘I have to go’. But I hear only one or two syllable answers,
‘Yes’, or ‘I know’, or ‘Please don’t’, or ‘OK’.

I open the bathroom door, just as Libby is replacing the phone in its cradle on the bureau. This is not the act of a guilty woman. She is not trying to hide the telephone from me, nor the fact
that she was speaking into it.

‘Who was that?’ I ask.

She looks at me for a long time before she answers. Finally she says, ‘Our neighbour.’

‘What neighbour?’ I ask, even though I know.

She gestures with her chin, out of the bedroom window, past the gnarled live oak, to the house across the street. When I turn to look, I’m expecting to see the velociraptor in the attic
window, with a pair of binoculars, waving to me. But now the attic light is off, and the house is dark.

‘What did he want?’

‘Nothing. He noticed our back gate was open. He closed it for us, when we were at dinner.’

‘That was nice of him,’ I say. ‘Have you spoken to him before?’

‘Not really,’ she says.

‘Not really?’ I repeat. A strange answer to a simple question. ‘What’s his name?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says. And then, suddenly: ‘Come here.’

‘Why?’

‘Come here.’

‘Libby,’ I start, wanting to ask more questions about the neighbour, about what he said on the telephone, about how often he and Libby have spoken... and about
why
they had
spoken.

‘Shhh,’ she says. She walks to where I stand, near the bathroom door. ‘I want to suck your cock.’

She kisses me on the lips, hard, with a desperate craziness, and I feel her fingers expertly unfasten my belt, unzip my fly, pull down my pants.

She kneels on the floor in front of me.

‘Forget it, Libby,’ I say. ‘It’s not necessary.’

‘It
is
necessary,’ she corrects me. ‘It is
very
necessary.’

She begins to suck me. Libby gives me blow jobs sometimes, but it is not her favourite activity – something akin to rearranging the cans in the pantry – something she does
periodically to keep the house running smoothly, but not something she enjoys.

Tonight is different. I have never seen her like this. She has turned ravenous, cannot get enough of me. She forces me into her mouth, pulls me towards her from behind, deeper. She moans
something, but her words are lost.

‘Libby,’ I say, ‘forget it. It’s OK.’ A part of me wants to spurn her, to walk away so that she can’t make everything OK, not so fast, not like this, but then
the reptilian part of me, the animal, doesn’t pull away. Not at all.

She lets me slide from her mouth. ‘Is that better?’ she asks. ‘Is that better?’ And then she starts again, more violently. Things are getting a bit weird now. She’s
moving her head back and forth, spastically, violently – and her motion is more epileptic than sensual.

I grip the door frame to steady myself. ‘Libby,’ I say. ‘It’s OK. Stop.’

But it feels good. And I don’t want her to stop. Not really.

She releases me from her mouth again. ‘Is this better?’ she says, practically shouting. ‘Is this better?’ And I see that she’s crying – are those tears of
sadness? – and she’s looking up – not at me, but at the ceiling fan, which is spinning lazily like a giant lascivious winking eye. ‘Is this better?’ she shouts at the
fan.

She sticks me back into her mouth, and pumps her head back and forth, like an automaton. There is nothing loving or kind in what she does to me. There is nothing warm. It’s barely human,
barely biological – she is a machine, with gears and pinions and wheels.

But that doesn’t stop me. I grab her head from behind, gently at first, then with something approaching violence, and I finish in her mouth, pumping, and then I hold her head in place, and
I see that she’s looking up with vacant eyes, her gaze fixed on the ceiling fan. After a moment, I release her. She stays on her knees, and wipes the tears from her eyes. Then she crawls onto
the bed and lies down. ‘Is that what you want?’ she asks.

‘Yes,’ I say, in a hoarse whisper.

‘Then you have what you want.’ She pulls the pillow over her face.

I look across the street, at our neighbour’s house, and the lights are off, and I see no one in the window.

That night, I see Cole again, but this time, my dream is different.

I am in a house. I walk up a flight of stairs. Moonlight casts the way, spilling through banister slats at my feet. At the top landing, there’s a hallway. I hear the sound of a boy,
laughing, splashing water. I follow the sound. My feet are silent in the carpeted hall. Why am I sneaking? Darkness, all around. At the end of the hall, I come to a closed door. I can see a thin
line of yellow light beneath it. Behind it, the sound of a little boy’s laughter.

I open the door. Cole is in the bathtub. He’s alive – sitting and smiling and playing with a red plastic boat. I must surprise him. He looks up at me, stops playing.

His face changes to confusion. Then fear. He doesn’t recognize me. Who is this man standing in the door?

He opens his mouth. He screams.

I wake, my own scream strangled in my throat.

Libby is sleeping beside me, breathing slowly, a dark shadow barely moving on the bed. The branches of the live oak tap the window pane.

‘Libby,’ I whisper.

No answer.

‘Libby?’ Her breathing stutters, then starts again. She hasn’t moved, but I know she’s awake now. Listening.

‘I’m sorry, Libby,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. Everything that I’ve lost for us.’

She is silent. Though her body is turned from me, I somehow can picture her. I somehow know exactly how she appears. She’s awake. Her eyes are open. She is staring into the dark.

I want to say more. I want to tell her about the dream – how my own son did not recognize me. And how, sometimes – like tonight – I don’t recognize myself. How I
can’t stop being a monster.

But these words don’t come. I think them. I hear them in my mind. I desire to speak them aloud. But nothing comes. After a few minutes of sitting upright, in dumbstruck silence, I lay my
head down beside my wife. I listen to her breathe.

And soon I sleep.

It’s Thursday morning, the day after the lay-offs.

When I arrive at Tao, the parking lot is deserted – just a few cars, no sign of human activity. The only thing the scene lacks is a dusty wind and a tumbleweed rolling past my feet.

In the reception area, Amanda greets me with sleepy eyes. ‘Good morning, Jim,’ she says. Since last week, neither of us has acknowledged our church-basement date, our kiss, or my
brush with Jesus in her apartment.

‘Morning, Amanda,’ I say, trying to sound chipper and boss-like. ‘How are things?’

‘Lonely,’ she sighs.

The complaint of a spurned lover? The gripe of an employee? When you’re in charge of a company and you can’t tell the difference, that’s probably a warning sign.

‘Things will get better,’ I say, vaguely – an answer that works in either case.

‘Sure, Jim,’ she says.

‘You know what they say,’ I begin, ‘it’s always darkest before...’ but Amanda holds up her index finger – the workplace gesture that translates roughly to:
‘Shut up, you boring load’ – and she presses a key on her telephone console, and says into the headset, ‘Tao Software. How may I help you?’ And then: ‘Let me see
if he’s available.’

She looks to me. ‘Tad Billups.’

‘In my office,’ I say, and I race to meet the call as she transfers it to my desk.

I shut the office door.

‘Hi, Tad,’ I say, easing into my chair. ‘What’s up?’

‘You tell me, champ,’ Tad says. ‘How did it go?’

He means the lay-offs, and did anyone get killed.

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Fine. I did what was required.’

‘I knew your would, champ,’ he says. ‘That’s why I hired you. Now I’m going to give you some good news. Do you want good news?’

‘Sure I do.’

‘Are you near a computer?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look in your bank account. Your personal bank account. Not the Tao Software bank account. We already know the balance there, right?’ He laughs. ‘Zero!’

‘Tad,’ I begin, ‘I’m glad you brought that up. I know you said there would be no further investment by your firm, but I think you should reconsider. We just need a little
bit more runway, Tad. That’s all we need, just some runway. I thought maybe if you could talk to your partners and—’

‘Did you look yet?’

‘Look at what?’

‘Your bank account.’

‘No.’

‘Do it. Right now. While I’m on the phone.’

I sigh. On my desktop computer, I launch a web browser, log in to the Wells Fargo account belonging to me and Libby.

‘There,’ Tad says. ‘See it yet?’

At first I think I have made a mistake, that I have somehow accessed the wrong bank account – someone
else’s
bank account. When I understand this is impossible, I have a
second thought: that the bank has made a monumental error, and that I must hang up with Tad and report this
immediately
. Isn’t it true that not reporting a bank error is the
equivalent to stealing – that you can be thrown in jail for it? That’s all I need to put the finishing touch on my résumé – seven to twelve years in a federal
penitentiary.

‘Hello, hotshot, are you there?’ Tad’s voice calls me back. ‘You see your account?’

I
do
see my account. The screen says that my cash balance, which – just Monday morning, when I last paid my bills, was $22,100.12 – is now, at 9.36 on Thursday morning,
$2,022,100.12. Between Monday and today, I have made two million dollars.

‘Tad,’ I say. I try to keep my voice calm. I sense that something in my life is changing, and not for the better. Before this moment, I had fears and doubts and suspicions. I
suspected
that Tad Billups was involved in... what was the word I used, when I voiced my doubts to Libby? –
shenanigans
. But shenanigans are the acts of drunk fraternity
brothers – short-sheeting the pledges, dabbing warm water on their wrists while they sleep. Two million dollars in a bank account is not a shenanigan. It is something different. Very
different. It is something related to cash in garbage bags, to missing CEOs, to Russian gangsters.

‘What is this, Tad?’

‘What does it look like, hotshot? It’s money. M – O – N – E... money.’

‘You forgot the Y.’

‘There is no
why
in money, Jimmy. Get my point?’

‘No.’

‘Well, here’s how I’ll put it. This is my way of thanking you. Of saying, you’re doing a good job. Keep it up.’

‘But I’m not doing a good job. I can’t save this company, Tad. It can’t be saved.’

‘I think you must know,’ he says, and pauses, ‘that’s not what I mean. That’s not what I care about.’

‘What
do
you care about?’

‘Come on, Jimmy,’ he says, and for the first time I hear a human being at the other end of the phone. It’s the voice of an old friend, a man who began as my peer, long ago, but
whose career has since surpassed mine. It’s the voice of compassion, and charity, and patience – the voice of a man who has slowed down for me, just for a moment, and who has reached
out his hand, one last time, to help. He continues, ‘You’re a lot of things, Jimmy. You’re a drunk, and you’re a cheat, and you don’t pass up blow if it’s free
at a party. But you’re not stupid. Are you?’

‘No.’

‘Are you?’ he asks again.

‘No.’

‘Well then.’ A long silence. He’s calling me from his cellphone – the connection has that radio-from-the-moon quality, but the line is quiet; he’s not calling from
a moving car, or from a busy sidewalk. He’s sitting in a room somewhere, a quiet room, with the door locked behind him. He’s alone.

‘Here’s what I want you to do,’ he says softly. ‘That lovely wife of yours. She is a lovely girl, and I must tell you that if you don’t want her, I’ll take
her for myself. I want you to hang up the phone with me, and get into your car, and drive down to the nearest Bloomingdales. They do have Bloomingdales out there, don’t they,
Jimmy?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘They have
something
. Whatever they have, go there. And buy that wife of yours something wonderful. What would she like?’

‘A new husband.’

‘Nu-uh,’ he says, clucking his tongue. ‘No can do. She’s stuck with you. And you’re stuck with her. So do the right thing, for once. Buy her something expensive.
Ah, to hell with Bloomingdales. Go to the Mercedes dealer, and buy her one of those convertibles. She like Mercedes?’

‘I guess.’

‘Of course she does! All women like Mercedes. They like driving around with the top down in the sunshine, while their husband is at work. Reminds them why they put up with the fat pig in
the dark.’

‘I can’t keep it, Tad.’

‘Keep what?’