Rosie O'Dell (56 page)

“What? But we agreed on…” He looked at Rosie. “Okay, sure, one half. It’ll be
your money, anyway. I was letting my recessive gene from Father for greed and
stinginess take over. I hope it wasn’t the cancer affecting the brain already.
The doctors said the cells in the brain would be the slowest-acting. With any
luck, the liver, pancreas, or heart will get me before I lose my mind.”

“The split is irrelevant, anyway, Brent,” I said. “I just want to help you and
Rosie. The money is absolutely no consideration to me. The question is how to
help. What can we do?”

“Whatever it takes,” said Brent. “Anything we say here is absolutely
confidential amongst us three, all right? Agreed?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Even if someone were to propose an activity significantly criminal?”

I paused before replying. “Proposing and doing are two
different things.”

“Well, either or? I’m asking.”

I looked at Rosie. A flash of her face as a teenager entered my mind when I’d
been then proposing to her an activity significantly criminal. Her face had the
same expectant expression now, lips slightly open. “Let me put it this way,
Brent, whatever I hear proposed, or suspect might have been done by anyone in
this room, it will never be disclosed to another soul. I fully understand how
you feel in this desperate situation. That undertaking does not preclude me,
however, from counselling you against doing anything not in keeping with your
own welfare.”

“For my own welfare? I think we can agree that we need to concentrate on
Rosie’s welfare. So let us not beat about the bush. We could try a legal
approach with Father, but that would probably tip our hand about how sick I am
and shag everything up, and I already know anyway that it will not work with
him. Therefore, I am determined that he will die before me. If necessary, before
I start to get too weak, I will physically do it myself.”

When I lowered my head and didn’t reply, Rosie stood. “Didn’t I tell you, Tom,
no more Boy Scout Brent?” She walked over to him and kissed his forehead.

“You got that right, sweetheart,” said Brent.

Rosie hugged his head to her breasts and went to the door. “I’m going up for a
power nap. Then I’ll get us all a nice cup of coffee. I’m sure everything will
look better then.” She gave us a wry, lopsided smile. “You boys plot and scheme
while I’m gone.”

As soon as she closed the door behind her, Brent started up again: “He told me
he wants to be euthanized when the time comes, anyway, so it wouldn’t really be
murder, at least not morally.”

“Brent, you need to make sure you don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.
If the old man dies naturally or accidentally before you do, you get the money
under the will. But if it was ever determined that you were the cause or agent
of his death, your benefits under the will would be null and void, and you would
get nothing, because a person cannot profit or benefit under the law from his
own wrongdoing. As a result, Rosie would also get nothing, and all the money
would probably go to your sons. Forensic techniques can detect anything these
days. You need to be very careful.”

Brent said, “That’s important to realize. I told Rosie we’d get the straight
goods from Tom Sharpe. And Tommy, you can expect the same from me.
So don’t give me that shit about the money meaning nothing to
you. I know you got hit by the recession like the rest of us. I know your law
partner fucked up and it’s going to cost you maybe half a million. You’ll be the
rest of your life paying it off, that is, if you don’t have to face the
professional disgrace of declaring bankruptcy. You’ll certainly be selling your
nice house once you borrow or beg the cost of a coat of paint to tart it up a
bit. In other words, you’re like me and Rosie, nearly broke after a half a
lifetime of work.”

“What’s that rule for sucking in a patsy? Oh yeah, do your research. You guys
have certainly dredged up a lot about me. Some of it even true.”

“All of it true, and more besides. Patsy? Yeah. They’ll have to start a new TV
show called
The Six Million Dollar Patsy
. You want more true? She and I
had originally agreed on one-third of the take for you, as I said, if we could
straighten this fiasco up. In other words, a lawyer’s top contingency fee. She
came up with that one half for you just then out of the blue. Fifty-fifty,
that’s equal partners. That’s like a husband-and-wife thing.”

“Too bad we’re already married to someone else.”

“Yeah, till you convert your legal separation into a divorce and I kick the
bucket. Listen, Tom. Rosie is…”

Brent’s hand went to his face and covered his eyes. Slowly, he bent forward. I
had been expecting something like this. For all his cheerful show, I knew he had
to be devastated by the prospect of leaving life, especially the thought of
leaving Rosie. I knew I would have been. I got up to go to his side, but he took
his hand from his face and waved me away. His eyes were red and moist as he
settled back in his chair again and went on.

“Rosie is the best thing that ever happened to me. She has made my life livable
over the years. When I die, it’ll be without too many regrets, simply because I
had her for twenty years. It rots my goddamned socks that prick-face over there
in The Pines doesn’t respect and admire her in the way she deserves. And you
know why I was able to have her, how I got her? Because you were stupid enough
to let her go.”

“The brutal honesty of a best friend.”

“It’s only what you yourself told me at the time.”

“I did everything to get her back, Brent. What I didn’t know at the time was
that you had been hankering after her so badly.”

“Yes, and long before that and long after. But you still wouldn’t know that if
you and she had stayed together or gotten back together again. I didn’t stand a
chance, I knew that. But luckily for me, she had too much
respect for herself to give in to you and go back with you. And that was in
spite of the fact that she still wanted you. It was years after you and she
broke up, and long after I had left my wife, that she finally said yes to me.
And we had a great life together.”

“Why didn’t you and she have any children?”

“You mean, like you did? She would not be responsible, she told me, for any
more like her coming into this world. And she a bloody saint. Go figure. In
fact, I do know, though, just as you do. She told me everything that happened to
her with that English fucker. And her stupid egotism in not watching out for
Pagan. And everything you and she did after the trial. I mean everything.”

“Jesus. Now I’ll have to marry you to keep you quiet.”

“Same-sex marriage
and
polygamy at the same time—I’m game. That ought to
get us in Guinness. There was only one thing, Tom, that she didn’t actually tell
me but which I knew anyway: she wouldn’t even come back here for a visit because
of you. And I’m sure that one of the reasons she put me off so long was that,
judging by all the sappy letters you wrote her, she was half-expecting you to
come and find her.”

“No, Brent, she was absolutely definite, and Suzy told me it was a lost
cause.”

“Suzy? You must have forgotten or didn’t know—Suzy always liked me more than
you. Anyway, whatever. Rosie was loyal and loving to me throughout, and I will
die in everlasting gratitude to her for that. But when I am dead, I hope you and
she get together again. I seriously suspect she will want to. And you are nuts
if you don’t.”

“That does not arise as a factor in all this, Brent. I’m hoping you will
outlive us all.”

“Right. And when you get together it will be better to be rich than poor. Just
don’t get into a game of tennis or squash with her, if you value your dignity.
She’ll whup your ass worse than she’s been whupping mine for twenty years. But
whether you two get together or not is your own business, and immaterial to me.
I won’t know anyway. Whatever she chooses to do, I do want to die knowing Rosie
will be living in carefree comfort, and independent. So we need to plan out
properly how we are going to get rid of the old fuck within the next couple of
weeks, before I start to look sick. My boys will be dropping in here any day
now. I’ll do anything you and Rosie want, but I will need to follow your lead.”
He beamed at me the grin of one boyish conspirator to another arriving at the
terms of their mischief. “You two have had more practice at this than me.”

“You’re a fucking riot, Brent. I take it that Rosie is in on
all your thoughts on this and agrees completely.”

“She is and she does. It wasn’t easy at first, though. She was all ‘I don’t
care what he’s like. He’s your father. I don’t care how shitty he’s been to you.
Or to me. You’re his son.’ So I had to tell her something I never expected to
have to say to her in my lifetime. Before my mother died, she confessed to me in
her last days of agony that she thought Father knew Rothesay was— molesting is
the word she used—Pagan O’Dell at the time it was happening. She didn’t realize
it at the time; she only put two and two together after Pagan died and Rosie
went to court, from bits and pieces of conversation she’d overheard during their
investment meetings. She even thought from what she’d heard that they had looked
at some film Rothesay had taken of Pagan. Mother seemed pretty sure about it all
in retrospect. No film ever turned up, though.”

“If it existed, he would have destroyed it after Pagan died,” I said as I had
a flash of Anstey and Rothesay at Pagan’s wake. “I can see the both of them now
over by Pagan’s coffin. Your father said something to Rothesay, and they both
laughed before they caught themselves. It seemed completely incongruous.”

“I missed that. But it figures. Father probably congratulated him on his good
fortune at everything ending so conveniently for him. Anyway, I told Mother’s
story to Rosie after I was diagnosed as terminal and said I believed it, and
that as far as I was concerned he was an accessory in Pagan’s death.”

“Jesus, what a cesspool it all was. And Rosie a little teenager trying to sort
it all out. Well, I’m not surprised if her healthy sense of justice has come to
the fore again. Listen, Brent. I’ll go this far along with you for now:
tomorrow, we’ll trundle on over to The Pines and say hello to the revered
patriarch and size up the lay of the land.”

“Revered? I wouldn’t call him that if I were you, even sarcastically. When I
told him I was marrying Rosie, he said, ‘Are you nuts? The only reason that she
and your great buddy Sharpe aren’t in jail already for murdering Rothesay is
because when Sharpe was fired from his law firm he wormed his way into the
Department of Justice and started bonking that prosecutor at the trial… ’ What
was her name?”

“Do you mean Lucy Barrett?”

“Yeah, Lucy. ‘She’s old enough to be Sharpe’s mother, ’ he said, ‘but that
didn’t stop him from climbing aboard her. Anything to stay out of jail. But
all that’s going to blow up soon, ’ he said, ‘and you’ll be
making conjugal visits to your new bride in the clink. Unless she and Sharpe are
sharing a cell.’ Tom, remember when you used to find my dad kinda
humorous?”

“Yes. I should have listened to you when we were ten. I’ve got to say, Brent,
you’re putting me in the mood to help solve your financial problem in a hands-on
way.”

“Good.”

Brent and I looked at his copy of the will and the other documents, and by the
time Rosie called us into the living room for our coffee, I had the Orwellian
sensation of holding two opposing beliefs in my head at the same time. One: I
would not commit a heinous crime for love nor money; no, not even if I threw
away the opportunity to avoid disgrace and penury and to sustain a relationship
with the woman I’d loved all my life. Two: I would do anything, even risk the
rest of my life in jail, to avoid disgrace and penury for a well-off life of
love with the one woman in the world I’d always wanted and who was now
miraculously becoming obtainable again at last.

Rosie smiled at me: “Still a cream-and-sugar man, Tommy?”

Brent looked at me, and when I nodded, he said, “Some memory on ya,
Rosie.”

“Lucky guess,” said Rosie. “What do you take in yours, Brent?”

Brent let out a hoot of pure enjoyment. “You’ve gotta love her,” he
said.

THE POSSIBILITY HAD NOT
escaped my notice that my oldest
friend in the world and the only true love of my life were about to screw me.
Their proposal was no different in principle from the scam that had put my
partner in the madhouse and left me facing bankruptcy. If the matter had been
brought to me by a client for legal advice on where he stood if he joined such a
plot, I would have advised him that Rosie and Brent’s plea for a solution to
their problem was just another version of an email from Uganda or Nigeria. The
details of the complications faced by the desperate widow might be different,
but the concept was the same. “This stinks,” would be my advice. “Don’t touch
it with a barge pole.”

But my situation was different, I said to myself, recognizing even as I did so
the last-refuge argument of the true, self-deluding sucker. But wait, there were
real differences. The crucial one was that it would not cost me any money. I did
not have to lay out a cent of my own or anyone else’s. The problem was at the
other end: there was no way I could ensure that I would receive my share from my
devoted friends, even if our operation was successful. A legally enforceable
contract or contingency fee arrangement was obviously out of the question. In
fact, everything about my end of the thing was dubious. How could I even be sure
that either of them, father or son, was dying? This could easily be a scheme for
Rosie and hubby to get their hands on the old guy’s money early, go on to live
the life of Riley in parts unknown, leaving me behind as the empty-handed fall
guy, maybe even peering out from behind bars.

But was that a reasonable possibility? Their story’s elements all rang
true to me. My gut-feeling was good. Was either of them really
capable of deliberately concocting elaborate falsehoods designed to leave me in
the lurch? Well, yes, come to think of it. Brent—a best friend who had lusted
long and secretly to take over my girlfriend for himself. And were those hints
of true jealousy I got from him this afternoon? After all this time? Christ,
that was pathological. Rosie—she could not trust herself to return here once
because of her lasting love for me? More likely lasting hate. Were those little
hints of her real resentment that leaked through this afternoon under the guise
of fun? Oh, she was good at resenting someone long and hard. Where the hell
were
they for all those years, anyway? Bloody decades. And now all of
a sudden, out of the blue, I was Mr. Indispensable. The old guy—the lying,
nasty, conniving bastard—his presence in the piece was the best of it, though—I
sincerely wouldn’t mind being in on offing him. But didn’t he want to be done
in? Could he even be part of the plot to suck me into ending his suffering
before it started, leaving Brent with clean hands to inherit legally under the
will?

Okay, before I went paranoid altogether, what was the worst-case scenario for
me here, anyway? I got no money and I got nailed for offing the old guy. But
even assuming those were the results—so what? That would make no big difference
in my life. I didn’t even have anyone close enough to be ashamed of me, except
Dad, and he was immune by now. But did we really have to terminate old man
Anstey, or was there another way that I couldn’t see because I was blinded by
the anticipated satisfaction of his demise?

Searching my brains all night, waking up from a fitful sleep, I could see no
alternative. There was no way around it, the old man had to go first, which
meant soon. And this wasn’t a moral problem. I could cheerfully throttle the old
bastard myself tonight without a pang, as I’d told Rosie, especially if I
thought I wouldn’t get caught. I dropped off for a final time that night
thinking there was no reason we’d get caught and Rosie and Brent would live up
to their undertaking to me, and Suzy’s depiction of their noble characters to me
years ago was the true one, even if she did like Brent more than me… Bitch, she
ruined my life.

I woke up and looked at my bedside clock. Seven-thirty. I’d slept an hour and a
half longer than I had for the past year, whether workday or weekend. I waited
for the old black cloud of melancholy to settle on my mind and heart, as it had
every morning for months. It didn’t come. In its place was a sense of certainty
over what I would do. I stood up from the
bed with this
beautiful concept dancing through my head: it was high time that I brought some
real money and some real love back into my doleful life.

I went down and had an orange juice and a coffee. Both tasted exquisite. It was
only eight o’clock on a Sunday morning, but I called the phone number Brent had
given me for the house. Rosie answered. I said good morning without frills or
half-assed witticisms and asked for Brent. He was in the bathroom. He had a
rough night, she said. The pain had gotten worse and he didn’t want to dope up
till his affairs were in order.

“Rosie, tell him I’m ready to see the man whenever he is.”

“He’ll be very glad to hear that, Tom.”

I WENT OFF WITH
Brent to scout out the lay of the land
at the nursing home. When he brought me into the room where his father was
sitting in an easy chair, he said, “You remember my best friend, Tom
Sharpe.”

“Oh, good,” his father said, “finally, you brought someone here to finish me
off, or at least who wants to.”

“I should have done that years ago when the urge first hit me,” I said.
“Unfortunately I’ve mellowed out with the passage of time. I’m just here to say
hello because Brent mentioned that you were not very well.”

Brent said, “Tom is acting as my local lawyer, Father, to make sure everything
is in accordance with Newfoundland law. He may have a few questions for you and
he may drop in to see you here from time to time, if anything needs to be
straightened out. You okay with that?”

“
I’m
okay with it, but
you
might have gotten a lawyer who’s not
up to his neck in shit with the Law Society.”

I said, “Well, at least I wasn’t suspended and almost disbarred, like the poor
bastard who acted for you on that fraud on Revenue Canada.”

“Touchy, I mean touché. You know, Tom, if you had acted for me on that, though,
you’d be way further ahead than you are now in your practice. That guy turned
out to be an idiot. You would have been smart enough to nail everything down and
cover our tracks. We could have had a great lawyer-client relationship together.
Especially with Brent gone and not getting uppity every time I put someone
else’s nuts in the wringer.”

“Once a day I could take,” said Brent. “But three or four guys screaming, ‘Oh
me balls!’
every morning
?”

We laughed. Then the old guy said, “I’m getting tired. Could you fellows give
me a hand getting back in bed? No sense asking one of the staff
to come in and help. I wouldn’t even be able to grab her ass with you two here
looking on.”

We got him to his feet and onto the bed. By now he was wheezing with the effort
in spite of the oxygen tube in his nose. When he settled down, he said to Brent,
“By the way, your boys phoned me to say they’ll be here on a visit in a couple
of days. That’ll be good.”

“They didn’t tell me they’re coming so soon.”

“No, they were wondering if I thought it was a good idea for them to stay at
the house before they called you.”

“They’re not fucking staying at the house. The way those two little pricks have
treated Rosie.”

“That’s what I figured. So I told them to stay at a hotel. I’ll pay for it.
I’ll pick up the cost of their tickets, too.”

“Did you ever ask yourself why they never have any money, those two?”

“Easy come, easy go. But I do want to see the little shaggers one more time.
They’ll get some money under my will, as you know. But I’m depending on you to
make sure they never hit the jackpot in one fell swoop. They need it doled out
to them if they’re going to survive. How come they’re so goddamned stupid,
anyway? Where did they get that from? I think it’s your fault, Brent. You had a
right to stick your organ of generation into a better cow. I told you when you
were a boy that you and Rosie should have children. They would have been superb
specimens. But Rothesay and this guy here got in ahead of you and buggered up
her maternal instinct.”

“Okay, enough with the good old days,” said Brent. “I’m going to take Tom out
to the office and have him okayed for visiting you without me. He’ll be back for
a few questions after I introduce him.”

Outside, Brent said, “The boys coming here this soon is bad. Christ knows what
they’ll weasel out of the old man or what they’ll think when they see me. They
haven’t seen me for a few months. They may see the difference in me and start
wondering. I think we need to do it before they come. What do you think?”

As soon as I’d heard that the boys would be here in a couple of days, a
desperation rose in me, a sense of impending disaster, that my—our—opportunity
for salvation would be missed.

“I’m ready,” I said, “especially after that friendly chat with the old
bastard. I’ll go back in and watch for a good chance. You keep them busy at the
desk.”

“Yeah, this is a good day—Sunday. Lots of visitors occupying the staff.”

I sauntered back into the old man’s room. Looking at him and
remembering, I felt something of the homicidal loathing and rage from thirty
years ago when I tried to kill Moose Mercer.

He opened his eyes and said, “That was quick. What do you want to know?”

“Is it true that you want to be euthanized?”

“Yeah. But painlessly. Like every other bullshitting bully, I’m a coward under
all the bluster. But who wants to go through this, getting harder and harder to
breathe for the next six months, just worse and worse? Got any ideas?”

“Yes, I do. I wouldn’t mind putting you down myself.”

“Ha ha. That’s a good one. A wuss like you. I thought you had promise when you
were a boy. But I saw later that you and Brent were a bad influence on each
other. All kindness and consideration and do or die for each other. Christ, he
porks your old girlfriend for twenty years and here you are, back good friends
with him. Figure that one out. It’s verging on sick, or the two of you are up to
something. By the way, do you think Brent is all right? Sometimes he strikes me
as… not very well.”

“No, he’s great. He ran three miles this morning. But I think that seeing you
like this is taking a toll on him. You know, the old kindness and consideration
shit. Or maybe you don’t know.”

“I’m starting to like you again, Tom. I hope you do drop in fairly often, and
not just to ask questions. For a good gab. What are you doing?”

“I’m fluffing up your other pillow for you.” I looked at the door. No sign of
any activity nearby.

“Don’t fluff my pillow up. I’m paying this place an arm and a leg to keep my
pillows fluffed the fuck up. Wait now. What are you doing?”

“I’m going to put you down like a dog, you rotten old fucker.” I placed the
pillow over his face, concentrating my hands on the nose with the tube in and
the disgusting mouth. With those lungs of his, this shouldn’t take long.

He started to hump up and down and brought his hands up to my forearms. I bore
down with all my weight and strength. With what I can only describe as a
superhuman effort, he lifted my hands and the pillow off his face. He turned his
head sideways and started yelling and shrieking. “Help, he’s trying to murder
me! Help, he’s smothering me with my pillow!”

I stood there paralyzed and he knocked my arms away and kept shouting and
screaming that I was murdering him. I heard squeaky-shoed running out in the
corridor and I backed away from the bed, throwing the
pillow to
the side of his head. In ran a nurse in uniform, followed by Brent, who caught
my eye in alarm.

“He tried to kill me, Brent. Did you put him up to this?”

“What the hell are you talking about, Father? Why would anyone try to kill you?
You’re dying anyway.”

“Because he hates me. He was trying to get revenge.”

“But killing you would be doing you a favour, not punishing you.’

“Don’t be such a goddamned simpleton, you idiot. We’re talking control here,
not end results. Nurse, call the police. I want to lay charges against this
psychopath for attempted murder.”

“Oh, sir. He’s your lawyer. He wasn’t trying to kill you.”

“He’s not my fucking lawyer. I fired him as my lawyer years ago for being an
incurable moron. He’s my son’s lawyer. Two well-matched retards. Look at this
side of the pillow here. It’s got my spit and snot all over it from where he was
pushing it down on my face. Call the police, I said.”

“Sir, you know you like to pull the pillow over your head to pretend you’re
asleep when your friend down the hall knocks on the door. I’m not calling the
police. You said your doctors were trying to kill you yesterday when they gave
you that prostate exam.”

“Just because you like it when some guy shoves a digit with a condom on it up
your anus, doesn’t mean I’ve got to. Give me that phone.”

“Sir, we are not calling the police. Don’t you remember accusing me of trying
to murder you when I had to insert a catheter so that you could pee
properly?”

“I didn’t say you were trying to murder me. I said you were trying to rape me.
I said you were only sticking that thing in my dick to make it stiff so that you
could have your way with me. No wonder patients die like flies in the custody of
health care workers when you can’t even remember the difference between murder
and rape. And what the fuck happened to patient confidentiality, by the way?
Anything else private and embarrassing about my medical condition you would like
to disclose to the world?” He reached for the phone. “I’ll call the police
myself.”