The Next Right Thing (22 page)

“I just figured something out,” I said. “You’re the reason no one has been busted for growing pot in Laguna Beach. You made it more profitable for the DEA
not
to bust them. The DEA confiscates all the related assets without the muss and fuss of criminal charges. You eventually needed a front like Terry so it wouldn’t interfere with getting ready for the bench. Terry was your partner.”

“There’s nothing illegal about anything you’re describing,” he said.

“But how good does it look for a future judge to be giving hand jobs to a federal agency on behalf of drug dealers?”

Sewell stopped chewing, swallowed. I noticed that he hadn’t touched his excellent-looking potato salad. “That’s what lawyers do. Keep people out of jail.
Negotiate
. In some ways, though, you’re right. I risked sullying my reputation. And apparently, it killed Terry.”

“How did it kill him?”

“You can’t rub up against that kind of business without some personal cost. Given his history of addiction—”

I smacked the table hard enough to spill some of Sewell’s iced tea. Every Hawaiian shirt in the dining room turned toward me. “Don’t give me a lecture on substance abuse.
How did it fucking kill him?
”

“Terry told me that the road gets narrower. That the longer you stay away from drugs, the riskier it becomes to ethically compromise yourself. Did I make that up? Isn’t that what you A.A. people believe?”

“So who was he rubbing up against?”

“I washed my hands of that business a long time ago. I’m not sending you off to bother any of my former clients.”

“Like Simon Busansky? Colin Alvarez?” I said. “What are you hiding? Why are you trying to put me back in my box?”

Sewell shook his head as he stared into me. Another gesture that would go well with the black robe. “I’m not the one who’s hiding. It’s not my life that’s this … swamp of resentment and fear.”

“My life is not the issue here.”

“If you say so, Randy. I’m sure you’re also not responsible for Jean being so angry that sometimes she can’t look me in the eye. For Alison working so hard to be perfect that I’m afraid her heart will seize. Maybe it’s time to start looking at your own behavior.
What do you make, a couple hundred thousand on every house you design? More? I can’t get through one conversation with Alison without hearing what a great man you are. Why on earth would you want to prove her wrong? I know that Terry’s death put you off balance—that’s true for everyone who knew him—but let me be clear: I have no connection whatsoever with pornography or drug dealing or anything else you have in mind. And while it’s profoundly none of your affair, I
will
do the right thing by Cathy Acuña and her daughter. But if you continue this pressure, I’m prepared to file charges of harassment.”

At that moment, Jean returned to the table, a lot calmer than when she’d left, which was not a good sign.

“Do they teach you that in law school, John? How to wash your hands? You brought my friend into this, and then it seems to me like he was
how
you washed your hands.”

“From what I’ve heard,” Sewell said quietly, “neither of us was very close to Terry near the end.”

I would have thrown him through a window or at least forced him to eat his potato salad. But with my ex-wife returned to the table, I wanted to be slightly more tactful than that.

I said, “Jean, why don’t you get security. We’ll see how long it takes to restrain me. I’m thinking maybe five minutes before they get me out of this crowded room full of rich people? Although it might save time if they shot me. You think they’ll shoot me?”

“We’re about to find out,” Jean said.

Hearing the purposeful steps of large men behind me, I turned to find a phalanx of former USC football players. Jean smiled up at them.

The three security guys had about eight hundred pounds between
them, most of it in the big Samoan-looking guy who was coming around the table to stand behind Jean. I guessed they would give me about thirty seconds to come to my senses before they carried me there. If it had been just two of them, I might have made a show of it. So long as it was the smaller two.

Sewell said, “My patience is gone, Randy. And frankly, Jean never had any patience to begin with. I like Alison a lot, and I want things to be civil with her father, but this is the last time I’ll accept this behavior. You’re not my friend, and you’ve shown no desire to become my friend.”

“Don’t explain yourself to him,” Jean said.

Sewell looked at her, held his hand up slightly, and Jean backed down. “Jean thinks you’re pulling the world down around your head because you don’t want responsibility for a teenage girl. I argued against that, but I’m starting to wonder. Here I am, trying to settle things between you and Jean. You’re the same kind of fool that Terry was, and if you don’t stop, you’re going to lose everything.”

My laughter was forced. “That would have been a better angle before I found out about your insurance scam. Why don’t we meet at your office tomorrow morning and you can sign away your rights to that money? You say you want that money to go to Cathy and her children? There’s a simple way to guarantee that.”

Jean made a move toward the football player behind her, but Sewell again help up his hand. “I’m not creating a legal document out of your fantasies. Cathy will get the money because I gave her my word.”

“You think he’s trying to take money from that woman?” Jean said to me. “Jesus fucking Christ. You’re sick.”

Sewell tried the hand trick again. “Sweetheart—”

“Did you know that your daughter cried herself to sleep on Wednesday night?” Jean said. “She loves you too much to say it, but she’s afraid you’re so upset about fucking Terry that you’re going to drink again, and she remembers what that was like.”

“I’m not going to drink again, Jean. And you have no idea who this guy is. Go ahead and deny me custody, but don’t do it because you think Sewell is a better man. We’ve always worked together when it comes to Crash.”

“No, Randy,
we
haven’t worked together.
I’ve
worked for Alison, and you’ve worked on yourself. Where was your daughter when you were going to A.A. meetings twenty-four hours a day? Did you notice how much she needed you while you sat around whining to strangers? It’s the same shit that I grew up with, just dressed in a new vocabulary. I won’t let it ruin my next marriage, and I’m sure as hell not going to let it hurt my daughter. By the way, how did you find us, Randy?”

“How did I find you?”

“How did you know we were at the yacht club?” Jean said. “Who did you call so that you could come here to harass my fiancé and get yourself thrown into the street like a criminal? You’re an animal to use my daughter against me.”

The Samoan-looking guy thought that was a pretty good cue to step forward and invite me to leave.

AFTER GETTING THROWN OUT
of the yacht club, I spent the afternoon and early evening at Jean Claude’s, starting to feel foolish. I was willing to blame John Sewell for genocide and global warming and every crime that incredibly stiff white men had committed since the Civil War, but I couldn’t prove he’d done anything that had led to the death of my friend. Jean was right in her own way. However great a father I’d been for the last eight years, it didn’t erase the years before that.

At about six o’clock, Jean Claude—who had a pretty good sense of when I required his intervention—came out to sit beside me. He didn’t speak for a while, just sipped his espresso. This was how he often drew me out: by sitting companionably beside me while my thoughts formed. The fact was that there had been many times when neither of us spoke, and my French
friend seemed as pleased with those meetings as the ones when we talked.

“You think I should give up on finding out what happened to Terry?” I finally asked him.

“Did something happen to Terry?” Jean Claude said. “I thought that he was dead.”

“Please don’t give me the whole existential bit,” I said. “Because I can go to fucking Starbucks.”

“As a Frenchman, I’m supposed to think that Americans are fucked up about sex,” Jean Claude said. “But you’re much more fucked up about death. You’ll drop your fear of sex in a heartbeat if it helps you forget your fear of death.”

“And your point is what?”

“You want to destroy the entire planet because your best friend left you alone. Because he’s dead and he’s never going to come back. And he’s not going to be an angel in heaven, either. He’s not even going to hell. Because there is no hell or heaven.”

“Like I said, your point?”

“I’m not in A.A.,” Jean Claude said. “I could live a hundred more lifetimes, and I would never be in A.A. If you want me to, I will close the shop right now, put you in my car, and drive you up to L.A., where I will show you ways to hurt yourself that you can’t even imagine. We will drink and fuck our way across the state in such an epic fashion that they will write songs about us. And then, after a week or so, we can come back down and resume our boringly productive lives.”

I looked at him to see if he was serious. I believed he was. “I love you, too,” I said.

Jean Claude stood up from the table and seemed mildly perturbed
as he took away my espresso cup. I decided that I would go home.

As I turned up Bluebird Canyon, I got a call from Emma, who was supposed to be back at my house with Troy, trying to figure out a way to organize my files. I had promised them twenty dollars an hour if they could make an improvement. It seemed like a job that Troy could handle and Emma couldn’t hurt.

“I’m almost there,” I said.

“Well, that’s good,” Emma said. “Because I’m not.”

I pulled over. I would need all my attention to coax her back from Recon. “Where are you?” I said. “I’ll come pick you up.”

“I’ve got a night’s worth of work ahead. No bivouac for me.”

“Are you … outside?”

“Define ‘outside’?”

“Are you roaming the county on foot,” I said, “tempting fate?”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s
exactly
what I’m doing. I’m giving fate a come-hither look.”

“Where the fuck do you go at night? Are you
trying
to get raped?”

“Why? Do
you
want to rape me?”

I laughed.

“That’s funny?” she said.

“No,” I said. “
You’re
funny. You’re so used to being the most fucked-up person in any room. But you forget that when you’re talking to me,
I’m
the most fucked-up person.”

She laughed. “That’s why I report to you.”

“Are you looking for Simon?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Because you know I want to help you with that,” I said. “I’d like to find him, too.”

By now I thought I had a sense of when Emma would hang up, but this time she didn’t. I waited without speaking while she continued to not hang up.

“I really
didn’t
fuck Terry,” she said. “I’m not sure why I want you to know that.”

Thank God for small favors. “You want me to know that you loved him,” I said, “the way we all did. Because you’re starting to realize that we—your pals in A.A.—are the only real friends you have left. Which is why you don’t have to roam the countryside at night. You can just come back to my house and hate the fact that you depend on us as much as we hate the fact that we depend on you.”

For a minute, she didn’t say anything. Then she hung up.

Why was it so hard to believe that Terry had destroyed his life all on his own, pure and simple? There were still too many things I didn’t like, besides John Sewell and his insurance policy. Something about the recovery house scheme didn’t sit right with me. And why was this Simon Busansky character missing in action? Why had Mutt Kelly parked outside my house? Who had made that call to Cathy? Who was the business partner who so preoccupied Terry during the birth of the child he’d always wanted? And why, when he had a woman like Cathy to come home to, was he doing anything but coming home to her?

A woman to come home to
. I pulled a U-turn in front of my house and headed back toward PCH. It was almost time for MP’s Friday-evening yoga class.