Rosie O'Dell (57 page)

“Sir, you’ll have to talk to the supervisor before you call the police. We
can’t have the police traipsing about this home alarming the other residents and
their families on a Sunday afternoon for absolutely no reason.”

“Attempted murder and breach of the privacy laws—that’s no reason? Oh, this is
good. Pay ten grand a month so that you can be treated like a serial killer in a
maximum-security prison. Supervisor? Warden, you mean.
Get that
fucking warden in here so that I can report to the authorities a blatant attempt
on my life by a man who already has in his record the murder of a highly
esteemed doctor back in the seventies.”

Brent said, “Father, keep quiet. Just stop it.”

“Oh, I forgot. My son’s highly esteemed wife was implicated in that, too. So
we’re all getting a bit touchy here.”

“I’ll fucking murder you myself if you don’t shut up.”

“I’ll shut up when your friend, the homicidal maniac, gets out of this suite
and never comes back. Any permission I gave for that menace to the sick and the
dying to come in here is hereby revoked.”

Brent made a little motion towards the door with his eyes and I walked out,
shaking my head as if more in sorrow than in anger and pretending that my heart
was not jumping out of my chest and that my legs were not trying to buckle under
me. Outside the door, another staff member who’d been looking in said, “Sorry,
sir. We’ve been having a little more trouble than usual with him lately.”

“I understand completely,” I said. “He’s very ill and we always have to
remember—there but for the grace of God go I.”

Her eyes went moist. “Thank you for your thoughtfulness.”

I continued walking towards the exit. Twice I casually looked back. No sign of
Brent.

Outside the entrance to the building, I slumped against a wall. A complete
disaster. I had totally failed. If it wasn’t for the dumb luck of the staff
believing the old guy was a crazy curmudgeon, I’d be in irons now for attempted
murder. But success would have been just as bad. I’d been offered deliverance
from my ruined life, and in my panic that the sons would arrive too soon, I’d
become like a man possessed, doing something remarkably foolish—and far too
easily discovered—even if it had worked.

Brent came out the main door. “I had to make sure any loose ends were tied up,”
he said. “Everything’s okay with the staff.” A family of visitors was walking
up to the door. “Let’s go over by my car.”

“Well, I managed to shag that up royally,” I said. “I’m sorry I let you and
Rosie down like that.”

“No, Tom, I’m sorry. I should have warned you that the old prick might still be
strong. He tells everyone in there that if I was as strong as him I wouldn’t
have blown my professional hockey career. When he went in there first, he used
to prove it by beating everyone, staff as well as residents, at arm wrestling.
But I figured he’d be weak enough by now.”

“Well, why wouldn’t you? Christ, he can hardly breathe. What
are you going to do now?”

“The jig is up. No way I could do it physically myself. I wouldn’t have the
strength—or the heart.”

“No, you can’t even consider that. I really feel bad about Rosie being left
stranded. The thought of her being penniless while your boys live in the lap of
luxury on those millions—”

“Yeah, for a year or two before they blow it all on pussy and coke. I may have
to come clean with the old bastard about my condition and ask him to change the
will to look after her somewhat, or else I’ll abandon him right now.”

“Any chance he’ll do that after today? He already said you put me up to
it.”

“I know. And he just said he wanted to change the will to cut me out. But I
told him he can’t—he signed a deal. He simmered down a bit, but no, there’s no
chance he’ll put her in. Unless, now, maybe I can get him to give her a million
or so and he can cut me out altogether, and I’ll help him set up a structured
trust fund for the boys with most of my share. That’d be better than nothing for
her.”

“Think he’d do that?”

“Don’t know. I’m running out of options. I’ve got a mind to go back in there
now and let it all hang out with him.”

“Then you may be out of options altogether. Wait awhile. Talk it over with
Rosie first. At least give her a status report.”

I didn’t even know why I said that. I felt that I wanted nothing more to do
with this absurdity. I’d already screwed it up once and couldn’t bear the
thought of further involvement in any way whatsoever. It was hopeless now, and
my own looming financial disaster, after being banished for a day or so by a
moronic forlorn hope, was already taking over my mind again like an engulfing
amoeba.

“Rosie hates all this,” said Brent. “The less she has to do with it or talk
about it, the better she likes it. She really wants nothing to do with
it.”

I thought to myself: How could he be married to a woman like Rosie for twenty
years and still not know how she ticks? “But, Brent, you at least have to tell
her what happened and the situation she’s faced with now.”

“Yeah. Fuck.”

I WAS HOME THAT
evening nursing my third
drink and my anxiety, when Rosie called. “Tommy, Brent told me everything. I
want to thank you for hanging yourself out to dry like that. It had to be awful
for you. Well, anyway, that’s it. The boys will be here in a day or two. Brent
heard from them a couple of hours ago. So it’s all over, unless the excitement
of having the grandsons here is too… Will you be able to spend a little time
with Brent during the next couple of months? I know you have a lot on
your—”

As she was speaking—when she mentioned the boys, specifically—I had one of my
brainwaves. I interrupted her: “Rosie, I need to go to your house right now and
talk something over with Brent.”

“You mean tonight? Well, he was feeling really fatigued and getting ready for
bed, but if you feel…”

“He must be shell-shocked after today. But I have to talk to him in person, not
on the phone, if that’s all right. I’ll get a taxi. I’ve had a nip or
two.”

“I don’t blame you. All this would drive anyone to drink. We’ll wait up for
you.”

She was outside on the veranda waiting when my taxi pulled up. At the door, she
kissed my cheek and put her hand on mine. “I’m so sorry for your trauma this
afternoon,” she said. “Imagine! Him accusing you in front of all the staff of
trying to murder him. I told Brent, if I’d had any idea—”

“It’s okay, Rosie. I’ll get over it. Everyone thinks he’s a raving lunatic,
anyway. Speaking of which, I’ve got a crazy idea for Brent. This time, no doubt,
the resulting trauma will probably involve losing my balls as well as my
head.”

“Jesus, don’t say that. Not your balls.”

“Where’s Brent? I need to find out exactly when his sons are coming.”

“They are arriving on the red-eye tomorrow night. They get here around two in
the morning.”

“Excellent.”

She stopped and looked at me. “And all of a sudden them coming here is somehow
good?”

“We need to chat over a few things, get some things straight in everyone’s best
interest.”

Leading me in to see Brent, Rosie stopped again and turned around and looked at
me. Her eyebrows were raised, and her eyes sparkled, and her slight grin had
those long-ago familiar signs of teenage satisfaction at our cleverness. It
brought me back more than thirty years to the times when one of us had advanced
the latest plan for our getting together to
make love somewhere
undetected. Her look was lovable, and no wonder: she was confirming that she had
zeroed in on my plan and appreciated how diabolical it was in its brilliant
simplicity.

She came back to me and whispered in my ear. “I love you, Tom. Next to poor
Brent, I love you most of all. And you’ll see how much Brent loves me— and you
too—when you hear his reaction to what you are going to suggest.”

In the living room, Brent and I sat down. Rosie remained standing and said
she’d leave us to it. Brent looked from her to me quizzically. That would be
best, I said. As soon as she closed the door, I started. “I need you to give me,
as your lawyer, your written permission to divulge information to certain
parties, that is to say, to your two sterling sons. They are coming here
ostensibly to visit their honoured and beloved grandfather, but really, you
believe, to cadge money off him. I understand that they know they stand to
inherit some money in his will when he dies a year or so from now, but they have
no idea how much. You have told me you think they are currently desperate—broke
and in debt to unsavoury sources and need money bad. You have told me that they
have drained their poor mother dry. When they get here, it would be a good idea
for you to arrange, as trustee for your father’s estate, for them to visit me as
your lawyer, so that I can brief them on what they and their mother can expect
under the will when he dies. That will enable them to see a little into the
future and allow them to plan to put their affairs in order with this financial
knowledge. You may instruct me as your lawyer to make certain that they know
clearly that their inheritance under the will comes into effect only on their
grandfather’s death, whenever that may be, and that a person who has made a will
can change it at any time before his death. I will tell them that this
uncertainty and the long wait may be agonizing to them, but unfortunately, that
is the nature of wills. The upside is they will at least have a clearer picture
of what the future holds for them financially. I will not of course divulge how
much you or any other beneficiary will inherit when their grandfather dies. Are
you okay with all this so far, Brent?”

Brent looked at me silently for a minute. The shocking thought came to me that
I hoped the cancer cells were ravaging his brain sufficiently to render him
insane enough for this. “Yes, I am okay with this, Tom,” he said. “I will send
them to you the morning after they arrive so that you can make certain they are
absolutely clear for their planning purposes on how much they and their mother
will get under the will, as it presently stands, as soon as their grandfather
passes on.”

“I believe I have your instructions accurately,” I said.

“I need a cognac,” said Brent. “I trust that won’t kill me for a few more
days.” Poor Brent. What this must be putting him through. His own father the
hit, his own sons the perps. He stood. “Let’s get Rosie in here.”

“A cognac?” said Rosie, coming in. “I’d love one. Sit, my love. I’ll get them.”
She smiled at both of us as she went to the liquor cabinet. She knew we were
celebrating our new project. “Something good must be up if you’re having one
too.”

TWO MORNINGS LATER
, I got the call from Brent. “My
sons, Neal and Duke, are here with me now as we speak, and I would very much
like you to meet with them as my lawyer on the matter we discussed. I know how
busy you are, Tom, but you would be doing me an immense favour if you could see
them today before they visit their grandfather this afternoon, so that they will
have a clear picture where they stand as his heirs.”

“Tell them I am fully booked this morning and I have court this afternoon, but
I will clear my lunch hour to see them at twelve if you feel it’s important that
I see them today.”

“I will tell them that, Tom. Can you hold a second?” I heard Brent repeat my
words. He came back with, “They’ll be at your office sharp at noon.”

I kept my eleven-thirty client longer than he wanted to stay so as to make the
boys wait till five minutes after the hour. Then I went out into my lobby to
introduce myself to them. Neal and Duke were two big strapping lads—oafs,
really—with cocky self-confidence and faces that were caricatures of Nordic
lovers. Inside, sitting down, I said that I was familiar from their
grandfather’s will that Neal was short for Cornelius and Duke was short for
Marmaduke, but I mixed up their names in addressing them, and one of them
corrected me by tapping his chest and saying, “Marmaduke,” and pointing to his
brother and saying, “Cornelius.”

Honest to God, I couldn’t resist quoting Queen Gertrude when she corrected King
Claudius’s confusion over the names of the two doomed courtier friends of
Hamlet: “Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.”

Both of them looked at me in puzzlement and one of them said, “Huh?”