On My Knees (5 page)

By the time I got there, I was seething. I hated Marabelle. She was a bitch
and
a shitty hygienist.
And
she spent fifteen minutes lecturing me about smoking and too much caffeine and all the other reasons my teeth were brown. I was like, “I know
why
my teeth are brown. I’m not here for an analysis. Your job is to clean my teeth not fucking lecture me about them.”

I was sitting at my desk thinking,
Why do I care if Veronica gets fired?
I looked around the room and figured I needed a cleaning lady anyway and that maybe I could offer her a job. I was sure that she was at least as qualified as Marlene, my current cleaning lady, who had recently informed me she was taking a six-week hiatus to get a tummy tuck. First of all, who had ever heard of a cleaning lady getting plastic surgery? Second of all, she was obviously being grossly overpaid if she could afford to get twenty thousand dollars’ worth of elective surgery. But now was not the time to think about Marlene turning herself into Joan Rivers. Now was the time to put to good use my investigative FBI skills and the knowledge I had gained from watching criminal investigations on
Law and Order
.

As I stared into the blank computer screen, I wondered how I would ever get to the bottom of this and find out what happened to Leslie. I decided Veronica getting fired would be a small sacrifice in the grand scheme of things. Suddenly it hit me. It was so fucking obvious but it took me more than half an hour of sitting in front of my computer to figure it out.

I typed LESLIE MYRON into Google
.

I was so shocked that I honestly, quite literally, almost fell out of my chair. The first thing that came up was a headline from the
New York Times
from a few years back that read, “Simple to Solve Slaying Is Neither Simple nor Solved.”

The story is as follows:

A businessman, named Mervin Myron, was found slain in his office. He had been stabbed,
twenty-seven times
in the back, neck and chest. According to the article:

Neither Mr. Myron’s wallet nor the five hundred dollars inside was taken, so burglary was ruled out. He was apparently killed shortly after the security guard’s normal quitting time, a telltale sign that the killer might have been acquainted with the victim’s schedule and routines . . . in the kind of brutal attack that usually points the police toward a drug user, a person with a history of mental illness or someone closely related to the victim.

The
Times
article went on to explain that his widow,
Leslie Myron,
a health care professional, was now embroiled in an intense battle with the life insurance company from which she was attempting to collect
two million dollars.
And while she had never actually been charged with his murder, she was very much a person of interest.

And, from the
Daily News
:

The owner of a major Manhattan business was found stabbed to death in his office in a murder that had police stymied yesterday. The victim was identified as Mervin Myron, owner of MGT Inc., a $20-million-a-year, 100-employee company.

Myron was last seen alive late Thursday by the last employee who left the office. His body, lying in a large pool of blood, was found there by another employee Friday at 5:45 a.m., said Detective Ed Murphy. Robbery did not appear to be the motive, detectives said. The office wasn’t in disarray, and his gold-and-silver Rolex was on his wrist. He had been stabbed numerous times, police said.

I couldn’t believe it. I was totally floored.
Could it possibly be my Leslie?
, I asked myself. Then I asked myself,
Are you a fucking moron?
How many people who are health care professionals in New York do you think are named Leslie Myron? How many people are named Leslie Myron at all?
Was the woman who worked so gently in my mouth for all this time—a woman I so adored—a
murderess
?

I immediately called my mother. She was, of course, beside herself, “Oh my God! Oh my God! You are really some judge of character. I always told you, you pick doctors for the
wrong
reasons. She liked your book,
big deal.
That’s why you pick a doctor? Because she liked your book! This is terrible. This is
really, really,
terrible!”

Me: “Mommy, first of all, innocent until proven guilty. Second of all, she isn’t a doctor. She’s a hygienist. And third of all, even if she
did
kill her husband, maybe she had a good reason to. And anyway, even if it’s true, it’s still better than that slovenly hellhole in Queens.”

My mother: “Here we go again with Queens! The way you talk about Queens! You don’t talk about the private school you went to, the vacations to Europe, all our trips to Israel, skiing in the Alps. I do not like the way you talk about Queens! You give people the wrong idea. You’d think you grew up in the projects.”

Me: “Mommy, I
did
grow up in the projects.”

At this, my mother went completely wild, screaming: “You did not grow up in the projects!!”

Me: “Okay, fine. I grew up
across the street
from the projects. Either way, I just wanted to let you know what was going on. You say I never call you, so now I’m calling you. And now I’m hanging up because I have to get to the bottom of this. Love you, bye.” And then I hung up.

I felt bad getting off the phone so abruptly. I knew my mother hated when I did this, but I also knew she would keep me on the phone for an hour if given the opportunity and I had a crime to solve.

I started to think. I tried to place myself in the mind of the killer, the way the criminologists do, the way Sigourney Weaver had in
Copycat.
I tried to imagine what it feels like to stab someone, let alone what it feels like to stab someone twenty-seven times. That’s a lot of times to stab someone. Shit,
one
time is a lot of times to stab someone.

I imagined Leslie, with her sparkling, bright-white teeth attacking Mervin.

I imagined her saying things like, “Mervin, you motherfucker!”

I imagined her covered in fresh blood.

Then, washing the blood off herself.

Then I imagined her, after the fact, looking in the mirror, opening her mouth and examining her teeth and methodically flossing one tooth after the other. I wondered what provoked her. Had Mervin been abusive? Was Leslie a sociopath like successful San Francisco businessman Scott Peterson, who hacked up his pregnant wife without a shred of remorse? You know, they’re always the ones you least expect. This was pretty gnarly stuff, even for the most seasoned investigators. I wondered if I should call the police. After about an hour of surfing the Internet and another hour of perusing the FBI’s website to see if there were any job openings, my phone rang. It was my mother,
again.

Me: “Yes, Mommy?”

My mother: “I just wanted to let you know how upset I am by this whole thing.”

Me: “Oh, don’t worry, everything is fine. I found her.”

My mother: “What do you mean, you found her?”

Me: “I mean exactly what I said. What part of ‘I found her’ confused you? She got another job, she’s working for Dr. Bogdanovich, and she thinks he’s a very nice man.”

My mother: “Very good, Peri. I’m glad you think this is a joke. I don’t think this is a joke.”

Me: “I don’t think it’s a joke either. You should be thrilled. You said my teeth needed to be cleaned and now they’re going to get cleaned. I’m seeing her next week.”

Since my mother didn’t know I had just gotten my teeth cleaned by Marabelle, I could really keep this going.

My mother: “You’re doing
what!
”

Me: “I’m seeing her next week.”

My mother: “What! You are
not.
”

Me: “I am.”

My mother: “You. Are.
Not
. Going.
Please
.”

Me: “I am.”

My mother, who may or may not have started to realize how ridiculous this was: “Peri, please. I don’t believe you. I don’t believe someone hired her.”

I wasn’t letting it go so easily. I was enjoying myself too much.

Me: “No one hired her. She’s working out of her apartment.”

My mother: “You’re out of your mind. You can’t be so crazy. I’m telling you right now that you’re
not
going to see Leslie. You’re not going to her apartment with all those sharp instruments. God only knows what she is liable to do.”

Me: “Don’t worry, Mommy, it’s not an apartment. It’s an attached house.”

My mother, screaming: “This is not safe! This is
not
safe!”

I hadn’t laughed so hard in a very long time.

The truth, of course, was that I hadn’t located Leslie. I had no idea where she was and, to this day, as far as I know she is still at large. I tried pressing Dr. Mulligatani at a follow-up visit and the only thing he would say was that she was “nut goot for de office.” In the end, it would be Veronica who spilled the beans. Leslie
had
allegedly killed her husband, but that wasn’t why she was fired. She was fired because she had stolen more than a quarter of a million dollars from the business
and
was a raging cokehead. Veronica told me she started to get suspicious about the coke when Leslie would spontaneously get nosebleeds. And then, in the coup de grace, Veronica found her hovered over the nitrous machine blowing lines!

My mother, who has never so much as smoked a joint in her life: “Oh, you really have some sense of judgment!”

Me: “You kind of really have to admire her chutzpah.”

My mother: “There is really something wrong with you.”

My mother can say what she wants. There isn’t a goddamn thing wrong with me. If I’m not mistaken,
I’m
the one who is constantly pointing out that people are rarely what they seem. If you look at the facts, what do
I
really do? I sit around and write. It’s everyone else who’s out there doing fucked-up shit.

I was like, “Mommy, you’re the one who’s always telling me that I should pick a doctor because they are good at what they do. What do I care if Leslie stole money? If she does a little coke here and there? She’s the best dental hygienist I’ve ever had. Jesus, it’s not like she killed someone!”

My mother was silent.

I go, “Okay, so maybe you’re right. Maybe she
did
kill someone. But no one ever proved that and even if she
did
kill someone, it doesn’t take away from the fact that she is a great hygienist. You can’t be so closed minded.”

Again, Noam’s sage advice came to mind: People are complicated. They’re multifaceted. They can be more than one thing. Things aren’t black-and-white. Plus, Leslie was a Jew! Innocent until proven guilty!

5

Casual Encounters

M
y mother was probably right to be worried about me. I had been living at my grandmother’s for going on several months and had no resolution in sight. My days were bleak, I didn’t really give a shit about anything, and I was subsisting on frozen pizza and espresso. I had spoken to Noam once and I cried the entire time. My main activity was moving from the giant fake king-size bed with the depression in the middle of it to the plastic-covered pink couch and back again. And with the exception of when I absolutely had to go out for work, I did nothing but watch television.

Hanna, seeing what a sorry state I was in, convinced me that what I needed was a night out. She had friends in town and persuaded me to go with her to meet them at a bar. I should have known better than to take advice from Hanna, but it was just more evidence of how poor my decision-making skills had become. None of the guys were particularly good-looking but one of them, Steve, honed in on me from the second I arrived and began hitting on me. I wasn’t at all attracted to him but I was feeling particularly self-loathing so I went with it. Plus, he was Jewish, so I figured he was harmless. I’ve always been wary of strange men but I’m less wary of strange men who are Jewish since, statistically, Jewish men are rarely serial killers. Plus, Steve had just moved to New York from Canada and Canadians, by nature, are generally fairly innocuous.

After a few drinks, I started to let my guard down. I was getting drunker and he was getting cuter, which is generally how these things work. I ordered another drink. We made out for a few minutes at the bar and I decided I may as well take him home with me. I think it’s fair to say that anyone who is making out with some guy she just met in a bar when she isn’t even really attracted to him is probably not in an especially good place in her life. I think it’s also fair to say that someone who then proceeds to take that guy back to her apartment, especially the home of a recently deceased relative is
definitely
,
definitely
not in a good place.

The incredible thing was that I was such a disaster that this didn’t even
occur
to me. Like, oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s kind of weird to bring some random guy back to your dead grandmother’s house when it’s filled with all your dead grandmother’s shit and that maybe, just
maybe
it’s kind of creepy to fuck someone in your dead grandmother’s bed. The thought didn’t even cross my mind. I told Hanna I would call her in the morning and, with Steve in tow, hailed a taxi.

During the ride, Steve started to tell me about how he had just gotten out of a very long relationship and how he had finally broken it off because his girlfriend wasn’t Jewish.

I was like, “No offense, but you are seriously ruining the moment here. I just picked you up in a bar. Do you really think I want to hear about your failed personal relationships?”

By the time we got back to the apartment complex, I was more than a little wary. To boot, when I tried to open the front door of the apartment, my key didn’t work. I was sure I had been locked out. Every month I would send a rent check in and pray I would not come home to an eviction notice on the door. So far, so good. But now, of all times, I couldn’t get my key in the door.
Those Tishman Speyer motherfuckers
, I thought.
They changed the locks
. I started to panic. Steve was so dumb he didn’t even notice. It took about five whole minutes before I realized that I was on the wrong floor. My life was becoming more and more pathetic by the minute.

Oh, if my grandmother could see me now. She’d be rolling over in her grave
, I thought as I lit a cigarette in her living room. I sat down on the couch and Steve sat across from me, on the piano bench. In case I forgot to mention this earlier, the piano was another one of the “antiques” we were trying to sell. Uncle Bark was convinced it was worth thousands of dollars. I was fairly certain we weren’t going to be able to give it away. Steve was like, “Wow, this place is really interesting. Do you live here alone?”

Me: “It’s one of the properties I inherited from my great-aunt and I’m staying here while we auction off her stuff.”

Steve ran his hand along the piano and said, “Oh, wow. That’s really cool. So all this stuff is, like, antique?”

Me: “Yeah, totally. The piano you’re sitting at is really rare. Christie’s has a Russian oligarch who is really interested.”

Steve: “It’s really cool. My ex-girlfriend used to play the piano.”

After some more strained small talk and me spewing even more nonsense, Steve started droning on again about his ex-girlfriend and the Jewish thing until I was finally like, “Can you please shut the fuck up? It’s like four in the morning and I’m really not in the mood to play Dr. Freud.”

He eventually made his way over to me and we started hooking up on the plastic-covered pink couch I had been languishing on for so many months. I realized that the couch had probably never seen so much action in its entire life. I also realized that Steve was kind of fat, which I hadn’t noticed earlier.

Why, oh why, hadn’t I just stayed home and watched
Law and Order
? I could always count on Ice-T for a good night. I had become increasingly fond of his character, Fin Tutuola. As Steve maneuvered his hand up my shirt, I began thinking about a recent episode when he said to a criminal he had arrested, “You have the right to an attorney and if you throw up in my car, I’ll kill ya.” That really cracked me up. I was also obsessed with his real-life wife, Coco, who had made a cameo appearance in that episode. In real life, Coco was famous for, among other things, her prominent camel toe.

Steve, of course, had no way of knowing that I was fantasizing about Coco’s camel toe and took my pause as an opportunity to take his shirt off. I was horrified, absolutely horrified, to see that he was covered—absolutely covered—with hair. When I say hair, I don’t mean regular dude body hair like most guys have. Steve was covered in coarse, pubic-like hair. And he looked like a fat horse. If that weren’t bad enough, he also smelled like a barnyard animal. It was eminently clear to me that under absolutely no circumstances was I going to have sex with this guy.

Steve, of course, had other ideas.

But when he realized there was no chance I was going to fuck him, he changed direction. In one of the most shameless displays I have
ever
borne witness to, with absolutely no warning whatsoever, Steve removed his maple-leaf-covered boxer shorts, exposed more of his fat, hairy body along with his revolting short, stubby dick, and began to masturbate.

As if my life weren’t pathetic enough, I now had a plump, hirsute Canadian man stroking his penis on my grandmother’s couch.

Let me make something clear. An invitation to come back to someone’s apartment (or their dead grandmother’s apartment, as the case may be) is not a promise of anything. And it certainly doesn’t give you carte blanche to jerk off. I will grant you that if someone takes you home at four in the morning it’s safe to assume that there will probably be some sexual activity going on, but you really never know.

Despite my displeasure, Steve continued to jerk himself off and actually sat there masturbating until he ejaculated, like a zoo gorilla, all over himself and simultaneously all over the couch. I silently thanked God for the plastic cover, jumped out of the way just in time to avoid getting hit and ran into the bathroom.

I inspected myself to make sure his vile emission was nowhere on me and though it seemed I had made it in the nick of time, I took a quick shower just to be sure. By the time I returned to the living room, Steve had somehow made it from the couch to the floor where he was passed out and
snoring.
My life had reached an all-time low.

My AA friends tell me that you have to hit rock bottom before you can ascend again. I was fairly certain that having an overweight, hairy Canadian stranger curled up naked and snoring on my dead grandmother’s Persian-style area rug was definitely my rock bottom.

I began kicking him in his fat, hairy side. When he finally woke up I told him it was time to go.

Apparently
I’d
offended
him
. “Are you always this nasty?” Steve asked as he walked out of the apartment. I yelled after him, “If things don’t work out with the Russian oligarch, I’ll let you know about the piano. Maybe you can buy it for your ex-girlfriend!”

I
called Hanna at like nine the next morning. “Come over. Now. Please.”

When she got there, I was like, “Your friend Steve is the most disgusting person I have ever hooked up with in my entire life.” By the time I got to the end of the story, she was doubled over laughing. “I want you to know that I hold you responsible for this. You know I shouldn’t be around people right now.”

Hanna, still laughing: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! You’re right. I’ll make it up to you.”

Me: “I can’t imagine how you’re going to make this up to me.”

Hanna: “I can make it up to you right now. I have a few stories I think might cheer you up.”

Me: “This better be good.”

Hanna: “It is.”

Me: “Well, get to it.”

Hanna: “Okay. Okay. I met someone.”

Me: “Oh my God! You did? Last night?”

Hanna: “No, no! When I got home last night. I was bored and I went on Craigslist . . .”

Me: “This is already a great story. I love it when you meet people on Craigslist. Go on.”

Hanna: “I met an Indian guy who wants to shave me.”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Hanna: “I’m serious.”

Me: “What do you mean,
he wants to shave you
? He wants to shave your legs? He wants to shave your pussy?”

I do not believe I would let a stranger near my genital area with a razor blade. But then, too, I do not believe I would allow a masseur to stick his fingers in my anus, but either way.

Hanna: “He wants to shave my tits.”

Me: “Oh. My. God. You just made my fucking day.”

Hanna: “Hmm. I did? You really
should
get out more.”

Me: “
I
should get out more? You’re trolling Craigslist and talking to some Indian guy who wants to shave your tits and you’re telling
me I
should get out more? Who ever even heard of such a thing?”

Hanna: “Maybe Indian women have hairy tits?”

Me: “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Hanna: “And then, there was another guy I talked to who wants me to nurse him.”

Me: “What do you mean, he wants you to
nurse
him?”

Hanna: “He told me that he’s been fantasizing about suckling from a woman’s breast for years and he doesn’t care if there is milk or no milk but if there
isn’t
milk, he is willing to work at suckling to see if by doing so, I will start to produce milk.”

Me: “
Please
tell me you’re kidding.”

Hanna: “I’m not! He even said we could get a breast pump! I don’t know how these people find me!”

I was beginning to think that maybe Hanna actually might have the same brain disorder that Dr. Zarkin, who carved his initials into his patients, had. I mean what would it take to realize that
she
was the common denominator here.

Me: “So are you going to have sex with one of these people?”

Hanna: “I don’t think so.”

Me: “Why not?”

Hanna: “I don’t know any of them. It would be too weird.”

Me: “You didn’t know your masseur either.”

Hanna: “That wasn’t having sex.”

Me: “Well, neither is letting someone shave your tits!”

Hanna: “I know. But still, I don’t think I want to do that. And anyway, this hot guy, who I met last year, e-mailed me.”

Me: “Yeah? How did you meet this one?”

Hanna: “Match.com.”

Me: “Why did I even bother asking? And . . .”

Hanna: “And we had e-mail sex.”

Me: “You had
e-mail
sex? What the fuck is e-mail sex?”

Hanna: “It’s like phone sex, but over e-mail. I thought we were going to hang out in person, but after e-mail sex, he was done. I told him I wanted to
see
him, and he promised that we would meet, but then he couldn’t even commit to that!”

Me: “How did this all begin, please?”

Hanna: “He e-mailed me but hinted that he didn’t want to or have time to date. So basically, he was e-mailing me because he wanted to get laid.”

Me: “So that would have been perfect, if all you want to do is get laid.”

Hanna: “I know but it kind of pissed me off that he said that. I was going to send him the perfect ‘fuck you’ e-mail and then I changed my mind. And so, for a few nights, we had e-mail sex. I was sending him pictures of myself, he was sending me pictures of himself, we were talking about what we would do to each other, and then when I told him I wanted to see him, he disappeared. I guess he was satisfied with that. I must give good e-mail sex.”

Me: “Hanna, I know I’m not really in a position to judge and don’t get mad, but I feel it incumbent upon me to say this: maybe you should consider the fact that if what you want is to have an
actual
relationship, or even
actual
sex, maybe,
just maybe
you shouldn’t be having
virtual
sex with a
virtual
stranger.”

Hanna, missing the point as usual: “He wasn’t a stranger. I met him last year.”

Me: “Whatever. Fine. You know what I’m saying. Fine, he wasn’t a perfect stranger. I’m not trying to argue semantics with you.”

This girl never ceases to amaze me. It’s like it’s one thing if what you want to do is have e-mail sex, which, to begin with, sounds like the biggest waste of time in the world, but fine. If all you want to do is have e-mail sex, then God bless you. But Hanna didn’t want to have e-mail sex. Hanna wanted to have
actual
sex. And then she goes and does something like this and then she’s disappointed that she’s not having actual sex. Or she’s having casual sex with someone and then she’s disappointed that whoever she is having casual sex with doesn’t want to be her boyfriend. It’s like you can’t do one thing when what you really want to do is something else. If you want to have e-mail sex, then have e-mail sex. But have e-mail sex because that, in and of itself, is what you want. If you want to get laid, then for the love of God, go out and get laid. If you want a boyfriend, I don’t know what to tell you.