The Man Who Cancelled Himself (30 page)

“Oh, yeah?” he blustered. “When’s the last time you punched somebody’s lights out in anger?”

“Does immediate family count?”

“No.”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

Very stood there grinning at me. “You go ahead, dude. You just go right ahead and think.” Then he let out a short, harsh laugh and barged out my door into the steamy New York night.

I undressed and slid into bed and lay there. I didn’t have to think about it long. I knew exactly when I’d last thrown my last punch in anger, and who I’d thrown it at. It was Chapin Lumley, summer of ’62. He’d stolen my Tom Tresh rookie card and wouldn’t give it back. So I clocked him one right on the nose. I couldn’t believe how much it bled. Or how hard he cried. We were never friends again after that. Chapin Lumley. Congressman Lumley now … I lay there thinking about what Very had said. What
would
I do when I found out who Dada was? Would I go far, far away? Would I stay and fight it out with him? Or would I just get on with the rest of my life, such as it was. Or wasn’t. It was over with Merilee. For good. That much I knew. It was time to let it go. So why couldn’t I? I lay there in the darkness with the air conditioner droning and Lulu snoring softly on my head. I lay there, wondering why she had done this to me, just like I wondered why almost every night. And got no reply at all. Eventually, I slept. I dreamt I was laid out on an operating table with my private parts exposed. And wouldn’t Dr. Freud have a romp through the tall grass with that one. The surgeon stood poised over me, scalpel in hand, only it was Lyle behind the mint-blue mask and he suddenly seemed much more interested in breaking my arm. He twisted it in ways it wasn’t supposed to twist, pinned it behind me, torturing me. I yelled from the pain. That made him mad, so he attached a wire to my head. I immediately heard this ringing noise. Ringing .. . Ringing …

It was my telephone, jolting me awake. My arm was killing me—Lulu had it pinned underneath her. These things happen sometimes in the night. The phone was still ringing. I squinted at my clock. It was a little past three. I answered it.

“How could you, Hoagy?” she sobbed.

My heart began pounding at once, which is what it always does when I hear that proper, feathery teenage girl’s voice that is hers and hers alone. “What do you want, Merilee?”

“Oh, how
could
you?” She wept, grandly and tragically. Never forget that Merilee Nash is an Academy Award-winning actress. I don’t. “You
know
how vulnerable I am right now.”

“Merilee, it’s three o’clock in the—”

“And with a sleazy bimbo, no less. A cheap bottle blonde with hooters out to Hoboken.” She let out a long, plaintive moan. “I honestly thought I raised you better than this.”

“You raised me, Merilee,” I conceded. “And you lowered me.”

“Is that what this is about? You getting back at me? And don’t bother to deny it, Hoagy. Pam told me. I
know.”

“You know what?”

“That you’ve taken your beeswax elsewhere,” she said gravely. One of her quaint little expressions.

“Fairly good idea under the circumstances, wouldn’t you say?”

Long silence from her end. “Hoagy, couldn’t we … ?”

“Couldn’t we what, Merilee?”

She sniffled. “Couldn’t we talk like two normal people?”

“I don’t believe either of us qualifies.”

“Just for a minute, darling?” she pleaded. “Like the old days?”

I sighed. “All right, Merilee. If you wish.”

“Hoagy?”

“Yes, Merilee?”

“Hello.”

“Hello yourself.”

“How was France?” she asked, with forced gaiety.

“Not terrible.”

She waited for me to say more. When I didn’t, she said, “And how was your day?”

“Fine, if you enjoy projectile vomiting.”

“I myself vomit every morning.”

“I know. Vic told me.”

“I wish he hadn’t. I hate to see your illusions about me shattered.”

“I have no illusions left about you, Merilee.”

She drew her breath in. “That was a mean, horrible thing to say, Hoagy. Pam warned me that you’d turned somewhat acrid.”

“Let’s just say that I put one and one together and it added up to fool.”

Lulu edged closer to the phone, whimpering at it. She always knows when it’s her mommy. Don’t ask me how.

Merilee gasped girlishly. “Oh, is that my sweetness?”

“No. Just the bedspring.”

“Why, is
she
there?”

“Who, Merilee?”

“The bimbo. Is she in your bed at this very moment? Her tanned, taut limbs wrapped around you, her pungent animal scent smeared across your bare chest like a—”

“Merilee, have you been reading Jackie Collins again?”

“I have not.”

We were silent a moment.

“I need her, Hoagy. I need my Lulu. It would just be for a couple of weeks.”

“Well, you can’t have her.”

“I’d take good care of her. I’d even make her her favorite tuna casserole, with melted Gruyère on top.”

“She’s not interested.” Actually, she was dripping doggie drool on my hand just at the mention of it. But Merilee didn’t need to know that.

“I miss her, Hoagy. I miss
us.
Oh, God, I’ve made such a terrible, awful mess of everything. The newspapers are calling me a slut. My parents won’t even speak to me anymore. Mother said she doesn’t understand me.”

“Does anyone?”

“This wouldn’t be happening to me if I were a man.”

“Yes, I believe that’s correct.”

“You know what I mean, sir,” she said angrily. “I made a personal choice to have this baby. I
want
this baby. It’s something I’m very happy about. But people won’t let me be happy. They have to make me feel crummy and cheap, as if I ought to have a scarlet
A
pinned on my chest. They have to ridicule me, invade my privacy—”

“You’re public property, Merilee. You belong to them.”

“I don’t belong to anyone,” she retorted sharply. “It’s my body. My baby. My business—no one else’s.” She paused. “But the worst part, Hoagy, is how I’ve treated you. I’ve hurt you.”

I left that one alone.

“You’re not in my corner anymore, are you, Hoagy?” she asked softly.

“I’m not even in your area code, Merilee.”

“If I could undo all of this, I would. Truly. This isn’t how I wanted it. I wanted it to be private and dignified and—” She broke off. “Only something else entered into it.”

“Not to mention someone.”

“That
was your
choice,” she charged.

“Was it?”

“You told me you never wanted children. Or midget human life forms, or whatever the devil it is you call them.”

“I know I did, Merilee.”

“You hate children.”

“They are, after all, people.”

“There’s a reason, Hoagy. Why I’ve kept the father’s identity a secret. A good reason.”

“I’m not interested in what it is, Merilee. Or in who it is. I may be the only person in America who isn’t.”

“You honestly don’t care?”

“I honestly don’t care.”

“You mean if I told you his name it would mean nothing to you?”

“Nothing.”

“I think you’re full of horseradish, mister.” Those were strong words, coming from Merilee Nash. Didn’t get much stronger. “Don’t you even want to know whether it’s going to be a boy or a girl?”

“Why would I want to know that?”

She made that little noise of hers that she makes when she’s trying not to cry. “We’ve had our little booms and busts before. Sometimes they’ve been your fault. Sometimes they’ve been mine. But we’ve always survived them, Hoagy. Because we’re friends. Friends understand.”

“Friends don’t shit on each other.”

“I’m sorry, Hoagy. I’m very, very sorry. I don’t know what else I can say.”

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “You can say good night, Merilee.”

I hung up the phone and went into the living room, my chest aching. I poured myself two fingers of Macallan and drank it down. I poured myself another and put on some Garner, sat in my easy chair drinking and listening to the Little Elf play “Stardust.” Lulu padded in and growled at me to come back to bed. She’d seen my Mr. Norman Maine before, and didn’t much care for the performance. I didn’t blame her. It wasn’t one of my favorite roles either. I told her to leave me alone. She did.

I don’t remember finishing the bottle, or dropping off. I only know I was out cold in the chair when I got my wake-up call. Hazy sun was coming in the window, and my mouth felt like I’d been gargling a dead cat. It was Lyle. I was late for the nine-o’clock writers’ meeting, but that wasn’t why he was calling. He was calling to say that somebody had tried to kill him. They’d failed. They’d killed Chad Roe.

T
HE MAN WHO WAS
supposed to play Rob Roy Fruitwell was lying on the floor of Lyle Hudnut’s personal john with his eyes and his fly wide open. It was a small bathroom, not well ventilated. There seemed to be a great deal of urine splashed about. I saw no blood. Romaine Very was standing over Chad’s body with his nose wrinkled. Someone from the Medical Examiner’s office was standing there with him, taking pictures with a Polaroid. A huge blond kid in uniform stood guard in the alcove outside the door. A pair of EMS workers and their stretcher waited with him.

Most of the
Uncle Chubby
staffers were huddled together out in the main office, pale with shock and horror. Several, including Naomi, were crying. Tyrone, the kid from downstairs, was comforting another young black man, who wore gray overalls and a utility belt, and who was utterly distraught. The above-the-liners—Lyle and Katrina, Leo, Fiona, the writers—were cloistered in Lyle’s dressing room.

Lyle was sobbing uncontrollably. “It was meant for me,” he moaned, his huge red head buried in Katrina’s lap. “That poor son of a bitch. It was meant for
me.”

Marjorie Daw was in there, too, looking crisp and clean and extremely grim.

Very nodded to the uniformed cop to let me in the john with him. Lulu stayed outside. She wanted no part of it.

In death, Chad looked frightened, and older. His hair was mussed, exposing his receding temples and bald spot. It would have upset him, exiting that way. I don’t know why I thought of this. “How did it happen, Lieutenant?”

Very grimaced. “Somebody hot-wired it.”

“Somebody hot-wired what?”

“The urinal, dude.”

“The
what?”

“Yo, take a look,” he ordered me. “Go on.”

It was a brand-new urinal, freshly installed since Lyle trashed the place the previous afternoon. Looked shiny and plenty nice. The only odd thing about it was the insulated gray extension cord that ran from its basin to the electrical outlet over by the sink. The sink was brand-new, too. The mirror above it was still out. Otherwise, the bathroom was completely back in business.

I turned back to Very and shook my head.

“It’s a CIA golden oldie,” he explained, chomping his gum. “Ideal for assassinating well-protected heads of state. They took out a dude down in Nicaragua with it twenty, thirty years ago. Don’t matter how many armed men he’s got guarding him—when he’s gotta go, he’s gotta go. Know what I’m saying?”

I nodded. “He’s gotta go. But—?”

“How much do you know about electricity, dude?”

“Enough to be afraid of it.”

“Okay, I’ll keep it real simple. Check it out—your quote-unquote weapon is the drain cover there in the bottom of the basin. See it?”

Most urinals have some such grid or screen in the bottom of the basin to keep cigarette butts and chewing gum out of the plumbing. Often, they are made of plastic. This one was made of metal, and was attached to the extension cord that plugged into the wall.

“Dig, the cover’s electrically charged, okay?” Very explained. “It’s hot. Your target walks in, unzips his pants, and makes contact with it as soon as his pee hits the grid. Urine, as I’m sure a well-educated dude like you knows, is super-salty. An ideal conductor of electricity. As I’m sure you also know, electricity needs a return path to complete its circuit. It won’t go in unless it can come back out again. So what you’ve gotta do is make your
target
the conductor. Do that and you’ve smoked him.”

“And how do I do that, Lieutenant?”

“Clog up the drain under the grid,” he replied. “Wad of paper towels will do it. Dump some water in on top of ’em. Your man’s standing there with his stream of pee hitting the live grid, and suddenly he realizes, whoa, the basin’s filling up too fast. Who knows why—maybe the last slob didn’t flush it. So he says to himself, hey, I better flush it right now or I’m gonna get my Bruno Maglis all wet. So he reaches over and grabs the handle and zap, you’ve got him. Handle’s metal—it’s grounded. Soon as he touches it the electricity shoots right up his stream of urine into his dick and through his body. One minute the man’s standing there with his life in his hands. Next minute he’s lit up like Trump’s Castle.”

I felt my knees squeezing together involuntarily. I was not alone. Very and the coroner’s man were standing funny, too.

“Normal building current is enough to kill someone?” I wondered.

“Dude’s dead, isn’t he?” Very glanced down at him. “Fifty-five volts will kill you. Normal building current is a hundred and ten, hundred and twenty. Plenty.”

I nodded. “Whoever did this—”

“Whoever did this,” interrupted Very, “is a sick fuck.”

“No argument there. Only, how did our sick fuck learn to do something like this?”

“I take it you don’t read the mercenary magazines.”

“Not lately.”

“There’s all kinds of sleazy ads in the back—how-to pamphlets, booklets you can write away for. The soldier of fortune wanna-bes gobble them up.” He sighed in disgust. “You can learn about this trick anywhere, dude. This and a million others that would make your hair stand on end.”

“It’s already standing on end. And how hard was all of this to rig up?”

“There’s nothing here you can’t buy at any hardware store. Whole thing can be carried in your pocket and hooked up in two, three minutes. Especially because they took a lot of shortcuts.” He crouched by the basin, examining the murder weapon. “Check, they didn’t bother with an on-off switch, which you’d ordinarily need for purposes of selecting your subject. This was just flat-out on—first to use it loses it. They also didn’t bother to hide the extension cord. If we were talking about a professional hit on a high-security target, you’d have to take up these wall tiles and bury your wires underneath. I mean, Christ, no way a guy whose life is in danger is gonna pee into a bowl that has an extension cord sticking out of it. Surprises me that anybody would,” he added, frowning down at Chad. “I mean, you’d think he’d notice it and wonder.”