Hard Exit, page 14
I’d never seen her look so awful. Even as I’d driven her to various rehabs, she’d managed to be incredibly attractive. But, apparently, between the last time I saw her and that moment, she’d surrendered. She looked as though she hadn’t slept or eaten in a week, and she seemed to have taken styling tips from Shrek and Medusa.
“You love her?” she screamed. “Thought you could only love Jami, you hypocrite!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I didn’t respond. I looked at Game and said quietly, “If you want, I can pack your stuff, or you can do it. I’m not sure which is more likely to turn ugly.”
Jennifer kissed me on the cheek—provoking Amanda, I thought—and said, “See you later. Be careful.”
“I’ll get my stuff,” Game said, loud enough for Amanda to hear because she responded: “This is my house, every inch of it, and I’ll call the cops if you—”
“Go,” I said, and Game ran to the front door. Amanda hadn’t locked it. I hoped she wasn’t drunk enough to think she could physically confront Game. Unless she had a gun, a confrontation with Game would end badly for her. I’d never told her the combination to the gun safe in my closet. She’d probably tried my birthday, forward and backwards, but I’d used my father’s birthday, and I’d never told her anything about him, other than “he’s a bad bad guy—a horrible husband and father.” I’d instantly regretted telling her that much, because she’d asked how he’d treated us badly and who I meant by “us.” “Never mind,” I’d said.
Amanda stepped out of view. I ran inside, suspecting she could be drunk enough to confront Game. I ran upstairs in time to see her grab her cell phone from the bedside table, then wobble toward the bathroom. I got to the bathroom door before she could slam it on me. She was fumbling with her phone, trying to dial 911 while trying to keep me out of the bathroom. I wrapped my right hand over hers and her phone, then looked at the counter next to the sink.
I thought about letting her make the 911 call and pushing her out of the bathroom because on the counter were an Amex Platinum Card with white residue on one edge, remnants of white lines next to the card, and a large, open Baggie of cocaine. She had enough coke to kill her many times over if she chose to go out that way.
Was that her plan, to make good on her suicide threats, the ones she’d made many times over the last seven years when she thought I was going to leave her? Was that why she’d purchased so much coke?
“Let go of me! Let go of me, you asshole!” she shouted while sitting on the closed toilet seat. She tried to free her hand, but I had a firm grip on it and her phone with my right hand. She swung at my face with her clawed left hand, hoping to scratch me or take out an eye with her expensively manicured nails. But I was out of range, so she started to dig her nails into my right wrist, trying to break my grip. Her pupils were so large that their blackness almost eliminated her green irises.
“This is kidnapping!” she screamed. “And this is my house!”
“Calm down, Amanda. If you call the cops you’ll go straight to jail, not rehab. You own the house, but I legally live here, and Game is my guest, so he’s not breaking any laws. They’ve gone easy on you in the past, but this time there are witnesses. That’s a hell of a lot of blow, and you seem to have snorted far too much of it, so you’ll probably get charged.”
“After everything I’ve done for you? Are you serious? You’re nothing! A loser! Just a pathetic empty sack of sad pathetic memories.”
She tried to wrench her right hand out of mine again but failed, so she tried to backhand me with her left fist, missing me but knocking the bag of coke into the sink with the sleeve of her robe, spilling a lot of it.
I didn’t think shouting to Game would work because he was two floors below me and on the other side of the house, so I decided to count slowly to twenty, trust he’d finished packing his duffel, and hope Amanda would calm down, although the coke she’d snorted didn’t make the last part likely.
“You think you’ve done a lot for me?” I asked. “I’ve been your butler, your chauffeur, your chaperone, your chef, your caretaker, your sober companion, and your gigolo. Every time you’ve derailed, I’ve picked up the pieces and put you back together.” I hadn’t loosened my grip on her right hand. My left hand shook.
“You’ve been a pathetic leech since we met,” she said. “You’d be homeless if you had to live off the pennies you make, and almost all your business comes from you fucking me. And not well, by the way, not as well as all the others.”
Arguing was pointless. By demeaning my sexual prowess, she was trying to get me to hit her, I thought, so she could build a case against me when the police arrived. Maybe a bruised cheek or a bloody lip would distract them from her dilated pupils. Or maybe she could bribe them with coke, cash, or sexual favors. The last was least likely, but I knew there had been many others. Whether she was telling the truth about their relative carnal performances, only she knew.
The words I wanted to say would’ve been cruel, and she didn’t need more reasons to drink and use. Being cruel would’ve lowered me to her level. She hated herself without my piling on. I didn’t hate her. I resented her. I said, “Goodbye, Amanda. I’ll come by to get my stuff.” I suddenly liked myself more.
I let go of her right hand, and she slugged me with it and her phone, but she hit me in the gut, so I barely felt it. I turned away, pulled my phone from my pants pocket, took one step away, opened the camera app, and carefully captured Amanda, the Baggie of cocaine in the sink, the rolled-up bill, and the AMEX in the frame. Then I took a closeup of just the card and the coke. She saw me take the photos but didn’t seem to care. I left the bathroom and heard three tones from her iPhone, indicating she’d dialed 911, or at least wanted me to think she had. She would’ve hidden the cocaine by the time the cops arrived. I couldn’t imagine even the very wealthy Amanda Bigelow would flush that much blow, although that’s what she should’ve done.
After I’d gotten Game into the BMW, I left it running in the driveway and ran inside to grab the mementos I’d kept from my life with Jami, in case Amanda became vindictive and decided to hurt me as deeply as she could. I grabbed the photo album, the birthday cards, the love letters, the congratulatory pen, and the inexpensive Casio watch Jami’d given me, all of which I kept in a locked desk drawer in my study. I placed all of these in a backpack and put it on.
I needed clothes, so I had to go back upstairs. I braced myself for another confrontation with Amanda, but she wasn’t in the bedroom. I stuffed a few T-shirts, a light jacket, two pairs of jeans, some shorts, socks, and underwear into a duffel. I put two suits and dress shirts, along with a black tie and a pair of dress shoes and socks into a garment bag. I left the collection of watches Amanda had given me. I opened the gun safe, grabbed my passport, birth certificate, the title to the BMW, and various other documents and stuffed them in the duffel. I grabbed the eight straps of $100 bills, two handguns, and two boxes of ammunition, then stuffed them in the backpack. I closed the safe, stepped out of the closet, and looked around the bedroom. I grabbed my laptop, its charger, and my phone charger and stuffed those in the duffel. Then I looked in the bathroom.
Amanda was still sitting on the closed toilet, but she was now leaning over, snorting a line of coke through a bill. If I left her alone with the coke, her heart would explode, although she could find time to write a suicide note that absolved her of any responsibility for her demise. But that would’ve required her to be aware that acts have consequences, and in the state she was in, I didn’t expect her to develop new levels of self-awareness.
I stepped into the bathroom, yelled “Ahhhhh,” and charged at her as though I meant to hit her. She spun away from me on the toilet, leaned against the wall, and covered her face. I expected my plan to work but not so well. I thought she’d at least scratch me while I disposed of the rest of her coke, but I’d forgotten that Amanda became extremely paranoid when loaded, so she recoiled not just from the fear of potentially being attacked, as most people would, but also from cocaine-induced paranoia. She hid her face and closed her eyes, awaiting the beating she thought I’d administer to her, although I’d never done more than raise my voice to her, and only a few times at that.
“Don’t kill me, don’t kill me, don’t kill me,” she shouted as I blocked her from the coke with my body and proceeded to wash it down the sink a little at a time. “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me, don’t kill me,” she said, as the last of the coke disappeared down the drain.
I rinsed off the Amex card, wiped the counter with a washcloth, rinsed out the Baggie, and checked to see if I’d forgotten anything. I let the water run from the faucet a little more as I looked at her. She’d dropped her hands from her face and was looking at the counter where her coke had been. As I turned off the water, she jumped up, grabbed my left arm, pulled it toward her, and sank her teeth into it.
Instead of hitting her to free myself, I rotated my body into her, forcing her to fall back onto the toilet, which caused her to release my arm, but not before she drew blood. I looked at her, slumped on the toilet, with dilated pupils and her face bunched up in a snarl, and I wondered if I’d looked that wounded and defeated when she’d let her bathrobe drop in the presence of her bodyguard that first time seven years ago. She couldn’t have seen strength and confidence in the shell of a man standing in front of her. Had she been deceived by my physical presence, or had she preyed upon my vulnerability?
“Goodbye, Amanda.” I grabbed the Baggie and washcloth. I left the bathroom, grabbed my bags, and went downstairs to the kitchen. I dropped my possessions, ran downstairs to the laundry room, threw the washcloth into the washer, added a few clean towels, and started the washer. I grabbed the small metal trashcan from the office, ran back upstairs, lighted a paper towel on the gas stovetop, dropped the towel into the trash can, and set the Baggie on top of the flaming paper towel. I watched for about eight seconds as the towel disintegrated the plastic. I picked up the trashcan and carried it back downstairs.
My left arm was bleeding, and my right arm was scratched. I went to the bathroom and extinguished the last of the burning paper towel, then daubed the blood off my arm with toilet paper. I applied pressure with another fistful of paper, grabbed the first-aid kit, went upstairs, picked up my bags, and left the house.
I dropped my bags in the trunk of the BMW and went to the passenger’s side. Through the open window, Game asked, “Where you been, dawg?”
I said, “I need you to put tape on my arm while I hold the gauze. It’s a circus act to do it alone.”
“Awwwight,” he said. “She got you, huh? Not too bad, just some blood.” While I kept pressure on the wad of toilet paper and the gauze, he applied one strip of cloth first-aid tape to either side of the gauze.
I moved his duffel from the back seat to the trunk, got in the car, and looked up to see if Amanda had any parting words or gestures that she wanted to deliver. I couldn’t see her, but the sight of her not being there reminded me I hadn’t cleaned up the glass in the street. I opened a garage door, grabbed a broom and dustpan, swept up the shards and smaller pieces, and carried them around the house. I unlocked the gate and dumped the glass in a trash bin.
“You okay?” I asked after getting in the car.
“Yeah,” Game said. “You got a fine house and all, but, man, you got one messed up life!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
We headed to town, and Game said he was hungry. I was, too, but I refused to enter a fast-food drive-thru, as he requested each time we approached one. Instead, I insisted we go to Campos Famous Burritos on Pico in Santa Monica. After taking a few bites of his chicken burrito smothered in Spanish sauce, he said, “Old folk do sometimes know things.” He smiled and wiped sauce from his chin with a napkin.
I wasn’t in a talkative mood as I drove Game to his mother’s house. Thinking about schemes and scams, hatching suppositions, and contemplating resolutions were how I worked every case. I should’ve been able to use the same thought processes to arrive at a conclusion that resolved the various aspects of this case: How were the murders at the park related to the killing of Chris Cerveris and Big Bill Watson? And how did those developments lead to someone threatening me.
Considering that I’d just been released from the loveless relationship that had been holding me back, and considering that Jennifer and I had expressed our love for each other, I should’ve been clearheaded and full of insights.
Instead, my mind mulled over a psychological abstraction. I speculated that personality is the accumulation of scars a person has—character being how slights, wounds, and disappointments manifest themselves in our words and actions. A nice, kind person has not yet been hurt, or is too dense to know how deeply. Children smile until life teaches them to frown, their frowns later turning to anger, cynicism, and possibly hatred. Few of us are defined or influenced as much by our successes as by our failures—our triumphs transitory, our tragedies forever.
The fact that these thoughts filled my head as we drove south on the 710 was disturbing, so I tried to shake them as I pulled to the curb in front of Rachelle’s house.
“Give me a few minutes, Game. I’ll meet you inside.” I popped the trunk, he got out, grabbed his duffel, closed the trunk, and walked to the house. He gave a perfunctory knock on the door before using his key and entering. I set my Calm meditation app on my phone for five minutes, then concentrated on my breathing. But every few seconds extraneous thoughts intruded. However, when the timer chimed, I knew what I had to do next.
“Hello, Jack,” Rachelle said as she gave me a lengthy hug. “I owe you big-time.” She finally let go.
“You owe me nothing.” I closed the door and set the backpack filled with cash and guns on the floor. “I would refuse to take anything you insisted on giving me because hanging out with Game and getting to know him were a pleasure.”
Game, Rachelle, and I sat in her living room, and I explained how dramatically my life had changed since I last sat in that room. Game told his mom how ridiculous Amanda’s behavior was and how fine Jennifer was, and how lucky I was to dump Amanda so I could be with Jennifer.
“Good genes,” I said, then shrugged. Rachelle and Game laughed, but she said, “You have a lot more going on than looks, that’s for sure, but you sure have them.”
When I asked how Mike was doing, Rachelle said, “He’s fine. Golfed at Chester Washington yesterday and had an early tee time in Bel Air today.”
“Good for him. Do you golf?”
“No,” she said. “Don’t understand the appeal. He took me to a driving range on our second date, but it seems like a waste of time. Maybe someday, after I spend years practicing, I could be okay, but what would I have accomplished?”
“That’s how I feel about algebra,” Game said.
Eventually, after Rachelle suggested I have a second Diet Coke and tell her about Jennifer and how our relationship had progressed over the years, she asked, “What do you think will happen to Amanda?”
“I wish I could tell you she’ll be fine, but I can’t guarantee that. For years, she’s threatened to kill herself if I left her, and now I’ve left her.”
“Ain’t on you, dawg, that happens. She’s an adult with free will.”
“He’s right,” Rachelle said. “She’s been emotionally blackmailing you for years. No one should lay a trip like that on someone. I mean, I hope she doesn’t harm herself. I wish no one ever did. But this world proves too much for a lot of people.”
“They don’t generally live in $30 million homes and have millions of adoring fans, but I get your point. Having been truly depressed, I don’t think she is. She’s needy and seeks constant approval, but she’s not depressed. She gets far too happy over a new purse or bingeing the latest Netflix series to be deeply depressed. When I’ve been at my darkest, I wouldn’t have been able to muster anything more than ‘Oh,’ if I’d won the lottery. Drawing breath sometimes required more effort than it was worth, it seemed. If she kills herself, I don’t think she’ll do it directly—make a plan, leave a note, execute the plan. She’ll wrap the Porsche around a tree or snort coke until her heart explodes. Her fans could then mourn her sad, tragic death, saying she lost control of the wheel or misjudged her tolerance because the other option is unthinkable. Anyone can become depressed enough to consider suicide. Social standing and popularity have nothing to do with someone making that decision. But she’s obviously troubled and out of control, so who knows?”
I became overwhelmed with guilt after saying the last sentence. Was there anything I could do to save her from herself? I couldn’t have her involuntarily committed because she’d have to publicly display suicidal or homicidal behavior, and I’d just gotten rid of the coke that I could’ve used to have deputies show up at her door. I could ask the sheriff’s department to do a welfare check, but, at best, Amanda would convince them she was fine, if she even answered the door. And the deputies would probably pose for selfies with her and maybe take home a signed eight-by-ten headshot.
In the middle of running through these options, I realized I was feeling guilty about not being able to save Jami. Then I had a thought that my guilt-ridden brain had not allowed me to have until then: I had nothing to do with Jami’s death and couldn’t have done anything to prevent it.
Had Mike and I not been drunk and been pulled over, we would likely have made it to the hospital so I could’ve said goodbye to her, perhaps while looking into her eyes and telling her I loved her. But no matter how strong love is, it can’t stop internal bleeding or fix a cracked skull. Love can dramatically diminish someone’s depression, but it can’t perform surgery or stop a van before it runs into a cyclist.
