'Hey, I'm looking for this guy, he gave me this number. In Brooklyn.'
Dan was watching me.
'Is this Helmo?' I asked.
'Yeah. I got that address for you, the one we was talking about? Rainey shows up again this morning, swung the bat for a hour. I followed him home. I want my three hundred bucks.'
'What's the address?'
'Who you think I am?' he hollered in my ear. 'Give me the three hundred first!'
'Let's meet,' I suggested.
'Half hour in front of the batting cages.'
'I can't do that.'
'What the fuck?'
I worried Dan could hear the voice in my ear. 'How about three this afternoon?'
'Be there. Or I'm telling Rainey about you.'
I put the phone away.
'Who was it?' asked Dan.
'Some guy who'll probably double-cross me.'
He nodded flatly. 'Okay, so where was I? So Mindy's father, right. We're on the bench near the sixth tee. And he says, I know everything that you are or will be thinking right now. I know it. So I'm sitting there, I'm shish kabob. I'm cooked son-in-law. Then he says, I understand who you are.'
'What?'
Dan nodded vigorously, mouth full of food. 'He says I understand who you are. Then he says, But you can't leave her. I say, I have no plans to leave her, it would hurt the kids too much. He's not fooled. He says he's heard twenty or thirty of his friends say the same thing over the years. They always leave their wives anyway, soon as the kids are out of the house. Mindy will never leave you, he says. She doesn't have it in her, even if she wanted to. She's weak. That's true. Plus, he says, plus she loves you too much, not to mention the kids. I feel like a pig when he says this. He's right, of course, Mindy with her moon eyes, mooning after me, seeing if I'm happy, seeing if I have a drink. She'll do anything for me, Bill, suck my freaking toes, anything… which I hate, Of course! She's lost all her self-respect, she just wants to be loved, filled up, like the new four-hundred-and-fifty-gallon oil tank I got in the basement in case of shortages. Huge, extra capacity! Mindy's like that, she lies there in bed with her fat legs out and calls to me, like, Oh just please come love me, please, please, waving her arms and moaning, Oh come tell me everything is okay. And it sort of breaks my heart but also sort of makes me hate her.' Here Dan paused, eyes narrowing, mouth an evil little smile. 'I like those thin girls who are tough cases, manthe sly, mean ones who you got to crack open.'
He breathed out heavily, gulped his drink.
'Hey Dan,' I said. 'We're barely done with the soup.'
'Yeah, then he says, I want to make you an offer. I say okay, what? And he says if you don't make the deal now, you will never get this offer again. Ever.'
'And?'
'He says, two million dollars and you promise you will never leave my daughter.'
'Two million?'
'I can't even open my mouth. It's not a lot of money to him, remember. He says, I know you want to know what the catch is, what the conditions are. I say well, sure. I try to be relaxed saying it but it sort of squeaks out. He says, I'd never tell another man he couldn't sleep around. That's unrealistic. You have to let the big dog hunt, and all that. So here're my conditions, he says. Number one, you never leave Mindy. Never. Like that. A little scary. Number two, you get a vasectomy. So even though you do fuck around, you don't get anyone pregnant, and number three, you use the money in the exact way I tell you, don't just eat it up.'
'Don't buy a vineyard.'
'A vineyard, a castle in Scotland, whatever.'
'So?'
'So he says, Think about it while I tee off. After I hit my ball, he says, I'm going to come back to the bench and get your answer. If you have no answer, he says, I'll assume no deal. If you say no, I'll never offer it to you again. Ever. '
'And you believe that.'
'Totally.'
'Is he going to tell you how you have to use the money before you agree to take it?'
'I asked that. The answer was no.'
'Tough game.'
Dan nodded, though not without some appreciation for the old man. 'Then he goes, If you say yes, I'll write you a check and assume that you'll be good to your word. Plus, you'll send me a copy of the vasectomy bill.' Dan shot his hands in the air, fork above his head. 'Bill! He wants documentation that they chopped up my nuts! Then he goes over and puts down his golf ball, takes out his driver.'
'He's forcing an answer.'
'Yeah, and I'm a little pissed off, plus a little shocked.'
'It's total guts-ball poker,' I agreed.
'Total.'
'Pretty emasculating to have the father-in-law insisting on the snip job.'
'You're telling me.' Dan pushed his empty plate away. 'So he lines up the ball and gets his grip right, then whacks the hell out of it. The ball disappears. Then he picks up his tee and comes back to me. I'm still sitting on the bench. I haven't moved.'
'You've decided to say yes.'
'I've decided to say no.'
'Really?' This didn't seem like the Dan Tuthill I remembered, always looking for the next cash-pipe to suck on.
'Yeah. I mean, I can't be bought like that! Fuck him! Mindy's got an ass like a wrinkled beach ball! She tries to hide it but I see it anyway. Fucking lowers my testosterone, too! So I'm thinking, a few more years, let the kids get out of school, I can split up and go hunting for these cha-chas I see in the bars all the time.' He leaned close again, his eyes sleepy-looking. 'You have any idea of the fucking action that's out there, Bill? Even for a fat old shit like me? Their ovaries are calling to them, like trumpets from the mountains! Make us pregnant, make us pregnant, do something about all this es-tro-gen! They can't help themselves, Bill! It's wired in, it's biological. These apartment houses filled with unmarried women? Palaces of estrogen!' He pointed to his chest. 'I'm perfect, see. I'm well off, physically unattractive, and in no way marriageable. It's totally counterintuitive, and most women would never admit it. I'm perfect for the woman who needs sex, some kind of sex, but doesn't want to get involved with somebody she might actually get involved with! Do you see that? It's a niche specialty. They all say they are looking for the good guys or the husband types, but those are the guys that freak them out! Guys like me, they know what to do with. See? A few laughs, a few drinks, fuckle you, fuckle me, see you later, I lost your business card, so what, no harm, no foul. Right?'
'Wow.' Somehow this sounded harsh, despite my disastrous exit from Allison's apartment that morning.
'The girls are desperate, man! They hate to admit it, and they won't admit it, but it's a fact! So I'm figuring, I get to fifty, I'm single again, I drop eighty pounds, I got ten years of cha-cha to look forward to.'
'But your kids,' I said, thinking of my son. 'It'd kill them.'
He waved this away. 'I'd let them grow up a bit. They know things aren't so great, anyway.'
I didn't want to hear any of this.
He smiled. 'So now Mindy's father comes over and says, Well? Like that- Well? I'm going to have some guy, some asshole who left his wife, chop up my testicles? I'm going to live with this woman who drives me nuts, the whole thing? Forget it! What am I, a monkey on a string? Forget the money! I make plenty of money! Fuck him, I can't be bought, right?'
'Right,' I said in solidarity.
Dan settled back, rested his hands on his stomach, the matter seemingly as settled as his soup. 'So I look up at him, and I say, 'You said two million?' '
