‘Read it, David.’
I turned the page. I snatched lines out of context, but the context was clear. When his fingers slipped into me I almost came…
Next page. It’s different with David. He needs me.
He says Molly doesn’t satisfy him the way she used to.
Two pages later. We made love in his office after class. People were walking by in the halls outside, and we were making love!
Next page. David wants me to quit dancing. He says he can’t stand it that other men touch me or even look at me. He says if I leave he’ll support me. What about Molly? He gets funny when I say her name. I don’t think he loves her, but she has some kind of hold on him.
Next page. In his office today David told me he wanted me to suck him off. It was like I was his whore!
I told him NO! I meant it too. He said if I didn’t he was going to flunk me. It was like a joke but I could tell he liked the power he had over me. I told him to go to hell and walked out. But then I got scared and went back in and I got on my knees for him. It was so degrading, the things he said while I did it.
Sometimes I think he loves me, but then sometimes I think he’s just using me for easy sex.
On the next page. A bouquet of roses. Buddy was furious. I said it was from someone from the club, and he wants to know who. I think it would kill Buddy if he knew about David and me. He looks up to David.
He says David is the best teacher he’s ever had. It’s like we know a different person. I threw the roses away to show him they didn’t mean anything to me.
Maybe they don’t. After class, David cornered me. He wants me to get a job on campus and leave Buddy.
What am I going to do?
‘Did Buddy Elder give this to you?’
‘I swear to you, David, if you say another word I’ll shoot you in the heart.’
Molly stood up. Taking her revolver in both hands she walked toward me. At least the tears had stopped.
‘I trusted you. I thought of all the guys in the world – how could you do this to me? How could you sleep with me while you were screwing that whore, David?’
The barrel of the gun was pointed at my face, and I really thought she would pull the trigger if I tried to answer her.
‘I want you to leave. I want you out of the house tonight.’
‘Molly-’
She fired the gun. I don’t know how she missed me.
The barrel of the gun was pointed right into my face.
‘Don’t you dare even say goodbye.’
Chapter 8
I sat in my truck outside the house for several minutes. I was not sure what to do. I knew that if I found Buddy Elder I would very likely kill him. As pleasant as that prospect was I still had a bit of sanity nudging me toward self-restraint. This thing, this lie, could be straightened out given time. But not tonight.
Tonight, I just needed to get somewhere and let Molly cool down.
I had forty dollars in my wallet and two credit cards.
It was enough to get some food and a twelve-pack of beer and checked into a motel. Once in town, I stopped at a liquor store and at a McDonald’s. Fully supplied for the evening, I drove down to the Super 8. That was when I found out my credit card didn’t work. I tried my second card, and it too had been cancelled.
The girl cut both cards apologetically.
I ate my sandwich in the parking lot and washed it down with a cold beer. I didn’t have a worry in the world. I still had friends. Running through the list, though, I discovered something I had not appreciated until that moment: middle age places invisible limits on friendship. There are the friendships of couples. There are friendships at work that survive only there. There are old friends one sees every year or two and there are the friendships one makes in taverns. When I had finished the list of people I could call and reasonably expect an enthusiastic response, I was down to the ghost-writer of my present travails.
To my chagrin, I didn’t even know how to get in touch with him. Barbara Beery’s voice changed the moment she recognized me. David, both syllables ugly.
‘I hate to bother you like this,’ I said.
‘Then why are you? Walt doesn’t live here anymore.’
‘The thing is I need to get in touch with Walt this evening. About a thing.’
‘What kind of thing?’
‘I need to talk to Walt, Barbara. Can you give me his number or not?’
Barbara gave me Walt’s cell phone number and his address at the Greenbrier, but only after she asked if I was drinking again. I told her no. Her silence called me a liar. Off the phone, I pounded another beer, watching for cops like a teenager. Then I called Walt.
Walt was roasted, but the enthusiasm was genuine.
‘Sure! Whatever you need, David! What the hell happened anyway?’
‘Our friend Buddy Elder happened. I’ll tell you all about it when I get there.’
Walt’s apartment appeared to be reasonably clean, but that was because Walt did not have anything in his front room other than a reading chair and a lamp.
The dining room had a folding card table setup with a single chair before it. Walt and Barbara were worth something over five or five-and-a-half million to the best of my calculations, so this was how Walt chose to furnish his apartment. It was hardly the bachelor pad he had always talked about. In the bedroom he had a sleeping bag and pillow stretched out next to a tiny lamp. Beside the lamp about fifty books lay scattered about. I swore sourly to myself and wandered into the kitchen. I found a pan, a pot, and some picnic dishware. In the bathroom I discovered some extra razors but no second towel, nothing faintly resembling a washcloth, and certainly no toothbrush for the unexpected overnight sweetheart. I asked if I could borrow his toothpaste and he shouted that I was welcome to anything in the place.
Finishing the tour, I said, ‘I suppose a blanket and extra pillow is too much to hope for?’
Walt smiled. ‘You can always go to the twenty-four hour Wal-Mart. I think it’s twenty-four hours anyway.’
I shook my head. I was in no mood to go shopping, even if I could pay for what I needed. ‘I think I’ll just arm wrestle you for the sleeping bag,’ I said as I took the only chair in the room and set my twelve pack at my feet. ‘You want a beer?’
Walt waved his glass of Scotch at me and leaned back against the wall. ‘I’m drinking the good stuff.
What happened with Buddy?’
‘You know where Buddy Elder and Denise Conway live?’ I asked.
‘They live on North Ninth somewhere, a couple blocks from The Slipper, I think.’
I took a sip of beer. ‘What’s the address?’
‘I don’t know. I was only there one time.’
‘He’s not in the phone book.’
‘He wouldn’t be.’
‘Have you got his telephone number?’
‘No. What’s this about, David?’
I took another sip of beer. ‘I’m going to kill Buddy Elder. But first I have to find him.’
‘When did you start drinking again?’
‘This evening. Right after I read Denise Conway’s diary. No. Actually, I forgot. I started this afternoon during the third day of my heart attack.’
‘Denise keeps a diary?’ Walt looked sick.
