She looked into his eyes, wanting so much to believe him. Wanting to wash her brain of its desire to check his pulse. Inspect his forearms. Search his apartment for pipes, needles, and bloody Kleenexes. She’d have to search for all of it, because for a decade and a half of his life, Ben Humphrey had been a human garbage can, willing to dump anything and everything into his body.
“You believe me, right?”
She was about to, before he’d asked that question.
“So what’s up with your dear, sweet, totally-not-a-cunt friend out there with sheets on the sofa. She get dumped or something?”
“Um, no, Ben. She’s here because something really bad happened today.” She told him about finding Drew at the gallery. She watched his eyes move unconsciously to the pocket that must have held his cell phone, the one she’d called so many times.
“Sorry you went through that alone.”
“I wasn’t alone. But, yeah, I did want my family.”
“You didn’t call Mom and Dad?”
“Did you call them when you were arrested? I notice you mentioned ‘the lawyer.’ If Dad was involved, you would’ve said Art.”
Arthur Cronin, in addition to being one of her parents’ best friends, was also the go-to attorney for all remotely law-related Humphrey family problems.
“No Mom or Dad. No Art. I guess your independent ways are contagious.”
“I thought you said I was being too rough on Dad.”
“You mean to tell me you haven’t thought about all those women he was with? I mean, barely women at that. Jennifer Roberson, or whatever her name is? She was nineteen when she auditioned for
“Stop it, Ben. I really am going to hurl.”
“You don’t even know the half of it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just blowing off steam. Our dad’s a goddamn player, and our mom’s too dazed to give a rat’s ass. Let’s just say we’re both avoiding their shit for the time being.”
She and Ben had always been so different. More than twenty years after she had walked away from a promising start as a child actor, Ben was still trying to find a place for himself in the family industry, first as a screenwriter, a few times as a producer for small-time indies (with their father’s money, of course), and now, more realistically, as a sound engineer recording special audio effects. She’d always been a quiet student. He was a rowdy party guy. She saw herself as a connected part of the larger world. He preferred to shrink from it. While he had the olive skin and exaggerated features of their father, Alice-with her red hair, clear, pale skin, and what her mother called a nose and lips for plastic surgeons to study-bore little resemblance to the man.
That they had found this commonality against their parents, in this tiny, disheveled bedroom, made her sad.
“So do the police have any idea who shot your boss?”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. The lack of sleep from the night before. The hunger and the stress of the day. The weight of her brother’s problems, and her parents’ flaws, and the completely unrecognizable state of her life. The entire fucked-upness of everything.
“Is that funny?” he said, joining her in the laughter.
“Who shot my boss? No, it’s not funny at all. And they have no idea what’s going on. Neither do I. I don’t even know how to contact the artist or the gallery owner or anything. ITH Corporation. What the hell is that, anyway? So I guess I just walk away.”
“What corporation?”
“Something called ITH. I assume it’s the owner’s investment company for these projects Drew was helping him with, but I have no idea how to contact him.”
“ITH? Just those three letters?”
“Yeah. Why? Does that mean something to you?”
“No. Just seems like a random name, is all.”
“You’re acting weird, Ben.”
“Okay, I know you’ve had a seriously shitty day, but you need to chill out right now. Jesus, I regret even asking about it.”
“You promise? If you know something about that company, you have to tell me.” She knew her brother. He wasn’t behaving like himself. Was he holding something back from her? Maybe this was another sign that he was using again. Or maybe he was right, and she was being hypersensitive after the trauma of the day.
“I promise, all right? I don’t know anything.”
“Well, neither do I. I tried Googling that company name as soon as I got a paycheck. No luck.”
“Just let it lie. Try to forget you were ever involved.”
“Funny. That’s what Lily said, too.”
“Well, your dear, sweet friend is right.”
“Are you still going to meetings, Ben?”
“Seriously, Alice?”
“I thought you went at least once a week.”
“Not for a while now. Don’t look at me like that. Would you want to sit around in some fluorescent-lit church basement drinking bad coffee with a bunch of addicts? Not exactly an uplifting scene.”
“What about Down?” Downing Brown had been the cinematographer on some horrible indie film Ben produced back when he was still aspiring to be Frank Humphrey Jr. Everyone simply called him Down. When the other producers kicked Ben off his own project after one too many drug-fueled rants at the director, Down had introduced Ben to Narcotics Anonymous. As far as Alice knew, he was still Ben’s sponsor.
“He’d like me to be at meetings more, but, yeah, we’re still down. So to speak. He’s sort of my own personal meeting host.”
“You’ll tell me if you need something, right? You know I’m here for you.”
“Always. You shouldn’t be worrying about me after what you’ve been through. You gonna be all right tonight?” He looked at his watch.
“Yeah. Thanks for coming by.”
As she watched Lily replace the safety chain behind her brother and reclaim her spot on the sheeted sofa, Alice thought again about friendship. Friends were supposed to be there for movies and restaurants and maybe even hospital visits. It was family who were supposed to help you scrub dried blood from beneath your fingernails and then sleep on your sofa just in case you woke up in the middle of the night remembering how it got there.
Not only had Lily been there for her, she was also right. Alice had told herself earlier in the day-when she was staring up at that police officer, trying to recall everything she’d ever known about Drew Campbell-that his murder wasn’t about her. It was awful. Horrific. Unimaginable, really. But it wasn’t about her. To see it as such was vanity. And since his death wasn’t about her, it wasn’t up to her to figure out why Highline Gallery was closed and Drew Campbell dead. The protesters. An art heist. A business riff. The police would eventually figure it out, and nothing she could do would hasten that process or bring Drew back to life.
She’d woken up that morning determined that her involvement in the drama around the gallery be resolved. Now it was, albeit in an awful, horrific, unimaginable way. Now she was resolved to listen to Lily.
But despite that moment of resolve, Alice would not remain uninvolved. The following day, the detectives from the gallery would arrive unannounced at her apartment asking all of their same questions once again.
