Best Friends (7 page)

“Well, that's your business,” Kristin said, peering through the windshield more intensely than the now lightly trafficked road demanded. “Mine is to see he acquires more financial responsibility, and I'm asking you to help. As his friend.” She glanced quickly his way, frowning. “As
my
friend.”

Roy nervously slapped himself on the kneecap. “That's more easily said than done. We've been sharing stuff for years. If it was something one had, the other could always make a claim on it. He's usually the one who's had more possessions than I. He's the collector, not me, except for cars.”

“And you sell them. That's completely different. How often have you
asked
to borrow Sam's movie cassettes? Doesn't he always suggest some title, even press it on you? Same thing with CDs, boutique beers, or whatever, at least since I've known the two of you.”

Roy was made resentful by what was indeed the truth, but who was she to have recognized it so arrogantly and, worse, to announce it in this style?

“He's the one with the ideas. He's better at having fun than I've ever been. He gets so much pleasure from sharing his interests. Sometimes I've gone along just to please him, watched a movie I knew I wouldn't like; and you know Sam, you have to do your homework, he's not going to let you give a simple pro or con reaction to anything he's suggested you do or watch or taste. So you're forced to pay attention to detail, and more often than not I've ended up liking whatever it was.” He cleared his throat. “Or sort of liking it, which is different from liking something in the natural way without being influenced.”

“Oh?” asked Kristin, without irony and as if to herself. “You've noticed that, too.”

Subliminally he also noticed that they had entered a familiar neighborhood. She now turned into the driveway of the Grandy residence.

“I'll pick up that water,” he said as they pulled up behind the house. “You handle the security system.” He turned to open the door.

Kristin asked, “Do you mind, Roy?”

He looked over his shoulder. “I'm not trying to evade the matter. I'm trying to figure out how not just to turn him down next time he asks, but also explain that I'm doing so because his wife wants me to.” He stared at her. “Because that's the only way I'll do it.”

“That's the only way I would want it done.”

He left the car. He was too proud to admit immediately that both her cause and her means were just.

“Your kitchen always smells good,” he said when they were inside the house. In Sam's absence the high-tech exhaust system was not overused. “Mine often stinks of the fluids used by the cleaning woman. Soon as the odor's gone, she's back with more.”

Kristin deposited her purse on the polished-granite counter. “You ought to do more cooking there. Or just boil water with cinnamon in it. That's what real-estate agents advise home sellers to do before they bring around a prospect.”

“Someone buys a house because it smells good?”

“Probably helps establish a positive mood. You don't deal with what could be called the general public, do you?”

“Over the years a few people have come in off the street and three or four have ended up buying a car, usually one of the less expensive marques, an MG Midget or Triumph Spitfire. But once a guy in work clothes walked in and bought a Ferrari Two-Fifty GTE right off the floor. For cash: seventy-five grand. The car was a sixty-three.”

Kristin wrinkled her nose. “He carried that kind of money on him.”

“A check,” said Roy. “Of course he didn't drive the car away until we cleared it. He's a local contractor.”

She pointed to one of the stools at the middle island. “Take a seat. What do you want to drink? I got these chores to do.”

“Want me to locate the CDs?”

“That would be nice of you.”

The wall phone rang, startling him. Kristin punched the button that put it on speaker.

“HI,” boomed Sam's voice. It was disquieting for Roy to hear his friend so amplified.

“Hold on,” Kristin said. “I've got to turn the volume down. Maria's been up to her old tricks.”

“There are a couple more things I want you to bring over,” said Sam.

Kristin grimaced at Roy. Then she surprised him by saying, “If it's more CDs, tell your best friend.”

“Hi, Sam,” said Roy.

“Roy, you're there?”

“I came to pick up the Apollinaris.”

“Oh, sure…well, listen, then.” He proceeded to name what he needed: Monk at the Five Spot in ‘58 and specific performances by Bird and Coltrane. Sam's jazz collection was enormous and included tapes and LPs as well as vintage shellac 78s. He had paid too much for the last and not for the quality of the music, all of which had been digitally remastered and was available on CD, whereas much on the deteriorated soundtracks of the originals was audibly compromised.

Roy felt obliged to explain. “I'll find them and give them to Kristin. I'll bring you the water around six.”

“Kris,” asked Sam, “you meeting the others at the restaurant?”

“That's right. And I won't tell you where so you can't phone me. You'll swear you won't, and then you'll break your promise.”

“I'm a real bastard that way.”

Roy thought he heard bitterness in the reply, but perhaps that was only an electronic effect of the speaker phone, which he felt introduced a false, public-relations element into, and so warped, any personal conversation.

Sam's voice brightened. “Hey, Roy. Help yourself to anything you want. Look through the tapes and LPs: There's still stuff that's never been put on CD.”

This was a standing offer, and at any given time Roy had at home a stack of recordings pressed on him by Sam, but listening to them alone, without his best friend's occasional commentary and frequent groans of bliss at John Coltrane's soprano sax or Mingus's bass riffs, did not do for him what it should. After a few weeks he would bring them back, mostly unplayed, and face Sam's grilling.

“Catch you later, kid,” Roy said now. When he heard Sam hang up, he asked Kristin, “
Are
you meeting some office people for lunch? If so, I'll take a raincheck.” He had heard her say as much when speaking with Sam on the phone in the car, but reacted only to this second reference.

“I was lying,” she said flatly, while consulting a little notebook taken from her purse. She raised her golden head. “Oh, excuse me. I prefer to jot notes on paper instead of one of those gadgets, but then I can't read my own writing.” She sighed. “He's not jealous. He's just curious and lonely. He would have to hear what we ate and drank, and where we went, of course. If it was one of the places where he knows the proprietor or the maître d' and thinks they like him aside from the money he spends—well, it isn't news to you.”

Roy tried to conceal how deeply he disapproved of this tactic. He had never had reason to lie to Sam and resented being forced to now. “I just have to remember what
not
to say to him.”

“It isn't complicated. We just told him you're here to pick up the water and find the CDs. You're free to tell him anything we said to each other.”

She had a way of being right, or pretty nearly so, after seeming to have been wrong. “Okay,” said Roy. “You're married to the guy. He and I have always been perfectly straight with one another. It hasn't always been easy. I lost a couple of his most valuable baseball cards when we were kids and had to confess to it. Another time I was supposed to look after his golden retriever when he went on vacation. I wasn't too careful and it got out and ran away. The dog was inclined to do that anyhow, and Sam probably wouldn't have blamed me, but it was my fault and I owned up to it because I knew he would have done the same.”

“Was the dog ever found?”

“My father had to offer a sizable reward. Sam gave him away not long after getting him back.”

Kristin returned to her notes, but she had not abandoned the conversation. “And what has he done when
he's
been at fault?”

“I can't recall anything he's done.”

Her head was still lowered. “Wasn't there something about a vintage car he borrowed?”

“Oh, yeah! Did he tell you about that? It was an Aston Martin DB-Five, the only car I ever had that he was interested in, because that was the James Bond model and he loves those movies to this day. It was my idea he borrow it for a few days and drive real high-performance machinery for a change, instead of that lifeless Detroit iron. It was my fault. I talked him into it. He had a lot of trouble using the stick shift, and then when he left it parked for five minutes at a curb in town, somebody sideswiped the car. He offered to pay for the body work, but it wasn't his fault. It must have bothered him a lot more than it did me, if he told you about it.”

“Yes, he remembers,” said Kristin. She returned the notebook to her purse. “Could I offer you some lunch right here? Omelette or
croque monsieur,
something simple.” She opened one of the brushed-steel doors of the refrigerator and bent like a dancer to look inside. “There's also cold lamb. You're welcome to it, but I only like it with something garlicky, like hummus or
baba ghanoush,
and I can't get away with that at midday.”

“Anything will be fine,” said Roy from his stool. “I don't have much of an appetite.” He was grateful to her. “I would have found a restaurant hard to take today.”

He had previously seen Kristin only in the company of Sam, by comparison with whom she looked shorter than she actually was. The same thing could be said of Roy himself. She had now exchanged the jacket of her suit for a full-size, vertically striped butcher's apron, which emphasized her height. She was only a few inches shorter than he. It was remarkable to him that someone so keen on cooking could remain so slender.

A
fter Roy put the crate of bottled water on the floor of the closet, pushing a space for it beside an outsize pair of custom-made lizard half-boots, he went to Sam's bedside. His friend was dangling a delicate-looking set of earphones from one thick finger. “These things weigh only a couple ounces. The sound is concert-hall quality.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Perfect,” said Sam. “There's no reason to keep me here another day. The doctors love to terrorize the layman. You know that.”

He laid the earphones on top of the little Sony player to which they were attached. It was unusual for him not to have insisted that Roy verify the claims he had made as to their performance. The table on Sam's right was all but overflowing with heaped gadgetry: PalmPilot, cell phone, portable DVD player, miniature voice-operated recording device, remote for the television mounted high on the far wall.

Roy asked quietly, “Have you watched or listened to the news today?”

“Hell with it,” said Sam. “If I have to stay in here, I don't care what happens in East Timor.”

All the television and most of the radio stations were in the city where there had been a scary near-disaster on an airport runway, a big bank robbery, and the death by auto accident of a popular anchorman of the evening news. Francine's murder and the suicide of her ex-husband were so low on the gauge of public importance that Roy had as yet encountered no media reference, at least as long as he could bear to wait. There would not be a local newspaper until the following morning.

On the way to the hospital he had debated with himself whether to shock Sam with the whole story now or wait till his friend finally heard it from some impersonal source and was justifiably hurt, given the premium he put on loyalty.

Roy had made the painful decision. He began to pace about at the foot of the bed. “I've got to talk about this. Something terrible happened after I left here yesterday. I still can't believe it. I forget about it for a moment or two, then it comes back again. I'm sorry to burden you at this time, but—”

“That woman you were running around with got killed,” said Sam without audible emotion. “I guess it was only a matter of time.”

“What?”

“It's stupid to blame yourself. For what?
You
didn't kill her. You defended her. Your conscience should be clean.”

“That's it? I should just shrug it off?” He reminded himself that Sam was still supposed to be a sick man. “I shouldn't be troubling you with this.”

“It's no trouble,” Sam said, but not in his familiar expansive way. “That's what friends are for. Kris and I are glad to help, but I can't see much is gained from going over and over the incident. Nothing can be changed now. What's done is done.”

“Kristin told you.”

“Well, we're married.”

“I didn't mean she shouldn't have,” Roy said quickly. But he lied. He had taken her into his confidence. He might not have used those terms, but he had expected her to understand them by implication…. But he was now lying to himself. She had had every reason to assume she was serving as a substitute for Sam. She had even said as much, had she not? “I was grateful to her for listening to my troubles.”

“That's one of her specialties,” said Sam, who seemed to be watching him for a reaction.

“Yes,” said Roy. “I can understand that.” The subject made him uneasy. Though Kristin had given Sam the secondhand account of what happened at The Hedges, she had apparently not told him the truth about lunch, though there was nothing incriminating to conceal. She had prepared an omelette
aux fines herbes
for each of them and a salad. Roy ate very little of either. They both drank only mineral water. The entire incident lasted half an hour, give or take.

“She can talk too,” said Sam.

“I'm afraid all she got a chance to do today was listen to me whine. You're right, I should try to get past it. I've decided to do something for Francine's poor kids. They're orphans now. God knows what they've been left by their parents, if anything. Holbrook was a loser at everything he tried, according to her.” It took a moment of silence for him to realize what he had told his best friend, of whom the same characterization could well be made.

Sam moued. “Well, that's your business. I'll be glad to tell you what Kris would have said if she
had
done the talking.” His smile suggested an undercurrent of anger. “She would have asked you not to lend me any money.” It was typical of Sam to have omitted the, to Roy, essential word “more.”

Had his friend not been bedridden, Roy might well have made that point, because they had always been honest with each other. As it was, he could say only, lamely, “Is that right?”

“That's a laugh, ain't it? I'm married to a banker, and I'm strapped.”

“This whole thing must cost a fortune,” Roy said guiltily, meaning the complex of charges incurred by a hospital patient.

Sam dismissed that consideration. “Kris's insurance covers most of it, I guess. That's not what I'm worried about.”

It was obvious Sam was about to put the bite on him in the interests of another bad business idea. Had it not been for Kristin's plea, Roy probably could not have rejected an entreaty by his best friend, or rather, lacking in valor, have evaded it at least at this moment. Still, it was to his credit that he did not carry out his threat to put the blame on her.

He consulted his watch. For once Sam did not comment on the cheap timepiece. “I've got to go, kid. Catch you tomorrow. I'll call first to hear what you need, but I hope you're getting out.”

When Sam saw his friend was serious about leaving, he sneered at him. “Shit, she
did
talk to you.”

“What do you mean?” Though he knew full well.

“Kris told you not to lend me any money.”

“You're out of your skull,” said Roy. “You've got too much time on your hands here. Better try to get well soon.” He winked, then headed for the door but had not quite reached the knob when he was halted by an anguished appeal in a contorted voice he had never heard before in all the years they had been best friends.

“Give me your word,” Sam cried. “Are you fucking her?”

Reflecting later on this vile question, Roy could only assume that Sam's medication had mind-altering side effects. At the moment it was asked, however, he knew only an almost ungovernable rage, followed by so violent a fear of what he might do in such a state that he felt as though set afire. Incapable of speech, he stepped into the hallway and walked rapidly among white-coated people and stainless-steel conveyances until he reached the parking lot, where distracted momentarily by a loss of memory as to which car he was using, he had to recover a sense of himself in space and time.

“Excuse me, but are you feeling okay?”

It was a woman, a pale-complexioned, redhaired young woman wearing a tan raincoat.

Roy was leaning against a blue Taurus of recent date. “I'm sorry,” he said, straightening up. “Is this yours? I just felt a little shaky for a minute.”

She pointed. “Maybe you ought to go over to the outpatient and have yourself checked out.”

“I'll be all right. I've just lost a close friend, and it hits me from time to time.” Lowering his head, he noticed white shoes and stockings below the raincoat.

“That's awful. I didn't know we lost anyone today. I'm very sorry.”

“No, it was last night, and not in the hospital…. You work here, don't you?”

“In fact, I think I met you the other day. You're Mr. Grandy's friend?”

“Oh, sure,” Roy said, his memory reviving to the degree that he could not only spot, in a rank of cars thirty yards away, the Jaguar E-Type he had parked there, but almost recall the nurse's name. “You're Miss Atkins.”

He had never been attracted to redheads, but her smile was endearing. “It's Akins. But I'm impressed that you came so close on such slight acquaintance. You're living up to your reputation.”

Roy was more incredulous than flattered. “How in the world do you know anything about me?”

“Your friend.”

He had instantly forgotten about Sam. “Of course.”

“He gives you the big buildup,” Miss Akins said, twitching the retroussé nose Sam thought cute. “He has a high opinion of you.”

“He'll say anything, Miss Akins. He's notorious for that. I wouldn't listen to him if I were you.”

“It's Suzanne.”

He felt considerably better than he had only a few moments earlier. “I hope you're not offended if I ask how is it that you are so much friendlier now than you were in Sam's room?” He was on safe ground, having never met a woman who did not enjoy most those questions which the typical man would think rude.

She produced an enumerated explanation. “I was on duty, one. Two, just now you looked like you were in trouble. Three, I didn't want to make your friend jealous. I'm serious. Patients are sensitive about the attention paid to them by nurses and, it goes without saying, doctors. Have you ever been a hospital patient, Mr., uh—”

“You don't know my name, do you?” Roy asked triumphantly.

“You own the fancy car store in town.”

“I haven't been in a hospital bed since my mother delivered me. My name is Roy Courtright.”

“Tell me, Roy, what do those cars cost? I can't see any posted prices through the show window, and that sign on the door says ‘by appointment only.'” Her twinkling eyes reminded him of some star of the old movie musicals he had watched with Sam, but right now any association with his best friend had negative connotations for him.

“The phone number appears there as well.” Roy spoke with a certain impatience, having heard this frivolous complaint more than once. “The prices vary greatly, according to the car, based on its rarity, condition, and so on.”

“What's the ‘so on'?”

He could not yet determine whether he was being baited. “Demand. There have to be people who want to buy it.” He lifted his index finger. “See that XKE Jaguar over there? It's considered one of the most beautiful automobiles ever built. You don't see a lot of those on the streets nowadays, but quite a few were made during the years they were in production, and many were imported into the U.S.A. Because they aren't terribly rare, the demand for them is not great enough to bring really high figures. You could buy that one for about what your Ford Taurus cost you.”

“That's not mine.
There's
my car. I bought it new last month.”

“The BMW?” It was a black 530i, surely an extravagance on a nurse's income.

She laughed at him. “‘Howinhell can she afford
that
?' You're right, I can't. I haven't got any clothes and I've stopped eating. I'll have it paid off in ten or fifteen years, if I live that long, but I broke up with somebody and needed to lift my spirits.”

“A doctor who drove an S-class Mercedes?”

“Hey!” said she. “Close enough. You've been reading my diary.”

Her vivacity seemed genuine enough, and Roy was reluctant to part with her and be alone with his troubles, which had continued to multiply. Now he could no longer even be friendly with Kristin.

“Suzanne, would you want to have some dinner with me? I'm aware we are hardly acquainted, but we do know each other's place of business.”

“If I don't like the food I can throw a rock through your show window?”

“If you like.”

“I'm not going to go in my uniform,” she told him. “And I wasn't kidding about not owning any clothes. My one dress is at the cleaner's and I lately ripped my skirt and haven't fixed it. If jeans are okay, I'm your date. Could you pick me up at—”

Roy impulsively threw himself on her mercy. “Obviously you owe me nothing, but at the moment I don't want to be by myself.” He took a breath; he had never made such an appeal before. “Could we get some take-out—not junk but decent stuff—and eat it at your house?” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Please forgive me for being so pushy. This is awful.” But he did not withdraw the request.

“I share a small apartment with two other women,” Suzanne said. “All of them are home most evenings. You could come and eat with us if you just want company. Though I warn you, the others will be all over you. You're safe with me. I go out with men all the time, at least twice in the past seven months, both times with my dad. So I'm not desperate like the others. If you want to invite me to
your
house, you can trust me not to try to overpower you.”

She was a remarkably good sport, but no woman not a blood relative would care to hear as much from a man.

He gave Suzanne the address, and she followed him in her car. He drove with moderation and did not play the childish tricks he pulled when Sam followed, no four-wheel drifts at the corners, no sudden flooring of the accelerator, nor downshiftings to slow the car, without applying the brakes, as he approached a stop sign or traffic signal. The last was most unnerving to Sam, who took his cue from the car ahead, braking only when its red lights came on.