Identity Thief (17 page)

“Ever hear of money?”

“I’m serious. I thought on some level you were proud of yourself for helping people.”

I thought about it. “I believe that from time to time we can stand up to the people we’re afraid of or the people we silently hate—if there’s a difference—and feel satisfied for ten minutes. We think it’s a guarantee that we’ll never have to stand up to them again. But we will have to, and maybe next time, we’ll back down and be back at square one. I believe people can pretend to be happy or hope they’ll be happy and maybe even be happy because something special happens. But then all the bullshit takes over again.”

“You missed our turn-off street.”

I could tell my cynicism disappointed her. Prince Charming was supposed to be happy all the time. “See? It proves my point.”

She put her hand on top of mine. “If you really feel that way,” she said quietly, “I feel sorry for you. I want to help you get your faith in humanity back.”

“Said the extortionist to the identity thief.”

“You know what I mean. Anyway, I think Betsy is very nice.”

I damn near ran the car off the road again. “Nice? You call a two-million-dollar bribery nice? She’s crazy, she’s a total nut job bitch, she’s—”

“She’s the mother of your son. And yes, she has some issues. I treated her like a damaged child.”

“Do women take some secret oath to defend the most fucked-up people in the world? That ‘damaged child,’ as you call her, could drive us to the poor house. Or jail.”

“Oh, stop worrying so much.”

I slid the car into a parking space about a half block from where we lived. We walked thoughtfully to our building.

Sequoia stopped as she let us into the main lobby. “And people do make sense. I know I do.” She kissed me and put her hand inside my crotch, massaging my hardness. I didn’t love her any less, but I realized in that moment that Sequoia was
limited
by her optimistic nature. Except for having money, which she didn’t particularly seem to enjoy, her entire life had been one fucked-up thing after another, yet she had to believe that everything was wonderful.

As we settled in and made love, I told her I would call my mom to get Scotty as soon as Betsy dropped her case and I was awarded full custody. Sequoia said we should invite Mom to move across country with us to help Scotty make the adjustment. I didn’t want to live with my mother, and I put up some resistance, but by the time we both came and moaned with ecstasy, I agreed that she was right. Besides, I was sure Mom would never want to move that far away.

We usually were too busy to watch much TV, but at the end of a long day, sometimes we relaxed in bed by turning on the boob tube and numbing out to something mindless—the sillier the better. So as we nuzzled close under the sheets, I turned on the remote.

“Please don’t spend the next hour channel surfing,” Sequoia said. “You know it drives me up the wall.”

It was true. I had a short attention span for most programs and was happy to catch two minutes of this and five minutes of that. Sequoia, though, had this thing about watching a show from beginning to end. Once she went so far as to say that my channel surfing spoke to my nature—my inability to commit on a deep level. I did not have the heart to respond that by the same dime-store analysis, her insistence on watching a program from beginning to end spoke volumes about her abandonment issues. In truth, it irritated me when she said things like this about me, but I loved her and kept my negativity to myself.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I joked.

She gave my arm a playful punch. We were watching some reality show about cowboys trying to go vegan when there was a sudden news bulletin.

The chief of police had called a press conference to say there was a person of interest in the disappearance of Biff, the only child of his prominent—meaning filthy rich—parents. For a second or two, my stomach flooded with burning liquid fear. But my fear turned to relief when the chief went on to say that this person, though unnamed, was a known local racketeer whom Biff owed money for his gambling debts.

“Let it go,” Sequoia whispered, reading my thoughts. “This guy’s probably been bumping people off for years. He’s only getting what’s coming to him.”

I looked at her meaningfully. “I want you to know that if I killed Biff myself, I’d turn myself in. But Scotty . . . ”

Sequoia considered my declaration. “Hmm, I disagree. It would destroy Scotty to have you in prison.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

I, of course, did not know where things stood with Biff’s parents on all this, but between the intimations of his being a child molester—which might now surface—and the fact that they already knew what a fuck-up he was, I imagined it caused them embarrassment more than relief. Not surprisingly, the reporters lined up around Biff’s mansion had received comments of little value from his parents as they entered their home.

His mother said, “Please, go report some nice news. There’s an orchid show at the Expo Center.”

And his father said, “We raised our boy to believe in America and do the right thing.”

As much as I hated to admit it, I understood for the first time what Biff had been up against all his life. Not that this excused molesting children. But when you’re dealing with rich people who think they own the world, maybe you find passive-aggressive ways of getting back at them. Or who knows, maybe it was a sick way of trying to re-parent himself. I still hated his guts for what he did to my son, but a tiny trickle of pity made its way into my consciousness. As for his stealing Betsy or always having Betsy’s love or whatever the fuck it was, I’d long since come to see that as a blessing in disguise.

But such philosophizing was short-lived. My cell phone rang, and I saw that it was Mom calling. She rarely called ever since finding out about Jesse Falcon. She took it for granted “they”—whoever “they” were—tapped our phones. I had a sinking feeling about what she was going to say and figured I might as well get it over with.

“Hi, Mom,” I said cheerfully.

“Hello, my darling son,” she replied with equal approbation. “Why don’t you come over for a visit? I’m sure Scotty would love to see you.”

I was certain that she’d seen the same news report on Biff and that she assumed I killed him.

“Great, Mom. I’ll be right over.” I was careful never to mention Sequoia to her over the phone.

As soon as Sequoia and I arrived at the condo, Mom pulled me aside and said she and I were going to a restaurant to talk. Scotty was already in bed, and Miss Vargas—as she always called Sequoia—could babysit. She said it would be good for her.

“If the kid wakes up,” Mom instructed, “ask him to tell you about the shit he’s learning in school.”

Mom liked chain restaurants that served a dozen kinds of burgers and an assortment of pies for dessert. We pulled up into the nearest place, waited to be seated, and pointed to a pink booth in an area where no one was sitting close by. Of course, it was possible we were still being watched or recorded, but you have to draw the line somewhere and go about your life.

The table server wore a nametag that read, “Leonardo.” He also wore a button that stated, “Ask me about our breakfast two-for-ones.” I told Leonardo I’d have a small dinner salad and water. After ordering something called a triple fiesta burger with onion rings, extra fries, hot sauce, a slice of peach pie with peach ice cream topped with peach syrup, and an extra-large cherry cola, Mom got right to the point.

“Biff?” she sneered. “
Biff
?”

“What about him? He’s been missing for a while. They have some gangster as a person of interest.”

“You said he was afraid of Betsy, and I believed you. What spineless fuck of a man wouldn’t be?”

The smiling table server refilled our ice water; we smiled and nodded our thanks as he departed. “Mom, I said
probably
that was what happened. Maybe it still was.”

She shook her head at me sadly, as if to say,
Where did
I go wrong
? “Look, where’s the body? Knowing you, you probably delivered it to the police station with your name and address and photo ID.”

I had to decide whether to keep denying everything or come clean. I chose to come clean.

“It was Scotty. Biff molested him.” I then proceeded to recount the awful events of the morning I had left Betsy.

As Mom took a generous bite of her four-inch-high burger, she thought while she chewed. After swallowing a swig of cherry cola, she said, “Okay, that was a pretty good one. Now tell me what really happened.”

The look on my face must’ve told her all she needed to know.

“Oh, God. You let that happen to my grandson?”

“I didn’t know, Mom. Not until Scotty told me that morning. I knew Biff was flaky, but I didn’t think—”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up.” She opened her purse, plunked down some cash, and stormed out of the restaurant, leaving her mountain of food unfinished. I hurried after her. She ignored me. After we were buckled into the car, she slapped me so hard across the face I literally saw stars.

“How can you be my son?” She pointed to her head with her finger. “Don’t you have
anything
going on up here? Out of all the people who could’ve been your lifelong best friend, you picked a child molester. A whore wife? Okay, men are idiots. But Biff. And to leave him alone with your own son? And don’t even think about saying you were always at the office. Men and their goddamn offices. They should all be locked up inside them, and let their wives throw away the key.”

As I rubbed the side of my face to massage away the sting, I realized that Mom was at least in part angry over something my dad did that I never knew about. But I didn’t think it politic to inquire further.

“When we were eight years old, Biff was just an eight-year-old kid.” I was yelling without realizing I was going to. “If you know people so well, why did you let me play with him? Don’t put this on me. Don’t you get it? Everything I’ve done—Jesse Falcon and everything else—has been to protect Scotty.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” She fiddled absently through her purse. “And you should never yell at your mother.”

“I’m not telling you about the body. It’ll only get you in more trouble.”

“Thank you so much for considering my well-being.” She took out a roll of hard candies and snapped her purse shut. “Thanks to you, I had no dinner tonight.”

I rolled down my window to let in the cool night wind as we drove. “Do you love me, Mom?”

“What the hell kind of question is that? I’m your
mother
.”

I wanted to say that sometimes I wished I’d been adopted, but didn’t. Instead, I told her about Jesse Falcon’s probably having moved back to town and that after the custody hearing, Sequoia, Scotty, and I would move across the country. I invited Mom to join us for Scotty’s sake. At first she said she’d lived in the same town all her life and was too old to move, but upon brooding for a few minutes, she agreed to join us.

Following a few uneventful days, Ondine called me to say she had the signed papers from Betsy granting me full custody. Our family court judge had a cancellation, so the following afternoon, we were able to make it final. Betsy did not show up in court, but the judge mused that perhaps it was an omen. After a short and highly anticlimactic hearing, Scotty was all mine.

“Thanks so much for everything, Ondine.” I offered my hand.

She took a step back, as if studying me. “Next time you need a lawyer, get someone else.” And with that, she walked away. I wondered if she knew or at least suspected all kinds of things but knew there was nothing she would tell anyone.

On the Internet, Sequoia arranged to rent an unobtrusive four-bedroom house in the suburbs, three thousand miles away. From the online pictures, it seemed to be in good shape, and we looked up the school district, which was supposedly one of the best in the state.

Mom pointed out that they always say that. “
You
supposedly went to good schools,” she said, glaring at me. “And look what happened.”

Sequoia thought it was a cute joke and laughed.

After considering plane, bus, and train, it was decided that the four of us would drive across country with Sequoia at the wheel at all times. She was the safest driver and least likely to get us stopped by the cops. She was also the least likely person that the cops would be looking for. Sequoia decided to leave her apartment unoccupied, but Mom found a friend of some elderly woman to rent her condo. We all packed light. Porky the Hamster had died, though I wondered if Mom poisoned him. We were able to fit ourselves and our belongings into Sequoia’s four-door sedan for the big day of the move.

“I want to say good-bye to Mom,” Scotty said, as soon as we hit the interstate.

My mom gave a mean laugh, as though she relished every new complication I had to deal with. “Tell him Betsy has the clap,” she said to me.

“What’s the clap?” Scotty asked. “Is it like when you clap your hands too much?”

Mom laughed some more. “Sort of.”

As she drove the exact speed limit, Sequoia said to me, “What do you think? Would it really do any harm? Maybe she’s not even home or doesn’t—”

“Mom is
always
home,” Scotty said. “And she’ll
want
to see me.”

There reaches a point where one more possible misstep doesn’t seem to make any difference. “Fine,” I decided. “Let’s turn around and see Betsy. Or let Scotty see her. Just for a few minutes.”

Betsy uncharacteristically was sitting on the front steps of what was now her house, seeming to contemplate the meaning of life as she drank her Diet Pepsi. I got out of the car first. It was one of those days in which it went from sunny to cloudy and back in a matter of minutes. I never liked that kind of weather.

“Have you come to gloat?” Betsy asked me, presumably forgetting about the two million dollars and paid-off mortgage she now possessed.

“Scotty wants to say good-bye for now. We’re moving away.”

“Where to?” she asked distractedly. Her usual high energy had been drained out of her, like a fire hydrant that ran out of water.