Rent A Husband (24 page)

Even for a man as drunk as Forrest this isn’t difficult to do.

Mr. Darcy is the straggler, way behind the rest of the field.

This is the strategy
, Forrest tells himself.

This is exactly what he did the other day.

But he can’t help sneaking a glance at his mother’s ring, lying on the table between him and Raymond, the stones reflecting the light from the big screen.

The commentator is talking up the favorite: “Skylark is moving like a winner. He’s looking the horse to beat.”

At around the halfway mark Mr. Darcy starts to make his move, catching the pack and then surging up toward the front.

The commentator says, “Well, take a look at this, Mr. Darcy looks like he jumped in at the quarter pole. Can he repeat that unbelievable and controversial win of the other day?”

Forrest sits forward, gripping his glass hard enough to crack it.

“It’s Mr. Darcy and Skylark, and Mr. Darcy is edging ahead. This is unbelievable!”

Forrest hears himself shouting Mr. Darcy on, the finish in sight.

Then the favorite, Skylark, regains his lead and surges ahead.

The commentator is almost hysterical: “Skylark looks as if he’s sprouted wings! He’s going to do it! What a finish! Skylark wins from a gallant Mr. Darcy!”

Forrest sags back.

Raymond looks at him and shakes his head.

“There aren’t going to be any appeals today.”

“No.”

Forrest picks up the ring, the enormity of what has just happened starting to seep through the fog of alcohol.

Raymond holds out his hand and Forrest drops the ring onto his palm.

He slides from the booth and walks away without saying a word.

76

Darcy battles through the traffic before she finds a parking bay on Fountain near Jaipur Palace.

When she walks to the restaurant she sees that the doors are padlocked, even though it’s lunch hour.

She’s peering through a window when a voice has her turning.

“Darcy?”

Lakshmi appears on the sidewalk, in one of her glittering saris.

“How did your race go? Did you win?”

Darcy stares at her blankly. “My race?”

“Yes, I got this somewhat garbled voice mail message from Forrest, saying something about you running in a race this morning . . .”

Darcy shakes her head.

“No. Last time I sprinted was to get to the front of the line at the Saks Fifth Avenue Christmas sale.”

Now it’s the Indian woman’s turn to look blank.

Then she waves a hand, bangles jangling.

“Wait, I think I have it. Come with me.”

She leads Darcy into a convenience store beside the restaurant.

Sitars twang from a huge pair of speakers, and the mustachioed man behind the cash register is straight out of Bollywood.

“My friend, Mr. Patel, is a keen follower of racing and I think he can clear up this mystery.”

After an animated exchange with Mr. Patel in Hindi, Lakshmi turns to Darcy.

“A horse named Mr. Darcy ran in a race a short while ago. Sadly for Forrest, he lost. I’m sorry about the confusion.”

Darcy says, “Oh, I’d say it’s pretty understandable.” She sees Lakshmi’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“I supposed you noticed the padlock on the restaurant?”

“I did. What’s going on?”

 “A small matter of the rent. My landlord has locked me out. I’ve been using Mr. Patel’s telephone, trying to persuade the man to relent, but he seems set on this course.”

“I’m so sorry, Lakshmi.”

“It’s an annoyance,” The Indian woman says, waving her arm again. “But what I fear is that Forrest bet on this horse to get money to help me out. He muttered something about that in his message.”

“Where is Forrest?”

“I have no idea. I tried to return his call a few minutes ago, but he didn’t answer his phone.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Of course. His apartment is a mere few blocks from here.”

Darcy is already walking toward her car.

“Come, Lakshmi, take me there.”

77

Forrest finds himself standing outside his apartment block with no memory of how he got there.

Was there cab involved?

He has no idea.

What he does remember is the insane bet.

And what he has lost.

In some pathetic reflex his fingers find the chain around his neck, feeling for his mother’s ring.

It’s gone you drunken fool.

It’s gone.

Forrest surveys the flight of stairs leading up to his apartment as if they are the slopes of a Himalayan peak.

There is no way he’s getting up there.

He sinks down beside the pool, squinting his eyes at the vicious glare that bounces off the oily blue surface.

Reaching down with a cupped hand, he splashes his face with water.

When this proves ineffective, he kneels and dunks his head under the surface.

The tiles are wet and he is many sheets to the wind and, of course, he plunges into the pool.

Spluttering and gasping he hauls himself out, and stands, dripping and panting on the tiles, as useless and miserable a wretch as ever drew breath.

He’ll have to make those stairs now.

Shoes squelching with water he starts to climb, hauling himself up using the handrail.

When he gets to the landing he is confronted by a woman with a canary yellow beehive, wearing a pink negligee and fluffy high-heeled mules.

Convinced that this is some kind of alcoholic hallucination, Forrest tries to step through her, and connects with very real, very sweaty flesh.

“Take it easy, buster! You’ll bruise the fruit,” the woman says.

“My apologies, madam.”

Forrest edges around her, digging his keys from his soaked pants.

“Whatcha doin’ swimming’ in your clothes?” she asks.

“It was a mishap.”

“Yeah?”

He has his door open, and the woman follows him in.

“You look like a guy who’ll offer a lady a drink. My last pitcher of margaritas came up empty.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I’m not in a fit state for company.”

The woman spies a bottle of Maker’s Mark on the counter in the kitchenette.

“There we go. Party time!”

She loosens the cap and pours a stiff jolt into a tooth glass.

Forrest pulls off his shirt and is attempting to remove his shoes when he loses his balance and falls to the carpet. He tries to get up, using the wall for support.

“Whoa, cowboy! Let me help you there.”

The woman pushes him back onto the bed and rips his shoes off.

She hands him the glass of alcohol.

“Here, baby, suck on this.”

Forrest, vaguely aware that the woman is unbuckling his pants, takes a mouthful of the booze.

And there it is.

The drink that has been waiting to ambush him.

And as the woman drags down his pants the hammer falls and everything goes very, very dark.

78

What had Forrest said about his apartment having the personality of a paper cup?

Darcy, surveying the abject building from the SUV, thinks,
make that a paper cup that has been left out in the trash for a couple of days.

Darcy and Lakshmi are parked outside a two story block built around a dirty swimming pool.

The paint is peeling and a couple of windows are broken.

A row of bedraggled palm trees flank the walkway.

The graveyard of the Californian Dream.

“He really lives here?” Darcy asks.

“Ghastly isn’t it?” Lakshmi says, exiting the SUV as regally as a princess stepping down from a
howdah
.

Darcy leaves the car and the two women climb the stairs to the landing.

Lakshmi points at a door painted in peeling aquamarine gloss.

“That’s his.”

When Darcy reaches the door she sees that it’s open a crack.

“Forrest?”

There’s no reply, so she shoves the door open on a sight that leaves her speechless.

Forrest lies on his back on the bed in the one-roomed hovel.

He wears only a pair of boxer shorts.

His pants are at his ankles, and a fleshy woman in a negligee is fighting to tear them off him.

She stops, panting, and looks at Darcy.

“Who the hell are you? The wife?”

Darcy just shakes her head.

The woman drops Forrest’s feet and puts her hand on her love handles, raising an eyebrow at Lakshmi.

“And you? The help?”

Lakshmi stretches herself to her full height and looks down her fine Indian nose.

“And who may you be, madam?”

“I’m the neighbor. Having a party with buddy boy here.”

“I’m afraid I must ask you to leave. This party is over.”

The woman looks like she’s about to argue, then she grabs the bottle of booze and walks out, slamming the door after her.

“Oh dear,” Lakshmi says. “It appears we have wandered into something sordid.”

She approaches Forrest and shakes him.

“Forrest, talk to us.”

His head lolls and Lakshmi wrinkles her nose.

“He smells like a Bombay brewery.”

Darcy lifts the chain from his chest.

There is no ring.

“I have a horrible feeling,” she says, “that Forrest has gone and done something really crazy.”

Lakshmi stares at her. “What?”

“I think he bet his mother’s ring on that horse, Mr. Darcy”

The Indian woman puts a hand to her mouth.

“Good God, no!”

Darcy nods. “Looks that way.”

“It’s all my fault! He did it for me!”

Darcy puts an arm on Lakshmi’s shoulder.

“No, he did it because he was very drunk. And I’m the reason he was very drunk.”

“You?”

“Yes, he traveled up to Santa Sofia yesterday to see me.”

“On my urging!” Lakshmi looks at Darcy. “Oh gosh, you sent him packing, didn’t you?”

“No. Worse.”

“What could be worse?”

“He saw me kissing my ex-husband on the beach.”

“Oh, dear me.”

“I didn’t even know Forrest was there until he’d left. That’s why I’ve come to see him, to explain that it was all a terrible mistake.”

Darcy sinks down on the bed.

“What have I done?”

Lakshmi sits beside her.

“Darcy, it’s hardly your fault that Forrest behaved like a bloody idiot.”

“We have to get that ring back.”

“But how?”

Darcy lifts Forrest’s wet pants from the floor and fishes in the pockets, lifting out his phone. It’s drenched, but still works.

She opens his recent call list.

Above her number she sees the name Raymond.

Darcy hits dial and after a few seconds a man says, “Forrest if you’re calling to beg me for that ring it’s too late, my friend.”

“This isn’t Forrest,” Darcy says.

There’s a pause.

“Who are you?”

“I’m a friend of Forrest’s.”

“Okay . . .”

“I want his ring back.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Listen, mister, I think you’re a bookmaker, which when I last checked was illegal in the state of California.”

“Again: I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You admitted to me that you have Forrest’s ring. I’m going to go to the police. They’ll track you down via your cell phone number.”

The man sighs.

“Lady, you sound nice . . .”

“I’m not.”

“And Forrest is lucky to have a friend like you, but you can’t threaten me. You’ll land up in world of sorrow.”

“You’re the one who beat Forrest up, aren’t you?”

Another pause.

“Yet again, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

“Meet me, please. Let’s work something out.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Please,” Darcy says.

Another sigh.

“Okay, okay. Come to Freddy’s Sports Bar on Highland. I’m leaving here in twenty minutes.”

Darcy is left holding the dead phone.

Lakshmi stares at her.

“Darcy, this sounds unsavory.”

“It is.”

“And dangerous.”

“Oh, hardly . . .”

“You’re going to see some kind of bookmaker?”

“Yes.”

“I forbid it. Let’s get the authorities.”

“Lakshmi, let me do this. Stay here with Forrest and try and get him to wake up. I’m meeting this guy in a public place, nothing can happen.”

Darcy says this with a certainty she doesn’t feel.

She grabs her purse and hurries out of the apartment before her courage fails her.

79

It’s a day of firsts for Darcy.

She’d never in her life been in a place as squalid as Forrest’s apartment.

And she’s never been in a sports bar: blaring commentary, girls in skimpy shorts serving drinks and snacks to an almost exclusively male clientele, the funk of testosterone enough to choke her.

“You must be Forrest’s friend?”

The man who appears at her side is as far from her image of a bookmaker as anyone could be: he’s young, slender and good looking, dressed in preppy clothes, his teeth white and regular when he smiles.

“Yes,” she says. “Are you Raymond?”

“I am. You leave me at a disadvantage.”

“Huh?”

“What’s your name?”

“Darcy.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m not.”

“You’ve got the same name as the horse?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’m sensing a backstory here.”

“Yes, there’s a story.” 

He gestures toward a booth.

“Then, please, have a seat and tell it to me.”

Darcy sits.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

Darcy realizes she’s parched.

“A water.”

“Good. I’m a water man myself.”

He beckons over one of the girls and orders two Perriers.