Big Trouble (9 page)

Detective Baker decided not to arrest Matt, thanks in part to the pleading of Anna Herk, who felt really bad about having pounded Matt's face into the floor. Detective Baker did, however, point out that creeping around people's back-yards at night in Miami with what looked like a real gun was, no offense, dumber than dog shit. Matt assured the detective that he had learned this lesson.

As soon as the police left, Arthur turned to Eliot and said: “Now you and your punk kid can get the fuck out of here and never come back.”

“It's been a pleasure meeting
you,
too,” said Eliot.

“I'll walk you out,” Anna told Eliot. They headed for the foyer, with Matt, Jenny, and Roger trailing behind.

Outside, Matt said, “I'll go get the car.” To Jenny, he said, “Did you ever want to experience the thrill of riding in a genuine Kia?”

“It's only a lifelong dream,” said Jenny, and they set off toward the gate, followed by Roger, in case they were going to get food.

“Sarcasm,” said Eliot. “I don't know where they get it.”

“
Certainly
not from their parents,” said Anna.

“Listen,” said Eliot. “I am
really
sorry about . . .”

“No,” said Anna. “
I'm
sorry, for hurting Matt, and I'm sorry my husband is such an idiot.”

“Well,” said Eliot, “he's probably really upset about the bullet.”

“No,” said Anna. “He's an idiot.”

Eliot just looked at her for a moment, because the truth was, he agreed with her that Arthur was an idiot. Also, she had
amazing
eyes.

“Well, listen,” he finally said, “if there's ever anything that I can . . . I mean, not about your husband of course, I mean, the bullet, if I can . . .”

“I married him when Jenny was little,” Anna said, “and my first husband left me with no money, and I had to move to a horrible apartment and I had no job. Arthur didn't drink so much then, and he seemed . . . stable, I guess, and I just . . . I was
desperate.
”

“Geez,” said Eliot.

“I don't know why I'm telling you this,” she said.

“It's OK,” said Eliot. He was glad she was telling him this.

“I keep looking up divorce lawyers in the phone book,” she said. “Sometimes I even call, but when they answer, I hang up, because . . . I mean, I
want
to do it, and I know I
have
to do it, but I also know Arthur, and he's going to be just as big a prick as he possibly can. He's going to want to hurt me and Jenny. And I keep seeing us back in that horrible apartment.”

“Geez,” said Eliot. He was wondering what she would think of his apartment.

“Does that mean I'm pathetic?” she said.

“No!” said Eliot.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'll stop dumping on you, I promise.”

“Hey,” he said. “Anytime.”

“Thanks,” she said. She touched his forearm.
Whoa.

They stood there for a moment, both of them a little bit uncomfortable, but neither of them wanting to break the spell, and then . . .

The sound of the thudding bass preceded the Kia, which pulled into the driveway going too fast, as it always did when Matt was at the wheel. It jerked to a stop. Jenny got out, and Matt followed, holding a CD.

“You want to borrow it?” he said.

“Sure, thanks,” Jenny said. “I love the Seminal Fluids.” In fact, she already had this particular CD; she was borrowing it so she could return it, and thus talk to Matt again. When she took the CD, their hands touched.
Whoa
.

“I'll drive,” said Eliot, and Matt did not argue, which indicated to Eliot that Matt was either falling in love or suffering from a concussion.

The four of them stood by the car for a second or two.

“Well,” said Eliot, to Anna, “bye.”

“Bye,” said Anna, to Eliot.

“Bye,” said Jenny, to Matt.

“Bye,” said Matt, to Jenny.

“Get down,” said Jenny, to Roger, who was checking to see if the CD was food.

As they drove away, Eliot, going into Parental Lecture Mode, said, “Listen, Matt, you . . .”

“I know,” said Matt.

“Well,” said Eliot, “you better not . . .”

“I
know
,” said Matt.

“Well, OK,” said Eliot, “but your mother . . .”

“
Dad
, I said I
know
,” said Matt.

“OK, then,” said Eliot.

They lapsed into silence, each drifting off into jumbled recollections of the evening. At the Herk home, Anna, Jenny, and Nina were doing the same, as was Puggy in his tree. In each case, the recollections were surprisingly pleasant, considering that the evening had begun with somebody apparently trying to kill somebody.

ARTHUR Herk was pretty sure he knew who both somebodys were, and his thoughts were not pleasant. He had been thinking about the situation, and he had decided what he was going to do. After pouring himself another drink, he dialed a number from the phone on the family-room bar.

“It's me,” he told the person at the other end. “Yeah.” He took a swallow of his drink and looked over at the bullet hole.

“Listen,” he said. “I need a missile.”

“S
he should be leaning over more,” said the Big Fat Stupid Client From Hell, “so you can see more gazombas.”

“Good point, more gazombas,” said Eliot, pretending to make a note of it. He was way too tired to argue this morning. It had been a long night: He'd driven Matt home at 2 A.M., and then he'd spent forty-five minutes getting berated by his ex-wife, Patty. Patty was not the berating kind, but she recognized a stupid parental decision when she saw one.

“You
knew
about this?” Patty had said. “You
knew
he was going to be creeping around a stranger's yard with a
gun
, in
Miami
, and you
let
him?”

“It was a
squirt gun
,” said Eliot, causing Patty to roll her eyes so hard he thought they would pop out and bounce across the kitchen floor. Patty had always been way better at being a grown-up than Eliot; this was one key reason why they were no longer married.

Eliot said little after that. He just stood there and took his berating, because he knew Patty was right: He was an incompetent moron parent who had let his son get into a dangerous situation. He was also (Patty had reminded him quietly, outside of Matt's hearing) five months behind on his alimony and child support.

“I'm sorry,” Eliot had said, as he left. “I'm working as hard as I can.”

“I know,” Patty had said. “That's what has me worried.”

Driving home, Eliot pondered his situation: He was a failure as a husband and as a parent; his business was a joke; he had no prospects; he was driving a Kia. Willing his brain, against every instinct, to think practically, he tried to devise a logical, workable plan for straightening his life out, and his brain came up with: suicide. He would write a farewell letter—it would be funny, yet deeply moving—then he would put on some clean underwear and launch himself off the tiny balcony of his tiny apartment, hurtle toward the parking lot, maybe aiming for the 1987 Trans Am belonging to the asshole in unit 238 who played his Death Star stereo loud all night, and, splat, just like that, his troubles would be over. His life insurance would pay for Matt's college education. At his funeral, people would recall specific feature stories that he had written and describe him as “troubled” but “brilliant.”

These thoughts comforted Eliot until he realized that he was way too scared of heights to jump from his balcony. He couldn't even look over the railing when he was out there cooking hot dogs on his Wal-Mart grill. Plus, he did not have any life insurance. So he decided to continue failing at everything.

He got back to his apartment after 3 A.M. and spent the next four hours drinking black coffee and putting together his Hammerhead Beer presentation, which he would be presenting that very morning. He had planned to come up with an idea so original, so imaginative, so creative, and so compelling that even the Big Fat Stupid Client From Hell would see its brilliance. But because it was very late and he was very tired, he decided to go with: big tits.

“I'm a whore, OK?” he said to himself several dozen times as he worked. “You got a problem with that?”

And thus it was that the next morning, when the Big Fat Stupid Client From Hell walked into Eliot's office, forty-five minutes late, without knocking or closing the door behind him, he saw, on an easel, in large type, the words

Under these words was an illustration that Eliot had created on his computer by manipulating various photographs that he had basically stolen off the Internet. The illustration consisted of an oily, muscular, smirking male model on a motorboat being offered a Hammerhead Beer by a female model wearing a string bikini about the size of a DNA strand, out of which were falling two flagrantly artificial, volleyball-shaped breasts.

The images in the illustration were not in scale with each other, because Eliot didn't really know how to work the computer program, and he couldn't read the manual because he couldn't find his reading glasses. Thus the male model looked, relative to the woman, comically small, like an oily, muscular, smirking weasel; any given one of the female model's breasts was larger than his head. The beer bottle appeared to be the size of a fire hydrant. It was a stunningly bad piece of graphic art, so of course the Client From Hell, except for wanting more gazomba exposure, thought it was great.

“You see?” he told Eliot. “You see the difference?”

“Well,” said Eliot, “I . . .”

“You got TITS! Instead of a FISH!” pointed out the Client From Hell. “You know? You hear what I'm telling you?”

“Well,” said Eliot, “it . . .”

“Ask a guy what he wants, tits or a fish, see what he tells you,” said the Client From Hell, his voice starting to rise.

“I suppose that . . .”

“HE TELLS YOU TITS!” said the Client From Hell.

The certified public accountant from next door appeared in Eliot's doorway, glared at Eliot for a full five seconds, then slammed Eliot's door.

“OK, then,” said Eliot, “if we're agreed on the concept, we need to talk about placement, but first . . .”

“Is she from around here?” said the Client From Hell, pointing his fat finger at the gazomba woman.

“No,” said Eliot, quickly. “She's . . . she lives in, ah . . . Uruguay.”

“Uruguay?” said the Client From Hell. “They got tits like that in Uruguay?”

“Oh yeah, they're known for it,” said Eliot. “People call it ‘Uruguay: Bosom Capital of the World.' Listen, I think we need to talk about your, I mean, my fee, because . . .”

“How far is Uruguay?” said the Client From Hell. “Is that in, whaddyacallit, Europe?”

“No,” said Eliot, “it's in Latin America. The thing is, I sent you several statements, but . . .”

“Latin
America?
” said the Client From Hell, looking at the gazomba woman with renewed interest. “You're telling me this is a
spic?
”

“Listen,” said Eliot. “We really need to talk about your . . .”

“How much?” asked the Client From Hell, still looking at the gazomba woman.

“Well,” said Eliot, “there
was
no retainer, I mean, there was a retainer, well, I mean, I sent a
statement
for a retainer, but you never, I mean, unless it's in the mail, but . . .”

“How much?” said the Client From Hell, turning to Eliot.

“Here,” said Eliot, handing him a statement.

The Client From Hell looked at it.

“Twelve hundred dollars?” he said.

“Well,” said Eliot, “bear in mind . . .”

“Twelve hundred fucking dollars?”
said the Client From Hell. He spent more than twelve hundred dollars every month getting his back hair waxed. But he truly enjoyed watching people need his money. It was almost sexual, with him.

“Well,” said Eliot, “It's a very reasonable, I mean, if you look at what most . . .”

Eliot stopped talking without even being interrupted, because, to his amazement, the Client From Hell was taking out his checkbook, then his pen. It was a fat pen. The Client From Hell, sensing Eliot's desperate hope, wrote the check exquisitely slowly; then he tore it out slowly and tapped it against his fat hand a few times, watching Eliot, before he handed it over.