Self-Esteem (18 page)

Lee smiled as if relieved. “You got a fucked up sense of humor, my friend.”

“Shut up, Lee. I got drunk, okay.”

The smile disappeared from Lee’s face. “So?”

“And I thought I dreamed the whole thing. Then I get another tape. I get this.”

“Thought you dreamed what?”

“What’s on this tape,” Crawford said urgently.

Lee held up his hands. “Okay. Okay. I have no idea what you’re saying. Just play the damn tape.”

Crawford hit play and Lee leaned forward. Three seconds later the image of Happy Pappy came on the screen.

Yesssssiiiiirrrrreeeee. Good morning, Dr. Crawford!
We’re moving right along with your self-esteem!

Lee chuckled then looked at Crawford. “You’re kidding, right?”

“When do I ever kid, Lee?”

Time for Stage two!

“You aren’t trying to tell me something, are you?”

“Shut up, Lee. Just watch.”

Without a sound, Lee watched the tape to the end, until the Happy Pappy mask appeared stained with blood.

“Jesus,” he muttered. “What?”

Crawford pressed stop on the VCR and removed the tape.

“Someone left this on your door?”

“This evening.”

Lee grabbed a cigarette from the end table and lit it. He stood up. “The woman, she’s that publicist you worked with a year or so ago, isn’t she?”

Crawford sat down in a chair. “Yes,” he said mechanically.

“And you’ve been bangin’ her, right?”

“Don’t use words like that.” Crawford coughed. “I just ended it.”

“When?”

“Just yesterday. I think.” Crawford nodded, “Or maybe…”

“Whatever. Let’s call it recent. How did you do it?”

“I left a message on her machine.” Crawford couldn’t put the events in sequence. “But before that we had an argument, I think. I was drunk and…”

Lee began pacing over Crawford like a trial lawyer. “Did she know before you left the message you wanted to end it?”

“Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“Then she was angry?”

“Yes, of course, but what does that have to do with anything? I mean, we’ve got to go to the police, right?”

Lee took a drag of his cigarette and relaxed. Still in thought, he walked over to a red leather chair and sat down, putting his feet up on the small stool that accompanied it. He took a longer drag of his cigarette. “You know, Jim. This might be a fake.”

“A fake? You saw what happened. That was no fake!”

Lee put his index finger to his lips. “Be quiet, Jim,” he said softly like a governess. Lee let out a cool sigh to try to impede Crawford’s growing panic. Lee seemed to be even more relaxed in a crisis than in ordinary life.

“She might be doing this to get back at you,” he said looking away, nodding.

“Come on. I know her. She’s vindictive, but she wouldn’t stoop to something like this.”

“How do you know?”

“She’s not that creative.”

“You don’t seem so sure.”

“I’m sure. Look at this.” Jim pulled the photograph from his briefcase and handed it to Lee.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a photograph.”

“I can see that.” Lee looked at it and immediately recognized Jenny. “Oh that one,” he said with a smile. Lee sat up. “So? What about it?”

“So?” Crawford touched his brow. “This was with the tape. With a note to my wife.”

“What kind of note?”

Crawford handed him the note. “Look.”

Jim watched silently as Lee read the note, nodding his head as if it made the situation completely clear.

“Someone’s trying to blackmail you.” Lee put down his cigarette.

“Blackmail? They haven’t asked for anything.”

“Not yet. They will. The tape is a fake, Jim.” Lee handed Jim the photograph. “Unfortunately, this isn’t.”

“How do you know the tape’s a fake?”

“Why is this picture addressed to your wife?”

Crawford stood up as if sitting were painful. “How the fuck should I know? We’ve got to go to the police.”

“We?”

“Okay,” Crawford said turning to leave, “thanks for your help, buddy. I’m going to the cops.”

Lee stood up. “No, wait. Just sit down a minute.” Crawford was breathing heavily now. “Please.” Lee put his hand on Jim’s shoulder. “Please, Jim. Jeez, you got me up at 5am. Who else could you call?”

Crawford sat down in Lee’s only comfortable chair.

Lee leaned toward Crawford like a doctor addressing his patient. “I want you to go home, Jim. Just go home and wait. Wait and see.”

“Wait and see what?”

“Just go home and wait.”

Crawford was in awe of Lee’s nonchalance. He immediately thought Lee was only thinking of the financial dangers. “I can’t believe you.”

“Go home, Jim,” Lee said slowly.

“Well,” Crawford said standing, “good night, Lee.” He paused as if waiting for a response. “Okay?”

“You can’t go to the police, Jim.”

“Why not?”

“This could ruin you.”

Crawford looked at Lee with amazement. “Ruin me? I should have known better than to talk to you. You’re concerned about business? Is that it? Your precious Happy Pappy franchise? Is that it?”

Crawford turned to leave, but Lee put his hand on Crawford’s chest, stopping him like a customs official. “You’ll be the prime suspect.”

Crawford was silent. This had occurred to him, but only for a moment.

Lee began walking slowly toward Crawford, as if to embellish his point. “The first thing they’ll do is ask you if you know the woman. Then you’ll have to tell them all about the affair. You’ll have to go ahead and tell them about the message on the machine because they’ll find it anyway.”

Crawford hadn’t thought about the message.

“Then you’ll be the prime suspect. Then they’ll have no choice but to incarcerate you because they don’t have anyone else. Then the press will get the story and it’ll be a fucking circus. Then Jan Hershey will have a very different show this week. Then your wife will leave you and take everything you’ve got. And this is all before any evidence has been found. This is before they’ve found a damn body.”

“But what can I do, man?” Crawford said. “What can I do? Nothing?”

“You can do whatever you want, Jim. but what I suggest is that you wait and see. I’ll help you figure something out. But you can’t go to the police. No way.”

Crawford thought Lee might be right.

“Go home, Jim. I’ll call you later. You need some rest. You have the Hershey show tomorrow.”

Mentioning the show made Crawford feel nauseous. “God, that show. Lee, I don’t know if I can…”

“You can,” Lee said.

“Lee, please. Listen to me. Maybe it’s possible we could contact the show and tell them…”

“Don’t even say it.”

CHAPTER 10

I’ll just go home and decide what to do when I get there
.

Crawford gave the finger to the “LB” on the gate as he pulled out of the driveway. The dawn was just beginning to make the sky a pale gray, reminding Crawford that time was passing and he needed to make a decision right away.
When I get home.
When I get home.
It was almost six o’clock — the time when stores could legally sell booze again.

Crawford felt sweat on his brow despite the chilly air coming through the window crack. The message he had left Jenny played in his head between glances at the digital time on the dashboard.

This is Jim.

5:55

I was calling to make sure you know it’s over.

5:55

It has to be. I’m sorry.

5:55

It has to be over, Jen. I want to apologize.

5:56

Maybe it’s a fake, he thought. Maybe it’s all a fake — like me. Maybe that’s the point: maybe someone is trying to tell me I’m a fake.

But I know I’m a fake.

About halfway between Lee’s house and his own, Crawford pulled over to the side of the road next to the fashionably small bakery that served only the surrounding neighborhood. Crawford had to decide if he was going home or to Jenny’s to…

To do what? Investigate?

But what if she really was abducted?

Oh, she wasn’t, he thought.

The message on the machine! It has to be erased!

The street formed a Y that split on either side of the bakery — the northern route taking him home, the southern route to the freeway and to downtown.

Crawford saw a small gray-haired man merrily wobbling toward the front door of the bakery, unlocking it to begin his day. He looked so normal, so serene, but the sight of him made Crawford nervous. He pulled his car up just enough to be outside the man’s view.

Go home!

But I’ve got to see. I’ve got to see.

Lee’s neighborhood made Crawford nervous. It wasn’t just the kings and queens of industry perched high in the hills, but the people who served those kings and queens — the little shopkeepers who did things like bake bread. They were looking down on him too. They were hard-working. They had honest professions. Crawford looked at the little man opening his bakery and stopped himself from stomping on the gas to get out of there.

But he can’t see you.

What are you going to do? Decide!

But he’s not judging you.

What does it matter?

Crawford pulled forward and turned left. It was strange driving down to Jenny’s at that hour. He had always gone during the late afternoon when she could get off work early and Dorothy would be busy running errands. Crawford’s on-again, off-again relationship with Jenny was regulated by discretion. Jim’s customary response to Jenny’s inquiries about availability was “When I can get away.” He had “popped in” on her half a dozen times in two years. It was nice popping in. It had a magical way of leading to a pleasantly spontaneous sexual encounter: he opens the door, her eyes brighten in surprise and they embrace — like a husband coming home from a business trip two days early. But popping in this time…

She might be dead. She might really be dead.

Hold it. Slow down. She’s not dead. You don’t know that she’s dead. You didn’t see any real proof that she’s dead.

But if she isn’t dead then she’s in on this whole charade and she could be there ready to…

Wait, just get there and…

Crawford found himself in front of Jenny’s building, parked in the very spot where the photograph addressed to Dorothy was taken. Seeing the building from that angle produced a blaze of shame, a feeling that somehow he could be behind all of this.

“Hold it. Get a hold of yourself. Think.”
Think like a detective, not like a goddam psychologist.

“He was sitting right here.”

Or was it
she
?

The clock on his dash now flashed
6:00
.
The whoosh of brushes slapping the pavement made Crawford look up: there was a street cleaner coming toward him. He was going to have to move his car.

Crawford envisioned himself taking the picture of him and Jenny.

Taking a picture of yourself? Idiot.

He parked on a side street next to an abandoned car then walked around the corner to the front of Jenny’s building. The building now looked like a different place, more isolated, more forlorn. He took out the two-key set he had kept hidden in the glove compartment for the past three months. Crawford never wanted keys to her place, but Jenny had insisted he take them in case she needed him (as she put it) to wait for her inside. He gave in and took the keys, knowing the gesture was only symbolic — Jenny’s way of getting her hooks in deeper.

Crawford took out a pair of driving gloves that Dorothy had given him as a gift that he never used. Thanks, Dorothy, he thought. She was right. Someday they would come in handy.

He opened the main door and scanned the entrance nervously. Luckily there wasn’t a person in sight, which didn’t calm Crawford’s nerves at all.

Crawford walked up the three flights of stairs. He had never used the elevator for fear of being in a confined space with a nosey tenant, and he certainly wasn’t changing course this morning. Walking up the empty stairwell he observed a number of things he had never noticed before, trivial things. A sticker on the floor. A scratch on the railing. A stain on the wall. Even the smell was more prominent. But obviously it wasn’t the building that had changed. It was his senses, more acute for some reason. He needed a drink as soon as possible.

Crawford huffed and puffed up the stairs, and just as he was reaching the fourth floor, he heard soft footsteps. He peered down the corridor where a small, old woman in a tattered green bathrobe was putting a garbage bag in the chute at the opposite end of the hall. Crawford froze. She slowly walked back to her apartment without looking up. But he was sure the old woman had seen him. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter. She had seen him before.

Crawford approached Jenny’s door and felt like he was making a mistake. Maybe he would incriminate himself.

A door cracked open — the old woman’s door — and through the small space Crawford barely saw the back of her gray head. It sounded like the woman was talking to someone, speaking quietly, in a Slavic language. Maybe Russian. Maybe Czech.

Crawford’s hands were shaking. He put one gloved hand on Jenny’s doorknob and turned it slowly.

God, it’s unlocked.
Crawford didn’t even wonder why. There was no time. Silently he pushed the door open and slipped in, looking behind him at the woman’s gray head, still turned away. He walked backward, slowly closing the door behind him. Then the floor creaked beneath him. The woman stopped speaking and turned to look. Crawford got the door closed just as he caught a glimpse of the woman’s profile.

She didn’t see anything
. But he would have to make this quick.

Crawford’s breathing became labored and his heart pounded, his senses more acute than in the stairwell. Jenny’s perfume, one he never particularly cared for (let alone the amount she used), filled the room like the stench of booze in a shabby dive.