Trust No One (22 page)

Do me a favor,
you asked them as they left.

And what favor would that be, sir?

When you find who set fire to her car, why don
’t you ask them if they know how to use a can of spray-paint instead of accusing me, huh?

You made a good point, partner.

You went back to the party. Sandra hugged you, and apologized for jumping to the conclusion that Hans was inside, and you forgave her, and wondered if she wasn’t right in her assumption he was involved. Eva came over and told you the ruined surprise wasn’t your fault, and even though it wasn’t, it still somehow feels like it was. Even now you don’t know what you could have done or said to stop the officers opening your door, but you suspect that Past Jerry, even one as recent as a month ago, would have known.

Other than that, the party went off well, and the guests, of which there were over thirty of them, all had a good time. Sandra got a lot of fiftieth birthday cards, even though she’s only forty-nine, joke messages written on the inside. You stayed sober right until after the last guest left and you started writing in the journal, and even now you feel as sharp as a tack. The police ruining the surprise actually made the evening better somehow, as if everybody there had been in on a great story that they could tell—it made the party unique. For her birthday, you got hold of the original lyrics for “The Broken Man” that Eva wrote on a napkin and had it framed, complete with the doodles Eva had drawn in the corners and the lines that had been crossed out and replaced. She actually cried when you gave it to her. Plus some shoes that Eva helped you pick out. You can’t go wrong with shoes, Future Jerry, no matter what the occasion.

Good news—hopefully Mrs. Smith and her pastel wardrobe will move out of the neighborhood.

Good news—everything went well. You’ve known all along that the birthday party was a rehearsal for the wedding, a test to see what you can and can’t do, and you passed. It looks like there’s some plain sailing ahead.

Jerry is helped out to the car. The world doesn’t disappear, but the lights are turned down. He has one arm around Nurse Hamilton and one arm around Orderly Eric, and they’re walking down a pathway that seems familiar, as does the house over the road where the old lady is walking from, and the silt that was stirred up before is settling. It’s hiding the past. He can feel Jerry disappearing.

“You’re a no-good murderer,” the woman says, and he thinks that’s not true, that he’s actually a good murderer since he’s been getting away with it. He misses his wife and he misses his life and he just wants to hit the big reset button and have it all back.

The woman talking isn’t done. “I hope you rot in Hell,” she adds, and it makes him think, why would he ever have wanted to live here?

They get him to the car. They buckle him into the backseat. “Did we get it? The Madness Journal?”

“No,” the nurse says, and the silt has settled over her name, hiding it from view.

“It’s going to be okay,” the orderly says, and why do people keep insisting on that? What is it they know that he doesn’t?

A police car shows up. It parks next to them and the old woman approaches it and starts pointing at Jerry while she talks animatedly. The nurse gets involved and there’s a long conversation, a lot of head shaking and nodding and the two officers keep looking over at him, but they don’t come over. He closes his eyes. The car starts moving. It’s relaxing, and he dozes a little, opening his eyes every now and then to look at the road. When they reach the home he’s helped out of the car and into a wheelchair. He’s wheeled down a corridor and into a small room with a bed in the middle and a bookcase against the wall and a view onto a garden. Two people help him up onto the bed.

“Do you know where you are, Jerry?” a man asks.

“Where’s my shirt?” Jerry asks.

“The police have it,” a woman says.

“Are they going to arrest me?”

“Get some rest,” the woman says, this bear-sized woman who bear hugged him earlier and abducted him from his home.

Then he’s all alone. When he tries to sit up he finds he can’t, that he’s too tired. There is a way out of this nursing home—he’s done it before and he can do it again. He’ll find the journal and he’ll solve the puzzle and then they’ll let him go because he can show them he’s not a killer at all, that something else is going on here, and once he shows them they’ll have to let him live back in his house and he’ll be allowed to have the life back they’ve taken from him. Captain A isn’t going to get away with this.

But for now, sleep.

Then dinner.

Then he’s getting the hell out of here.

You know what—it might not be sixty. It might be fifty-eight. Or sixty-two. Who knows, and who really cares?

Actually, Madness Journal, let’s start over, shall we?

That’s better. You’ve been wanting to make more regular updates, but here’s what happened—you lost the Madness Journal. In a way it’s a good thing too, because you know Sandra has been looking for it. You’ve caught her. Henry can explain it better. Of course Henry has never been that great at writing from the female point of view (
You just don’t get women, Henry—because you’re a chauvinistic asshole,
according to one cat-loving, man-hating blogger), but he’s willing, if you are, Future Jerry, to let him give it a shot. Henry?

It was dark outside. Rain hammered the shit out of the roof, it hammered the shit out of the windows. Sandra sat at the window thinking about how, once her husband was gone, she wouldn’t have to sneak out to spread her legs for people in the back of cars and in restaurant toilets, because that was all very what her mother would call
unladylike.
Soon she could have people stay over, maybe get a bit of a gang bang going on like the one she had the day the alarms got installed. She was looking forward to spending all of Jerry’s money—oh, the things she would buy! And poor Jerry, sitting in a nursing home with a feeding tube jammed up his ass because that’s the way she asked them to do it—sure, it cost extra, but it was money well spent because it
amused
her, the same way Jerry
amused
her when he got confused or lost. The wedding was approaching, and she was hoping his mind would have reached full collapse by then, not only because she was scared about him forgetting who his daughter was when he gave her away and embarrassing Eva, but because there was going to be a lot of cock at that reception and she was definitely up for her share.

She was curious as to what Jerry was up to. Planning on sneaking back over the road to Mrs. Smith’s house? She wondered what he would do next, and concluded he was going to rape the old lady. It would be such a classic Jerry thing to do. She wouldn’t care if Jerry did sneak over there to cut the old lady’s tits off; however, she did worry about how that would reflect on her. She would always be
the woman with the rapey husband
, and what country club was going to let her in with that label?

There was a flash of lightning and the night sky lit up, she saw her reflection in the window, her cheating whore face looking back, and she slipped out of her chair and was at the door to Jerry’s office when the thunder struck, so loud and so close she held her breath and waited for the pictures to fall off the walls, and when they didn’t, she opened the office door, stepped inside, and closed it behind her.

The first place she looked for Jerry’s Madness Journal was in his desk drawers. Nothing. She checked the couch where she thought Jerry was spending too much time—behind the cushions, under the couch, then she sighed, pushed the desk aside, used the screwdriver from Jerry’s drawer to lift the floorboard, and reached under. Her plan was to read it and rip out some of the pages so he would forget what he had been up to. It
amused
her to screw with him.

She still had her arm under the floor when Jerry walked in.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m worried about you, Jerry,” she said, pulling her arm out as though withdrawing it from the mouth of a shark, but what she really meant was
I wish you didn’t live here anymore. You may be the best-looking man I’ve ever seen, but you’re holding me back.

“Are you looking for my journal?”

“I want to make sure you’re okay.”

“It’s my journal!” he said, and he sounded like a whiny little bitch, and God how she was resenting him. “It’s like a diary, Sandra, you can’t read other people’s diaries.”

“You said I could.”

“When?”

“A few hours ago,” she said, but it was a lie. It was one of the benefits of late. She could say anything now and he couldn’t be sure if she was making it up. She thought about telling him how she had been bumping uglies with Greg from yoga class just to break his heart, then put her theory to the test to prove he wouldn’t remember. She wished Greg was here. That guy knew how to bend a body.

“If that was true, then why are you looking for it?” he asked. “Why didn’t I just hand it to you?”

“Because you couldn’t remember where you had put it.”

He nodded then, and she realized something—he really
couldn’t
remember where he had put it.

“I was trying to help you, Jerry.”

“How do I know you’re not lying to me?” he asked, and he started to cry again, and seriously, she was one sobbing fit away from stabbing him in the throat.

“It’s the dementia, honey,” she said, and by now she had stood back up. She reached out and Jerry fell into her embrace, and she started rubbing his back, and she knew he was feeling loved, but really all she was doing was wiping the cobwebs off her fingers from under the floorboards. “Would you like me to carry on helping you look for it?”

“No,” he said. “It’s okay. It’ll show up—it always does.”

“Shall we head back up to bed? Belinda is coming over early in the morning.”

“Who’s Belinda?”

She sighed. She had gone through this already. “Belinda is the florist.”

And . . . . . . . . . scene.

The irony is at that point you really had lost the journal. You’d forgotten all about the hiding place, and there was even an entire day in there (which you spent in bed) that you had forgotten you
have
a journal.

You did find the journal, obviously—it happened without you even thinking about it. It’s where you’ve been hiding the gin. Problem is you’ve been out of gin for the last week. Hans came over yesterday. You hadn’t invited him because Sandra said you couldn’t see him anymore, but he showed up unannounced and Sandra couldn’t bring herself to ask him to leave. You sat out on the deck. He was wearing a T-shirt that said
Drugs Not Hugs.
Summer is approaching and the days are getting longer, and you need to enjoy every sunset that you can now because you never know when it will be your last—at least the last one you’re conscious of. Hans, by the way, is coming to the wedding. Sandra was against it, but ultimately it was Eva’s decision—to her Hans is Uncle Hans. He isn’t Prison Hans. When Sandra was somewhere deep inside the house Hans pulled a couple of bottles of gin out of his bag.

Here you go, buddy. I’
ll always be there for you, you know that, right?

I think Sandra is having an affair.

What, Sandra? No way, buddy,
he said.

But—

But nothing, Jerry. Trust me, she loves you man, really loves you. I wish I had somebody in my life who was even a tenth of the woman Sandra is. When it comes to love, buddy, you’re the luckiest man in the world.

But—

He put his hand out in a
stop
gesture. He looked annoyed.
Seriously, Jerry, don’
t piss me off, okay? You don’t see it because you’re too close, but all of this—it’s hard on her too. I know Sandra doesn’t like me, but don’t go saying stupid shit like that, okay? It’s this bloody Alzheimer’s of yours, buddy, it’s scrambling your brain.

Did you set fire to the neighbor’
s car?

He laughed and shook his head. You know Hans really well, but even you couldn’t tell if that was a yes or a no.

Good news—you found the journal, and you’ve got another week’s worth of gin.

Bad news—the way Hans defended Sandra, the way she makes herself absent when he’s around—it’s pretty obvious what’s going on here. It’s hard to know who to feel more betrayed by, your best friend or your wife.