“Just because two things happen in sequence, doesn’t mean there’s a causal relationship.”
“I didn’t go to an Ivy League school, so you’re gonna have to explain that one.”
“I’m saying the fact that Eleanor and Doug have separated—if that’s what happened—has nothing to do with the fact that I came to visit.”
Bill pulls himself up to his full height.
“Let me tell you what I see,” he says. “I see a failed painter, a drunk, who’s floating along ten years past his prime and then life hands him an opportunity.”
“A plane crashed. People are dead.”
“He finds himself in the spotlight, a hero, and suddenly everyone wants a piece of him—he starts banging a twenty-something-year-old heiress. His paintings are hot shit all of a sudden—”
“Nobody’s banging—”
“And then, I don’t know, maybe he gets greedy and thinks, Hey, I’ve got a good thing going with this kid, who’s suddenly worth a fortune, and who has a beautiful, a very attractive, aunt and a kind of loser uncle—so I can come in like the hot shit I am, and take over. Get a piece of that.”
Scott nods, amazed.
“Wow,” he says. “What an ugly world you live in.”
“It’s called the real world.”
“Okay. Well, there’s maybe a dozen mistakes in what you just said. Do you want me to go through them in order, or—”
“So you deny you’ve been sleeping with Layla Mueller.”
“Am I having sex with her? No. She let me stay in an unused apartment.”
“And then she took off her clothes and got in bed with you.”
Scott stares at Bill. How does he know that? Is it a guess?
“I haven’t had sex with anyone in five years,” he says.
“That’s not what I asked. I asked if she got naked and jumped in the sack with you.”
Scott sighs. He has nobody to blame but himself for being in this position.
“I just don’t understand why it matters.”
“Answer the question.”
“No,” he says, “tell me why it matters that an adult woman is interested in me. Tell me why it’s worth outing her in public for something she did when she was under her own roof that she would probably want to keep quiet.”
“So you admit it?”
“No. I’m saying, what possible difference does it make? Does it tell us why the plane crashed? Does it help us process our grief? Or is it something you want to know because you want to know it?”
“I’m just trying to figure out how big a liar you are.”
“About average, I’d say,” says Scott. “But not about things that matter. That’s part of my sobriety, a vow I took, to try and live as honestly as possible.”
“So answer the question.”
“No, because it’s none of your business. I’m not trying to be an asshole here. I’m literally asking what possible difference it makes. And if you can convince me that my personal life after the crash has any relevance to the events leading up to the crash and isn’t just this kind of parasitical vulture exploitation, then I’ll tell you everything I am, happily.”
Bill studies Scott for a long moment, a bemused look on his face.
And then he plays the tape.
*
Bitch.
That fucking bitch.
Gus realizes he’s holding his breath. The copilot, Charles Busch, is alone in the cockpit, and he is muttering these words under his breath.
And then, louder, he says:
No.
And switches off the autopilot.
Chapter 43
Charles Busch
December 31, 1984–August 23, 2015