Fuck you, he hissed at it. Fuck you. Now he was satisfied. He had to admit when he was throwing away the frame and the canvas, he really did feel a little better. No. He felt a lot better. He almost wished there had been a vulture present to capture his madness on video for the world.
He glanced at his watch and thought about what he would be doing if he were not killing time on this appalling leave of absence by destroying a painting. He counted back the hours to the bachelor party, numbering the intervals of twenty-four in his mind. How many hours ago had the guests started to arrive? How many hours ago had the two Russians been killed? He thought once again of that poor girl on the bed with her feet not touching the floor. She was still on the run somewhere. At least that’s what the newspapers said. She was either on the run or she was dead. No, not dead, he thought. Please, not dead. Her death, he feared, might really push him over the edge. Would make his little catharsis with the painting just now seem like a round of golf.
He realized that he had to get out of the house. He saw that the car trunk was still open and slammed it shut. He combed his hair in the driveway, and climbed into the Audi. Then he drove down the hill to the school. There he waited in the parking lot, soaking up the cool autumn air and the bright midday sun, waiting for those two consecutive periods when he knew that Kristin was on break. The hours when she usually did errands or grabbed a bite to eat. He thought he would surprise her and take her to lunch.
…
Philip Chapman stood beside Spencer Doherty with his back against one of the black marble obelisks behind which statuesque young women—dressed always in black sheath dresses, spike heels, and a shade of lipstick so red the company christened it Provocateur—would check guests in and out of the Cravat, and lost what it was that his friend was telling him. He had been surveying a part of his little empire, but now he was watching a young woman in a white skirt and matching blazer nuzzle a man a generation older as they crossed the lobby and disappeared inside an elevator. The guy was handsome, and the suit was a perfectly tailored charcoal gray pinstripe from Brooks Brothers. It was so clear that the pair was about to have a lunch-hour quickie in their hotel room. He imagined they worked together at some investment bank like his brother’s, but one based in Chicago or L.A., and they were in town for a series of meetings with clients. He fantasized about the woman’s lingerie beneath that skirt and blazer. He told himself that it was okay to think like this, now that Nicole had dumped him. Broken off the engagement. But he also suspected that he would have been envisioning the woman’s panties and bra—a demi thing, he decided—even if he was still getting married a week from Saturday.
“Anyway,” Spencer was saying, “that’s what my lawyer thinks will be the deal.”
“Sounds okay to me,” he murmured, as the elevator doors soundlessly slid shut. “And you feel good about that?”
“You didn’t hear a single word I said, did you?”
“I heard a few.”
Spencer looked at his watch. “God. You’re incredible.”
“Okay, I’m listening. I promise.”
“They were threatening me with sexual assault on a minor. They were threatening me with managing a sex tourism business. Even that’s a Class D felony. Do you have any idea how many years in prison I was looking at if I were convicted of sexual assault on a minor? Do you realize how completely fucking ruined my whole life would have been?”
“You wouldn’t have been convicted. You just used a stripper service that had benefits.”
“But I knew they had benefits. And I did have sex with that blonde.”
“You weren’t alone.”
“Anyway, if you care, I told them everything—and I mean everything—and I’ve agreed to testify. So instead I’m not even looking at a Class A misdemeanor: promoting prostitution. My lawyer, at first, thought that was the goal. Get this shitstorm down to a misdemeanor. But by testifying, I’m getting off scot-free.”
“And that nasty business with Chuck and Brandon?”
“Really, Philip, I might have been talking to the fucking wall.”
“I’m sorry.”
Spencer sighed, exasperated. “Brandon’s wife is still claiming to be out for the count, which my lawyer says is all part of the negotiations. But the settlement—assuming we reach one—won’t be pretty. And Chuck’s lawyer has gone off radar. Not responding to e-mails or phone calls.”
“Which may mean Chuck has come to his senses, right?”
“Hah! That, too, is part of the negotiations. Any way you look at it, no matter how or when or if we settle, I am financially fucked. My legal fees alone are going to be a world of pain.”
“That whole night now is nothing but pain. None of us have gotten off easy.”
“But some of us are in far deeper shit than others. So, tell me…”
Philip looked at Spencer and raised his eyebrows expectedly. It was unlike Spencer to stop in mid-sentence. “Go on.”
“So, tell me…you hear from your brother?”
“Often. Why?” Philip noted how his friend wouldn’t meet his eyes, and thought this was odd: it was as if Spencer was actually experiencing a little guilt over the tsunami he had unleashed.