“It’s difficult to find someone to trust.”
Nick wrapped his fingers around the almost empty glass, turning it in a growing pool of condensation. Around us chatter and laughter hummed, the sort heard on Friday afternoons after the work week is done and the drinks start flowing.
“Are you and Vanessa having problems again?”
“Not exactly.”
Nick drained the beer and waved for a refill. He motioned at me with his hands to join him, but I shook my head. Nick didn’t hide his disappointment.
“What is it then?” I asked.
“You and I have been friends since first grade. And not just friends in the way classmates are, but proper friends. You are the only one of them I still see.”
The waiter came with the beer. Nick handed over his empty glass and took the full one. He took a long sip. I checked the time.
“Tell me what it is,” I said.
“I’m dying Sam. It started in my bowels and spread. It’s too late to do anything. I’ll be gone by Christmas.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say. It is what it is.”
Nick leaned back in his chair. He looked small. I noticed it when I saw him sitting alone at the table. His shoulders had lost their meat leaving only bone clad in skin and a thin shirt. The wrinkles that had started to appear on his face had deepened as if overnight. Or had it happened gradually and I hadn’t noticed?
“Vanessa doesn’t know,” Nick said.
“You haven’t told her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t like her. It’s funny to hear it said out loud.”
“I know you’ve had your problems.”
“It’s worse than that. We resent each other. I like to think it was her who resented me first and then I resented her back, but maybe I just tell myself that.”
“How did it get like that?”
“Little things piled up and turned into big things. She keeps secrets. She lies. And I keep things from her. Now it feels like we’re both waiting until one of us dies. I guess she wins. Or I do.”
An uncomfortable silence passed between us. One thing we always had, Nick and I, was something to talk about. It didn’t matter where we were or what we were doing. Nick took another sip and continued.
“She’s cheating on me.”
He said it in a matter of fact way, like he’d told me what he ate for lunch.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
My phone vibrated on the table. I had it face down. I slid it in front of me and tilted the phone so I could see the screen.
“I don’t have much time,” I said.
“I’ll get to the point. There’s something important I haven’t told Vanessa. I’ve made some investments over the years and while a couple went bad, a few have gone well. Very well. She knows I have a little side pot, but she doesn’t know how much it’s worth.”
“How much?”
“It’s seven figures.”
“Seven figures? You’re a millionaire.”
“And when I die she gets it. I don’t want her to have it. Sam I want the money to go to you.”
“What? Why me? And I don’t think the lawyers will let me have it.”
“They won’t if I die with it. I’m giving it to you now, before I…” He trailed off.
“Are you sure about this?”
“I met my lawyer today. I signed the papers. All you have to do is accept.”
Nick took out a pen from his pocket and took a napkin from below the cutlery in the small wooden tray at the side of the table and wrote a number. He folded the napkin and slid it over to me. I opened it and read the number.
“Jesus,” I said.
“That’s what you get.”
I held the napkin open in front of me. Suddenly aware of the crowd around us I scanned the room. At the table behind Nick a bald man in a grey suit looked right at me. I folded the napkin and stuffed it in my pocket.
My phone vibrated. I slid the phone off the table and put it in my pocket where it pressed the scrunched napkin against my thigh.
“Is this for real?”
“You have been my one true friend. The world is not an ugly place, but it is an indifferent one. And the good and the bad only come from those around us. And you’ve been nothing but good to me. It’s a small reward. Go to your dinner.”
I pulled the phone out of my pocket and scrolled through the messages.
“I really have to go,” I said.
Nick smiled thinly and scrunched the skin around his eyes. I got up and the idea of leaning down and hugging him flashed through my mind, but instead I tapped him on the shoulder and walked out onto the street.
* * *
The door was unlocked when I got home. She’d let herself in. It bothered me more than it should have. She had said the spare key was only for safety’s sake, in case she left something at my house she needed.
Vanessa lounged lazily on the couch cradling a glass of wine.
“What did my husband want with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? There must have been a reason.”
“It was just to catch up.”
I could tell my answer didn’t satisfy her. She shrugged. “I don’t feel like cooking, can we order in?”
“Sure.”
I dumped my bag on the table and pulled out my keys and wallet from my pockets. When I grabbed for my phone I felt the napkin against my thigh, right where I had left it. I cursed my absent mindedness. I should have stowed it somewhere before I walked in the door, but my head had been swimming. I went to the toilet and scrunched the napkin into a ball and almost threw it in, but I thought better of it. It was like a written contract. I shoved the napkin back into my pocket.
When I opened the door she was there, smiling at me, one arm raised and her fingers splayed against the wall.
“How about we skip dinner,” she said.
She took her hand from the wall and pressed it to my chest and grabbed a ball of fabric. She pulled me into the bedroom and pushed me down onto the bed and lifted her body onto mine.
“What do I feel there?” she said.
My eyes widened and went to my pocket where the napkin pressed between our thighs. I kicked out my legs and slid out from under her and sat on the edge of the bed.
“If it’s all the same I’m starving.”
“Ok, we have all night. Do you want a beer?”
“Sure.”
I smoothed my trousers and went out and took the beer from her hand.
“Is pizza ok?” she asked.
“Pizza is fine.”
* * *
I was drifting off to sleep in the darkened room and Vanessa turned and pressed her skin against mine.
“If I left him, would you have me?”
“We always said this wouldn’t end up there.”
“I know we said that, but sometimes things change.”
“Have things changed?”
“I think they have.”
“I couldn’t do it to him.”
“But you can do this now?”
I didn’t have a good answer, so I let silence fill the gap.
“I want to have a baby,” she said.
I didn’t say anything. I barely breathed.
“You don’t have to answer me now,” she said. “It’s a big thing to ask. Think it over and when you’re ready we’ll talk.”
She turned away from me and I got up and went to the bathroom. I washed my hands and avoided my own reflection in the mirror.
When I opened the door the bedroom light was on. Nick stood in the doorway. Vanessa sat up in bed, her back pressed against the headboard and sheets pulled up to cover her body. Nick had a gun. It pointed at Vanessa.
“I didn’t want to believe it was you.” His bottom lip quivered.
I stood naked in the bathroom doorway. Exposed. Nick turned the gun on me and opened his mouth to speak but no words came. He shook his head and blinked away tears.
“Why?” he said.
I could only shake my head.
Vanessa gripped the sheets and with a flourish she flung them up and over Nick’s head. In a smooth and calm motion she grabbed the wooden lamp from the bedside table and yanked the cord from the wall and brought it down on Nick’s head. It made a dull thud and Nick fell to the ground. Vanessa leaned down and drove the lamp into Nick’s head twice more. The body of the lamp cracked.
Vanessa picked up the gun from Nick’s limp hand.
“Have you got any duct tape?” she said.
Vanessa taped Nick’s mouth, hands, and feet. We dressed and she gave instructions. It came naturally - as if she had planned it ahead of time.
“We’ll get him in the car and drive him back to my place. You’ll help me carry him to the top of the stairs and we’ll shove him down. And then I’ll call an ambulance.”
The lamp lay by the door, a gaping split where it had cracked against Nick’s skull. Nick hadn’t moved. His right eye socket was swollen and had turned red and blue and purple. The skin somehow stayed intact and he hadn’t bled.
“Did you kill him?”
Vanessa faced me and put her hands on my shoulders. “He’s gone. And if not, we would be.”
We wrapped him in the sheet and carried him to the car. I opened the back door and Vanessa closed it and opened the trunk. The dark space swallowed Nick whole and I turned away before Vanessa slammed it shut.
“Follow me in your car,” she said. “You’ll need to help me get him up the stairs.”
I knocked the bowl holding my keys to the floor. I bent over and the key chain slipped from my shaking hands. I took a deep breath. I wished for it to be a dream. The sound of Vanessa’s car hauled me back to reality.
My eyes didn’t leave the rear lights of Vanessa’s car. My movements came automatically. I stopped when she stopped. I turned when she turned. None of it felt deliberate. The conscious part of my brain was occupied with Nick wrapped in a sheet in the trunk.
Behind me a horn sounded. My eyes flicked up to the rear vision mirror. Headlights flashed and were gone. And in the back, sitting in the centre seat, was the bald man in the grey suit. The man I had seen at the bar. I gave an involuntary yelp.
“Who are you?”
The bald man stared directly ahead, not at me but through the windshield.
“What are you doing in my car?”
My eyes flicked back to the road. Vanessa had stopped and I slammed on the brakes. The tyres squealed. The cars collided with a gentle thud. Vanessa got out and slammed her door. She smacked my window with her palm. I jumped out of the car.
“Pull yourself together,” she said.
“There’s a man in the car.”
“You want everyone to hear?”
“In my car. There’s a man in the back seat.”
She looked. “There’s no one there.”
The back seat of my car was empty. “He was there. Right there.”
“Back up your car. We have to get him out.”
I looked around. We were at Nick and Vanessa’s house. I hadn’t realised. I got back in the car and turned on the engine. I checked the mirror and the bald man in the grey suit was there, sitting in the centre seat in the back. I turned hoping it was some trick of the mirror. But there he was. Smooth, pale skin. Hairless. Grey suit. Staring directly ahead as if I wasn’t there.
Vanessa tapped on the bonnet. I backed up. Vanessa looked around and seeing no one on the street she opened the trunk.
“Can you see the man in my car now?” I said.
“We don’t have time for games. We have to get him inside.”
We carried our burden into the house and up the stairs. We unwrapped Nick from the sheet. He groaned.
“He’s still alive,” I said.
“There isn’t any going back now.”
The man in the grey suit stood at the bottom of the stairs. He watched us, silent and expressionless. I looked for a reaction from Vanessa but she made none. She bent down and threaded her arms under Nick’s armpits and lifted.
“Help me.”
I grabbed an arm and together we raised the limp body. I almost protested and then Vanessa pushed. And then a series of ugly sounds. Nick gave one last groan on the first impact and then no more. Bones broke. One of the treads cracked. He came to rest at the feet of the man in the grey suit, who looked down at the crumpled body of Nick and then turned his eyes up at me. I felt as a child receiving a disapproving stare from a parent.
I turned to Vanessa and she broke into a half-smile at seeing her plan executed and then her face fell. When I turned back to Nick, the man in the grey suit was still there.
“I’m giving you two minutes to get as far away as you can before I call the ambulance. Take the back streets and don’t run any red lights.” Her voice was monotone. She didn’t look at me.
I crept down the stairs and over Nick’s body. His legs folded at unnatural angles. A bone in his forearm had snapped and poked through the skin.
The man in the grey suit rode home with me, in the passenger seat this time. He followed me inside and was stood by the door of my bedroom when I turned out the light. I didn’t sleep.
* * *
The police came for me the next day. They had their suspicions immediately. Nick had changed his will. He’d signed over a large sum of money to his best friend from a bank account his wife knew nothing about. And on that day, of all days, he had fallen to his death. Even considering his bad health it smelled rotten.
Vanessa coached me under the watchful eye of the man in the grey suit.
“Remember they know nothing more than they tell you.”
“I won’t get through it.”
“You have to. For us. It isn’t just you in there, it’s me too.”
The man in grey rode with me in the car and sat beside me in the small room at the station. The police knew about me and Vanessa. I expect they had examined her phone and it was incriminating enough. They fished with their questions.
“Did you meet with Nick on the day of his death?”
We had been in public. People had seen us. “Yes.”
“Did he tell you about the money?”
I don’t think anyone heard. “No.”
With each lie the man in grey came closer until his face was separated from mine by the width of a fist. He didn’t breathe. He had no eyebrows. His eyes were a clear ocean-blue. He peered into my soul. His eyes pleaded with me to do what was right.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” the officer barked.
I looked up and then down to the table. I sweated. I shook. But somehow my nerves held. Vanessa had been right. They didn’t have anything that could make it all stick.
I came home late. The man in the grey suit followed me through the door. I screamed at him to leave me alone. He crossed his arms and watched me, patiently.
* * *
The funeral was on a Tuesday. The police remained tight lipped and so word of the affair had not come out. Vanessa wore black and bawled. I’m sure the tears were real in some sense. I didn’t cry, in fact I didn’t do much of anything. But sometimes that’s what people do when they lose their friends.
Rain sprinkled from the sky when the casket went in the ground. Everyone huddled together, dressed in black and joined in grief. To the side stood the man in the grey suit.
The night of the funeral she came to my house. She let herself in and crept into my room. I thought she might come, part of me wanted her touch and her warmth. She slipped out of her clothes and into my bed. She turned on the light.
“I want to look at you,” she said.
The man in the grey suit stood in the corner where Nick had fallen. She pressed her hand between my thighs and I clamped my hand around her wrist.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“It doesn’t feel right.”
“Yes it does.”
She kissed me and the man in the grey suit watched. I turned out the light. But in my mind’s eye I saw him.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“Nothing. It’s been a big day, that’s all.”
“You don’t have to worry. We are going to get away with it. We already have.”
She rested her head on the pillow and fell asleep.
All through the investigation Vanessa maintained a façade of calm. To my jittery yin, she was a confident yang. The police dropped the case. They had pieces, but not a complete puzzle. They found my DNA on Nick’s body, but I had seen him that day. Despite the affair and the money and their suspicions, there was nothing definitive. No one had seen a thing.
A week after the funeral Nick’s father came. He packed his car full of Nick’s things, odds and ends he thought I might like to have. His golf clubs. Souvenirs from the trips we took together. Things that meant more to me than they did to him.
They look alike, Nick and his father. They have the same green eyes. I averted his gaze and helped him unload the car. We stacked everything into the corner beside the sealed box housing the broken lamp and the napkin Nick had given me at the bar the day he died. The man in the grey suit watched us. I turned my back on him and the box.
I should have offered Nick’s father a drink. His smile and his eyes seemed somehow hollow. He was hurting, and hinted that he wanted to talk. But I made an excuse to get him out of my house. Vanessa would be back from work any minute.
As Nick’s father shuffled down the driveway Vanessa arrived. He turned and looked back at me and paused for a moment. He had the look of someone chewing on a new piece of information. I raised my hand as a farewell to move him along. He sighed and gave a slight shake of his head.
He left before Vanessa could get out of her car. Nick had told me they never got along.
“What did he want?” she said.
“He gave me some of Nick’s things.”
She shrugged.
We waited three months before we moved in together. I told her it was too soon, but she insisted. “Let people talk.” When we finally came clean no one acted surprised.
* * *
We bought a new house with Nick’s money. It didn’t feel right, but nothing had since that night.
The man in the grey suit came with us. I tried to get rid of him. Drinking didn’t help and in fact, made it worse. When I drank the man in the grey suit hummed a mournful tune. It would get so loud I couldn’t carry a conversation over the noise.
We took a trip and he was there. I went away without Vanessa and he came. I sometimes asked strangers if they could see him and they always answered no.
He was a chain around my ankle for which I had no key. In the beginning he would often look past me, like he could see out beyond the walls. When we moved into that house he followed me so he was always in my field of vision with his blue eyes locked on mine.
One night I screamed at him. I got down on my knees and pleaded with him to leave me be. I asked him what I needed to do to be rid of him. Vanessa walked in on the production and she scoffed. She says I am losing my mind. She might be right.
I quit my job. I couldn’t get any work done. With Nick’s money I don’t need to work, but it meant more time with Vanessa. With all of us in the room, her and the man in the grey suit, it feels suffocating. I snipe at her and she returns fire. We don’t say nice things to each other anymore.
It was a Friday night and we ordered pizza. We split a bottle of wine.
“We should move,” she said.
“Why would we move?”
“A change of scenery might help.”
“I don’t think it will.”
“We should talk about it.”
“We are talking about it.”
She rolled her eyes.
Before we went to sleep, the room spinning slowly from the wine, she said, “I want a baby.”
“It’s not the right time.”
“It’s never the right time.”
“I don’t feel right about it.”
“We got away with it. When will you move on?”
I turned and closed my eyes. She was right. We had got away with it. As long as we lived there would be no questions. When I opened my eyes the man in the grey suit sat in the corner.
I thought about leaving, but how could I? For better or worse we are bound together by our terrible deed. No vows of love have passed between us, but instead promises of mutual silence about the night Nick found us. The man who had trusted me above all others.
Last night the man in the grey suit sat on the couch in the gap between us. For a moment all I could see was this man who had been my constant companion for this last year. I imagined a life where I had restrained my impulses and she had stayed out of my bed. Nick would have succumbed by natural causes and the man in the grey suit would never have come.
She’s cheating on me. I know it. She spends nights away. She is doing to me what she did to Nick. I don’t feel sad about it.
Today I visited Nick’s grave. I cried for the first time since the night he discovered our betrayal. The anguish and the pain and the guilt I pushed aside after the police dropped their case, after I had known we were free of any repercussions, bubbled back up through the ground. I could no longer ignore what had always been there.
“He deserved better,” I said to the man in the grey suit. He held out his hand and I took it.
I knew in that moment how to get rid of him.
I went to the basement and the rack of shelves in the back. In the bottom corner is the box housing the broken lamp and the napkin and the gun Nick had pointed at us. The box was there, but it was empty. I held the empty box up to the man in the grey suit.
I went upstairs and Vanessa was waiting for me in the kitchen. She had the gun and she raised it.
“What were you doing in the basement?”
“Nothing. Looking for some wine.”
“Where is it?”
“I changed my mind.”
“You are such a liar. I’ve taken them. Those things you kept hidden away that could hang both of us. Your conscience in a box.”
“Where are they?”
“You’ll never find them. You are weak. I knew it would have to be me to handle this.”
She took a step towards me. I raised my hands. My face flushed hot and my heart felt like it would jump out of my chest. I often wondered if Nick would have pulled the trigger that night. I don’t think so. But Vanessa.
“Do it,” I said.
I don’t remember thinking it before I said it. The words tumbled out of my mouth of their own accord.
She smiled. “No.”
With her free hand she rummaged through her handbag sat on the counter. She pulled out a thin bit of white plastic. She slapped it down.
“I’m pregnant.”
There’s no going back now. I’m terrified of her, but I have decided to stay. The man in the grey suit will stay too, I am sure. My constant companion, Nick’s beating heart below the floorboards.
I am trapped in a prison of fear and guilt. And it is no less than I deserve.