CHICK WAS DRINKING WAY TOO MUCH. WE HADN'T EVEN ordered dinner and he was already on his fourth scotch. I looked across a white tablecloth littered with unused bone china and crystal goblets. Chick was beginning to slur his words, but showed no sign of backing off on the liquor.
"Damn people. Vultures. Who do they think they're kidding? Like it makes any damn difference what kind of box she's buried in." We had already been through this once. He was talking about the account supervisor at Forest Lawn, who Chick was convinced had tried to embarrass him into upgrading Evelyn's coffin, from a medium-priced box, known as a Heaven Rider, to a top-of-the-line, mahogany monster with silver handles called the Eternal Rest.
"They prey on your grief," he slurred, "saying it will be her accommodation for eternity. Like I'm gonna fall for that bullshit guilt trip."
"They were just showing you what was available, Chick. The choice was always yours." He grunted and downed his scotch, the ice clicking against his teeth. Then he held up his glass for a refill.
"I think we should order," I said. We'd been at the Bistro Garden for almost an hour and he'd shooed the waiter away twice. Emotionally, he was all over the place. At times, it was like this next part of life without Evelyn was going to be unbearable, and then he would suddenly change. He'd start talking about a new business venture and his eyes would sparkle, as if he were about to begin a wonderful new journey. It was very strange.
He nodded for the waiter and then insisted on ordering my meal for me.
"They do a special whitefish for me in a Mexican red sauce. It's not on the menu but you'll love it."
I nodded okay, because the truth was, I was very tired and it sounded quick. It was three hours later in Charlotte and I was still on Eastern Time. The more Chick drank, the bigger the bore he became. I just wanted to eat and go back to Pasadena, fall in bed, and pull the world up over my head.
"Pescado blanco de mejor para dos," Chick said. The waiter nodded and wrote it down, then turned and left.
Chick smiled at me. "Named the dish after me… Pescado blanco de mejor." Then he translated, "White fish a la Best. Their idea, not mine."
"Very flattering," I said, feeling, with this admission, we had definitely run out of things to discuss.
While we waited for our meals, and after Chick's fifth scotch arrived, he began talking about all his private club memberships, finally working his way around to a very exclusive bird-hunting club he belonged to in Mexico, called La Guerra.
"Only very important corporate executives and famous actors belong," he boasted. "Very hard to get into this place. It's beautiful, but remote. They fly you down in chartered planes. It's got its own private airstrip. Cabins are rustic, but it's top-drawer all the way. The five-star chef is from Paris-the works."
"It sounds fascinating," I said, trying to stifle a yawn.
The fish arrived and it was excellent. After that came dessert, which Chick also ordered for me. Peach cobbler. Also great. Mercifully, the check finally arrived and we were out of there.
"Chick, are you sure you're all right to drive?" I asked.
He furrowed his brow, as if the fact that he'd had five drinks and was about to get behind the wheel hadn't even occurred to him. But now that realization dawned. "You think I overdid the scotch a little?"
"You've had quite a few."
"Since Evelyn died, I've been leaning on the booze a little too much." Then his eyes turned pensive. "I'm sorry if I got a little loaded here. It's just… sometimes I feel… "
"It's okay. You don't have to apologize. I understand. But, Chick, drinking too much isn't the answer."
"You're so right. I'll stop."
"I don't mean to be preaching at you," I said. "It's just… you'll never come tog rips with Evelyn's death by anesthetizing yourself."
"You're right, of course. Thank God you're here to help me.
What a wonderful friend you are, Paige. You know exactly the right things to do and say. You're a saint."
Pointing out the obvious to him should hardly qualify me for sainthood. Then he reached for my hand and held it. A troubled look passed across his face, a dark cloud of sudden anguish.
"Do you ever feel as if Chandler was put on earth just for you? That, without him, you would have been only half of something, only part of what you were meant to be?" He was looking right into my eyes as he said that. "Because that's the way I feel," he continued. "I feel like Evelyn was put here to complete me. Put here to address my shortcomings, my lack of focus, my bouts with shallow behavior."
"You're not shallow, Chick," I said, wishing the valet would hurry getting my damn car up to me.
"Are you kidding?" he said. "Not shallow? Have you been listening to me tonight? Country clubs and hunting lodges, cheesy T. V. actors I sometimes play golf with. Like who cares, right?"
I just smiled. I wasn't going near that one.
"But I've always been a sucker for stuff like that. I always wanted to belong, so I can get tricked by nonsense. My father died when I was young so I had no role models. I went through a midlife phase where I tried to buy acceptance. But self-worth can't be bought. It has to come from inside. Evelyn's death has finally taught me that."
I nodded because I felt that was absolutely true. When Chandler had donated his inheritance and formed the learning foundation, I'd asked him why he was giving away his fortune so freely. He said L. D. kids were what he wanted his life to be about. He told me that it seemed to him that over the past decade people in this country had been striving for all the wrong things. "American society is shallowing out:' he'd told me. "More and more it seems to be about nothing." Chan, was right. Nobody knew who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine; instead we choose to be entertained for a month by the whole Anna Nicole circus or the shallow antics of Paris Hilton or Britney Spears. What the hell happened to cause such a shift in our society's values?
Chan said, "If I'm really going to be happy, I have to invest and devote my life to something important that I truly believe in."
That was why he gave his fortune away. Yet by Chick's own admission, only now, after his wife's death, was he learning that true happiness can't be bought, that it has to come from inside you.
The cars arrived, and Chick told the attendant to repark the Porsche, that he'd call a cab. I offered to drive him home but he said it was exactly in the wrong direction, which it was.
"You're bound to be exhausted," he said. "I can pick up the Porsche in the morning?'
I got into the Mustang and drove off.
On the way to Pasadena I fished my cell out of my purse to check messages. The battery was fried and I had stupidly not packed my charger, so I was officially incommunicado.
When I returned to the hotel, there was an envelope under my door. I ripped it open and found a fax from Bob Butler.
Dear Mrs. Ellis:
I tried to reach you, hut your cell phone isn't picking up. I'm sending this fax instead Good news. I found the tire store where the hit-and-run driver switched his Firestones. I had a sketch artist work with Dale Winthrop, the owner, but she said that since it was seven months ago, his memory of the man is not very go0d. The enclosed sketch may not be too close.
As I was leaving, l checked my office and we got lucky again. I just got a response from an auto body repair shop in New Jersey, Top Hat Auto. An estimator there, named Lou LaFanta, remembers a redo for a right front fender on a blue Taurus about the same time of Chandler's death. I'm on my way up there to talk to him now. Hopefully he can improve on my sketch and tell me something new.
Yours truly,
Detective Robert Butler
P. S. The Lord with his great and strong sword shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. Isaiah 27:1..
I held up the faxed sketch. It was of a middle-aged white male. It looked like nobody I had ever seen before.