The Kings Of Cool

154

Sitting back in his chair, Stan puts his fingers together in a prayerful gesture in front of his chin and asks, “How can I help you?”

This man slept with my wife, Stan thinks, and now he’s coming to me for help? It will be a pleasure to turn him down, cite ethical reasons, and refer him elsewhere.

“It’s Doc,” John says.

“What about him?”

“He’s out of control,” John says.

“I don’t think that Doc would agree to come in and-”

“I’m not asking you to ‘treat’ him,” John says in a tone that makes it clear what he thinks about psychotherapy. Then he tells him about the possibility that Doc has been arrested and might be making a deal with the feds.

“I don’t see how that’s my business,” Stan says.

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“Let me explain it to you,” John answers. “If Doc talks, he’s not just going to give them dealers and customers-he’s going to name investors.”

Stan goes a little pale, and they both know why. He and Diane had taken some of the insurance money from the Bread and Marigolds Bookstore settlement and invested it in the Association.

Stan figured he’d missed the big coke train once, he wasn’t going to let it pull out of the station without him again. The money from the coke paid for the house, the nice little life, the modest wine cellar.

He and Diane are shareholders. They’re not involved in the day-to-day, even the year-to-year, but on major decisions, they have to be consulted.

And killing the king is kind of a major decision.

“What are you asking me to do?” Stan asks.

“Sign off.”

“On?”

John just stares at him.

“Oh,” Stan says, getting it.

John mocks him. “Oh.”

Stan sits there, staring at the neat row of books on the shelves. Books that are supposed to have the answers.

“No one’s asking you to do anything,” John says. “Just give your okay.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You take your chances,” John says.

Stan looks stricken. “I never thought…”

“What?”

Stan fumbles. “I never thought I’d ever have to be involved in something like this. ”

“Who did, Stan?” John asks. “If you want to talk to Diane about it-”

“No,” Stan says quickly. “We don’t need to bring her into this.”

John shrugs. Then, “So.”

“Do what you need to do, John.”

John nods and gets up.

Love and peace, he thinks.

He’s in the doorway when he hears Stan say, “When you had sex with my wife, did she like it?”

“I had sex with Diane?” John asks.

Must have been stoned.

It was the seventies, Stan.