13
IT takes a long time for the party to end because most of the guests are dirt-poor fan boys who need this night to stay juiced about their own flailing careers. I listen to their American Apparel conversations and the way they analyze their expressions—even your teeth look stoked—and I wonder what will become of them all. There aren’t enough mansions and jobs to go around.
Hiding behind Henderson’s suits is uncomfortable and my neck hurts and it occurs to me that I could walk out on all of this, everything, and go back to New York. But I need closure. Henderson’s fucking act changed everything and now I have to know why Amy said those terrible things about me. I can’t leave this house and go on with the rest of my life wondering if I’m bad at sex. And I can’t lose the chance to talk to the one person who actually knows where Amy is.
There is a loud boom downstairs and that was the remote-controlled blinds going down all over the house. There is an emptiness in the house now, the sound of Henderson pouring cereal into a bowl, watching a little recorded Seth Meyers before turning it off and locking the doors—that’s a good boy—and heading upstairs. All lonely men are the same and he’s no different from Mr. Mooney as he plods up the stairs. My heart beats. I stand at attention, listening as he gets ready for bed.
Fortunately, his nighttime regime only involves brushing his teeth and rubbing potions all over his precious face. I hear him walk into his bedroom, the unmistakable click of the metal bottle I spiked with Percocet, the plip-plop of the sleeping pills into his hand, the plip-plop of the Xanax, another sip of his Percocet water. And then his lights go out. He jerks off, and within minutes he is asleep.
He is snoring now. I open the door. He doesn’t move—thank you, pills. And thank you, Henderson, for being the kind of asshole who waxes his entire fucking body. I cuff his arms with cable ties and though it’s demeaning—I miss my cage, where I didn’t have to be reduced to this kind of thing—I pull off the covers and cuff his legs at the ankles. I cover him up with the buttery duvet and then I slap his face. Nothing. I slap him again. Nothing. This goes on awhile until it doesn’t, until everything in the world, every last bit it of it, is in his eyes, in his scream. He is the ultimate toddler and I put on his Beats headphones and wait for him to accept his circumstances. These headphones are powerful; they do block out the noise and I turn on his bedside iPod—Jersey Boys soundtrack, not very hipster chic of him—and wait while he thrashes, a dying shark.
When he finishes fighting, I take off the headphones and I pick up his iPad. I ask for the password. He begs me—no no please no—and I approach him with my Rachael Ray paring knife and he caves: “Margie19.”
“Who’s Margie?” I ask innocently.
“My wife,” he says. I look at him. He corrects himself. “Ex-wife.”
I am in his iPad and now I need to contact his maid.
“What? Why?” he protests. “Please, you tell me what you want, anything. Anything, just let me go.”
“I told you what I want,” I say. “I want your maid’s name.”
“I can wire money to you.” His forehead is already slick with sweat. “I can sell this house for cash and you can have the cash and I can go away.” He sobs. “Dude, please.”
He won’t stop negotiating, offering me all kinds of fabulous prizes if I would just let him go. “I don’t want your money,” I say. “I want to know the name of your maid.”
He gets it. “Jennifer,” he says. “She’s in Contacts.”
I find Jennifer—JENNIFER MAID as opposed to JENNIFER TITS and JENNIFER BIG TITS and JENNIFER NO TITS—and I write: Jennifer. You have the day off. Calling in big guns for this one. Sorry for the late notice.
Jennifer gets the text and responds immediately: You are so kind!
And now it’s time for the real fun to begin. I tell him to stop bellyaching and he asks me to let him go and I tell him that’s not going to happen and he screams again. I sit down in his white modern throne of an office chair. “Tell me when she said it.”
“Let me fucking go.”
“Tell me when she said it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about but there is fifty K in the safe.”
“I’m talking about Amy.”
“Who?”
“Amy,” I snap. “Don’t say who like you don’t know who I’m talking about. You talked about her on your show and you talked about her tonight so don’t sit here and tell me that you don’t know who Amy is.”
He swallows. He nods. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know when you met her.”
His lower lip trembles. “Is this . . . are you from the network?”
I look at him. Could he possibly be that stupid? “No,” I say. “I’m from the world.”
He cries again and he squirms and I focus on the future. I imagine the online melee that will ensue when Henderson’s untimely death hits the news. Someone will leak the details about the box of pictures of his first wife and psychologists will say that comedians are notoriously depressed. People will be stunned that Henderson killed himself at the peak of his career. I can hear the funereal battle cry clichés already. Everyone’s a philosopher after a suicide.
It just goes to show you, money isn’t everything.
Maybe if he was married, things would be different.
At least he didn’t leave any children behind.
What a shame that he didn’t even have any children yet.
His poor mother.
And to think he just told those people how happy he was.
Finally Henderson stops moving. He breathes, sweats. “What do you want?”
“I told you,” I say. “I want to know when you met Amy.”
“Are you her boyfriend or something?”
“I said I want to know when you met Amy.”
He nods. There is not one single blueberry stain on the duvet but I bet he’s so rich that he has tons of duvets. These sheets are softer than the ones in Little Compton, the ones she liked so much, back when I was good enough. “I met her at Soho House,” he says.
I shouldn’t be surprised, but it hurts to think of her with her legs crossed at a private club where rich people like to sit near other rich people and talk about things rich people talk about. It’s the kind of place frequented by girls like Delilah and guys like Henderson, gold diggers and deep pockets, almost like a brothel, less honorable. “Okay,” I say. “And then what?”
“She was at the bar and she was checking me out and I asked her what year she was.”
I dig my Rachael Ray knife into the armrest of his stupid white chair. “What do you mean?”
“She was wearing a Peter Stark T-shirt and I know a couple people who did that program,” he says.
“Who’s Peter Stark?” I ask. Ugh, Amy.
He is smarmy even now as he raises his eyebrows. “The Peter Stark Producing Program at USC,” he says, as if I should know this, as if entertainment makes the world go round.
I picture her the day she got here, learning about the Peter Stark program, finding a shirt, taking it.
“Dude,” he says. “She’s not worth it, okay? This is not worth fifty K.”
“And then what happened?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “What ever happens? I bought her a dozen drinks and I got her number and . . . and then I don’t know. I have a driver. I blacked out.”
He’s an alcoholic and I bet he doesn’t remember most of his life but he better try. I want to know it all. “Did she go home with you?”