BY HECTOR HERNANDEZ
Copyright is held by the author.
I HAD just finished my morning walk and was standing in the kitchen, leaning over the white quartz countertop, wolfing down a heavily glazed cherry Danish — half, actually — when the intercom buzzed. It was Jimmy, the security guard at the front entrance to our gated community. I had a visitor, a Mr. Eugene Knox. The name meant nothing to me. I asked Jimmy what the man wanted as I swallowed my last bite.
“He says it’s private, Mr. Emerson. Here, let me put him on.”
I eyed the other half of that rich pastry. My wife worried my poisonous choices were inching me closer to an early grave, and as a concession to her, I had promised to cut back.
“Hello? Mr. Emerson?” The man’s tone was upbeat — as if he knew me — but I didn’t recognize the voice. “Sorry to bother you on a Saturday morning, but if you’re not too busy, can I pay you a visit?” He dropped down to a confidential whisper. “I’m a private investigator, and I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Private investigator? That got my interest.
“What about, Mr. Knox?”
I picked up the other half of the Danish and stared at its thick, red, syrupy, cherry glaze. My wife was at the gym. If I gave into temptation, I would have at least a half hour of guilty-free peace before she came home and saw I had broken my promise to her.
“A woman.”
That sounded a bit scandalous. “What woman, Mr. Knox?” I wasn’t cheating on my wife, nor had I ever during our 38 years of marriage.
“Carla.”
I was stunned. I knew a Carla once — 40 years ago. Could it be that Carla?
“Carla Dubrow.”
It was. I no longer had an appetite for the other half of the Danish.
Carla and I had been friends, but we parted as anything but. I had a sinking feeling and debated whether I should see Mr. Knox, but in the end, I told Jimmy to bring him over. Maybe he was investigating something other than what I imagined.
One of the benefits of living in an exclusive, high-end, gated community was the tight security it provided. Jimmy would check Mr. Knox’s driver license to verify his identity, “wand” him for any weapons, and then personally drive him to my front door in one of the security cars. Mr. Knox would leave his own car parked at the gate entrance.
As I waited for them to arrive, old memories of Carla Dubrow kept me company. She had been 27. Short. Stocky. Frizzy hair. Coarse features, almost brutish. I had been 22. Tall. Handsome. Athletic. We had both made our separate ways to Los Angeles. We had been among the hundreds (if not thousands) of starry-eyed hopefuls who had flooded Hollywood that year with tinselled dreams so fragile they were destined to be crushed.
I was naive. She was practical. She thought that with her odd looks she would have a better chance at stardom. She would be a unique commodity and have less competition as an actor. I, on the other hand, was a dime a dozen — and a baker’s dozen at that. I would be competing against thousands of young actors who were my type. Although my odds of succeeding in Hollywood had been laughably slim to realistically none, I was young enough and foolish enough to believe I could beat those odds.
We had met in acting class, Carla and I. Our drama coach had paired us up to act out a comedy scene from Neil Simon’s play, The Odd Couple. I was Felix. She was Oscar. We were definitely an odd couple, but Carla’s exceptional talent and quirky personality impressed me so much that we quickly became friends.
The doorbell chimed. When I opened the front door, what I saw was disappointing. Mr. Knox was not the dashing figure or even the hard-boiled one that Hollywood had led me to expect. The man was middle-aged, short — about five foot six — and plump. Not fat, more like portly. He had a full beard that covered most of his face and a pair of large sunglasses that covered the rest. I couldn’t see his eyes in the mirrored lenses, just my own reflection staring back at me. He wore an ill-fitting, grey business suit — no tie — and was holding a rather large and thick notebook in his left hand. If I had had to guess his profession, I would have said burned-out high school principal.
I led the way from the hard, marbled foyer to the soft, plush carpeting of my sunken living room with its 12-foot-high ceiling. I motioned to the two fawn-coloured leather sofas facing each other, and Mr. Knox sat in the one nearest the French doors. A brilliant morning light illuminated him from behind.
I had made up my mind to speak candidly to Mr. Knox and was grateful that my wife was out. I would talk her privately later.
It was too early in the day for a drink, but I definitely needed one, and so, with the pretense of being a polite host, I made an offer to Mr. Knox. He declined. That didn’t stop me from pouring myself three fingers of 25-year-old Macallan — neat. It went down smooth. In a minute or two I would be in a better mood to answer his questions.
I sat on the sofa opposite Mr. Knox and watched his eyes run over the richly upholstered furnishings, the expensive artwork displayed on the walls, the small bronze statues and other art objects strategically placed about the room. My wife bought art like she bought her shoes — obsessively and unnecessarily.
Mr. Knox pointed to a prominently displayed painting. “That’s a Jackson Pollock. Isn’t it?”
Few people would have recognized the painting as a Pollock. It was an early work of his, before he began using his famous “drip” technique. Those later paintings could sell for astronomical prices. The cost of this early Pollock had been expensive, to be sure, but modest by comparison.
“Yes, it is. Are you familiar with Pollock’s work?”
“No.” He lost interest in the painting. “Nice place you have here.”
“Thank you.”
Mr. Knox then surprised me by rattling off the details of my home.
“Eighty-three hundred and thirty square feet, five-car garage, seven bedrooms — three with private baths — two shared full baths, and two guest half baths.”
“Uh, yes. That’s right.”
He had done his homework, and the fact that he had invested the time to research this information now made me suspect that he might be here for one more reason, one that was not for the benefit of his client — whoever that was — but for the sole benefit of Mr. Eugene Knox.
“Big place for just two people,” he mused.
“We like to have family and friends visit.”
“Oh?” He suddenly became nervous and glanced about. “I hope I’m not intruding?”
“No, no. We’re not entertaining at the moment.”
“So you’re alone?” He seemed relieved. “And your wife?”
He read my questioning look and explained that the reason he was asking was because the matter to be discussed was delicate. Delicate. Yes. “Delicate” would be the right word.
“My wife is out, Mr. Knox. How may I help you?”
“First, I hope you don’t mind if I keep my sunglasses on. It’s not like I’m trying to be cool or anything like that.” He let out an embarrassed little laugh. “Truth is they’re prescription glasses, and I’ll need them to take notes. I left my regular glasses back in my car.”
“No, I don’t mind.”
“Thanks. Well, I’ll get right to it.” He took out a pen from his shirt pocket and opened up his large notebook. “How well did you know Carla Dubrow?”
I gave the man a brief account of my relationship with Carla from forty years back. But I did not tell him what had happened on the last night we were together.
“So you and Ms. Dubrow were just friends? You were never romantically involved?”
My heart beat a little faster. This conversation was definitely heading where I thought it might.
“No, we weren’t romantically involved, Mr. Knox. We were just good friends.” I couldn’t read his expression. I saw only two oval mirrors that threw back my own.
“So you never had sexual relations with Carla Dubrow?”
The tone of his voice made it clear he was skeptical. I took a slow, deep breath before answering.
“Like I said, we were good friends. We were not romantically involved.” That was true. I continued. “However . . . the last time I saw Carla . . . I did . . . I mean . . . we were . . .” I struggled to find the right word. Finally, I settled upon “intimate.”
Mr. Knox nodded as if satisfied. Here it comes, I thought. This is where he tells me that Carla had become pregnant and I was the father of her child but that he would be willing to help me out and tell his client — Carla or whoever had hired him to find me, maybe my son or daughter — that he had come up empty. His “help” would, of course, come at a price, one which he had probably doubled after doing a mental calculation of the value of the Pollock and other art objects in my home that his hungry eyes had taken in. But when he next spoke, there was deep contempt.
“You mean you raped her. Isn’t that right Mr. Emerson?”
I was shocked. “Rape? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you raping my mother,” and with that revelation, he took off his glasses and fixed me with his eyes — my eyes.
There was no denying he was my son. The resemblance was unmistakable. But he was also a total stranger, and those familiar eyes had a dark look to them, a deeply disturbed look that had not come from me. They had come from Carla. It was the same look I had seen in her eyes the morning our friendship ended.
Carla would often joke that she was like a teenager’s scrotum: sensitive and vulnerable on the outside, raging nuts on the inside. I would always laugh at that crude comparison until that morning when I learned she had not been joking.
I recovered from my initial shock and told Mr. Knox that I had most certainly not raped Carla Dubrow.
He scoffed. “Ha! That’s what all rapists say.”
This was more than I had bargained for. Ever since that night with Carla, I had a gnawing but unconfirmed suspicion that she might have become pregnant. That suspicion had ebbed and flowed over time, but now, more than forty years later, my suspicion was confirmed — and in the worst possible way — by my own son who believed I had raped his mother!
Mr. Knox obviously saw me as an adversary. If I had any hope of convincing him that I was not guilty of the crime he had accused me of, I would have to appeal to him on a more personal level.
“Listen, son —”
“I’m not your son!” he spat out. “I’m just the consequence of your depraved act!”
It had been a depraved act all right, but definitely not one committed by me. It would be pointless to tell Mr. Knox the truth — it would put his mother in a bad light — so I decided to tell him a version of the truth that I hoped he would accept.
“Look. This is what happened. Your mother and I were having dinner at her place the night before I left to go back home. I had quit Hollywood, and I was trying to persuade her to do the same.
“She hadn’t landed one single acting job during the two years I had known her. The entire time she had beaten her head against a wall — a bloody wall, and every day it had gotten bloodier.
“And you know what was really unfair?” I told Mr. Knox. “Your mother was talented. She was very talented. But Hollywood didn’t know that. It was blind to her talents, and she was just as blind to that hard truth.
“She knew quitting was the right thing to do, but she didn’t want to give up on her dream. It was all too much for her, and she started crying. I comforted her, and . . . well . . . one thing led to another.
“Believe me when I tell you that your mother was my friend, a very good friend. I did nothing wrong. And I had no idea she had become pregnant. I swear I didn’t. How could I? I left the next day and never saw her again.”
Mr. Knox was quiet, which I took as a good sign, but his knitted brows showed he was skeptical.
“Why would she say you raped her if you were friends?”
I knew why, or at least I thought I did: revenge.
The night I had dinner with Carla, she spiked my glass of wine with a heavy dose of some street drug. That drug, in combination with her clever acting of vulnerability, had made me easy to manipulate, and in the morning, I awoke to find myself naked in her bed.
I struggled with a cloudy memory to recall what had happened the night before. When Carla eventually confessed to what she had done, I was beyond angry. I was furious. I dressed and headed for the door, but she grabbed me, clung to me in desperation and begged me to forgive her. She told me that she loved me — had always loved me — from the moment she first laid eyes on me. She would leave Hollywood and go with me.
She was talking crazy, and I told her as much. That set her off. She became violent, started throwing things at me, screamed in a shrill voice that I had never really been her friend. It had been an ugly end to our friendship.
I left Hollywood without ever seeing her again. She knew my first name but not my last — I had used a stage name. She would never be able to track me down, or so I thought.
Mr. Knox didn’t need to know this about his mother, so I answered his question by saying it was hard to know why people with mental illness do or say the things they do. He exploded. I had stepped on a land mine.
“My mother was not crazy! Don’t you say that! Don’t you dare! You’re lying! You’re just a liar and a rapist!”
That was it. That was the last straw. I had tried to reason with the man, but he was beyond reason. I told him to leave, but he refused, said he wasn’t leaving until I confessed to what I had done to his mother. When I stood up to call security, Mr. Knox pulled out a small handgun. It had been cleverly hidden in his thick notebook. He had cut a hole through the pages to conceal the weapon.
I held up my hands and sat back down slowly. “Mr. Knox — Eugene — think about what you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing!” He shouted.
The gun was shaking horribly as he pointed it at me, and I prayed he didn’t accidentally pull the trigger.
“You’re going to confess! You’re going to confess that you raped my mother!”
This whole crazy situation was spinning too fast for me.
“Son, I’m not going to confess to something I didn’t do.”
“I told you I’m not your son! Stop calling me that!” He pulled out his cell phone and started thumbing the screen as he talked. “You’re going to confess, and I’m going to record it.” He pointed his phone at me. “Put your hands down!”
I did as he instructed and heard a soft chime when he pressed the record button. I had a tough decision to make here. If I didn’t confess — and I was leaning in that direction — Mr. Knox might shoot me out of anger or frustration or both. But if I did confess, he might shoot me anyway, as a righteous punishment for an imagined crime against his mother.
I had an idea. “How about we call your mother? How about the three of us talk? Okay? Can we do that?”
“My mother is dead.”
“Oh.” Another shock. How many more shocks would this day bring me?
“You have 30 seconds to confess.” He looked scared but determined.
“And if I don’t?”
He stopped the recording.
“There are 11 bullets in this gun,” he said, waving it in my face. I tried not to cringe. “At the end of 30 seconds there will be 10, and at the end of another 30 seconds there will be nine.” He paused to let the implication of that information sink in. “Get the picture? I’ll use all 11 bullets if I have to.”
I didn’t know how much pain I could tolerate, but it looked like I was about to find out because Mr. Knox would have to shoot me before I confessed to a lie. There was one silver lining, though. If he did shoot me, it would be obvious to the police that I had been tortured into a false confession. My son had not done a good job of thinking through his plan.
He checked his watch to note the time, and then the two of us just sat and waited.
I didn’t know where to focus my attention. I couldn’t look him in the eye — he might take that as a challenge and do something rash — and I most certainly did not want to stare into the barrel of that gun, so I looked past my son, past the French doors, and out into the garden.
The rose bush was in full bloom. Bees were just starting to make their morning rounds, hovering above the deep magenta-pink blooms of the Rugosa Roses. The serene quality of that scene calmed me. I could accept that this might be the last thing I ever see.
The seconds ticked by. They ticked by so slowly that I honestly thought time had stopped.
Finally my son raised his gun and aimed it at my left arm. As much as I wanted not to look, I couldn’t help but notice how badly the gun was shaking. So badly in fact that if it fired, the bullet could end up a foot to my left or a foot to my right or anywhere in between. I took a deep breath and braced myself.
“This is your last —”
A woman’s scream cut him off at mid-sentence. It was followed immediately by a horrific explosion. A deafening silence boxed my ears, and the acrid stench of gunpowder stung my nose and coated the back of my throat, leaving a sharp metallic taste in my mouth.
I looked at my son. His eyes were bulging with surprise.
I turned my head as if the air was a thick gel, resisting my movement, and saw my wife standing in the foyer. She held her hands pressed to her mouth. Her overly large eyes dominated the features of her face. They were the size of saucers and filled with shock and horror. The scream had come from her.
I moved absently, in a haze, and searched myself, expecting to see a fountain of red pouring out from my chest, but I found nothing, and then I saw a hole in the sofa cushion to my left, several inches away. The realization that I could have been killed awoke me from my stupor. I turned to look at my son, directing upon him a hard gaze. I took a chance and thrust out my hand. Eugene would either surrender his weapon to me, his father, or he would not. I stood up to find out.
***
Héctor Hernández received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. He is now retired and writes when inspiration demands his attention. His short stories have appeared in various publications, including Flash Fiction Magazine, After Dinner Conversation, and Literally Stories.
