Stone Mattress: Nine Tales(59)

Jaffrey – who was also briefly married to Irena, but after Rod – is in Chicago, having tailored his philosophical debating talents to municipal politics. Fourteen years ago he was almost convicted on a charge of bribery, but he dodged the bullet and has carried on as a well-known backroom boy, spin-doctor, and candidate’s consultant.

Irena is still in Toronto, where she heads up a company devoted to raising funds for worthy non-profits, such as kidneys. She’s the widow of a man who did well in potash, and throws a lot of high-end dinner parties. She sends Jack a Christmas card every year, enclosing a form-letter account of her banal society doings.

Jack is not outwardly on bad terms with the threesome, having floated it about years ago that he accepts the situation for what it is. Still, he hasn’t seen any of them for years. Make that decades. Why would he want to? He’s had no desire to experience a burp from the past.

Not until now.



He decides to start with Rod, who lives the farthest away. Rather than emailing, he leaves a voice message: he’ll be passing through Sarasota in connection with a film he’s considering – he’s looking for the right kind of setting – and how would Rod like to have lunch and catch up on old times? He’s ready for a brush-off, but somewhat to his surprise Rod sends an acceptance.

They don’t meet in a restaurant, or even at Rod’s home. They meet in the discouraging cafeteria of the Buddhist palliative care centre where Rod is now a resident. White folks clad in saffron robes drift here and there, smiling benign smiles; bells ding; in the distance, chants are chanted.

Formerly stocky Rod has dwindled: he’s yellowish grey and looks like an empty glove. “Pancreatic cancer,” he tells Jack. “It’s a death sentence.” Jack says he had no idea, which is true. He also says – how does he come up with these platitudes? – that he hopes Rod is receiving the proper spiritual care. Rod says he isn’t a Buddhist, but they do death well, and, having no family, he might as well be here as anywhere.

Jack says he is sorry. Rod says it could be worse and he can’t complain. He’s had a good run – partly thanks to Jack, he has the grace to add, since that Dead Hand money gave him the leg-up he needed at the beginning of his career.

They sit looking at their plates of vegetarian Buddhist-temple cuisine. There’s not a lot more to say.

Jack is relieved he won’t have to murder Rod after all. Did he really intend to go that far? Would he have been up to it? Most likely not. He never disliked Rod as such. That’s a lie: he did dislike Rod, but not enough to kill him, then or now.

“You weren’t really Roland,” he says. He owes at least this much of a lie to the suffering little bugger.

“I know that,” says Rod. He smiles, a watery smile. A middle-aged woman in an orange robe brings them green tea. “We had fun, didn’t we?” he says. “In that old house. It was a more innocent age.”

“Yes,” says Jack. “We did have fun.” From this distance it does resemble fun. Fun is not knowing how it will end.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Rod says finally. “About that book of yours, and the contract.”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Jack.

“No, listen,” says Rod. “There’s a side deal.”

“A side deal?” says Jack. “How do you mean?”

“Between the three of us,” says Rod. “If one of us dies, their share is split between the other two. It was Irena’s idea.”

It would have been, thinks Jack. She’s never missed a trick. “I see,” he says.

“I know that’s not fair,” says Rod. “It should go to you. But Irena was angry because of the way you wrote about Violet, in the book. She thought it was a dig at her. After she’d been so, well, so kind to you.”

“It wasn’t a dig,” says Jack, another semi-lie. “What happens if all of you die?”

“Then our shares revert to you,” says Rod. “Irena wanted everything to go to her kidney charity, but I drew the line.”

“Thanks,” says Jack. So, it’s last man standing. At least he now has an overview of the state of affairs. “And thanks for telling me.” He shakes Rod’s wan hand.

“It’s only money, Jack,” says Rod. “Take it from me. At the end of the line, money means nothing. Let it go.”



Jaffrey is delighted to hear from Jack, or so he claims. What fine times those were, the days of their youth! What a blast! He seems to have forgotten that some of those days were spent in defrauding Jack, but since Jaffrey now devotes his entire life to defrauding people en masse, that long-ago, minor piece of sharp practice must have got lost in his inner shuffle. Not that Jaffrey hasn’t feathered his nest plumply enough with Jack’s earnings.

They’re on a golf course, Jaffrey’s suggestion. Play a round, have a couple of beers, what could be better? Jack hates golf, but is good at losing, and has a lot of practice at it: losing to film producers greases the wheels.

Smart Jaffrey: golf courses are the perfect cover. Private conversation is possible, but they’re never out of view of others, so Jack can’t simply brain the garrulous old fraud out of sight of witnesses. And Jaffrey is old, he’s really old: his remaining hair is white, his spine is curved, his paunch is flabby. Jack himself is no printemps chicken, but at least he’s kept in better shape than that.