You Love Me(You #3)(58)

“What’s that, Oliver?”

“Gordy and I were doing really well with Eric. Eric was my mentor…” Say it again, Oliver and I hope I don’t repeat myself this much. “The Quinns wanted Eric’s help with their piece-of-shit son, Forty. Eric had a rule. He would do anything for the Quinns, anything but help that piece-of-shit Forty.”

I stare the fucker down. “You know my kid’s named after him, right?” And this is why I told Love that saddling our son with that stupid, tainted name was a bad idea.

“Yes, my friend, and I feel for you. I do.” And then he sighs, wanting to get back to his story. “Long story short…” It’s a little late for that, Oliver. “Eric turned down the gig. The Quinns turned around and offered the job to me and Gordy. And we’ve been working for them ever since.”

“What a nice story.”

“Joe, Joe, Joe, I’m not the bad guy here. I hate the Quinns just as much as you do. You should see where they’re putting me up, this second-rate motel with powdered eggs in the lobby and a mattress so thin I can barely sleep, which is why my back is fucked up and I can’t get the right angle on the strings on this piece-of-shit Gibson.”

“Well, maybe you should file a complaint with HR.”

“Look, my friend, I’m trying to make you see that the Quinns have me locked up, just like you. They gave me a job. They gave you this shit box. But they own us, Joe.”

I go into RIP Melanda mode. I can’t help it. “Oliver, you locked me up in here. Our situations are nothing alike.”

“Are you kidding? I saved Forty’s ass on a rape charge before he kicked the bucket. You got in through the sister. We saved their precious fucked-up kids. We both took their money.”

“I didn’t get in through the sister, Oliver. I loved her.”

He smiles. “Does your MILF know that?”

I ignore the question and he sighs. “You say you want out. But do you mean it?”

“Yes, I mean it. Let’s talk out there. It reeks in here.”

“I’m talking big picture, my friend. Why are you living on this poor man’s Nantucket?”

“I chose to move here. That has nothing to do with the Quinns. I wanted to leave L.A. and I wanted to live here and I chose this house.”

“Ah,” he says. “So you wanted to abandon your son?”

“Fuck no, Oliver. That’s different. I didn’t have a choice about that and you know it.”

Oliver nods. Smug. “And finally, light dawns on Marblehead.”

Oliver’s just like RIP Melanda, Mary Kay. He doesn’t believe that people can grow and change their minds and I don’t want to be analyzed by this failed writer turned Privacy Invader and I tell him he’s right—it hurts—and I ask him what happens next. Any good writer should be able to answer that question but Oliver failed as a writer.

“We’ll get to that,” he says. “First, I gotta know. What was your magic number?”

“You mean what did they pay me? Oliver, they pointed a gun at my head. I had to sign the contract.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was it? Eight mill to leave your kid? Ten?”

This is why I’m in the cage. Oliver isn’t entirely wrong and I did it. I took the money. But I didn’t sell my son.

“Four million,” I say. “Plus the house.”

“The house they bought for you.”

“The house is in my name.”

“Well, isn’t that nice of them? My Benz is in my name too. Thing is though, I can’t afford the payments if I quit working for them.”

I don’t want to be like Oliver and I am not like Oliver. “Okay,” he says. “Brass tacks. I have video of you and the dead chick…”

Woman not chick and I tell him I didn’t kill her and he sighs. “Well, my friend, if I called the local yokel cops right now and they saw you in that room with her blood on the walls…”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“It doesn’t matter, Goldberg. All that matters is how it looks. Now listen up. I sent those pictures to Gordy but Gordy has not shown those pictures to Ray… If he does that, you’ll get thrown in jail, and they won’t need me to watch you anymore. I’ll be out of a job. The Quinns will win.”

“What do you want?”

Oliver settles into his chair like any aspiring writer about to pitch his shitty story and I am the executive so I lean forward because I have to lean forward. I want to buy his pitch. I want to get the fuck out of here and be with you. “You and me are from the wrong side of the trust fund, my friend. The Quinns found us. They see our potential, our brains, and they like to squash it because their own kids never had what we have. We’re not a part of the old boys’ club and we never will be, but what we have here is an opportunity to create a young boys’ club. A poor boys’ club, if you will.”

“Oliver, I don’t follow. What do we do in this ‘club’?”

He’s a defensive writer so he tells me that I don’t have to follow as if it’s my fault that his pitch is muddled. “We help each other out. I don’t show Ray what you did to this chick and you help me because you got paid a helluva lot more than I did, my friend.”