The Guest Room(71)
“I heard a few.”
Spencer looked at his watch. “God. You’re incredible.”
“Okay, I’m listening. I promise.”
“They were threatening me with sexual assault on a minor. They were threatening me with managing a sex tourism business. Even that’s a Class D felony. Do you have any idea how many years in prison I was looking at if I were convicted of sexual assault on a minor? Do you realize how completely f*cking ruined my whole life would have been?”
“You wouldn’t have been convicted. You just used a stripper service that had benefits.”
“But I knew they had benefits. And I did have sex with that blonde.”
“You weren’t alone.”
“Anyway, if you care, I told them everything—and I mean everything—and I’ve agreed to testify. So instead I’m not even looking at a Class A misdemeanor: promoting prostitution. My lawyer, at first, thought that was the goal. Get this shitstorm down to a misdemeanor. But by testifying, I’m getting off scot-free.”
“And that nasty business with Chuck and Brandon?”
“Really, Philip, I might have been talking to the f*cking wall.”
“I’m sorry.”
Spencer sighed, exasperated. “Brandon’s wife is still claiming to be out for the count, which my lawyer says is all part of the negotiations. But the settlement—assuming we reach one—won’t be pretty. And Chuck’s lawyer has gone off radar. Not responding to e-mails or phone calls.”
“Which may mean Chuck has come to his senses, right?”
“Hah! That, too, is part of the negotiations. Any way you look at it, no matter how or when or if we settle, I am financially f*cked. My legal fees alone are going to be a world of pain.”
“That whole night now is nothing but pain. None of us have gotten off easy.”
“But some of us are in far deeper shit than others. So, tell me…”
Philip looked at Spencer and raised his eyebrows expectedly. It was unlike Spencer to stop in mid-sentence. “Go on.”
“So, tell me…you hear from your brother?”
“Often. Why?” Philip noted how his friend wouldn’t meet his eyes, and thought this was odd: it was as if Spencer was actually experiencing a little guilt over the tsunami he had unleashed.
“Just curious.”
“God, are you getting a heart?” He clapped him good-naturedly on the shoulder. “Are you getting a moral compass? I’m proud of you, Spencer! You’re feeling bad about this natural disaster, aren’t you?”
“He’s your brother. He’s smart. I was just wondering what he was saying.”
“Mostly he’s saying he’s pissed at Franklin McCoy. Mostly he’s saying his house is a mess.”
“Interesting.”
“He’ll be okay. He is smart, you’re right. And he’s loaded. His wife is pretty. He’s everything I’m not.”
Spencer nodded, but he didn’t disagree with him. Philip rather hoped—expected, in fact—that he would. And so they both were quiet for a moment. Finally Spencer said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Do you ever think about those Russian dudes? I can’t get that moment when they were killed out of my head. The poor bastards. I’ve had nightmares about getting attacked just like that. I keep thinking of the knife in that one guy’s neck.”
“Well, that’s cheery.”
“A few times, I’ve woken up with the sweats. I know it’s unreasonable…actually, I don’t know that at all…I tell myself it’s unreasonable, but I really do worry sometimes that those Russian guys are going to come after me for ratting them out.”
“I know you do.”
“I mean, if you were them, wouldn’t you want a guy like me dead?”
“You didn’t rat them out. You told the police the name of the service you used.”
“And that might be all it takes to get a person killed, right? Some of those dudes are already back on the street. They paid their bail and they’re out. And now I’ve agreed to testify. That can’t be good.”
“Remember, those dudes didn’t kill anyone. I’m serious. The killers here were those two girls. And I don’t think those girls have got anything against us,” he said, and he recalled the way the blond one had ravenously clawed at him, the muscles in her beautiful neck growing taut as she arched back her head. Afterward, he’d imagined he would somehow find the right words to ask Nicole to grab him just like that. To roll her head back like that. Alas, he could now take that little bit of wordsmithing off his to-do list.
“I guess. But don’t you wish you could somehow delete the images of those poor bastards bleeding out from your brain?”
“Honestly? I don’t think about that so much.”
“Are you serious?”
He shrugged. “Look: obviously I’m never going to forget it. Obviously I was a second away from wetting my pants when it was going on. But mostly I think about how amazing those girls were before they went banshee.”
“Well, I’ve learned my lesson. I have so learned my lesson.”
“I have, too,” Philip said, but in one of those moments of rare and uncharacteristic self-awareness, he thought of that woman in white upstairs now in the hotel room, naked atop the older guy, and he realized he hadn’t. He knew in his heart he’d learned nothing at all.