FOUR

L ouis Schiff invited Bruce Thurston to his office for a consultation. His wording was simple yet urgent, with a bite that forced Thurston to sit up, take notice, and acquiesce without argument. He had called on a cell phone private number, and said, “Thurston, this is Schiff. It is imperative that we meet. You will want to consider information I have about an assignation at the La Brea Tar Pits.”

Miriam suggested she be there as well, wanting to savor turning the tables on her despicable former fiancé, but Louis held up his hand and virtually ordered her to suspend any form of celebration till it was a done deal.

Only the two of them met. Usually, when he had an appointment, Louis liked to get out from behind his desk and sit side by side with his client in the soft chairs in front. This time, he remained at his desk and began with, “Your accusations and the deposition you filed are contemptible. You know as well as I that they are phony. I have no illusion that I could talk you out of this vindictive act, so instead I’ve collected a bit of juicy counter-smut to see if it might do the trick.”

He produced the series of photos that Whitey Carter had taken, and without a word, laid them out on the desk.

Bruce Thurston was a handsome man, not quite as Gable-esque as his son, but with smooth features and a chiseled look that, if you were old enough, might remind you of the hunk who played the Marlboro Man in ads on television some twenty years earlier. He dressed impeccably, with a silver and black striped tie, a Giampaolo Desanti, finely woven, grey woolen suit, and black leather shoes polished each morning as he arrived in the lobby of his office building. His hair was silver at the temples and otherwise a carefully coiffed, salt and pepper combination that was so perfectly trimmed one might have thought it a wig.

His eyes, part of the symphony of grey he projected, perused the photos with widening dismay.

“Look,” he began, but Louis cut him off.

“Thurston, you can mess around any way you like. It’s not my worry. But, if you want it to be our little secret, the shit you’ve been trying to get Miriam and me on will have to go away, fast and totally. Do I make myself clear?”

There was hardly a beat of silence and Thurston said, “Done.”

As he rose to go to the door, he turned and said, more humbly than one might expect from such an accomplished man, “You know, Schiff, we both loved the same woman. That ought to count for something. I’m a rotten loser, and that’s it. The other stuff, the pictures and all—I’m not proud of it. It’s an addiction I need to keep secret.”

“Not a problem. Different from you, I have no need to ruin anyone’s life.” He could not hide a little smile of triumph, and, as Thurston read it, scorn.

What the Schiffs had no control over was the nefarious motive of one, Whitey Carter. Hardly a week passed, when a letter came to the Thurston home addressed to Mr. Thurston. Whitey had no awareness that Galen Thurston was regularly at his parents’ home, for meals, occasionally to sleep in his luxurious room, and to collect his mail. When Galen saw a thick letter addressed as it was, and knowing that mail for his father almost always included the letters L.L.D., in deference to his law degree, he made a quick judgment and opened it. It read:

“See these pics. I want ten grand on Friday the 12^th, by ten AM or they go public. Small bills, in the downtown Greyhound terminal, locker number 1123. It will be unlocked and left ajar on the morning of the 12^th. When the money is deposited, shut the locker door. It will automatically lock. No funny business or the pics are spread all over town. Negatives will be mailed to you.”

Galen perused the enclosed photos, hands shaking as he filtered through the small packet, heartbeat escalating as if he were running a marathon, his handsome face distorted in pain, eyes finally glassing over with tears.

It was not as if he idolized his father. In fact, as a child he had dreams that his father was going to eat him. Bruce Thurston was an un-affectionate parent and also ominously distant; nothing overt, but an ever-present sense that Galen had ‘better not’ do this-or-that hung over every encounter. The term ‘permissive’ was not accurate; rather, one might say that he was a parent who chose to ignore his growing son—until he reached adulthood. Then, as his father saw it, though perhaps not consciously, the boy represented the family and, to avoid embarrassment, had to match up.

No, he did not idolize his father, yet the scandalous information he now saw, spread so shamelessly before him, destroyed some kind of fantasy he had harbored: that the old man was upright, successful, at least to be admired, and wanted the best for his son. He did not know what to do with this new awareness.

How would he act—he did not consider himself a good actor—and what could he do to restore the envelope so that his trespass would not be discovered?

The latter was easier than the former; he could replace the envelope, print his father’s name and address on it, glue on a used stamp from another letter, and seal the whole thing up for his father to open. How to be with his father was a painful, awkward and daunting prospect.

It occurred to him that his mother, the former Jennifer Knight, the replacement bride after Miriam Gannet left Bruce Thurston at the altar, was utterly naïve about the situation. Did that need addressing? Well, it wasn’t up to him to disclose anything to her, at least for now. In any case, his mother was, as he saw her, a pliable partner who acquiesced to any and all of her husband’s demands. His guess was, even if she knew about his sexual misadventures, she would do nothing. Her self-confidence, he always believed, was in the toilet.

His own at this moment was equally dismal.