Murdering Mr. Monti Read online

  • • •

  Mr. Monti was wearing one of those fancy suits five weeks ago, on Tuesday, August 18, when he came driving up to our house at about ninety miles an hour in his red Porsche with JAM (for Joseph Augustus Monti) on his vanity plates. The three of us—Jake and Wally and I—were just finishing our main course (sautéed shrimp with pesto sauce, served on orzo), taking full advantage of the unmuggy air, a very rare treat in August, by having dinner out on the front porch.

  There are lots of front porches in Cleveland Park, our gracious but somehow unpretentious neighborhood, where big old Victorian houses like ours compensate for bad pipes and inadequate wiring by virtue of lofty ceilings and multiple fireplaces. With raccoons in our yard and squirrels in our attic and boisterous bird song at dawn in our skyscraping trees, I can feel as if I’m far from the madding crowd. But the White House—we’ve not been invited as yet—is just a brief car ride away. And right down our steep Newark Street hill, a five-minute walk from where we live, is everything a civilized person needs: A branch of our public library. A bookstore. A video store. A movie theater. Markets, carry-outs, restaurants galore. And the Metro, our still-spiffy subway system, which even the richest folks in Cleveland Park ride.

  In other words, I’ve got supplies an easy stroll from home and sweet serenity outside my door, a sweet serenity about to be blasted by Joseph Monti in full attack mode.

  “I knew he was a bum, but I didn’t know the bum was also a crook,” he bellowed, storming up onto our porch and dragging a tearful, reluctant Josephine behind him.

  Wally got up and reached for Jo but Mr. Monti, planting a hand on his chest, shoved him back into his wrought-iron seat, knocking over the saltshaker in the process. Mr. Monti stared for a moment at the salt he had spilled, then scooped it up with his fingertips and tossed it over his left, and then his right, shoulder. “I can never remember which shoulder” he said, in a normal tone of voice, “but why risk bad luck—what’s so hard to do both?” He turned back to Wally. “Bum!” he snarled. “Bum! Crook!”

  Jake stood up and said, in his best surgical-strike voice, “I don’t know what your problem is, Mr. Monti, but I suggest that you get off this porch immediately or I will have to call the police.”

  “Feel free,” said Mr. Monti. “But when they arrest your son, just remember who invited them to this party.”

  Josephine was sobbing hysterically. Her father pointed to our beautiful antique white wicker rocking chair (it’s amazing what a can of spray paint and a new fabric on the pillows can do). “Sit. Blow your nose. Wipe your eyes. And listen. Maybe you’ll finally learn something.”

  As Josephine headed for the rocking chair, Wally yelled, “Jo, honey!” and got up again. Again Mr. Monti shoved him back in his seat, this time with such force that on the way down Wally’s head hit one of our hanging geranium plants and set it swinging wildly.

  Jake reached for our portable phone, punched 911, and awaited a human response, which you shouldn’t hold your breath for. “Excuse me,” said Mr. Monti, his face instructing me in the definitive meaning of the word “sneer.” “Do you want to report to the police that your son has just stolen a hundred and fifty thousand dollars from my bedroom safe?”

  “No way!” yelled Wally. Josephine sobbed louder. I decided it was time for a constructive intervention.

  Fortunately, I was looking real good and, as I often remind my readers, shallow though it may seem, let’s not underestimate the confidence we gain from feeling pleased with our physical appearance. I had the best tan you can acquire with Presun Number 29 sun screen, the pale streaks in my cropped curly hair could almost have been natural, and the eye lift had done wonders for my upper-eyelid droop. While no one would ever confuse me with Goldie Hawn, I will in all modesty note that we might very well be mistaken for first cousins.

  Anyway, I asked Jake to please get off the phone for a few minutes while we tried to work this out like civilized human beings. I asked Wally to please stay in his chair for a few minutes while we tried to work this out like civilized human beings. I gave Josephine a soothing pat and a few paper napkins (no, I’m not being inconsistent; I believe paper is permitted at dinner when dining outdoors) to mop up her tear-stained face. Then I told Mr. Monti to stop being disrespectful to my husband, to keep his fucking hands off my son, and to please elaborate upon his grotesque accusations.

  Mr. Monti pulled a chair up to our wrought-iron table and shook his head. “Some nice family you’ve got here. The doctor has two malpractice suits hanging over him and his hospital—”

  “Both of which are entirely without merit and will be resolved in our favor,” said Jake in his best surgicalicicle voice.

  “And the lady of the house has—”

  “Has what, Mr. Monti?” I asked him, knowing full well that he was never going to spill the beans about our . . . brief encounter.

  “Has some filthy mouth on her. What did you call my hands? You called my hands what? That’s how you talk in front of a girl who had never missed a mass until she met your son, a girl who had never been touched any place personal until she met your son, a girl who . . .” As Mr. Monti’s rage mounted, his fingers—seeming to possess a life of their own—reached into the orzo and pulled out a pesto-drenched shrimp. He popped it into his mouth, nodded appreciatively, and then helped himself to another. The shrimps seemed to exert a calming influence.

  “And congratulations on your sons,” he said, his voice returning to conversational level. “Both bums. Your real estate genius, I’m taking bets, before the end of the year will be begging on street corners. And your master of social work—this bum right here—stole first my daughter’s virtue, and now my money.”

  There was a yowl of protest from Josephine, and Wally started getting up from his chair yet again. I shook my head warningly and he subsided. “Mr. Monti,” I said, “let’s put the subject of Josephine’s virtue to one side for now and concentrate on the money. What are you trying to say?”

  “Not trying. Saying. This afternoon your son entered my bedroom and removed all the cash from my safe.”

  “You saw him do this?” I asked.

  “The money was there this morning. Josephine was there all day. She will confirm that the only three people who were in the house today were me, her, and—” pointing a fat thumb in the direction of Wally—“him.”

  “Mr. Monti,” Wally said, trying to emulate my calm, reasoned approach, “I did not take your money. I do not have your money. I drove directly from your house to my house. Search me. Search this house. Search the car.”

  “What did you do—figure it would be days, weeks, before I checked my safe again? Bad figuring, bum.” He put out his hand. “Car keys.”

  I found it hard to believe that Mr. Monti was actually going to search Wally’s car. We all did. Jake said, “This is ridiculous. What are we having for dessert?” I was telling him that dessert was a lemon sorbet topped with strawberries soaked in crème de cassis, when there was a roar of triumph over by the Chevrolet.

  “I want everyone to see this,” said Mr. Monti. “I want everyone to see with their own eyes.”

  We all rushed to the curb and peered into the trunk of Wally’s Chevy. A lot of money was stacked up in rubber-banded piles. Wally said, “What’s going on here?” Jake said, “I’m calling our lawyer.” Josephine fell into her father’s arms, back to heavy-duty sobbing. I returned to the porch, cleared the plates from the table, and served the dessert. I even had enough class to bring out desserts for Josephine and Mr. Monti.

  • • •

  Fortunately our lawyer, Marvin Kipper, also lives in Cleveland Park, just a few blocks away. In response to Jake’s call, he said he was going out for his evening run and would run over to our house. He was there within four minutes, sweaty and panting but ready for action.

  Wally swore he never took the money. Josephine, completely undone, said she didn’t know whether he did or not. Jake asked how Wally could possibly open the safe. Mr.
Monti turned to the kids and asked them to tell the assembled throng why Wally knew the combination to the safe. Without waiting for their answer, he reminded them with a big gotcha grin that Wally, while still persona semi-grata, had attended a Monti family dinner at which Mr. Monti let slip that the combination of his safe was the same as Josephine’s birth date. Wally confirmed this with a “right,” Josephine with a grim nod of her head.

  In his faded red shorts, tattered T-shirt, and bargain running shoes, Marvin was no match for the sartorially splendid Mr. Monti. In a film of his life, Marv’s lovable shlumpiness could best be captured by Woody Allen in his pre-Ingmar Bergman phase. But Marvin is one of those low-key, high-fee attorneys who inspire confidence, and his thin reedy voice carried authority when he told Mr. Monti that if he wanted to go to the police with his accusations, go right ahead. All of us stared at Mr. Monti, who pushed aside the strawberries and vigorously attacked the sorbet, noting between spoonfuls that in fact he preferred not to go to the police. He said he just wanted his money back, his daughter back, and Wally permanently out of their life.

  Josephine had stopped sobbing and was looking practically catatonic. Her eyes were blank, her face was dead-white, and she was twisting and turning a long strand of dark-red hair around her finger.

  “Say something, Jo,” Wally begged her. “Say you believe in me.”

  Josephine didn’t answer.

  “Tell him he’s a bum and you never want to see him again,” Mr. Monti instructed her.

  Josephine didn’t answer.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said to Josephine.

  She shook her head from side to side in a violent, silent no, no, no. Then she left the porch and got into the front seat of her father’s car.

  A moment later Mr. Monti, having polished off his dessert, and his daughter’s too, made his departure. “Talk to your client,” he told Marvin, “and I’ll talk to you around noon tomorrow.” As he opened the door to his Porsche he tossed off one last instruction: “Take good care of the money, folks. I’ll be counting every bill when it’s returned to me.”

  “That son of a bitch. That son of a bitch,” Wally muttered as the Porsche took off.

  “You didn’t do it, right, kid?” asked Marvin.

  “Didn’t do it,” said Wally.

  “So who did?”

  “There’s only one person could have done it, but—” Wally rubbed the back of his head where it had crashed into the geranium plant. “Hey, I’ve got a really rotten headache right now. Could we wait and discuss this tomorrow, at your office?”

  “Absolutely,” said Marv. “And think about the offer Monti made you. Innocent or not, maybe you don’t want to get mixed up with a cuckoo family like that.”

  Wally launched into a “Jospehine is the woman I intend to marry” speech, but I tactfully cut him short and sent him to bed, recommending for his aching head two pillows, two Bufferin, and an ice bag wrapped in a towel. Jake pointed out that we couldn’t leave a hundred and fifty thou in the trunk of a car, even on a quiet street like ours, so I brought out a giant green garbage bag and the three of us hastily stuffed the money into it. “I’ll pick it up tomorrow on my way down to work,” Marvin offered, after Jake had dragged the bag inside. “Now how about—” he hitched up his drooping running shorts “—a cup of your coffee.”

  The three of us sat in silence, for a while, listening to the crickets’ raspy chorus. A light “breeze stirred our bright-blossomed crape myrtle and a couple of squirrels played last-game-of-tag-before-bedtime in one of our pines. The scene was serene, but I was certainly not. Sitting here at home on our leafy street on our wraparound porch, I had been feeling so sheltered and so safe. But Mr. Monti had clomped up the steps, disturbing the peace and reminding me what a mean and menacing place the world could be.

  I explained to Marvin how deeply distraught (make that crazed) Mr. Monti had been about the conversion decision. I explained how I had tried on several occasions, unsuccessfully, to charm and argue and beg and press Mr. Monti into letting these sweet kids alone. I added that I thought that Mr. Monti would do anything—even something as wildly extreme as taking cash from his safe and putting it in the trunk of Wally’s car—if this would discredit him in Josephine’s eyes.

  “He would do such a thing just because of this disagreement about converting?” Marvin asked me.

  “No,” I answered. “He would do it to win. This is a man who always has to win.”

  • • •

  Jake never suffers from insomnia, and that night was no exception. He said he was sure that after Marvin and Wally met, Marvin would have some expensive and useful recommendations. I told him I thought we were dealing with psychological, not legal, issues here. He said we should first see what Marvin had to say and that I should try to get a good night’s sleep. I said that I assumed that he and I would be going to Marvin’s office with Wally. He didn’t answer because he was fast asleep.

  Around 1 A.M. I went down to the kitchen and began eating my way through a large bag of Hershey’s Kisses. A few minutes later I heard Wally’s feet on the stairs. We took the bag into the living room and when we reached the end of our conversation, the only kiss that was left was the one he gave to me before he disappeared.

  I waited until six before I awakened Jake with the news that our son had taken off. Sparing him the details, I simply told him that Wally was feeling upset and needed some time by himself to think things through.

  “Great,” Jake said. “Now he’s a fugitive from justice.”

  “No, he’s not,” I explained. “He hasn’t been charged with a crime. He is perfectly within his constitutional rights if he wants to go away for a few days to clear his head.”

  “Is that what you told him, Brenda?”

  “More or less. But only after he asked.”

  When Jake gets angry his voice becomes softer, not louder. By the time he was finished with what he had to say, he was almost whispering. Then he called Marvin, who said that he had a couple of legal tactics that would put Mr. Monti on hold for a few days. He added that although he wished that Wally had talked with him first, he hadn’t been charged with a crime and was therefore perfectly within his constitutional rights if he wanted to . . .

  I was listening in on the extension, but when the conversation was over I didn’t gloat. Instead, with tears in my eyes I told Jake that the tone he had taken with me displayed an absence of love and affection, not to mention considerable disrespect for my autonomy. (I strongly urge my readers, in marital disputes, to use the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger approach if they’re looking for an apology from their husbands.) Jake apologized.

  • • •

  Have I mentioned that Jake has a slim, muscular body and that from the neck down he looks almost as youthful as the twenty-nine-year-old who was another of the three men I went to bed with in those twenty-four hours shortly before my last birthday? Sometimes when I’m feeling unappreciated by Jake, I forget to acknowledge how attractive he is. And he is, even from the neck up, where his fifty years have pouched his eyes and stolen most of his hair, but have left him with the somewhat battered appeal of a—well, try to imagine a Jewish Sean Connery.

  Furthermore, Jake has never been one of those surgeons who confuse themselves with God. He is reasonably modest, a very hard worker, a devoted father, and, until recently, a tolerant husband who had been perfectly happy to allow me to be in charge of human relationships and culture. But now, in indirect and not so indirect ways, he seems to be suggesting that my column is bringing out the worst in me. I wonder if he’s jealous. I wonder if he thinks I’m confusing myself with God.

  Actually, neither Jake nor I could possibly be God. The title has been claimed by Philip, an internationally known television personality whose name would be instantly recognizable to you if I weren’t calling him Philip, which I am doing because he’s the third of the men I went to bed with in those twenty-four hours before my forty-sixth birthday.

  • �
� •

  It has been quite a year. My birthday took place five months ago. Wally took off five weeks ago. And yesterday I decided to kill Mr. Monti.

  2

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  YES TO ADULTERY

  Once I had chosen to say yes to adultery, I was faced with some tricky questions: (a) How could I be an adulteress (or are we saying adulterer these days?) and still feel like a basically good human being? (b) Was there a way to minimize the lying and sneaking and cheating while also making certain I didn’t get caught? (c) How many different men would it take to meet my need for sexual variety? And (d) What could I do to avoid the quite unwanted complication of falling in love with any or all of these men?

  Now there are people all around us who maintain their sense of goodness by denying the negative aspects of themselves, by indulging in the blind belief that they harbor no wicked thoughts or malevolent feelings. I am proud to say I am not one of those people. Instead, I am well aware that each of us, including myself, contains both lightness and darkness, both good and evil. And I therefore believe that a “good” person is not one whose heart is pure, but one who stares into, and continually wrestles with, her heart of darkness (a stirring phrase taken from the fine novel of the same name by Joseph Conrad). Goodness, I tell my readers, is a struggle, not a settled state of grace. And even the best of us sometimes struggle and lose.