Too Far E-Book

Jason Starr

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 430

Beschreibung

One night. One date. What have you got to lose? ONE NIGHT. ONE DATE. WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE? Jack Harper isn't a bad man, but he's stuck in a loveless marriage with a mediocre job just trying to keep sober. The only good thing in his life is his son. When an old college friend introduces him to a new extramarital dating website, he tentatively reaches out to find a distraction from his misery. But when he goes to meet up with his steamy online date, he quickly realises it was a dire choice. Soon, Jack finds himself desperately trying to prove his innocence for crimes he did not commit, and the life he once had - unhappy as it was - is nothing but a dream. Now, he's living his worst nightmare... Gripping and packed with shocking twists and turns, this intense psychological thriller plays with a basic anxiety we all harbour: What if onerecklessdecision could ruin your life forever?

Leseprobe

Praise for Jason Starr

Cold Caller

‘Well crafted and very scary’ – Times

‘Cool, deadpan, a rollercoaster ride to hell’ – Guardian

‘Tough, composed and about as noir as you can go. Starr is a worthy successor to Charles Willeford’ –Literary Review

‘At the cutting edge of the revival of classic American noir fiction’ –Daily Telegraph

Nothing Personal

‘Diabolically well-plotted noir thriller… gentle readers should take heed’ –Literary Review

‘Wholly satisfying. Nothing Personal is a fast, well-paced and well-plotted domestic crime thriller’ –Barcelona Review

‘The King of Noir is back. It doesn’t get any darker or funnier than this… the best novel of the year’ –Bookends

Fake ID

‘Bang up to date, but reminiscent of David Goodis and Jim Thompson, Fake ID is a powerful novel of the American Dream turning into the American Nightmare that marks Starr out as a writer to follow’ –Time Out

‘Low life diligently trawled by a master of the genre… Ruthlessly good; definitively noir. A flinty, flawless entry in the annals of ill luck’ – The Literary Review

Hard Feelings

‘A tale that reads like James M Cain modernised by Bret Easton Ellis. It will make you squirm’ –Guardian Unlimited

‘Starr has plumbed the shallows of his brittle characters and their selfish lives, depicting them in a hard-edged style that is clean, cold and extremely chilling’ – New York Times

‘Jason Starr is the first writer of his generation to convincingly update the modern crime novel by giving it provocative new spins and Hard Feelings is his most accomplished thriller yet’ –Bret Easton Ellis

‘A gripping novel of paranoia and obsession that’s damn near impossible to put down’ – Time Out

Tough Luck

‘A hard-knuckled writer’ –New York Times Book Review

‘Tough Luck, an enthralling character study, is perfect car-crash literature; spiritual sustenance for the “inner rubber-neck” in all of us’ –New Mystery Reader Magazine

‘A noir world that is not only bleak, but painfully funny’ –Mystery Ink

Twisted City

‘Jason Starr is terrific and Twisted City is one of his best. Starr knows what James M Cain knew: that a whole world of evil lies right on the edge of the everyday world and you can cross the border in a city minute. His stuff is tough and real and brilliant’ –Andrew Klavan

‘Demonic, demented and truly ferocious and a flat-out joy to read. In other words, a total feast. Like it?… I plain worshipped it’ –Ken Bruen

‘Streamlined as a model’s hips, dark as the inside of a dog’s gut, Twisted City is a hip, white-collar update on the James Cain, Jim Thompson style novel with a seasoning all its own. Jason Starr is a unique talent, and Twisted City is one unique book’ –Joe R Lansdale

Lights Out

‘A strangely fascinating riff off classic noir… Starr is a master at portraying Brooklyn as a dark corner of hell’ – Publishers Weekly

‘The Rube Goldberg plot hurls these raging citizens together with all the energy of a nuclear-powered kaleidoscope… The result is scorching’ – Kirkus Reviews

‘Lights Out is a superb contemporary noir with a high body count and some truly funny scenes’ – Mystery Scene Mag

Panic Attack

‘Wholly contemporary… but it also harks back to post-war noir and Jacobin revenge dramas of yore’ – Compulsive Reader

Savage Lane

‘A hypnotic story of lust and obsession’ – Daily Telegraph

‘This ingenious thriller manipulates the heartstrings like a deranged keyboard’ – Love Reading

‘He remains the master of psychotic insight’ – Herald Scotland

For Mom

‘There is nothing safe about sex. There never will be’

– Norman Mailer

‘Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one’

– Albert Einstein

1

In the two-bedroom penthouse on 73rd, near Third, Rob McEvoy said, ‘I like it, man, I like it.’ Then, as he went ahead through the short foyer, into the kitchen area, he added, ‘Breakfast bar, love it. What kind of wood?’

‘Teak,’ I said.

‘Sweet.’

‘Installed a few months ago by the owner,’ I added. ‘Counter top’s Blue Louise, that’s top-of-the-line granite, and those’re all new appliances – Sub-Zero Wolf, with a fully integrated dishwasher.’

Rob was walking away, toward the living room, asking, ‘Fireplace work?’

‘Yep. And you don’t see many apartments with working fireplaces in Manhattan.’

‘Living room’s kinda small.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘but there’s a separate dining area and an open floor plan with lots of light and two exposures.’

‘Southern?’

‘Northern and eastern.’

‘It’s okay. I get enough sun in L.A.’

He smiled, with his shiny, new-looking capped teeth, which seemed even whiter in contrast with his overly tanned skin. He looked so different than he had – Jesus, twenty-four years ago – when we were both struggling musicians, living on the Lower East Side. If we hadn’t reconnected on Facebook, if I’d just ran into him on the street, I probably would’ve walked right by him.

‘It’s actually a very bright apartment, especially in the morning,’ I said.

‘Yeah, and the living room really isn’t so small. Enough room for a big, wide couch and that’s all that really matters, right?’

He winked at me, then went toward the door to the terrace and said, ‘Wow, let’s have a look.’

We stepped out onto the terrace that was staged with lounge chairs from Crate & Barrel.

‘You won’t find a terrace this size for this price,’ I said. ‘It’s three hundred square feet. Some apartments in Manhattan aren’t three hundred square feet. You can barbecue, throw parties…’

‘This is awesome,’ Rob said. ‘Totally what I’ve been looking for. How much is it?’

‘The owner’s asking two mill, and I don’t think it’s negotiable. He recently dropped the price and it’s an investment property and he’s not desperate to sell. I mean, you can try to nudge him to one nine and change, but I don’t think he’ll budge. The maintenance is nineteen-sixty which is actually extremely reasonable, so if you put twenty percent down you’re looking at a nut of –’

‘I’m paying cash,’ Rob said.

‘Oh. Oh, okay.’ I knew Rob was doing well – he’d started Music Mania, his own music licensing business, in Hollywood – but I didn’t expect him to fork over two million in cash. ‘That’s cool,’ I added.

‘I also want to close on it fast,’ he said, ‘within a month or two.’

‘Assuming we can get all the paperwork done, and there are no issues with the board, I don’t see why that should be a problem.’

‘Sweet.’ Rob lay in one of the lounge chairs. ‘Gonna be honest with you – I’ve been out with a few other brokers, seen a couple of other places I like, but this is my fav. And all things being equal, I’d rather you get the commish than some stranger.’

Was he saying he wanted to make an offer? Sounded like it, but I wasn’t sure.

I’d been doubting everything lately. My only deal in the last three months had been a one-bedroom, non-doorman rental and I’d had to split the commission with another broker. Living in Manhattan, on the Upper East Side, wasn’t exactly cheap, and Maria and I had been struggling lately to pay rent, bills, and expenses for our eight-year-old son. We hadn’t gone on a vacation in years.

But selling a two million dollar apartment could turn everything around.

‘That sounds great,’ I said, thinking, Go for the close, go for the close. ‘If you have any more questions, I’d be happy to answer them, and I can also contact the seller for you, and feel them out on the price, I mean if you’re thinking about making an offer.’

Gazing out at the view of rooftops, Rob said, ‘Man, I love this view.’

‘It’s pretty awesome, isn’t it? I mean, it’s hard to get an unobstructed view in Manhattan these days. Or you think you have a great view then a building goes up and blocks it. But you don’t have to worry about that here. Those are all multi-million-dollar townhouses and they’re not going anywhere.’

‘I like that it’s private,’ he said. ‘You could fuck somebody here in the middle of the day and no one would see you.’

I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, but I smiled, said, ‘Ha, yes, that’s true. That’s very true… so, do you think your wife will like it?’

He looked at me like I’d said something offensive.

‘My wife?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘You guys are gonna use it as a pied-a-terre when you’re in the city, I guess, right?’

I knew he’d mentioned his wife in a couple of the emails we’d exchanged and his Facebook status was ‘Married.’ I glanced at his ring finger, at his thick gold wedding band.

‘No, I’m gonna use it as a pied-a-terre when I’m in the city,’ he said, showing off his fake smile. ‘My wife? She’s never gonna even know about it. You know it’s like what they say – what you don’t know can’t hurt you.’

He walked by me, back into the apartment. I followed him.

He said, ‘Yeah, if I take this place, first thing I’ll do is get a decorator in here. iHome the fuck out of it, get some hip furniture, a bar, the right lighting, a kick-ass sound system. And a great bed. That’s the most important thing, right?’

I smiled along with Rob, not wanting to judge. I needed this sale.

‘Well, I think you’ll really enjoy yourself here,’ I said.

‘Oh, I’ll enjoy myself, I guarantee you that.’

I forced another smile. Then, when he looked away, I rolled my eyes.

As we rode the elevator down to the lobby, I gave Rob more basics about the building and the neighborhood.

‘If you have any questions just let me know,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but I know other brokers are showing this apartment and there’s been some serious interest and I don’t think it’ll last.’

Actually, I had no idea if other brokers were actively showing it or if there had been any interest at all. But from experience, I knew I had to do whatever I could to get him off the fence. If what he’d told me was true and he was considering other apartments, I needed him to make a decision as soon as possible.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t fuck you over,’ Rob said. ‘I’ll turn this around fast, I promise.’

I didn’t want to let him go without making an offer, but there was a limit to how hard I could press.

‘Gotchya,’ I said.

I was looking forward to getting back to my office and, well, away from Rob, when he said, ‘Hey, you want to grab some lunch?’

‘Love to,’ I lied, ‘but I have some stuff to take care of at the office.’

‘Come on, man,’ he said, ‘lemme buy. It’s not like we see each other more than once every, what, twenty years? We have a lot of catching up to do.’

I knew this was a bad idea. When you’re trying to close a deal, it’s always a mistake to hang out with the potential client – nothing good comes from closeness.

On the other hand, I didn’t want him to think I was blowing him off.

‘Yeah, okay, cool,’ I said. ‘I guess I can catch a quick bite. I mean, what the hell, right?’

2

Rob had an Uber drop us at Le Veau D’Or, an upscale French restaurant on East 60th that I’d passed many times but had never gone into. Rob was in a black sport jacket over a designer black T-shirt – the big shot music mogul look? I felt way underdressed in jeans, sneakers, and a plain gray button-down.

‘Um, maybe we should go someplace a little more casual,’ I said.

‘Chill, my brother,’ Rob said. ‘You look great. A little low budg, yeah, but you’re Jack Harper – you’re a rock ’n’ roll guy, you’re hip. You think Leo gives a fuck how he looks when he goes out to lunch?’

I was going to say, Yeah, I think he probably does, but we were in the restaurant already, so I figured we might as well just get seated.

As the hostess, an attractive, leggy blond, was leading us to our table, I saw Rob’s gaze zeroing in on her ass, then he looked at me and in an exaggerated way mouthed the words, Holy fucking shit.

I was already regretting my decision to have lunch with him. Would schmoozing with him really increase the odds of closing the sale? If he sensed how jerky I thought he was, it could actually hurt my chances. Sometimes less is more.

At our table, Rob said to the hostess, ‘Actress or model?’

His voice boomed – a few people were looking over – but I didn’t get the impression he was accidentally loud; no, he wanted people to hear. The hostess, probably used to getting hit on by sleazy businessmen, seemed unfazed.

‘Actress,’ she said.

‘Fifty-fifty shot, right?’ Rob was fake smiling. Then he shifted to an intense, focused expression that was just as fake. ‘You have beautiful eyes. I mean I don’t think I’ve ever seen that shade of blue, except when I was sailing in the Aegean.’

I tasted vomit.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Enjoy your meals, guys.’

As she headed back toward the front of the restaurant, Rob turned to check her out.

‘I’d give her the best two minutes of her life,’ he said. ‘Who’m I kidding? Twenty seconds.’

Again his voice had boomed and the older woman at the next table shot me a look. My response was a helplessly embarrassed shrug, as if saying, It’s not me, it’s him.

‘And you know she’d be into it,’ he continued. ‘Nine times out of ten a girl her age meets an older guy of course she’s gonna fall for him, know why? Because her boyfriend’s probably some twenty-two-year-old jackass – never compliments her, always puts her down, doesn’t respect her. That’s the key – respect. We know how to respect women, we know how to be… what’s that word I’m looking for? The old-fashioned word, Knights and King Arthur and shit?’

I had no idea what he was talking about.

‘Chivalrous,’ he said, ‘that’s it, thank you. Remember when we were twenty-two? We didn’t know jack about how to treat women back then, but now that we’re older guys we have what younger women want – respect, intelligence, worldliness – class, I’m talking about class.’

The waitress came to our table. She was Asian, young, attractive. Rob gave her a smarmy, ‘Heyyy,’ but spared her a lame pickup line.

‘Can I get you some drinks to start?’

‘Vodka gimlet,’ Rob said.

‘Water’s fine,’ I said.

Rob looked at me like I’d caught fire. ‘You sure, bro?’

‘Yeah, positive.’

The waitress smiled and left.

‘Come on, you can have one drink,’ Rob said. ‘I mean, we have to celebrate getting back in touch after twenty-two years. It’s a beautiful thing.’

‘Actually, I’m in the program,’ I said.

He gave me a look like he thought I was joking. When he realized I wasn’t he asked, ‘Since when?’

‘Been sober six years, five months.’

‘That’s great,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s great you have that kind of discipline. God knows, I don’t. So what prompted it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Going cold turkey. I mean, I remember the old days, you went out drinking every night.’

‘That’s what prompted it.’

He smiled, then said, ‘I hear you, bro. I mean, half of L.A. are friends of Bill W. I’m just surprised you are too.’

‘Yeah, well, a lot of shit has happened in twenty-two years,’ I said, purposely leaving it vague, not wanting to get into a whole discussion about my alcoholism and the other mistakes I’d made. I added, ‘It was just time to deal with shit so I dealt with it, you know?’

‘That’s cool,’ he said. ‘So how’s the music going?’

Speaking of topics I didn’t want to discuss.

I reached for the glass of water, then realized the waitress hadn’t brought it yet.

‘Actually I haven’t touched a guitar in ages.’

‘You?’ Rob said. ‘You’re kidding me. Music was your life, that’s all you ever wanted to do. When you weren’t playing, you were writing songs, or talking about music, or checking out bands. I know music can be a rough career, you gotta pay bills, but how could you just give it all up?’

‘Life got in the way. I had a kid, new responsibilities. How ’bout you? Still playing?’

I wanted to steer the conversation away from an uncomfortable subject – me.

‘Seven days a week,’ he said. ‘Actually I’m thinking of putting together a band in L.A. Nothing serious, just to mess around, but already booked some gigs at this bar in West Hollywood. Hey, I have an idea. Next time we’re in town, we should get together and jam.’

‘Maybe,’ I said, but I had no intention of playing with Rob, or ever holding a guitar again.

The waitress brought my water and Rob’s gimlet and took our lunch order: seafood casserole for me, poached salmon – ’sauce on the side’ – for Mr L.A.

As the waitress walked away, Rob turned to looked at her ass.

‘So do your kids play any sports? Soccer or anything?’

We talked about our kids for a while – I told him about how my son Jonah was taking karate and chess classes this year and how he loved Pokémon.

‘My son’s into Pokémon too,’ Rob said. ‘Big Golisopod fan – huge. See, I’m a good dad, I keep up with this shit.’ Then, after taking a long sip of his gimlet, Rob asked, ‘So how’re the mothers at the school? Any hot ones?’

Rob may have been forty-four, but his brain age was sixteen.

‘I’m just curious,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you worried about your wife finding out?’

‘Finding out?’

‘You know, about your… lifestyle. Aren’t you worried about your life turning into a huge train wreck?’

He made a face like I’d suggested something ridiculous, some impossibility.

Then he said, ‘Come on, I told you, I’m not a moron. That’s who gets caught – the dummies. I’m not gonna have some obsessed woman calling the house, I’m not gonna rub it in my wife’s face. I have my life at home and I have my other life and I never let the two lives meet.’

The way he was talking to me about it so openly – and loudly – I doubted he was very careful.

‘Don’t you feel guilty?’ I asked.

‘You kidding?’ he said. ‘Cheating saved my marriage. If I didn’t cheat, Julianne and I would’ve gotten divorced years ago. When my youngest was a year old and she went through this whole crisis and shit with her father dying, we would’ve split for sure. A lot of guys in my position, would have taken off. But I’m a good father, a good husband too. Thank God that I was fooling around, that I had that outlet.’

I could practically hear Oprah’s audience booing.

‘I don’t know how you do it,’ I said. ‘I think I’d go crazy if I had to live my life that way. I mean with all the lying and deceit.’

‘You get used to it,’ he said casually.

He flagged down our waitress and ordered another gimlet. I didn’t think it was the most tactful thing in the world, to get drunk while having lunch with an old friend who was a recovering alcoholic. But, then again, tactfulness had never been Rob’s strong point.

‘Okay, lemme ask you a question,’ Rob said. ‘You happily married?’

Maria and I hadn’t had sex in four and a half years.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You hesitated.’

‘I did not.’

‘I was watching,’ he said. ‘I could’ve counted to three before you answered. Okay, maybe two, but it’s okay. Admitting you have a problem is a process – look who I’m talking to. You know how it is. You’re still in the denial stage right now. There’s no shame in that.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I feel so much better about myself now.’

The sarcasm soared over his head.

Smiling with one side of his mouth, like a parody of a used car salesman, he said, ‘Okay Mr Happily Married Man Who’s Never Cheated. What about fantasizing? Have you ever fantasized about another woman?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I mean everybody has fantasies. But that doesn’t mean –’

‘I used to fantasize,’ he said. ‘And I’m not just talking about turning around to check out a pretty girl on a hot summer day. My fantasizing went deep. It was vivid, all the time. That’s when you get to the next step – making the fantasies real. You start flirting more, you notice female attention and you start to seek it out. You know what I never understood? I never understood why some guys have a crisis when they hit forty. When you’re in your forties and fifties and you’re a man, with Viagra, Levitra, that’s like the golden age for getting laid.’

I smiled. Rob’s skewed logic was ridiculous, but amusing.

‘Okay,’ I asked, ‘so where do you meet your… I don’t know what you call them… girlfriends?’

‘Online mostly,’ he said. ‘You know, the extramarital dating websites.’

‘You’re kidding me. You really do that?’

‘That used to be my attitude,’ he said, ‘until I tried it. What do you think I do, meet women at work so I can wind up in a Me Too, trending on Twitter? I like taking risks when I’m ziplining, not when I’m trying to get laid. Online is the safest way to cheat, and these cheating sites are the best thing for married men since Monday Night Football. One I go to most is D-Ho, short for Discreet Hookups. Go on D-Ho your first time it seems lame. A lot of the guys are catfishing and the women are smart enough not to bite. But eventually, you get to know the women and start emailing, IM’ing, sending virtual flowers. Corny, I know, but I’m tellin’ ya, the shit works. So far I’ve met eleven women and got laid eight times. Not a bad percentage, right?’

‘Aren’t you worried about hackers stealing your credit card info?’ I asked. ‘Making the client list public?’

‘If an alligator bites off a golfer’s hand, do you quit playing golf?’

I had no idea what he was talking about.

‘I don’t get it,’ I said.

‘Syphilis, AIDS, herpes, pregnancy – sex has always been risky,’ Rob said, ‘but people still do it. You should see the one I’m meeting tonight. Married, two kids, sexy as hell. I hope she looks like she does in her pics.’

He held up his phone, showing me a photo of a very attractive woman, probably in her mid-thirties. She was smiling, holding a drink, looked like she was at an office party.

‘What can I say?’ I said. ‘Looks like you’ve got it all figured out.’

He squinted, as if trying to solve a complicated problem, then said, ‘I’m sensing jealousy, Jack. Is that what this is all about? Your music career didn’t go the way you wanted it to go, you quit drinking, you have no excitement in your life now, so you wish you were playing with your old buddy Rob on the other side of the tracks. Am I right or am I right?’

He wasn’t one hundred percent off-base, but I said, ‘No, I’m just curious. So what do you do, just meet these women to have sex?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘we meet to fuck. I mean, like tonight, we’re meeting at my hotel bar, but I doubt we’ll get through the first drink. Oh, man, I should show you some of the texts she’s been sending me. She’s so raunchy and nasty, I love it.’

‘Doesn’t it bother you that she’s cheating on her husband? That she has kids?’

‘Not my business.’

‘What if her husband finds out and they wind up getting divorced?’

‘She’s an adult, she can make her own decisions.’

I laughed.

‘Answer me honestly.’ Not even smiling. ‘If you could cheat on your wife and I guaranteed you there was zero chance of her ever finding out, would you do it?’

‘Come on, that’s a ridiculous –’

‘In other words, yes.’

‘I didn’t say –’

‘Any guy would,’ he said. ‘And you’d be surprised, most women would, too. And if you’re gonna tell me you’d never cheat, it’s wrong, it’s amoral – you’re full of shit. Because what’s the alternative? You don’t cheat? You have the same dull, routine sex with the same woman for the rest of your life? I mean, like I said, I love my wife, don’t get me wrong. I wanna grow old with her and spoon-feed mashed prunes to her at the nursing home when we’re ninety, but when you think about it you have to be crazy not to cheat. I mean, like they say, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, and I say, Why not be damned and get laid?’

Our lunches arrived. While we ate, I managed to steer our conversation away from extramarital sex onto other subjects. Mostly, we talked about people we knew from back when we lived together. I’d stayed in touch with a few whom Rob hadn’t, so I caught him up on what they were doing now.

By the end of the meal we were both straining for topics to talk about, and it was a relief when the check came. I suggested splitting it, but he insisted on paying.

‘Compliments of Music Mania,’ he said.

Leaving the restaurant, he immediately put on his mirrored Aviators, even though it was overcast and drizzling.

‘So have a think about the apartment and let me know where your head is at,’ I said. ‘I think you’d love it there, I really do, and if you want to make an offer and close fast, I’ll get right on it.’

I could tell he wasn’t listening.

‘Sounds like a plan,’ he said, staring at his cell. ‘Fuck, it’s late. Gotta hit a meeting, then it’s back to my hotel to rest up for my big date tonight. I’m not expecting to get much sleep.’ He looked at me. ‘You’re so jealous right now. Deny it all you want, but you can’t hide it.’

We hugged, slapping each other’s backs, and then walked away in opposite directions.

3

I knew my one thirty was going to be a bust the second I saw Larry Stein. On the phone he’d sounded older – I’d assumed forty – but he was in his late twenties, thirty tops. Worse, he’d sounded like a serious buyer on the phone, said he was currently renting, worked on Wall Street, and was looking for a large one-bedroom convertible to two or a small two-bedroom ‘in the million range.’ In person, he was in a cheap suit and was wearing an imitation Rolex that he’d probably bought on the street for ten bucks.

I screened him in my office, or tried to anyway. I asked him more about his career and background, and that was when he mentioned, in passing, that he was the assistant manager of a luggage store on Wall Street. Apparently he’d meant ‘I work on Wall Street’ literally. I asked him if he had another source of income, and he said he had ‘other assets.’

I was skeptical – he seemed like a ballbuster, the type of guy who went to open houses on weekends ‘just for fun’ – but I showed him the apartment on Ninetieth anyway. He had non-stop questions: How are the building’s finances? How’s the co-op board? How’re the doormen? Is heat included in the maintenance? After we had spent about twenty minutes in the apartment – he must’ve gone in and out of the bathroom six times – he asked, ‘So what would my monthly expenses be?’

‘Assuming you put twenty percent down, about thirty-six hundred a month.’

‘Why so much?’ he asked.

Thinking, Um, maybe because it’s a million-dollar apartment, I feigned patience and said, ‘Well, with a sixteen hundred dollar maintenance that’s just the way the numbers crunch.’

‘That’s way out of my range,’ he said.

After a deep breath I asked, ‘Would you like to see some less expensive apartments?’

‘Don’t have time today,’ he said, ‘but I’ll reach out to you next week sometime.’

I knew I’d never hear from him again.

Walking back downtown along Third Avenue, I texted Rob McEvoy: So cool seeing you today, man! Great to catch up and if you have any more questions about the apartment just gimme a shout!

Rob was my hottest prospect right now. Well, let’s face it – my only prospect, and, worse, I needed the sale desperately. Commission on a two-million-dollar apartment was $120,000. In this case, I’d have to split the commission with another broker and my company got a cut as well, but after taxes my share would still make up practically all of my income for the entire year.

If I didn’t close the sale… well, I didn’t even want to think about that.

A text from Rob arrived: I will… and I will !!!!!

Okay, I’ll admit it – I was jealous of Rob. Not of his philandering – of his career. He was an asshole, yeah, but he was making money, working in the music business. Before I got married, I’d been a studio guitarist, and sometimes I toured with bands around the country and, once, Europe. My pay was erratic – I was often broke and living on friends’ couches – but I was a damn good guitarist and it had been the happiest time of my life.

I missed having a career that I loved.

* * *

In the courtyard of P.S.158, a massive prewar elementary school on York Avenue, I waited with the other parents for Jonah’s class to arrive.

This was always the highlight of my day. Because Maria had a full-time job in public relations at a midtown financial services company and my hours were flexible, I could do all of the pickups and drop-offs, rather than hiring a babysitter like a lot of Manhattan parents did. It might’ve been an annoying situation for some guys, but time with Jonah always felt like time with my best friend. I went on all of his class trips, was his reading and math buddy every other Friday, and took him to the major school events such as tie-dying day, the walkathon, dance night, and the Halloween Boo Bash.

A seemingly endless stream of shrieking, energetic kids exited the school, but Jonah’s class was late. Upper East Siders could be as cliquey as their kids, and parents congregated in their usual groups. There were cliques of working moms, yoga moms, SoulCycle moms, PTA moms, grandmothers, stay-at-home dads, and babysitters. In the morning there was the clique of ‘dads in suits’ – uppity pricks, who seemed to all know each other from somewhere, who always seemed to be dropping references to their ‘firms’ and ‘mergers’ and ‘buyouts.’ If I were more business savvy, I could’ve used the pickups and drop-offs as an opportunity to schmooze – the way some people schmoozed at the AA meetings I attended. I could’ve injected myself into every conversation and handed out business cards, saying, ‘Hey, if you know anybody who’s looking for an apartment, gimme a shout,’ but it wasn’t my style to kiss ass.

Standing around, I ended up on the periphery of a conversation between Stacy Katz and Geri Sherman from the PTA clique. I didn’t say anything, just smiled and nodded once in a while. They were talking about the curriculum and an upcoming class trip to the South Street Seaport.

I’d never really thought about Stacy and Geri in a sexual way. I mean, I’d noticed they were attractive, but I hadn’t actually thought about it. But now I couldn’t help hearing Rob in my head – You should see the moms at my daughter’s school. If Rob were here he’d definitely hit on Geri. She was a good-looking, petite brunette in her early forties, and she was in the midst of a divorce. From a dad, I’d heard that she’d cheated on her soon-to-be ex – i.e. just Rob’s type.

I glanced around, wondering what other moms Rob would hit on. Karen Schaeffer, one of the SoulCycle moms, was happily married, but that wouldn’t deter Rob; he’d consider her a challenge. Or maybe he’d go after one of the yoga moms – Kirstin Lasher or Jenny Liang or Danielle Freidman – oh, yeah, definitely Danielle. She was married to a workaholic neurosurgeon and had been the subject of affair rumors since Jonah was in kindergarten. She was in her late thirties but still looked great. Typical Danielle outfit – tight jeans, high-heeled boots, and a low-cut top showing lots of pushed-up cleavage. Recently she’d been having a lot of play dates with Greg Langley, a stay-at-home dad who, I’d heard, was in marriage counseling with his wife, so it wasn’t hard to imagine that there was some real dating going on there as well.

Although I knew that Rob’s idea that everyone cheats on their spouse at some point was ridiculous, I’d read that something like seventy percent of all married people cheat at some point. If that were true, it meant there had to be a lot of illicit relationships going on with the parents at the school – ones I hadn’t heard anything about.

‘Hi, Daddy.’

I looked down and saw Jonah standing there in front of me. I’d been so distracted by my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed his class come out.

‘Hey, kiddo,’ I said, kissing him on top of his head. He had shaggy light-brown hair, but it would probably turn darker eventually because Maria and I had dark hair. ‘How was school today?’

‘Okay, can we get ice cream?’

‘Nope, no ice cream. You’ve had ice cream two days in a row.’

‘Come on, Dad, please.’

‘You can have a healthy snack at home,’ I said, ‘and then how about we go to the park and play some basketball? Sound cool?’

‘Sounds cool,’ he said, and we high-fived.

* * *

Later, after basketball and ice cream – yeah, I caved – we arrived at our apartment building – a modest, yet well-maintained postwar doorman building on Eighty-third between First and York. Unfortunately we were renting – we couldn’t afford to buy – because owning on the Upper East Side would have been a great investment. Now that the Second Avenue Subway had finally opened, demand in the neighborhood had been skyrocketing, thanks mainly to an influx of hipsters from overpriced Williamsburg. Trendy restaurants and bars, many with live music and even burlesque, had opened throughout the neighborhood, and recently I’d passed a couple of new vegan cafes – always a surefire sign that a neighborhood was taking off.

Our apartment could’ve been marketed as a ‘junior four,’ but it was actually an average-size one-bedroom. Jonah had the bedroom, and we’d put up a wall in the living room alcove/office space to create a second bedroom. It was way too small for three people, but it was all we could afford on Maria’s salary and my commissions. We’d managed for a while, but it’s hard enough for two people to live in a one-bedroom – put a kid in the mix and it’s nearly impossible.

I was in the living room, helping Jonah with his homework, when Maria entered. She had been away for a few days on a business trip to Houston and she pulled her suitcase into the apartment behind her. She was in a conservative navy dress, her hair back in a tight ponytail.

‘Mommy!’ Jonah rushed over to Maria by the door.

Bending over to hug him, she said, ‘Hello, sweetie, how have you been? I missed you so much.’

‘Missed you too,’ he said.

‘I want to hear all about everything you’ve been up to. Let me just change out of my work clothes, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Hey,’ Maria said to me.

She kissed me quickly on the lips then went into the bedroom.

Our relationship was so different than it had been thirteen years ago. When I met her at one of my gigs downtown she was in a tight leather miniskirt and fishnets and had short, spiky hair and a nose ring. She was alone at the bar.

Usually I was shy about approaching women, but without hesitating I went right over and said, ‘Hey, I’m –’

‘Jack Harper,’ she said.

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘how did you –’

‘I was at your show last week, and the week before that in Brooklyn.’ She was glowing. ‘I love your music. You’re insanely good.’

We began dating, After a week we were calling each other soulmates. She came to my shows, always cheering for me at the front of the stage. Her enthusiasm felt over the top, but it was flattering to have my sexy girlfriend cheering me on. Within two months I moved in with her. Six months later, we were married.

My friends warned me that we were moving too fast, but I wasn’t interested in logic. Maria and I had a great year or so together, then she grew out her hair, lost the nose ring, and got a corporate job. I was happy for her and happy that at least one of us had a stable career, but we grew apart. She didn’t seem as interested in music anymore, especially my music. She stopped coming to my gigs, saying she needed to ‘get up early’ or gave other excuses.

Meanwhile, my music career had hit a rough patch. My band wasn’t getting as many gigs, and studio work was drying up. Maria and I had talked about wanting a family, and I knew I’d need to find a way to bring in more income.

I’d had a drinking problem since – well, since I had my first drink in high school. When Maria got pregnant, I promised to cut down, but I didn’t. When Jonah was born, I stayed home with him during the day while Maria worked, and at night I played gigs and got drunk. I never drank when I was around Jonah, but I was often hungover.

Finally, I decided to do the right thing for my family and got sober. Maria, to her credit, stuck with me throughout this dark period. My music career had continued to dwindle so I got a real estate license to help bring in more income.

Beating booze helped me to become a better father and a better man, but it didn’t help my marriage. Maria and I were living like roommates – roommates who didn’t get along most of the time. We got into a bad pattern of tag team parenting – I was with Jonah during the day and when Maria came home from work, she took over. We didn’t have a date night and didn’t socialize together. I hung out with friends from AA a couple of nights a week, while Maria entertained clients. We’d never had a lot of ‘couple friends’ – just Maria’s college friend, Steve, and his wife Kathy. But since they’d moved out of the city to Westchester, we didn’t even see them very often.

Our sex life dwindled. Maria was focused on her career and began to travel more often for work. Whenever I initiated, she said she was too tired. She never initiated herself so I eventually stopped trying. I suggested marriage counseling many times, but she was opposed. She had never been in therapy, despite a difficult childhood, and she seemed threatened by the whole idea. I went into therapy myself for a while, but it takes two people to fix a marriage.

Getting a divorce began to seem like a logical solution, and it would’ve been the best thing for Jonah. Maria and I weren’t exactly modeling a happy, loving couple. I had a feeling that divorcing Maria would be a nightmare, though. She could be charming, but she also had a vindictive side. Her cousin Michael was a cut-throat divorce attorney, and with the lower tier lawyer I’d have representing me, I’d be in huge trouble, especially if Maria pulled ‘the alcoholic card.’ She could leave me broke and try to get full custody of Jonah. I could counter that I was sober now and that I’d been a major part of Jonah’s life since he was born, but would these arguments hold up in court, especially with Michael representing her?

With no viable option to escape my marriage until Jonah was in college, we muddled on.

Rob had asked me if I fantasized. Yeah, I fantasized, but not about sex with another woman.

I fantasized about getting out of my bad marriage, about breaking free.

* * *

After Jonah did his last few math problems, I went into the kitchen where Maria was unpacking our order from Seamless – Chinese takeout. We had a recurring order of chicken with snow peas, assorted mixed vegetables, General Tso’s chicken, and a large wonton soup.

‘So,’ I said, ‘how was Houston?’

After a long pause she said, ‘Productive.’

‘Productive sounds good,’ I said. ‘Better than non-productive.’

She seemed distracted, checking her phone.

‘Isn’t that IPO coming out soon?’ I asked.

‘IPO?’ She sounded confused.

‘For that biotech company,’ I said. ‘That’s why you were in Houston, right?’

‘That IPO was two months ago,’ she said. ‘I told you about it, remember?’

I didn’t remember, but I said, ‘Oh, that’s right.’

She was tapping out a text or email on her phone. Maybe a minute went by.

I knew she wouldn’t ask me about my day unless I brought up the subject myself, so I said, ‘Well, my day was interesting. I showed an expensive apartment to Rob McEvoy.’

‘Who?’ She was still tapping, looking at her phone.

‘Rob McEvoy,’ I said. ‘You remember. My old roommate, we played in a couple of bands together.’

Maria had never met Rob, but I’d told her stories.

‘Oh, that Rob.’ Now she looked at me. ‘Isn’t that the guy you’ve always thought was an asshole?’

‘The one and only,’ I said.

I explained that he was looking for an apartment in Manhattan, leaving out that the apartment would be his fuck pad.

‘Well, let’s hope that comes through,’ she said, as she plated the General Tso’s.

The comment might’ve sounded benign to a casual observer, but I heard, Let’s hope you finally bring in some money because I’m resentful as hell that I’ve been bringing in most of our income lately.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I asked.

‘It means I’m rooting for you,’ she said.

‘Are you?’ I said.

Jonah was watching us.

‘Come on, Jack, let’s not get into this now.’

Maria was right for not wanting to argue in front of Jonah, but I didn’t like how she was twisting things. She’d made a passive-aggressive comment, and because I’d challenged her, she acted as if I’d said something wrong. She’d done this before. It was a subtle way of stifling me, one of our many unresolvable problems.

At dinner, the focus was on Jonah. Maria talked to him about school, and his homework, and I talked to him about soccer. I wasn’t very into soccer myself, but since Jonah was into it I’d boned up about Messi and Ronaldo, and I could hold my own in a conversation with an eight-year-old.

A great thing about takeout – no after-dinner dishes. While Maria had some one-on-one time with Jonah, helping him with his homework, I went to an AA meeting at St. Monica’s Church on 79th Street near First Avenue.

Whenever I could – usually a couple of times a week – I attended meetings throughout Manhattan. I went to St. Monica’s most often, though, because it was local and I had a lot of friends there. Many of my friends had moved out of the city over the years, others I’d had falling-outs with, and AA had become my main social life. Well, that or meet-ups and ‘sober parties’ at friends’ apartments.

I often spoke at meetings, but tonight I was in the mood to just listen. Ricardo spoke for a while, and then a couple of new members shared their stories. After the meeting, I caught up with some friends, including Dave, a young, red-haired guy whom I was currently sponsoring. Dave was twenty-six, an ad exec, and he’d been sober for almost a year. After a rough period when I spoke to him maybe ten times a day, he had been doing well. He had a new job, a new girlfriend, and looked happy and healthy.

When I was about to leave, he took me aside and said, ‘I just want you to know how much you’ve meant to me, Jack. Seriously, I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through any of this without you.’

‘Hey, it’s why we’re here,’ I said.

He gave me an energetic hug.

When I returned to my apartment, at around ten, Jonah was already in bed, asleep.

Maria had gone into the bathroom and was washing up, getting ready for bed. I sat on the couch with my laptop and checked my work email, and my schedule for tomorrow. Then my attention drifted and I checked out some Facebook statuses. Rob had posted a picture of his daughter dressed as the cat in her school play of Peter and the Wolf, and had written: So proud of my baby girl.

I ‘liked’ his status – his daughter really was adorable.

While I was online, Maria went into our bedroom and shut the flimsy door. She usually got into bed by ten – an hour before I did – to read, and was usually asleep by eleven. She got up early, at six-thirty, to go to the gym before work.

I watched TV for a while the way I always did at night, with a headset so I wouldn’t disturb Maria and Jonah. I flipped around – the local news, part of an Arrested Development I’d seen a few times. I was zoning out a lot – worrying about work, hoping the sale with Rob came through. He hadn’t reached out to me with an offer, but then again he was distracted tonight with his date. I imagined them in Rob’s hotel room, having wild, screaming sex.

At eleven, I turned off the TV, turned out the lights in the living room and kitchen, and joined Maria in bed. Reading on her Kindle, she didn’t seem to notice me. A few minutes later, she put the Kindle on the night table, turned out the reading light, and shifted onto her side, facing away from me.

When I heard her light snoring I turned in the opposite direction and fell asleep too.

4

After morning drop-off at Jonah’s school, I rushed uptown to 95th between Park and Lex for a showing. It was a new-on-the-market, gut-renovated two-bedroom co-op on the third floor of a nice brownstone building on a tree-lined street, a block away from The Lower Lab, a desirable Upper East Side elementary school. The owners of the apartment were getting divorced and were eager to sell. There was so much tension between the sellers that their attorneys were showing the apartment to agents and the apartment was undervalued by about fifty thousand dollars. I knew the owners would agree to the first decent offer from the first preapproved buyer, and I had the perfect prospect – Alex Korin, whose wife had just given birth to their second child. Alex and his wife had gone out with me to look at apartments several times, and they were preapproved for a mortgage. The problem was four brokers were already viewing the apartment when I arrived and they also probably had clients interested in it.

I reached Alex on his cell and said, ‘You have to get your ass uptown right now. I’ve got the perfect apartment for you, man.’

Alex was in his thirties, owned a couple of bars in the city. I could be casual with him.

‘I just got to work and I have meetings all morning,’ he said.

‘I’m telling you,’ I said, ‘this is exactly what you’re looking for and it won’t last.’

All real estate agents say that the apartments they’re desperate to sell ‘won’t last,’ even if they’d been stagnating on the market for months. Although this time I actually meant it, as far as he was concerned, I was full of shit.

‘I might be able to get there after three, but I’ll have to reach out and let you know.’

‘It’ll be gone by then, I’m telling you. Can your wife come see it?’

‘No, she’s taking my daughter to the doctor this morning. Looks like strep.’

I tried to persuade him to figure out a way to see it, but he said it was impossible for this morning. I ended the call, dejected. I overheard Sally Engle, a seasoned, very well-known agent for a major realtor, telling the owners’ attorneys that she had several interested buyers on their way over. The other agents also had buyers rushing over, and I knew the apartment would probably be sold within an hour.

It was raining. I didn’t have an umbrella, but I walked to my office anyway, not really caring or even noticing that I was getting soaked.

Wolf Realty was in a modest storefront on a side street – 74th near Third. Most clients found out about us via word of mouth or online listings. There were three agents in the office, including me, and each of us had a desk adjacent to the left wall, mine in the middle. Our boss, Andrew Wolf, had his own space in a separate room in the back.

No kid says to his parents, ‘I want to be a real estate agent when I grow up.’ Real estate could be lucrative if you get lucky, but it was usually a career that people fell into when another career didn’t work out. Take my coworkers, for example. Claire was an empty-nester who’d only gotten her real estate license three years ago because she had no recent work experience and couldn’t find a job doing anything else. Brian had worked as a film editor, shoe salesman, stage hand, waiter, editorial assistant, and dogwalker, and I doubted real estate would be his last career move. Andrew Wolf himself had only gotten into the real estate business after a few restaurants he’d owned had gone belly-up.

When I arrived, Claire and Brian were talking on their phones, though they seemed to be on social calls. There was a lot of down time at our job. The New York City real estate market was hot, but we were competing against online listings, and even Airbnb. We all feared that real estate agents, like travel agents, would become obsolete. On days like this, my career, my future, and the future in general, seemed incredibly bleak.