The Anonymous Man Read online

  Jeff was fashionably late arriving at the party, and, of course, late obeying the sit-down order. He wandered over to the lone empty chair at Jerry’s immediate right, hovered for a long moment before it, holding a full glass of some reddish-brown mixed bourbon drink just as the army of caterer ladies started delivering salad bowls. After a favorable glance toward Holly at Jerry’s left, his stare lingering a moment too long at her generous show of cleavage in the black evening dress, Jeff asked no one in particular at the table, “Mind if I sit?” Without allowing for a response, he abruptly did just that.

  Jeff struck up an immediate conversation with Jerry, not the usual small talk about the lousy weather or the prospects of the local sports teams, but complaining what a bore life was for a single guy in a dying city like Buffalo. Jeff was moderately intoxicated, enough that he was slurring his words ever so slightly and leering at some of the ladies’ bosoms regardless of whether or not they were attached to some other male companion who might not appreciate such impolite gawking.

  “You’re not an associate at the firm, are you?” he said to Jerry as he took another sip of whatever drink was in his glass. Before Jerry could answer, Jeff looked across the table past him and raised his glass to Holly. “But you do look familiar.”

  Holly introduced herself and added that she was Jim Moore’s Legal Assistant, the important-sounding title the firm used for secretaries like Holly to make them work harder for little pay. Jerry, she added unenthusiastically, was her husband. And no, she added further, he was not an associate at the firm.

  Jeff nodded absently at Jerry, then returned his gaze to Holly, focusing on her chest. She looked quite lovely that evening in her low cut, sleek black dress, with the hemline just above her knees. As for Jerry, he looked like a plump stuffed sausage in an old suit that was worn out and clearly too small for him. While putting it on, he had complained to Holly about failing to buy a new one before the annual event after she had paid so much for her dress, and about letting himself get so goddamned fat.

  “And you are?” Holly asked Jeff, though she already knew perfectly well who he was: the newest firm hunk fresh out of the DA’s office.

  “Jeff Flaherty,” he said, and smiled at Holly, “I work for Condon.” Ed “Too Tall” Condon (and he was literally that), headed the Litigation Department and was the most highly regarded litigator in the city.

  During his brief tenure at Carlton & Rowe, Jeff Flaherty had become the topic of much discussion among the female employees, especially the support staff. The consensus was that he looked like the late Heath Ledger, especially as the sensitive, gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain. Jeff had been tagged as the lovable rogue kind of guy. He was confident, determined, and prone to flirt with anyone wearing a skirt without regard to age or marital status. All women were fair game. Gossip had spread that he was banging Carla Anderson, Condon’s slim, beautiful and quite married, black paralegal. It was also rumored that he was also screwing Grace Stackpoole, at least twice his age, whom everyone joked must surely be a dominatrix behind bedroom doors.

  “You just started, didn’t you?” Holly said as if she hadn’t noticed. “Haven’t really seen you.”

  “Three months, next week,” he said and laughed. “But who’s counting. Our place is such a factory, it’s easy to remain anonymous.”

  Holly nodded in agreement. There were eleven partners and twenty-one associates.

  “Plus,” Jeff went on, “they don’t exactly give young associates much time to fraternize. All I do is research, research, and more research, and after that, case memos up the ying-yang. You know what they say, all research and no trials makes Carlton & Rowe associates dull boys—and girls, I should add, to be politically correct.”

  Holly smiled at that.

  “They’ll throw you into court soon enough,” she said.

  Undoubtedly, Holly was already the envy of her fellow legal assistants to have been lucky enough to share the table with the young and dashing Jeff Flaherty. And Monday morning, in the law firm kitchen, Holly would be peppered with questions from the likes of Gail Morgan and Sue Kowalski (as if she ever had a chance at him) such as: What did he say? What does he smell like up close?

  They finally started in on their salads, drenched with some kind of sour vinaigrette dressing. As Jeff ate, and pretty much during the rest of the meal, he directed his conversation Jerry’s way, wanting to know exactly what he did for Micro-Connections, whether he liked his job, or did he have designs on doing something else.

  Jerry didn’t have a ready answer. He stumbled around a minute, knowing full well that he had long since tired of Micro-Connections and was content to stay anonymous, hidden between the management cracks. He told Jeff that his position was secure and interesting enough, and though the opportunity for advancement at Micro was slight, some said non-existent, he had decided to play it safe for the time being until he and Holly gave up entirely on having kids. That comment, overheard somehow by Holly from her side of the table as she conversed with one of the RNs from the Personal Injury Department, caused her to glance disagreeably at Jerry.

  Jeff didn’t seem to notice. “So you guys don’t have any kids?” he asked. “How long you been married?” He chomped on a wide leaf of lettuce with dressing dripping off like syrup into the bowl right under his chin.

  “Seven years,” said Jerry. “We’ve been working on it seven years.”

  Jeff lifted his head from his salad bowl, frowned, and leaned back in his chair. He picked up the glass of bourbon and drank. “Seven years?” He drifted toward Jerry and whispered into his ear. “Shooting blanks?” Jeff then backed away and tossed the rest of the glass of bourbon into his mouth.

  “What?” Jerry thought the comment, joke or not, was inappropriate, considering that he had known Jeff Flaherty for now going on ten minutes. Jeff’s mouth formed into a kind of smirk that seemed to be something of an assessment of Jerry’s masculinity. Drunken asshole, Jerry thought.

  “Oh, sorry,” Jeff said after another few moments. “Just wondering if you knew what the problem is? Why you can’t have kids. Is it medical or something?”

  But before he could respond, Holly answered for him from out of nowhere across the table. “Yes, we think he’s shooting blanks,” she said.

  While the other guests around the table tried not to gawk at Holly over the odd and unexpected comment, she gave Jerry a sympathetic look.

  “No, not really,” she said, then turned to Jeff. “It’s all my fault. I’m just not woman enough to give him a son.”

  Wherever this conversation was going was thankfully, as far as Jerry was concerned, interrupted by one of the caterer’s waitresses removing the salad bowls and replacing them with the main course.

  As if all was forgotten and they were old buddies who had just exchanged some friendly banter, Jeff laughed, reached over and patted Jerry on the back, told him that he considered him a lucky man to have settled down. In that department, Jeff went on, he had been unlucky in his ability to find the woman of his dreams.

  Jeff sliced off the corner of his filet mignon and shoved it into his mouth. In the process of chewing, he leaned over toward Jerry and, after saying, “Ya know, Jer,” confided that he regretted ever having become a lawyer. That his true love was hiking, fishing, hunting, the great outdoors (his favorite all-time movie was Jeremiah Johnson) and that if he had it to do all over again, he would have gone to forestry school and then moved out west to police one of the national parks. But what was done was done, and if nothing else, the plan was to use his talent for the law to earn him a ton of money in the shortest amount of time possible, retire rich and move out to a hunk of land adjacent one of those national parks and be where he wanted to spend the rest of his days.

  As they talked, Jeff glanced across every now and then at Holly. No doubt, thought Jerry, Jeff was wondering, like so many others before him, what it was that Holly saw in this flabby, unimpressive software sales rep guy, her husband, sitting next to him; wonderi
ng what it would be like to take her to bed and show her how a real man with tight abs who wasn’t shooting blanks made love. But Jerry forced himself to stop thinking that, knowing that it was more a function of his own insecurity than what Jeff and other guys might be thinking.

  By the time the plates were cleared from the table, a DJ had set up his sound system and started playing some mild dance tunes. Jerry and Jeff got up to stretch, and surprisingly, Jeff remained in their company as if they were old chums. Holly finally got to her feet and, with a flushed look from too many glasses of white wine, started sashaying at the side of their table to the soft music. After a few moments, with an evil grin, she sauntered around to the side of the table where Jeff and Jerry stood.

  “Jerry doesn’t like to dance,” she told Jeff, nudging up to him, and laughed. “And when he does, he looks like a wounded water buffalo.”

  “You dance?” she asked Jeff. Jeff nodded. Of course he did.

  A moment later, they left Jerry standing there and went off, hand in hand, onto a cramped dance floor in front of a small stage and started wiggling with a few other couples to the sound of some ancient disco tune. Jeff had moves alright, he was athletic and bold and smooth. Square-jawed dark and handsome, former star of his high school football and track teams. In short, he was everything Jerry wasn’t, a live version of what his brother Petey might have morphed into.

  After a couple more dances with Jeff, a slow song started playing and Holly came over and pulled Jerry onto the dance floor, her way of making up to him for dancing with Jeff.

  “This you can do,” she whispered as they edged toward the dance floor where several couples had collected. They swayed with them, going round in endless circles, with Holly standing erect and stiff, hoping that Jerry wouldn’t step on her toes as sometimes he was prone to do.

  Jeff had moved over to the other side of the room and had engaged a ravishing blonde in a strapless mauve dress in gentle conversation. Next to them stood Condon’s legal assistant, Carla Anderson, with her big black husband, Earl. She scowled as she observed Jeff cavort.

  After the slow dance, Holly led Jerry back to the table and told him she had a splitting headache and wanted to go home and get to bed. Jerry supposed now that she didn’t have Jeff to dance with anymore, the firm’s annual Christmas party had become just about as dull as they usually were. She didn’t have to ask Jerry twice. He had always despised the mandatory public gatherings of her firm, the Christmas party especially.

  As they were walking toward the exit in the rear of the hall, Jeff was suddenly upon them.

  “Hey, you folks leaving?” He was wide-eyed, huffing.

  They nodded, and looked at each other. Holly said Jerry was tired.

  “Mind if I walk out with you,” he said, and he strolled with them into the lobby.

  “Look,” Jeff said as they stood for a moment awkwardly eyeing the revolving door leading out of the place. “Want to stop at that bar across the street for a nightcap?” he asked and looked at Jerry. “Resume our discussion of what troubles the world these days?”

  Jerry gave Holly a sideways look and she shrugged as if to say, why not? Her headache was mysteriously cured. Although none of them realized it then, it was the acceptance of Jeff’s invitation that sealed their fate.

  They went across the street to a noisy bar and had several drinks. In the process, they struck up a friendship of sorts. Jerry even joined in after Holly invited Jeff over for dinner sometime after the holidays. What surprised Jerry most that first night was that in the bar, Jeff didn’t even hint at making a pass at Holly. He acted like a simple, nice guy, someone who from a distance over you might have reservations, but once you got to know him, convinced you that he was really the decent sort. They sipped their drinks and talked over the din and rush of the place until one or all of them suddenly noticed that it was almost 2 a.m., and started yawning because the booze they had consumed that night wasn’t affecting them anymore. That was when it was mutually decided to call it a night and part ways.

  But Jeff had not forgotten their dinner invitation.

  Late one afternoon toward the end of January, he peered around Holly’s cubicle and reminded her. On the spur of the moment, she offered next Tuesday night and he cheerfully accepted.

  Jeff didn’t bring a date, as Holly had suggested, and instead came alone. At the table, as they ate, Jeff and Jerry resorted to guy talk, discussing the local sports teams, and for a time, hunting and fishing (about which Jerry feigned interest).

  With dinner out of the way, a simple yet delicious roast Holly had shoved into the oven the moment she had walked in the door from work, they retired to the living room at close to eight o’clock with glasses of wine. Jerry stroked some embers to life in the fireplace and they resumed the same thread of conversation they had started at the firm Christmas party now already more than a month ago. Jeff mentioned again how much he detested the work at the firm, and being a lawyer in general. When Jerry asked him why he had taken all the trouble and expense of going to law school, Jeff had answered, “It was either that or becoming an accountant or school teacher, or even worse, working in my father’s carpet business.” He rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ, that would have caused me to go frigging nuts.”

  Holly laughed and took a sip of wine. “You can say the ‘fuck’ word in this house,” she said with a wink, tipping her glass to him. “We’re old friends.”

  “Alright, then,” Jeff said and smiled. “Working in my dad’s business would have made me go fucking nuts.”

  They all laughed at that. But soon enough, what Jerry came to believe was that it was not so much that Jeff detested being a lawyer, accountant or teacher, or a seller and installer of carpets, but working at something in general. He enjoyed leisure time, and the great outdoors, being free of obligation.

  They gravitated to national politics, movies and TV shows. What they soon realized was that they had a decent amount in common. And Holly and Jerry soon decided that Jeff was a decent guy, a nice guy.

  Finally, at about nine thirty, Jeff thanked them for a pleasant evening, sincerely hoped they would do it again soon, and left for parts unknown. Once he was out the door, Holly suggested with almost envious certainty that he was going from their humble abode to one of his favorite singles’ haunts downtown, on Chippewa Street, in search of another of his many conquests of the ladies.

  Jerry shrugged and thought there was nothing wrong with that, as long as they were single, even though he knew from Holly that whether or not the particular lady was attached was not a prerequisite and indeed, he seemed to have a penchant for married ladies. After all, rumor was that not only was he still banging Condon’s legal assistant, as well as Gloria Stackpoole, but he had taken up with the married legal assistant of yet another partner, Wade Boswell.

  “He was nicer than I thought he was going to be,” Jerry admitted. “I didn’t know what to think at the Christmas party. He seemed so full of himself at times, a nice guy at others.”

  “Yeah,” Holly agreed. “Funny how your perception of a person is different before you really get to know them. I always had thought of him as a conceited fool.”

  Jerry laughed. “Well, in many ways, he is a conceited fool,” he told her.

  But Jerry had truly enjoyed Jeff’s company. It was a similar feeling a kid gets when he is allowed to hang out with the most popular and brash kid in school or the neighborhood. Though he would not have admitted to himself back then, it may have been Jerry’s hope that Jeff’s charisma might rub off if they hung out together.

  And perhaps from the very beginning, Jerry later thought, that is exactly what Jeff hoped would happen. Befriending Jerry would get him close to both him and Holly, enabling him to move toward the implementation of his plan to obtain a life of luxury by faking Jerry’s death. But could Jeff really have been that sinister? Could their friendship have been orchestrated for no other reason but to find the perfect patsy? And worse, was Holly in on it from way back th
en?

  But Jerry wasn’t thinking that after their first dinner date only a month after they had met. The experience of being with Jeff had been so intoxicating for both Holly and Jerry, that, with his express approval, Holly invited Jeff over the following Tuesday, and the Tuesday after that, until it became a set ritual.

  And after eating whatever Holly threw together, sometimes gourmet, but more often, something simple, like a tuna casserole, they never seemed to tire of adjourning to the living room for some wine and conversation, or on rare occasions, to watch something on TV, settling into the same spots they came to habitually occupy—Holly sprawled out on the far corner of the couch across from Jeff, with Jerry curled up on the loveseat adjacent the couch. Only sickness, two or three times in all those weeks of Tuesdays, prevented this ritual gathering. In fact, there came a time on some of these nights, when, for whatever reason, usually because they had all drunk too much wine, Jeff slept over.

  After six months of this, Jerry considered Jeff a close friend. Not a best friend, however. Jerry could never quite get close enough to Jeff where he thought he could confide his inner self to him. Jerry had no other close friends. He wasn’t particularly close to anyone at work, although he did go out for drinks with several of his fellow sales representatives from time to time, especially to celebrate someone bagging a new customer, and he was a member of the office fantasy football league. So Jeff’s friendship was welcome, even though it ranged to the distant kind.

  It seemed to Jerry that Jeff and Holly had become close as well. They would sometimes speak privately, whispering about troubles he was having with his latest girlfriend or deciphering office politics. At least, that’s what they told Jerry whenever he attempted to venture into their conversation space and asked them what they were talking about. But Jerry never felt threatened by Jeff. After all, he had so many girlfriends, he didn’t need another. And he seemed to prize their Tuesday dinners enough to avoid ruining them by making Holly unfaithful, however much she (and Jeff) may have fantasized about that happening, a possibility Jerry quickly chased from his mind whenever it popped in.