False Memory

The three-story house, atop which Skeet Caulfield contemplated his fragile mortality, was a ten-thousand-square-foot, four-million-dollar atrocity. Several Mediterranean styles — Spanish modern, classic Tuscan, Greek Revival, and early Taco Bell — had been slammed together by an architect who had either a lousy education or a great sense of humor. What appeared to be acres of steeply pitched, barrel-tile roofs hipped into one another with chaotic exuberance, punctuated by too many chimneys badly disguised as bell towers with cupolas, and poor Skeet was perched on the highest ridge line, next to the most imposingly ugly of these belfries.

Perhaps because he was unsure of his role in this situation and needed something to do, the security guard said, “Can I help you, sir?”

“I’m the painting contractor,” Dusty replied.

The sun-weathered guard was either suspicious of Dusty or squint-eyed by nature, with so many lines folded into his face that he looked like a piece of origami. “The painting contractor, huh?” he said skeptically.

Dusty was wearing white cotton pants, a white pullover, a white denim jacket, and a white cap with RHODES’ PAINTING printed in blue script above the visor, which should have lent some credibility to his claim. He considered asking the leery guard if the neighborhood was besieged by professional burglars disguised as house painters, plumbers, and chimney sweeps, but instead he simply said, “I’m Dustin Rhodes,” and pointed to the lettering on his cap. “That man up there is one of my crew.”

“Crew?” The security man scowled. “Is that what you call it?”

Maybe he was being sarcastic or maybe he was just not good at conversation.

“Most painting contractors call it a crew, yeah,” Dusty said, staring up at Skeet, who waved. “We used to call ours a strike force, but that scared off some homeowners, sounded too aggressive, so now we just call it a crew, like everyone else.”

“Huh,” the guard said. His squint tightened. He might have been trying to figure out what Dusty was talking about, or he might have been deciding whether or not to punch him in the mouth.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get Skeet down,” Dusty assured him.

“Who?”

“The jumper,” Dusty elucidated, heading along the driveway toward Motherwell.

“You think I should maybe call the fire department?” the guard asked, following him.

“Nah. He won’t torch himself before he jumps.”

“This is a nice neighborhood.”

“Nice? Hell, it’s perfect.”

“A suicide is going to upset our residents.”

“We’ll scoop up the guts, bag the remains, hose away the blood, and they’ll never know it happened.”

Dusty was relieved and surprised that no neighbors had gathered to watch the drama. At this early hour, maybe they were still eating caviar muffins and drinking champagne and orange juice out of gold goblets. Fortunately, Dusty’s clients — the Sorensons — on whose roof Skeet was schmoozing with Death, were vacationing in London.

Dusty said, “Morning, Ned.”

“Bastard,” Motherwell replied. “Me?”

“Him,” Motherwell said, pointing to Skeet on the roof.

At six feet five and 260 pounds, Ned Motherwell was half a foot taller and nearly one hundred pounds heavier than Dusty. His arms could not have been more muscular if they had been the transplanted legs of Clydesdale horses. He was wearing a short-sleeve T-shirt but no jacket, in spite of the cool wind; weather never seemed to bother Motherwell any more than it might trouble a granite statue of Paul Bunyan.

Tapping the phone clipped to his belt, Motherwell said, “Damn, boss, I called you like yesterday. Where you been?”

“You called me ten minutes ago, and where I’ve been is running traffic lights and mowing down school kids in crosswalks.”

“There’s a twenty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit inside this community,” the security guard advised solemnly.

Glowering up at Skeet Caulfield, Motherwell shook his fist. “Man, I’d like to hammer that punk.”

“He’s a confused kid,” Dusty said.

“He’s a drug-sucking jerk,” Motherwell disagreed.

“He’s been clean lately.”

“He’s a sewer.”

“You’ve got such a big heart, Ned.”

“What’s important is I’ve got a brain, and I’m not going to screw it up with drugs, and I don’t want to be around people who self-destruct, like him.”

Ned, the crew foreman, was a Straight Edger. This unlikely but still-growing movement among people in their teens and twenties — more men than women — required adherents to forgo drugs, excess alcohol, and casual sex. They were into head-banging rock’n’roll, slam-dancing, self-restraint, and self-respect. One element or another of the establishment might have embraced them as an inspiring cultural trend — if Straight Edgers had not loathed the system and despised both major political parties. Occasionally, at a club or concert, when they discovered a doper among them, they beat the crap out of him and didn’t bother to call it tough love, which was also a practice likely to keep them out of the political mainstream.