Murdering Mr. Monti: A Merry Little Tale of Sex and Violence (2 page)

I am embarrassed to say this, but as one who has lived by the guiding principle Know Thyself, I could not let shame, guilt, or anxiety deflect me from facing facts. And the fact was that I felt sexually deprived. Let me hasten to add that I did not feel deprived of sexual
pleasure.
I have always had plenty of that, thanks to a certain natural talent on Jake’s part and to my willingness to accept (as I urge my readers to accept) full responsibility for my own orgasms. No, I felt deprived not of sexual pleasure but of sexual
variety.
I had married young and committed myself to marital fidelity and now I was going to go to my grave having had carnal knowledge of just one man—my husband.

At first this realization struck me as unutterably sad. But after many sleepless nights and much self-analysis, it began to strike me as intolerable. I asked myself, as I often do in such situations, What would you tell your readers? My answer was that I’d tell my readers a lie. I’d say that instead of finding sexual variety by going to bed with many different men, they could find it by going to many different beds with the same man. I’ve actually written several columns advocating this viewpoint, waxing quite eloquent about the thrill of taking a
long lunch hour at an in-town motel with your husband, about the thrill of spending a Saturday night in a Jacuzzi (and don’t forget the wine and candles!) with your husband, about the thrill of slipping off with him to a deserted corner of the beach on a sultry summer evening and . . . These are not bad ideas, but they do not answer a couple of urgent questions: What would it be like with another man? And, perhaps more important, what would I be like with another man?

•  •  •

As all my readers know, I am philosophically opposed to adultery. It involves lying, sneaking, and cheating. If you are an essentially decent person, you will not adjust well to lying, sneaking, and cheating. Therefore you will either confess, unconsciously arrange to get caught, feel morally rotten, or provoke your mate so that he or she will wind up behaving badly enough to justify your being morally rotten. All of the above (and I haven’t even mentioned sexually transmitted diseases) are serious threats to personal happiness and matrimonial stability. So even though I’m well aware that my same-man-in-different-beds prescription leaves an enormous amount to be desired, I still believe I’m correct in telling my readers that they must say no to adultery.

I myself decided to say a mature, responsible, rational, can-do yes.

•  •  •

Three days after Wally took off, he telephoned me from Rehoboth, Delaware, where a friend had lent him a house right on the beach. I was in the kitchen, washing and drying lettuce leaves, which I then stored in plastic Baggies and refrigerated until ready to use (I have
found this the ideal way to prevent soggy salads), when the phone rang.

“Mom, I’ve been worried that you’re upset and I don’t want you to be,” he said, which is the kind of thing that makes me so crazy about him. “I’m safe, I’m fine, and I know exactly what I have to do.”

“And what is that, Wally?” I asked, bagging the last of the romaine as I moved freely around my kitchen thanks to the modern marvel of the portable phone.

“I have to get Josephine away from her father and that phony psychiatrist he’s hired to work her over,” Wally said.

“She’s in bad shape,” I reminded him, taking out the chicken breasts and starting to marinate them. “I don’t think she can manage without some sort of therapeutic help.”

“But the right sort, Mom. Not that Dr. Phony. So I’m just going to slip quietly into town and rescue her.”

“Is that what she wants?” I asked.

“Not at the moment, I guess. But when she comes to her senses, she will.”

“Except at the moment,” I pointed out, “what you’re planning to do might come under the heading of kidnapping. May I make a few alternative suggestions?”

“You did that the other night, Mom. I rejected them. So . . . are you going to help me with this, or what?”

I thought about Jake and sighed. “Your father would—”

“He would if he knew.” Wally’s voice turned soft and cajoling. “Why does he have to know?”

•  •  •

It is my observation that there are mother’s sons and father’s sons. Wally has always been a mother’s son. He
clearly thinks that I married a man who is too insensitive to fully appreciate me, and that I deserve someone better, perhaps someone more like himself. But beyond the usual Oedipal business, Wally enjoys my company, trusts my judgment, and confides in me. Over the years we have kept many small, but potentially irritating, items of information from his father. Now that we were moving into big-time secrets, however, I was feeling rather uneasy.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked him as I set the table for dinner. (I tell my readers that it’s quite all right to eat dinner in the kitchen, as long as they use cloth napkins and never serve directly from the pots to the plates.) By the end of our conversation, after supplying a few creative modifications, I had agreed to participate in Wally’s rescue (or kidnapping) of Josephine.

I provided an edited version of my conversation with Wally when Jake came home exhausted from Children’s Hospital. It was better that way.

Jake is a pediatric surgeon rather than a general surgeon because he deeply believes in specialization. I do not. It is Jake’s view that pediatric surgeons operate on children, psychiatrists practice psychiatry, architects design houses, and lawyers handle legal matters. It is my view that we should develop informed opinions on a wide range of subjects and not mindlessly defer to the so-called experts. Now I wouldn’t, of course, attempt to do a kidney transplant on a two-year-old (unless it had to be done immediately and there was no one else around), but I have never hesitated to contribute my psychological insights, my architectural esthetics, or my legal opinions. Or my extralegal opinions, for that matter. I am basically committed to law and order, but
when my child’s life is being endangered by a pinky-ringed Italian psychopath in a $1,200 suit, it is my opinion that we ought to bend a few laws.

•  •  •

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.