Page 101 of Play Dirty

“Moved out?” I ask, kinda confused.

“No,” she says. “Got rid of him.”

“What?”

“Your friend Chella came and told me what you did for her. She said… she said she owed you but she wasn’t sure how to repay the debt.”

“She told you I—”

“She said you helped her with a problem,” my mom says, not letting me finish my sentence. “And she wanted to help you back. So I took care of it. Because I owed you too.”

“You killed him?”

“That night you left… well, let’s just say I was done being told to go back to the kitchen. And before you start feeling guilty about this, Jordan, let me just say one more thing about it and then I’ll never speak of it again. He got what he deserved and it was a long time coming.”

We just sit after that. Listening to the rain. Staring at the gravesite. Trying to understand the new world we both now live in.

And then she says, “Walk me to my car. I have one more thing to tell you.”

“We came in a limo,” I say, once I look around and see all the limos are gone.

“I had my car brought so I could leave on my own terms. It’s right there.”

She points to a silver S-class Mercedes and we walk towards it, no umbrella, but in no particular hurry, either. I open the driver’s side door for her, then close it and walk around to the passenger side and get in.

“Reach into the glove box,” she says.

I do, and pull out a folder. “What’s this?”

“The will is being read this afternoon, but that’s all yours now. You don’t need to go if you don’t want to. I just wanted to explain two things. One. The building? The one you wanted so bad? It’s yours now. I made sure that was in the new will I drew up.”

“New will?”

She smiles at me and pats my cheek. “The partners helped me forge it. That’s what they were fighting about yesterday when you came in. I told them we’d sell them back your father’s stake in the firm for half price if they put their stamp of approval on the new will.”

“What’s it say?”

“It just all goes to you. That’s all.”

“What did it used to say?”

“It all went to the club.”

“What club?”

“Oh,” she says. “Oh. I didn’t realize. I thought you knew?”

“What club, Mom?”

“The Barrister Club. His club. His sex club. He gave all his money to them. It was part of the… deal, I guess.” She shrugs. “Some mutually assured destruction pact they had. He sold you out so many more times than you knew, Jordan. And I’m sorry. I should’ve left and taken you with me, but that was a losing battle if ever there was one. He’d never give you up. You were his legacy. So I stayed. I did it for as long as I could, but the other night, after you left, and I saw what he’d done, what my staying had done to you, I decided I’d had enough. And then your friend came and told me she owed you. And did I have a way to help her pay you back?”

“And you did,” I say.

“I did. I injected succinylcholine into his ass while he slept.” She smiles. And if she wasn’t my mother, she might scare me. But the smiles fades and so does the fear. “It’s the perfect poison. He did die of a massive heart attack. He was sick. And if I had left him alone, he’d be dead in less than a year. But if I had left him alone that Club would’ve gotten your inheritance. Would have gotten you, because they’d have dangled that money in front of you and promised you the one thing you thought you needed above all else. And even though you and I both want to think you’d resist and say, ‘No, thank you’… you wouldn’t have, Jordan. Because your father groomed you to say yes. It was inevitable.”

“Holy. Fucking. Shit,” I say.

“Holy fuckin’ shit,” she repeats. “He was a goddamned genius. A very sick genius.”