Gwendy’s Final Task

40

THE NAME OF THE funeral home is Broadview & Sons, and once he signs off on the bill, Gareth Winston beats feet out of there. Winston hates funeral homes. Almost as much as he hated his father.

It was the oldest story in the book—nothing the devoted son accomplished was ever enough to please the overly critical father with the razor-sharp tongue, so at some point, the son simply stopped trying.

Lawrence Winston III, also known as dear old Dad, made his piddling fortune selling commercial real estate and collecting rent checks on almost five hundred two- and three-bedroom apartments in a string of downtown high-rises. In the late ‘80s, a reporter from The St. Louis Post-Dispatch referred to the senior Winston as “a parttime slumlord and full-time scumbag.” When Gareth banked his first billion at age 33, the first thing he did was Fed-Ex his father a photocopy of that newspaper article and a handwritten note on company stationary:

I still can’t hit a curveball or a two iron. I still don’t have an Ivy League diploma. I’m overweight. And I’m still not married to a beautiful Catholic virgin from across the river. But I’m filthy-ass rich and you’re not. Have a miserable fucking life.

Gareth

And then he never spoke to the man again.

Not even when his father called to make amends from his deathbed.

The hard truth of the matter is if it weren’t for his mother—whom Winston still adores and makes a point of calling every Sunday night, no matter where he is in the world; a tradition that first began after Winston left home for college—he wouldn’t have even come home for the funeral, much less footed the bill. But she begged him over the telephone, and if there is one person in this world Winston can’t refuse, it’s his mother. Corny but true.

After the obligatory reception, there’s a car waiting to take Winston back to his hotel suite, but he decides to walk instead. He needs the fresh air, plus he’d skipped breakfast this morning and is starving. Walking at a rapid pace, he cuts across McKinley Avenue, picks up South Euclid, and then takes a left onto Parkview. From there, he stops to buy three hot dogs and a bottle of Diet Pepsi from a street vendor and settles his considerable bulk on an empty bench overlooking the northeastern corner of Forest Park. From where he’s sitting he can spot the pale oval of the skating rink—still six weeks out from opening weekend—as well as the seventh fairway of the Highlands Golf Course, which he wouldn’t be caught dead playing. It’s strictly for small-timers.

He’s wiping a dribble of mustard off his shirt when a fluorescent green Chrysler swings up to the curb beside him. It looks to be roughly two miles long. Winston gives the car a once-over, but is unable to determine what year it rolled off the assembly line. All he knows is that it looks very old and in cherry condition, and he’s never seen another car like it. I wonder if it’s for sale, he thinks idly.

The driver’s side window glides down. A man with short blond hair and striking emerald eyes, the bottom half of his face hidden behind a red bandana, leans his head out of the car and says, “Hop in. Let’s go for a ride.”

Winston grins. He’s always liked a cheeky bastard, having been one himself all his life. “Nice ride, mister, but that’s not gonna happen.” He starts to ask the stranger why he’s wearing a mask—few people wear masks anymore, not since the arrival of the vaccines a couple years ago—but he never gets that far.

“I don’t have much time, Mr. Winston. Get in.”

Winston’s eyes narrow. “How do you know my name?” The answer to that is obvious; he’s seen it in the papers or on one of the business channels, where Gareth Winston is a fixture. “Who are you?”

“A friend. And I know lots of things about you, Mr. Winston.”

Because of the red bandana, Winston is unable to see the stranger’s mouth, but he’s nonetheless certain that the man is smiling. “I don’t know who the hell you think you’re talking to, but—”

“When you were twelve, you broke into your neighbor’s house while they were away on vacation. Frank and Betsy Rhineman. Nice people. It’s a shame their son died so young.”

“How do you know the—”

“You stripped out of the swim trunks you were wearing and slipped on a pair of Mrs. Rhineman’s panties—pale yellow with a black lace border, not too frilly—ate an ice cream sandwich you found in their freezer, and shot some billiards in the game room. Then, before you changed back into your trunks and scooted home for dinner, you returned upstairs and masturbated on the bedspread in the Rhineman’s guest bedroom.”

“You’re lying!” Winston bellows, startling a young mother walking by pushing a baby stroller. She quickly crosses the street to put some distance between them. “Stop it right now!” The billionaire’s face has gone beet-red and his eyes are bulging.

“You still have the yellow panties to this day. They’re tucked away in a safety deposit box at your bank in Newark. Along with a few other equally distasteful treasures.”

“Fake fucking news! None of what you’re saying is true!”

“Would you like to hear some more?”

Winston is quiet for a moment, his broad chest rising and falling in great heaves. Then he asks in a quiet voice, “What do you want?”

“To make you an offer. The most generous offer you’ve ever been presented with. Get in the car, Mr. Winston. Let’s chat.”

“Sounds too good to be true, and what sounds that way never is.” But he’s already getting up from the park bench, leaving behind his lunch trash and walking toward the car.

“Could be,” the stranger says, and removes the bandana from his face.

Winston takes a good look at the stranger, and does a double-take, then a triple-take. And suddenly there’s no longer any question in his mind about getting inside the car. He isn’t gay—has never found the male form even remotely attractive, especially his own—but the blond man is so breathtakingly beautiful Winston wants to hold the man’s face in his hands and kiss him. He wants to feel those lips and taste that breath. He looks like an angel, Winston thinks, opening the passenger door and sliding into the seat. As soon as he closes the door, a loud buzzing rises in the basement of his brain, like thousands of flies crawling over a rotting corpse. He turns to the man as the car pulls away from the curb. “Where are we going?”

“Just up the street and around the corner. For a little privacy.”

A chill dances along Winston’s spine at the mention of the word “privacy.” He feels an instant tightening in his groin. The man cruises two blocks east and pulls into the parking lot of an abandoned warehouse. He drives around back and stops in front of an empty loading dock. Winston can see shards of broken glass, several rusty needles, and a scattering of used condoms lying on the asphalt outside of the car. But he doesn’t care. Just like he doesn’t care about the insistent buzzing deep in his brain. All that matters now is the blond angel sitting next to him.

The man switches off the engine and turns to him. “Allow me to properly introduce myself.” He extends his right hand. “You can call me Bobby.”

Winston reaches over and takes his hand. The man’s skin feels smooth and pleasant, like warm butter. The tightening in the crotch of Winston’s slacks deepens to a dull throbbing.

“What I have to say to you, what I have to offer you won’t take long,” the stranger says. “But I need you to listen very carefully.”

Winston, adrift in a haze, slowly nods his head.

“My associates and I are well aware of your great wealth, Mr. Winston. But, as you know, there are other standards by which to measure one’s legacy.” He leans across the seat; close enough for Winston to feel the man’s breath wash over him. Winston’s already wide eyes widen some more. “Power. Control. Territory.

“There are other worlds than these. Many. You can rule one of them. Not just a company, not just a continent, but an entire world. And you can do it for an eternity.”

The buzzing sound has diminished inside of Winston’s head. Now he hears something else: the sound of distant waves crashing on a rocky shore. He likes the idea of ruling a world; who wouldn’t? It’s bullshit, of course, but it would be very nice. Excellent, in fact. He could see himself in a castle by the sea … listening to those crashing waves … a thousand people bowing down as he stands above them … hell, ten thousand! As the Beach Boys’ song says, wouldn’t it be nice.

“All we need from you is a particular item. It is in possession of a woman named Gwendolyn Peterson—”

“The Senator?”

“The very same. We can try to take it ourselves—in fact, we have tried—but the Tower is strong.”

“What tower?” Winston asks in a voice that sounds nothing like his own.

“The only one that matters.” The blond man reaches over and places a hand on Winston’s knee. Winston shudders in pleasure. He may be gay after all—at least in this man’s presence. “Gwendolyn Peterson has what we need to destroy the Tower. You must find it and bring it to us. Because of your enormous wealth and political connections, you are uniquely fitted for this task.”

“You’re insane.” The roar of the ocean swells inside Winston’s head.

“Close your eyes,” Bobby commands.

Winston is helpless not to obey. It’s like being hypnotized. He feels the kiss of a cool breeze upon his face and smells a tinge of salt in the air as soon as his eyes are shut. And then he can taste it on his tongue—the ocean! The sound of crashing waves grows louder, only now it’s not just inside his head; it’s everywhere. A bird cries out somewhere above him—a gull of some kind—and a chorus of birds answer it.

“Now open them.”

Gareth Winston opens his eyes and he’s no longer sitting in the green Chrysler behind an abandoned St. Louis warehouse. Instead, he’s sitting beside the blond man in a meadow of wind-swept grass. He stands up and looks down at a churning sea of emerald water. Hundreds of feet below, white-tipped waves crash upon an endless shoreline of jagged rock and sand. The sky above them is streaked with purple and yellow, and there are birds—hundreds of them!—floating on the wind. The sun rising over the watery horizon is a deep crimson.

This is real, he thinks. My God, this is real.

“What have you done to me?”

“Turn around, Mr. Winston.”

He does. Slowly. Like moving in a dream, but this is no dream.

The man points off to the west at a distant city that stretches as far as Winston’s eyes can see. The early morning sunlight glints off the windows of scores of tall buildings. A complex spiderweb of roadways and bridges weave their way amongst the shimmering metropolis. It’s too far away for Winston to determine the type of vehicles that are currently traveling those roads, but there are many of them. In the sky above the city, there’s nary a hint of smog or pollution.

“How big is it?” Winston asks in dazed awe.

“Bigger than New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles combined. And still growing. Surrounded by nearly fifty thousand acres of virgin woodland.”

Winston whistles appreciatively.

“There are another two dozen cities just like it scattered throughout the world I’m offering you.”

Winston points a finger at a long, dark scar of barren land a few miles directly in front of them. Tiny black figures, like busy ants in a child’s ant farm, scurry back and forth in staggered lines. “What’s that over there?”

“That,” the man says, a satisfied smile creeping across his face, “is your diamond mine.”

“Really?”

“Really.” For the first time since he stood up from the park bench there’s a glimmer of the old Gareth Winston. His eyes look greedy—and hungry.

“And over there,” his new friend continues, pointing to a sprawling castle sitting atop a hilltop overlooking the ocean, “is your home. One of many, I might add. For this residence alone, you employ—a rather kind way of wording it considering you tender none of them a salary—more than two hundred men and women from a nearby village. In exchange for their loyalty and labor, you might allow them to grow their own food tax-free.”

“Of course,” Gareth mutters. In spite of his amazement, his businessman’s brain is ticking over. “And possibly medical care. People who think loyalty can’t be bought are idiots. There’d have to be some sort of retirement benefits … at least for those close to me …”

Bobby laughs. The teeth that are momentarily exposed are not those of an angel; yellow and crooked, they are the teeth of a rat. “See? You’ve already begun to plan. Given your extraordinary mind, you should be quite the successful ruler. And as the years, the decades … the centuries! … roll by, you will become not a man but a god to those you rule over.”

“And there are women?” Winston asks, looking and sounding more and more like his old self with each passing minute. “Not that I’ve ever had much luck with that.”

“Luck plays no role here. Not when you’re the king. Not when you’re young and handsome and strong.”

Winston laughs. “Not so young and strong anymore. And never very handsome, I’m afraid.”

“I respectfully disagree, Mr. Winston.” He gestures behind them. “Take a look.”

When Winston turns and sees the tall, ornate mirror—with its glittering gold trim and polished, hand-carved oak legs—positioned in the long grass, his mouth drops open. When he sees his reflection in the mirror, he gasps.

He appears as young and slim as the morning he drove away to college.

“Here, in your world, you’ll look this way forever. And as for being handsome, although you never truly believed it thanks to your father’s constant disparagements, you were at one time—and remain so here, as you can see for yourself—a young man of considerable physical appeal. Your father stole from you the most important gift a young man can possess: self-confidence.” The blond man grins. This time his teeth are very straight and white. “But your father is no longer with us, now, is he?”

“No, he is not.” Winston looks around. “This is real?”

“Yes.”

“Could I come here again?”

“To visit, yes. To live and rule … not until you bring us what we want. The button box.”

Winston finds himself remembering a class he had in college, and a particular line from that class. He didn’t understand it then, but now he does. “If it’s real, and if I can, I will. I promise.”

The man—Bobby—turns Gareth away from the mirror. Bobby wants his undivided attention. “Gwendoyn Peterson has been tasked with getting rid of this rather special box once and for all, and there is only one place in her world—or any of the others—where this can happen.”

“Where?” Winston asks.

The blond man stops walking. “How would you feel about taking a trip to outer space, Mr. Winston?”