You’re the Only One I Can Trust

JUNE 2000 Griffin Gambil was having the absolute time of his life. A wealthy sixty-year-old man, clearly still in his prime some might say—though it is unlikely anyone younger than fifty would make such a statement—Griffin was still a relatively handsome fellow. He suffered from neither the middle-age spreading of his mid-section nor the hair loss so common to men his age. Even though he seldom exercised, Griffin remained fairly trim, a condition he attributed to the stress of the business world which, he claimed, burned calories faster than jogging. His dark hair, peppered with just the correct amount of grey, gave rise to a sophisticated “older gentleman” appearance. Pricey designer clothing completed the persona of the well-to-do. Griffin always liked to say the only difference between a dirty old man and a sophisticated elderly gentleman was the amount in his bank account. He would say this with just the hint of a smile, never an out-and-out laugh, so that the listener was never quite certain if he was making a serious observation or speaking in jest. Griffin had a wife. An attractive brunette-cum-blonde with a remarkable figure that belied her forty-five years. He would have been quite satisfied with such a wife, except that she was sexually frigid as a block of ice. So, he had a girlfriend . . . a mistress, really. For every problem there was a solution, Griffin believed. Unbeknownst to Griffin, his wife was not as repelled by sexual activity as he would have believed. It’s just that she had been fornicating in her mind with another man for so long that she no longer thought of her husband as a sexual being. Otherwise, Griffin’s wife had, for much of their fifteen years together, been completely content sharing a passionless life with her husband—he was intelligent, a good friend and excellent provider. She had been content, that is, until quite recently. Few things in life surprised Griffin anymore. But he was somewhat taken aback when his wife, out-of-the-blue, announced that she was leaving him. She moved out and began cohabiting with a man from her distant past who suddenly reemerged, re-claiming her like chattel that had merely been on temporary loan to Griffin. Stunning though this turn of events was, Griffin tried to take it in stride, convincing himself that it hardly mattered. Without the distractions of a wife hanging around, he could now concentrate more fully on his business. Griffin was in the business of making money. Primarily through real estate. He bought, sold, brokered, developed—and sometimes even blatantly cheated people out of—real estate. Additionally, his wife leaving him for another man was the best thing to happen to Griffin’s sex life in years. He could now more easily spend time with his mistress. Physically, Griffin’s mistress was everything his wife was NOT—his wife was tall, curvaceous and beautiful. Griffin’s wife and his mistress were polar opposites in personality and character as well. His wife had always treated him respectfully and truthfully. This would include the completely forthright manner in which she disclosed to Griffin her affair with another man, and her subsequent abandonment of the marital domicile rather than continuing to live under the guise of husband and wife. Griffin’s mistress, on the other hand, abused and mistreated him and, he felt certain, she was a habitual liar. His wife left without taking a dime; his mistress demanded every dollar she could squeeze out of him. Yet, it was the mistress who brought Griffin such contentment as he had never before felt in his entire life. Griffin Gambil sat in his car, a late model black Cadillac, parked on the street in front of his mistress’ house. He flicked on the radio—the “oldies” station. He enjoyed listening to old-time rock & roll performers like the Platters, Little Anthony & the Imperials, Gene Chandler, the Silhouettes—what he called “Doo-Wop music.” Music from his youth. The DJ announced “up next—four in a row” from a singer Griffin considered more contemporary than oldie: Phil Collins. More and more, non-Doo-Wop music was encroaching onto the oldies airwaves, something Griffin tolerated rather than enjoyed. He took pen and paper from the glove compartment and studied the pad on his knee. He and his mistress had been engaged in another of their little erotic games. Games that got Griffin so emotionally charged that he felt he could go out and conquer the whole damn world! He had never experienced anything so intense before with any woman, certainly not with his wife. Games that made Griffin so grateful for the feeling that he often expressed his gratitude by bestowing lavish gifts. This one would be a real doozy! He listened to the words being sung from the radio, I can feel it coming in the air tonight—Oh Lord. Smiling to himself, he responded audibly, “Oh Lord indeed. I most surely can feel it coming in the air tonight!” At the top of the blank page in his lap Griffin printed in large bold letters, LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF GRIFFIN GAMBIL. The rest of the page, in his usual hand, he listed the breadth and scope of his domain . . . leaving everything he owned to just one person, the only woman he ever knew to make him feel so fully alive: his mistress. “That ought to get her attention,” he chuckled to himself. “Hell, it’ll get everyone’s attention if I get run over by a bus before I can destroy this damn thing.” The will wasn’t real, of course. He never intended for it to be. He had a real will—one drawn up by lawyers, with witnesses and everything—in a safe deposit box down at the bank. This was just new fodder for their game playing. She would be so pleased to see the will—so touched by this grand gesture of his generosity toward her—no telling to what heights they might soar tonight! A tap on the car window caused Griffin to look up from his bogus will drafting project. Surprised and annoyed at this intrusion, he stuffed the pad of paper back into the glove compartment, away from prying eyes, and got out of the car. “Look,” he said, trying not to vent his impatience too harshly. “I don’t know why the hell you’re bothering me, but make this quick. I don’t have all day.” Those were the last words Griffin Gambil ever spoke. The glint of a gun barrel caught his eye—it was the second to last thing Griffin Gambil would ever see. There was a loud, percussive pop, a spume of red. In the time it takes to pull a trigger, a bullet smashed into Griffin’s skull, taking his nose, an eye and much of his face with it. Before the darkness of eternity descended over him, Griffin—looking downward with the single good eye still attached to its socket—watched his own blood spilling onto his Gucci loafers. From within the car, another song with the pulsating drum beat and voice of Phil Collins kept hammering over and over the final refrain: No more, no more, no more, no more . . . .