Back Off Buttinsky

It’s a typical day filled with amusement for Monique Vermont as she looks around Marvin Garden’s courtyard.

Monique laughs as six-year-old Charity Chase spins her four-year-old brother around until he’s dizzy and collapses on the seat of his pants. Seated on a bench near the back of the courtyard, Ilsa, Julie Auger’s au pair from Switzerland, puts her head on the shoulder of would-be musician Vinnie Vincent.

Monique, a high school principal, and Leland, her broker husband, had once been Marvin Gardens’ leading socialites. Their parties were catered champagne-drenched affairs attended by politicians, musicians, and Broadway stars. Then Leland passed away days after finding out he had cancer. Monique’s extended period of mourning led to her secluding herself in her first-floor luxury apartment.

Television bored her, and the onset of cataracts made reading more frustrating than fun.

Monique’s view of the modest courtyard became her new world. With a few scrawny trees, three forest-green wooden benches, and a plastic playset for the youngsters, the courtyard served as Monique’s version of a real-time movie starring her neighbors. It helped that Monique could read lips and had a pair of binoculars.

One of the more curious players Monique watches is Jilly Jameson, a jittery twenty-something with multi-colored hair who favors sweatpants and rock band T-shirts and lives on the third floor. She always sits with her arms and legs crossed bouncing her leg nervously, biting her nails down to the nub.

“Must have attention deficit disorder or some kind of personality problem,” Monique says to herself.

According to Buster Grosso, the building superintendent, Jilly has a boyfriend, Topher, who sometimes crashes in her apartment. Topher calls himself a mechanic but never carries any tools. Tall and gaunt, Topher wears his hair down to his shoulders, and a pair of turned-over cowboy boots. and a faded suit jacket.

Monique checks her Felix the Cat clock.

7:00 p.m. Topher will appear any minute.

Five minutes later, Topher sits down next to Jilly, flashing a forced smile.

“What in the world could two young people with their futures ahead of them be so worried about?” Monique wonders.

“We have to do it,” Topher says.

“I’m not going to work for Nails Newman. He’s a gangster,” Jilly comments, biting her nails.

“Which is why we have to do it,” Topher replies.

“But he could kill us in our sleep.”

“That’s exactly what he’ll do if we say no. We need the money.”

“Buster’ll let us slide again. He’s understanding.”

Topher’s voice rises and Monique can hear him say, “He’s a manipulator who’s taking advantage of you. I don’t want you throwing yourself at him again.”

“You’re not here most of the time. You don’t know him. He’s just a sad, fat man who doesn’t have many friends.”

Topher cups his head in his hands.

“Jesus, Jilly. You’re killing me.”

“It doesn’t mean anything. And the money he gives me helps buy things for you like that toolbox that sits in the closet.”

“Just promise me you’ll stop letting that loser in the apartment. Frustrated, horny old men can be dangerous.”

“And hustling for a killer is your idea of being safe?”

Topher reaches into his jacket pocket. Pulling out a stack of money, he waves the bills in Jilly’s face.

Picking up her binoculars, Monique focuses on the denomination of the bills.

Gasping, Monique notes they’re all hundreds.

Befuddled, Jilly asks, “You’re already hustling for Newman, aren’t you?”

“In a few weeks, you’ll be able to replace your Target rags with outfits made by Dolce and Gabbana. In a few months, we could be living in a Park Avenue penthouse with a doorman, and you could get the French bulldogs you’ve always wanted.”

Jilly attacks her nails. “Or we’ll be in a landfill in New Jersey.”

“It’s gonna be okay. I know how to handle Nails. He barely got out of grade school. I’m a college graduate. He’s not gonna outthink me.”

“You don’t have to be smart to murder somebody,” Jilly says nervously.

Topher slaps the cash in her hand, closing it.

“Put some food in the fridge. Get a big-screen TV. And stay away from Buster. This is just a sales job, Madison. Easy money.”

Topher kisses Jilly on the forehead.

Monique slumps in her chair as Topher looks up at the apartments facing the courtyard.

“Where are you going?” Jilly asks.

“Work. This isn’t a nine-to-five gig. I gotta show Nails that I’m a go-getter and I can be trusted. That way he won’t notice if a few extra hundreds slip into my pockets.”

Jilly tries to bite a nail that is no longer there.

“Be careful.”

“Don’t worry. I’m too smart for these thugs.”

Monique looks out of her window at eighty-three-year-old Alastair Bentley, the steadfast CEO of Monarch Publishing Company, who lives in the fourth-floor penthouse. She wonders why his son would leave him stranded in the damp autumn air without a jacket or a blanket to keep him warm. Despite the advanced arthritis that has left his failing body in a wheelchair, Alastair’s mind remains cruelly sharp.

Looking around the empty courtyard, Alastair yells, “Julian! Julian!” in a loud, agitated tone.

Alastair’s fifty-five-year-old son, hustles into the courtyard, yacking eagerly on his cell phone.

Despite his law degree and pedigree, Julian functions as his father’s chauffeur and is treated more like per diem help than Alastair’s closest relative.

“Who are you wasting time with now, one of your high society bimbos?” Alastair demands.

“I’m talking to mother.”

“Same thing. What does that alimony-sucking witch want?”

Julian hands Alastair his cell phone.

“She wants to talk to you about increasing your monthly payments.”

Alastair yells, “GET A JOB!” into the phone, throwing it across the courtyard.

“Same goes for you!” Alastair barks at Julian.

“You’re the one who made me your chauffeur.”

“In the vain hope it would shock you into pulling out that silver spoon your mother jammed in your mouth. But you’re so lazy you can’t even hold onto the simplest of jobs. You can’t drive three blocks without getting lost. I sent you to the best law school in New York and you graduated at the bottom of your class. The only reason you bothered to even get a degree was because I told you to. But have you ever used it? No. Instead, you reattached your umbilical cord to me, sponging off me like a suckerfish. You expected me to set you up with a cushy job and a fancy office, which I did, and you couldn’t even handle that. You didn’t even care when I busted you down to chauffeur.”

Julian checks his manicure. “Was I supposed to?’

“Why do you think I did it? A jellyfish has more backbone than you.”

“I’ve stood up for myself,” Julian replies in a cultured tone, haughtily pointing his Roman nose in the air.

“Paying off other kids not to beat you up doesn’t count.”

“I found the writer who won a Pulitzer Prize for your newspaper.”

Alastair lets out a scathing grunt. “He used a ghostwriter for the article.”

Julian’s eyes widen.

“Oh, you didn’t think I knew? Just like I didn’t know you spent two hundred thousand on entertainment in Rio last year?”

Alastair shakes his gnarled fist at his son.

“I pulled myself up from nothing to head one of the biggest publishing companies in the world. I’m not going to let you steal me blind or ruin my name when I die.”

Monique leans forward in her chair. Focusing her binoculars on Julian, she reads his lips.

“Are you telling me you’re disowning me?”

“That’s right. I’ve changed my will. Your cousin Stephanie is going to run the company when I die, and she’s getting all my money. You’re going to get what you’ve put into life – nada.”

Julian’s freshly exfoliated skin reddens. “Stephanie! Just because her lips have been attached to your wrinkled backside for the past decade!”

“While you were emptying the petty cash box to lose our money on polo, she increased sales in our book division by thirty percent in the past two years alone.”

“I’ll fight this, and so will Mother.”

Alastair leans forward in his wheelchair, narrowing his grey eyes into a laser stare. “You won’t have the money to even hire an ambulance chaser. I’d worry more about where you two leeches are going to live when Stephanie turns the cash spigot off.”

Balling up his fist, Julian manages to stop himself from striking his father.

“I suffered through your mental abuse, your insults. You told people I was a mistake, sent me off to private school so you wouldn’t have to look at me and be reminded that the great publishing mogul could make a mistake. You belittled me at staff meetings, then wouldn’t even let me attend them. I’ll see you dead, you cold-hearted old skinflint. Do you hear me? I’ll cut you into little wrinkled pieces before Stephanie can put her nameplate on her office door.”

Looking up at the surrounding apartments, Julian spots Monique.

Julian rushes into the building.

“Where the hell are you going, you useless…,” Alastair shouts after him.

Mopping up the hallway, Buster warns Julian to watch his step as he whizzes by.

Julian’s body momentarily goes horizontal as he slips on the wet floor before he crashes onto his back.

“…Told you…,” Buster says.

Grimacing, Julian asks, “What apartment is that snoop with the binoculars in?”

“Monique Vermont? She’s our neighborhood watch. Did she catch you doin’ somethin’ funny, Julian?”

“Just tell me, you fat, mop-swabbing buffoon!”

“Tough talk coming from the wrong-way chauffeur,” Buster snorts, pulling his pants up to shield his gut. “She’s in 1D at the end of the hall on your right.”

Curious, Buster follows a determined Julian down the hall.

Julian bangs on Monique’s door.

“Leave her alone, Julian. She’s just a harmless, lonely woman who likes to watch people from her window.”

Julian looks at Buster, his capped teeth locked together like a steel trap. Still clutching his mop, Buster holds it in front of himself like a protective spear.

Banging his fists against the door, Julian yells, “I just want to have a friendly talk with you Mrs. Vermont!”

Leaning with her back against the door, Monique surmises it might be easier to listen to Julian than to try and shoo him away.

Nonetheless, Monique grabs a frying pan before opening the door.

“You’re going to forget what you heard, you understand?” Julian demands. “Or you’ll be as sorry as that gas bag I call a father!”

Julian spins on his Brunello Cucinelli dress shoes. Shoving Buster aside, he marches down the hallway, slipping in the same spot where he fell.

“I wouldn’t worry about him,” Buster says to Monique. “He’s just a spoiled brat who’s starting to realize he’s useless and penniless. Just to be sure, you might wanna keep your door locked.”

Monique lifts her binoculars, focusing on the grim-looking man in the mismatched suit admonishing Buster in the courtyard.

“I’ve done all I can to keep the money flowing, Mr. Fields.”

“Have you? You’ve let that hippy on the third floor skate on paying rent for the past three months,” Sydney Fields sharply replies.

“She said she’ll pay up soon.”

“I was counting on that money to help replace the boiler. Now the basement floor and the roof have to be replaced too. A lot of these tenants, like Alastair Bentley and Monique Vermont, live in palaces I could get four times more for if they weren’t rent-controlled.”

Buster pulls up his oversized pants. “Have you had any luck selling the building?”

“Both real estate companies that are interested in the building want me to pay to have it modernized. Do you know how much money that would take? I already owe the contractors who fixed the sidewalk, the courtyard, and the steps, not to mention, I’m in debt to the I.R.S. for two years in back taxes.”

Fields leans closer to Buster whispering, “There is a way I can get out from under…”

Buster vehemently shakes his head. “You said that was a last resort.”

“No, you did. I’ll double my price. Just make sure it looks like an accident.”

Pushing her full cart of groceries along the sidewalk, Monique sees a stretch limousine with tinted windows dock in front of the building.

The back door opens, and a body is kicked onto the sidewalk.

A gruff voice warns, “Don’t steal from me again, college boy! You do, and I’ll burn this place down around you!”

Setting aside her cart, Monique rushes to Topher’s side.

Climbing the steps to the building, Buster sets down a pair of gas cans, going to Topher.

Buster rolls Topher over.

“Yikes. You look like you got dropped into a cement mixer.”

Topher’s features are distorted and swollen. His cracked and bleeding lips protrude like inflated tires, and his once bountiful head of hair has been rudely sheered into a crew cut.

“What the heck happened to you, boy?” Buster asks.

Spitting up blood, Topher wheezes, “It was an accident.”

Buster helps Topher to his feet.

“Looks like Nails Newman accidentally hit you repeatedly with a shovel.”

“It was a bat. A Jordan Alvarez thirty-four incher.”

“You should call the police and tell them that gangster assaulted you,” Monique says.

“Back off, buttinsky,” Topher sputters. “I can take care of myself.”

“Obviously,” Monique comments.

“I’ll tell you this for your own good, lady. You need to develop a case of blindness topped off with laryngitis. I’m useful to Nails. He doesn’t know you. He won’t hesitate to make you disappear.”

“I don’t bend to threats,” Monique replies.

“Okay, but you’ve got bones; at your age, they break pretty easily.”

Rubbing his swollen jaw, Topher slowly drags himself up the steps.

“I’m happy Jilly’s gonna try to pay her rent on time,” Buster calls after him. “But in the future, if you’re gonna visit, don’t bring your work here.”

Turning to Monique, Buster utters, “Drugs,” huffing distastefully.

Buster helps Monique pull her cart up the steps. Continuing to complain, he says, “It’s too bad. Topher’s a good kid. He thinks he’s smarter than everybody else. Instead of working for a living, he thinks he can take a few shortcuts and get rich. If he keeps this up, he’s gonna make that cute little girlfriend of his a widow before she’s a bride.”

“Maybe you should report this to the police,” Monique suggests.

“And get what he got? I’ll pass. And don’t you go makin’ an anonymous phone call. Guys like Nails Newman always find out who ratted them out.”

Monique looks down at the two gas cans, frowning.

“Er… I need some gas for the mower,” Buster offers.

“You need two big cans of gas to cut those small patches of grass in the courtyard?” Monique asks.

“You never know when somethin’ else may come up.”

Detective Kat Kitaine sips her cup of coffee, nearly gagging at its bitter taste.

“Your grandma is here,” she says to Senior Detective Nick Drake, pointing at Monique.

“My Gran was usually still dressed in a house coat and wearing curlers at this time of the morning,” Drake responds. “This lady looks like she’s gonna have breakfast with King Charles. What’s her story?”

“Name’s Monique Vermont. She lives at Marvin Garden Apartments. She says she overheard Julian Bentley threatening to kill his father, Alastair, yeah that Bentley, the owner of Monarch Publishing. Then Julian Bentley said he’d kill her.”

“I threatened to kill my old man nearly every day when I was a kid,” Drake replies. “But he wasn’t one of the most powerful men in the City. I’ve met Julian. Pulled him in for assaulting one of his father’s secretaries. His dad made the charge disappear. Julian’s a real jerk, but I doubt he’s got the nerve to kill an ant.”

“She says a second man threatened her as well, a drug dealer named Topher, whose girlfriend lives on the third floor,” Kitaine says. “She’s not sure if that’s a nickname and doesn’t know his last name.”

Drake sighs heavily.

“I’ll sit her down with a sketch artist,” Kitaine suggests.

“What do you think of her, Kat?”

“She’s a lonely old lady who sits by her window and eavesdrops on her neighbors. She got called out for it, and now she’s scared. But I don’t think she’s in any danger.”

Detective Drake covers his mouth with his handkerchief as thick smoke wafts out of the first-floor windows of the Marvin Garden Apartments.

Detective Kitaine appears out of the smoke, walking toward him.

“The Fire Department contained it before it spread to the second floor, but the fire marshal says this wasn’t an accident.”

“Arson?”

“Yep. The fire started in 1D, Monique Vermont’s apartment. She didn’t get out.”

Sighing deeply, Drake runs his fingers through his hair.

“More bad news,” Kitaine continues. “She was dead before the fire started. Strangled.”

“We’ll need to talk to the people she said threatened her,” Drake says.

“We can’t find Julian or Alastair Bentley, or Jilly Jameson, or her boyfriend. The Super’s missing too.”