Let me explain. No, there
is too much. Let me summarize.
-Princess Bride
“You told Ellinore Ladislaw that you’d find her daughter,”
said Rafferty, all these many years later as they sat in Bulstrode’s
office. “You told her you’d find
her daughter and give her the money left over after she croaked.”
“She died, Raff!” said Bulstrode. “Ellinore died before I could find her daughter!”
“You didn’t look too hard, though, did you, Bully” asked
Rafferty, leaning back coolly.
“You kept that girl’s money and used it to buy more bars and set
yourself up real good, didn’t you?”
“What do you know about it?” asked Bulstrode fiercely. “You were so high you didn’t know what
was going on! You were dealing
dope out of my bar! You could have
cost me everything!”
“Funny about that,” said Rafferty, still cool. “I did sell a little coke now and
again, just to augment my meager income.
Lord knows you could never see your way to paying me a decent salary
even though we were such good pals.
But I never dealt out of The March. And when the cops showed up that day, it was almost like
they knew what they’d find…”
“You were obvious,” retorted Bulstrode. “Everyone knew. If you’d…”
Oh, this dialog is clumsy and expository! This is not the conversation Bulstrode
and Rafferty had. I am attempting
to augment their conversation in order to mete out details which only they and
I are privy to. But it is cumbersome and inelegant. And what, after all, is the
point of all this third party omniscience if one cannot simply narrate? So…
On her deathbed, Ellinore Ladislaw asked Bulstrode to find
her estranged daughter, Althea (Will’s mother), who was off living the hippie
life in San Francisco. Ellinore
was desperate to reach her daughter, to make amends and to settle her
estate. She wanted to die knowing
that her daughter knew how much she loved her. But, besotted as she was, she made the tactical error of
appointing Bulstrode as the executor of her estate. Thus, Althea was never
found and somehow Ellinore’s money, almost incidentally, found a home in
Bulstrode’s business endeavors.
Our man, Rafferty recognized that something here failed the
sniff test and made sure, via frequent and un-subtle comments, that Bulstrode
knew that Rafferty smelled something rotten. In between snide comments, Rafferty snorted some cocaine,
angled for bar and management shifts, and found himself running with a worse
and worse crowd. And then one day
he was arrested at The March by a cop who knew exactly where to find his
cocaine. And then a man Rafferty didn't recall ever meeting swore under oath that Rafferty had offered to sell him cocaine at
the bar. And then he went away to
serve a 15-year sentence for drug trafficking.
And that’s where we are now. So, exposition exposited, let’s return to the tense scene
unfolding between Rafferty and Bulstrode:
“Ellinore Ladislaw is dead,” said Rafferty. “And so is her daughter. But I’m still here and I want what’s
coming to me.”
“I owe you nothing,” said Bulstrode. “I had nothing to do with your criminal
activities or your arrest. You
made your own bed.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not so sure about that,” said
Rafferty. “I think you owe me. So
what do you think, how about a job?
It’s hard to get steady employment out of the joint. I want one of those
Chicago-style jobs that’s all paycheck and no work.”
“Why would I do that?” asked Bulstrode.
“Be smart, Bully,” said Rafferty. “I’d hate to end up
chatting with your wife. She
was hanging around then. She’ll remember Ellinore Ladislaw. She’ll be interested to know who else
you were fucking when you were dating her.”
“Leave Susan out of this!” said Bulstrode.
Bulstrode wanted desperately to turn back the clock, lock
the door and keep Rafferty out of his life. He wished he could go back in time and stand before the
parole board and let them know what a dangerous felon Rafferty was. He wish he could blink hard and
Rafferty would suddenly disappear,
But, he knew he could do none of those things.
“It makes my flesh crawl to think of letting a lowlife like
you blackmail me,” Bulstrode said at last. “But I’ll write you a check right
now if you swear to disappear with it. What will it cost me to get you out of
my life?”
“I don’t think you have the scratch to get rid of me
forever,” said Raff. “But for five
thousand bucks, I’ll disappear for a while.”
And thus, an unhappy deal was struck. Bulstrode wrote the check and Rafferty
left the building.
Everything in Bulstrode’s life has just suddenly gone to
shit and he had a dinner party to
go to. Fred was turning
twenty-five.
