Murdering Mr. Monti: A Merry Little Tale of Sex and Violence by Judith Viorst

And if some folks do not feel they are receiving a full apology unless it comes with groveling, begging, etc., I say give it to them.
    Somewhere in the midst of all this, the waitress—a shapely brunette with long legs and short hair—took our order, brought us our, lunches, and replenished our drinks. “Is there anything else whatsoever you would like me to do for you?” she inquired huskily, directing her question to Jeff and hinting at sweets far far beyond the flourless chocolate cake.
    “Not at the moment, thanks,” Jeff answered, tossing her a conspiratorial smile. “But promise that you’ll come back and ask me later.”
    Jeff is so good at this lady-killer stuff that he can do it in his sleep, which—as I examined him more closely—it was clear he could desperately use. I also noticed that underneath the tan, his feline face had a slightly greenish tinge. He started rubbing his cleft again. I took his hand from his chin and gave it a pat. “lust tell me this,” I said to him. “On a scale from one to ten, exactly how much trouble are you in?”
    “Eleven, Mom,” he answered and then my cocky firstborn son began to cry.
    •  •  •
    The last time I saw Jeff cry was in seventh grade, when he was suspended from Georgetown Day School for cheating on a chemistry exam. He swore, and I believed him, that he had only sought outside help on one of the questions. He then defended himself by observing that since the chem exam had twenty questions his dishonesty quotient was merely 5 percent.
    Jeff was not an easy child to raise. A moralcorner-cutter with a fast mouth, he had many close encounters with die authorities. For all I know, he still does. He certainly still displays a devotion to hedonism that the rest of his hardworking family does not share—doing dubious deals, dancing and drinking half the night away, and wasting his substance upon glitzy, shallow women who could never be the mothers of my grandchildren. In addition (though I don’t mean to sound petty) Jeff is never on time, he never phones when he says he is going to phone, and people tell me (I won’t say who, but I’ve got my ways of knowing) that he almost never bothers to use his seat belt. I guess the good news about Jeff is that after a trip two years ago to the Sibley Emergency Room, he no longer snorts, smokes, or swallows controlled substances. That afternoon at the restaurant, he finally opened up and proceeded to inform me of the bad news.
    •  •  •
    Jeff told me that back in January, soon after the Monti-Kovner family dinner, he called Mr. Monti and said he would like some advice. Asking for advice, my shrewd but currently quite chastened son informed me, was the best way to ease into asking for bigger favors. Which he did.
    “You’ve made some brilliant real estate moves,” Jeff said to Mr. Monti when they met and had ordered their second round of drinks. “I’m into a little real estate myself.”
    “A profitable business,” said Mr. Monti. “Even in these tough times. But if, and only if, you know how to figure it.”
    “That’s just it,” said Jeff. “With prices so low now, I’d like to buy some properties in the District, but theneighborhoods I’m looking at could go either way—up or down—and frankly, sir, I don’t know how to figure it.”
    “Help me, O Real Estate Maven,” was Jeff’s unexpressed but unmistakable plea. Mr. Joseph Monti, for his own unsavory reasons (I’ll get to them soon), chose to oblige.
    “There’s a very sweet deal coming up with a block of buildings in Anacostia,” he told Jeff, who, as he listened to Mr. Monti describe it, almost fell off his bar stool with excitement.
    According to Mr. Monti’s source—a person he characterized as “my own Deep Throat”—an urban revitalization project was coming up in . . . he mentioned a section of Anacostia. “Some office buildings, a Cineplex, a mini shopping mall—the works. If you owned in this location you