“You want me to call that man?”
I explained what I had in mind, and he was clearly troubled. I asked him what was wrong.
“I don’t even have his number,” he said. “Gave you that slip of paper.”
“I have the number, Henry.”
“That’s the least of it, anyway. My mama raised us not to tell lies.”
“Well, in special circumstances—”
“Oh, it’s not the right or wrong of it. It’s the training. Comes to lying, I’m just not very good at it. I get flustered, and what I say comes out sounding untruthful.”
“A little practice,” I said, “will make all the difference.”
We must have spent fifteen minutes rehearsing. I sketched out a script for him, and we took turns playing Henry and Paul. By improvising, he learned to come up with responses to anything Paul was likely to say, and as he settled into the role he grew a lot less flustered.
We finished our coffee, and he put the phone in his breast pocket and checked to make sure he had the right key, and I got my backpack onto my shoulder, then took it off again and asked him if he had a spare roll of duct tape.
He said, “In this job? That’s like asking a pharmacist does he have any aspirin.”
He never asked me what I was going to use it for, just gave me a roll, and threw in a scissors without my asking. I added both to my backpack. We went upstairs, walked down the hall to the front staircase, and climbed three flights of stairs. When we’d both caught our breath, he opened the door to Ellen Lipscomb’s apartment. There was a light switch alongside the door, but I left it alone. We had all the light we needed.
I took him one more time through the conversation he was going to have, and he took a deep breath and made the call, then rolled his eyes when it went immediately to voice mail. But we’d rehearsed this, too, and he said, “This here’s the super on East 27th Street. Call me back real quick.”
He pressed what you press to end a call, took another deep breath, and right about then his phone rang. He looked at me and I nodded.
He answered the phone, said, “Super.”
We could have put his phone on Speaker, but that might have made it harder for him to play his role. So I only heard one side of the conversation.
“She’s here,” he said. “Your sister. Just a few minutes ago. Rang my bell, said she lost her keys, needed for me to let her in. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Well, I don’t know exactly how I could stall her, so might be best for you to get here as soon as you can.”
He listened, said Uh-huh a few more times, then rang off and asked me how he’d done.
“From what I heard,” I said, “you could get an Emmy nomination.”
He grinned at that. “He didn’t seem suspicious at all. Said he’d get over right away. I said just buzz me and I’ll be right up.”
“So you’d better get downstairs.”
“What I was thinking. No, you don’t need to do that.”
What I didn’t need to do was hand him a pair of hundreds, and he was probably right, I probably didn’t need to do it. But maybe it would help keep him from forgetting which side he was on.
“Said he’s got keys, picked up a spare set of hers. I never saw him do it.”
“You just saw him take the panties.”
“God, don’t remind me. I’ll keep an eye on the door, call when he’s on his way. If I can.”
After he’d left, I opened the backpack and took out the two items I’d purchased. One was a black silk ski mask, the kind that fits over your whole head, with two small almond-shaped holes for your eyes and a larger one for your mouth. The other was a kitchen mallet with a ten-inch hardwood handle and a head of hard black rubber, one side of the head capped with a toothed disc of cast aluminum for tenderizing meat.
Waiting was the hard part. I wanted to put a light on, move around the apartment. Instead I donned the ski mask, to check the fit, and promptly took it off again; it was all too good at warming one’s face. I hefted the mallet, swung it gently into my palm, first with the plain rubber end, then with the toothed metal. That was my dress rehearsal, I thought, and waited for it to be showtime.
I didn’t have long to wait. Fifteen, twenty minutes, and my phone vibrated in my breast pocket. I picked up, and in a hoarse whisper Henry told me our man was on his way. “Didn’t see me,” he said. “Doesn’t know I saw him.”
He rang off before I could say anything.
I listened for footsteps. I didn’t hear him on the stairs, but picked up his footsteps as he approached the door. I stationed myself so I’d be behind the door when he opened it.
He took his time getting the key in the lock. Then he turned it, and then he eased the door open and stepped into the apartment.
He was a big man, taller and heavier than I, dressed in ironed khakis and a navy blazer. I don’t know what he sensed, her absence or my presence, but the set of his shoulders shifted, and his hands moved at his sides. So he was on guard, and I might only get one crack at him.
I took it, swung the mallet into the back of his head.
For longer than I expected, he stood there as if rooted. I’d pulled the punch the least bit, not wanting to shatter his skull, and maybe that had been a mistake. Then, when I drew back the mallet for another try, his knees buckled and he hit the floor and didn’t move.
“Everett Allen Paulsen. He was carrying a New Jersey driver’s license, and it had his name in full. The rest of his ID, mostly credit cards, was all either Allen Paulsen or E. Allen Paulsen.”
Elaine said, “And he called himself Paul. I wonder what he has against the name Everett?”
“Or Ev for short,” Ellen said. “Or, I don’t know. Rhett?”
By the time I’d got home Elaine was ready to leave for the Croatian church. Could I make myself a sandwich? Was I okay with that? I was fine with it, I assured her, and when was it her meeting ended? Nine o’clock? Well, could she come right home afterward? And could she bring Ellen?
I never did fix myself that sandwich. I spent a long time under the shower, most of it with the hot spray hitting me in the back of the neck. I got dressed and sat down in front of the TV, and I guess I must have dozed off. But if I was sleeping it couldn’t have been very deeply, because my eyes snapped open when I heard Elaine’s key in the lock.
And now the three of us were in the living room, but this time it was I who shared the couch with Elaine, while Ellen Lipscomb perched on my recliner. I took them through my day, and I may have furnished more detail than they needed to hear about my fruitless quest for a nightstick and the kitchen mallet I’d rung in as a substitute.
I’d have been more concise a few years earlier. An old man’s like an old river, tending to meander, given to lingering in the interesting bends and curves it cuts into the earth. A couple of times I had to remind myself to move the narrative along, that my trip to the Bowery didn’t require a whole disquisition on the history of that venerable thoroughfare, including the spelling of its original Dutch name.
Still, neither of them looked bored.
“So I swung at him,” I said, “and if I hadn’t pulled it a little at the last moment I think I’d have killed him.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I knocked him cold,” I said, “but it took a couple of long seconds for his body to get the message. He stayed upright and looked to be bracing himself, getting his feet under him, and if he’d managed to turn around—”
“He’d have seen a man in a ski mask,” Elaine said.
“And he’d try to take the mask off, and my head along with it. He was big, and he had to be strong to take that initial blow. And I’m an old man.”
“Not that old,” Ellen said.