“What’s to think over, Manny? Money doesn’t grow on trees in Ontario.”
“I wouldn’t mind Palm Beach,” Pa said.
“You can’t get another day’s wear out of that white suit, Manny. Forget it. Besides, it’ll be spring in no time. I love a Canadian spring. It’s over so fast. You blink and it’s gone.”
“Why don’t you fly down to Arizona? They do a great spring in Arizona,” I said, selling the idea with as much conviction as I could muster.
“Paul Weinberg found a scorpion in his garage in Arizona. Are you trying to send us to our deaths?” The conversation drifted from the Arizona murder plot to other things.
“Boy, did I get a shock at the club this afternoon,” Pa said. It was his way of announcing the death of one of their contemporaries.
“Manny, I don’t want to hear about it!” Ma always tried to postpone the news. Maybe she thought she could breathe a moment of life into the dear departed by keeping at bay the specifics of who exactly had died.
“And he was only retired a few years.”
“I don’t want to know!”
“A better hand at poker you couldn’t wish for.”
“Are you talking about Dave Kaplanski?”
“I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“I don’t want to know if you’ll shut up about it. If you won’t shut up, then I’ve got a right to guess. Is it Louie Stein? He played poker. And I think he just came back from Florida. I thought that such a tan was criminal. Now he’s dead. That’s the way the world goes.”
“Sophie, what are you talking about? Lou Stein’s face told you every card in his hand. A poker player? Lou Stein couldn’t understand Snakes and Ladders! I’m talking about the old deputy police chief, Ed Neustadt, not Lou Stein. Lou’s been in his grave for six-seven months already.”
And so it went. I tried my best to save their lives in Palm Beach or Flagstaff, but to no avail. I looked at my watch, kissed them both and left them to their steaks. I was beginning to feel hungry, so I pointed the Olds in the direction of home.
EIGHT
“Benny! Which way did you go?” I was sitting in my apartment at the all-purpose table with Anna Abraham staring across at me. With the certain knowledge that Phil, the hood, or one of his pals was keeping at least half an eye on my windows, I was not brilliant company.
“Huh?”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself. Benny, what’s the matter with you tonight? You sulked through dinner and haven’t been listening for at least the last twenty minutes. Are you telling me that you could do with less of my company? I can take a kick in the pants as well as the next girl.”
“I’m sorry, Anna. I know I’m being lousy company.”
“An understatement if I ever heard one!”
“I said I was sorry.” I stared at the wine stain on the tablecloth. I’d poured salt over it to prevent it becoming permanent, but I wasn’t sure it wasn’t just an old wives’ tale. The wreckage of two approaches to eating grilled salmon lay before us: Anna’s tidy clean plate; my chopped-up remains, partly hidden under the mashed potatoes.
Anna had come early, letting herself in with her own key, and had a good dinner on the stove when I returned from playing travel agent at my parents’. I was delighted to see her, of course, but I knew that I had put her in danger by just knowing her. I wanted to tell her, but I was afraid of the consequences. I was sure that she would stick by me. In fact, her loyalty was the problem. The last thing in the world I needed at the moment was damn-thetorpedoes loyalty. What I needed was everyday indifference, the sort of long-standing arrangement that might allow for Anna to not see me for a couple of weeks. The last thing I wanted was to have Anna know more about Abe Wise than was good for her. I had already quizzed her during dinner about her responsibilities at the university. She couldn’t take any time off and that was that. What would have happened to her, I wondered, if she had been with me when Mickey and the Three Stooges paid their call?
“Do you remember what I was saying?”
“You were talking about … No, I don’t remember. You caught me fair and square.”
“Well, you’re honest, at least.” She was looking at me. I knew it, but I couldn’t return her gaze. I wasn’t sure what I might not say once I was caught staring into Anna’s salamandrine eyes.
“Let’s start again. Okay? I’ll try harder. I’m not the rat fink you think I am. I’m just careworn from a bad day at the office.”
“Office. You haven’t been in your office for hours. I tried calling you there umpteen times. You’re not going to tell me what this is all about, are you?”
“This is something you don’t want to get involved in.
“Benny, you’re always saying that the only way to protect yourself from the consequence of having guilt knowledge is to pass it around. Secrets get people killed. You say it all the time! Well, why not take your own advice? What’s going on in your life that I should know about? Are you tracking down a serial killer? Are the fuzz about to bust you for non-payment of your many secret operatives spread out across the nation, around the world?”
“Very funny!”
“Maybe it isn’t business at all. Let me think about that. The blonde hasn’t arrived to displace me, has she?” Anna has always been kidding me about my falling for a blonde bombshell with no brain and a full bra. I know it is just a joke, but she brings it out whenever she’s feeling peculiar about our arrangements. We have been seriously not living together off and on for nearly three years. I could go on like this forever, but Anna and Anna’s father would like some resolution to the informality. My own parents are noisily silent on the subject. I get looks across the table when Anna’s name is mentioned. I catch exchanged glances and sense the undercurrent in the room. I once was kicked under the table when Pa got close to the subject of rabbis and invitations. I didn’t know how to pass along the warning from Ma, but my father got the idea from my cry of pain.
“The blonde is in the closet under my laundry,” I said. Anna looked over at the closet door then back at me.
“She’s very quiet.”
“She’s well brought up. Breeding does it every time.”
“Is that a reproach to my father’s new money?” she said, brushing a lock of hair back where it belonged.
“You know I’m indifferent to your old man’s millions. It’s your body I’m mad about.”
“What about the blonde under the laundry? Doesn’t she have a body? Maybe she can’t pull herself away from your smalls.”
“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Dirty shorts are a very big kick. Maybe not my kick, but a kick nevertheless. Come over here.”
“Aren’t you saving yourself for her?” I answered the question by getting up and walking around the table. The next half-hour has no place in the report about Abe Wise’s call on my professional services. Although I hadn’t answered Anna’s questions, I had forgotten that she had asked them. Maybe she had too. It was a long time before I thought of Abe Wise or of his minions stationed across the street.
The light was gone when I rolled over. The candles had guttered out in silence while I caught thirty winks in Anna’s warm arms.
“She isn’t making much noise in there,” Anna said at length.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I was, but I was feeling sorry for the woman with your smalls.”
“I told you; she likes it in there.”
“Until I’m gone and then she jumps out to behave in the most abandoned manner.”
“You’ve been looking in my window.”
“I’ve been reading your mind. Why don’t you give the poor dear a break while I sit in a hot tub. I’ll only give you ten minutes. I call that generous, I do,” Anna said, wrapping the top sheet around her. She made no move to abandon me.