A Night at the Operation

by JEFFREY COHEN

  “First of all, call me Angie. But, let me see if I’m understanding you correctly. You’re worried that Lillian and her husband might commit violence on a person who may or may not be mentioned in Lillian’s father’s will if they don’t get all the money they want?”

  “That’s right, Angie. And you call me Elliot.”

  She took a moment before speaking again. “Who is the person you’re concerned about, Elliot?”

  “Are you going to tell me if that person is mentioned in Chapman’s will?”

  “No.” But she had a twinkle in her voice.

  “Then I don’t see the point of telling you.” I was bantering with a woman I’d never met. It must have been my head hurting.

  “Suppose there’s no tape recorder or stenographer.”

  “Off the record? It’s my ex-wife, Dr. Sharon Simon-Freed.” Why did she want to know, if she wasn’t going to tell me about the will?

  “Your ex-wife.”

  “Yes.”

  Angie Hogencamp sounded baffled. “Most men with ex-wives would be at the very least ambivalent to the idea of violence against the woman,” she said.

  “I’m not most men.”

  “Clearly not. Well, if it makes you feel any better, everyone involved with the estate should be informed by I’d say Monday the latest.”

  Monday? Way too much could happen by Monday. “The latest?” I asked.

  “Yes. It might be sooner. I can’t say any more than that.”

  We exchanged genuine pleasantries before hanging up, and while I wasn’t less concerned, for some reason, I felt better. Until I opened my eyes and saw my father and Sandy Arnstein in the office doorway. They didn’t look happy.

  I just didn’t have the patience for it anymore. “What?” I asked.

  “What happened to your head?” Dad asked at the same time.

  “I cut myself shaving.”

  He gave me a look, but before he could answer, Arnstein said, “This is an old theatre.”

  “Thanks. I understand the earth is round, as well. Any other incredibly obvious things you’d like to point out?”

  “All I’m saying is, this is an old building. There’s things that go on here that wouldn’t go on in a new building.” Arnstein’s face seemed defiant, somehow, as if I’d told him that this wasn’t an old building, and he was proving me wrong.

  I decided to slow down the conversation, under the (as it turned out, mistaken) assumption that it would make my head hurt less. “Okay. What has gone wrong that wouldn’t have gone wrong in a new building?” I asked.

  “There was a short in the electrical wires. For all I know, rats have been eating away at your wiring since Harry Truman was president.” I felt like Arnstein had been making excuses for his work since Harry Truman was president, but for the first time in about a week, I decided to keep a thought to myself.

  “So, what happened?” I asked again, my voice so patient you’d have thought I was Mr. Rogers on Xanax.

  “So that ran up the wires into the lobby and made your wall catch on fire,” he said.

  Aha! Arnstein was asking me, in his abrasive way, not to sue him for almost burning my theatre down. Since I had to start thinking about paying college tuition in about nineteen years, I shifted my focus to the idea of saving money on the repair work. Maybe a lot of money. “So that’s what caused the fire,” I said. “What can you do about it now?”

  “I’ve already done it. I ran some new wiring up through that area and put in a new electrical service where you had that ancient thing in the basement. I was afraid to put my hand near those fuses you used to have, I’m telling you.” He waited, as if expecting applause, or at least a hearty “atta boy.”

  He got neither. “I meant, what can you do about the damage that you caused to my wall and the smell in my lobby?” I asked. Pleasantly.

  Arnstein looked astonished. Here he had done me this tremendous favor, put his unparalleled talent to work for my benefit, and all I could do was remind him of a minor failing on his part (which had only narrowly escaped burning the building down)? He looked at Dad, no doubt wondering how such a fine and well-mannered man as Arthur Freed could have such an ungrateful, ill-mannered son. “What can I do?” he asked. “The damage is done.”

  “Yes, and it will have to be repaired. Now, would you prefer to fix it yourself, or would you like to pay for it to be fixed?” I think the bandage, which might have had a spot of blood on it, was giving my argument added weight.

  Arnstein mumbled something, and slunk away. I looked at Dad, who repeated, “What happened to your head?”

  “Another boy threw a rock at me, Daddy. Don’t tell Mommy, okay?”

  “Are you going to keep giving me smartass answers?” My father likes to assert his paternal authority from time to time. It occurred to me at that moment for the first time that I should have been taking notes for decades.

  “I’m sorry. I was walking with Sharon and someone threw a brick. I got hit with it, but Sharon says I’m all right.”

  “Jesus! Who throws a brick at a total stranger?”

  I didn’t think the best strategy was to tell him it was the same person who tried to run down a pregnant woman with a frontloaded shopping cart, especially since he didn’t know: (a) that the shopping cart incident had occurred, or (b) that Sharon was pregnant. There were all sorts of things I wasn’t telling my father. If my kid ever tried that, I’d have to ground him for a month. “It’s a crazy world, Dad,” I said, and that part, at least, was true.

  He shook his head at the insanity of it all, and followed Arnstein back, I assumed, into the basement. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask whether the heat was going to come back on soon. I didn’t care; we were having our showings, regardless.

  Something had to be normal.

  I went upstairs to the projection booth, where Anthony was dutifully cueing up Sullivan’s Travels for the first show tonight. I sat down heavily in the available chair and watched him as he went about his work. Anthony was precise and focused, two things college students are not supposed to be. It was one of the reasons I’d hired him.

  The other had been that no one else applied for the job.

  “So, how are things in the projection booth?” I asked. Apparently, the injury to my head had inhibited my ability to smoothly converse.

  Anthony looked at me. “Okay,” he said. “Why?”

  “I like to keep track of things,” I said, as if that made sense. And then I realized why I’d come up here to begin with: for advice.

  Yes, that’s how bad things had gotten.

  “You know about this thing with Sophie and her parents, right?” I asked Anthony.

  “Yeah,” he said. The kid thinks film all the time. Conversation is so beside the point.

  “You’re a lot closer to her age than I am,” I babbled on. “What would convince your parents that you should stay on here?”

  Anthony, to his credit, stopped what he was doing to think about it. “My parents,” he said, “were so thrilled I had a paying job, I don’t think they’d ask me to leave if you were a brain-eating zombie.” Anthony is a gore movie fan.

  “That doesn’t help much,” I said.

  “No. I guess it doesn’t.” He thought some more. “Suppose you sold Sophie the theatre. Then she couldn’t leave.”

  I pointed at the projector. “Thread, Anthony.” And I went back downstairs.

  The lack of heat in my office (and everywhere else in the building) reminded me that I’d seen something about the weather this morning, which seemed like it was nine days ago. So I checked on the computer, and there was, according to the National Weather Service, a forty-percent chance of snow showers around midnight. Certainly it would be cold enough for black ice. Just the thing for a cyclist on his way home.

  Bobo Kaminsky is not your average bike shop owner, but then, Bobo is not your average anything. He’s about six-feet-two in any direction, and lives to sell bicycles. Not long ago, he had resurrected my trusty
mode of transportation from circumstances too dire for me to relate (I tend to tear up when thinking about it), and still grumbled about the fact that I hadn’t simply plunked down a couple of grand on a new model. Bobo thinks I’m wealthy. I don’t know why.

  When I called him today, Bobo was clearly eating something, but that wasn’t unusual—you don’t get to be six-feet-two in any direction without fueling the fire every few minutes—and cranky. That was really not unusual.

  “Bobo, do they make snow tires for bicycles?”

  “I swear, Elliot, you sit around that theatre all day just thinking up stupid questions to ask me, don’t you?” I think that’s what he said. I really didn’t want to know what kind of sandwich Bobo was chewing at the moment. There’s such a thing as too much information.

  “Well jeez, I just thought I’d ask. So they don’t make snow tires for bicycles.”

  His voice rose an octave and I thought a piece of some food matter was lodged in his throat. “Of course they make snow tires for bicycles!” Bobo coughed. “It’s just amazing that it’s taken you this long to ask about them. You’ve been riding that . . . thing . . . for years, through all sorts of weather, and this is the first time you ask?”

  I decided to ignore the insult, because it saves time. “So if I get the bike over to you today, can you put them on by tonight?”

  “Oh, of course, Mr. Freed. We exist merely for you, and no other customer ever darkens our doorstep. Your wish is my command.”

  “Great. I’ll have it there in half an hour. By the way, how much are they?”

  “The studded tires for a twenty-six-inch wheel are eighty-six dollars each,” Bobo said.

  “For bicycle tires? I might as well have a car at those prices!”

  “So don’t buy them,” Bobo answered. “It’s going to be twenty-six out there tonight. Enjoy the ride on the ice.”

  “I’ll tell you what, Bobo,” I said. “I’ll bring the bike in. You get it done whenever you can get it done. No hurry. Is tomorrow okay for you?”

  There was a long silence. “Who are you, and what have you done with Elliot Freed?” he asked.

  “Exactly. I’m bringing the bike over, and I’m going to watch you put the tires on.” I hung up before this jolly back-and-forth could continue.

  The front wheel of the bicycle, which I always remove when I chain the bike up outside the theatre, was in the back of my office. My head felt well enough to ride the five blocks to Bobo’s shop and then walk back, I thought. I stood up, and didn’t see stars or tweeting birds. It marked progress.

  Reaching over the piles of debris on top of my filing cabinets was an adventure—you always think you’re going to bump whatever part of your body is already injured, because it feels like it sticks out two feet. But my head was still roughly the same size it had been this morning, and I extracted the wheel without any damage to anything but my sensibility.

  I was halfway to the door when the phone rang. And sure enough, Sharon was on the other end of the phone. Thank goodness for caller ID; she was the only person on the planet I would have picked up for at that moment.

  “Just checking in on your head,” said my ex. She yawned loudly. “Any further symptoms?”

  “Yeah. I have an irresistible urge to follow you around twenty-four-seven until that baby comes out.”

  “Any new symptoms?” Sharon yawned again.

  “No, but you sound like you have Epstein-Barr virus. Am I boring you?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “The baby didn’t want me to sleep last night. Everything they say about first trimesters is true. And then Grace got me out of bed at six.”

  “Why? Was there an emergency?”

  “No,” Sharon answered. “I left early and she stayed late last night, so she had some files to drop off for me to look at before I went in this morning. She does that every week or two.”

  It took me a second. “Oh, for goodness sake,” I said.

  33

  I met Grace Mancuso at the Midland Heights Dunkin’ Donuts. In New Jersey, it doesn’t matter if your town is only a post office box number, you’re required to have a Dunkin’ Donuts. A version of the same law put a Starbucks on every corner in Manhattan. I was eating something on a croissant, because that’s the closest thing Dunkin’ Donuts has to food. Grace was drinking coffee, but she seemed caffeinated enough on her own; her hands could barely stay still for a second.

  When I told her I knew it was she who had been having an affair with Russell Chapman, she blanched, but nodded her head. It made sense: Konigsberg had seen her with Chapman, and then followed her to Sharon’s house, where Grace was dutifully handing over paperwork. Once I’d figured that out, I’d called Grace, made a few discreet remarks about things I knew were true, and arranged this meeting.

  “It wasn’t an affair affair,” Grace said. “I mean, we didn’t have sex or anything.”

  “But the detective said you would spend the night sometimes in Chapman’s hotel room, and the maid told him the sheets . . .” Have you ever been halfway through a sentence when you wondered why you had thought to start it in the first place?

  “I’d go to his hotel room, yes,” Grace agreed, nodding. “You know, Mike travels a lot for work these days, and with the kids out of the house, I get a little creeped out there by myself. I haven’t been alone for any extended period of time since we got married twenty-seven years ago.”

  “So then . . .” I just didn’t have an end for that sentence. I was beginning to wonder if I had any future with this whole “conversation” thing at all.

  “So then one day a few months ago, Mr. Chapman comes into the office, and he doesn’t have an appointment.” Grace, ever the charitable, was helping me out of my ineptitude. “Betty says he wants to talk to me, so I meet him in the break room, and he asks if I’d come out with him that night because he wanted to see a movie. Well, I thought he meant in a theatre, you know, like yours, Elliot, and I even suggested we go there. I think you were showing a Mae West movie or something.”

  “She Done Him Wrong,” I said. Ask me who the president of the United States is, and I have to think about it. Ask me what I was showing in the theatre three months ago, and I can give you title, year of release, running time, and best scene. Everyone has idiosyncrasies; I just have more of them than most people.

  “Something like that,” Grace agreed. I felt it would have been inappropriate to insist that I was right about the title, so I let it go. “But he said no, he wanted to take me out and then we could watch some movie he had on a disc in his hotel room.”

  “Didn’t the hotel room thing worry you?” I asked.

  “Of course it did,” Grace said, a little peeved, wondering who I thought she was. “But Mr. Chapman saw that right away, and he told me he just wanted some company. We’d talked a few times when he’d been in for exams, and we just hit it off, you know. He told me right up front that there’d be no funny business, and he was true to his word.”

  “What about the movies? Were they, you know, real movies?” I wasn’t just asking if Chapman had shown Grace pornography. I was also asking what a rival exhibitor was programming.

  “Yeah, it was all old stuff, you know, like at your theatre.” Okay, so Grace isn’t always charitable. “But real serious things, you know, mostly foreign. Fellini. Goddard. People like that.”

  “And you’d just sit there and watch movies?”

  Grace’s eyes welled up even as she nodded. “Yeah, that was about it. But now, this detective is calling up and saying he found out who I was, and do I want my husband to know I was sleeping with this old man, and what’s it worth to me.”

  I could feel my eyebrows drop. “Konigsberg is blackmailing you?”

  She nodded, then gathered herself. “He called yesterday. Said he’d just found out it was me. And he wants money.”

  “How much is he asking for?”

  Grace stammered a bit, but got out, “Fifty thousand.” A woman sending three kids to college at t
he same time on the salaries of a public relations executive and a nurse.

  “What did you tell Mike about all this?” I asked.

  It took a few moments, but she pulled herself together. “Not much of anything,” she said. “It was all so . . . innocent. Or at least, I thought it was. But if this guy tells Mike, it won’t sound that way.”

  I swallowed the last bite of whatever that was which would comprise my dinner. “Don’t worry for a minute, Grace. I’ll take care of it. Believe me, you won’t hear from Konigsberg again.” Her eyes grew. “Oh, stop it. I don’t mean it like that. Who am I, Don Corleone? But if I were you, Grace, I’d tell Mike about this the way you told me. He’ll understand.”

  She sniffed. “You think?”

  “Look, I don’t really know the guy, but if it were me, I’d understand. Now, I have to get going. Is there anything I can do?”

  “You already did it.” Grace stood up, a changed woman. The old glint was back in her eye. I see it every year when she gives me a flu shot. “I’ll be okay. Thanks, Elliot.”

  “I haven’t done anything yet.”

  She kissed me on the cheek. “Yes, you have.” And she turned and left.

  I went back to the theatre, and immediately called Meg Vidal.

  34

  THURSDAY

  ARMED with my newfound information, I decided on arising the next morning to list the tasks I had to perform today. They included:

  Number one: save Sophie’s job with a plan that hadn’t been formulated yet;

  Number two: protect Sharon from the Chapman girls and Wally;

  Number three: stop Konigsberg from blackmailing Grace;

  Number four: figure out who killed Russell Chapman;