“It would never have happened,” the younger woman next to her mumbled, “if he hadn’t married that slut.”
“She’s the one who caused all his trouble,” Mrs. Bender added. “She was the one who made up those lies and sent him to jail.”
Now we were getting somewhere. That was more like the Polish/Lithuanian wakes I knew. As Grandmother Saladunas used to say, it’s not until the accusations are thrown and the fists follow that the healing begins. There was also a line about slugging back shots of vodka, but seeing as this was a nonalcoholic affair, I figured it didn’t apply.
There was another knock on the door. I resisted the natural instinct to hop up and get it. A woman opened and entered. She was dressed entirely in black with a sheer black veil.
She was familiar. And not in a good way.
She passed slowly behind me, the edge of her large leather purse brushing my hair as she found a seat next to Mama. Saying nothing, she crossed her hefty ankles, folded her hands in her lap and proceeded to stare straight at me.
It gave me the willies.
“Who’s the angel of death?” Genevieve asked out the side of her mouth.
“I have no idea.”
“She can’t take her eyes off you.”
Indeed, the more I shifted in my seat and tried to focus on the covered mirrors, the one candle lit on the table in the center of the room and the bowl of pickled eggs, the more her eyes followed me behind her black veil.
Who was she? Why was she here?
“This is my daughter, Bubbles,” blurted Mama, who was incapable of enduring pauses in conversation. “She knew Ernie, too—say, Bubbles?”
Oh, crap. I wished she hadn’t brought that up.
Arlene turned to me with a questioning expression. “How?”
“I, um, interviewed him twice and, uh, well, there was that bit in the end when he was found comatose in my car last night.”
Arlene burst out in a fresh round of tears.
Thanks, Mom.
Ern’s sister said, “I didn’t know you were her. Thanks for getting him to the hospital so fast.”
There was no way to respond to that. Any half-witted human would have gotten him to the hospital. “No problem,” I replied, wincing as I said it.
Arlene kept crying. This was the worst. I had to get out of here. I was breaking out into a full-body sweat. Possibly because the apartment was no cooler than a hot sauna in an Arizona desert in July.
Finally, Mama said, “Does anyone watch Survivor? I love that show. Except for the nights when they eat bugs. It’s the slugs that make me wanna barf.”
That was when I decided I couldn’t take another second.
I got up and felt the woman in the veil following me with her eyes. Then there was Arlene acting expectant. I knew I was supposed to say something good about Ern, but all I could think of was to tell Arlene that he made a “terrific Santa Claus.”
“What?” she asked in a pained voice.
“Selling Christmas trees,” I explained, confused as to why this compliment had prompted Arlene to sob even more. “Dressed up as Santa Claus on the corner of Union. He made a great Santa Claus.”
Arlene’s daughter smiled wryly. It was the universal signal that perhaps it was best that I leave.
Genevieve rolled her eyes.
“Bye! Thanks for the, um, chair,” I said as I almost sprinted to the door, glad to be out of that hot, stuffy living room and in the hot, stuffy hallway of the senior high-rise.
I couldn’t imagine being a close relative and having to sit shiva for seven days. Talk about your grief counseling. Geesh. After seven days of shitting shiva, I’d never want to think about the deceased again.
I proceeded down the carpeted hallway to the elevator and punched the DOWN button. I waited, listening to the televisions playing in other apartments, the bing bing and muffled applause of game shows and the sound of Arlene’s door opening and closing and the woman with the veil exiting quietly into the hallway.
Damn.
I pushed the DOWN button again, as if that would do any good.
She approached me with even, purposeful steps, as if she were familiar with this particular elevator and harbored no concerns it would whisk me away before she could.
I found the illuminated red EXIT sign over a door to a stairway, calculated the possibility of the woman in the veil with the ridiculously high heels keeping up with me and decided to go for it.
Without checking, I quickstepped to the stairs, taking them two at a time. Every once in a while I’d pause and listen. Then I’d keep going. It wasn’t until I hopped onto my sixth landing that I realized no one was following me.
“I have got to get a grip,” I said out loud to no one. “I am getting paranoid.”
It was true. Though, to be honest, I had reason to be paranoid. Even if the Iraq vet who saved me in the Christmas tree lot was right, that his blue spruce had been decapitated by a violent wing of the anti-Christmas lobby, there was still the Santa Claus who shot out Sandy’s window. And what about that Santa in the exact same Mercedes staring at me near Tip Top Laundry? Or, worse, the one posing as a volunteer for the Salvation Army? How creepy was that?
I pushed open the door and buzzed the elevator on the twelfth floor. No way was I running down all those steps if I didn’t have to. It came right away. I got in and thought of how I’d reacted in Arlene’s hallway, how I now felt extremely foolish. The woman in the veil, whoever she’d been, must have pegged me for crazy, running off like that.
But I wasn’t safe. For waiting for me when the elevator doors opened in the lobby was none other than the woman in the black veil. And now I remembered why she looked familiar.
Fiona Swyer. The agent from Get Together Now! Travel, the one who’d tipped me off that Debbie was a common thief.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“H i,Fiona,”Isaid,stepping off the elevator.“How did you know Ern?”
Fiona kept her veil down. “You’re not supposed to know who I am. And I didn’t know Ern except through Debbie. Those two together were bad news.”
“So I understand.” I pointed to her oversized purse where the corner of a large orange envelope was sticking out. “Is that for me?”
“Maybe. It depends.” She nodded for us to move aside to a corner under a bulletin board about EXCITING HAPPENINGS AT LEHIGH’S SENIOR CENTER: LET’S GET MOVING! There were pictures of seniors exercising, touching their toes and walking in their sweats. Underneath were names and cute, inspirational quips: THERE GOES CHARLIE! LOOK OUT NEW YORK MARATHON! IS THAT ISABEL? HURRY UP, BOYS. SHE’S A FAST ONE.
“What’s happening with the story? I heard you got in touch with Zora.”
“Yup.” I was really curious about that envelope. “That wouldn’t happen to be the star file, would it?”
“I don’t know what it is.” She fingered the envelope. “None of this will get back to me, right?”
“I don’t even know who you are or that you called me at the House of Beauty.”
“Shit. Haven’t you heard about Deep Throat?”
“This is a senior center, not a parking garage, and no matter how heinous Debbie’s murder, it doesn’t compare to bringing down the White House.”
“That’s true.” She fingered it again. “Inside this envelope is a CD. I found it stuck to the under side of Debbie’s drawer when I was cleaning out her desk at work.”
“Just happened to be cleaning it out, eh?”
“I was a friend. It’s what friends do.”
“I’ll buy that.”
“Anyway, I tried to open it on my computer and couldn’t. I needed Excel. Do you have Excel?”
“I like to think I excel, but, no, I have no idea what Excel is.”
She handed me the envelope. “Get Excel. This might help your story. I don’t know. It seemed meaningful, that Debbie went to such lengths to hide it.”
I slipped the envelope into my own purse. “Thanks.”
Fiona said,
“You might think I’m a crummy friend for ratting on Debbie like this, especially since she’s dead and all. I just want you to know that Debbie was more than a coworker. She was a sister. Do you understand? A sister.”
I suspected there was some hidden meaning in how she was stressing the word “sister.” Was that code? “I’m not sure I do.”
Then she did the weirdest thing. She stuck out her hand as if to shake. Reluctantly, I shook it. She shook back in an odd way, kind of pinching the flesh between my thumb and forefinger.
“Understand now?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“You will.” She dropped my hand.
There was a loud beep behind me and the elevator doors flew open. Mama and Genevieve tumbled out in midargument. Genevieve was holding the Crock-Pot of pot roast. Mama had a brown paper grocery bag.
“I told you and told you not to bring up nothing but Ernie,” Genevieve was saying. “And there you were flapping your gums, going on and on about your toe fungus.”
Mama bent down and scratched her foot, nearly emptying the contents of her bag onto the lobby floor in the process. “Well, excuse me, Miss Manners. I couldn’t help it that the fungus was on my mind. My toes were itching something awful.”
“Class,” I said. “That’s what you two are, class.”
Genevieve thrust the warm Crock-Pot into my arms. “Don’t talk to me about class, Sally. I wasn’t the one who told a grieving Jewish mother that her son made an excellent Santa Claus.”
I turned to introduce them to Fiona, but Fiona was gone. I had the feeling I’d never see her again.
Maybe it was the shiva or perhaps it was my epiphany that while Mama, Genevieve, Jane and I sat around my tiny wooden table in my cramped kitchen eating pot roast and noodles at “the ungodly late hour of eight p.m.,” as Mama declared, somewhere in the magical metropolis of New York, Stiletto was wining and dining Sabina over white linen table cloths and crystal, the sapphire burning a hole in his pocket.
I had little appetite for the dinner I loved more than any other. My mother’s pot roast. There was no meal more warming on a cold winter’s night like tonight, which happened to be the longest night of the year, than this slightly spicy, hearty dish. Her secret ingredients were cloves, ginger snaps and sour cream whipped into the gravy. Served over broad Pennsylvania Dutch egg noodles and a side dish of peas and I was in heaven. Yum, yum.
And yet I couldn’t eat a bite. Nor could I get my mind off the image of Stiletto impulsively grabbing Sabina and kissing her at the fountain in Rockefeller Center, like they were always doing in the movies. Actually, I wasn’t sure if it was Rockefeller Center, only that during Christmas there was a big tree and ice skaters.
Oh, God. Maybe he took her ice skating and then kissed her. Really? I asked myself. Was Stiletto the ice skating type?
“What’s the matter with you now?” Mama asked.
I looked up from my plate. All eyes were on me, including Jane’s young, honest ones. “Nothing,” I said.
“She’s lovesick—that’s her problem,” Genevieve said.
Jane quickly said, “With Dad, right?”
I kicked Genevieve under the table to tell her Good going. All of us had black-and-blue shins from the frequent, surreptitious kicking we did in this family.
“Of course with Dad,” I lied.
The thing is, I wasn’t ready to break the news to Jane. Not yet. Not here. Maybe during our counseling session with Dr. Caswell tomorrow morning. Yes, that would be the perfect opportunity, with Dr. Caswell right on hand to offer professional support.
“By the way,” I said, changing the subject, “do you know how to run Excel, Jane?”
“Uh-huh. We use it in school. Though I don’t have it on my computer. I know a couple of kids who do, though.”
“Do you think you could get that program tomorrow? I was handed a really important file today and I’d love to see what’s in it.”
“How do you know it’s important if you don’t know what’s in it?” Jane asked, biting into a raw carrot. I wondered where it had come from since Mama was a firm disbeliever in raw vegetables. She didn’t trust them. She didn’t trust anything that produced gas or vitamins.
Then I noticed Jane hadn’t touched her pot roast, either. Could it be that she was returning to her vegetarian diet?
“Why aren’t you eating your pot roast?”
Jane glanced over my shoulder and said, “Forget that. How come Santa Claus is back to peeking in our window?”
I spun around fast enough to catch a flash of red. I was now primed to feel terror at the mere hint that Santa Claus was near.
“He ducked down,” Jane said, getting up slowly, her fingers gripping the table edge in alarm. “I saw him. He was spying on us.”
I fought back a surge of panic and fear for my daughter’s mental stability. Jane mustn’t be distressed. However, I also needed to make my family safe. “Don’t worry,” I cooed, repeating the calming words Dr. Caswell had taught me. “You are in a safe and secure home environment—”
“Would you cut that out, Mom? I am soooo sick of Caswell’s crap. I’m not a nutcase.”
“You’re not?” I said, before I caught myself.
Jane gave me a dismissive look. “Hey, Genevieve. You bring that musket?”
Genevieve patted her side. “Got Brown Bess tamped and ready.”
Jane said, “You go around the back. Grandma, grab the baseball bat and go out the kitchen door with me. Mom . . . I don’t know. Sit there and look stupid.”
“You mean, I’m the decoy?”
“Something like that,” she said.
I watched her and Mama tiptoeing out the kitchen door while Genevieve galumphed out the back. I sat playing with the food on my plate, waiting to be shot at or ambushed by Santa and being deliriously happy for the first time in weeks.
The old Jane was coming back. My maternal instincts sensed it.
That was when I heard the squeak upstairs. I knew that squeak. It had awakened me once before when Brouse had tried to strangle me in my sleep. It was the sound of someone breaking into my bedroom from the fire escape.
And me here without my musket or a three-hundred-pound, gun-happy Lithuanian to fire it.
I glanced around the kitchen searching for some sort of weapon that couldn’t be yanked out of my hand and used on me with lethal force. Any of my knives might do. They were all as dull as overprocessed hair. I needed to buy a sharpener or something. I couldn’t cut so much as a tomato with what I had on hand.
Grabbing the dullest I could find, I climbed the stairs, my heart pounding so loudly in my chest, the burglar probably heard it, too. To steady myself, I thought about how good it would be to finally get this sucker behind bars so I could go out and about, Christmas shopping, for example, without having to worry about Santa taking a potshot at the bread maker I planned on buying for Mama from Hess’s.
Because, let’s face it, you really can’t return a bullet-ridden bread maker. At least, not at Hess’s. Even with a gift receipt. Believe me, I’ve tried.
The door to my bedroom was closed. I could hear him inside. He was opening my drawers, rifling through them. Maybe he was looking for the orange envelope Fiona Swyer had given to me this evening. Maybe he was here for the star file.
Carefully, I pushed the door open ever so slightly. Santa was in my closet, flipping through my clothes. Okay, this was it. Now or never. Either I ambushed him first, relying on the element of surprise as my ally, or he made toast out of me later.
“Hold it!” I yelled. “Stop what you’re doing.”
I had expected him to spin around and fire, so I flattened myself against the wall. Instead, Santa threw up his hands.
“Don’t shoot,” she said.
She? Wait a minute. I knew that voice. And those curls, too.
I lowered the knife. “Sandy?”
Slowly she turned. Her face was a mess, dirty and tear streaked, and so was her Santa outfit. She a
lso smelled kind of, well, rank. Like she’d been swimming in a sewer.
That was so not Sandy.
“What are you doing dressed as Santa Claus?”
“I bought it off a homeless guy. I think it has fleas.” She scratched her chest. “I needed to borrow some fresh clothes and couldn’t come up with any other place to go. Please don’t yell at me.”
“I wouldn’t yell at you. I’m glad you came to me.” Though, personally, I was thinking it might have been better if she’d stayed on the fire escape and hollered for help. Fleas were darn hard to get rid of.
I said, “Let’s get you into the shower for a deep scrub. There’s pot roast and I’ll make coffee. Then we can talk.”
She shook her head. “I can’t talk. I’ll never be able to talk. This is a secret I’ll have to keep for the rest of my life. I’ll just have to live on the run, is all.”
I discreetly brought my hand to my nose, to cut the stench. “It’s a secret that has to do with a prescription you had at Save-T Drugs, right?”
Sandy widened her bleary red eyes. “How did you know? Did the police tell you that?”
“No,” I said. “But it’s only a matter of time before they find out.” And then I quickly unbuttoned her Santa outfit before I had an even bigger problem than a woman wanted by the law stinking up my bedroom.
Genevieve gladly took Sandy’s flea-ridden Santa outfit outside, doused it with gasoline, dumped it in an old oil bin that had been rolling around the back of her Rambler and set it on fire in the garden. Aside from killing husbands and firing off rounds, Genevieve is never more content than when she’s given an opportunity to burn trash.
Meanwhile, Mama, Jane and I pulled down all the shades while Sandy steamed up my bathroom, scrubbing off the dirt and garbage she’d picked up from sleeping on the couches in the Trailway’s bus station.
An hour later, donned in my white terry cloth robe, having been sated with pot roast, warmed noodles, peas and a leftover cinnamon-walnut apple crisp with raisins and vanilla ice cream, she sat on the corner of my couch cupping a mug of decaf coffee and confessed her sins between yawns.
Bubbles All The Way Page 24
