2 Grand Delusion

by Matt Witten

  On second thought, Lia Kalmus was no longer my favorite all-time public statesman. "Greenfield?" That's a rural town about five miles from Saratoga. "Two people are dead because you wanted a farmhouse in Greenfield?"

  "Make that three people," she said, raising her gun at my head. "Hey, you saw my house, it's tiny. I've got stuff filling up the basement. I need a bigger house."

  "You're kidding me," I said, incredulous. "This whole thing started because you want a bigger house to put your stuff?"

  "No, it started because I'm sick to death of all you people on the goddamn West Side!" Something seemed to snap in Lia. Her face contorted and her gun arm waved around crazily. "I do all the work for everybody around here! I'm the whole reason this neighborhood is turning into a decent place to live again! But does it matter? No! I know what you people all think of me! I'm the ugly Estonian with the weird face!"

  "I never thought of you as the ugly Estonian—"

  "Like hell you didn't, you pathetic liar. Now shut up and close your eyes. Make it easier for both of us."

  Her gun arm had stopped waving around, and for better or worse she had herself back under control. "Lia—"

  "Shut up—now!"

  And finally, I ran out of words. I stared transfixed at Lia's horrible scar. It seemed to be dancing in the cold morning light.

  "Don't worry," she said, and my fear must have been making me hallucinate, because somehow her bad eye looked like it was dancing too. "If you cooperate I'll do it painlessly. Up close, so it looks like suicide. One shot and you'll be dead so fast you won't even know it. Now stand up straight and close your eyes."

  I didn't close them. "Don't kill me," I whispered.

  She shrugged. "You want to die with your eyes open? Suit yourself."

  She was standing about twelve feet away, but then she started moving closer to me, slowly and carefully, gun hand extended. It was clear what she was doing: She was getting as close as she safely could before she shot me, to make it look as much like suicide as possible.

  I had to admit, it was a good plan. If the cops bought that it was suicide, then they'd close the book on all three deaths. Lia would get off scot-free.

  I was in shock, staring into that black gun barrel. But at last, somewhere in the dark animal regions of my brain, a plan formed. My good arm tensed at my side. If this madwoman came close enough, I'd duck my head and simultaneously swing out sharply at the gun, using the "side block" that my Ninja Turtle sons had taught me.

  She was getting closer. Nine feet . . . eight . . .

  As we stared into each other's eyes, I suddenly realized she knew exactly what I was planning. This was the most terrifying game of chicken I'd ever played. She was trying to figure out exactly how close she could risk coming before shooting. What if she decided the feigned suicide idea was just too tricky to pull off? Then she'd go ahead and shoot me right from where she stood.

  And it would be too late for any fancy Ninja Turtle moves to save me.

  Maybe I should just forget the whole Turtle thing and lunge at her right now.

  Seven feet . . . six . . .

  I couldn't take it anymore. Trying to keep any sign of my violent intentions out of my eyes, I got ready to lunge, bending my knees ever so slightly so she wouldn't notice.

  But she did. Her drooping eye twitched. Her finger squeezed the trigger tighter. In less than a second she would shoot me. In less than five seconds I'd be dead. I started my desperate, off-balance lunge—

  And then a lot of things happened at once.

  Lia looked up above my head, and her face instantly changed from vicious to startled. She swung her gun upward and shot wildly.

  And suddenly . . .

  Suddenly a runty, snot-nosed, nine-year old kid named Tony Martinelli fell down from the sky and landed on Lia's head.

  He knocked her down to the ground, and she dropped the gun. I dove. When she got back up, the gun was in my hand and pointed straight at her.

  She charged at me. But I didn't pull the trigger, I just couldn't do it. So she threw me down. Then she jumped on top of me. She grabbed for the gun.

  This time I did pull the trigger.

  Lia died in my arms.

  24

  "You had to do it, sweetheart," Andrea said as we sat on the swing underneath our grape arbor, a week later. "She was trying to kill you."

  "I know." I shook my head in bewilderment. "Jeez, I had so much respect for Lia. When she gave that speech about the Grand Hotel, it renewed my faith in the whole human race."

  "Hey, if you want your faith renewed, just look in your backyard."

  I did. Tony was out there blowing soap bubbles to Leonardo and Raphael, who were popping them with fierce karate kicks and punches.

  My sons were so beautiful, so perfect, so strong. By God, they'd be able to handle whatever knuckleballs and knuckleheads life threw their way. And Tony . . .

  Good old Tony.

  Ever since he saved my life, he somehow didn't look half as runty as he used to. He must be standing straighter now or something.

  And even more amazing: For the first time since I'd known him, his nose wasn't pouring forth snot.

  He'd been having a great week, recounting his heroism to newspaper and television reporters, radio talk show hosts, and even someone from the National Enquirer. (Though on a special request from me, he'd refused to give any quotes to Max Muldoon.)

  As Tony explained to them all, on the night when Lia hijacked me, he was sleeping in the Gideon Putnam burial plot, hiding out from all the crazy grownups. Then, when Lia woke him up shouting about how she was going to kill me, he waited for just the right moment to sneak to the top of the wall and jump down at her. he leapt from the heavens, was how one adoring headline put it.

  For now, Tony was back living at Dennis's house. The two of them had had a reconciliation, and were growing more attached to each other with every passing day. Which was a darn good thing, because Tony's mom continued to be basically missing in action. Andrea and I went over there several times to talk to her about rehabs, but she was too drugged up for conversation. We'd keep trying. In the meantime, Malcolm was helping Dennis jump through all the necessary hoops to get temporary custody. To impress the judge, Dennis was even making Tony go to school now. I wondered if the responsibility of having a child of his own, even temporarily, would turn Dennis into yuppie scum.

  After all, it happens to the best of us.

  And speaking of yuppie scum, I was a free man at last. After shooting Lia, I did have to spend two nights in the county jail, but the cops eventually figured out that Tony and I were telling the truth, so they let me go. They had no choice, really. Malcolm's P.I. and Judy Demarest were doing some tree-shaking, and they found strong corroborating evidence for Tony's and my story.

  For instance, Pop's neighbor across the street heard Pop and Lia arguing heatedly outside his house the night he was murdered. And the gun that killed Lia—and Zapper too—had been tentatively traced back to a "West Side Turn In Your Guns Night" that Lia and S.O.S. had sponsored the previous year. Evidently Lia had kept one of the guns for herself.

  Now why couldn't the police have found that out on their own?

  Also, Hal Starette admitted that Lia was telling the truth about the twenty grand, though he claimed he thought the payoff was legal, a "consulting fee." I can imagine how he must have sweated while he tried to explain that one.

  Chief Walsh might have kept me in jail longer just for fun, but I guess he was hoping to buy my goodwill—and my silence—by letting me out quickly. Didn't work, though. I told Judy about the corruption I'd uncovered and the shoddy investigation the chief had run, and she did a big story on it just three days ago. Now the dung was hitting the fan. The same media that was lionizing Tony was dogging the chief, and the D.A. was getting involved, too. Even if Walsh managed not to get fired or arrested, his credibility and any chance of career advancement were down the toilet, where they belonged. I saw him being interviewed by
Muldoon yesterday, and his distinguished silver hair actually looked messy.

  As for Muldoon, I was amazed to see that he'd shaved his 'stache. Maybe my words of advice had gotten through to him.

  Meanwhile, Manny Cole had already lost his job, and was probably about to lose his freedom. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. I saw him on the street yesterday and gave a big friendly wave. For some reason, he didn't wave back.

  My friend Dave, I had decided, wasn't really guilty of anything. He had bought into the Grand Hotel building along with the other cops, in a vain attempt to be "one of the guys" instead of feeling like an outcast. But he hadn't been a party to the $20,000 bribe offer, or any of Pop's other illegal schemes.

  At least I didn't think so.

  There were a couple of other things I wasn't quite sure about, either. For instance I still didn't know what would become of the house next door. Right now it was empty, because Dale had disappeared—probably gone to Schenectady, the land of his dreams. Would the house be going up for sale soon? And would the new owner fill the place with a new motley crew of despicable tenants?

  Not if the new owner was me. I mean, hey, I'd just gotten back my three hundred grand from the state of New York. The stock market was acting funky these days and I needed to diversify. I was seriously considering buying 107 Elm myself.

  Although the very idea made me laugh. If you'd told me fifteen or twenty years ago, when I scorned all things material and believed only in art, that I would one day become a yuppie landlord . . .

  Well, to quote Shakespeare or Yogi Berra or somebody like that, life is funny. Would I go back to writing? Would I sell "West Side Gory" for a couple of million bucks?

  My musings were interrupted by the whir of an electric hedge trimmer; Dave was making good on his promise to trim my hedges for a year if I turned out to be innocent. There's nothing more fun than having someone else do your work for you. I smiled contentedly, and lazily reached up for a bunch of grapes.

  "What are you thinking about, Jacob?" Andrea asked.

  Like any well-trained modern husband, I knew the correct answer. "How beautiful you are, and how lucky I am to be with you."

  "No, really. What are you thinking?"

  I looked at her. Then finally I said quietly, "Andrea, you kind of figured I did it, didn't you? For a while there, you really thought I killed Pop."

  She gave me earnest, wide-open eyes. "No, I didn't think that. Of course not. Not really."

  I raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  Her mouth tightened. She looked away for a moment, then turned back. "Well, maybe I did—just a little," she whispered nervously. Her lips were quivering with fear that I'd get really upset. "Jacob, will you ever forgive me?"

  I thought about it. "Sure," I said, "but only if you peel me some grapes."

  So I sat there rocking gently on the swing, with my neighbor trimming my hedges, my wife peeling my grapes, and my kids popping bubbles in the backyard.

  Hey, talk about heaven.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank my literary agent, Jimmy Vines; my editor, Joe Pittman; and the folks who helped me along the way: Carmen Beumer, Betsy Blaustein, Nancy Butcher, Gary Goldman, Navorn Johnson, Bonnie Resta-Flarer, Larry Shuman, Justin Wilcox, Celia Witten, and everybody at Malice Domestic, Madeline's Espresso Bar, and the Creative Bloc.

  Since this book is set in the West Side of Saratoga Springs, I also wish to express my appreciation to all the people at the West Side Neighborhood Association and Spaha who volunteer long hours to make the West Side a better place. Thanks to Rose Zacek and company, the West Side is coming back.

  Finally, many thanks to Nancy Seid, who is not only my wife and girlfriend, but also a darn fierce editor.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Matt Witten has written four Jacob Burns novels: Breakfast at Madeline’s, Grand Delusion, Strange Bedfellows, and The Killing Bee. He’s written for several television shows including Law & Order, House, and Pretty Little Liars. His published stage plays include The Deal, Washington Square Moves, and The Ties That Bind. His first movie, Drones, will be released in 2013. Matt lived in Saratoga Springs, New York, for ten years with his wife Nancy, who was an English professor, and their two young sons. (Not that Grand Delusion is autobiographical or anything.)