by Rita Lakin
Now it’s my turn to stare at Morrie.
He takes a sip of his retsina. “This means that Joyce knows very well where Seymour is. I’d bet money on it.”
As we drive up to Jack’s appointed parking spot, I see two women waving their hands frantically at us. Jack pulls in. I recognize our neighbors Fatima Baener and Elaine DeKyser, from Phase Three, rushing toward us. They are avid members of the Red Hat Society and as usual they are wearing red and purple. A large group of Lanai Garden residents belong to that unusual women’s club based on a poem written by Jenny Joseph, who wrote that when she got old, she would wear purple.
But why are they running toward us?
They can hardly wait until I get the door open.
Fatima says, “Thank goodness you’re back. We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Elaine reaches for my hand. “Plenty. All hell has broken loose in our cooking class.”
Fatima talks at the same time. “Arlene’s gone bonkers. I think she’s trying to kill Joyce.”
That’s all it takes. Jack and I are running with the anxiety-ridden women. Elaine is pulling me along.
I’m puffing to keep up. “Tell us more. How did it start?”
Both women start talking, overlapping each other’s words.
Fatima says, “We’re practicing making key lime pies and Arlene is doing okay, even though she thought we were baking lemon meringue today. Then Joyce shows up.”
Elaine says, “Joyce said that she read in our newsletter we were making key lime pies today, and since it’s her favorite, she joined us. She didn’t know Arlene would be there.”
Fatima tells us Arlene is not happy to see Joyce.
Elaine adds that Joyce tries to be nice about it.
Fatima says, “Joyce starts to remind her of how, when they were young, they used to make pies together and had so much fun.”
Elaine adds, “And Arlene reminds her, she was baking a key lime pie the day she caught that bitch—excuse the language, that’s the word Arlene used—sleeping with her husband!”
“And she didn’t say ‘sleeping with,’ either,” Elaine adds. “It’s a word I never, ever say.”
“We snuck out when Arlene wasn’t looking. We had to find you,” Fatima says, relieved.
We reach the club room door and hear shouting inside.
What a sight before our eyes as we enter. Fatima and Elaine stay put at the doorway. They don’t dare come in.
I recognize the two other members. Frances Tarvin and Sandra Litzman, both wearing aprons, stand clinging to each other at the far end of the kitchen, holding on to each other in fright.
The room is a shambles. Kitchen pots have been thrown about. A lemon-colored pie lies splattered all over the butcher block. Utensils are scattered. Other freshly baked pies sit on the stove. I’m aware of how good the room smells. How ironic—the scents of vanilla and fear.
Arlene stands at one side of the large chopping block in the center of the room. On the opposite side is Joyce, arms held up as if in submission, perhaps believing she’ll need them to deflect a blow.
What’s frightening is that Arlene is brandishing a huge, serrated bread-carving knife. My God, what’s happened to her? It’s a different Arlene. What’s changed since we last talked? The perfectly put-together lady is a mess. Her clothes and apron are covered with custard and meringue. Her hair is flying about her face and her eyes are wild and unfocused. Dear God, she looks demented.
Arlene sees us. “Gladdy,” she cries out shrilly, “tell her to leave me alone! Make her stop stalking me!”
Jack and I look at Joyce and I can read the pity on her face. She shrugs. She says quietly, “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
Arlene screams, “Liar! Liar!” She slams the knife handle in her fist on the wooden block, sending pie crust bits into the air.
Jack walks slowly to her. Speaking softly. “It’s all right. Everything will be all right.” He reaches for the knife.
I hold my breath. Oh, Jack, don’t … What if … what if … I can’t bear to think it …
Arlene doesn’t seem to recognize him.
Jack says, “I’m here. Gladdy is here. We’ll help you.”
The knife quivers in her hands.
Frances stifles a cry. Sandra closes her eyes, terrified of what might happen.
Arlene hands the knife over to him, as if surprised to see what she had been holding. He slides the knife into the butcher block drawer.
I join him. Together we put our arms around her and lead her out. Her whole body is shaking. She turns once more and glares at Joyce.
She sobs. “Die, damn you! Die. I wish you were dead!”
We start to walk Arlene along the path, heading toward our own apartment, but we don’t get very far.
She suddenly pulls away. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
Our worried eyes betray us.
Arlene reverses herself and heads back toward her own building. She starts to run. “Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!”
We stand still looking after her.
Moments later, we can see Joyce, head down, walking away from the club room by herself. She seems to be moving aimlessly.
Jack and I nod. Quickly, we both reach her and head her off.
“We should talk,” Jack says to her.
She shakes her head. Distraught, she cries out, “Not now. Please. Later!”
And she runs from us, too.
We have leftover pot roast for dinner. Usually a favorite dish. Especially when it’s served the next day and the juices have saturated the meat and made the taste even better. But neither of us is hungry. I move my fork absently around my plate as I listen to Jack attempting to call Joyce for the third time this evening. He hangs up.
“Still no answer.”
My turn. I attempt another call to Bella. Again no answer. I’ve left a number of messages on her machine to call me as soon as she gets in. But nothing.
“Frustrating,” I say as I get up and look out the window across the silent parking area up to her second-floor window. Still no movement.
“No kidding. Here I’ve worked myself up to playing bad cop tonight with Joyce and either she’s not answering or maybe she’s gone to some bar to forget that horrific scene this morning.”
“She’s got to come home sometime. Both of them do.”
“I’m determined to make her admit to knowing where Seymour is so that we can get him back.”
“And I’m just as determined to ask Bella to explain that remark she made at the newcomers party about having seen Joyce at an earlier time. I want to prove my theory that Joyce knew where Arlene lived.”
I start to clear the dining room table. “I don’t suppose you want dessert. Sandra gave me one of the key lime pies that she made this afternoon. She said she lost her appetite.”
Jack gets up to help me. “Well, so have I.”
“Poor Arlene. I just can’t get over the change in her. I wonder what’s going through her mind right now. Why is she so frightened? Why does she insist she’s being stalked? What could turn her into the woman standing there with a knife in her hand? Clearly Joyce didn’t know what she was talking about. This has all gotten out of control.”
We stack the dishes in the dishwasher. I soak the big pot in the sink with suds to loosen the grease.
I turn to Jack. “While we’re waiting, TV or gin rummy?”
“TV. I don’t want to think. I need mindless entertainment.”
“Ditto.”
But first, I beckon Jack to follow me. I open the front door and we go out onto the walkway.
Across the way we can see the flicker of a few TVs. The sun is beginning to set. “Listen,” I say.
“I don’t hear anything.”
I put my arm around his waist. “That’s what I mean. It’s too quiet. I feel like we’re standing here waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop.”
&nb
sp; Ida rushes the girls up the steep stairs yet again. Mike Gatkes has phoned and told them to come back to his office. Something big is happening, he says. And they won’t want to miss it.
She practically pushes Bella and Sophie from behind. They are huffing and puffing, almost hanging on to the banister, climbing on their knees, praying for the strength to make it.
Mike Gatkes paces in the hallway outside his office, waiting for them as they try to catch their breath. He glances importantly at his watch, which Ida notices has a Mickey Mouse face.
“About time. Just got a case hot off the griddle. Thought you’d like to be working along with me. We’re going on a field trip.”
He shoves his forties vintage fedora onto his head and starts skipping down the steps. “Follow me.”
The girls can hardly move. Ida weakly calls down to him, “Mr. Gatkes, wait.”
Sophie gasps, “Water.”
Bella cries out, “A chair. I need a chair.”
Gatkes looks up at them. “No time. We gotta hustle.”
The girls hold on to the banister for dear life. Half walking, half sliding, they make their way back downstairs.
Bella mumbles, “Getting old can kill you.”
“Useless, I tell you, the police are good for nothing.” Ida watches the car wash owner, Harvey Fleigel, move agitatedly along the line of rolling cars as they get soaped, washed, waxed, and dried. Ida notices that his workers ignore him. She looks again, puzzled. They kind of, sort of look like Fleigel.
They’re all talking loudly over the noise of the car wash mechanisms.
Harvey is all hands and waving arms and shrugging shoulders as he cries out his problem. “The cops come, they scribble on their little pads, and I never hear from them. And it happened again last night. Twelve dollars in quarters. All the coins, gone with the wind. Gatkes, I’m going crazy here.”
Bella whispers, “I haven’t seen that movie in years. Is it playing around here?” She mimics dramatically, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Ida hisses at her, “Shh. Pay attention.”
Ida hovers over Bella and Sophie, who are sitting on beat-up red and orange plastic customer chairs behind the low wall alongside the passing wet cars. They are fanning themselves with the Shiny Bright Car Wash brochures.
“Harvey, calm yourself,” Mike Gatkes says. “I’m here and I brought my students along to learn. I will crack this case wide open. I promise.”
Ida grimaces as he pretends to look sweetly at his students, who now resemble a bunch of wet rags. “Look around, ladies. Take notes. The car wash and parking lot are locked every single night. Harvey here closes off the chain-link fence himself. Examine the top. Barbed wire. If anyone climbed the fence, the alarm would go off. Not only that, the crook wouldn’t be able to get back out. In fact, with all the barbed wire hitting his touchas, he wouldn’t be able to sit down again for a week. Yet someone manages to sneak in every night and steal every quarter out of the candy machine.”
Gatkes points and the girls attentively follow the line of his fingers. “Voilà, the candy machine.”
Ida smirks. Suddenly Gatkes talks French?
Bella pokes Ida. “Is it all right if we ask for a candy bar? I’m getting hungry just looking at all that chocolate.”
Sophie agrees. “Good idea. We can sample the evidence.”
Ida ignores them.
“I read the printout. I know how many bars get sold, and no coins.” Harvey is getting purple in the face from so much aggravation.
Gatkes tries to calm him. “But the thief doesn’t take the bills.”
“Hah! Three one-dollar bills. Big deal. Everybody uses coins.”
Gatkes pulls Fleigel off to one side. He wiggles his thumb in the direction of his team of young workers and whispers, “You’re sure they’re clean?”
“Fugeddaboudit. They’re relatives. I inherit all the lazy dropout nephews. Besides, the machine ain’t been tampered with. There’s no way to get the coins out without my keys.”
“Ladies.” Gatkes addresses the girls. “Comments? Ideas?”
Sophie pipes up, “Gladdy would call this a closed-room case.”
Bella is confused. “How could that be? We’re outside, on the street.”
“Well, it is. There’s no way anybody can get in or out.” Sophie is proud of her detecting prowess.
Ida shushes her. “Never mind about Gladdy, this is our gig. So just be quiet.”
Bella raises her hand. “I’ve got a question.”
The two men turn to her.
Bella looks duly puzzled. “Why don’t you empty the candy machine before you go home?”
Mike claps. “Good question. See, Harvey, I told you the old broads were sharp.”
Harvey puffs out his chest and beer belly. “It’s the principle of the thing. I wanna catch those guys in the act, those momzers who’re stiffing me.”
“Well,” adds Ida, in a tone she uses for fools, “at least take most of the coins out, so you only get partially robbed.”
“Nice detecting,” Mike says, clueless of her sarcasm. “But, Harvey, don’t do it yet. I got to work out a plan for how to trap them. I’ll get back to you in a couple of days.”
Rico arrives to pick them up from the bus stop bench where they sit waiting for him, exhausted and hungry for dinner. He parks and joins them on the bench with a small cooler he’s brought.
He opens the cooler and offers the girls Cuban pastelitos as a snack. At first they don’t want to touch them, always fearful of the unknown.
But Rico says, “Try it, you’ll like it. My mamacita baked them.” Hunger wins out, and they do. They happily lick the sweet top of the delicious coconut puff pastry as they fill him in.
Rico joins them in their snack. He comments between bites, “Impossible! No way could anyone climb over the fence. And besides, look at this street. It’s crowded all the time. Probably wild stuff going on all night long. Someone would notice a break-in.”
They glance around, taking in the street scene evolving around them.
Sophie comments, “It’s more interesting than where we live. Like a circus.”
Bella tugs at her. “Look, that guy even has a cotton candy machine.”
Rico says, “How about those cute kids dancing to salsa?” Rico applauds them and drops a few coins into a baseball cap they have lying on the ground.
Sophie comments, “They even have an organ grinder with a monkey. Can we get bananas and feed him?”
Ida is impatient to leave. The crowds and smells are annoying her. “Eat up already. This place is giving me a headache.”
“Well,” sums up their sort-of new partner, “this calls for a stakeout.”
Ida looks at him sharply. “I’m the boss. I make the decisions.” She pauses, then announces, “It’s time for a stakeout. Fast, before Gatkes comes up with his plan. Rico, how much for overtime driving?”
Rico grins. “Here’s my deal for you. I come along. One stakeout. Round trip. Free ride. Nighttime snacks from Mamacita.”
Ida makes a quick executive decision. “Done.”
“Tonight. We’ll hang out at my pad until it gets dark. Maybe around eight-thirty.”
Bella shivers with excitement. “We never get to stay up that late.”
“How about I make us pulled-pork sandwiches and we have more of that fake beer for our dinner?”
The girls look a bit perturbed at the idea of a spicy pork dinner.
Then Sophie says, “Why not! We only live once!”
With that she grabs Bella’s hands and they dance together to the Cuban music. Rico takes their hands and joins them. “We’ll have a hot time in the old town tonight.”
Sophie says, “I can’t wait. This is gonna be such fun.”
Ida shakes her head. Now she has three children to drive her crazy.
They stand in the dark back alley behind Rico’s building, getting ready to pack up his car. Ida does the last-minute checkup of what’s in thei
r totes.
“Flashlights?”
Three sets of hands hold up their flashlights. Flick them to make sure the batteries are working. “Check,” says Rico.
“Clothing?”
All are dressed completely in black. Sophie and Bella lift up their extra-large dark shirts to show their pink and blue hoodies underneath.
“Check,” says Rico.
“Weapons.”
The lipstick pepper sprays are held aloft. “Check.”
“Sleeping items?”
“I got the blankies,” Bella says.
Ida sees Bella hide her teddy bear. She’s not about to admit she can’t sleep anywhere without it.
“I have the pillows,” Sophie remarks.
Rico grins. “Houston. We are ready for takeoff.”
They climb into Rico’s now totally stuffed little lime VW bug.
As planned, they arrive at the car wash five minutes before closing. Rico parks his car in the lot and takes a ticket from one of the indifferent nephews. He and the girls pretend to walk toward the exit. Instead, with a careful eye out so that Harvey won’t spot them as he unwinds his chain-link fence, they race to the restrooms.
“Hide,” Rico says, “and wait ten minutes.”
Ida snarls. “I was just about to say that. I’m in charge here. Hide!”
“Yes, boss,” Rico says.
In the bathroom they face a small problem. There are only two stalls. Ida grabs one and Sophie and Bella squeeze into the other. They whisper to one another.
Bella kvetches to Ida, “It’s a tight fit.”
Ida says, “Make it work.”
Ida hears shuffling noises. “What’s going on?”
Sophie says, “Never mind. I’m sitting on the closed seat. Bella is on my lap.”
They talk to each other over the tops of the stalls.
Bella giggles. “This is so much more fun than mah-jongg.”
Sophie asks, “Should we stand on the toilet seats so no one will see our feet?”
Ida says, “Brilliant idea, then they’ll only see your head.”
Sophie is puzzled. Was that sarcasm?
“I like the idea,” Bella says. “But I don’t know if I can climb up on it.”
