by Rita Lakin
I try to pull away, but he doesn’t let me. Everybody laughs. He leers at Jack, whose turn it is. Watch out, Hy, Jack’s no pushover.
Hy’s eyes practically twinkle. Lola stands behind him, ready to save him from Jack if necessary. He says, “Here’s to the happiest days of your life, spent in the arms of another man’s wife!”
Hy pulls his hands away, fast. Jack shakes his fist mildly in a pretense of anger.
Hy pulls Lola in front of him for protection. Jack wouldn’t hit a woman, would he? “It’s your mother. In your mother’s arms,” Hy croaks. Then weakly, “She’s another man’s wife, right?”
Jack, who towers above little Hy, reaches past Lola and runs his hands playfully over Hy’s balding head. “Good one,” Jack says, laughing.
I’m glad that’s finished.
On our way back from the pool, Evvie, as instructed, knocks on Enya’s door. Enya peers through the peephole, then barely opens it.
“Are you all right?” Evvie asks.
Enya nods. “Yes.”
“Need anything?” I ask.
“No, I’m fine. Tessie’s soup will hold me.”
“Just checking. Things are moving along.”
“Thank you,” she says.
They gaze at each other, lips smiling, but their eyes reveal their fear.
“He was there, wasn’t he?” Enya asks.
“He always is,” Evvie says. “Listening to every word we say, watching every move we make.”
“Be careful. He is the Devil.”
“We will.”
The Plan
"Are you crazy?” Sophie asks. “Tomorrow?”
“He’ll kill you if he catches you,” Bella speaks up, shaking with fear.
“Yes tomorrow,” says Joe, who seems to have slid into place as the newest addition to our investigating group, and nobody seems to mind. Neither is Evvie complaining about the fact that Joe sticks to her like flypaper. Hmm, whatever happened to that gooey, disgusting product? I wonder for no good reason whatsoever.
Evvie also agrees. “Yes, let’s move it up.”
Ida says, “I can’t wait. I wish we could do it now. The tension is killing me.”
We sit in a secluded area near Denny’s beautiful garden. No one is around usually at mid-afternoon. It’s rest time or preparing-dinner time or off to early-bird-dinner time. Quiet enough for what we’re scheming. We even have knitting and crocheting stuff in our laps in case anyone does come by and is curious.
Evvie says, “Tomorrow, being just before the Sabbath, we know for sure Abe will be at the synagogue most of the day.”
“But why would you want to do it on the day of your party? It’ll be a zoo.” Bella doesn’t like any of this. Short notice always makes her nervous.
“That’s what I’m counting on,” I answer. “People will be too busy to see what we’re up to. Besides, I’ll be a wreck waiting for the party—I already have my outfit picked out, so at least this will keep me busy.”
Joe has a worry. “What if he doesn’t go to temple?”
“He always goes on Friday,” says Evvie.
Joe can’t let it go. “But what if...”
Evvie puts her fingers on his lips. “Shhh, worry wart.”
“We can always get him out on a pretense,” says Ida.
“Like what?” Sophie asks.
“We can tell him there’s a meeting of the Bund,” Ida says wickedly.
Evvie, Joe, and I grimace. We’re all old enough to remember there was once an actual club of members of the Nazi party right here in our country.
“Kidding,” says Ida. “We’ll think of something. But there’s no reason for him to change his routine.”
Bella raises her hand. “But... but I have to go to the beauty parlor.”
Evvie says, “Bella, honey, you and Sophie always have early-morning Friday appointments. You’ll have plenty of time to help us.”
I cut in. “Let me say a few words here. I doubt that Abe has been fooled by our charade and I have a very strong feeling that he is up to something. I can’t even imagine what he might be planning. Frankly, I’m afraid to guess. I feel we need to move fast and catch him off guard.”
“Besides,” Ida says, “we can’t keep Enya locked up forever. We have to find a way to end this.”
“Okay,” says Evvie, “let’s go over it again. Naturally, as president of the Condo Association, I have, like Denny, a master key of all apartments. We make sure no one’s looking, and we sneak in.”
I wait for Bella and Sophie to stop squirming, and I say, “Bella and Sophie are on watch, sitting in the back of my car with a cell phone.”
Bella raises her hand. “I still don’t get that.”
Sophie pokes her. “I do. It’s right across from Abe’s parking spot, so we’ll know exactly when he drives in. And he won’t see us.”
Bella nods slowly, digesting the information again.
I say, “Ida, Evvie, and I do the search. Joe waits with Enya in her Florida room, next door, in case we have to make an emergency exit. If so, we climb from Abe’s apartment into Enya’s, with Joe’s help.”
Luckily for us, the hurricane blew out all our sunroom screens and none of us have fixed them yet.
“What do we tell Enya?” Bella asks.
I say, “We tell her exactly what we’re doing.”
Sophie asks, “What if you don’t find anything?”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” I say. “We just have to hope we do.”
Joe says, “I have a question for you, Glad. What will you tell Jack?”
Before I can answer, a familiar voice is heard behind me. “Tell Jack what?” my beloved asks as he walks up to us. “I’ve been searching all over for you. What’s this, some kind of class?”
Everyone freezes on the spot. I thought I’d be alone when I dealt with Jack on this subject, but no such luck. I take a deep breath. “We’ve been discussing a plan on how to prove Abe’s guilt.” Silence as Jack looks from one anxious face to another.
“Speaking of guilt,” he says. “May I make a guess?”
Sophie and Bella nod frantically. They squirm around in their chairs, wishing, I assume, that they were anywhere but here.
“What I read in your faces is that you’ve already decided on a plan.”
More nods from those two. Everyone else remains rigid.
“And since I wasn’t included in this get-together ...” He pauses to address Joe. “Knitter or crocheter?”
Joe shrugs, flashing a silly grin along with it. “Family kibitzer,” he explains.
Jack continues, “Perhaps this plan has something not quite kosher about it?”
Sophie and Bella nod again, their heads bobbing up and down like apples in a barrel.
Ida can’t stand it anymore. She shrieks at the two of them, “Stop nodding!”
Both heads bow down.
I try to salvage the situation. “Jack, honey, shall we continue this upstairs? Alone?”
“Not really,” he says. “Just go on with your meeting.” He kisses me on my cheek. “Shall I start dinner my love?”
“Whatever,” I say meekly. Ooh, oh, I’m in hot water now.
I smell something wonderful cooking as I open the door and stand in the doorway of the kitchen. Jack is busy chopping vegetables.
“Lemon curried chicken?” I ask, in a most docile manner.
“Might be the last meal I cook for you if certain things don’t change around here,” he says without turning around.
This startles me. He says the words softly, but there’s steel behind them. I feel my heart begin to pound. “May the condemned woman say a few words on her own behalf?”
Jack moves over and stirs something in a pot. “Might I suggest some words—like ‘We changed our minds and are not going through with this dangerous plan’?”
“Jack, honey—”
“Or ‘I hereby promise to discuss my plans with my future husband before, not after, deciding to break the law.
’ You do intend to enter Abe’s apartment without his permission?”
I pause. I cannot tell a lie. “Yes. But Evvie, as condo president, has the right to enter an apartment if she thinks it’s necessary.”
“If I recall, for it to be legal, the tenant must be given twenty-four hours’ notice, and a reason.”
I shrug. I know he’s right. No way we can do that.
He turns and holds me by the shoulders. “It’s one thing to go after an elderly guy robbing banks, which, by the way, was handled recklessly. You should have called for backup.”
“But it wasn’t clear what Ida was doing. It seemed odd that she was taking us to what seemed like a psychic. And besides, Grandpa wasn’t dangerous.”
“You couldn’t have known that for sure, going to where he lived. He used a gun in those robberies.”
I interrupt with desperation, “We didn’t know if it was a real one.”
“My point exactly. You didn’t have enough information. You behaved hastily. And now, in this situation, you’re rushing in again, without considering the terrible danger of going into this man’s home. If you’re right about Abe Waller, and clearly you believe you are, the man you’re taking on is a mass murderer. A man trained to kill. And after leaving the camps, he murdered two other men, ostensibly simply to cover his tracks. Don’t you think you’re a little out of your league?”
“But you said it yourself: We have no name. There’s no evidence.”
“Let Morrie handle it. That’s his job.”
“There’s no way to arrest Abe. Asking Morrie for help is useless. We don’t have enough for him to get a search warrant. This Nazi has outsmarted everyone for fifty years.”
Jack drops his hands and looks deep into my eyes and I see such worry in his. “And you believe you can outsmart him?”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to plead my case. He is absolutely right, of course. Am I guilty of arrogance? I feel like I’m walking on quicksand. “Is what we’re having called a serious quarrel?”
“You could say that.”
I blurt, “Big enough for you to break off our engagement if I don’t do what you want?”
He is almost surprised at my outburst. “Careful, dear, you’re dealing in absolutes now. Do you want me to lay down an ultimatum?”
I sit down on the kitchen chair and hold my breath. Will what he says next determine the course of the rest of my life? I’m amazed at how scared I am. The silence is so long, I can hear my teeth clench.
He sits down next to me. “I have one last question.” He reaches over and takes my hands in his. “Answer carefully.”
I gulp. “Shoot,” I say with false courage.
“If I were not in your life, if we’d never met and it was just you and your girls living the way you used to, would you be going through with those plans tomorrow?”
I hesitate and think long and hard. I look him right in those gorgeous eyes. I know I’m getting too emotional, and I could possibly lose this man I love, but I have to make him understand how strongly I feel. “Damned straight I would. As the Jewish people of the world said after the war, ‘Never again!’ ”
Jack doles out our dinner and brings our plates into the dining room, where he has already set the table. I think about what I might lose. I shudder. I ask, and I’m terrified of his answer, “What are you going to do?”
He sits down and says, “You do what you do and I’ll do what I do.”
With that, he digs in.
Dinner is very quiet; bedtime, even more so.
A Date to Remember
I didn’t sleep much last night, but when I finally did and woke up after eight, Jack was gone. I’m sure he didn’t sleep too well, either. Nor, I imagine, did the girls. What have I gotten us all into? How can I put my sister and my dear friends at such risk? Should I call it off? I can’t be angry at Jack. Everything he said was right. But what’s my alternative? Tell Morrie to take it over and hope that someday, someway, he’ll find out the truth? Doubtful. Besides, will anything we discover be admissible in court? But there is a higher court out there. And the groups, started by Simon Wiesenthal, to this day track down Nazis as war criminals. They won’t give up until the last one is dead or caught. But I’ll come across as an idiot when I turn in a religious Jewish man in his eighties who has done good deeds all his life, and has papers that prove he is Abe Waller. I’m sure the numbers he tattooed on his arm nearly half a century ago belong to the real Abe Waller. I’m betting he hasn’t made a single mistake.
Will Enya dare to come out of her apartment until Abe finally goes back to Phase Six when it’s rebuilt? But that could be six months or more. And even then? The voice in my head says this man will not sit still. We haven’t fooled him. He is planning something. We must find a clue. I’ve opened a Pandora’s box and I’ve got to close it somehow. The truth is, I’m terrified. And I’m so tired, I can barely move my aching body.
We meet, as planned, in Enya’s apartment, right next door to his. Everyone looks tired and drawn. Joe, imitating Jack, made us breakfast. It was only cereal and toast, and very kind of him, but no one eats a bite. We drink coffee, too much. Enya has gone to her bedroom to lie down. Needless to say, she is very stressed out.
Ida says, “Jack was sore, wasn’t he?”
I nod. “He thinks what we are doing is fool-hardy and very dangerous. I have to ask this before we go any further—do you want out? I’m sure it must be on everyone’s mind.”
The girls, one by one, shake their heads slowly. Bella shivers. “But what if we fail you?”
“You won’t,” I say. “You can’t miss watching his parking spot.”
“What if the cell phone doesn’t work?” Sophie asks.
“I’ve thought of that,” I say. “I’ve brought another one for you. They’re both charged and ready. Just make sure you aren’t noticed.”
“What if someone sees us anyway?” Sophie asks.
Ida answers, “Then make up something, like you’re waiting for us and we’re late.”
Sophie comments, “Yeah, right. Only an idiot sits in the backseat of a hot car doing nothing for an hour.”
Ida says, “I rest my case.”
For a moment Sophie is angry, then Ida shrugs and grins. “I’m pulling your leg.”
We all smile and it relaxes us for maybe a second.
Joe speaks to Sophie and Bella. “I’m volunteering to be your backup. I’m going to be watching from up here, from the living room window. Then, if anything goes wrong, I’ll know, too.”
Bella sighs, relieved.
“Besides,” Evvie says, “hopefully we’ll be through in less than an hour.”
“Last instructions,” I say to Evvie and Ida. “I’m repeating myself, but I can’t say it enough: No matter what happens, every single thing you touch must be left exactly as you found it. One tiny mistake and he’ll know we’ve been in there.”
They both nod vigorously.
“We better get started. He’s already gone two hours; it looks good to go.” In my head I’m wondering where Jack is. But don’t go there, I tell myself, I’ve got to keep my head very clear.
Everyone hugs and kisses. Even Joe. Enya comes out of her room to watch us leave. She seems as frail as an eggshell.
As planned, Evvie goes first, glances around, then quickly uses her master key and slides into Abe’s apartment. Ida’s next, she looks, too, then I follow.
“My heart’s hammering like crazy,” Evvie whispers as we look around Abe Waller’s meticulous apartment. The Canadian family, the Dumas, who owns the condo, only uses it as a vacation home, so thankfully there is very little furniture, other than the basics, to deal with.
I blab, also whispering, “Don’t miss ice trays, hollow legs of chairs, in bottoms of socks, coffee cans, inside lamps—underneath drawers, for taped stuff. Probably never under mattresses. Too obvious.”
I feel a calm coming over me. Now that we’re here and committed, I breathe easier. We ca
n handle this. We’ll be all right.
We walk slowly from room to room as a first survey. Evvie manages a nervous smile. “You get that stuff from all those mysteries you read.”
“You bet,” I say.
Ida heads for the kitchen. Evvie, the bathroom, to be followed by the bedroom. I take the living room and then the Florida room. We work slowly and methodically.
I hear Evvie say, “This is so spooky.”
For a long while that’s the last thing said, as we intensely examine everything. Every drawer, every cupboard. All the places I thought might be hiding places. But nothing speaks of Abe. There were only the possessions left by the Dumas. Surely he must have personal things somewhere. Not even a toothbrush, reports Evvie from the bathroom. How is this possible?
We take a very short break after half an hour to stand in the kitchen for a drink of water, Then, carefully, we wash and dry our glasses and put them exactly where they were.
“Weird,” says Ida, “it’s as if no one lives here. There doesn’t seem to be anything of his own. Not even a piece of mail to be found.”
I say, “Well, don’t forget, he lost his things in the hurricane.”
“Yes, but they were all allowed to go back to Phase Six and get whatever stuff wasn’t ruined,” Evvie reminds me. “I’m sure he found some things.” “Even if he didn’t, it still seems strange. Not a book or magazine? Not a careless shirt, or whatever, tossed over the back of a chair?” Ida says.
“And nothing in the bathroom medicine cabinet? Not even a bottle of aspirin? No dirty clothes in the hamper?” Evvie is incredulous.
“Okay, back to work,” I say.
Evvie tries for a joke. “I can’t wait to see what his underwear looks like.”
We disperse to our areas of search.
A few minutes later Evvie utters a small scream and comes running out. Her eyes glitter. “Get in here, now!”
