by Matt Witten
day-old bread, and 2 tbs butter 62.40
Notebooks, pens of various colors, pencils,
erasers, and other writing material 14.36
Entertainment—1 movie matinee 4.75
Toothpaste, miscellaneous 4.75
Safety-deposit box 1.25
Transportation—bus to and from mall for movie 1.20
Telephone, clothing, shoes 0___
TOTAL EXPENSES, MONTHLY: $525.71
INCOME, MONTHLY
Social Security disability $504.36
NYFA grant (projected) 14.36
($172.32 annual)
Can and bottle returns 7.75
TOTAL INCOME, MONTHLY: $526.47
Boy, talk about living on the edge. This guy's life was a regular Flying Wallenda Brothers routine.
I suppose, though, that he wasn't really so different from all the other millions of "emerging artists" in the world, subsisting in tiny bug-infested apartments, stealing salt and sugar packets from their local fast-food outlets, working their asses off for years for zilch money while dreaming of fame and fortune. No wonder so many artists are crazy. The surprise is that more of them aren't. Like most people—including artists themselves—I have mixed feelings about "emerging artists"; I vacillate between pity, scorn, and admiration.
I turned the page. Under Additional Comments, Penn wrote: A grant of $172.32 will enable me to write for the entire year, free of financial worries. I will not have to dip into my savings, which total $18.57 (recent bank statement enclosed). I hope you will be able to assist me in this very important project.
"Very important project." I couldn't read anymore. I sighed and rubbed my tired eyes, then gazed out the window. Dawn was bursting forth at last, in spectacular fashion. Three broad red streaks laced the soft blue morning horizon. I wondered, where was The Penn now?
Hopefully, he was busy applying to some great arts panel in the sky.
And hopefully, some divine panelist would check the box marked Accepted.
16
I showered, shampooed, put on new clothes, and stuffed my old smoky clothes in a plastic shopping bag in the basement. Then I made a phone call. It rang three times before Molly Otis answered. "Hello?" she said, her voice squeaking with fear.
I spoke fast, trying to get it all in before she had a chance to slam down the phone. "Look, the application. Any other copies?"
She didn't answer. "Molly, are there any other damn copies?"
Finally, a small, beaten voice: "In New York."
"New York City?"
Her voice got tight with hysteria. "We send one copy of every application to NYFA. Now please stop bothering me!" she yelled, and hung up.
I was still sitting there holding the phone when Andrea came in wearing her birthday suit, though I was almost too distracted to notice. "Hi, honey, you sleep okay?" she asked.
"Like a log," I answered.
She pointed at the phone in my hand. "You calling Dave?"
I stared at her in confusion. "Are you kidding?" No way was I telling any cop about my little B and E job, even if he did snow-blow my driveway every winter.
"Why not?"
"Well, he is a cop, after all. I doubt he looks too favorably on burglaries."
Andrea frowned, puzzled. "Exactly. So let's call him."
It took me a moment, but then I got it. She was talking about Ms. Silver Heels's burglary of our house, not my own burglary of the Arts Council. She wasn't aware of that little escapade of mine yet.
And I better keep it that way.
She came closer, sniffing the air. "What's that smell? Smoke?"
Despite my shower, evidently my pores were still oozing smoke. I hid my right arm, with its blackened spots, incipient scabs, and singed-off hair, behind my back. "I don't smell anything," I said. "Hey, you're right about Dave. Why don't you call him?" I nervously held out the phone with my left arm, extending it as far as I could so Andrea wouldn't step too close and realize the smoke smell was coming from my body.
She eyed me like I was acting strange, but then took the phone from my hand with a small shrug. I guess she was used to my acting strange lately. As she got Dave's number out of the phone book (we finally remembered—Dave Mackerel), I went upstairs to take another shower.
Andrea opened the bathroom door and called in that Dave was already at work, having been called in early to help redirect traffic on Broadway because of some big fire, but he promised to drop by later that morning to see us. Oh God, now I had to worry about Dave sniffing out my secret. How long would it take me to get rid of that smoke smell? I scrubbed so vigorously even my arm that wasn't singed turned red, then put on a long-sleeved shirt.
When I came back downstairs, I told Andrea—without telling her about my illegal activities the previous night—that I needed to go to New York City immediately. I had to examine The Penn's 1998 NYFA application and find out if he really wrote that someone was threatening his life, and who it was.
Andrea stared at me, incredulous. "What are you saying? You think someone killed Penn?"
"Yes, I do," I said solemnly, and then showed her what The Penn had written about blackmailing people. But I couldn't tell her about the arson and my involvement in it, and I couldn't convince her that The Penn was killed. In addition to being an upbeat person, Andrea is also very no nonsense.
"For God's sake," she said almost angrily, "the guy wasn't murdered. We've got enough excitement around here already, we don't need to make up more. And besides," she continued, "if he actually was murdered, that's a job for the cops, not you!"
"I'm just trying to goose the cops into—"
But Andrea still wasn't done. "We just got burglarized two times in two nights," she reminded me, "and now you want to leave me alone with the kids? Forget it!"
I had to admit, she had a point. I promised to be back from The City (as we upstaters refer to it) by nightfall, but that didn't mollify her. "The kids and I will be off at school all day. What if someone breaks in while we're gone?"
The fact that she was right didn't make her any less annoying. Dagnab it, I'll bet old Sam Spade never had to deal with anything like this. No way. Nero Wolfe, Travis McGee, Kinky Friedman—all of those guys were single, and I was beginning to see why.
Luckily, Andrea and I have developed pretty solid communication skills during our nine years of marriage. Whenever we have a difference of opinion, we simply shout and scream at each other for a while, then talk it over semi-rationally (emphasis on semi), and finally compromise, after which I buy her flowers. The quantity and quality of flowers depends on how much of a jerk I was.
So that's what happened this time. After our requisite marital squabble (worth a $5.99 bouquet of red tulips, I estimated), we eventually came up with a plan we were both happy with. Then I went to Madeline's to carry it out.
But I must confess, I added a little wrinkle to the plan that I didn't exactly tell Andrea about. I had a feeling she wouldn't like it.
On the other hand, Sam Spade would have loved it.
When I hit Madeline's at 8:40, smack in the middle of the morning rush, the place was packed. Just like I wanted it.
There was an excited buzz in the air, with everyone talking about the fire at the Arts Council building. From snatches of conversation that I heard, like "I bet it was that asshole from New Jersey who owns the place," the main theory seemed to be landlord arson.
Madeline, Marcie, and Rob were all behind the counter, and as usual at that hour, a large assortment of local notables were standing in line. The Mayor's elderly secretary, who makes all the day-to-day decisions about running the city, was chatting with the wheelchair-bound assistant editor of the Daily Saratogian. He wasn't actually standing in line, of course, he was sitting. A couple of bureaucrats from the Office of City Planning were ordering iced lattes. The arts community was well represented too, with Bonnie Engels, Antoinette Carlson, and George Hosey sharing a table nearby.
Bonnie spotted me first. "Jacob!" she ex
claimed, crushing me with a welcoming hug that sent tingles of pain through my scorched right arm. Then she gripped my wrist, causing instant agony, and gazed into my eyes with deep concern. "So they let you out of the hospital? Are you okay?"
Gritting my teeth, I looked down at Bonnie's feet, trying to picture them in size-eight silver high heels. Then I sneaked glances at every female foot within glance-sneaking distance—is this how foot fetishists spend their time? How odd!—but unfortunately I couldn't tell their shoe size just by looking. I wanted to ask all of the women in the espresso bar to remove their shoes, but I was afraid that might be considered a little déclassé.
"I'm fine," I told Bonnie loudly. "But we got burglarized again."
Announcing that you've just been burglarized is a great way to attract attention; try it at a party sometime if you're feeling wallflowerish. Instantly everyone in Madeline's was staring at me. The asshole from New Jersey was forgotten.
"Burglarized again?" Antoinette called out dramatically, eager to place herself at the center of attention. I'd noticed this trait before; maybe it was why she got so many grants. "And on the same night the Arts Council burns down? Is this town going crazy or what?! How utterly, awesomely bizarre!"
"No, not so bizarre." I solemnly held aloft a brown grocery bag. "They were looking for this."
Everyone strained their eyes for a closer look at the mysterious grocery bag. In the excitement someone dropped a coffee cup to the floor and it shattered, but even that didn't distract anyone. "What in the world is in the bag?" breathed the Mayor's secretary.
"Something that somebody is desperate to get hold of." I took out a notebook and showed it to the assembled throng. "This is Donald Penn's book. I'm taking it to my safety-deposit box right now, so no one tries to burglarize our house a third time."
Their eyes followed Penn's notebook as I waved it in the air and smiled to myself. Everything was going exactly according to the plan Andrea and I had cooked up. With Madeline's chock full of people from City Hall, the Arts Council, and the Daily Saratogian, and with small-town Saratoga being the most gossipy place in the universe, I figured that by tonight any potential burglars would know that searching our house for Penn's manuscript would only be an exercise in futility, similar to searching Billy Joel songs for interesting lyrics (at least, that's my opinion).
Yes, everything was going exactly according to plan. But now...
Now it was time to throw in my little Sam Spade wrinkle.
Madeline provided the opening when she asked me, as she filled a take-out cup with Ethiopian, "I don't get it. Why would anyone be desperate for Donald Penn's book?"
I could feel everyone's eyes glued to me. I let them stick there for a moment, then declared portentously, "Because it's fucking dynamite."
Nobody said a word. This is way cool, I thought to myself, I should take up acting. Then Marcie broke the silence with a nervous giggle. "Dynamite? You mean like, really good, or like, TNT?"
I gave my audience a grim Jack Palance nod. "Like, hydrogen bomb. This book will do to Saratoga what Monica Lewinsky did to Washington. Hell, it'll do what Rambo did to North Vietnam."
Another cup fell to the floor and shattered. Bonnie, Antoinette, and George stared up at me from their table, their jaws hanging comically open. The Mayor's secretary tried to insert a muffin in her mouth but missed, hitting her cheek instead. The assistant editor of the Daily Saratogian got a strange tic in his nostrils.
I plunked down a dollar for my java and walked out.
As soon as I was out the door and out of sight, I allowed myself a huge grin, feeling like Dashiell Hammett on one of his good days. That ought to stir the pot a little, I thought, and chuckled.
Maybe I should have felt guilty about trying to scare people, but I didn't. Not in the slightest. So far I'd been burglarized, beaned, burned, and shot at. It was high time to fight back.
Besides, the pot I was stirring had a murderer inside, which ought to give me some moral leeway.
And most important, I figured announcing to everyone publicly that The Penn's book was "dynamite" was a good way to ensure that nobody would try to kill me again... assuming that had indeed been the arsonist's intention last night. I had worked it all out very rationally, or so I thought. Donald Penn had picked the wrong person to blackmail. That person—or persons—killed him to shut him up. Then the killer or killers burglarized my house and burned down Penn's apartment and the Arts Council office in order to get rid of anything dangerous he might have written.
But now, as I had announced, Penn's manuscript was going into a safety-deposit box, out of the killer's grasp. So there was nothing any more that the killer could do. He, or she, or they, would have nothing to gain and everything to lose by killing me too. That would just prod the cops into doing a more serious investigation of Penn's death, two dead writers in one week being a little too hard to blow off. And after my performance at Madeline's, the cops would doubtless check into the very same "dynamite book" the murderer was so afraid of.
Maybe this was a little convoluted, but I was feeling pretty pleased with myself as I strutted down Broadway, swinging my brown grocery bag. But then a terrifying thought smacked me in the gut. I froze. Now is the perfect time for someone to kill me. While I still had Penn's manuscript on me. Just put on a mask, shoot me, grab the bag, and drive off down the Northway.
Oh, come on, that was paranoid. I even said it out loud: "You're getting paranoid. Totally fucking paranoid." A purple-haired teenager walking by started laughing. I smiled nervously at Purple Hair and hustled up the street, eager to make it into the safety of the bank already. But I had to wait for the light to change at the corner of Division Street, and suddenly someone hit me from behind.
I screamed, jumped, and whirled, gripping The Penn's manuscript tight against my body, prepared to fight to the death. Then I stood there staring at my assailant. A three-year-old girl. She must have run into me or something. She looked up at my terrified face and burst into tears.
Her mother grabbed her hand and pulled her away from me so hard I was afraid she'd wrench her daughter's arm off, then the two of them raced away at top speed. I guess with my panicky eyes, and the way I was wildly clutching a brown shopping bag to my chest, I looked like a particularly deranged homeless person.
As I watched them run off, I wondered if the woman's fear, the child's cries, and Purple Hair's laughter were the same ways that people had treated Donald Penn for most of his life, upon seeing his long unkempt hair, threadbare jacket, and off-kilter eyes. What would that sort of treatment do to your psyche if it continued for, say, a third of a century?
But I didn't wonder about it for long, because I needed to quit screwing around and unload Penn's manuscript pronto, before I died of a heart attack myself. For God's sake, who was I trying to fool? I was a neurotic Jewish artist, not a hard-boiled private dick. I wasn't cut out for this shit.
I hurried across the street, jumped the steps to the Saratoga Trust Bank two at a time, and was about to go inside when I was accosted by a young man with greasy hair and a cheap brown suit, smoking a cigarette. "Hey," he said. Then he put a hand in his jacket pocket.
I backed away. Holy Toledo, could this really be happening? The guy was straight out of The Godfather. He wouldn't shoot me in broad daylight in the middle of Broadway, would he? Of course he would, if he wanted to. I tried to scream, but all that came out was a gulp.
"So how'd it go with Spielberg?" the Mafioso asked.
Spielberg? How did what go with Spielberg? That concussion must have been worse than I thought. Maybe I should check back into the hospital immediately. If not sooner.
"Did he like your mutant beetle idea?" the Mafioso continued.
My battered mental gears clicked back into place. Aha! It was Young Gray Suit! That's why I hadn't recognized him at first—he was wearing brown today. A bad choice, I thought, and told him so. "You look better in gray."
He pursed his lips, chagrined. "I know. I scr
ewed up." He glanced around to make sure no one was listening, then whispered confidentially, "But it was cheap, and I needed another suit for this lousy job." He raised his voice again. "So what's the word?"
"It's a go," I told him. "Look for mutant beetles soon, at a theater near you."
"Hey, that's excellent. Congratulations, man," he said enthusiastically. I nodded and started past him, but he stopped me. "So, you putting your disk back in the safe-deposit?"
"Yes." I opened the door to the bank, impatient to be rid of this guy.
"Well, don't worry, it'll be safe, all right. They just ran a special security check last night."
A what? I thought. "A what?" I asked.
"Special security check. You know, the lock system, timing mechanism, all that stuff."
I nodded calmly, but my mind was racing. A special security check? Why? Did they somehow find out that someone had broken into The Penn's safety-deposit box? Was Young Brown Suit just playing with me, knowing I was about to get busted?
I looked at his innocent face, and realized I had indeed turned paranoid. It was absurd to think that this guy had it in for me, or that the bank's security check had anything to do with me or Donald Penn. My head was spinning again, and I wondered how much of what I remembered from the past five days had actually happened, and how much I had just imagined. Probably Penn wasn't even really killed in the first place; it was just a heart attack, like everyone said.
But even though I knew I was being ridiculous, I couldn't help asking, "So why'd they do a special security check?"
"You got me. I thought I'd have to stay late and help out, but they said I could go home."
A dim light bulb came on in some cobwebby recess of my brain. "Who is this 'they' you're talking about?"
Young Brown Suit shrugged. "You know, the big honchos. The guys that own this crummy joint."
The dim light bulb turned into bright red neon flashing through my cerebrum. "Like the mayor? Was he here?"
Young Brown Suit nodded. "Yeah, he set up the whole thing. Why?"
