by Mary Clay
As I’ve said before, Frannie isn’t very tall, but has a commanding presence. So, when she said “Quick,” Penny Sue and I did exactly that.
“Good,” Fran said, giving us each a hug. “You’ll be safe now. Let’s get your stuff into the house. See that door over there,” she pointed to an ornate hatch about two feet off the ground. “That’s a dumbwaiter. Load your stuff in it and push three. The guestrooms are on the third floor.”
“This is cool,” Penny Sue said admiringly as we stuffed in the last suitcase. “What a great idea.”
“A necessity. You don’t think I’m going to lug groceries up all those stairs, do you? And, the way Carl, Jr. and my Carlo,” she crossed herself, “ate, there were tons of groceries. We have two pantries, and one was always filled with pasta and crushed tomatoes. Can’t get the good brands down here so we had them shipped from Boston by the case. Well, come in. Let me show you around.” She hit the remote for the garage door and ushered us up the front steps. The foyer rose two stories, with a hardwood stairway to the right that led to a balcony above. Sunlight streamed through a huge bay window in a country kitchen directly ahead.
Frannie shut the door and immediately drew our attention to a porcelain umbrella stand next to the entrance. “See this?”
“Very nice,” Ruthie mumbled.
“No, not the stand, this!” Fran plunged her arm into the container and pulled out an aluminum baseball bat. “This is for emergencies. If anyone tries to get in, whack ’em in the crotch.”
Penny Sue chuckled. “Great idea. I’ll have to get one for my house in Atlanta.”
“This way.” Frannie May led us up the staircase to the guestrooms on the third floor. She opened the door to the dumbwaiter and pulled out our luggage. “Take your pick.” She motioned to the rooms.
There were four cheery guestrooms, each with a private bath and doorway to the balcony that overlooked the water. Lord, I felt like I’d died and gone to heaven. Penny Sue immediately went for the room with a hibiscus theme, in line with the red flames on her boots, I supposed. Ruthie chose the center room decorated in a delicate yellow with dark, Key West style furniture. I picked the room farthest from Penny Sue—she snored on occasion—which was adorned in pale blue.
Fran pointed to a door at the far end of the hall. “As soon as you’re settled, meet me in the cupola.” She headed up a narrow staircase to the small windowed room. Our interest aroused, we unpacked in a matter of minutes. When we made it to the cupola, Fran was sitting in an old rocking chair next to a tooled leather trunk.
“I’d forgotten all about this until now. It belonged to Uncle Enrico, my mother’s youngest brother. He disappeared a few years ago. Since I was the only living relative, I had to clean out his apartment. I found this in a closet.”
“Disappeared?” Ruthie asked. “No clue what happened to him?”
Fran shook her head. “He was a loner. Never married. No one in the family even knew what he did for a living. Actually, we were afraid to ask, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I think this might come in handy, considering your present predicament.” She pulled a small key from her pocket and opened the trunk. My jaw sagged. The trunk was packed with weapons! One by one, Fran pulled them out and laid them on the floor.
“Maggot, your uncle had an arsenal,” I exclaimed. “What are they?” Of course, the crossbow and arrows needed no explanation. Nor the fact that there were a lot of guns in all sizes.
As calmly as a person might give a tour of a flower garden, Fran identified each weapon. “That little thing is a four shot palm derringer. Cute, isn’t it?”
It looked like a toy.
“This one is a Beretta with a silencer, and these,” she pointed to two blunt-looking rifles, “are sawed off shotguns.” Fran stood, cracked her back, and pointed to the right. “Carl, Jr. says that’s a sniper rifle.”
Sniper rifle? Geez, I was glad Uncle Enrico was missing.
“That little can holds pepper spray.” She waved to the left. “Naturally, that’s a crossbow, and the bolt cutters go without saying.”
“Bolt cutters?”
“Well, I guess he had a need to cut chains from time to time.” She rolled her shoulders. “If things get dicey, we’ll be prepared.” She winked and snatched the pepper spray. Penny Sue winked back.
Was Fran kidding? I wasn’t sure.
“Help me put this stuff up, and we’ll get something to eat. I made a big batch of tarragon chicken salad. How does that sound?”
“Terrific,” Ruthie said weakly, carefully picking up the Beretta with two fingers and placing it in the trunk.
Not to be outdone, Penny Sue ran to get the Taser from her car as we helped Fran set out the food.
I’ve always heard that Jewish mothers put out spreads fit for a king and won’t take no for an answer when it comes to eating. They have nothing over Italian mothers if Fran was typical. The batch of chicken salad could have fed an army, not to mention huge hunks of Italian bread and a literal vat of gazpacho.
“Fran, you must have cooked all morning,” I said, placing a soup tureen on a large oak table set in front of the bay window.
She waved off the remark. “The chicken salad is my own secret recipe. I bought the bread, and the soup came from Beach Buns. Why go to all that trouble when the stuff you can buy is nearly as good as homemade? I used to cook everything from scratch when my Carlo was alive. He loved good food and really appreciated the effort. Now, it’s typically just me and Carl, Jr. Cooking doesn’t seem worth the effort for two. But on weekends he and his Klingon buddies come for dinner after their match. That’s fun, especially if they’ve won. In fact, the Romulans usually come, too.” She smiled wistfully. “There’s nothing like cooking for a group of hungry men.”
“Has Carlo been gone long?” Ruthie asked.
“Almost five years. Heart attack. He was an investment banker in Boston. A very stressful job. We moved down here to get away from the hustle and bustle of Boston about ten years ago, after his first heart attack. As long as Carlo had a telephone, fax, and an airport, he could work from almost anywhere. Even though the pace here is relaxed, he couldn’t slow down. Today they’d probably diagnose him as hyperactive—no one thought of such things back then.” She pressed her lips together wistfully “I’m thankful he didn’t suffer. He died in my arms on that couch over there.” She pointed to the great room adjacent to the kitchen.
Ruthie was such an empathetic Pisces, I thought she might tear up. Thankfully, Penny Sue arrived with the Taser, Carl close on her heels.
Mother and son were both mightily impressed with the weapon. Carl turned it over in his hands and felt the balance. “Multiple shots, longer range—that’s quite a breakthrough. I’m sure police departments will be standing in line to buy this baby.”
“I want one,” Frannie said, taking the Taser from her son. “Ruthie, do you think your father could get one for me?”
“I’ll ask. That’s a prototype the company’s president sent me as a favor to Poppa. It may be on the market soon; I honestly don’t know.”
“See what you can do. It sure is better than a gun—not so messy.”
Carl surveyed the kitchen. “Smells good in here. Have anything for a starving boy?”
Fran cocked her thumb at the table. “I always do.” She grinned at us. “It’s amazing how he magically appears whenever I rattle plates in the kitchen. I sneak a bowl of ice cream in the middle of the night, and Carl’s at my elbow before I finish dishing it out.”
“Come on, Mom, I’m not that bad,” he protested.
“Close. Though, I don’t mind.”
“How did your battle go the other day?” I asked between bites of chicken salad.
“They skunked us with infrared sensors. But, not tonight. Tonight, we’re going to win.”
“You play at night?” Penny Sue asked. “How can you see to shoot the paintballs? Besides, isn’t the park closed?”
He wiped his mouth. “Canaveral’s closed af
ter sunset, so we use the Merritt Island Refuge for night games. We’re unveiling our secret weapon tonight, The Bird of Prey. Todd and the others will never know what hit them.”
Fran patted her son’s shoulder. “Carl and his friends have been working on The Bird for months. You won’t believe your eyes—it’s really ingenious. We’ll take a tour of his apartment and workshop after lunch.”
We cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher while Carl went downstairs to tidy up.
“He’s got to pick up his dirty underwear from the floor,” Fran grumbled. “Thirty years old and still throws his clothes in the floor. He needs a good woman to whip him into line.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, he and his buddies don’t have time for women. Computers, science, technology, and those Star Trek war games are all they think about.
“I suppose I shouldn’t complain, he’s not out on the street doing drugs like my next door neighbor’s son. That kid is twenty-two, flunked out of college, and never worked a day in his life. He’s killing his parents with worry. They need to kick him out on his butt.
“At least Carl is a millionaire and pays his own way.”
Ruthie, Penny Sue, and I did a double-take. Millionaire! That sweet, young man was a millionaire? Must have made his money on the GPS deal. Now, that’s the kind of man Ann needed. Eight years difference isn’t much, especially since women mature faster than men.
Fran started the dishwasher and led us into the foyer to an elaborately carved door that fit with the woodwork so well, I hadn’t noticed it. She swung the door open to reveal a U-shaped stairwell. “This is the Bat Cave,” she quipped.
Star Trek, Batman—hey, millionaires are allowed to be eccentric, I thought with a grin. Instead of a dark, gloomy lair we found a spacious, bright, one-bedroom apartment, complete with an efficiency kitchen that obviously hadn’t been used for much more than pizza and popcorn.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” Carl said with an expansive wave.
Humble heck. The place had an ultramodern/retro leather sofa and a red upholstered swivel chair shaped like a hand. The palm formed the seat, the little finger and thumb were curved into armrests, with the three middle fingers curving up for the back.
“Try it,” he said to Penny Sue.
She eased into the chair, skeptical that it would hold. It did. She leaned back and pivoted the chair from side to side. “Boy, this is really comfortable.” She got up. “Try it Ruthie.”
Ruthie lifted her feet and twirled in a full circle. “I saw something like this at an art gallery in New York.”
“I bought it at a gallery there—don’t remember the name off the top of my head. The bedroom’s over here.” He opened the door to another ultramodern room, complete with metallic sheets and comforter. “I had them made. They’re replicas of the ones used on Star Trek.”
As tacky as it sounds, they were nice and fit the décor perfectly. Not something I would have chosen, but perfect for a single male. At least everything wasn’t black like Zack, Jr.’s furniture.
“Now ladies, for the pièce de résistance.” He ushered us through the living room and a door at the far end of the apartment.
Another garage—although, this was no ordinary garage. The walls were lined with computers, monitors, and all manner of electronic equipment in addition to regular tools like hammers, wrenches, and an acetylene torch. In the center, mounted on a boat trailer, was something covered in a tarp. He folded the cloth back to reveal a boat that looked suspiciously like the Batmobile.
“The Bird of Prey,” Frannie May said proudly.
“What is it?” Penny Sue blurted.
“Victory,” Carl gloated. “The Battle of Khitomer is ours.”
“Good, but what is it?”
“A stealth runabout.”
“Huh?” Ruthie and I said in unison.
Carl lifted a hatch on one side. “A boat that can’t be detected. See all the angles and the black coating? It scatters radar. A hybrid engine—gas and electric like the new Honda. The gas engine gets you there fast, while the electric is virtually silent so we can sneak up on the shore.” He puffed his chest out with pride. “And, now we’ve overcome the infrared problem. We’ve developed a way to scatter the heat signature.”
“How?” Penny Sue asked.
“That’s confidential. We’re applying for a patent.” He put his hands on his hips and beamed. “Todd and the Romulans don’t have a chance this time.”
“I’m surprised they had a chance before. The other team, the Romulans, have something comparable to this?”
“Not exactly, but close.”
“They all went to MIT together and, one by one, migrated down here after we moved,” Fran explained. “Being so young—they all graduated before they were twenty—they hung out together in college and made up this Star Trek game. They’ve never stopped playing it. Except for Carl’s work on the Global Positioning System when he was seventeen—interviewed by Popular Science and everything—most of their patents came from trying to outwit each other in the game.”
“Most of the Romulans’ breakthroughs have been in surveillance. Our forté is countermeasures.”
I studied the Bird of Prey, then Carl. He was a handsome man, not to mention smart, rich, kind to his mother. It was time to call Ann. I had to stall that engagement until she could meet this Klingon.
* * *
Chapter 12
Fran was scheduled to work at the center that afternoon, having graciously offered to fill in for me so I could spend time with my friends. Free of obligations, we elected to put on our swimsuits and sit by Fran’s pool. A large, irregular oval with a three-man Jacuzzi at one end, the enclosure was perfectly positioned to give a panoramic view of the Intercoastal Waterway.
“Doesn’t get much better than this,” Penny Sue said, dropping a copy of the Daily Journal’s Bike Week Event Supplement onto her lounge chair and touching her toes a few times.
Clad in a square-necked, black one-piece that contrasted dramatically with her light coloring, Ruthie looked like a fashion model. One of the waif types, not the full-bodied models that I liked so much who were coming into vogue. Ruthie angled her chair toward the sun and sat down with her laptop and a newspaper. “A shame Fran’s Carlo didn’t get to enjoy all of this. She’s a terrific woman and obviously loved her husband very much.”
I put my towel and cell phone on a table shaded by an umbrella and plopped down on the side of the pool. The pool was solar-heated and the water was as warm as a bath. “She’s been a wonderful friend to me.”
“I see that and promise not to make any more snide remarks about Carl,” Penny Sue said.
“The revelation that he’s a millionaire didn’t influence your decision, did it?” I needled.
“That and the fact he’s obviously brilliant and not just a nerdy flake. The genius types are always quirky. They say Einstein got lost on the Princeton campus all the time. He’d get so wrapped up in new theory or something, he’d lose his bearings. And, remember the guy in the movie, A Beautiful Mind? He taught at MIT, didn’t he?”
Ruthie scowled. “John Nash was schizophrenic—that’s a far cry from quirky.”
Penny Sue pulled her hair back. “All right, he was a nut.”
“Schizophrenia is a serious illness. It’s nothing to make fun of. You know, Jo Ruth is thinking of going into psychiatry.”
Penny Sue chuckled, “Good, we’ll have someone to treat us in our old age.” She sat down and opened her paper. “Wouldn’t y’all love to meet Uncle Enrico? I’ll bet he was a character. Had to be in the Mafia, don’t you think?”
“Probably, considering Fran said her own family didn’t ask him too many questions,” Ruthie said.
“I wonder what happened to him? Cement galoshes like they do on the Sopranos?” Penny Sue asked.
I leaned forward and splashed water on myself. “Yeah, or maybe he’s in the witness protection program. He could be in Palm Beach right now with a new identity.”
&nb
sp; “Shoot, Enrico could be here at Bike Week. Grow a beard, shave your head, get a few tattoos and piercings—no one would be the wiser. Fran might have passed him in the supermarket a dozen times,” Penny Sue said.
“Your imagination’s running away.”
She pursed her lips and snapped the paper noisily. I dove into the pool and started swimming laps. I started out slowly, feeling the tension in my shoulders. It had been a long time since I’d had a good workout. I swam the first two laps like a klutzy whale, ragged strokes, an irregular kick—it’s amazing I make it up and back. By the fourth turn my body was warm and loose and muscle memory kicked it. I poured it on for the several more laps, stopping at the shallow end next to my friends. Panting, I sat on the steps, waist deep in water.
“That was some swimming, girl,” Penny Sue exclaimed.
“I was a lifeguard in high school.”
“I couldn’t do that if my life depended on it. I’ve never been able to swim. Took lessons as a kid and quit when they insisted I put my face in the water. Pu-leeze, no telling what that chlorine would do to my skin, not to mention that my make-up would run.”
Ruthie handed me a towel; I heaved a thanks. “You wore make-up as a child?”
“Not much, only a little blush and mascara. But, I started using moisturizers when I was about six. ‘A dewy complexion is a girl’s best friend,’ Momma always said. Until the end, Momma had the skin of a teenager.”
I climbed out of the pool and wrapped the towel around me. “How did you ever get out of college if you couldn’t swim? Passing the swimming test was a requirement for graduation.”
