The Girl with the Phony Name

by Charles Mathes

  “Not for weeks,” said the hotel assistant-manager unhappily. He stood looking out the window into the air shaft, a thin man in a shiny blue suit.

  Lucy sat on the bed, still not believing what had happened.

  “One laptop computer, one pair of gold earrings, one pearl necklace,” read Tweedle Dee from his notebook. “Anything else?”

  Lucy winced. It had taken her three months to save up for those earrings.

  “They were looking for cash, no doubt,” said Tweedle Dum, playing with his walkie-talkie.

  “Why didn’t they take my printer?” she murmured.

  “Probably needed letter quality,” said Tweedle Dee, examining the Diconix. “Is this little thing any good?”

  “It’s fine if you have a computer.”

  Lucy mentally kicked herself again for not making backups of her hard disk. Her whole MacAlpin database, ten years’ worth of information, was irretrievably gone.

  “I got a IBM,” said Dee proudly. “I got my wine cellar on disk. It also is useful for managing my finances.”

  “He’s a regular hobbyist, he is,” said Dum.

  Lucy suddenly thought of something else. She rose shakily and crossed the room to one of the plundered suitcases.

  “They took my Walkman.” she groaned.

  “One Sony Walkman. Tape player or radio?” said Dee, making a note.

  “Tape player. They’ve stolen Pride and Prejudice!”

  “It’s pathetic what drugs can do to da human brain,” deadpanned Dum.

  “When am I going to get a break?” she demanded, whirling to face the assistant manager. “I mean, I’ve been good. I eat my vegetables. What did I do to deserve this?”

  “Are you sure you locked your door?” the man replied lamely.

  “They opened it with a crowbar!”

  “I have to ask these questions, you understand. Our insurance company …”

  “You mean you’ll reimburse me for my losses?” Lucy asked skeptically, looking up.

  “I’m sure we can work something out … .”

  “I’ll give you fifty bucks for the printer,” said Tweedle Dee. From the air shaft came a faint “I can do it, I can do it,” and the sounds of a headboard clapping against the wall. The hotel manager nervously rubbed his hands together.

  “Perhaps if we simply canceled your bill … that is if you have another place that you can go … Miss Trelaine? Would that be satisfactory, Miss Trelaine?”

  “Please pass broccoli,” said Wing happily.

  The last time Lucy had eaten with so many people had been in Atlanta with a family of McAlpens. That was nearly a year ago. It felt nice not to be eating alone for a change.

  Before Neal had returned in the limo for her, Lucy had gotten a free lunch—two shrimp cocktails—courtesy of TownLodge, and had bargained Tweedle Dee up to $75 for her printer. Just getting out from under her bill, however, was enough to make up her mind about the job with Neat ‘n’ Tidy. Wing had welcomed her with open arms. Literally.

  “Glad to have you with us,” he had said, squeezing her like she was some kind of melon. “You not be sorry. Welcome aboard.”

  The bookkeepers and typists had all departed at 5:30, leaving only the residents. Wing sat at the head of the table in the big dining room—once the Fond Farewell Chapel—shovel–ing rice into his mouth with chopsticks. An obese basset hound named Bartlett Hewby sat mournfully at his feet.

  The rest of the group consisted of Neal, Tina Snicowski (the little receptionist with the thick glasses and the earrings), and Aunt Sally, a silent hulk of a woman with bad teeth and a vacuous stare.

  Aunt Sally frightened Lucy. She was some kind of culinary idiot savant and had joined them after bringing their food out from the kitchen. Lucy was having second thoughts now, but all her bridges seemed to have caught fire behind her.

  Every so often the sounds of station wagons in the driveway reminded Lucy of what went on in the basement twenty-four hours a day. Apparently institutions such as hospitals and nursing homes favored nighttime for pickups, so as not to alarm their living patrons.

  “What’s the best way into the city?” Lucy asked, looking up from her meal, delicate morsels of chicken and various vegetables.

  “There’s a van that leaves from across from Port Authority,” said Tina breathlessly. “There’s a really neat ferry to the Westside piers.”

  “You can always hitch a ride in with one of the station wagons,” rumbled Neal Bell. “We make pickups in the city all the time.”

  Lucy tried to smile politely.

  “You have business in city?” said Wing abruptly. At least he had taken off his top hat for dinner. His hair was gray like his beard, and thinning.

  “Yes,” said Lucy, buttering a roll.

  “What, what, what?” persisted Wing. “You go to Harvard Club? Disco? Hot date?”

  Lucy didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to burden everyone with her problems. Wing was probably just trying to be friendly, she supposed.

  “I’m looking for someone,” she said quietly, not meeting his gaze.

  Wing placed his fingers to his lips and stared at her for a moment. “You not want to tell?”

  “It’s just …”

  “You no have to tell. It’s okay.” He clapped his hands.

  “Tina, Tina,” he said. “Now, please.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Wing,” said Tina, getting up from the table and going to the kitchen.

  Lucy didn’t know what was coming, but she didn’t like the way everyone was grinning. Her nerves were still shot from the burglary.

  Tina returned with a bottle of champagne in a silver ice bucket and five glasses. She placed one glass in front of each of them, while Wing slowly and professionally opened the bottle.

  “We drink toast now,” said Wing, walking around the table, pouring. He stopped at his own glass, which he filled with another small bottle from the ice bucket, a bottle with a twist–off cap.

  “I think I have club soda today,” he said quietly, then raised his glass. The others stood and raised their glasses, too.

  “To Rucy Trelaine,” he said solemnly, still unable to pronounce her name. “May she find everything she is looking for.”

  Lucy was so touched she nearly dunked her sleeve into the applesauce as she reached for her glass.

  After dinner Lucy climbed the narrow stairs to her room and lay on the bed, staring at the cookie-cutter ceiling. Unfamiliar shadows played across the walls. Although she had opened the windows, the room retained a faint musty smell. Maybe she would put some lemon oil on the chair rail tomorrow. She could even contact-paper the drawers. It was strange to have a room all her own.

  “Maybe my luck is finally changing,” she said softly to the stuffed teddy bear Aunt Sally had pressed into her arms after dinner. “What did I need all those MacAlpins in the computer for, anyway? None of them knew anything. Now I have new friends, a place to stay. What do I want to hang on to the past for?”

  The teddy bear didn’t feel the need to answer.

  It would be strange to sleep in the same bed for longer than a week, Lucy realized, putting her hands behind her head. She could even unpack all four of her suitcases. She had never done that before.

  Lucy tried to picture her mother, but all she could see was the little grave marker at the church cemetery. Lucy fought the image out of her mind. Somewhere across the river might be her past. And her future.

  It was a long time before she fell asleep.

  TEN

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Wing,” sniffed the chinless person who a plaque proclaimed was Edward M. Leach. “We’ve done a discounted cash–flow analysis on your new branches and calculated the weighted average cost of your capital. Your net present value is substantially negative and …”

  “Woa,” muttered Wing, obviously confused. “Translate into English, please.”

  Lucy looked around the ornate Manhattan bank. Walnut paneling rose thirty feet up the walls to a gilded ceil
ing. The tellers stood like exotic zoo animals behind carved steel bars. Leach rocked back smugly in his leather armchair. They had been here ten minutes, seven of which Leach had spent on the phone with his stockbroker.

  “I’m telling you that acquiring all these new branches made no sense,” said the goony-looking banker, examining his knuckles, perhaps for signs of hair. “Your current returns aren’t enough to justify the carrying costs.”

  “Numbers not tell whole story,” protested Wing. “Wing buy not what is, but what might be.”

  “Well, it might be, Mr. Wing, but not with our money.”

  Wing stood, bowed, and walked out, head high. Lucy rose and glared at Leach, who was stifling a smirk. She had half a mind to throw a wastebasket at him, but hurried after her employer instead, catching up with him at the car.

  “So how’d it go?” asked Neal Bell, opening the back door for them.

  “Big man, little mind.”

  “Didn’t get the loan, huh?”

  “There are plenty more banks. Cannot all be run by dopes. We work up new business plan, Rucy, yes?”

  “Yes, Mr. Wing,” she said, trying not to sound worried. Neal got behind the wheel and started the car. In twenty minutes they were out of midtown Manhattan and on the road to Connecticut to inspect the Bridgeport Neat ‘n’ Tidy. Wing made it a point to visit at least one branch each day.

  This was the ninth loan application Lucy had seen turned down in the three weeks she had worked for Wing. It hadn’t taken her long to understand how grim the situation was: Wing was leveraged to his eyeballs and needed at least $3 million to keep operating.

  It was a shame, Lucy thought. Wing was the best boss she’d ever had. He came up with new ideas as easily as lesser men percolated coffee. He was on top of every problem, understood each opportunity, knew every one of his many employees by name. His innovations had transformed one nearly bankrupt funeral home into a money machine. Although Lucy still had reservations about his “product,” she had to admire the boldness of his vision.

  “Soon have Neat ’n’ Tidy everywhere,” Wing had proclaimed during her first day on the job. “People no more waste money on big funerals for dead relatives. Wing set up branches in inner cities. Pay less rent. Give jobs to poor people. Give them hope.”

  The only problem in the scenario was the fact that Wing’s dreams were bigger than his financing. A new branch took only a year to begin making money, but Wing’s balance sheets were drowning in red ink from the start-up costs for so many new branches. If he had slowed down, digested his gains, everything would have been fine, but Wing couldn’t wait. He plunged ahead, blindly optimistic, using his genius to increase sales rather than reduce expenses, buying new branches with his profits rather than covering his debt.

  They drove in silence into the tangle of roads that had so frightened Lucy that first night. Even in daylight the tenements below looked menacing, but Neal navigated confidently through the devastation and finally into the sunny greenery of the Connecticut Turnpike.

  Of the people in the big house in Weehawken, Neal was Lucy’s favorite after Wing. Over the past three weeks he had gone out of his way to make her feel at home, driving her to a mall in Passaic to pick up some new clothes, giving her knickknacks for her mantlepiece and plants for her windowsill. The little apartment on the third floor was beginning to feel really cozy.

  Lucy had also struck up a friendship with Tina Snicowski, the little receptionist. Tina was a runaway whom Wing had taken in and was sending to night school. Despite her five earrings and the occasional patch of orange she put in her hair, Tina turned out to be painfully shy. She blushed crimson when Lucy offered to help with her homework, but finally accepted.

  Even Aunt Sally seemed less menacing once Lucy figured out that the verses she constantly muttered were not incantations, but nursery rhymes.

  “Stop the car! Stop the car!”

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Wing?” said Lucy as Neal pulled the Cadillac onto the berm.

  “Look! Look at beautiful tree!”

  “It’s very beautiful, Mr. Wing, but why have we stopped?”

  In addition to taking notes, helping with loan applications, and managing his correspondence, Lucy was also responsible for keeping Wing on schedule. They were due in Bridgeport in ten minutes.

  “How many people have beautiful tree in backyard? People cherish beautiful tree, but loved ones end up in urn on TV set. Rucy, make note for new ad campaign. ‘Have your ashes planted under your favorite tree. Do-it-yourself perpetual peace.’”

  Lucy wrote down the suggestion, amazed again. She wished her own life were so simple, that like Wing she could forget about all her problems just because she saw a beautiful tree.

  But that was impossible. It was May 1. Theresa Iatoni would return from California today.

  As usual Wing was oblivious to the seriousness of his financial situation at dinner that night, recounting over a roast chicken wild, obviously fictional tales of fishing in the China Sea.

  After dessert—a peach cobbler that Aunt Sally delivered from the kitchen with as much pride as other women delivered children—Lucy went up to her room and closed the door. She had purposely waited until evening to make her call, wanting Theresa Iatoni to be settled in and comfortable when the phone rang.

  For moral support Lucy had brought hang–jowled, floppy–eared Hewby upstairs with her. The basset hound sprawled on the rug at her feet, looking up with mournful eyes. Lucy had never had a pet before and was surprised at the deep rapport she and Hewby had quickly established. The dog shared her enthusiasm for both junk food and Gershwin, and they often listened to the stereo, sprawled on the living-room sofa together, munching potato chips.

  “Okay, are you ready?” Lucy asked the dog. She was seated on the edge of the bed, holding the phone in her lap with one hand, the teddy bear with the other.

  Hewby adjusted his chins.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” confided Lucy. “I used to talk to inanimate objects.”

  “Woof,” said Hewby sadly.

  “Okay, now, be quiet while I make my call.”

  The dog stared at her, licked his face, went back to sleep. Lucy dialed.

  “Yes?” answered a small voice after three rings.

  “Theresa Iatoni, please,” said Lucy, half confident, half terrified.

  “Speaking,” the voice cracked.

  “Miss Iatoni, my name is Lucy Trelaine. I was the baby who survived the crash that killed your brother. I’d like to talk with you.”

  The line was silent for several seconds. Finally the little voice spoke again.

  “What about?”

  “I’m trying to find my family, Mrs. Iatoni.”

  “Oh. I don’t know how I can help you.”

  “I don’t know, either,” Lucy said, trying to put a chuckle in her voice, to sound disarming.

  “So why are you calling me?”

  “I only found out about your brother a few weeks ago and there are a million things I don’t understand.”

  Hewby sniffled audibly. Lucy knew she was blowing it.

  “It was all such a long time ago,” said the voice in her ear unhappily.

  “Yes, I know, but I’m not trying to make trouble or anything, Mrs. Iatoni,” Lucy said desperately. “I grew up in foster homes. Nobody knew where I came from. A few weeks ago I found out about the car crash that killed my mother. I just want to know the truth, whatever it is.”

  There was a pause.

  “What do you want to know?” said the voice finally.

  “It’s hard for me to do this over the phone. Can I come and see you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know … .”

  “Please, Mrs. Iatoni. It can’t matter that much to you anymore, but it means a great deal to me. Please.”

  “Well …” said the voice. Lucy held her breath. “All right, honey. Can you come out tomorrow?”

  When Lucy put down the phone, her hand was trembling. Hewby roused himself fro
m his lethargy and waddled over to lick it. Lucy scratched his raggedy ears.

  What was she going to say to this woman? And, more important, what was Theresa Iatoni going to say to her?

  ELEVEN

  The Audubon Park Condominiums in Amityville looked like books on a shelf from a distance. Closer up, you could discern the six different styles, the eight available colors, and various other options that differentiated the abutting townhouses. Interconnecting streets of them radiated off a main drive. In the center of the development was a manicured lawn and a shallow pool surrounded by a waist-high chain-link fence—a precaution against grandchildren and other unenlightened visitors who might mistake the pool’s symbolism for an invitation to wade.

  Lucy steered the big Cadillac down Blue Jay Cove and onto Turtle Dove Lane. When she had asked for the day off, everybody had been pointedly discreet. Wing had even insisted she take the car, and Lucy had been too embarrassed to refuse. It was like driving a boat.

  There wasn’t a living soul to direct her through the maze of streets, so the only way to find 1451 Bobolink Place was trial and error. After several wrong turns and cul-de-sacs, Lucy found the address she was looking for. She parked the car at the end of a row of townhouses and walked to the door of the only one painted green.

  She pressed the doorbell. Nothing happened at first. Then the door opened and Lucy found herself facing a squat, blue-haired woman. Was this her aunt?

  “Hi,” said Lucy, nervously manufacturing a smile. “I’m Lucy Trelaine.”

  The little woman looked her up and down, then nodded.

  “Come in please,” Theresa Iatoni said stiffly, and led Lucy into the living room, a narrow white box.

  “Can I get you anything?” said the woman.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Coffee? Soda? I have some iced tea.”

  “No, really, I’m fine.”

  Lucy sat down on the orange sofa. Mrs. Iatoni sank into a paisley chair. There were two white table lamps in the shape of poodles. The rest of the furniture was the sort of thing Lucy would expect to find on top of a wedding cake.