The Sunset Gang

by Warren Adler

  "Seymour Shapiro looks like he's coming out of his shell."

  "It's about time."

  But when Bernice found a Sara Lee cake missing, she burst into tears.

  He checked the inventory on the yellow sheets. When an item was consumed, he had methodically crossed it out. "It's gone," he said simply. The plot thickens, he told himself.

  "This is making me a nervous wreck," she told him. "Aside from being suspicious of my friends, I wonder if they think I'm acting strangely."

  "Well, one of them is acting strangely."

  "You still think it's one of them?"

  They had installed double locks, careful to lock them both when they went out. At night, he checked the locks and the windows. There was simply no way for a thief to enter. And Bernice was a light sleeper, more restless now than ever. At the slightest creak in their condominium, she would shake him out of a sound sleep.

  "I heard something."

  He listened, his ear cocked, his breathing shallow. Then he quietly got out of bed, admiring his own courage, and slowly inspected the apartment. When he was certain that no one had entered, he checked the food inventory. In the morning, he noted that Bernice looked tired and drawn, the dark circles under her eyes deeper, and she was beginning to lose her bounce.

  "I told you to let me worry about it."

  "Easier said than done."

  He had not been able to find a correlation between the objects found to be missing and the visits of her friends, although he had, he thought, observed them carefully when they left. The problem was, he deduced finally, that the discovery of the theft only came about when Bernice decided on the use of the foodstuffs. This meant that he had to check the inventory twice a day, once in the morning and once at night before he went to bed.

  "Maybe we should leave it alone," Bernice said one night as they both lay restless and unable to sleep. Her remark was a broad hint at her own suspicions.

  "You know who it is?"

  "No." She paused. "I really don't want to know. It will only bring us grief. Obviously one of my friends is a very sick person."

  "A kleptomaniac."

  "Isn't that someone who steals and doesn't know they're stealing?"

  "Yes."

  But the conversation went no further that night.

  It was only after he discovered that a box of tea bags was missing one night after the mah-jongg game that the suspicion narrowed down, confirming what they had both suspected. It was one of her best friends, one of the three women with whom she shared a great deal of her time. He debated with himself as to whether he should tell her about the latest theft, deciding, finally, that it would be better not to mention it until he was certain, dead certain which one it was.

  "Anything missing?" she asked with trepidation after her friends had left.

  "Nothing," he lied. Why cause her any more grief, he thought, forcing himself to stay alert. When they played together in his living room, he watched the three women. They seemed pleasant, absorbed in their game, chattering and gossiping between games, but taking the play seriously. Occasionally one of them would rise and go to the bathroom. Rarely would any of them go into the kitchen and when one did he watched her closely. When they had gone, he checked the inventory. Nothing was missing. He admitted to himself that he liked the idea of the mystery being strung out, since it absorbed his interest now, dominated his thoughts day and night.

  One night after they had gone, he rushed to his bedroom dresser drawer for the inventory. The yellow paper was gone. Searching under his socks and underwear, he could not find it. Then he opened the other drawers, wondering if he had misplaced it. Bernice heard the drawers banging as Seymour's temper rose. She came into the bedroom, watching him.

  "I threw it away," she said quietly.

  "You what?"

  "I threw it away."

  "Then you know who's doing it."

  "No," she said. "I've decided I don't want to know."

  He felt his exasperation, watching her. He noted her tiredness, her sagging jowls.

  "But she's stealing from us. It's wrong."

  "Yes, it's wrong. But I still don't want to know." She touched his arm. "Please." A tear teetered on the bottom of the lid of one of her eyes. "I love my friends."

  "It's money out of my pocket," he said, unable to hide his disgust. "It's tough enough as it is."

  "I'll eat less," she said. She went into the bathroom to prepare for bed. Listening at the door, he heard her sobs. She does know, he decided.

  But he ignored her entreaties and began memorizing the inventory of their food, checking it as unobtrusively as possible each morning and each night. It was impossible for him to leave it alone. A mystery must be solved. That was the premise of all the books he had read. All the loose ends had to be neatly tied.

  A few weeks went by and he discovered a missing steak and a jar of instant coffee. It was the missing coffee that triggered his malevolence. He knew that one of the three women had taken it the night before, although he had not noticed how it was done, remembering only that it had last been seen on the kitchen table.

  "No coffee?" he asked innocently at breakfast the next morning as he stared into a cup filled with hot tea.

  "I must have run out," she said, her eyes darting nervously about the kitchen.

  "You know better," he said. "We were robbed last night. It's a disgrace, a positive disgrace." His voice rose. "There are certain rules of behavior.... "The words trailed off as he saw her body sag into the other chair at the table. Her hands shook as she leaned her head against an upright arm supported by her elbow. On the verge of tears again, she tried to speak, but her lips could only tremble.

  "One of those three women is not your friend," he said, patting her shoulder. "These are the hard decisions of life." He was conscious of having seen the words somewhere in one of his mystery novels.

  "It doesn't matter," she said finally. She was on the edge of hysterics.

  The tone of her voice frightened him momentarily, then steeled his resolve. I will find out, he vowed.

  "If I want to share my food with other people, I will make the choice," he said, sincere in his logic. She nodded, a kind of symbol of surrender.

  But she had not been totally without guile. When she visited the houses of her friends, she would peek into their refrigerators and cabinets, noting that they seemed well stocked, nor was there a hint of suspicion in the demeanor of any one of them.

  "I have looked into all of their kitchens," she said, under control now.

  He got up and paced the room, his mind turning over, feeling the excitement of the deduction process. He thought of Maigret, the slow, ponderous, methodical Maigret, who understood motives with a sure instinct.

  "Did you learn anything from that?"

  "I'm afraid not," she answered hesitantly. "The usual things, boxes and cans."

  He thought for a moment.

  "Did you lift them?" He felt the thrill of discovery.

  "Lift them?"

  "Were they full or empty?"

  "I don't understand."

  "It's quite easy to use empty cans and boxes to simulate a full larder."

  "Larder?"

  It was a bookish, literary term, most commonly used in British mysteries.

  "Storeplaces for food," he said pedantically.

  "I didn't think--"

  "It's obvious that the woman is clever and has developed a foolproof system of theft. It is possible, of course, for a kleptomaniac to be clever, but this seems to me to be the work of someone of calculating cunning." He looked at Bernice, his eyes narrowing. "Try seeing if there is actually food in the cans and containers."

  "Must I?" Bernice pleaded.

  "If you want to get to the bottom of this."

  "But I'm afraid to."

  "Are we supposed to put up with this forever?" he reasoned. "It's both morally wrong and financially draining.... "He wanted to say more, but she had already risen and begun her chores. He let the
matter simmer, although he thought of little else, exploring in his own mind the possible motives for the theft. Someone obviously wants to live beyond her means, he concluded, rejecting the theory of kleptomania. A kleptomaniac would not, he believed, fix upon a single category of item. Other things might have been missing. No, this is the work of a cunning mind, he was certain.

  About a week later she returned from a mah-jongg game at Harriet Feldman's house. She had barely come into the house when she threw herself on the couch and dissolved in tears. Seymour rushed out of the bedroom. Her shoulders shook, her body racked in an agony of despair.

  "I told you I didn't want to know," she mumbled between sobs. Patting her back, he tried to soothe her. But she was inconsolable and it was some time before she was able to speak.

  "I did as you asked."

  "It's Harriet Feldman?" He had suspected the widow. It had always been the most logical conclusion.

  "Most of her cans were empty and the milk containers were filled with water. Even the eggs were empty shells. Here." She managed to open her purse and take out a small dark jar of baked beans. Taking it from her, he studied it carefully, then opened it.

  "It's filled with sand."

  "Such a brilliant detective," she said bitterly.

  He could see she was in no state to pursue the subject and helped her to bed. But his own elation had stimulated his mind and he could not sleep. He felt great pride in his powers of deduction and--although he had not caught the woman in the act--he felt that he had manipulated the instrument of her discovery. She had indeed worn her pose well. Under that bland unconcerned innocence, she was nothing more than a damned petty thief. When finally he did get to sleep, it seemed but a few moments before he was startled into wakefulness by the ring of the doorbell. Looking at the clock, he saw it was only 6 A.M. Bernice had bounded from bed and, putting on her robe, answered the door. From the bedroom, he watched as Judy Stein and her husband Jake stormed in, their faces grim. He put on a bathrobe and joined them in the living room.

  "He made me come, Bernice," an agitated Judy Stein said. Her face was gray in the dim light. She had not put on her make-up and looked all of her seventy years. Jake's face was twisted in anger.

  "I wouldn't have come, Bernice. Really. But he made me." She pointed to Jake, a thin wiry man. He breathed heavily as he looked at Seymour.

  "Your wife is a goddamned thief," he hissed.

  "Bernice?"

  "She has been stealing our food for months. It's been driving us crazy." He looked at Bernice. "I don't understand it."

  "I told him that if you did that you had a good reason," Judy Stein said.

  Seymour felt his wife's mortification, but, to her credit, she held herself steady.

  "Are you crazy?" she said to Judy.

  "Bernice, I saw it."

  "You saw it?"

  "She saw you take the jar from Harriet's house," Jake said. "A can of beans. At first we thought maybe we were being forgetful, a couple of senile alte cockers. But then we began to realize that one of her friends was actually stealing. Stealing." His voice rose.

  Bernice turned to Judy. "And you believe this?"

  "I saw it, Bernice," she pleaded. "I didn't want to tell him, really I didn't."

  Seymour walked to the kitchen and took the jar of baked beans from the trash can, where he had thrown it after first replacing the top.

  "Is this what you saw?" he said, feeling his superiority.

  "That's it," Judy said. She was taking no joy in the discovery, a whining sound emitting from her mouth. "Oh, this is terrible."

  Jake took it from him and held it up in front of Bernice's face.

  "Is this what you took?" he scolded, as if he were addressing a young child.

  "I took it," Bernice said indignantly, standing stiffly, flaunting her pride. Seymour smiled, enjoying the spectacle.

  "And you feel no shame?" Jake asked. He seemed to have calmed down, now that the confession had come. Bernice took the jar from him and handed it to Judy.

  "Open it," she commanded.

  Judy looked sheepishly at Jake, then at Seymour, whose smile must have thrown her into confusion. She looked down at the jar in her hands and twisted the cap.

  "It's sand," she whispered, feeling the granules between shaking fingers.

  "Let me see that," Jake said impatiently, spilling some of the sand in the transfer.

  "And I'll thank you not to get sand on my carpet."

  Jake felt it, looked into all of their faces, not comprehending.

  "What does it mean?"

  "It means..." Bernice said, "...that you don't trust your friends."

  "Really, Bernice," Seymour said, his smile broadening. "Don't be too hard on them. It was an obvious conclusion. Judy did see you take the jar." He turned toward Judy. "It was Harriet," he said. "She took this from Harriet's larder." He felt his happiness in the revelation of the secret.

  "Oh my God," Judy said, and turning to Bernice added: "Can you ever forgive me?"

  It won't be easy, Bernice thought, agitation beginning as she contemplated their future together.

  "The problem now is what we're all going to do about Harriet Feldman," Seymour said.

  Jake looked at them dumbly, his breath gasping. He brought a vial of pills from his pocket and popped one into his mouth.

  "I told him he shouldn't have done this," Judy admonished. "I didn't want to come, Bernice. Really I didn't."

  The mystery was reaching a climax, Seymour thought. His mind was calm. He imagined he was Father Brown, philosophically viewing the follies of others, sensing his calm detachment, the clarity of his private vision.

  "We should now consult Marcia Finkelstein," he said. "We are in this together." Watching their faces, he knew that he had transmitted the drama of the occasion.

  The Finkelsteins were still in bed when they rang the buzzer. Phil Finkelstein answered the door, his eyes puffy with sleep, the gray beard sprouting through his tanned face.

  They sat in the living room waiting for Marcia, whom they could hear running water in the bathroom.

  "It's all right, Phil," Bernice said. "She doesn't have to get all dolled up."

  "We have very serious business to discuss," Jake said.

  "You look like a delegation from the Garment Workers Union," Phil said, his frayed bathrobe stained and belted around his big belly.

  Marcia had put on a little lipstick and brushed her bleached hair. The smile disappeared as she viewed their serious faces.

  "You tell them, Seymour," Jake said.

  Seymour stood up and paced the floor, feeling their eyes on him. He deliberately remained silent as he paced, stroking his chin in an attitude of contemplation as the wily Maigret might have done.

  "We have discovered a thief in our midst," he said finally. The people in the room looked at each other. He could see Marcia Finkelstein's face tighten.

  "A thief?" Phil said.

  "Someone is deliberately stealing food from all of us. And tonight we've discovered who it is."

  They heard Marcia Finkelstein's long sigh.

  "So you've found out," she said quietly.

  They all looked at her. Seymour felt his joy drain as he stopped his pacing and watched her expression, her head shaking. "It had to come, sooner or later."

  "You knew?" Seymour asked, feeling his sense of power usurped.

  "From the moment she took the first box of sugar from us about six months ago."

  "You never told me," her husband stammered.

  "What was I to tell you?" she said, patting him on his fat thigh. "That one of my best friends was stealing?"

  "I think you should have," he said. "Food is expensive."

  "You could have at least told us," Judy Stein said.

  "What was I going to say: 'Harriet is a thief'?"

  "Something like that," Jake said.

  "Don't think I didn't agonize over it," she continued. "But was I the one that was to take away her pride?"

&n
bsp; "But she was stealing," Seymour mumbled.

  "At first I thought perhaps she had taken it and forgotten to tell me that she borrowed it. But then when I discovered the elaborate way she had devised to do it, I knew that there was something far more serious afoot. You see..." there was an element of resignation in her tone, a confession, "...she had a container strapped to her thighs. She simply pops an item into the container, and carries it out under her dress."

  "You saw this?"

  "By accident. They don't build these condominiums too well and the bathroom door in the bedroom was never a good fit. I was looking for a pencil and quite by accident I saw her slip the sugar box in the container while she was in the bathroom."

  "The bitch," Jake said.

  "It's like one of your mystery stories," Bernice said, turning to Seymour.

  "And the motive?" Seymour said, hoping to win back his authority over the situation. "There is no crime without a motive."

  "She was starving," Marcia said after a long pause.

  "How could she be starving?" Seymour asked contemptuously.

  "That's what I thought at first," Marcia said. "But then I began to think about it. Have any of us ever seen her at the supermarket lately? And notice how much more she eats than the rest of us when we play. She never talks about money and I've probed her on numerous occasions about her getting social security. She hardly knew what I was talking about. And she had no children. Her husband died nearly twenty years ago--which probably means that most of her insurance is gone."

  "But that's only your intuition," Seymour snapped. "You have no proof."

  "And if I did?" Marcia asked. She turned to each person in the room like a flashlight examining every inch of a prison yard.

  Seymour looked away. They were not really unraveling this mystery. They were leaving loose ends. Nothing would be clearly resolved. The most galling aspect of what was happening was that they seemed willing to live with this irresolution.

  "So what do you all intend to do about it?" he asked, feeling a mounting irritation.

  "I have no idea," Marcia said. She seemed cool and assured and it was obvious that she had given the matter a great deal of thought. "Pride." She shrugged.

  "She could, you know, get food stamps," Phil Finkelstein said.