Brainy-BOOM!

by Wally Duff

  The year Alan went into practice was the first time they were mentioned in the society news. There was one report that Marcia M. Peebler had married Alan Peebler at an undisclosed place and time. No one mentioned, or seemed to care, that Peebler was Marcia’s maiden name. And it wasn’t mentioned that Alan Peebler appeared on the planet the year before he entered medical school.

  Alan told me he had known Zhukov for a long time. He knew that Zhukov had been a dentist in Russia and that Zhukov couldn’t pass the certification test to practice his profession in the United States. My research into Zhukov had confirmed this.

  When I queried Alan about investing his money with Zhukov, he lost his focus and I didn’t learn anything else. Alan seemed to know a lot about Zhukov, but he could have known this since he was a long-time investor.

  Or could Alan have known Zhukov before he became Alan Peebler? If he did, maybe he could help me understand the hazy back-story about Zhukov and the Russian Mafia. If I had that, I might finally understand what was going on.

  133

  On Tuesday, the Irregulars and their kids visited Hamlin Park for the first time since late last fall. It was April 2nd, and Chicago was having an unseasonably warm day. We wanted to take advantage of it since a thunderstorm was in the forecast for Wednesday.

  The park is at North Damen and West Barry Avenue in Roscoe Village. It is almost eight acres, with activities for every member of the family. There are softball fields where Carter and his reporters play twice a week in the summertime, a large, free swimming pool, and a good-sized playground. It’s where I first met the moms who have become the Hamlin Park Irregulars.

  We congregated in the playground. I told them about my inability to find out Alan’s last name before he morphed into Dr. Alan Peebler.

  “Does it matter?” Cas asked. “What if you find out his last name? How is that going to help you?”

  “For once, I have to agree with Cas,” Linda said. “Poor Alan is off his rocker. It was long ago, and he probably doesn’t even remember who he was.”

  I pushed Macy in a swing. She was happy. I was bummed. “I guess you’re right, but he’s my only hope to figure this story out.”

  “What, in essence, is this story anyway?” Linda asked. “Zhukov has disappeared.”

  “He was killed,” I said.

  “Whatever,” she said. “He is no longer around. Someone made off with a lot of money that allegedly belonged to the Russian Mafia. They want it back. The FBI is interested, and I’m sure by now so is the IRS, but is this a compelling enough story to write? Will the average reader want to know anything about this?”

  “I would,” Molly said. “Gosh, when I worked for the farmers they had me work on stuff like this all the time. It was fun.”

  “Okay then, how would you proceed?” I asked.

  “I’ll talk to Alan,” Molly said.

  “That’s stupid,” Cas said. “Tina said he’s not talking to anyone.”

  “He has been a little off since that deal at the hospital, but before that we talked a lot,” Molly said.

  “What about?” I asked.

  “Stuff. He’s fascinated by my breasts.”

  “Most men are,” Linda said.

  “But Alan?” I said. “He doesn’t seem like that.”

  “Alan is different,” Molly said. “He loves to talk about clothes and fashion.”

  “How come you never told us about this?” Cas asked.

  “Gosh, you never asked.”

  134

  My stomach began to churn. “Molly, did he ever tell you his real last name?”

  “Uh-huh,” Molly said.

  We waited. She threw a ball to her oldest son, Chase.

  “Molly, what is it?” I asked.

  “Some kind of animal.”

  Linda hung her head. “Unbelievable.”

  “Do you know which animal it is?” I asked.

  “Don’t have a clue, but it’s definitely an animal, maybe a furry one now that I think about it.”

  “Any ideas, Linda?” I asked. “You’re the only one of the Irregulars who would know which Jewish last names might be animals.”

  “Furry animals,” Cas reminded us.

  “Right, ones with hair,” I said.

  “Wulf,” Linda said and spelled it for us.

  We turned to Molly. She kept playing catch with Chase.

  “Lamm,” Linda suggested.

  “A stretch,” I said.

  “They are sort of furry,” she argued.

  Molly didn’t react.

  “Gozman.”

  “What the heck is that?” Cas asked.

  “A rabbit.”

  “That’s a good one,” I said, but Molly didn’t respond.

  “Loew or Loeb. It means lion.”

  Molly yawned.

  “Perkin is a bear,” Linda said.

  Nothing.

  “Stier is a bull or an ox.”

  Still nothing.

  “Molly, are any of these Alan’s last name?” I asked.

  She looked up. “What?”

  “Linda gave us a few possibilities for Alan’s real last name. Do you recognize any of them?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  We waited.

  “It’s a bear.”

  “I thought that was Perkin,” Cas said.

  “Wait a minute,” Linda said. “Maybe it’s Berman. I forgot that one.”

  “Molly, is it Berman?”

  “For sure.”

  “Alan Berman,” I said. “Let’s hope that’s who we’re hunting for.”

  135

  With someone listening into my conversations at home, I had also purchased a burner phone. I needed to narrow down my search for Dr. Alan Berman. From the wine room, I used the phone to call Lori, his nurse.

  “Sorry to bother you, but when I first came in to see Alan, you mentioned that he is fluent in several languages,” I said.

  “I did, but as the mad cow disease has taken more control, he increasingly reverts back to only one, especially when he plays his concert grand piano,” Lori said. “But he doesn’t do either one anymore. All he does is sit at his computer.”

  I remembered hearing Chopin being played on a piano before I first met Alan. “Was that him I heard playing the first time I came in here?”

  “Yes, but he didn’t realize either one of us could hear him.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Among his other talents, Dr. Peebler is a concert-level pianist, but he never plays in front of anyone.”

  “Not even Marcia?”

  “Especially her, but he writes and records a new song for her each day.”

  “Where are the recordings?”

  “He locks them in one of the bedrooms above his office.”

  Alan’s weirdness.

  “I’m curious. What language does he speak?”

  “Russian. It’s the language of his youth.”

  My heart began racing. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. God knows I’ve heard it often enough.”

  “Did he ever mention the name Berman?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did he ever talk about Russia?”

  “Only once. He mentioned Leningrad, or I think he might have called it St. Petersburg. I guessed he lived there at some time in his life.”

  With this new background information on Alan, I needed computer help, but my keyboard was compromised. I called Linda and told her what Lori said to me.

  It didn’t take long for Linda to find Alan L. Berman on her search engines.

  “He was born in what was then called Leningrad and graduated from the Saint Petersburg Pavlov Medical University at age twenty-two,” Linda began. “After further training, he quickly became a world expert in neurodegenerative diseases.”

  “That’s probably when he began seeing Marcia’s father as a patient, but it wasn’t here, it was in Russia,” I said. “Look at Alan and Marcia’s timeline.”

 
“Two years before they were married, Alan moved to the United States. One year later, Dr. Alan Berman ceased to exist. He was replaced a year later by Dr. Alan Peebler.

  Bingo.

  “Look at Zhukov’s file,” I said. “See if you can find Alan’s connection with him.”

  It took seven minutes. “Got it,” she said. “They were in training at the school in St. Petersburg for the same period of time.”

  “It’s not much of a stretch to assume they knew each other there and then reconnected after Alan went back to medical school again, finished his residency and fellowship, and then again when they both moved to Chicago. After that, Alan invested money with Zhukov, his friend from the old country.”

  “Who then lost all of Alan’s money, but did he know all this about the Russian Mafia?”

  “What Russian wouldn’t? If he still had any of his marbles, he might be able to help me fill in the details.”

  “But he can’t, and I don’t know what else to do to help you. There are no more viable leads.”

  I disconnected and shut down my computer. The only story left was doing PR for David and Rick’s charity event.

  Part 7

  136

  On Wednesday, the melancholy about my stories disappearing along with the three bodies wasn’t going away, so I went in for a pedicure at David and Rick’s salon. Usually I never schedule one until it’s officially summertime and I’ll be wearing sandals or flip-flops, but I needed to relax and pamper myself.

  While my feet soaked in the warm water, I scooted down in the soft chair and closed my eyes. Kerry and Macy’s faces bobbed up into my subconscious. This was one reason I didn’t do this more frequently; with working on stories and being a mom and a wife, I never had time.

  I smelled coffee before I opened my eyes. David stood beside me sipping a Venti Starbucks.

  “Daydreaming?” he asked.

  “This feels so good,” I said. “I was wondering why I don’t do this more often.”

  “Mommy, you don’t have time. You need to finish up on the Russian story, then you can do the publicity for our event.”

  “You’re right,” I said as I wiggled my toes in the water, “but this is amazing.”

  I sat up when the woman approached to begin scrubbing the dead skin off my feet.

  “I’m putting a hold on the Zhukov story,” I said.

  “You found the money? I hope you saved some for us.”

  “Writing a story is all about uncovering solid facts that I can document and prove. After spending a considerable amount of my time on this, the only documentation I have is Alan’s background.” I didn’t want to add that investigating the Russian Mafia scared the crap out of me.

  “Tell me, tell me.”

  I did.

  David shook his head when I finished. “I knew Alan had secrets in his closet, but I never dreamed being a Russian was one of them.”

  “Are there other secrets about him I need to know?” I asked. “Maybe his story isn’t dead.”

  “Sweetie, there are so many things about Alan that I can’t even begin to tell you, but some of them are best kept between us boys.”

  Huh?

  I made a mental note to find out more about that at a later date. David went back to work. I watched as the woman began to cut and file my toenails. This was getting frustrating. Would learning any more about Alan make a difference in my being able to write the Zhukov story? David knew something, but I doubted that it had to do with Zhukov.

  Before I decided what to do next, I had to face the pedicure moment of truth. I needed to select a color. Rick came over to the pedicure station as I was going blind trying to pick the perfect hue.

  “Honey, it’s not springtime yet, but it’s close.” He thumbed through the bottles. “I’m thinking this one.” He handed it to me. “Hot Pink.”

  Whoa.

  “Don’t you think it’s too bright for early April?”

  “Think Chicago. Think no sun. We need color here!” He took the bottle out of my hand. “Slap it on, Cheri. The shade will blast her out of her funk.”

  He turned to me. “David told me about Alan. The little stinker never said he was Russian. Maybe he’s a spy. That would make a fabulous story.”

  “Yeah, right, I can see that headline. Chicago doctor with dementia spies for the Russians. Maybe they can make it into a twelve-part story for cable TV.”

  137

  Thursday night, the Irregulars walked onto the Main Dance Floor of The Max, a dance club that bills itself as the best LGBTQ dance club in the Midwest. It’s in the River North area on North Clark, one block away from The Baton Show Lounge, a Chicago institution in the LGBTQ community.

  The first floor is 12,000 square feet and almost two stories high. There were multicolored flashing lights, three wrecking ball-sized rotating disco balls, and a pounding beat blaring out of the speakers that surrounded us.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Unreal,” Cas said.

  “It’s changed since I was here last,” Molly said. “They’ve added another disco ball.”

  “Why are we here?” Linda asked.

  “David and Rick invited me to see a rehearsal of a show they’re directing for a fundraiser,” I said.

  “What charity?” Linda asked.

  “The Imperial Windy City Court of the Prairie State,” I responded.

  “I went to that last year,” Molly said. “It’s really cool.”

  None of us were going to ask her why she attended.

  “They want me to write a story about it and also thought I needed to have some fun since all of my stories suck,” I said. “I called you guys to come here and see it with me.”

  “It appears they want us to observe another part of their lives,” Linda said, as a familiar-looking, tall, slender brunette walked toward us. She wore a red, floor-length ball gown slit up to her right thigh. Her hair was piled high on her head with ringlets framing her face. Her heavy makeup was flawless.

  “I love her hair,” Cas said, as she came closer.

  “I love her shoes,” Molly said, pointing at the red, five-inch heels she wore.

  “I love her style,” I said.

  She stood in front of us and did a runway pose.

  “Well you should, honey,” she said.

  That voice!

  “David?” I asked.

  “Not David,” he said. “When I’m at events like this, I am Salza.”

  “I, ah, I...” I stuttered. “I’m speechless.”

  “Obviously.” He did a slow spin with his arms outspread. “Well, kids, what do you think?”

  “I’m impressed with how fit your body is,” Cas said.

  “I had to take a diuretic to get into this tight dress, otherwise my tummy would poochie-poo.”

  “The dress is spectacular,” Molly said. “And I love your shoes.”

  “Jimmy Choos. They fit me perfectly.”

  Linda held up her hand to stop us. “Would someone please tell me what is going on here?”

  “This is the way, as Frankie says, I roll,” he said.

  “What about Rick?” I asked.

  “Do you mean Czar Rick?” he asked.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “That would make you Czarina David.”

  “Close, sweetie, but no tiara,” he said. “It’s Czarina Salza.”

  “Oh, for sure. How could I be so stupid?”

  “Guys!” Linda said. “What the hell is happening here?”

  “I am a female impersonator,” David said.

  “What does that even mean?” Cas asked.

  “That he’s a man who dresses and acts like a woman,” Molly said. “When I was modeling, a lot of them were my buddies. We used to share shoes, since I’m so tall and have bigger feet than most women.”