by Rita Lakin
No, she is going with her heart. She feels her father is nearby. She laughs at her self-delusion. But it’s all she has going for her.
So many Woodleys. Eight of them listed in the county phone book.
Grimly, she thinks, one by one, she will call or visit all of them.
She types out a list of her means of approach. As she copies and pastes and her latte grows cold, she silently practices her phone approach. Hello, my name is Tori Steiner. I’m looking for a couple named Woodley. No, I don’t know their first names, but they would be about fifty. They lived in Fort Lauderdale in or around 1980 …
She is aware of something occurring at the counter behind her; is it some argument with the barista about their coffee? But, whatever, she doesn’t want to be disturbed, or worse, involved. She ignores the ruckus.
She dials the first number. She hasn’t passed reciting ‘a couple named Woodley …’ when she hears a surly male voice ‘Not interested!’ Slam, bang hang-up!
The second call reaches a woman who must have been deaf. She keeps saying, ‘I don’t want any, whatever you’re selling. Don’t call me again! Damn politicians!’ And then she, too, hangs up.
Tori is on her third disappointing call when she is aware that there are two policemen in the coffee shop. She is suddenly nervous.
One of them taps her on the shoulder. She takes the ear buds out. For a moment she panics. Do they know who she is? And how she left the Steiners? Have they been searching for her? Has she made a mistake and her past has caught up to her?
‘Yes?’ she asks, timidly.
He looks surprised. ‘Weren’t you aware that the coffee shop has just been robbed?’
Tori sighs, greatly relieved. It’s not about her. She responds by pointing to her ear buds. ‘No, no idea. I didn’t hear anything.’
‘You didn’t happen to see anything? An elderly woman at the counter with a gun?’
She looks around. There’s a small group of people milling about; police questioning them. The barista is waving his arms wildly.
Tori shrugs. ‘I guess I was so busy … doing my homework … I didn’t hear or see anything. Sorry.’
The policeman thanks her and walks back to the others, shaking his head.
Tori quickly gathers her belongings, shoving them into her backpack. Time to get out of here, she decides.
FOURTEEN
High Tea with a Lowly Thief
We have arrived. We get out of my old Chevy wagon and share a look of surprise. This is where Izzy, the infamous Grandpa Bandit, lives? Well, yeah, I guess so. This is the address he gave us. Once a fancy neighborhood, now fallen on not-such-good times. The house in front of us is one of the early mini-mansions of Fort Lauderdale.
Evvie wonders aloud, ‘Is Izzy renting? Is Izzy actually an owner? Did Izzy buy it, maybe in foreclosure?’
Bella shakes her head. ‘Don’t start with “is he Izzy” stuff again. It gives me a headache.’
Sophie offers to translate. Like talking to a three-year-old. ‘It goes like this. Your name is Bella. My name is Sophie. Grandpa Bandit’s name is Izzy.’
‘Oy, you did it again. Is this guy Izzy?’
We head for the front door. Ida has had enough. ‘Forget it, already. Where’s our housewarming gift?’
Bella rushes back to the car. ‘I forgot.’
We all turn to look at her. ‘Did it spill?’ I ask with trepidation. Not a good idea for Bella to be in charge.
I see Sophie bending over the back seat, wiping away water with tissues. ‘Not too bad,’ she mutters. She lifts our gift aloft.
‘Is the goldfish still in the bowl?’ I’m afraid to look.
‘Alive and kicking,’ she reports.
There had been a heated discussion on housewarming gifts earlier. Sophie wanted to know, ‘What do you buy a crook for his housewarming? Handcuffs?’
Evvie couldn’t resist. ‘A set of lock picks?’
Sophie came up with another. ‘A nice pair of running sneakers?’
I comment, ‘I’m sure he’ll be happy just to have us over.’
Bella tries to work this discussion out in her overcrowded, bewildered head.
Goldfish wins.
Ida, impatient as always, heads for the door and rings the bell. We hurry behind her. Sophie, of course, is being careful with our little gold passenger.
The heavy coat-of-arms-encrusted door opens. And the bantam-sized lord of the manor answers, cravat around his neck, wearing British tweed and carrying a martini.
‘Mesdames, entrez-vous,’ Izzy says with a French accent, sort of.
We walk in and are suitably impressed. High-ceilinged, beautiful entrée hall with round oak table in the center holding a huge bouquet of seasonal flowers. Doors leading to other rooms. A massive, impressive walnut staircase stands before us.
‘Welcome, welcome,’ cries out our host, ‘what’s this you are carrying?’
Bella, ‘A special gift for you.’ She hands him the fish bowl.
Sophie, ‘We brought you a housewarming gift.’
Izzy bends over the fish bowl, waving his pinky finger over its rim. ‘Kitchy-kitchy coo. Adorable. I always wanted un poisson.’
Bella, horrified, ‘Our little fishie is not poisoned!’
Izzy looks at her, eyebrows raised. ‘I certainly hope not.’
Bella, at her most confused, thanks him.
We shake our heads, no point in trying to explain Izzy to Bella. Or vice versa.
Izzy takes the fish bowl, indicates that they stay where they are. In a few moments, he returns, fish-bowl-less. He announces, ‘Let me give you the grand tour.’
The girls can hardly wait. They gather round him, and follow eagerly.
Izzy skips from room to room, indicating with many flourishes. Though I notice a genteel shabbiness to the furniture. Downstairs, a massive tile-floored kitchen. Old-fashioned stove and fridge. A library room with walls of books that don’t look as if they were ever read. Three separate bathrooms. Impressive. Upstairs, four bedrooms. Very fancy. Lots of silks and satins. The fabrics around the four-poster beds seem threadbare. Miles of oak polished floors. Three more bathrooms. All in all, a very large, impressive place.
The portraits on the walls look like lords and ladies of another era. I wonder if they came with the house. The girls are dying of curiosity (a rather unfortunate phrase). I’m about to ask the question on all their minds when Bella does a Bella. We have a name for it – we call it blurting, or hoof-in-mouth disease.
Says she, ‘You must have robbed a hundred banks so you could buy this place.’
Evvie gently puts her hand over Bella’s mouth. ‘You forgot, dear, that Izzy gave all that bank money away to help elderly sick people in need.’
Ever so cheery, Izzy ignores the comments. He is busy pointing out this, pointing out that. The girls remain in drooling mode.
We think the tour is over, but Izzy says, ‘Let me show you my back patio and then, over tea, I’ll tell you all about the house. You’re gonna get a kick out of my view.’
And what an unexpected view it is. There is a vacant lot between the house and the next street, which consists of many different stores. And to our distress there is a branch of SunTrust Bank right next to a Starbucks.
Izzy jumps up and down. ‘A SunTrust bank almost in my back yard. One of my earliest conquests. Isn’t that a hoot!’
Evvie takes on a lip-pursed schoolmarm look. ‘Now, now. I thought you said you were retired.’
‘I did. I did. I am. I am. I am retired. Cross my heart, and hope to die, I’ll never rob another bank again. I swear every SunTrust is safe. First Citizen Bank is safe. Legacy is safe. So is B of A and PNC. As safe as a virgin in an all-male college dorm.’ He smirks at his little joke.
‘Good man,’ I say, ignoring the joke.
He giggles, waving at the bank. ‘Too bad. I coulda walked back and forth from my yard to this one. I bet they’d remember me.’
For the grand finale, he shows us an
old beat-up wooden mini-garage with its connected metal storage shed, explaining that in years gone by garages were built toward the rear of the house and had room for only one car. ‘Wanna see my fancy car? It’s an Edsel.’ He points to the rear end of a large auto, sticking almost totally out of the narrow garage.
No interest. With a last, longing look back at SunTrust bank he sighs dramatically. ‘Tea is being served.’
The elegant drawing room is where we will have our tea. Seated in eighteenth-century walnut Queen Anne wing chairs, with tapestry covering and matching footstools. One could almost imagine a butler showing up and serving us. Lovely.
Our goldfish (with goldfish food) now has its home on a lush white marble fireplace mantel. Our gift once again is appreciated by Izzy. Sophie suggests it’s the perfect pet. ‘Low maintenance.’
As our host pours tea for us, my curiosity takes me to a black-and-white photo atop an antique baby grand piano. It is of a man and a small boy.
Izzy sees me and frowns. ‘That’s me, and my son at age nine. Another failure in my life. I wasn’t much good as a husband, or as a father. We no longer speak. Chaz moved to the West Coast to get as far away from his useless dad as he could.’
It’s a painful subject so I drop it. Speaking of painful subjects, Sophie walks around the room trying to balance her tea and cookies. ‘Sophie, why not sit down—?’
She interrupts me. ‘I’m looking for a chair I can get out of.’
‘Here we go again with your aches and pains.’ Ida, without Tori, has reverted to her old cranky self.
Izzy helps Sophie into one of the Queen Anne armchairs. He puts a pillow behind her back and lifts her legs, gently placing them on the footstool. ‘This should help. Are you in pain, a lot?’ asks the guy who, in his past criminal days, knew much about old-age hurting.
Sophie nods, and would go on and on, with an endless list of complaints, so Ida doesn’t let her start. ‘Just drink your tea.’
Izzy asks Sophie, still interested, ‘Have you thought about medical marijuana? Helps a lot of people.’
The girls look at Izzy with alarm. No millennials here. We are of the generation that is taken aback by drug usage. Sophie finally says, ‘Thanks for your kind suggestion, but I really couldn’t.’
Time for me to change the subject. ‘So, Izzy, tell us about the house.’
‘Surprise. I was born here. My parents owned this place. Yeah, those fancy-schmancy portraits are my ancestors. My pop was a high-class crook; he worked in the stock market. I got married, so my wife and child lived here, too. Then my parents died, and so did my marriage. My wife dumped me. My son took off as soon as he could.’
Evvie is enthralled. ‘You could have sold this house for a fortune. Maybe you still can. You didn’t need to be a crook.’
Izzy’s head hangs low. ‘I had nothing in my life. Rich kid. Wasted years. Dealing with stocks and bonds bored me. I disappointed daddy-o. I quit trying to follow in his boring footsteps. I needed something that made me glad to get up in the morning. When I got older I found my happy hobby. Stealing do-re-mi to help old folks who needed surgery.’
Sophie adds, gushing, ‘You were so good at it. Loved the plastic gun in the pastrami sandwiches.’
Izzy blushes, pleased with the compliment. He shrugs. ‘Jail time reformed me finally, and now you’re caught up. Here I am. I’m looking into another happy hobby.’
‘You could raise goldfish,’ Bella suggests with a goofy smile.
He smiles back. ‘Enough about me. Let’s eat.’
We enjoy our jasmine tea with clotted cream, little crust-less cheese sandwiches, scones with strawberry jam and for dessert, petit fours. And a small sip of dry sherry. A good time is had by all. He gives us each a goodbye pat and off we leave to go back home.
I sense something dangerous is staring us in the face; how could we ever guess what it is.
FIFTEEN
Dinner with my Son-in-Law, the Cop
We are having dinner at our favorite family-owned Greek restaurant in Margate, Jack, Morgan and I. Jack’s son is known as Morrie, to us all. Jack had been a policeman in New York years ago, and his son followed in his police footsteps. I look at this young, handsome guy at forty and I can imagine what his father looked like at that age. As far as I’m concerned his dad is just as handsome today, the only difference is gray hair and years of experience becoming the wonderful senior he is.
Morrie is stationed at our local precinct. He is our go-to cop when Gladdy Gold and Associates have cases that need law enforcement backup. Besides, he’s adorable and very kind to his mom-in-law. Since he is usually too busy to visit, this is our monthly planned get-together dinner for catch-up time. Occasionally crime gets in the way, but most times we manage to make our dinner dates.
Jack lets me do all the talking. He eats with relish; I jabber in between bites.
During the avgolemono Greek lemon soup, a favorite, I regale him with tales of tea with our reformed robber, Grandpa Bandit, aka Izzy; he, the lord of the manor, who promises never to rob another bank again.
With our horiatiki, Greek salad, and zatziki, cucumber yogurt dip, I fill him in on Ida’s unexpected visitor, the angry grandchild, and how she has affected her. And of the girl’s private forays around town in search of something, which information she refuses to share with anybody. And of some dangerous mystery men who might be after her.
I also include the wild adventure with the alligator in the bottom of the pool, which has Morrie shaking with laughter.
By the time we are digging into our moussaka, our delicious lamb and eggplant casserole, Morrie has dozens of questions to ask me. Through chuckles. ‘An alligator at the bottom of the pool. Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Does reformed bank robber Izzy actually live in a mansion?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you believe him when he said he was retired?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Is Ida all right?’
‘Not her usual feisty self.’
Morrie shakes his head. ‘That’s quite some mystery around her grandchild. What do you know so far?’
I let Jack take over, he’s better at compiling. Besides, he’s through eating and my moussaka is getting cold.
Mr Papadopoulos, the owner, comes over to make sure we regular customers are happy. We are. We exchange pleasantries; learn Mr P. is to become a grandfather for the fifth time. We congratulate him.
When he leaves us to continue to enjoy our meal, Jack answers Morrie’s questions.
Jack fills him in about the crime and what happened. ‘What we know so far is that Ida caused her daughter, Helen, to end up with a long prison sentence. It’s now about sixteen years; the woman is still incarcerated. And Ida was supposed to raise the three grandchildren, but she fled.’
I take over, allowing Jack to enjoy his baklava. ‘Ida’s three grandchildren were left to be raised by their other grandparents, which Ida now knows was a terrible mistake; apparently they were cruel. A horrible experience for the girls. What we don’t know is why the youngest of the three, Gloria, who calls herself Tori, is now staying with Ida. It’s not as if she just ran away from home to be with her other grandmother. She behaves as if she hates Ida. So why would she come to live with her? Doesn’t make any sense.’
Jack stops to sip his retsina wine, and then recites his interpretation. ‘Since Tori’s been here, she wanders around town by herself, plays down the story of the alleged potential killers and is utterly unkind to Ida. She seems to have plenty of money. Who, or what, she’s looking for, or if she’s even looking for anything or anyone, we have no idea. We don’t know why she is here.’
I add, ‘Nor do we know how long she is staying.’
Morrie muses, ‘Go back to the part about the potential killers. We might assume she met up with them before she left LA or somewhere on her way to Florida. Anything that might give you a clue?’
I shake my head. ‘She hasn’t talked about why s
he left LA. As for on the road, the only town she mentioned staying over was La Mesa in New Mexico. That was about two weeks ago. She apparently met a number of men there. Wait a minute; she mentioned being upset that some of them had tattoos. Then again, tattoos are fairly common these days.’
Morrie leans back in his chair, content with his meal. ‘Quite a story.’
‘Enough about our little excitement, what’s happening in your life?’ I ask.
Morrie raises his hands as if to push the question away. ‘Now, now, Mama Gladdy, my personal life remains personal.’
I pretend innocence. ‘Would I pry? Would I ask if there’s someone special in your life? Not I.’
Jack and Morrie both laugh. I am guilty of wanting him to find some lovely person and settle down. It hasn’t happened yet. Jack changes the subject. ‘Anything new down at the station?’
‘Same old. Same old. Wife-beaters. Breakings and enterings, drive-by shootings.’ Morrie is teasing, because we are lucky to be in a relatively safe area. ‘However,’ he says, ‘something is new. There have been recent hold-up robberies at various Starbucks coffee shops. Of all places. Witnesses swear the crime is carried out by a little old lady. So, get this, now we have a Grandma Bandit. How about that?’ He grins.
Suddenly, I get this cold draft down my neck. Our Grandpa Bandit’s words come back to me. ‘I swear I’ll never rob another bank again. I swear. But I am looking into a new hobby.’ My mind flashes on Izzy’s back yard. What was that place next to the SunTrust bank in the street below where he lived? Next to the bank where he would no longer rob again? A Starbucks, that’s what. Could it be? Izzy in drag? He likes dressing up in costumes. That little devil.
Jack looks at me, puzzled. ‘Something wrong with your food?’
I shake my head. But my mind is no longer on my dessert. Something clicks. I am pretty sure Gladdy Gold and Associates have a new crime to solve.
PART FOUR
The Past Revealed
SIXTEEN
Tori Story – Bye-Bye Baby