“Do you want me to quit the Snapdragon story, because I will if you do,” I said.
“No,” she answered in a heartbeat.
“You sure?”
“No,” she admitted, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “But we need the money, and there’s no evidence there’s any danger from one phone call. It could even have been a wrong number.”
“Maybe it was a telemarketer for a security service, doing the set-up call.” Abby smiled. As always, that was reward enough for me.
“Where are you going to go with the story?” she asked, moving into professional-Abby mode. “You can’t report it by reading the other reporters’ stuff.”
I sat at the kitchen table. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I told her. “Well, Friday I’ll have lunch with Steph, and she’ll give me more details about their marriage, and what she knows about the way Legs died.”
“And where will that lead?”
I shrugged. “Where it leads. I don’t intend to move down to D.C. for months until something happens. I don’t think you want me to do that, either.”
“Of course not. Who’d take out the garbage?”
“Please, I’m overwhelmed with your sense of romance. Anyway, after I have some more to go on, I’ll know where to go.” I could hear the kids arguing in the living room about which side of the couch one or the other of them was inhabiting, so I stood up and headed in that direction.
“Sure, run from your problems,” said my wife.
I turned back to face her. “Another crack like that,” I said, “and you’re going to have trouble getting me into bed tonight.” I pivoted back toward the living room.
Abby chuckled. “Yeah, right,” she said.
Chapter
Fourteen
Louis Gibson’s funeral was a television event unparalleled since the last television event, and certain not to be eclipsed until the next television event. The President did, as advertised, show up, although he did not speak. Stephanie, to the disappointment of any heterosexual man over the age of 35 (and a good number of them under 35), was dressed, conservatively, in black. She dispensed with the traditional veil, and therefore managed to avoid looking like Lady Bird Johnson.
Standing next to Stephanie were her two sons, whom CNN identified as “Louis Jr., 22, and Jason, 17.” Next to them was Legs’ brother, and CNN was once again helping out, telling me his name was Lester Gibson, and that he was three years older than Louis.
From what I could tell, he was a couple of inches shorter than Stephanie, and shorter than Legs, too, and had opted to avoid the hideous comb-over Abrams had noted, in favor of a toupee that looked like someone had tossed a Caesar salad onto his head.
Stephanie did not appear to speak to Lester, her sons, or anyone else during the service. To her credit, she didn’t weep openly, considering how little she seemed to be grieving for Legs when I had spoken to her. Lester looked a little shook up, and had to keep taking off his dark sunglasses to mop at his eyes.
Legs’ mother, Louise Gibson, was doing more than just dabbing at her eyes. She was letting loose on national television. Her sobs could be heard over the commentator’s whispered tones (to remind us that this was a funeral, and not the opening of trading at the New York Stock Exchange, but a tone which unfortunately sounded more like the play-by-play at a golf match). At one point, her knees almost buckled, but Jason held his grandmother steady.
He and his brother, lucky boys that they were, favored their mother. Junior had Stephanie’s almond-shaped eyes and graceful chin, and Jason, the younger one, still hadn’t lost all his baby fat, but did not, as best as I could tell from his infrequent close-ups, resemble his father, which is all either of Crazy Legs’ sons could hope for, really. Maybe they’d both keep their hair, too. Rich kids have that kind of luck.
The eulogies were impressive, if your political bent was just to the right of Genghis Khan. Anti-abortionists, anti-civil rights activists, anti-just-about-everything-elses, all spoke of what a dear and valuable friend they had lost. I couldn’t help thinking the country was in a considerably more positive condition now that Legs had bitten the big one, but rebuked myself that such thinking was cruel and insensitive. Besides, there were fifteen more just like him looking to take his place. No doubt the jockeying for position had already begun.
I discussed the funeral and its impact on my career with Mahoney as I drove us to racquetball that night. Mahoney and I had started playing racquetball when it was the hot new sport in the mid-eighties, and had been playing, on and (mostly) off, since then. We’d taken it up again recently, having separately despaired of our waistlines and inability to run up the stairs the way we imagined we used to. Of course, my waistline was more an issue than Mahoney’s, since he gets some sort of exercise or another running around New Jersey fixing broken transmissions and other automotive ills for a large car rental agency based at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR).
The racquetball itself was immaterial, anyway. Especially to me, since I always lost. What was important was the time I got to spend with my closest friend, letting him needle me until I wanted to jam a racquet down his throat, handle last. There are friendships, and there are friendships.
I was driving, so the cassette deck, and not Mahoney’s ancient 8-track player, was ruling the musical choices. Mahoney was always interested in new music, but it never failed to compare unfavorably in his eyes to his Sixties and Seventies favorites. Still, he was willing to listen to the A.J. Croce album I had on, particularly after he heard A.J. is the late Jim’s son.
“He’s not bad, but he doesn’t sound like his old man,” he said, adjusting the volume from dominating to audible. “He’s got that gravelly voice, like Rod Stewart.”
“Not sounding like your old man can be a real plus,” I said. “Think how it’ll help Steph’s kids if they don’t talk like Legs.”
Mahoney sat back and sighed. “I can see this is going to be a theme evening.”
“I’m trying to work it out.”
“So you’re obsessing. That’s how you work things out.” Mahoney played with the fan button on the heater, then noticed the heater wasn’t turned on, and forgot about it.
“If you’ve got a better method, I’d like to hear about it,” I said. The guy in the BMW ahead of me had decided turn signals weren’t necessary for those with upper six-figure incomes, and I’d nearly plowed into him, swerving at the last second. Mahoney hadn’t batted an eye.
“It’s whatever works for you,” he said. “Me, I like to take stock. What do you know for sure?”
I was trying to remember which right turn I was supposed to make. “Almost nothing. I know Legs had become some kind of right wing lunatic and somebody stuck a big knife into him just when he was done playing Hide the Cocktail Frank with his latest in a series of blond secretarial school drop-outs.”
“It’s nice you’re not taking this story personally,” Mahoney said.
“You’re not helping.”
“And you’re not trying. You’re letting a 25-year-old crush on Stephanie Jacobs cloud your judgment.”
I found the correct turn, but had to jam on the brakes to make it. Looking at Mahoney, you’d have thought he was watching an unusually slow-moving game of chess. “What judgment?” I asked. “I’m not letting any crush do anything, since I haven’t got anything to go on yet.”
“When a man gets himself killed in the apartment of his mistress, the first place to look is. . .”
“. . . With his wife, yes, but you and I both know Steph was two hundred and fifty miles away when it happened, because we were standing in the same room with her.” I pulled into the parking lot at the Hillsborough Racquet and Fitness Club, and quickly found a space.
Mahoney got out of the car and pulled his gym bag from the back seat. “We know she was there when the cops called her, because we saw her take the call,” he said. “How long had Crazy Legs been dead before they called her?”
“I don’t know.�
��
“Exactly. Were there fingerprints in the room other than Crazy Legs’ and the blonde’s?”
“I don’t know.”
“Even more exactly. Did Stephanie make a big withdrawal from her bank account recently, maybe to pay somebody who might like to stick a knife into her cheating husband?”
“I don’t. . .”
We started up the stairs to the lobby door. “That’s my point. If you weren’t still living in 1977, you’d be asking these questions. But it’s Stephanie Jacobs and her unbelievable body, so you’re giving her a pass.”
He opened the door for me and we went into the club. “I hate it when you’re right,” I sighed.
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, pal. Wait’til you see the new serve I’ve developed.” I groaned. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter
Fifteen
The faxes from McCloskey began arriving on a daily basis, each one less informative than its predecessor. After a few days, I started putting the same sheet of paper in the fax machine at night, and after a few days, it was completely black.
I’ll spare you the gory details of my night of racquetball. Suffice it to say I got all the exercise I so richly desired. Still, after the usual pandemonium the next morning, I managed to drag my sorry butt to the car and drove to the local YM/YWHA, where I perform those tasks I laughingly refer to as a “workout.”
The Y was once a very large residence, a brick structure parked in one corner of Midland Heights that overlooks the Raritan River and reminds us of the good old days, when Midland Heights actually had the room to include a home with 23 rooms, columns in the front, 20-foot ceilings, and four fireplaces.
About 30 years ago, it was determined that said residence was far too grand for a town like ours, and so it was bought by the YM/YWHA, converted into a public facility and, eventually, expanded to include an indoor, Olympic-sized pool, a Jewish pre-school, a basketball court, a couple of meeting rooms and, to my everlasting consternation, a “fitness center,” where young and (especially) old alike could kill themselves on any number of torture devices.
My current device of choice was something called an “elliptical trainer,” which presents itself as a sort of “Stairmaster-Meets-NordicTrack” contraption, requiring constant pedaling motion by its user, who is not allowed the luxury of sitting down, as with the old exercise bicycles. Level of incline and resistance can be regulated through a control panel, and the thing is actually sadistic enough to tick off the seconds you’ve spent and the calories you’ve burned on an LED screen right in front of your face.
Among the initiated, we call the elliptical trainer by its more appropriate name, “The Medieval Instrument of Torture,” or “MIT,” if you’re an acronym fan.
I had my Walkman headphones on, and was playing a compilation cassette I’d made of fast-paced, inspirational songs by Paul McCartney, ELO, Santana, Sam Phillips, Matchbox 20, Bare-naked Ladies, and Fastball, among others. If the beat is fast, you’ll move your torso quickly to keep up with it. At least that’s the theory.
I try to avoid looking at the other people in the room while I’m working out. For one thing, I wouldn’t be too nuts about them looking at me. I’ve been meaning to talk to the Y management for years about their sadistic predisposition toward putting mirrors right in front of the MIT. But I also keep my eyes averted because the Y’s fitness center is often populated with Jewish exercisers over the age of 70, and that’s a preview of coming attractions I can live without, thank you. If I’m ever spotted on the MIT wearing corduroy pants, black, orthopedic shoes, and a button-down short-sleeve shirt, it’ll be time to put me out of my misery.
So I usually close my eyes and let the tape motivate me as best it can. But today, I was on the lookout for the nosy type of parent who can be of help in any story involving the Midland Heights school district, and I got lucky. Faith Feldstein took the MIT right next to mine about five minutes after I got on.
Faith, a past president of the PTO at Buzbee School and present Board of Education member, is the queen of Midland Heights concerned parents, which is to say, she is never happy with the way the school system deals with anything, and is therefore a prime source of information and gripes on any school-related subject.
I had to admit, though, that working out had benefited her greatly. In the slinky unitard she was wearing, it was clear she’d lost a good 20 pounds in the past year, and was looking quite fit, for a woman in her early forties, or for that matter, any other age. I, on the other hand, was wearing a baggy pair of sweat pants from the Gap and a T-shirt announcing the upcoming video release of Forrest Gump, so you can imagine how swell my ensemble was making me look. I nodded in Faith’s direction, and she smiled the vague smile you get when someone isn’t exactly sure how they know you.
“How you doing, Faith?” I said. “Is Estella having a good school year?”
Her mind immediately compartmentalized me, and she knew how to respond. Faith rolled her eyes. “It’s been a nightmare,” she said. “She’s not being challenged by the curriculum at all. Gifted children are totally ignored by this school district.”
I knew Faith’s daughter Estella from Leah’s Brownie troop, and the only time she’s actually “gifted” is on the first night of Chanukah. I let that go, however, and nodded at Faith in a sympathetic manner.
“Did you hear about this stink bomb thing?” I asked as casually as I could. But I did pump a little harder on the MIT.
Her eyes practically sprang out of her head, and since she only had the MIT on level 2 for resistance, I knew I’d struck a nerve. “It’s a disgrace!” she said loudly enough that a 75-year-old codger on the treadmill halfway across the room took off his headphones and stared at her. “Some little hooligan thinks he can ruin three days for a bunch of girls who just want to play soccer, or close the gym for three whole days, and they’re going to let him get away with it. Why, Karen Mystroft’s little girl didn’t even want to go to school the next day, she was so upset.”
Hooligan?
For the moment, I shook the word out of my head and concentrated on the task at hand, ignoring the fact that Faith didn’t care if boys couldn’t use the bathroom, because she doesn’t have a son. “Him? You know who did it?” I asked.
“Well, it was obviously a boy,” she replied, with the air of someone explaining that the sky is, indeed, blue. She also said the word “boy” with the same inflection most people reserve for “slug.” “A girl wouldn’t have thrown such a projectile into her own locker room,” she added.
“Why not? I would have been happy to throw a stink bomb into my high school locker room if I didn’t have to shower with Harold Ramiriak for a week.”
Holy mackerel, did I say that out loud? Worse, could Faith actually know Harold Ramiriak? The way she was looking at me, it was possible she’d actually showered with him, and believed it to be a more enjoyable experience than she was having now.
“Of course,” I added, trying to cover my faux pas, “I was a boy.”
Faith chose to ignore me, which is something I’m used to. “Any way you look at it, it’s the administration’s fault,” she went on after a stunned pause. “Things just haven’t been the same since Mr. Ramsey left.”
Elliot Ramsey, the principal of Buzbee for seven years before Anne Mignano took over, was the type of self-help psychologist, crunchy-granola-bar principal that Midland Heights took to its bosom. I’d met him only once, since my children hadn’t started yet at Buzbee when he left, but his sneaker-wearing, benignly smiling demeanor practically begged for New Age music to be played behind him as a soundtrack. By some parents in the school district, he was considered to be an appropriate candidate for sainthood. Thus, one didn’t argue with Mr. Ramsey.
So I didn’t. I nodded reverently, then adopted the most confidential tone I could muster, and leaned over toward her. She almost recoiled, thinking I had designs on her fabulous body, but then she realized I was going to speak quietly, and leane
d toward me expectantly.
“Who do you think did it?” I asked, as if I had my own suspicions and wanted her to confirm them.
Faith looked profoundly disappointed, and went back to pumping away on the MIT. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” she said, looking away from me. She spotted another soccer mom walking in, and waved, doing her best to point herself in another direction. “Hi, Marcie!” she cried, and was soon involved in a heated discussion of Harry Potter vs. Lemony Snicket.
I put my headphones on and cranked up Fastball so I would-n’t have to hear the conversation taking place to my right. But no matter how loud the music was, it couldn’t drown out one question left over from the last conversation: Did she actually say hooligan?
Chapter
Sixteen
After a shower at home (I wouldn’t shower at the Y for fear of getting athlete’s everything), I dressed for lunch with Stephanie, and headed to R.W. Muntbugger’s, a New Brunswick restaurant so adorable you pretty much want to adopt it and take it home with you.
New Brunswick, NJ is the home of Rutgers, the state university. In the 1970s, when I was an undergraduate there, New Brunswick was a depressed little city with a glorious past (Benjamin Franklin and John Adams used to get drunk there) and a lot of porno theatres. But since then, the city has undergone something of a renaissance, mostly due to the continued presence of its number one benefactor, the Johnson & Johnson company.
These days, downtown New Brunswick still has a number of stores that sell cheap merchandise to the people who actually live in the city. But it also boasts any number of trendy restaurants, three separate live theatre venues, a wine store, and an Ethiopian boutique. Not a porno theatre (or, for that matter, a movie theatre) anywhere to be found. This, in New Jersey, is called “progress.”
A Farewell to Legs Page 7