Lucky Leonardo

by Jonathan D. Canter

  The Jewish was only half kosher, like swordfish or oral sex. His mother was and his father wasn’t talking. “I get more from chanting Belafonte,” was as close as dad got to enunciating his creed, spoken in response to little Leonardo’s request that dad sit with him during the service like the other dads at the Fathers and Sons Service, to be followed by a sports luncheon.

  Barbara was cool to Belafonte and the rest of Leonardo’s cultural and religious heritage, believing the world began the day she was born, and the less mumbo-jumbo the better. “Shoot me in the eye,” she said to Leonardo in their salad days, “if I ever pray for divine guidance.”

  Which made the Jewish a comfortable place, like deli or a resort in the Catskills, for Leonardo to retreat to when he found himself feeling alone and worthless after Barbara left. Of course, his loneliness eased some when Barbara’s former girlfriend Elaine made herself available as a healer, on two consecutive weekends, and later when he chanced upon FWLIC (Female With Little In Common) Chrissie whipping lattes and blending frappuccinos behind the Starbucks counter. “A large coffee,” he said.

  “Do you come here often?” Chrissie asked.

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Because you don’t know our terminology.”

  Chrissie was a pretty girl, slender, with soft brown eyes and a creamy complexion, and young enough to be his daughter. They started going to rock concerts and restaurants. She liked to ride in his Corvette. She didn’t ask why he spent so much time staring out the window. He remembered her—that he was supposed to meet her for dinner and had forgotten to call—halfway down the corridor to Eugene Binh’s locked office as he walked under the watchful eye of a motion-activated surveillance camera after being launched on his mission by the Mulverne team with solemn handshakes and patriotic blessings, like a kamikaze pilot.

  “Uh, oh,” he muttered, “she’ll be pissed.” But he didn’t break stride. Too late to break stride. When he reached Binh’s door he inhaled, exhaled, and knocked three times.

  “Who’s there?” the inside voice asked.

  “I am Dr. Leonardo Cook. I am a psychiatrist. Mr. Mulverne asked me if I would talk with you.” Leonardo enunciated each word carefully.

  “About what?”

  “About this situation. May I come in?”

  “I don’t need a psychiatrist. I’m not queer.”

  “OK. But have you ever spoken to a psychiatrist?”

  “I want a lawyer, not a psychiatrist.”

  “Let’s talk about it…”

  Leonardo patiently waited. In the corner of his right eye he saw Johnny Angelo lean out of the dark threshold of the nearest office. He waved Johnny out of sight, and was about to walk back to Mulverne to find out why Johnny was there and whether Mulverne had something in mind other than gentle persuasion, when Eugene’s door swung open.

  He was a sight to gasp at. Unshaven, fish-eyed, pale, reminiscent of a man desperately hung-over. Smelling of alcohol too, like he missed his mouth and soaked his shirt. He swung open the door with his left hand, while he held his mouse high in the air for all to see in his right. His finger was on the trigger.

  Leonardo half expected Johnny Angelo to run up his back, like a fast tailback overtaking a slow pulling guard, and lunge for the mouse. But that didn’t happen. There was only silence behind.

  “May I come in?”

  Eugene nodded, and made way. Leonardo entered beneath the up-raised mouse. Eugene scanned the corridor. “I know you bastards are out there,” he snarled like John Wayne at Fort Apache, before closing and re-locking the door.

  Leonardo could see it was a large office, suitable for an important executive, but it was darkening outside now, and little light entered through the rear wall, which was glass from floor to ceiling, and the only internal illumination was from the green glow of three computer screens set on a rectangular table in the center of the room. Crumpled clothes, stacks of paper, food wrappers, computer things, a suitcase, and the rest of the mess strewn about reminded Leonardo of…his son’s room.

  Instead of graciously offering his guest a chair and a drink, and engaging in thoughtful discourse regarding the origin of the stress that was squeezing him into a zombie, Eugene stayed standing in the middle of the room eyeball to eyeball with Leonardo. “I have not ruled out assassination,” Eugene said.

  “You mean that you would shoot…”

  “No, that they’re waiting till I doze off, and then will shoot me, and make up a story about a random bullet…”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think you have to worry about that at all.” Leonardo spoke slowly, and in as calm a voice and with as sincere a face as he could muster. “They’re all really very worried about you. Mr. Mulverne is especially worried…”

  “What did Mulverne say?”

  “He likes you. He’s proud of you. He…”

  “He wants to drop me like shit, and take my Code B. Walk out, slam the door, don’t come back…”

  “Eugene, let’s sit down…”

  “It ain’t going to happen like that, doctor hootchy-kootch. Mine is mine…”

  “Eugene, let’s sit down. Let’s talk about something that’s not about work. Maybe you can tell me the things you like to do. You know, a lot of times things aren’t as bad as they seem. We find answers. Solutions. A way to put things back together…”

  Leonardo reached out a hand, to guide Eugene to one of the office chairs on the dark side of the computer screens. He gently touched Eugene on the forearm. But the touch stunned Eugene. He didn’t see it coming. He yelped like a dog kicked, and jerked away, knocking over a stack of things behind him.

  “No, no, no, Eugene,” Leonardo said. “I don’t want the mouse. I wasn’t going for the mouse…”

  Eugene waggled the index finger of his free hand back and forth in front of Leonardo’s face. “No, no, no, no, doctor.”

  Chapter 5

  “Oh, shit.” said Ben Grevere, “I think it’s over. He’s jumping up and down. He’s waving his arms. He’s really pissed. He’s holding the button. He’s going…going…no, he’s listening to the doc. He’s definitely listening to the doc. He did not press the button. Repeat, he did not press the button. The doc is calming him down. Yes, the doc is calming him down. We’re not dead. It was a close call, I thought we were dead, but we’re still alive!”

  Ben Grevere was talking on his cell phone, from his surveillance post outside Eugene’s window. He was talking in hushed tones, like a golf commentator on television. He had just watched Eugene jerk away from Leonardo’s gentle touch, and almost press the button.

  Ben was attached to the window-washer cords that stretched down from the roof. Johnny Angelo and his assistants had discretely lowered Ben down the window of the office next to Eugene’s, and when his whole body except for his eyes was below the floor line they moved him sideways a wee bit so that he could peer through the lower corner of Eugene’s window from the outside in. A front row seat.

  “He can’t see you,” Johnny Angelo had assured him. “It’s like Eugene and the doc are actors on a stage, and you’re in the audience. They can’t see past the stage lights.”

  “You think that’s how the visuals work?” Brockleman asked Johnny after they started the winch.

  “I’m not sure,” Johnny answered. “I’m not a big theater guy.”

  Mulverne and his committee, now including Johnny Angelo and Roy Mudd, the public relations manager who had taken the day off to go fishing and whose fish were on ice in the trunk of his car, had Ben’s call on speakerphone. They all cheered as the doc talked his way out of the calamity, except for General Counsel Casey who offered counterpoint: “What the fuck is he doing spooking the nut? Let’s find another shrink.”

  “They’re sitting down,” Ben Grevere reported through the speakerphone in his golf commentator tones. “I have a good view of the doc,
not a very good view of Eugene. His head is blocked by the computers. The doc’s talking. The doc’s nodding. Now he’s talking again. Now he’s nodding. I can see Eugene’s hand. Eugene has put down the mouse. Repeat: I can see Eugene’s hand. He has put down the mouse.”

  Mulverne turned to Johnny Angelo, and flashed hand signals like Mulverne was third base coach and Johnny was pinch hitting with the winning run in scoring position.

  “Stay on it, Ben,” Mulverne said into the speakerphone.

  Chapter 6

  “Why did she leave?” Leonardo asked.

  “Money. She wanted more money. She loves money.”

  “They don’t pay you here?”

  “They’re cheap on salary. They lured me with stock options.” Eugene was jittery, but seated and talking. His mouse rested quietly on the floor.

  “Stock options are good, Eugene. I hear Code B might push the stock through the roof….”

  “I hocked my options…”

  “What?”

  “I hocked my options last year, to buy her a new car.”

  “Oh.”

  “Toyota Land Cruiser.”

  “Oh.”

  “Deluxe interior.”

  “Oh.”

  “Code B, which I invented, will make everybody rich but me…” Eugene put his hands over his eyes, and rocked up and down. “I’m a fool…”

  “No. No. Your wife must be pleased that you bought her such a lovely car.”

  “She hates me. She hates the car.”

  “No. No. I’m sure that’s not the case.”

  “I asked Mulverne for a Code B bonus.”

  “And?”

  “He laughed at me. He told me I should negotiate my deals before and not after. ‘That’s the American way’ he told me. Hah, hah, hah, hah. The fucking American way. Hah, hah, hah, hah.” Eugene laughed a rattling, wheezy, unhealthy laugh, which went on and on until he lost control of it and started shooting snot out of his mouth and his nose, and large tears dripped from his eyes. “I think I must kill myself…,” he said.

  Johnny Angelo, who had jimmied the lock on the door, and slipped inside Eugene’s office, and silently crept across the debris-strewn floor to within striking range, and crouched there in the dim light as still as a cat on the hunt, took advantage of Eugene’s despairing moment and pounced on the unattended mouse. Eugene made a grab to get it back, but he was no match for Johnny’s strength. Johnny swatted him away. The mouse was gone.

  Eugene looked at Leonardo. He looked at Johnny. Then he uttered a scream of deep pain and launched himself into the floor-to-ceiling glass wall, and crashed through it.

  Chapter 7

  The next day was Saturday. Leonardo was scheduled to have his son Harvey from Saturday noon until Sunday at 7:00 pm. He arrived outside Barbara and Stan’s house at exactly noon. He parked. He walked to the front porch. He rang the doorbell. It was a lovely October day, brisk air, crystalline sky, trees in flame with color.

  Of course, each time he stood at this unholy spot he vividly recalled the Big Bang, when in a moment’s span civilization as he knew it collapsed around him. Barbara curled in the arms of Stan. Barbara flagrant and defiant. Barbara announcing her new home.

  Like, what just happened to my life?

  Barbara appeared in person at the door. She had red hair, redder now than it used to be, curling down her lovely neck, and green eyes verging on the exotic, and bright white skin taut where it had been tucked. She wore a loose linen shirt over dark matador pants, like a non-homebody might wear around the home. And she smiled with many teeth. “Why,” Leonardo asked himself, “do I still let her take my breath away?”

  She was a consultant—whatever that meant, Leonardo used to joke—at a consulting firm downtown. If, prior to his discovery of smiling Stan, Leonardo had been stretched on a rack and required to spit out the name of a person who might be having an affair with his wife, after having endured a fair amount of pain he would have come up with Byron Plummer, the smooth, squash-playing, managing partner of Barbara’s firm.

  Of course, there might have been more than one right answer.

  Barbara was holding a section of the morning Globe. “Did you hear what happened at DeltaTek last night?” she asked as she opened the door. “Strange stuff…”

  “I heard,” said Leonardo.

  “You know I own stock in DeltaTek.”

  “Right.”

  “From my mother.”

  “Right.”

  “Who never liked you.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m thinking this is a good time to get rid of it. It was crazy yesterday. Like a roller coaster.”

  “Hmm,” Leonardo murmured, feeling a range of conflicting impulses. “I don’t know,” he said. “This could be one of those times when the weak-hearted jump, and those with courage stay and get a…nice surprise…”

  “Do you know something?”

  “I don’t know anything. Really. Forget I said that.”

  “What do you mean forget you said that? Why should I forget you said that? Is this like I’m on the jury and the judge says forget the guy confessed to the murder because it wasn’t admissible? What are you talking about?” It didn’t take much to get Barbara in his face.

  “Is Harvey ready?” he asked.

  “Harvey,” she hollered into the house from her post at the door. “Your father’s here.”

  “Coming,” Harvey hollered back.

  “What do you have planned?” Barbara asked Leonardo.

  “We’re going shopping.”

  “Oh?”

  Chapter 8

  It was difficult for the spouse to read news off the surgeon’s face as he crossed the waiting room toward her. He was square-jawed, masculine, darkly handsome, and free of information leaks. She stood up. He greeted her by name, and bent down to her worried face. He spoke in a low, clear voice: “I think your husband will be fine. The leg will be in a cast for a while, but it should heal as good as new. The ribs will be painful, but will mend. The arm will require intensive therapy, and possibly additional procedures, but I am optimistic.”

  Tears poured from the spouse’s eyes. She shook uncontrollably at this great relief. This man was the closest thing to God she had ever seen. Capable of miracles. She looked up to him and said, “Doctor, thank you. Doctor, thank you.”

  An hour later they allowed her to see her husband in post-op. He was bandaged from head to toe, and still groggy from the anesthesia, but he smiled the biggest smile ever when he saw her face, and in the most delicate way, barely touching a bandage, she embraced him. “Ben,” she said, “I love you.”

  Meanwhile at a hospital across town things were not so optimistic for Eugene Binh. He was unconscious, in intensive care, in critical condition. He was bizarrely lucky to be alive. When he smashed through the glass wall, on his way to sure death upon impact with concrete seven floors below, his right foot caught one of the window-washer straps that hung from the roof and supported Ben Grevere’s clandestine observation post. Instead of flying out from the building, Eugene’s body was pulled back to the building by his stuck foot, like a door slamming on its hinge. He slammed into Ben, and then through the window on the floor below, ending up in a bleeding, broken heap on the plush carpet of the office of General Counsel Janet Casey.

  “If I knew he wanted to see me that badly,” Janet quipped later that night in a wrap-up phone call to her boss Mulverne, “I would have left my window open.” She was sitting atop her desk in the study of her stylish waterfront condominium, wagging a leg. Brockleman sat with her, finishing his pizza. The room was crowded with the boxes and gear they had lugged from DeltaTek in response to Mulverne’s order, delivered while the shit which hit the fan was still airborne, that they establish a secure off-site storage facility.

  “Obviously I don’t want to i
mpede anybody’s lawful investigation,” Mulverne said, “but I think we can keep Code B out of this.”

  He had called Eugene’s wife immediately after the ambulances were loaded and on their way, and after he verified that Eugene’s doomsday connection was unplugged, and after he had Eugene’s computers and software paraphernalia boxed and removed, and after he took video interviews of Johnny Angelo and Dr. Cook, and after he spoke to his close friend Police Chief Simmons, who agreed to take personal charge of the investigation, and after he approved an evasive press release. News of Eugene’s dire situation did not warm Eugene’s wife’s heart or change her mind. “Mr. Mulverne,” she said, “I can’t stand him living or dead.”

  Chapter 9

  Back in the cool, shaded room. Some weeks later. A man spoke to the man.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  “Yes.”

  “Really, I’m sorry.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you making such a big deal about it? I said I was sorry. Why don’t you just say, ‘Fine, not a problem,’ and we’ll move on?”

  No response.

  “It wasn’t my fault. When I was ready to leave I couldn’t find my keys. I couldn’t find them. I had my jacket on. I had my wallet. I had my appointment book. I was all ready, but I couldn’t find my keys. I had them this morning ’cause I was driving the car. So I knew they were around, but they like disappeared. What? You don’t believe me? I looked in all my pockets. I looked on all the countertops. I looked under the bed. I looked through the wastebasket because I threw out some papers and I thought I might have dropped the keys into the wastebasket. I looked down the garbage disposal. I looked in the car, and outside the car. I started getting very…”