How to Find Your Way in the Dark

by Derek B. Miller

  Opening his night table, he removed the .45 automatic. He checked to see if the round was chambered, and assured that it was, he disengaged the safety while keeping his finger on the outside of the guard as his father had taught him.

  The door had a fish-eye peephole. Sheldon took a breath and looked.

  It was Mirabelle and her expression looked especially grotesque.

  He reengaged the safety and put the gun back in the drawer before returning to the door and letting her in.

  Mirabelle burst inside and closed the door behind her. She locked it and slid the pathetic brass chain into place.

  She didn’t yell. This was new. Was it fear? Was Mirabelle actually afraid of something?

  “What have you done? Give it back now or we’re dead. Do you understand me?”

  Sheldon’s natural impulse—an impulse nurtured and cherished from his days in Miss Simmons’s classroom—was to put on an innocent face and deny knowing anything. But in this case, it seemed pointless.

  “The asshole you’re dating is an asshole,” said Sheldon, not finding this redundant.

  “That’s not your call,” Mirabelle said.

  She was dressed in the same clothes—the same yellow heels—but she didn’t look like a princess anymore, didn’t move like a movie star. She was a nineteen-year-old girl playing dress-up who was about to be sent to the principal’s office, and she needed to talk her way out of it fast; otherwise her father was going to bring his hand down.

  This was better, Sheldon thought. This was the equalizer he’d wanted.

  “How did you meet him, anyway?”

  Mirabelle crossed Sheldon’s room and sat on the edge of Lenny’s bed. The curtains were drawn, but they could hear the distant sound of children yelling, “Marco! Polo!” out by the lake. Mirabelle kicked off her shoes as if they were restraints and sat there looking for words.

  “After we knocked over the pawn shop,” she said calmly, “I had some jewelry that was worth something. Something more than the watches and your snow globe. I wanted to sell them, but I didn’t know anyone I could sell them to. I needed to meet someone who could do that sort of thing. I went to the armory one day, and I met with Mr. Cluff. The old guy.”

  Sheldon remembered Mr. Cluff. Uncle Nate had introduced him when Sheldon had toured the factory that first time. There had been a banner hung across one of the halls that congratulated him for sixty-four years with the Colt Armory. Almost eighty-four, he’d started working there when he was nineteen fitting shell ejectors into revolvers. It was said that his fingers had become so sensitive that he could tell from touch whether the ejector fit properly into the countersink of the cylinder—an accuracy to a minute fraction of an inch. It was also said that he knew everything about the place.

  Everything.

  “I told him we wanted to sell some of my mother’s jewelry, but the pawn shop had recently been robbed and I was scared to go there. I said my father didn’t know either, but he was too embarrassed to ask. So, did he have any ideas?”

  “That wasn’t bad,” Sheldon said. “I might have said they were pieces she gave you and that they made you cry and you wanted to get rid of them but couldn’t tell your father because he’d object but . . . nice, all the same.”

  “Yeah. So, he told me where to go and I went. I met Sammy there.”

  “Not Shlomo?”

  She waved that off. “He’s a fence. Like a broker. He moves high-end jewelry from a seller to a buyer for a cut. He’s discreet, doesn’t ask questions; and he gets paid well. As a jewel thief myself, I don’t have that much of a problem with it. He’s not stealing milk from babies. Everyone’s got an angle, and this is his.”

  “Not everyone,” said Sheldon.

  “Really? How did you get this job?”

  Sheldon didn’t answer.

  “Right. So that’s why we’re here at the hotel, to sell hot items to some guy named Thaleman for cash. While we’re here, we’ll make a vacation out of it while Thaleman is having some fun with his foreign mistress. Sammy’s not evil, Sheldon. He’s not even Mafia. Not really. He just does the same thing as a pawn broker only without an office. He’s rich, he’s fun, he’s good-­looking, and he’s nice to me. Yes, he’s a bullshit artist. And a bit of a womanizer, but so what? You think Rockefeller and Ford and Carnegie weren’t all full of shit? They were all thieves. They were just so good at it that they became respectable by creating a web of influence. Why shouldn’t we do the same? Abe was right. We can be the hunters or the hunted. I like it better on this side of the gun. Now give me back the shiny rocks.”

  “They’re gone, Mirabelle.”

  “Nothing’s ever gone, Sheldon!”

  Sheldon said nothing.

  Mirabelle took his meaning and it enraged her because it had been her mother too. “The jewelry didn’t burn to ash in a fire, you little asshole. They’re rocks. Give me the rocks!” She stuck out her hand.

  “I threw them in a river called . . . forget it. They sank. They’re gone. I wanted you two to split up, and I wanted him in trouble, and I wanted you to come to your senses. You’ll be better off in the long run. You’ll thank me.”

  Mirabelle shifted on the bed. He wasn’t sure if he was punishing her or testing her or both. She looked incredulous.

  “Sammy called his people in Hartford hours ago to say their jewels are missing. They’re coming up here to talk to him. Thaleman is waiting and doesn’t know this yet. He’s here with a suitcase of money to buy them. You think we were in a pinch between Mr. Henkler and the Mafia? Well, this time it’s real. These are not good people, Sheldon.”

  “Who did he call?”

  “Who? You know the names of the Hartford Mafia?”

  “More than you’d think.”

  “Eric something.”

  “Ernie, maybe?”

  “Maybe. Why?”

  “Ernie Caruso?”

  “I guess. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “If you’re gonna play this game, Mirabelle, you need to pay attention to the details.”

  Sheldon sat on the bed beside her. He hadn’t thought this far ahead, and it was immediately clear to him—in retrospect—that he was in trouble. Real trouble, and not from Mirabelle.

  “Ernie Caruso is the guy the Krupinskis were doing business with. Lorenzo is his muscle. He’s the guy who drove me and my dad off the road because he thought that Dad was Old Krupinski. If Sammy called Ernie, and Ernie’s suspicious, he might send Lorenzo up here. If he does come up here and finds that Sammy can’t produce the jewels—which he can’t—he’s going to assume that Sammy stole them. Lorenzo is a hit man. He will kill us. And by us, I mean Sammy and anyone standing near Sammy. I have to hope he hasn’t been chatting about you by name. Not a lot of Mirabelles floating around here. You got to get out of here. Now.”

  Mirabelle was looking at the carpet, her eyes flicking back and forth as though she’d dropped the back of an earring, but Sheldon knew she was looking for a trapdoor, a way out of this.

  “We’re a four- or five-hour drive from Hartford,” Sheldon added. “When did Sammy call Ernie?”

  “Maybe . . . an hour after we fought. We came back to the room and started unpacking, and he saw that the jewels were gone and he went looney. I thought he was going to blame me, but he turned on you first. I covered and said that I saw them when I came back to the room to get my makeup after you were gone. So, he said someone must have come in afterward and that’s when he called Caruso.” Mirabelle looked at Sheldon. “He said they’d send someone. Someone to help.”

  Sammy had called Caruso a long time ago. A very long time ago. Long enough to . . .

  Sheldon picked up the phone and called Miriam, who answered with her usual “Front desk, Miriam speaking, how may I help you?”

  “Miriam, it’s Sheldon. Look. This is a weird question but let me ask it straight out. Has anyone obviously not Jewish checked in during the last few hours?”

  “Now that you mention it, yeah. The
re was a guy with a mustache who came in with no luggage and no sense of humor, and said that he didn’t want dinner.”

  “Yeah. That’s him,” Sheldon said, mostly to himself.

  “Not even cake.”

  “Yeah, I understand. What’s his room number?”

  Miriam had checked him into 218, which was on the other side of the building one floor up.

  “Who is he?” Miriam asked.

  “No luggage at all?” Sheldon asked.

  “Just one of those doctor’s bags. You know the ones? That open from the top?”

  “Miriam,” he said, trying not to sound worried. “Are there any security guards or cops or anything here?”

  “There’s Steve at the entrance. And there are police in Liberty, I guess. It’s never come up. You’re kinda scaring me, Sheldon. Are you making a joke? It’s not funny.”

  “No, it’s nothing to worry about. I just need to think. You on duty for a while?”

  “Until nine tonight.”

  “Is Ben around too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “OK. I got to put some pieces together. Thanks.”

  He hung up without saying goodbye because his mind was already past that.

  Mirabelle crossed her legs beneath her on the bed like she did when they were kids back in Hartford. She opened her arms as if to catch a giant falling beach ball. “What are we going to do?”

  “OK,” Sheldon said, starting to pace around the room. “OK. It’s possible I really screwed up. Not as badly as you or De Marco did. I mean, really, Mirabelle. Calling your own assassin? And then you’ve got this Thaleman guy who’s looking to score. Is he a psycho also?”

  “I don’t know. Sammy never talks about the buyers or sellers. He just said he’s kind of a playboy and that he has an exotic girlfriend. Can you connect the dots for me, please?”

  “Yes. OK. Here’s what I think happened. My dad did business with the Krupinskis. He sold them pelts from the hunting and trapping. The Krupinskis sold the pelts to the Mob in Hartford. The Krupinskis screwed over the Mob, and the Mob came looking for them. We borrowed the truck, a man with a mustache drove us off the road thinking we were the Krupin­skis, and they got their revenge. I always planned to look for the killer, but I never knew where to start. It was Abe who found out the name of the driver from Mr. Henkler, but that didn’t help me. When I was back in Whately, I confronted Old Krupinski and it went better than I expected. I learned about Ernie Caruso from him. How he fits in doesn’t matter now. I’m assuming, and it’s not a stretch, that Lorenzo works for Caruso, and now Lorenzo is here at Grossinger’s to torture your friend, because they don’t believe for one second that he was robbed. They’ll think he’s pulling a fast one so he can keep the jewels and maybe sell them himself and keep the whole score. My hunch is that the doctor’s bag is filled with stuff to clip people’s fingers off. You following me so far?”

  Mirabelle hadn’t blinked or been sarcastic, so Sheldon figured he had her undivided attention.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “We’re going to run. Or fight. Or think our way out of this.”

  “Run?”

  “Or fight or think our way—”

  “I heard you!”

  The sun was shining directly onto the drawn yellow curtains, illuminating their room. Marco Polo had ended. The kids had moved on.

  “Why did you do that, Sheldon? Why did you steal the jewelry?”

  “Because he’s a thief and he stole you! He doesn’t get you and the jewels, OK?”

  Mirabelle touched his hand. “Oh, Donny.”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “You didn’t think this through. That’s not like you. You’re our little thinker. You need to stay on the ball, kid.”

  “I did. I was just wrong. Probably won’t be the last time.”

  “We have to run.” Mirabelle was willing to drop her playboy and the entire angle. She was young. There were other solutions to a better—and longer—life out there.

  “You can run,” Sheldon said, Mirabelle’s hand still on his. “But Lorenzo doesn’t walk out of here. I’ve been looking for this guy for more than three years. Now he’s here but doesn’t know I am. No way he walks out of here a free man on two legs. No way.”

  “What are you talking about? The guy’s an assassin, Sheldon. You’re gonna do . . . what? You’re a fourteen-year-old kid.”

  Sheldon pulled his hand away. “I know what I’m not gonna do. I’m not gonna keep putting myself to sleep every night with dreams about killing this guy. In the last three years, I’ve shot him, strangled him, drowned him, stabbed him, and burned him alive with a flamethrower. I’ve killed this guy so many times that I’m more shocked that he’s alive than here at the hotel. I’m not gonna keep doing that. Not when there’s another way. I just need to think of what to do. I need a plan.”

  “He’s a grown man, Sheldon. You can’t walk in there and start smacking him around. He’ll kill you. Easily. I’m not even sure Abe could do it.”

  “Abe left me Mr. Henkler’s .45 automatic. It’s here in the drawer.”

  “You have a gun?”

  “The one Mr. Henkler’s wife said he left in the drawer at his desk. Abe took it and now it’s here in my drawer. He gave it to me to kill Lorenzo.”

  “You could really do this?”

  It was a good question.

  All the room keys were hanging up in reception and there were a couple of master ones too. One way or another, Sheldon could open the lock, walk into Lorenzo’s room, and shoot him twice in the chest and once in the head, and then walk out. People would hear the shots, but as soon as he stepped out of the room in his bellhop uniform, he’d be a free man. Who’d notice a bellhop in a hallway? No one.

  “I’ve read a lot of mysteries and never once—not with Sherlock Holmes, or Philip Marlowe, or Nero Wolfe—has a story ended where the Jewish bellhop did it. Nothing connects me to him or me to you, for that matter. They might suspect your boyfriend, but he’ll be long gone by then, and they might suspect Thaleman, and my feeling is—great.”

  “I don’t think killing someone’s so easy. I think it’s hard. And I don’t want you to be a killer, Sheldon. I don’t think your parents would have either.”

  “You’ve never loved anyone as much as I loved my father—as much as I loved them both. You’ll never feel what I feel. You don’t know how hard this is.” Sheldon stood up. “Go. Tell your boyfriend he’s a marked man and that you both need to run. There’s a bus stop on the road to Neversink. No one from the hotel goes that way. You two can wait there for the bus or taxi and then—you’re gone. Forget the car. Trust me, they know what he drives. After that, I’ll work something out.”

  * * *

  Mirabelle worked quickly. She called down to her room, found Sammy there, and quickly explained their predicament, using the story of her uncle Joseph to paint the picture and focusing her boyfriend’s attention on the consequences of his phone call to Ernie. Sammy was waiting for her at the designated staff exit in less than twenty minutes.

  Sheldon asked Miriam to have a taxi meet them at the bus stop in thirty minutes, and during that window, he walked with them a mile down the road he’d traveled twice already today toward Neversink.

  * * *

  The bus stop was shaded and few cars passed. The three of them sat like refugees in dejected silence. Mirabelle had told Sammy that the bellhop was no one, a kid she paid ten bucks to make arrangements and ask no questions.

  Sir Lies-a-Lot checked his gold watch every few seconds to see how soon the day might be over. The watch did not have the answer.

  The cicadas made a racket in the sun-scorched field behind them, and the early evening felt so dry that the grass might have spontaneously burst into flame.

  A 1933 Plymouth pulled up to their bench, and a man without curiosity loaded their bags into the car, ending for Mirabelle what had to be the shortest and most expensive vacation of all time. Sammy sat
in the back seat like a defeated aristocrat on his way to exile. His eyes were vacant and lost. And although Sheldon felt bad for upsetting Mirabelle as much as he had, he couldn’t help but feel a little triumph. After all, Sheldon had first laid eyes on Sir-Lies-a-Lot at ten o’clock this morning and had ruined him before sunset without drawing a drop of blood.

  This was clearly a skill.

  Sammy was long gone in his own thoughts as Mirabelle lingered outside the running car. She turned to Sheldon and said quietly enough for only the two of them to hear, “I should have been nicer to you.”

  “You were when it counted.”

  She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you too,” Mirabelle whispered, and then she stepped into the car, closed the door, and they were off.

  Hunter and Trapper

  BACK IN HIS ROOM, Sheldon washed his face and hands, and looked at the idiot in the mirror to see if he had any bright ideas, because this was far from over. Lorenzo was in the building—somewhere—and if he was doing anything, he was looking for someone called De Marco.

  Grossinger’s was not exactly Fort Knox with its information, and Sheldon suspected that Miriam had unwittingly given him Mirabelle and Sammy’s room number by this point. Maybe Lorenzo would get in and maybe not, because she wouldn’t have given him the key. If he did sneak in, he wouldn’t find them, though. What he would find was some of their clothing because Sheldon had told Mirabelle to leave some behind; otherwise it would be obvious that they’d left. “You want this guy to think you’re still there, but that he can’t find you. It’ll buy you time. And that’s what you need.”

  Sheldon had recommended that Sammy leave the white suit. “It would be very convincing,” he said, with as straight a face as possible.