1 Breakfast at Madeline's

by Matt Witten

  She turned and spoke to me for the first time that whole day. "I knew him," she said.

  "Really? How?"

  Her eyes went back to the window, looking far away again. "I made him a cup of coffee every morning."

  I was puzzled for a moment, but then it came to me. "Oh, you work at City Hall in the mornings."

  Now it was her turn to be puzzled. "No, the Arts Council."

  Huh? "The Arts Council?"

  She nodded, getting a little more animated now. "I intern there from nine to eleven, and he always came downstairs for free coffee. He lives right above there. I mean, used to live."

  Amazing. This guy seemed to get free coffee everywhere. I wondered if it was free at Madeline's too.

  "Did you make him Ethiopian?" I asked.

  She eyed me curiously. "How'd you know?"

  "Wild guess."

  After that we rode in silence for a while, thinking about the dead man. Saratoga's suburbs gave way to a dark spruce forest, which turned into a series of video rental stores and fast-food outlets that somehow managed to look glum despite their garish colors. The windshield wipers beat out their lonely rhythm. Ahead of us was the cemetery.

  Then Molly spoke again. There was something different in her voice this time, a kind of quaver. "Did you hear about his application?"

  "Molly," her father said warningly.

  "What application?" I asked.

  "The one where he said someone was threatening to kill him."

  10

  "No, I hadn't heard about that," I said, when I could get my mouth working again.

  "Molly, enough. Let the man rest in peace."

  I put my hand on the girl's shoulder. "Who was threatening to kill him?"

  She bit her lip. "Dad's right. I shouldn't talk about it."

  "About what?"

  "Jacob, forget it—" Virgil began, but I stopped him.

  "Damn it, Virgil, come on. I was the man's only friend in the world. Except maybe for you," I added, turning to Molly.

  Virgil was driving fast and angry. "Who cares what the guy thought? Face it, he only had one oar in the water."

  That was true, of course. Probably no one had ever threatened to kill Penn—and certainly no one had actually done it. He died of a heart attack, right?

  But still, something strange was going on here. I tried another tack. "What kind of application are you talking about, Molly?"

  "Nothing," she said nervously, "just a NYFA grant. He applied every year." Virgil caught her eye in the rearview mirror, and she clutched at her hair with a fist. "I promised I wouldn't say anything."

  "Who did you promise?"

  Suddenly Virgil turned the wheel sharply. We veered into the cemetery, tires squealing on the wet road, and the car fishtailed. Penn's casket banged into the side of the hearse, and the casket lid sprang upward. Molly looked back there and gave an earsplitting scream.

  Donald Penn's eyes had been jarred open and he was staring straight at us.

  My heart stopped. Molly screamed even louder.

  Virgil jumped from the hearse, opened the rear door, and slammed the lid back down. He shot me a hate-filled look—probably picturing me naked and full of embalming fluid.

  I'm sure he would have preferred for someone else to help him carry the casket instead of me. But the gravediggers were on lunch break, the ninety-year-old Presbyterian minister wasn't exactly up to the job, and nobody else had showed up for Donald Penn's funeral.

  Nobody.

  So Virgil and I lugged the casket up a hill to the gravesite, with Virgil in the rear giving laconic directions and me in front walking backward. The rain had turned into a sad little drizzle, just enough to fog up our glasses and add that extra dollop of misery. We trudged past several rows of graves marked only by small aluminum gravestones. Molly was ahead of us, out of hearing range.

  I lifted the casket higher, trying to get comfortable, and took a deep breath. "Virgil, I'm not trying to get your daughter riled up or anything, I just want to find out—"

  "Look, Penn had a vivid imagination, that's all. And unfortunately, so does my daughter."

  "Why don't you tell me about it yourself? Then I won't bug her anymore."

  Virgil suddenly sped up. Since I was going backward, his quick movement shoved the casket into my hips, knocking me off balance. I fell in the mud. The casket fell too, landing with a hard thud about an inch from my knee.

  Virgil stood over me, furious. "Are you making me some kind of threat?"

  I scrambled to my feet, equally furious. Fighting a fat man in the cemetery in the rain is not my idea of a good time, but still. "Did you just knock me down on purpose?"

  He jabbed a finger at me. "Look, this internship is an important career opportunity for Molly. You better not screw it up."

  I got in his face. "How could I screw it up? What are you so scared of?"

  But Virgil just gave me a disgusted grunt and wouldn't say any more. We picked the casket back up and slogged silently up the muddy hill. We had to stop a couple of times to rest. Virgil was sweating profusely, and my headache was back.

  I read the names and dates on the small aluminum gravestones, meryl renee danvers, 1998. raoul cisneros, 1997. unknown, 1996. I found names going back to 1993. Older than that, though, the aluminum had corroded and the names were illegible. I resolved to dip into my Gas that Ate San Francisco nest egg and buy The Penn a proper gravestone.

  When the funeral service finally began, I feared the worst. The nonagenarian Presbyterian minister was so frail he looked like he might keel over any minute himself. But he had a surprisingly powerful voice, and it cut through the rain right into the heart of our loneliness. He told us that the least among us are known intimately to God, just as if they were presidents or kings instead of derelicts. God was waiting with open arms to receive Donald Penn.

  I haven't figured out yet if I believe in God, and I guess I never will. But despite my doubts, a good funeral speech always hits the spot.

  When he was finished, the minister asked me if I would like to say a few words. I wanted to say no, but of course I couldn't, so I cleared my throat and began.

  "Donald Penn," I said, "was an artist. A true artist. He devoted his whole life to his art."

  Then I got stuck. I didn't know what else to say about the man, except that a couple of people seemed to like him or at least pity him enough to give him free coffee.

  What I said out loud was, "God bless him."

  Then I stepped down, the minister said amen, and that was that. The gravediggers lowered The Penn into his grave and covered him up, and the rest of us walked back through the rain to our cars.

  Figuring I'd worn out my welcome with Virgil and Molly, I hit up the minister for a lift home. But first I went over to tell them good-bye. Virgil nodded gruffly and got in the hearse, leaving Molly and me alone for a moment.

  She looked up at me anxiously. "Please don't tell Gretchen I mentioned the application."

  Gretchen? "Why not?"

  "She said it could really get the Arts Council in trouble."

  I was dying for details, but Virgil rolled his window down and yelled at Molly to hurry. She got in the hearse, and they sped off.

  The minister tottered up. "She's too young for you," he said with a lewd wink that looked odd coining from his wizened old face.

  What was Gretchen Lang trying to hide? Could sweet, middle-aged Gretchen be the one that Penn said was threatening to kill him?

  And what was in that NYFA application, anyway—and was it somehow connected to my burglary?

  As we got into the minister's white Cadillac—"a dying man's last car," he told me—the minister began expounding on his sex-and-young-girls theme. " 'Course, folks in the Bible never used to worry about a girl being too young," he said, as he locked the doors and zoomed off down the highway. "You know how old Rachel was when Isaac fell in love with her at the well?"

  And then I saw it. A face, peering furtively at us from behind t
he McDonald's sign across the highway. Not a whole face, though, more like a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap. Just as effective as last night's mask.

  The face ducked behind the sign. "Stop the car!" I shouted at the minister.

  "Three. Rachel was three," the minister continued.

  "Let me out!" I yanked frantically at the door handle. But it was locked—luckily for me, since we were now doing fifty.

  The minister chuckled. "And Isaac gets all pissed off because Rachel's father won't let him marry her until she's ten!"

  "Please let me out!" I screamed.

  "Sorry. Forgot to put in my hearing aid." The minister proceeded to put it in while driving sixty miles an hour. "Hate the darn thing, gets more feedback than a rock 'n' roll concert. Now what were you saying?"

  I watched the McDonald's sign go out of sight around the bend. We were at least half a mile away by now, and back in the spruce forest. The next place to turn around wouldn't be for another mile at least. I shook my head, frustrated. "Never mind."

  The minister patted my arm. "Don't sweat it, kid. Funerals are tough, you never know how you're gonna react. Like one time a few years back I was doing this funeral, and afterward the widow asked if she could ride in the car with me. Well, of course I said yes, not thinking anything about it. But as soon as she got in the car, oh boy, let me tell you..."

  Who the hell was that behind the McDonald's sign? The same person who bashed my head open last night? Was someone following me?

  Or following Molly?

  Or watching the funeral from a distance, out of morbid fascination? But why? Because he was Donald Penn's killer?

  Wait a minute, that was insane. My head started to spin. I needed some damn aspirin.

  Heck, as fuzzy as I felt, maybe I just hallucinated that face.

  11

  As the minister and I drove down Route 50 back to Saratoga, he described in picturesque detail exactly what happened on his car ride home with the widow. Even in my distracted state, I had to admit the man knew how to tell a good story. Though personally, I felt the part about what the widow was wearing underneath her black mourning dress was a tad tasteless. I mean, there's a time and a place for crotchless Minnie Mouse underwear.

  He went on to regale me with tales about the marriage counseling he'd done during his long and illustrious career. Apparently, some of the couples he'd counseled had asked him to assist them in rather surprising ways.

  Listening to his tales made me nostalgic for the old days when I used to write every morning, and everything that happened in the great wide world was fodder for my creative juices. In this hyper-aware state, which was sometimes so intense it was like being high, I would have carefully recorded every detail of the minister's wild yarns in my mind, then jotted them down verbatim as soon as I got home so I could use them later in a screenplay.

  Maybe I should try writing again. Go home and do up the minister's stories, turn them into a movie. A warm-hearted comedy about a sexy old preacher, starring Walter Matthau. That face behind the McDonald's sign could belong to a romantic rival, part of a humorous subplot.

  Sure, dream on, I told myself harshly. By the time Hollywood got done with your script, they'd scratch Matthau for Keanu. Your sexy old preacher would be turned into a coldblooded young action hero battling renegade Uzbeks or some shit like that. Or more likely, if the script was any good it would never get produced. Instead it would sit on a shelf somewhere for twenty years, then get tossed out.

  I hated myself when I got all bitter like this. Every screenwriter I've ever met, even ones who make seven figures per year, have that streak of bitterness inside them. There's so much dumb luck involved, to say nothing of dumb people. That was the main reason I'd decided to take a hiatus from writing—I didn't like what it was turning me into. I could feel the bitterness growing inside me like a tumor, and I wanted to cut it out.

  Though to be honest, I reflected, as we turned off Route 50 onto Broadway, it wasn't so much a question of deciding to take a hiatus; my writing urge just plain up and left me. Half a year ago already. When would it return... and what if it never did? If I wasn't a writer anymore, then what was I?

  One day, forty-some years from now, a lonely group of people would be standing in the rain at some suburban cemetery. A tired old rabbi would mouth a few final words, and then I'd be lowered into the ground. And what would those people be saying about me? What would I say about myself, in the final moment of my life? What would God say, if there was a God?

  Lately Andrea had been after me to try volunteer work, maybe some tutoring with the Literacy Volunteers like she did, but I seemed to be just too darn lazy these days. I was staying away from the Nestle chocolate bits now, but I was still five or ten pounds overweight; I should exercise more. Hey, I should exercise, period.

  I gazed moodily out the window. We were stuck behind a cement truck that was laboriously positioning itself in front of the new Arts Center. Even in the rain, the work never stopped; they just rigged up tarps overhead and kept on going. Gretchen was determined to get the place up and running in time for the summer tourists, and what Gretchen Lang wanted, Gretchen Lang generally got.

  Speak of the devil, there she was. On the sidewalk, sharing the mayor's umbrella. A quick jolt went through me; by jiminy, I had some questions for the woman. This time I found the door lock on my first try, and jumped out of the car.

  "Hey!" the minister called out.

  "Thanks for the lift! You should write a book!" I called back as I walked up to Gretchen, interrupting her tête-à-tête with Mayor Kane. He looked perfect as always, totally dry and not an eyebrow out of place, as though mere rain couldn't affect a great man like him. Gretchen was her usual self too, her arms flying excitedly all over the place as she talked. She was fifty-five if she was a day, maybe sixty, but the woman hadn't lost a step.

  "Hi, Gretchen," I said.

  Her arms stopped in mid-air. A shadow passed across her features, quickly replaced by a big welcoming smile. "Jacob, how are you? Want to watch them pour the wheelchair ramp?"

  "No. I want to talk to you about Donald Penn."

  The Mayor gave a quick start, but Gretchen just smiled at me even more warmly. It was like she'd been expecting me.

  "Sure, I'd love to talk about Donny. Such a sweet, wonderful little man. Let's just watch this first." Her arms started flying again. "See, this ramp is a symbol of what our whole project is all about: making the arts accessible to everyone, not just the Mary Lou Whitneys and the rich summer tourists but the women who work the checkout counter at Wal-Mart, the men who work at International Paper their whole lives, and the kids, especially the kids, that's my passion, I want to start a children's theater here..."

  She went on and on. I tried to stop her, but it was like trying to stop some radio talk show host. I got the feeling she realized she was under an umbrella and I wasn't, and she hoped if she kept on yakking, I'd eventually get tired of being rained on and go away.

  My attention wandered from her monologue. I noticed the words Hudson falls building and renovation on the side of the cement truck, and was reminded that the mayor owned a similar company, Kane Construction. "So how's the construction business, Mayor?" I asked him.

  I was only making conversation, trying to shut off Gretchen's flow of words. But for some reason the mayor didn't seem to take it that way. He tensed his jaw and narrowed his photogenic blue eyes at me suspiciously.

  Gretchen quickly stepped in. "You know, I'm getting tired of standing in the rain," she said. "Why don't we go to Madeline's? That'll be the perfect place to talk about Donny."

  Meanwhile the mayor had recovered his cheerful equanimity. "I wish I could join you guys, but business calls," he said, waving a friendly good-bye and then striding off purposefully down Broadway.

  Gretchen and I headed off in the other direction. But when we came to the stoplight, I turned around and took a look back at the mayor.

  As it happened, the mayor had turned aro
und too.

  And he was standing there, watching me.

  As soon as Gretchen and I stepped into Madeline's, she began working the room. First she glad-handed a city councilman named Walsh. After that she collared Linda Olive, who owns Saratoga's premier video production company—in fact, Saratoga's only video production company—and sweet-talked her into saying she would produce, gratis of course, a video promoting the new Arts Center. Then Gretchen stopped to speak with someone else, a big man with a big tie whose name I didn't know. Gretchen, however, knew absolutely everybody. The woman was a wonder.

  She was also driven as hell. Why? I realized I knew almost nothing about her personal life. She was married, but I'd never met her husband. Or her kids, if she had any.

  I wiped the rain off my face with a jacket sleeve and went up to the counter, where Madeline and Marcie were doing the honors. There was a long line, since Madeline's tends to get busy on rainy afternoons, so I had plenty of time to study the two women. It was like watching a ballet, the way they were able to move fluidly and quickly in the narrow space behind the counter without ever bumping into each other. One woman would ring up the other woman's sales if it happened to be more convenient. Seeing them work so well together reminded me that they were cousins; Madeline had once mentioned they were just like sisters growing up.

  They were both very attractive, but in different ways: Marcie was totally out there with her sexuality, while Madeline was more demure. Most men, if given the opportunity, would probably choose Marcie for a one-night stand, but they'd feel safer marrying Madeline. Rob was a lucky guy.

  Marcie broke into my thoughts. "May I help you?" she asked. She must have been out in the rain, because her T-shirt was clinging to her. Tearing my eyes away from her curves, I looked up at Marcie's face. Her eyes twinkled. I wondered, for the thousandth time, if she knew what kind of effect she had on me.

  Gretchen came up behind me and broke the spell. "What'll you have, Jacob? My treat."

  Madeline turned away from the espresso machine and gave me a bittersweet smile. "I made a pot of Ethiopian."