1 Breakfast at Madeline's

by Matt Witten

  Then Babe Ruth announced that if the stores were still closed, we should just go outside and play baseball. So Gretzky angrily declared that we had to play hockey first, because he was younger. Rationally, I knew the kids were just acting out their frustration that I'd been so busy with my murder investigation, I hadn't been paying them enough attention. But I was too exhausted to listen to my rational mind, and I could feel a primal scream rising in my gut when I happened to look over at Andrea. Our eyes met, and for some reason we both burst out laughing.

  Instantly the mood in the bed changed. Gretzky and Ruth dropped all their demands and decided to beat us up with pillows instead. Andrea and I would have gotten seriously clobbered except we had a secret weapon: Magic Tickle Fingers.

  The Fingers were so successful that the children retreated to their bedroom to plot out a secret weapon of their own. Andrea took advantage of the battle lull to ask me, "So when did you get home last night?"

  I hemmed, then hawed, then said, "Uh, I'm not sure. When did you go to bed?"

  "Ten-thirty or so. I was beat. I told Dave he could just go home, since I figured you'd be getting back any minute. Hope you didn't mind my not waiting up."

  "No, that's okay. I got in a little after 10:30." Which wasn't really a lie, strictly speaking; I mean, 11:45 is a little after 10:30.

  "There's about a hundred messages for you on the machine," Andrea said.

  I jumped up. "From who?" Molly? Gretchen? The mayor?

  "They're all from your agent. I got sick of talking to him, so I turned the machine on."

  I slapped my forehead. Talk about engine trouble—I had completely forgotten about my $750,000 deal. "What did he want?"

  "He said to hurry up and express mail that contract back to him. The producer wants you to start immediately."

  Immediately. Well, hey, for three-quarters of a mil I could deal with that. Today was Saturday; I'd express the contract today, then receive a copy of the mutant beetles screenplay on Monday morning. At which point my month of Hollywood hack work would commence with instant fury.

  Monday morning. That left me forty-eight hours to solve The Penn's murder.

  "Sorry the New York trip didn't go well," Andrea said, and massaged my back. I wanted to tell her about my confrontation with Gretchen, and how I'd gotten a copy of the application after all, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without admitting I'd lied about the train being late. Frankly, I was getting sick of all the little lies I was telling Andrea lately. I thought about telling my wife what I'd really been doing the last two nights, even though I knew she'd be livid at all the risks I'd taken, when we were suddenly interrupted by loud shouts of "Batman!" and our two superheroes raced in flailing their pillows fiercely.

  This time not even Magic Tickle Fingers were enough to fight off the savage onslaught. The grownups were soundly and utterly trounced, and only the promise of homemade waffles allowed us to escape with our lives.

  We had a nice couple of hours together, and I wish I could have brought my little warriors with me for moral support later that morning when I met with the grant panel at Madeline's. They were all waiting for me when I got there, and they all looked about as cheerful as Bosnian war refugees.

  Even worse, Marcie was working the counter. I didn't want to deal with her, but I sure needed some java to pull me through this. So I went up there and pushed my dollar bill across the counter, and she pushed the Ethiopian back at me. Our hands never touched; in fact, we did the entire transaction without even looking at each other.

  I surveyed the Grim People as I headed for their table. George Hosey rubbed his eyes somberly, resembling Uncle Sam on a particularly bad day. Like, say, Pearl Harbor. Mike Pardou, the King of Spoons, was absentmindedly beating spoons against his cheek, but it didn't interfere with his hangdog expression. The man was definitely not an advertisement for recreational drugs.

  Steve the Novella Man sat next to Antoinette the Grant Queen, as usual. But he didn't look as shrunken as he usually did next to her, mainly because she looked pretty shrunken herself this morning. Her lanky six-foot frame slouched over the table, and her dreadlocks came dangerously close to falling into her coffee. I would have said something, but I was afraid she'd get insulted.

  The only member of the Grim People who was sitting tall and proud, looking in prime fighting mood, was Bonnie Engels.

  "Hey, guys," I greeted them.

  "Sit down," Bonnie said peremptorily. The other Grim People grunted.

  "Thank you." As I sat down, Bonnie gave me the evil eye. Mike Pardou, meanwhile, began beating his spoons faster and louder—clickety click clack clack—as Ersatz Uncle Sam cleared his throat and said, "Listen, Jacob, we've been hearing a lot of, uh, strange rumors."

  "Uh huh." Hmm, pillow talk from Gretchen?

  "It's like this, Jacob," Antoinette broke in, lifting her dreadlocks and shining her earnest chocolate-colored eyes on me. "We know you've made it big and everything, and we're happy for you, but see—Jesus fucking Christ, Mike, would you shut up?!" she shouted.

  The clickety clack suddenly stopped as Pardou dropped his spoons, stunned. The rest of us were stunned too, not just by Antoinette's outburst but by seeing Pardou without spoons in his hands. It was like seeing him stark naked.

  Antoinette collected herself and continued. "See, Jacob, for the rest of us, we really need these NYFA grants. If they get taken away from us, word gets around. I can kiss good-bye to the NYSCA grant I applied for, and that means no Pollock-Krasner grant. Which means I get shut out by the National Endowment for the Humanities, which means my teaching jobs dry up. Basically, my career goes down the toilet."

  "Getting a NYFA grant from the state of New York enhances my credibility worldwide," seconded Ersatz Sam. "Even as far away as New Zealand."

  "The thing is, I already called my mother and told her I got the grant," Novella Man chimed in. "She'll be really upset if it gets taken away."

  "I don't get it. Why would your grants get taken away?" I asked, genuinely puzzled.

  Bang! Bonnie Engels slammed her fist on the table. My coffee cup jumped and tipped over, spilling steaming hot Ethiopian all over my jeans. I leapt up, cursing, and tried to pull the scalding pants away from my leg.

  Bonnie leapt up too, but not so she could help me. She just wanted to do a better job of getting in my face. "You slimeball," she snarled, "don't you play any of your asinine games with us. We know you're trying to close down the Arts Council."

  I stared at her, incredulous. "Close down the Arts Council?" Jesus, talk about rumors. "Next thing, you'll be accusing me of burning down that building." I examined their faces carefully to see if any of them gave a sudden guilty look, or eyed each other nervously, but no one rose to the bait.

  Bonnie just ignored what I said and kept on snarling. "And all because of some stupid little formality. Not leaving the room when our grant proposals were being discussed." She waved her arms, disgusted. "Everyone at this table would have received those grants anyway. We're all serious artists."

  Unfortunately for Bonnie, the credibility of her last statement was damaged when Pardou picked this moment to beat his spoons again. We all turned and looked at him, and I'm sure everyone else was thinking roughly the same thing I was: If this guy was a serious artist, then I was a dill pickle.

  As if reading our thoughts, Pardou said, "Hey, man, my one-man folk opera is gonna be hot."

  Bonnie jutted her sharp chin back in my direction. "Forget about him," she said, jerking a disdainful thumb at Pardou. "My women's boxing video is for real, and a two-thousand-dollar grant from the Arts Council is entirely appropriate. Put that together with the six thousand I just got from Virgil Otis, and—"

  "Virgil Otis?" I asked, astonished. Whoa, there was a connection between Bonnie and Virgil, the fat funeral home director?! That would mean a connection of sorts between Bonnie and Virgil's daughter Molly, who—

  Bonnie stamped her feet impatiently. "I told you the project was attracting p
rivate investment. What, did you think I was making it up?"

  Virgil, Bonnie, Molly.... Something stirred in my brainpan, but before I could scoop it out Antoinette interrupted with a noisy, flamboyant, "It's outrageous." Bonnie's combativeness had put the fire back in Antoinette, and she gave her dreads an angry toss. "First this dirty, smelly, little man tries to blackmail us, and now even after he's dead we still have to deal with his sniveling schemes. Jacob Burns," she said, and then shifted her voice to a subtly menacing whisper, "I have always respected you, even after you sold out. But if you publish this man's lies, then as they say in Zimbabwe"—and here she gave a low hiss—"I will spit on your toenails."

  The coffee had soaked through my pants, my legs were damp and clammy, and now someone was threatening to spit on my toenails. Enough already. "Let's see if I got this straight," I said, taking them all in with my eyes. "Donald Penn eavesdropped on you people through his floorboards, right? And what he found out was, you all sit around the Arts Council every year giving each other grants. You did it this year, and I bet you did it last year too, and the year before that."

  "We have an ongoing body of work—" Novella Man began.

  I interrupted. "Yeah, and an ongoing body of bullshit, too. So finally The Penn called you on it. He said, give me five grand or I blow the whistle on your little grant panel scam."

  "The bastard had us on tape—" Mike Pardou sputtered, before Bonnie shut him up with a look.

  I threw them all a shiteating grin. "How interesting. So are you afraid you'll get busted for spending public money fraudulently?"

  No one answered. No one even moved.

  "Well, good news, folks," I told them, "no need to worry about the tape. It must have fried in the fire." Novella Man gave out an audible sigh of relief, but I wasn't finished. "However, the bad news is, Penn transcribed the entire panel meeting from last year—and I have it. Makes very entertaining reading. Would be a crime not to publish it. Maybe I should send complimentary copies to NYFA and a few other people too."

  If looks could kill, their combined gazes would have put me twenty feet under. "Give me a fucking break!" Bonnie exploded. "We did nothing wrong, and you know it. You can't expect artists like us to follow every little rule like regular people. When the whole world is against you, you have to be willing to sell your own grandmother to succeed!" She threw every word at me like a dagger. "Admit it, you hypocrite. Until six months ago, if you were on this panel, you'd have done the exact same thing we did!"

  She was right, of course. Being an unsuccessful artist had corrupted my spirit, just as it had corrupted everyone else at this table. Bonnie shoved her finger an inch from my nose. "So don't you dare sit there acting all high and mighty. You don't have any more talent than we do, you just got lucky, that's all! And you know it!"

  I was getting real sick of people yelling at me. I yelled right back at Bonnie, "You jealous fool, I don't care about your stupid little grants. I just want to find out who killed Donald Penn!"

  That stopped them, all right. They stared at me. So did Marcie and everyone else in the joint. I leaned over the table at the Grim People and fixed them with my Roger Clemens glare. "So tell me, which one of you people visited the Arts Council office on Monday morning—the morning Penn was poisoned?"

  I caught Bonnie's eyes darting around, scared, looking guilty as sin. But when I glanced over at Ersatz, he looked guilty too. And so did the Grant Queen, and the King of Spoons, and Novella Man. But they couldn't all be guilty, could they? What was this, Murder on the Orient Express?

  Ersatz was the first to speak. "You're crazy," he said.

  Think F. Lee Bailey, I told myself, and fastened my eyes on Ersatz's, trying not to get distracted by his impressive goatee. "Answer the question. Were you at the Arts Council office on Monday morning shortly before nine o'clock?"

  "No."

  "Do you have an alibi?"

  "No, I don't," Ersatz replied, but he didn't act nervous, and his eyes continued to hold mine.

  "I have an alibi," Novella Man volunteered—and there was a sudden blur of motion. It was Bonnie, slapping him hard across the face with a vicious backhand.

  It happened so fast, I don't know if Bonnie even meant to do it. Maybe it was just an unconscious reflex. We all sat and watched dumbly as blood spilled from Novella Man's cut lower lip. He looked like he was in shock, and I was afraid he'd pass out.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to do it," Bonnie said. She didn't look too broken up about it, though. She was always babbling about how boxing was good for a person's soul, but Bonnie's soul seemed to have taken on a few extra twists lately.

  Novella Man just stared at her, eyes wide, blood dripping down onto the table. Antoinette stood up. "I'll get you a napkin, Steve."

  As Antoinette went up to the front counter, Bonnie turned to me. "You should be ashamed of yourself, trying to pull this crap. Donald Penn wasn't killed, and even if he was, it had nothing to do with us. Get serious."

  "I'm dead serious."

  "If you are, you're an idiot."

  "Jacob, we had no reason to hurt him," Antoinette cut in, as she returned with the napkin. "The whole affair between us and that man was over and done with."

  "How do you figure that?"

  She opened her eyes wide and gave me another one of her earnest looks. This must be the look she used when hitting up potential funders for cash. "It's like this, Jacob. Me and Bonnie met with him last week, three days before he died. We called his bluff. We told him we planned to reject his application, no matter what the consequences."

  "What did he say?"

  Bonnie answered for Antoinette, with a derisive sneer. "What could he say? He wasn't happy about it, but it was all just a joke anyway. The little shrimp didn't even have the balls to look us in the face. And he definitely didn't have the balls to actually carry out his ridiculous threats."

  "You're right. Especially if he was dead."

  "For God's sake—" Bonnie began, but I stopped her. "What about you, Bonnie? Where were you that morning?"

  Big angry purple veins stuck out on Bonnie's hand as she balled it into a fist, and I was sure she'd punch me. I had to force myself not to back away from her as she said, "I will not put up with this insane harassment."

  "Sure, you will. Either from me or from the cops."

  Bonnie's veins got even bigger and purpler. "Burns, you're sticking your nose in places it doesn't belong." Her eyes turned into thin green slivers. "That could be dangerous. Very dangerous."

  My throat dried up. With as much toughness as I could muster, I asked, "Are you threatening me?" I probably would have sounded tougher if I hadn't been squeaking.

  Then, as if a faucet inside her had been suddenly shut off, Bonnie's fists relaxed and she burst into an amused smile. "Of course not," she laughed lightly, and stood up. "You're still one of us, Jacob. I just don't want anything bad happening to you, that's all."

  And before I could stop her, she stepped up and hugged me. I heard several sharp cracks. Either I'd just received some inexpensive chiropractic, or she'd broken a few disks in my spine.

  While I was still assessing the damage, Bonnie took my hand and gently put a couple of tickets in it. "I'm doing a performance piece with my students tonight. A new piece called The Devil Comes to Town that we wrote ourselves." She squeezed my fingers so hard they ached. "I do hope you can come, Jacob. You need to take a break from Hollywood and get back in touch with what grassroots art is all about. It'll renew you spiritually."

  And darned if she didn't hug me again. The woman's arms should have been registered as lethal weapons. Then she gave us all a wave and walked out of Madeline's.

  I sighed with relief, glad that my spinal column was finally out of danger. Then I looked back at the other Grim People, who were still sitting there at the table. Lost in the Sixties was beating his spoons again, eyes half closed, while Ersatz Uncle Sam stroked his goatee, and the Grant Queen applied a wet napkin to Novella Man's lips. He was gazing up
at her adoringly.

  Could any of these people have committed murder?

  I had no idea.

  23

  Sam Spade, Jr., needed a break. He needed one bad.

  And he got one, at Virgil Otis's house.

  That's where I headed after Madeline's, to see if I could somehow hustle the man into giving up his daughter's phone number. Luckily, just as I was driving up I spotted the girl herself coming out of her dad's house with a laundry basket full of clothes. It was nice to see that although web sites and megabytes have changed a lot of things, the grand old tradition of doing laundry at your parents' house lives on into the new millennium.

  I almost confronted Molly right then and there, while she dumped the clothes in her car. But Virgil appeared at the front door waving good-bye, and I decided to wait until we were out of his sight. As Molly pulled out of the driveway and took off, I followed her discreetly—or as discreetly as you can with a muffler that sounds like an Ozzy Osbourne CD. When would I get time to fix that thing?

  Molly led me onto the hallowed grounds of Skidmore College. Not wanting to spook her, I stayed a respectful distance behind. Too respectful as it turned out, because she found a parking spot right in front of her dorm and went inside while I was still stuck at the corner playing stop and go with a thirty-yard-long food service delivery truck.

  Molly's dorm was seven floors high, the biggest and most modern building on campus. I went in the foyer, but the inner door was locked and I didn't know which of the hundred or so doorbells to ring, since the students' names weren't listed. For security reasons, no doubt.

  Back outside, I went behind the dorm and found a broken window on the far corner of the first floor. So Molly had been telling the truth about that brick. Evidently the town's glaziers hadn't gotten around to fixing it yet, though in fairness to them, they'd been kept plenty busy lately.