by Lois Winston
“I don’t remember you ever talking about yours.”
“Well, my mother never spoke of hers, either. I just assumed you wouldn’t want to hear me complaining about hot flashes and night sweats and all those other unpleasant symptoms I’d rather forget.”
I was flying nearly blind here. I knew something about menopause from overhearing a few of the older women at work discuss their symptoms, but I’d paid little attention at the time. “I think I had a hot flash the other day.”
“Do you have any other symptoms?”
“Like what?”
“Irritability?”
“Really, Mama? Have you not noticed the nosedive my life has taken since the winter?”
She executed an air-swat of my question, and I fixated on her perfectly manicured fingernails. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had an extra ten dollars to splurge on a manicure.
“Other than caused by the Bolshevik cow,” she said.
Or by my own mother? I laughed. “Sure, ever since I learned Karl left us with debt up the wazoo.”
“This is not helping, dear. How about lack of sleep?”
“Ditto. Thanks to Karl and that debt.”
“Again, not helpful. What about changes in your monthly cycle?”
“None.”
She reached out and patted my hand. “Then I wouldn’t worry, dear. You have quite a few fertile years ahead of you.”
“I’m growing irritable right now, Mama.”
She feigned innocence.
“When did you start having pre-menopausal symptoms?” I asked.
“Not until my early fifties.”
Our pie and coffee arrived and we tabled the conversation, eating in silence for a few minutes. I racked my brain for some way to continue the menopause conversation but came up blank. My thoughts instead turned to the real reason Zack and I had driven to the condo that night.
“Did Lawrence see the note I left for him yesterday?”
“Yes, Mr. Jay stopped by earlier today.”
“He said he came for some papers that had to do with the sale of the laundry, but I didn’t see anything on the mail table or on Lawrence’s desk.”
“I believe they were still in his file cabinet.” Mama placed a forkful of pie in her mouth and closed her eyes as she savored the mixture of flaky crust and fruit. “Hmm…this was a lovely suggestion, dear. I haven’t had a slice of strawberry-rhubarb pie in ages.”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying it, Mama. And I appreciate you setting my mind at ease about the hot flash.”
Mama waved her empty fork in the air. “One hot flash means nothing. You shouldn’t worry. And I believe they now call them power surges, dear.”
I nodded. Of course, I knew the current lingo, but had I told Mama I experienced a power surge, she probably would have asked if it had destroyed any household appliances or electronics equipment.
I nudged the conversation back toward Steven Jay, AKA “Jelly Bean” Benini. “I didn’t realize the sale of the laundry had occurred so recently.”
“Not that recently. I don’t remember exactly when. Lawrence mentioned it at one time.” She thought for a moment. “Yes, I remember now. It was around the time Ira married Cynthia.”
“Did Mr. Jay purchase the business from Lawrence?”
Mama shook her head. Before speaking, she took a sip of coffee to wash down another mouthful of pie. “No, he’s our insurance agent. I believe the papers had something to do with a liability policy on the business.”
Ira married Cynthia well before Karl died. Which meant Lawrence had sold his business over a year ago. Lawrence wouldn’t have continued to carry liability insurance on a business he no longer owned. He would have cancelled the policy as soon as the sale went through.
Sometimes I’m glad Mama is so clueless. This was definitely one of those times. She saw nothing unusual in any of this. I, on the other hand, saw a sea of red flags whipping wildly in front of me.
I also knew beyond a doubt that no way in hell was Stevie “Jelly Bean” Benini a legitimate insurance agent.
FOURTEEN
After Mama and I finished our pie and coffee, I drove us back to the condo. Zack and Lawrence still sat glued to the television. The Jets were down 28-3. Lawrence let loose a string of expletives as the receiver fumbled and lost the ball for another turnover.
“It’s only a silly game, dear,” said Mama, squeezing herself into the space between Zack and her husband. She reached for the remote. “We have company. Why not turn the television off and socialize if you’re so unhappy with the score?”
Lawrence snatched the remote from her hand. “Leave it!”
Mama’s eyes grew wide, and her chin began to quiver. I’d had my doubts about the whirlwind courtship and marriage from the beginning, but Mama always needed a man in her life. Perhaps, had she gotten to know Lawrence better before sashaying down the aisle, she might not have taken that particular path. The previously gallant, doting Lawrence was lately proving himself anything but gallant and doting.
I’ve known many sports fanatics in my life but only one who behaved in a similar fashion. At the time I thought nothing of it. Many men take their favorite sports teams too seriously and any losses too personally. At the time it never occurred to me that Karl’s behavior had been a symptom of a massive gambling addiction.
The pieces started falling into place. Stevie “Jelly Bean” Benini was no insurance agent; he was Lawrence’s bookie, and he’d come to collect a gambling debt. If I had an extra nickel to bet, I’d put money on it. I wondered how much Lawrence had riding on tonight’s Jets/Chargers game.
I also wondered how much money, if any, Lawrence had left at this point from the sale of his business. Because I was also willing to bet my nonexistent disposable income that any profit he’d made from the sale of the business had gone right into his bookie’s pockets.
“We should go,” I said to Zack. “Tomorrow’s a work day.”
He stood and turned to Lawrence. “Maybe they’ll turn things around in the second half.”
“Damn well better,” Lawrence muttered, not bothering to take his eyes off the screen, let alone say goodbye. Then again, he’d never said hello.
I hated leaving Mama alone with a man in such a foul mood. She slapped on a smile as she walked us to the door, but the smile didn’t extend to her eyes. “Lawrence takes his sports very seriously,” I said, hoping she’d drop some clue as to what was going on in her marriage.
She banished the suggestion with a wave of her hand. “You know men, dear. Sports and sex. That’s all they care about. I’ll get him to cheer up later.”
Not wanting to hear the details of how she’d achieve that miracle, I quickly pecked her on the cheek and scurried out the door.
After we settled into the car, I asked Zack, “Did you learn anything?” A loud tummy rumble punctuated my question.
Zack raised an eyebrow as my stomach continued to insert itself in the conversation. “We never ate dinner. Just popcorn and wine earlier this afternoon. Did you eat anything at the diner?”
“A piece of pie and a cup of coffee. You?”
“Some chips and salsa but Lawrence scarfed down the lion’s share. He glanced at his watch. “It’s nearly ten. We should get something to eat before going home.”
My stomach sounded its agreement.
Zack drove back to the Scotchwood Diner. The waitress executed a double take when she saw me reenter the diner but said nothing as she ushered us to an empty booth. We settled in and both ordered omelets, spinach and mushroom for me and bacon and cheese for Zack.
Once the waitress departed to place the order, I repeated my earlier question. “Did you learn anything from Lawrence?”
“Not much. He didn’t deny Steven Jay was really ‘Jelly Bean’ Benini. Said he was a second cousin on his mother’s side.”
“Does he know Benini’s a member of the Gambino crime family?”
“Was a member, according to Lawrence. H
e assured me Benini wasn’t squeezing him and claimed the guy had walked away from the life after nearly going to prison a few years ago.”
I raised both eyebrows and snorted. “How gullible does he think you are?” According to the documentary, Benini was a made man. There are only two ways made men leave organized crime: they either die or they enter the Witness Protection program. Even when mobsters go to prison, business continues as usual.
Zack chuckled. “He worked extremely hard at convincing me of Benini’s conversion to the straight and narrow.”
“He actually carried on a conversation with you during the game?”
“No, we only spoke during the commercial breaks. The guy is a rabid fan.”
And I knew why. “This is where Ralph would squawk a comment about the man protesting too much. What did you talk about the remainder of the time?”
“Nothing. He was too busy shoveling salsa and chips into his mouth in-between cursing every player and coach on the Jets.”
“Do you believe him?” I sure as heck didn’t. “If Benini is now such a fine, upstanding citizen, why did he use a false name when he showed up at the apartment yesterday?”
“Lawrence had an answer for that as well. Said the guy doesn’t want any reminders of his past life and has legally changed his name.”
I snorted again.
“Anyway,” said Zack, “I led Lawrence to believe I accepted his explanation.”
“Mama thinks Benini is their insurance agent.” I gave Zack a recap of our conversation. “After seeing Lawrence’s behavior tonight, I’m convinced Benini is Lawrence’s bookie.”
Zack nodded. “I came to the same conclusion after watching the way he acted this evening.”
Our omelets arrived, and we ate in silence for a few minutes. When my hunger pangs finally abated, I asked, “What do we do now?”
“We call in the cavalry. I’ll phone Patricia in the morning. See if she can dig up anything.”
Patricia was Zack’s ex-wife. From my perspective they had the friendliest divorce in the history of the world—just two people who had married way too young and for all the wrong reasons. They realized their mistake almost immediately and parted ways to lead their own lives but continued to remain friends, even after all these years. Patricia’s late-in-life toddler twins by her second husband even referred to Zack as “Uncle Zackie.” However, more importantly, Patricia worked as a Manhattan assistant district attorney and had access to all sorts of legal records and former cases.
But could that access prove helpful to us? “Don’t you think if the D.A. had something on Benini, he’d be behind bars?”
“Probably. I’m more interested in finding out about someone else at this point.”
“Lawrence?”
“Exactly.”
That was the gnat that kept buzzing around my brain for the past few months. Lawrence never spoke about himself, at least not to me. From what I’d gathered, the man had also divulged very little about himself to his son-in-law or his new wife. “All we know about him is what Mama and Ira have told us.”
“And that’s not much.”
Zack spoke around a mouthful of omelet. “I’m more concerned about whether what we know is the truth.”
I certainly hoped so. For Mama’s sake and for the rest of us.
*
My least favorite day of the year arrived with a crisp breeze and not a cloud in the sky. I had hoped for rain. Lots of it. Enough rain to keep away the hordes of Trick or Treaters that would begin ringing my doorbell well before I arrived home from work later that evening.
“I left the bags of candy on the foyer table,” I told Alex and Nick before heading off to work that morning, “but don’t answer the door unless Zack is here.”
“Don’t worry,” said Nick. “We can handle pipsqueak zombies and pint-sized ninjas.”
“It’s not the zombies and ninjas I worry about.”
As I settled in behind my steering wheel, I wished the day were already behind me. Halloween always gave me the heebie-jeebies, but this Halloween was worse than most. This year the ghosts of too many recent nightmares lurked in the shadows.
I arrived at work ten minutes before our scheduled planning meeting, just enough time to check in on Mama. No matter how much she tried to mask her sadness over her relationship with Lawrence, I saw through her false cheerfulness.
She answered on the first ring with an extremely bright “Good morning, dear!”
“You sound very chipper this morning, Mama.”
“I slept like a log last night, thanks to the hot toddy Lawrence whipped up for me. Anyway, I was about to call you, dear. Lawrence booked a wine tour for us today out on Long Island. We’ll be staying overnight at a bed and breakfast in Suffolk County.”
“You didn’t mention anything last night.”
“He surprised me with it after you and Zack left, said he was going to wait until morning, but realized he’d acted a bit grouchy during the football game and wanted to apologize.”
To my mind Lawrence’s behavior toward Mama had gone far beyond a bit grouchy, but I wasn’t about to argue with her. At least he’d admitted his attitude sucked and apologized.
“Would you be a dear and check in on Catherine the Great this evening?” she continued. “Make sure she has plenty of food and water to tide her over?”
Just what I needed, another line item on my to-do list but I was pleasantly surprised to hear Mama so happy after seeing her so down last night. “I’ll stop in on my way home from work.”
“Thank you, dear.” She hung up before I could suggest she thank me with a bottle of wine. Not that I viewed our relationship as quid pro quo, but it would be nice if occasionally I didn’t feel as though Mama was always taking advantage of me.
I hung up the phone, grabbed a folder from my desk, and headed for the conference room for our monthly planning meeting. Half the editors had already arrived and were helping themselves to coffee and Halloween cookies. I poured myself a cup and grabbed a mean-looking jack-o-lantern and an orange-haired witch from a box next to the coffee pot.
As soon as everyone had arrived and settled in, we first went over the status of the various issues in progress. Then Cloris, Jeanie, and I presented our suggestion of a baby theme for the next issue. Naomi loved the idea, and to our surprise Tessa didn’t pitch a fit. Apparently, all the big-name designer labels now included lines for the offspring of hedge fund managers and those parents living on large trust funds.
Forget Oshkosh. The well heeled now dressed their infants and toddlers in Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta, Marc Jacobs, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, and Stella McCartney. Instead of selling his laundry business, Lawrence should have opened a chain catering to the thirty-something parents living on the Upper East Side and in Tribeca. He would have made a killing removing spit-up and pureed peas from organic cotton onesies, rompers, and pinafores.
“How many pages will you need for patterns?” Naomi asked, forcing my thoughts back to the meeting.
“It depends on how large a layette I create. I can keep the patterns simple and omit booties. They require longer directions, and never stay on babies’ feet anyway.”
“Knit or crochet?”
“Either. Do you have a preference?”
Naomi thought for a moment. “I have a better idea. Instead of a layette, why don’t you create a couple of carriage blankets? One of each. That way we can offer a project for readers who knit and one for readers who crochet, and we won’t need as many column inches for directions. We’ll also be able to go with a larger photograph.”
Blanket designs certainly made my life easier. Figuring out all the increasing and decreasing needed to size sweaters and bonnets correctly took an enormous amount of time. Of all the projects I created for the magazine, knitting and crochet required the most work on my part.
However, worry niggled at the edges of my brain. Having Naomi cut my editorial space before being forced to do so by additional ad placement d
idn’t sit well with me. More importantly, it probably didn’t bode well for my continued employment if I acquiesced without a fight.
I forced a smile but at the same time formulated a plan to fight for my pages. “That would work,” I said, “but since we have readers of varying skill levels, why not cater to all of them from beginner to advanced?”
“Meaning?” asked Naomi.
“I can design simple blankets for beginners, ones with slightly more involved patterns for those who are more accomplished, and intricate patterns for those who enjoy a challenge.”
Naomi frowned. “Six designs? How much column space will that require?”
“No more than my normal spreads.” Once I gave the directions for establishing the pattern, all the reader had to do was keep repeating it until the desired size was achieved.
Naomi nodded. “Let’s compromise. Design two of each, one simple pattern and one more complex.”
Not a complete victory but the best I could achieve—at least until the sales force reported in with the results of their efforts. If they had an overly successful month, two, if not three, of those four blankets would land on the chopping block.
After the other editors presented their ideas, I headed back to my cubicle to plan the blankets. I hadn’t gotten very far when my phone rang. I glanced at the display and immediately recognized Detective Spader’s number.
“Hello, Detective.”
He got right down to business. “Mrs. Pollack, I thought you’d want to know the knife you discovered in your backyard is the weapon that killed Carmen Cordova. So I’m asking you again, are you certain there’s nothing else you can tell me?”
“About what?”
“About someone who might want to make trouble for you.”
“I’ve told you everything I know.”
“You’re absolutely certain? Nothing you may have forgotten or overlooked? Even a recent minor altercation with someone?”
“Honestly, Detective, I can’t think of anyone other than my motherin-law who takes pleasure in making my life miserable, but she certainly didn’t kill either Betty or Carmen, and she didn’t phone in a hostage threat. Were you able to pull any fingerprints from the knife?”