“He doesn’t like me asking questions about Vivian Reynolds, and he wants me to stop,” I said. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been asking myself the same thing.
“I don’t want you to ask questions about Vivian Reynolds, and it never occurred to me to dress up a Goofy clock and suggest I could blow you up with it.” Dutton carefully blew a little dust off the film can, noticed a fingerprint, and began to lift it with some kind of tape.
“You just don’t have a creative mind, Chief,” I told him. “Don’t feel bad about it; most people don’t.”
“What about Townes’s son?” Dutton ignored my remark. “Do you think he could have taken it upon himself to warn you off?”
“Wilson Townes is a big, big man, Chief,” I told him. “Maybe bigger than you, but I got a strong impression that he doesn’t do anything his father doesn’t tell him to do.”
“At least there aren’t a lot of suspects,” Dutton said as he saved a slide with the fingerprint on it. “The last time somebody threatened you, we didn’t know where to look first.”
“Good times, good times,” I said.
Dutton finally stood up, brushed some dust off his clothes, and put the slide, along with some of the other equipment, into a kit he’d placed on the console. “I think I got all I’m going to get,” he said.
“I’m going to vacuum, then,” I told him. “I don’t want that dust getting inside the console, or I’ll never run this projector again.”
I went down the stairs to the closet where we keep the vacuum cleaner, noticing to my pleasure that my war wound suffered at the Battle of Queens was not hindering my movement as much as before; I was starting to feel better. I reached the landing, and walked across the lobby to the closet.
But on my way, some movement caught my eye from the direction of my office. The door was open, and I was almost certain I’d closed it when the uniform cops had taken the “bomb” out and Dutton and I had gone upstairs. There wasn’t anyone else in the theatre at this time of night.
Was there?
I changed course, but slowed down as I headed for the office. It occurred to me to go back upstairs and get Dutton, but my butt wasn’t feeling that much better, and besides, this could be nothing at all. An optical illusion. A trick of the mind.
Instead, it was Jonathan, standing next to my desk.
“What the heck are you doing here at this time of night, Jonathan?”
He stiffened, stood straight up, and turned. I think it was pretty clear I’d startled him. I’ve seen more subtle moves in Keystone Kops films.
“I was just looking for something to do, Mr. Freed.” Wow. That’s probably the lamest excuse possible under the circumstances.
“Didn’t I send you home an hour ago?” After he and Sophie had cleaned up, and while Dutton was still debriefing me about the package, I distinctly remembered telling the two of them to leave. Sophie had almost left a vapor trail, she’d gone so quickly.
“Yeah, but I wasn’t happy with the way the auditorium looked, so I cleaned up a little more in there.” Uh-huh. Yeah, that massive crowd we’d had tonight must have done some kind of damage.
“It’s after midnight, Jonathan. Go home. Do I need to call your mom to give you a ride?” He only lived three blocks away, but it was late.
“No, I’m okay walking. I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Freed.” Jonathan walked out the office door at sixty miles an hour and headed for the front doors, so stiff he looked like he was concealing an ironing board in the back of his shirt. Picture the Frankenstein monster on methamphetamine.
I assessed the office after he’d left. Was there something he was trying to find? Something he’d want to take home? I didn’t know Jonathan very well yet, but I knew he had an eye for some of the memorabilia I keep around the theatre. Still, he could have just asked me if there was something he especially wanted; I probably would have let him have it.
It didn’t occur to me until I noticed where he’d been standing, right over the desk, a few feet away from the iMac I keep there. I ran my eyes across the desk, wondering what might have attracted Jonathan’s attention.
The only thing that looked like it had been moved was my Rolodex. Yes, I know, I can keep all those files on my computer—and at home, I do—but I appreciate the old cards and the feeling of flipping through that thing randomly. Besides, a computer program has never really been able to absorb my “system” of filing names. That whole alphabetizing thing is so twentieth century.
Walking to the desk, I looked more closely, and sure enough, the dust that had settled all over the rest of the desktop (nobody ever accused me of being especially neat) had a Rolodex-sized break in it, a few inches to the left of where the Rolodex was now. I leaned over to see if I could discern what Jonathan had been looking at.
The Rolodex was turned to one of the newest cards, one I’d added less than a week before, white and crisp among the yellowed, worn, dusty ones.
The card with Les Townes’s address and phone number on it.
19
THURSDAY
“YOU think Jonathan Goodwin is conspiring with Les Townes to threaten you?” Sharon could barely hide her amusement, although to be fair, she wasn’t trying very hard. “You seriously believe that sixteen-year-old kid is trying to help an eighty-year-old man cover up a murder that took place in 1958?”
The restaurant, trying its very best to be quaint, was stopping short of rustic. Called The Settlers Inn, it was meant to be a colonial dining experience, when in fact the only thing the least bit colonial about it was the presence of goose on the menu. And you had to call a day in advance to get that. We hadn’t.
“I’m not saying it’s a perfect theory,” I countered. “But Chief Dutton took it seriously enough to consider it.”
“Did he call Jonathan in for questioning?” My ex-wife’s large green eyes were drinking in my discomfort like wine. Assuming eyes drink wine.
“No.”
“Did he call Jonathan’s mother?”
“No.”
“Did he ask the New York cops to talk to Townes about it?”
I waited a beat. “So. How was your day?”
Sharon giggled. “Just lovely,” she said when she’d reigned in her amusement. “I treated a man with shingles and a woman with a persistent cough, among many others. ”
“You should be flattered I’m even breathing near you, considering the germ factory you must be by the end of the day,” I told her.
“I’m very clean,” Sharon said.
The waiter, an unfortunate young man with a fake pony-tail and a three-cornered hat, came over to explain the specials, most of which came with succotash, and some with a wild rice medley. I couldn’t remember one hit song that wild rice had ever recorded, but it certainly sounded better than succotash, so I went with a chicken dish of some sort that included the rice. Sharon, adventurous soul that she is, went for a fish dish that sounded downright rustic and came with succotash.
And to think, I had chosen this restaurant myself. I should have known better.
“Where were we?” I asked when the waiter retreated back behind redcoat lines to give our orders to the Hessian at the grill.
“We were discussing my level of cleanliness,” Sharon answered.
“Perhaps it’s time to move on to another topic, then.”
“Yes, let’s talk about someone sending you a bomb, and how you think that Jonathan Goodwin is involved.” Sharon’s hundred-watt smile never so much as flickered.
“You’re a fine first date,” I told her.
“I’m a better second date.”
“I remember.”
She gave me a pointed look to remind me that we were starting fresh. “I can’t believe you suspect Jonathan. You’re so paranoid. That boy is like a little lamb; you just want to hug him.”
“He’s five foot ten and stares at the floor all the time,” I countered. “There are people I can think of I’d rather hug.”
“You keep on being mean, a
nd you’re not going to get lucky tonight,” my ex-wife said.
I widened my eyes. “You mean I actually have a chance on the first date?”
“No. But why shouldn’t I give you the illusion of hope?”
The waiter came over with some brown bread and “freshly churned” butter that was ostensibly from a cow here on the “farm.” Forget that the pats all had “Land O Lakes” stamped on them. I have been well trained, so I waited until he walked away before I tore off a hearty portion and began slathering it. I hadn’t eaten much today.
“Look,” I told Sharon through a mouthful of bread (I’m not as good on a first date as she is). “I don’t want to suspect Jonathan. But I walked in, he was there when he shouldn’t have been, he was acting guilty, and the Rolodex was open to Les Townes’s card. Now, you tell me how I should interpret that without being, as you would say, paranoid. ”
“Maybe he just wanted to talk to Townes. He’s a movie nut like you.” Sharon used the serrated knife I hadn’t noticed to cut herself a “human-sized” slice of bread. Women can be so civilized it hurts.
“And it’s just a coincidence that he’s there past midnight right after I got a threatening package that we assume came from Townes?”
“Precisely. Coincidences do happen, you know.”
“Yeah, in Dickens novels. In real life, they’re just way too . . . coincidental.” I was losing, and we weren’t even having an argument. “But let’s forget this whole thing. I came here to have a night with you.”
“An evening. A night, you don’t get on the first date,” Sharon said.
“I believe you might have mentioned that. So. Tell me what kind of medicine you practice.” If she wanted a first date, I could give her a first date.
Sharon’s face brightened; she liked playing this game. “Well, I’m a family practitioner. That way, I get to treat everyone from kids to grandparents, and I find that really rewarding.”
“That’s really interesting,” I said, voice dripping false fascination. “Do you treat pets as well?”
Her eyes fell to half-mast. “You don’t play this as well as you used to,” she said.
I put on my most innocent expression. “Used to? I thought we’d never met before.”
“Let’s go back to talking about how Les Townes is trying to kill you. It was more fun.”
I had a devastating quip to use as a retort—no really, I did—but my cell phone, in my inside jacket pocket, began to vibrate. “Uh-oh,” I said, reaching for it. “This could be Sophie. I knew I shouldn’t have left them . . .”
But the number was one I didn’t recognize, although the area code indicated it was from North Jersey. I looked at Sharon, and she nodded: go ahead. I pushed the talk button and said, “Hello?”
Harry Lillis’s voice came through my cell phone, which only week ago would have been enough to leave me speechless for an hour. Now, it was just a little scary. “I took your advice,” he said.
“Harry?” Sharon looked surprised when I said the name, and we made eye contact. “What advice?”
“About doing the show here at the Home,” he answered. “I decided to be in the one they’re having next week. Les is coming up to rehearse tomorrow.”
What did he just say? “Les?” I asked. Sharon looked even more concerned.
“Sure,” Lillis answered. “We’re a team. I invited him to come up and start working on something for the show. I imagine we’ll be seeing a lot of each other over the next week. And it’s all because of you, Elliot.”
Well, I was speechless again, but for a different reason.
“I’M afraid I haven’t shown you a very good time,” I said.
We were standing on the stoop in front of my town house, in front of the door painted (according to the bylaws of the condo association) so green it actually can bring on nausea (I’m not the owner; I rent). Sharon wasn’t standing close enough, but there would be time for that on future evenings.
“Don’t be so tough on yourself,” she said. “We had a nice dinner and we talked like adults. That’s not a bad evening for those of us on the dating scene.”
I smiled; she could still do that to me. “I spent the whole night worrying about Harry Lillis,” I reminded her. “You must have thought I was insane.”
“No more than usual. Look. You tried to explain to him that you thought it was a bad idea to reunite the team, and he didn’t want to hear it.” (That was true; I’d spent at least ten minutes trying to dissuade Lillis, who was unimpressed. ) “And just because Les Townes is a little miffed at you doesn’t mean he’ll take it out on Harry.”
“A little miffed? He told his son to shoot me and tried to blow me up.”
“No one tried to blow you up,” she said, voice loaded with eye rolling. “The note pointed out that if they wanted to, they could blow you up. That’s different. And besides, you don’t even know for sure that it was Townes.”
“Yeah, what was I worried about?”
Sharon shivered beguilingly. “It’s getting chilly.”
“Do you want to come in?” I asked, with almost no ulterior motives.
She gave me a knowing look. “Not tonight. I’m going home.” But she leaned over and kissed me very nicely, which took some of the sting out of rejection.
“Now that I remember,” I said when we were finished.
“You would.”
“No fair. You can’t take it back,” I told her. “That was a really good first-date kiss, and it was your idea.”
“And if you ask me on a second date, we’ll see where it goes from there.” Sharon turned and started for her car.
“I’m asking,” I said.
She turned back and smiled. I can still do that to her.
20
FRIDAY
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941) and Box
Office Bozo (this week)
SOPHIE, having recently arrived in her (beautifully) restored Prius, was busy at work organizing candy into configurations that would best dramatize the struggle of women through the centuries, which I believe meant moving the Junior Mints to the bottom shelf and the Mary Janes to the top. There is no gesture too subtle for the true believer.
She’d given up parting her long hair down the middle and letting in hang down in Goth disinterest, and instead had cut it to her jawline, adding bangs to her style. She looked like Ringo Starr in 1964, but with a smaller nose.
Having just gotten in myself, I had little to do that was urgent; we wouldn’t be opening for two hours. So I ambled over to the snack bar, friendly employer approaching trusted employee, and leaned on the glass case. Sophie gave me a dirty look, and I realized I had smudged the top, and she’d have to clean it again. I straightened abruptly.
“How’s the car?” I asked her.
“Fine.” She couldn’t be grateful for my having it repaired, because that would indicate a state of indebtedness to a man. I had noticed this didn’t stop her from cashing her paychecks, but I wasn’t going to be petty about it.
“May I ask you a question?” I said.
“That is a question.” I moved out of the way so Sophie could Windex the mark I’d left on the counter. She would have Windexed me if I hadn’t.
“That’s true.” No sense getting her more annoyed. “Is it all right if I ask you another question?” Then I quickly added, “After that one, of course.”
Sophie didn’t look at me. “Yeah.”
“Forgive me if this is too unenlightened, but when I saw you right after we had the damage to the theatre, you were acting very differently than when you came back to work a couple of weeks ago.” I thought that was pretty diplomatic.
“That’s not a question.”
So don’t nominate me for the Nobel Peace Prize. “Well, did something happen during the time away that . . . Are you acting differently than you used to?” I asked. I refrained from pointing out that this was, in fact, a question. No need to pat oneself on the back, you know.
“No.”
“Don’t elaborate, Sophie, you wouldn’t want to give away too much.” I started to walk away.
She called after me. “Elliot?”
I turned to face her again. “Sophie?” I said. Hey, I can do petty as well as the next fella.
“We’re low on Buncha Crunch.”
I told her I’d order more and went back to my office. Well, maybe I’d order more, and maybe I wouldn’t. We patriarchal types can be unpredictable. (Who was I kidding? Buncha Crunch was one of our better sellers when we had family films—parents bought it for their children, and then ate half the box. And wondered later why they couldn’t lose weight, as they “hadn’t eaten anything at the movies.”)
The phone was already ringing when I reached the office door, and Sergeant William Dunkowitz of the New York City Police Department (he said all that stuff—it probably killed him not to add his middle initial) was on the line.
“Mr. Freed, I wanted to call with a few more questions about the alleged incident at Mr. Townes’s home in Queens,” he said.
“Alleged incident? Should I get my doctor to send you some of the alleged shotgun pellets she took out of my butt?”
He didn’t react at all. “We questioned Mr. Townes and his son, and they were adamant in their explanations that the incident was a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding? Did I fail to understand that he was trying to shoot me when Wilson aimed a shotgun at me and pulled the trigger? What kind of misunderstanding are we talking about, Sergeant?”
“Mr. Townes, senior, said that was a joke that got out of hand,” Dunkowitz said. His tone indicated he was keeping a straight face while saying it, but I don’t have a video phone, so I can’t say for sure.
“Well, I’m a big fan of Mr. Townes, senior, but I’m not laughing,” I told him.
“I’m just letting you know what was said, Mr. Freed,” Dunkowitz said.
The guy was just doing his job. “What is it you’d like to know from me, Sergeant?” I asked.
“Your chief of police called me with information about a second incident, when someone sent you a package that might have been explosive?”
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