“I’m sorry, Dave. It was my agent. She calls every Wednesday, and never has anything to tell me. I don’t know why I still. . .”
“Aaron! The missing lady? What have you got?”
“Dave, I’ve got to level with you. This story. . .”
“Don’t tell me you need more time, Aaron. I’ve got a hole in the local section Friday that I was counting on filling with the juicy details of a missing woman from Midland Park.”
“Midland Heights.”
“Wherever. Where’s the story?”
“Well, that’s just it, Dave.” I started staring at each of the sixteen pictures Leah had drawn for my last birthday. They all had rainbows, and a girl with long brown hair. The girl’s hair usually was longer than her body, which was composed of sticks. Everything was relatively in proportion except the fingers, which were tremendously long. It looked like a girl with huge spiders on each hand. . .
“What’s just it?”
“The story. See, I’ve been at it a week now, and. . .”
“That sentence doesn’t end well, does it, Aaron?”
The man had keen instincts. “Well, no. See. . .”
There was another beep in the headset. “Dave, hang on. I’ll get rid of this one faster, I promise.”
“Great. I’ll hold my breath this time.”
I clicked on the flash button once again, steeling myself for a call from either my mother or Anne Mignano. “Hello?”
A woman’s high-pitched voice—with a nervous chuckle after almost every word. “Mr. Tucker? Aaron Tucker?”
Terrific. Now somebody’s going to try and sell me a subscription to Newsweek while I’m trying to wriggle out of a cheap newspaper assignment. “Yes, this is Aaron Tucker. But I’m not. . .”
“This is Madlyn Beckwirth,” she said. “I hear you’ve been looking for me.”
Chapter 26
There was a very long pause. It might have lasted hours. I’m not sure. They say when you go into shock, time really doesn’t register all that well on your brain.
“Hello?” the woman said.
“Um. . .” I stood up. When I’m having really important, or tense, conversations, I stand up. It’s a reflex. I paced around the room as far as the 25-foot phone cord would allow. “You’re Madlyn Beckwirth?” Stall. Find the functioning area of your brain while you keep her on the line with the other 90 percent.
“That’s right. They tell me you’re looking for me. I just wanted you to know that I’m okay, and there’s no reason to look for me anymore.” The voice certainly matched the photograph I’d seen—tentative, a touch naive—and yet not at all a voice to dismiss out of hand. A woman who probably sat in her perfectly appointed family room eating ladyfingers off a silver tray while watching a hockey game on TV.
“Who? Who tells you I’m looking for you?”
“I’m just calling to let you know I’m fine, and I’ll be back in a few days. This is really no big deal.” She didn’t seem to be reading from a script, and there wasn’t the kind of tension in her voice that would indicate anyone standing nearby with a gun trained on her.
“So you haven’t been kidnapped?”
Madlyn—if it was Madlyn—laughed, one of those explosions from pursed lips that Carol Burnett used to be so good at. A sound like “Pahhhh!” She composed herself quickly and said, “no, I’m not kidnapped. I’m fine. Really. There’s no reason to write about me in the paper.”
Ah-hah. So that was it. “If nothing’s wrong, why don’t you want your family and friends to know that?” I asked. “Your husband is very worried, and your son. . .” You need to know, I’m not a good liar.
“My son is. . . what? Worried I’ll come back?” The voice was sarcastic. Well, she knew her kid well, assuming it was Madlyn. An assumption that was getting harder and harder to avoid.
“He’s worried,” I said, very unconvincingly. “He wants to know where you are. Where are you?”
There was another stretch of silence in the conversation, this time coming from the other end of the phone. Damn! I wished Barry Dutton was listening in on my phone. He could have traced this call to its source. First time I’d ever wanted somebody to tap my phone.
The one thing I could remember to do was pull the little phone-to-recorder wire I keep for telephone interviews down from the shelf over my desk. I plugged one end into the phone line, for the briefest of seconds cutting off Madlyn, and pressed the exposed phone cord into the other, female, end. I could hear the caller again.
She said, “hello? Are you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” I replied. I found the portable cassette recorder behind my computer monitor, and plugged the other end of the phone line into the microphone jack. “I was asking where you are.” Damn! No blank cassette!
“I don’t think I want to tell you,” the woman replied. I crept into the living room, adjacent to my office, and tried to reach the blank cassettes, which we keep on the mantle of the non-operational fireplace. Must get that thing repaired one of these days, when I have $5,000 I’m not doing anything with.
“Why not?” Got to keep her talking. If I could just reach that box of cassettes. . . got one!
“I don’t want to be found. . . just yet,” the voice said. I raced back to the desk, trying desperately to take the wrapping off the blank tape package. Finding a corner on one of these things was like finding a compassionate literary agent in Hollywood. You could do it, but it took a hundred times more work than it should.
“Don’t you want everyone to see you’re all right?” I asked as I finally slammed an unwrapped cassette into the recorder. I pushed the button and thanked all the spirits in the room that at least the batteries in the recorder were functional. The tape started to turn.
“That’s why I called you,” she said.
And then she hung up.
Intermission
Madlyn hung up the phone and lay back on the king-size bed, sighing contentedly. Now maybe this reporter guy would stop bothering everybody, and she could enjoy her vacation a while longer. Maybe for good.
In retrospect, almost getting killed by a minivan had been exactly what she’d needed. When she fell back to avoid a collision, over the little metal divider and down the hill, she’d thought she was going to die. But she hadn’t even been badly injured—just a couple of cuts and bruises.
It had made her think, though. You don’t have any guarantees. You can’t put off your own happiness and expect to pick it up again when you have the time. What if you don’t have the time?
She had gotten herself up from the base of the ridge beside her house, right next to the creek that ran to the river. She’d inspected her bumps and cuts, decided they were unimportant, and started walking.
Madlyn had no intention whatsoever of returning to the house that night. Keeping that place together and keeping the boy in line was more than a 24-hour-a-day job. It was a career she hadn’t studied for in college. So given this unexpected opportunity, she turned her back on the house.
By morning, she had reached the highway, and a little before noon, drawing stares because of her outfit (and obvious lack of underwear), she’d found a convenience store and called her husband, collect.
He pretended to be distraught, but she’d done this before, and he knew the drill. She expected a number of things from him, beginning with a limo to pick her up and take her wherever she wanted to go, a credit card in her name on Gary’s account, and his presence as soon as possible.
When he arrived on the second day, everything was the way she wanted it. The sex was amazing, and if a married couple can’t get away and remember what their dating days were like, then what was left of the American Dream?
She had stayed here the whole time, but they couldn’t always be together. The pretense that she was missing had to be preserved to save everyone a lot of embarrassment.
The very thought of it made her feel lightheaded. She was watching the door closely now. Gary had called about 20 minutes
ago from the car with the update. She should expect to see that door open any minute, and to feel again the things she’d dreamt about all week long.
Part Two: Finding
Chapter 1
I had spent a good portion of the past week staring at the phone-set in my hand, and here I was, doing it again. Only one sentence uttered by the “Mystery Woman” on the phone, and then silence. Hell, Westbrook could have done that well. At least Gary Beckwirth would be able to tell from that short clip if it was his wife’s voice. That would be the “cheerful news” he had requested—Madlyn was still alive.
I was supposed to find Madlyn Beckwirth, but she had found me. “They” had told her I was looking for her, and she had called me to put an end to my search, and to get me to leave her alone. And she had done a hell of a job, too. She’d managed to get her message across without directly answering a single question. Madlyn should have been running for office herself, not getting someone else elected.
Feeling stupid, I was about to hang up the phone when a nagging little feeling in the back of my mind leapt to the front, and instead, I hit the flash button.
“Dave?”
“Well waddaya know,” came back my editor’s voice. “He did remember there was another human being waiting on the line.”
“Jesus, I’m sorry,” I blabbered. “It was. . .”
What was I going to tell him? That I was about to resign from the story he’d given me—which meant I’d probably never get any work from Dave or his paper again—but decided against it when the woman I was supposed to locate had located me instead? In that case, he’d hire Madlyn to write the story, and cut me out of it entirely. She called me—it was embarrassing. Did Richard Nixon call Bob Woodward and let him in on the whole Watergate thing? Well, they never did find out who “Deep Throat” was. . .
“Spare me the details,” Harrington said. “You were about to explain to me why this thousand-dollar story you’re working on isn’t going to be in my computer by tomorrow.”
Wait a second. That was the point, exactly. Madlyn had called me, not the other way around. And that meant. . .
“Dave,” I told him, “forget everything I was about to tell you. You’ll have a story on your screen tomorrow, and it’s going to be much better than you have any reason to expect.”
“Well, how hard is that to do?”
“I’ll talk to you later,” I said, and hung up on him before he could commit another atrocity of wit. Immediately afterward, I pressed the line button for incoming calls on the phone and dialed *69.
“This is—your return-call service,” the automated voice said. I held my breath. If the number was out of the area, like MacKenzie’s, I was completely screwed, and would have to call Harrington back and offer to wax his car by hand every week until Leah got out of graduate school. “The number of your last incoming call is: Six-zero-nine. . .” A sigh of relief was heard in houses up and down my street.
So there it was, I thought, jotting down the entire ten digit phone number on the back of yesterday’s sheet-a-day calendar, the official Aaron Tucker Editorial Services scratch paper. A six-zero-nine area code meant South Jersey, and this exchange sounded like Atlantic City, which was easily a two-hour drive away. But I couldn’t just call Madlyn back. She might flee. I needed to see her, bring her back, show everyone that I could, in fact, do the job I was asked, however mistakenly, to do.
The phone number I’d gotten ended in a hundred, so it had to be a business, and, if Madlyn was holed-up in Atlantic City, probably a hotel. I dialed the number.
“Bally’s Casino Hotel.”
It’s hard to talk when you’re holding your breath, but I managed. “What room is Madlyn Beckwirth in?” I asked. “Don’t connect me,” I added quickly.
“There’s no Madlyn Beckwirth registered here, sir, and even if there were, it’s our policy not to give out room numbers over the phone.”
“Well, I just received an abusive phone call from your hotel, and I’d like very much to know who might have called and threatened the lives of my children,” I scolded. The operator, if I was lucky, wouldn’t know it was against the law to make such calls and immediately insist the cops be brought in.
“Oh, my!” she said. “Well, I can access the phone records to see which room called your number, sir.” Once in a while, I get lucky.
“That’s better,” I said, and gave her my number. It took a few seconds.
“I have it. A call made about eight minutes ago,” said the operator proudly. Way to get around the hotel rules, Tucker. “That’s room twenty-two-oh-three, but there’s no Madlyn Beckwirth registered there, sir.”
“Who is registered in that room? Maybe there’s been a mistake.”
“That room is registered to Mrs. Milton Ladowski.” I almost dropped the phone, but managed to thank the operator, and hung up.
I ran across the street and asked Miriam to watch the kids until Abby got home. She said her daughter Melissa would be glad to play with Leah. Ethan, I informed her, would do his homework and then disappear into the land of Nintendo, emerging only for sustenance. In other words, Miriam said it was no problem. I was in the car before I really knew what I was doing.
Once on the road, I plugged the cell phone into the cigarette lighter and called Abby in her office. She was on the phone, but I told her assistant Lorraine it was important, and gave her the cell phone number to call back. I’d barely gotten two miles before the phone rang. I pushed the “hands-off” button.
“Hi, Sweetie,” I said.
“Is everybody okay?” The mother lion was in no mood to be called “Sweetie.”
“As far as I know. They’re not home yet.”
“Then what are you doing in the car?”
“If you’ll shut up for a minute, I’ll tell you!” She did, and I did.
“Wow,” Abby said when I was done.
“Yeah, wow,” I agreed. “So, can you get home a little early? Miriam doesn’t mind watching the kids for awhile, but you know how Ethan’s been. . . and I forgot to tell Miriam he can’t play Nintendo, so if you find him up there. . .”
“We’ll let it go until I get home,” she said. “I’m out of here at four.”
“Real four, or Abby-four?”
“Don’t be funny, Aaron, or I’ll be forced to withhold sex. And you know how cranky you get when that happens.”
“Yeah, like you could.”
“Let me know what you find out.” And she hung up. Probably someone walked into her office and asked her why she was having erotic conversations on company time.
Motoring along on the Garden State Parkway, an hour and a half from Atlantic City, it occurred to me that I might call Westbrook and let him know what I’d found out. But since I’d gotten such a prompt response to my similar request, I decided he could wait.
He could wait until I found out what was on the other end of this highway, on a peninsula where there’s gambling, cheap buffets, high-class entertainment, and the Miss America Pageant. And, it would seem, Madlyn Beckwirth.
Chapter 2
Atlantic City, New Jersey is a town badly in need of a lithium prescription. Its manic side features all the same thrilling high spots found in Las Vegas—gambling, drinking, all-you-can-eat buffets, elaborate productions with topless women, prostitution—without the class, if you can believe that.
Its depressed side, which is where the actual residents of Atlantic City live, has abject poverty, violence, domestic desperation, and drugs. So when you’re visiting, stay close to the water, which is manic, and away from the land, which is depressed. Unless you happen to like abject poverty, violence, domestic desperation, and drugs.
At about 4:15 that afternoon, I was sticking close to the water. I had driven like a madman on the way here, forcing myself to stay below 85 mph in the ’97 Saturn we had bought (used) the year before. The sun wasn’t even beginning to set yet, as the days were beginning to lengthen some, so my view of the Atlantic Ocean was clear. I realized
somewhere around Camden that I’d forgotten to MapQuest myself into Bally’s itself, but that proved not to be much of a problem. Once you’re in Atlantic City itself, the casinos all make a very strong effort to ensure that you can’t miss them, and Bally’s was no exception. There were signs about every eight feet.
So I drove into the parking lot, which like most of the casino lots was large and underused. On my way to the hotel’s main lobby, I first had to pass through the casino, and since I had all of $14 in my pocket, did my best to resist the lure of the slot machines, blackjack tables, and $4 Diet Cokes.
I also wanted to avoid the front desk, which is where they ask questions and alert guests to unexpected visitors, so I adopted my patented “I-Know-Where-I’m-Going” face and marched at an accelerated clip toward the elevators. This led to some confusion, since there are several banks of elevators at the casino, and they go to several separate banks of floors. I rode up and down to the ninth floor before I figured out exactly where I was going and how to get there.
A mere fifteen minutes later, I was on the twenty-second floor, trying to decipher the signs posted to help mentally challenged visitors like myself find the room they’re looking for. These are, of course, the same rooms in which most room searchers would actually be staying, but after an active night in the casino with all the complimentary drinks, it can be hard to remember where you’re going.
The carpet, although thick, was a bit squishy, and of course red, since red appears to be the official color of gambling casinos worldwide. I’ve never been to the casino at Monte Carlo, but I’ll bet you it’s heavily decorated in red. That’s how you can tell the casinos are in the black.
There were a number of things to be thankful for in this hotel. For one, there was no enormous oil portrait of Donald Trump, alongside similar ones of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, like in one of Trump’s many high-class buildings here in Atlantic City. This hotel also had not been designed with one of those fabulous space-wasting configurations that allows for a guard rail about chest high overlooking a drop of several hundred feet to the casino floor, presumably to take in all the grandeur of the surroundings, but enough to turn anyone into Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo.
For Whom the Minivan Rolls Page 12