Whose Number Is Up, Anyway?

by Stevi Mittman

  Using my right hand to bear the weight and my left hand to simply steady the painting, I remove it from the wall and stand it on the couch. Something falls from behind it and I pick it up, assuming it’s the bill of sale or certificate of authenticity or some such thing, even while a piece of me expects some sort of crayoned confession.

  “Whadja find?” Robby asks me as I look down at the paper and see the work schedules for Joey, Milt and Max graphed out on From The Desk of Jerry Kroll paper. He comes closer and looms over me. “Whaddya got?”

  “Nothing,” I say when I’ve collected my thoughts. “I…”

  I don’t know what I’m going to say after that. Luckily the phone rings and Robby gets distracted.

  “That could be my mom,” he says.

  I suggest he answer it. He tells me he isn’t supposed to. While I tell him that I’m sure it’ll be all right, we hear the answering machine pick up and Jerry’s message going out.

  “Are you there, Jerry?” I hear Rita ask. “Pick up if you’re there.”

  “He’s not here,” Robby tells the machine without picking up. “He went to the hospital.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Sometimes the problem with a room is staring you in the face and you just can’t see it. I had a client call to have all the moldings in her living room replaced. She hated the finish, yet loved the same moldings upstairs. Never occurred to her that what she hated was the way the moldings clashed with her paint downstairs. We darkened the walls a shade and she’s a happy camper. Sometimes our emotions cloud our vision. Just take a step or two back and really look.

  —TipsFromTeddi.com

  Can’tbe.

  That’s what I keep thinking as I stare at the schedule in my hands. And then pieces begin to fall into place. Did I tell Jerry I was going down to the marina the day I was pushed into the water? Surely no one else knew.

  I pick up the phone to call Drew. And then I think: Jerry is a sweet old man. Like my dad. My dad who I didn’t know was still strong enough to do physical labor with Mark, toting and carrying and swinging a hammer.

  My mother was right. Jerry is nothing like my dad. Besides old, that is.

  I start to dial, my eyes on Robby. Can I tell Drew without Robby hearing? I end the call, tell Robby I’ve got to get something from the car and head for the door, thinking: who did Dr. Doris call before she was murdered? Jerry. And did he ever explain why?

  But kill Rita’s brother? For money?

  Robby starts to cry.

  “When do you think my mom will get home?” he asks. “She’s gonna be mad that my dad left me alone.”

  “And your dad’s at the hospital?” I ask, thinking of poor vulnerable Max, lying in that bed without the memory of who hit him, not knowing who to be wary of…

  Robby sniffs and nods.

  And I remember Vito in the limo. “I’m going to send my friend in to play with you,” I say. “He’s a very nice man and—”

  Robby’s sniffs turn to sobs. I’m headed for the front door, grabbing my handbag as I go, wracking my brain for the right thing to tell Robby, who follows me pathetically like a puppy—a mastiff puppy.

  “He’s very special. Do you know Lord of the Rings?” Robby nods and says he saw the movie. “Well, you remember Frodo with the nine fingers? Vito has just eight. That makes him even more special than Frodo!”

  And then I’m out the door. I argue, stomp and finally convince Vito to watch Robbie, borrow the car and race to the hospital with my cell phone speaker on, dialing Drew as I go.

  But does he answer his phone? Of course not.

  I’m not panicking. Really I’m not. I always run the stop sign at the end of the Krolls’ block.

  Okay, maybe I’m worried enough to call Drew’s partner, Hal. I won’t even gloat about how right I was about a plot to kill off The Spare Slices.

  He doesn’t respond well to the bare outline I give him.

  “I have the work schedules of all The Slices in my hand, Hal,” I say. “And it’s in Jerry’s handwriting. And the nurses told me that Joey promised Dr. Doris a cut of his lottery winnings.”

  There’s a moment of silence in which I imagine Hal getting up, grabbing his badge out of his desk drawer (like on television, though I think in real life they always carry them) and signaling to the troops that they should follow him.

  Only after the pause he just sighs and asks, “What nurses? And what exactly did they tell you that somehow they didn’t tell the police?”

  I’d have to stretch the truth pretty taut to say that they told me it was actually Joey who’d promised to split his winnings. On the other hand, how many tricky surgeries do you think Dr. Doris has done?

  Don’t answer that.

  And the nurses’ names? Did I even think to get them? Hal hums while I explain how I managed to find all this out. And then he starts to tell me the story of the boy who cried wolf.

  “Listen to me,” I shout toward the phone, which I am no longer holding because I’ve got both hands on the wheel and am driving a good fifteen miles over the speed limit. I’m actually hoping a cop will stop me so that I can get him to come to the hospital with me. I mean, where’s a cop when you need one? Oh, right. On the other end of the phone. “Jerry Kroll is on his way to the hospital to finish off Max Koppel. I made the mistake of telling him that Max is conscious but he doesn’t remember the accident. So, you see, Jerry has to kill him before he remembers and tells the police.”

  “Sure,” Hal says, but I’m not convinced he’ll send the police. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s clipping his fingernails as we speak.

  I tell him that I’m on my way to the hospital and he should get a hold of Drew and send him.

  “Yeah, what a surprise,” is his response. “And who would you like for backup? George Clooney?”

  When I tell him to send the whole freaking department if he has to, the answer I get rivals the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Yawn, yawn. Whaa, whaa, whaa.

  “I’m begging you,” I say, and I hope he hears the desperation in my voice and takes me seriously. “Send somebody. Come yourself. A man is going to die if you don’t. Do you want that on your conscience?”

  Nothing. No response.

  “Hal?”

  I glance at the seat beside me. The lights have gone out on my phone just as I turn into the hospital parking lot. I turn off the car and look at my dead phone.

  Hal will call Drew, I tell myself.

  God, I hope so, myself says back as I open the car door, summon all the courage I have, and head for the emergency room door, because if ever there was an emergency, this is it.

  I race to Max’s room like someone’s life depended on it since I firmly believe it does, only to find him gone. Even his bed is gone. I lean against the wall and feel that awful itch in the back of my throat and top of my nose that means I’m going to cry, and cry hard.

  I’m sliding down the wall when a nurse comes in. She’s got that efficient, nurse walk that seems to mean business. I guess she deals with death all the time.

  “Oh!” she says when she sees me headed for the floor. Her perkiness doesn’t seem diminished by my impending collapse. “I didn’t realize anyone was in here. Are you here to visit Mr. Koppel?”

  I nod silently. Sadly.

  “They took him down to X-ray a couple of minutes ago,” she says. “Do you want to wait for him here or go down there?”

  “He’s not dead?” I ask. Of course he’s not dead. They don’t X-ray dead people. Not unless they’ve got something hidden in their bodies…Jeesh, I am developing a really sick mind.

  She tells me that all I have to do is follow the red lines on the hallway floor until they intersect the green lines and then take the third door after the second left.

  I think there is more, but I figure if there aren’t signs, I’ll just ask as I go frantically running down the hall toward—I hope—Max in the X-ray area.

  Amazingly, I find the X-ray department. Now, even if I had my cell ph
one it wouldn’t work, according to the signs.

  “I’m looking for Max Koppel,” I tell a person in hospital garb. He has a tag hanging from his neck like he is on sale. Better than a tag on his toe in this place. He responds with a shrug, but a woman wearing Pepto-Bismol pink overhears and tells me that Max is waiting on a gurney in one of the rooms while they develop his pictures. She gestures toward a door marked 2.

  “Should be just another few minutes and then we’ll take him back to his room.”

  I do my best to sneak in unnoticed, but since I lack the Bayer grace, I trip over something and lurch into the room like a comedian doing a pratfall. Like everyone who trips, I look back to see what it was that got me and it looks like a bag of sand. The technician looks up from the portable computer cart, surprised, and tells me that’s exactly what it is—for traction on Max’s broken leg. “They took it off for the X-rays. Lab’s backed up,” she tells me. “The X-rays’ll take about twenty minutes to develop. You can stay with him while he waits. It’ll be nice for him to have his daughter help him pass the time.”

  I don’t bother to correct her. I just move toward Max and grasp his hand.

  He opens his eyes and it takes him a minute to remember who I am. I’m hoping he doesn’t give me away to the technician, but before he can find his words she says she’ll go check on things since Max isn’t alone now.

  I paste a smile on my face—I’m so relieved to find Max alive that it isn’t hard—and wait for her to leave before I tell him that I’m sure that what happened to him was no accident. He seems reluctant to believe me.

  “What if I told you that Milt has had an accident, too?”

  He closes his eyes. I think he’s processing this news, so I give him a minute.

  “He bought a new boat. When he started it up, the engine exploded.”

  Max’s eyes snap open and they are full of questions.

  I nod. “Dead. First Joey, then the attempt on your life and now Milt is dead. I’m here to help you. I know Joey’s brother-in-law, Jerry, is involved—”

  Just as I say that, I follow Max’s line of vision and hear the door slam shut. There, in the flesh, is not-so-sweet-anymore Jerry Kroll. There’s a bulge in his jacket pocket.

  “You know,” I say, moving closer to Max’s head and trying to put some distance between myself and Jerry, “with all the talk about security, there doesn’t seem to be much of it, does there?” I know that I couldn’t find a security guard on my way to Max’s room.

  “Of course, you realize that the police are on their way. I called my friend Drew and he’s meeting me here. I must have just beat him by a couple of minutes.”

  “I don’t think so, maydela,” he says.

  What is it about me that no one believes what I say? It must be that neon sign on my head that flashes liar, liar when I stray an iota from the truth.

  “Anyone ever tell you that you’re too smart for your own good?”

  Honestly? No.

  “My friend is at your house with Robby,” I start to say because even if Jerry turns out to be a killer, I know he is a good father to Robby and I want to reassure him that Robby’s not alone.

  Only he takes that as some sort of threat and pulls out his gun. “Anything happens to Robby,” he says, leaving the end of the sentence to my imagination. Of course, he’s going to shoot me anyway, if Drew doesn’t get the hell over here in time.

  If I die, I am never, ever going to forgive him.

  “I didn’t want to leave him alone,” I say. “I have children too, Jerry. I know how a parent—a good parent—worries. I was surprised you left him alone.” I figure it’s as good a time as any to play the guilt card.

  “I don’t have to worry about Robby anymore,” Jerry tells me. “He’ll be provided for. He’ll be taken care of now. I have it all arranged.”

  Plunk. That piece of the puzzle falls into place and now I see the whole picture. He had to have the lottery winnings to make sure that after he and Rita are gone someone will take care of Robby.

  That doesn’t mean that the gun he’s holding won’t go off and leave my children destitute.

  Well, there’s no place for me to hide, my phone is useless, and even if I could distract Jerry, I can’t just run out and leave Max to him, can I?

  Which means I’ve only got one choice. Do what I do best, especially when I’m scared.

  I babble. I banter. And I stall.

  “So then, you have the lottery ticket, right?” I ask Jerry. Hell, if I’m going to die, I at least want to know the whole story.

  Jerry shrugs, which is as good as an admission in my book.

  “Did you steal it from Joey?” I ask.

  While Jerry laughs, I quickly glance at Max to make sure he’s all right. He is slowly shaking his head, looking guilty as sin in that bed, like maybe he thinks he deserves to be broken and crumpled and maybe a cripple for life.

  “Why don’t you tell her?” Jerry asks him. “It was your idea, wasn’t it?”

  Max doesn’t answer.

  “Wasn’t it you who figured out that you’d only have to split the pot three ways if you and Joey and Milt always bought an extra ticket in case one was a winner? Buy one to show that there were twenty losers and up your chances for a winner by twenty tickets every week?”

  “I don’t understand,” I say, thoroughly lost. “And I don’t get where you fit in.”

  “Maydela, you’re a sweet woman without a devious thought in her head. What would you know about connivers? Joey, Max and Milt rotated buying the tickets each week. Since they used the ‘easy pick’ and didn’t choose the numbers themselves, no one knew what the numbers were. If they bought twenty-one tickets each week, paying for the extra themselves, they had twenty-one chances to win and they’d have twenty losing tickets to show the other Slices that they’d lost.”

  “But I don’t get how you fit in,” I say, catching on to the scheme.

  “When they actually won, they knew that they couldn’t cash the ticket in or the others would find out.”

  “So they gave it to you,” I say, wondering if the nurse will ever come into the room, if Drew will show up, if there is some way out of this mess.

  Jerry nods. He seems completely unconcerned about anyone possibly coming in on us. I can’t understand why.

  “But why didn’t you come forward when Joey died?” I ask Max.

  “Fraud,” Max squeaks out. It’s clear he hasn’t used his voice in a long time.

  “What could they say?” Jerry asks. “That they were perpetrating a fraud? And who would benefit from Joey’s death? Max and Milt.”

  “You killed Rita’s brother?” I say, just to be clear. I mean, he loves her.

  “The man was going to die anyway. I told you that. If he didn’t have respect for his life, why should I?”

  “But with the money, he’d have taken care of Robby—”

  Jerry shakes his head. “Robby gave him the creeps. You don’t think I know how people feel about my son? How they look at him?”

  “He can be a little reckless with that bicycle,” I say, thinking about how he scared Dana. “He nearly ran down my friend, Bobbie.”

  “You don’t take warnings easily do you?” Jerry asks. “It was me on the bike. I did everything I could to avoid this moment with you. I pushed you in the Sound. I even drugged the cookies with Rita’s medicine so you’d be too sleepy to run around looking for evidence, but no, you just wouldn’t be stopped.”

  “You drugged the cookies?” I squeak. “I could have gotten killed—” I start to say. Considering he is holding a gun on me, this doesn’t seem like something that would bother him.

  “Hell-bent on getting yourself killed,” he says. He is aiming his gun at Max while picking at something between his teeth with his free hand. “Damn dentures. Gonna have them replaced right away.”

  I get the feeling he means on his way home and he seems ready to get going.

  “Aren’t you worried that someone is going to
come in here and find you?” I ask. I don’t mean to say it aloud, but it pops out.

  “Sign on the door says Test In Progress,” he says with a sly smile. “You don’t get to be as old as I am without learning a few tricks,” he adds, and begins to elaborate.

  While he talks, I move around just a little, creeping slowly—and hopefully, imperceptibly—until I am behind the computer cart which is on wheels. I look over at the clock, hoping he will, too, and as soon as he does, with all the strength I have, I send the cart flying as fast as I can, straight at him.

  It catches him off balance and knocks him into the wall. The gun flies from his grasp and scuttles across the linoleum floor. We both watch it slide under a cabinet.

  Dazed, frantic, he lunges for me and I grab the nearest thing—Max’s IV stand—and strike him with it. As Max shrieks, Jerry, like the last bowling pin standing, teeters back and forth. Finally he falls down not far from the cabinets where the gun handle might still be within his reach.

  Lying between us on the floor is the sandbag I tripped over. I snatch it up, raise it over my head and—well, I sandbag him.

  I run to the door and yank it open to yell for help, when who do I see running down the hall? My personal cavalry, also known as Drew Scoones. Late, as usual.

  “Where the hell were you?” I shout at him as he rushes past me into the X-ray room, gun drawn.

  Medical personnel follow him in, some gathering around Max, others rushing to the old man lying crumpled by the cabinet.

  Drew kneels beside him and catches sight of the gun. He pulls it toward him with a pen and lifts it by the barrel.

  “Same old, same old, I take it?” he asks me while a doctor pushes him out of the way to get to Jerry. “Do something idiotic and see if you can get killed?”

  “I told you,” I say as he comes to his feet and walks over to me, cornering me as he reaches for his cell. “And I told Hal, too,” I say. “I wasn’t being brave or acting on my own. I called him and told him to tell you and to send a whole platoon.”