“Could you be more specific, Sherlock?”
“Check the shaft,” I told him.
“Why?”
“Because no one has looked there yet and because it will be a pain in your ass to check.”
“That’s very nice of you,” he said.
“Don’t make fun of the boss.”
Lou pressed the elevator button and the door opened. He got in, rode the elevator to the second floor, and came down the staircase.
“I pushed the emergency stop button,” he told me. “Theoretically the elevator will not come down and crush my ass while I’m in the shaft.”
He pried open the first-floor elevator door and looked up the vertical tunnel.
“To find something high tech I’m going to need something low tech,” he told me.
“Like what?”
“A ladder,” he said.
I called Izzy Fryberg who told me he was having a “Knish and Grits” special at the Bagel Bush. He invited us to join him, but I declined and asked him to hurry back. Izzy was there in ten minutes with remnants of grits on his upper lip. I introduced him to Lou Dewey.
“Louie Dewey?” Izzy Fryberg smirked. “What kind of name is that?”
“You think Izzy Fryberg is such a great name?” Lou asked.
Izzy opened the maintenance room with one of his many passkeys and found an aluminum ladder.
Lou carried the ladder into the shaft, opened it, steadied it, and peered up the vertical tunnel.
“How sure are you that the elevator won’t come down while you’re in there and crush your skinny ass?” I asked.
“I’m not sure at all,” he said and he started climbing.
When he was halfway up the ladder Izzy nudged me.
“Who is this guy?”
“Someone I’d trust with my life,” I told him.
“His mother should have gotten braces for his teeth when he was a kid.”
“Women love him, teeth and all,” I said.
“Go figure,” Izzy said.
We stood outside the elevator shaft and waited.
“Aw fuck,” Lou shouted.
“What?” I asked, startled.
“I got grease on my shirt, son of a bitch,” he complained. “Hey, what’s this?”
“What?”
“I’ll let you know.”
A moment later we heard Lou descending the aluminum ladder. He stepped out of the shaft and handed me a little box with an antenna.
“What is that?” Izzy asked.
“That is an electromagnet with a radio-triggering device. It’s not high tech but it’s effective. It was well hidden in the shaft,” he said.
“How’s it work?” Izzy asked.
“This is not my specialty,” Dewey said. “But I think when this device is triggered, a magnetic field starts a current in the leads of the solenoid actuator relay-”
“Which means?” I interrupted.
“The elevator stops,” Louie said, “or starts.”
“Where do you get a device like this?” I asked.
“An electronic store,” he said like an impatient professor.
“What triggers the magnetic field?”
“Another device with the same ID code can trigger it,” Lou loved teaching us. “Or a properly programmed computer would do the trick.”
“Is it complicated?” I asked while Izzy just stood there shaking his head sadly.
No, it’s not complicated,” Lou said, “but whoever installed it is very clever.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Well, he could have installed a computer device like a Linksys Wireless-N router.”
“Easy boy.” I reminded Lou that I was a computer caveman.
“Basically, he could have used parts from the disassembled circuit board of a router and rewired the elevator control panel. That would have given him better control of the device.”
“So, why didn’t he?” I asked.
“He must have figured a repair crew would notice anything different in their wiring or in their motor. But he was betting no one would think of the shaft. He was right, until you came along. You’re brilliant.”
“Izzy, can you give me a list of tenants in this building?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “Why?”
“I want to check who might know enough about remote devices to install one.”
“You think it was done by someone who lives here?” Izzy looked sad.
“Who else would bother?” I asked him.
He nodded and walked away slowly.
Lou looked at me curiously. “How did you know we’d find a device?”
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“You were fairly certain,” Lou persisted.
I thought for a moment. “You ever watch a guy crack a safe?” I asked.
“Only in the movies, of course,” Lou said defensively.
“Well, you know how the safecracker puts his ear to the dial and listens to the tumblers falling into place?”
Louie nodded. “Like the guy who can solve the Rubik’s Cube in twenty-six moves.”
“I couldn’t solve that thing in twenty-six years,” I said. “But for me, solving a crime is just a matter of making the right moves and listening to things fall into place.”
“That’s how I am with computers,” Dewey said.
“We make a good team,” I said.
“Are we a team?” Louie Dewey asked.
I thought that over for a moment, then made a decision. “Sure, we’re a team. Why not?”
We gave each other a high five, which was a low five to most people.
Izzy came back with the list and gave it to me. I handed it to my new teammate.
I answered my cell phone while driving to my office from Delray Vista.
“I have a retroverted, septate uterus,” a woman said.
“And I have a talking penis,” I replied and disconnected the call.
I hate wrong numbers.
The phone rang again.
“Eddie, don’t hang up. It’s Betsy Blackstone.”
“Sorry, Betsy. I thought it was a crank call.”
“Did you say something about a penis?” she asked.
“Of course not. How was Dr. Dunn?”
“He was great. I have a retroverted, septate uterus,” she repeated.
“Is that bad?”
“I want to tell you in person,” she said.
“I suppose we should meet at least once before we talk about your uterus,” I agreed.
We met at Bagel Kingdom on Clint Moore Road. Betsy Blackstone looked like an ex–prom queen head cheerleader rolled into one perky package. She was blonde, with an athletically lean, tall body, and I had to look up to make eye contact.
“I thought you’d be bigger,” she said with a radiant smile.
“I thought so, too.”
Old joke.
She laughed and we sat in a booth across from each other.
“Tell me about your uterus,” I said to Betsy as a heavy-set waitress arrived at the table.
“Excuse me?” the waitress scowled.
Betsy Blackstone put her hand over her mouth and giggled.
“I was talking to her,” I explained to the waitress.
“Are you two perverts or something?”
“Do we look like perverts?” I asked her.
“You never know,” she said.
We ordered coffee.
“Anything kinky here and I’m calling the cops,” the waitress said, pouring.
I nodded.
“That was so funny,” Betsy said after the waitress backed away.
“Timing is everything,” I smiled.
We both sipped our coffee.
“Now tell me about your uterus,” I whispered.
“Okay,” she whispered back.
The waitress looked at us suspiciously.
“It’s tipped,” she said.
“I thought you said it was retroverted,”
I replied.
“That’s what retroverted means,” she told me. “A normal uterus is vertical or tilted slightly forward, pointing toward the abdomen. My uterus is pointed the other way.”
“What’s it pointing at?” I asked.
I noticed the waitress approaching with a coffeepot.
“My anus,” Betsy said.
The waitress did an about-face.
“Sorry for being so graphic,” Betsy apologized, giggling again.
“That’s okay,” I assured her. “What’s septate mean?”
“It means my uterus is divided into two sections. A normal uterus isn’t,” she explained. “If the fetus settles in only one side and doesn’t get enough nutrition it can die.” Betsy took a deep breath. “According to Dr. Dunn, I was probably born with the septate uterus, but it didn’t tip until after I got pregnant.”
“How could he know that?”
“Because I told him that having sex was never painful before my first pregnancy,” she explained.
“So, you’re telling me a tipped uterus can cause pain during sex?”
“Yes. Wait, I took some notes.” She removed a piece of paper from her purse and scanned it quickly. “Here it is. It’s called collision dyspareunia.”
“It sounds like an auto shop in Italy,” I said.
“It is like a car wreck I guess. A retroverted uterus can cause ovaries and fallopian tubes to tilt backward,” she said. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Vaguely.” I cleared my throat.
“When these female parts tilt backward they become a target.”
“A target for what?” I asked.
The waitress was approaching with her coffeepot.
“A penis,” Betsy said.
The waitress rolled her eyes and did a quick one-eighty turn.
“I don’t understand.”
“A penis can actually butt into a tilted uterus and cause pain,” she explained.
I never knew that, Mr. Johnson said.
Would that have stopped you? I asked him.
No. But I never knew that.
“So, Dr. Cohen’s diagnosis was wrong,” I said to her.
“Yes, Dr. Cohen was wrong.” Her eyes got watery. “Dr. Dunn said the ligaments around my uterus had slipped and that I had developed fibroids.” She referred to her paper again. “There’s this thing called endometriosis, which has something to do with lesions on the uterus and-”
I held up my hand. “Stop. That’s enough details. Can we just say that both your miscarriages were caused by your female problems?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “A septated uterus is more likely to cause a miscarriage than a tipped uterus, but they can both do damage.”
I leaned back and tapped my fingers on the table.
“Did you have any warning signs during your first pregnancy that you were going to miscarry?” I asked, leaning forward again.
“Bleeding from the vagina,” she told me.
“Don’t you two ever stop?” the waitress said. She filled our coffee cups and hurried away.
“Did you tell Dr. Cohen about the bleeding?” I asked shaking my head at the waitress’s back.
“Of course,” she said. “He examined me right away and told me the baby had died.” She removed a tissue from her handbag and blew her nose.
“What did he tell you to do?”
“He said it would be best if I miscarried naturally.” She closed her eyes, remembering. “He told me to take walks and exercise. If I didn’t miscarry naturally, he said he would induce me.”
She was close to tears so I waited before asking the next question.
“What happened?”
“He had to induce me the first time,” she said. “The second miscarriage happened naturally in the twelfth week.”
“What does Doctor Dunn recommend?” I asked.
“He said he can fix everything with minor surgery,” she told me.
“That’s great,” I said. “I’m happy for you.”
She smiled a thousand-watt smile and patted my hands resting on the table. “The Boca Knight rescues a damsel in distress again.”
“That’s what Boca Knights do, Betsy,” I told her, already thinking of how I might save other damsels from the distress of Dr. Ronald Cohen.
We got out of the booth, and Betsy gave me a long, hard hug. “Thank you for making me feel like a woman again,” she said.
“Get a room,” the surly waitress snapped, and slapped our bill on the table.
The following week Betsy’s uterus was vertical again and remodeled from a duplex to a single womb. Dr. Dunn assured her it was safe to get pregnant after recuperating. When Betsy phoned me, she was delirious from the good news and painkillers. She said her husband knew nothing about my involvement with Dr. Dunn. She told him it was her idea to go to a specialist. Bradley was thrilled, but immediately had become suspicious of Dr. Cohen.
“He thinks Dr. Cohen is responsible for my miscarriages,” she said, sniffling.
“Don’t let him think that way,” I said, thinking that way. “Dr. Cohen has delivered thousands of healthy babies.”
“That’s what I told Bradley,” she sniffed, “He could tell he was upsetting me so he dropped it.”
“Good man. You should drop it, too, and think about the future,” I said. “Don’t worry about Dr. Cohen.”
Let me worry about him.
Shortly after I talked to Betsy Blackstone, I got a call from Lou Dewey.
“I now know everything about the condo owners in Izzy Fryberg’s building.”
“Any suspects?” I asked.
“Not really. We have ex-businessmen, dentists, a flushed-out plumber, a former teacher . . . but no high-tech computer professional qualified to install a remote-control device in an elevator shaft. In fact, I don’t think anyone in that building is qualified to climb a ladder.”
“Let me think about it,” I said, and hung up.
I put my hands behind my head and leaned back in my desk chair. If no one in the building installed the remote-control device who else would bother? I had a thought and called Lou. “What do most senior citizens have in common, Lou?” I asked.
“Flatulence?”
“Besides that.”
“Memory loss,” he tried again.
“Children,” I helped him. “Most retired people have grown children. Maybe one of their kids is qualified. Can you find information about their kids?”
“I can find anything except Jimmy Hoffa,” Lou bragged.
“He’s in Giants stadium,” I said.
“Prove it,” Lou said. “Anyway, let me get back to you about the kids. Oh, by the way, do you know a guy named Seymour Tanzer from Boca Heights?”
“Sure,” I said. “He’s a retired lawyer from Scarsdale, New York. Why?”
“I just read in a police bulletin that he had a heart attack on the golf course and was rushed to the hospital.”
“Is he alright?”
“The police report just said he was in intensive care,” Lou told me.
“How do you get police reports?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Lou Dewey said.
I arrived at Seymour Tanzer’s hospital room just as several people were leaving. One departing visitor was the totally awesome Alicia Fine, my former lover, who had stopped seeing me when she realized I was never going to change. I missed her, but I knew that coveting someone and converting for someone have nothing in common.
We looked at one another for a tender moment, saying nothing. There was no denying the physical chemistry that still existed between us.
“Hello, Eddie,” she said, with a hint of sadness in her voice. I couldn’t tell if she thought she was looking at a lost opportunity or at someone who had lost an opportunity.
I noticed the people with her had moved away and were walking toward the elevators.
“How have you been?” I asked, clearing my throat like a bashful schoolboy.
&n
bsp; “I’m seeing someone,” she said quietly.
I responded with a smile but feeling a sense of loss. “He’s a lucky guy,” I said. “You’re a wonderful person.”
“Not wonderful enough for you,” she said ruefully.
“That’s not the whole story,” I said. “I wasn’t your idea of the perfect man, either.”
“You could be frightening at times,” she agreed.
“That’s who I am,” I said without regret.
“Yes, I know,” she told me, sighing. “Are you still seeing that woman?”
“Yes,” I told her. “Claudette.”
“She’s probably more your type,” Alicia said without malice.
“I think I’m more her type.” I said. “She doesn’t want to change me.”
“Maybe you don’t scare her,” Alicia looked into my eyes.
“Actually, she scares me sometimes,” I smiled back.
“I do miss you, Eddie,” she said fondly.
“I miss you, too, Alicia,” I told her.
I held out my arms, offering a hug, and she stepped toward me. Her body melted into mine, and I held her tightly, loving the feel and smell of her. Mr. Johnson made an unexpected appearance against her thigh. He always managed to spoil a tender moment.
“Thanks for the compliment,” she smiled, looking down. “We never had a problem there.”
“No, that was a wonderful thing,” I agreed.
“It’s just not everything,” she said.
I nodded. “No, it’s not.”
Yes, it is, Mr. Johnson disagreed.
We said goodbye and I watched her walk away.
Can’t we work something out? Mr. Johnson whined and squirmed.
What do you want me to do? I asked.
Tell her you’ve changed. Tell her you’re not seeing anyone else.
You mean . . . lie to her?
Absolutely, Mr. Johnson said.
Have you no sense of decency?
Of course not, I’m a penis.
When I entered his room Seymour Tanzer was flat on his back in the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling.
“Who’s there?” he croaked.
“St. Peter,” I said.
“You’ve got the wrong room, Pete,” Seymour managed as I walked to the foot of his bed. “Hey, it’s the Boca Knight,” he said, sounding pleased to see me.
“How are you, Seymour?” I asked.
“I’m dying,” he said.
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