An Old Man's Game. Andy Weinberger

      After I put her to bed, I go into the other bedroom, which I’ve sort of made into an office. Beyond my computer, there’s not all that much worth looking at on the desk. A picture of my parents on their wedding day in 1938. They’re standing arm in arm on some stone steps in front of the rabbi’s house where they were just married. August in the Bronx. Ain’t got a barrel of money, but who cares? This is their moment. They don’t know about the war that’s coming their way. There’s so much they don’t know. They’re so young and innocent it hurts to look at them.

      Right beside the photo is another one of my late brother, Sy. He’s sitting bare-chested in his sailboat, a cigar nestled in his hand. He’s got a grin on his face as if he’s just heard the best joke ever. The sun is shining, and you can almost feel the wind in his hair and the sea bobbing all around him. That’s the sum total of my mementos. Oh, except for one other thing. On the wall in front of me is a framed eight-by-ten photograph of a little boy.

      His name is Enrique Avila. He disappeared while walking home from school. He was eight years old, and it was one of the first cases I ever took on. Also the most painful, because I never found him. He just vanished, it seemed, like smoke into the air. No clues, no witness, nothing. That was nearly forty years ago, and still, whenever I’m in his old neighborhood of Alhambra I can’t help myself. I’ll drive up and down the quiet, residential streets. I’ll stare at vacant buildings, at stores that weren’t even there back then. And I’ll wonder what the hell happened, what did I miss.

      Enrique is kind of my son, I guess you’d say, since Loretta and I never had one of our own. Every so often I try to conjure him up. He’d be well into middle age by now if he were still alive. He’d have a beer belly, maybe a wife and a couple of kids and a mortgage. When I look at his picture, I don’t see him as a big achiever; he would probably never be the smartest kid in class, or the fastest sprinter. He wouldn’t win the spelling bee, and his project in the science fair would be routinely overshadowed by others. He might go to the prom, but he’d never be the homecoming king. You can tell he was destined to have a happy, normal life. An uneventful life even. And that would have suited him just fine, if he had lived.

      It’s after nine, but I’m sure the lieutenant will still be up. He never sleeps.

      The phone barely rings before he answers. “Malloy,” I say, “it’s Amos Parisman.”

      “I know. I’ve got caller ID.”

      “Yeah, well, I don’t. I wanted to let you know though, I ignored your advice and went to see Dr. Ewing today.”

      “And?”

      “And everything you told me was right.”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “That she was beautiful, and that she wouldn’t tell me squat.”

      “Why don’t you ever listen, Amos?”

      “I’m stubborn that way, Bill. And I’m an old man and probably an embarrassment to every detective who ever walked the earth. Anyway, I forgot to ask you yesterday whether your boys found out what drugs the rabbi was on?”

      “Oh, we got a list from the wife. Nothing to get too excited about: Blood pressure. High cholesterol. An anti-depressant, but he stopped taking that a while ago.”

      “And they were all prescribed by Dr. Ewing?”

      There’s a pause on the other end of the line. “I don’t recall. Might well have been some other guy. I’ll have to check the record and get back to you. You don’t think she—” Another pause. I could almost feel him getting business-like. “You know, I’m really not supposed to do this kind of thing.”

      “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

      “You wouldn’t?”

      “Hell no, it’s against the rules.”

      “Ain’t that the truth. Against the rules. Boy, it’s just damn lucky you’re a friend, Amos. That’s all I gotta say.”

      “You’re right. And what’re friends for?”

      “Beats me,” he says.

       Chapter 4

      I STRIP DOWN to my shorts and undershirt and drop into bed around midnight. It’s still too hot, impossible to sleep. We’ve rolled the windows open slightly to catch whatever breezes exist. From nine floors up you can hear some teenagers down in the parking lot, laughing and talking, way too loud if you ask me, all the time saying nothing. What kids do.

      Meanwhile, I’m lying here sweating in the dark. And the voice in my head is still hard at work, chewing me out. You rusty old sonofabitch. You should never have gone to see that doctor. How stupid could you be? What did you expect she’d say? That’s not how it’s done.

      I glance to my right. Loretta is lying flat on her back, already down and out. Her mouth is open and she’s half-snoring—small, ladylike snorts that will probably keep me awake if I pay any attention, but not forever. I close my eyes, another long fruitless day over, and just as I’m giving up, just as I’m nodding off for good, the phone rings. I bolt upright and grab it in the dark. It’s not me, it’s Loretta I’m concerned about. I don’t ever want to wake her up. “Yeah, what the hell—”

      A muffled woman’s voice. “Mr. Parisman. I’m sorry to call you so late, but I’ve been having second thoughts. I went back to my office a few minutes ago and checked through my files. It’s the most peculiar thing, but—” She pauses. All at once, I hear her take a short startled breath. Then nothing. Then thump, thump, thump, like a heavy parlor chair is being dragged across the floor. And right after that, the line goes dead.

      I hang up, still groggy, think about it for a minute or two more. Except I’m not thinking. Not at that hour. Maybe she’ll call back, whoever she was. It didn’t sound much like Dr. Ewing, but what do I know. A woman, that’s all. Maybe she’ll have the decency next time to wait till morning.

      I claw at my pillow and try to drift back to sleep. My dreams, the few I can remember, concern jelly doughnuts. But an hour or two later it’s no use. I’m wide awake. I settle down in my office chair, flick on the overhead lamp, and pick up the book I’ve been reading for the last three weeks. I bought it at a yard sale for two bits. It’s all about Napoleon and the life he constructed for himself in his last days on St. Helena, which is just a dumb rock, smack dab in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know why this kind of thing fascinates me, but it does. How he turned a chicken coop into a palace. Depression, followed by the triumph of the human spirit? Hey, that’s me in a nutshell.