A Night at the Operation (31 page)

When they escorted me out of the house, still screaming that I demanded my right to press charges, the cops actually tipped their caps to the Chapmans and led me away. But they didn’t take me to Moe’s car, nor to the cruiser they had obviously brought here.

They led me to the second police car, in which Detective Eugene Kowalski was sitting in the passenger seat.

“Weren’t you supposed to have these people under surveillance?” I asked.

“Not
constant
,” he answered. “Besides, you went in and stayed less than an hour. Hardly seems ominous.”

“Not out here,” I said. “In there, it was pretty ominous.”

“You never get tired of screwing up my investigation, do you, Freed?” he asked.

“Those people . . .” I started, gesturing toward the house.

“We know,” Kowalski cut me off. “They held you against your will.”

“Well, it happened.”

“I
know
,” Kowalski said. “Didn’t you hear me say that?”

“So why aren’t you doing anything about it?” I asked.

“Because this is a murder investigation, and your little stunt would only get in the way. We’re very close to making an arrest.” Kowalski looked quite satisfied, pleased with himself.

“Who?” I croaked out.

“Why should I tell you?”

“I can’t think of one good reason,” I told him honestly.

Kowalski nodded. “Wally Mayer,” he said.

“Much as it pains me to say it, you’d be wrong,” I said. “Let’s talk.”

 

 

 

 

“YOU
can’t hold her here against her will,” Ilsa Beringer said. “It’s kidnapping.”

Kowalski had let me out of the cruiser (where I’d taken refuge from the cold) about fifteen minutes after I left the Chapman house. I got into Moe’s Gallant and drove to East Brunswick police headquarters for about twenty minutes, then directly to Comedy Tonight. I’d set up the meeting with Sophie’s parents for just after three, and with all the errands I’d been running, it had taken me that long just to get back to the theatre. Being abducted takes up a lot of your day, I’d found.

“Believe me,” I told Ilsa, “I’m familiar with the concept.”

She and her husband had been waiting at the front door of Comedy Tonight when I’d arrived. I’d apologized for running late, but of course, standing in a subzero breeze tends to erode one’s stockpiles of patience, and Ilsa didn’t have much to begin with.

“I’ll bet you are,” she said. I have no idea what that meant, and decided not to pursue it.

The thing about this meeting was, I’d been planning on working up a strategy on my way back from Chapman’s house. I know; it was pushing things to the last minute, but I hadn’t been able to think of a strong argument to counter the Beringers’ demand that their daughter quit her job except that we all really liked Sophie and wanted her to stay.

Somehow, I didn’t think that would work.

Now, with my eventful morning having pretty much wiped out any cogent brain cells left in my head, I was ad-libbing until such time as a brilliant idea decided to drop in from the stratosphere, an event I was counting on occurring in the next ten minutes or so.

“I’m not holding Sophie against her will,” I said. “I’m requiring that she fulfill the terms of her contract.” I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded good.

Ron Beringer’s eyes hardened. “She doesn’t have a contract with you,” he said. “She’s a part-time employee, and she’s underage. You never gave her a contract to sign, and if you had, it would be superseded by us, since Sophie is a minor.”

I’d forgotten he was an attorney. Probably a labor attorney, with my luck.

“Okay, so maybe I didn’t mean ‘contract,’ ” I said, smiling. “But I can’t simply replace Sophie immediately, and I’m asking her, as a courtesy, to stay at her job until I find a suitable employee to take over her job. Now, is that unreasonable?”

Ilsa screwed up her face like I’d just shoved half a lemon into her mouth. “Yes, it’s unreasonable,” she said. “You could take as long as you like to find this replacement, and Sophie would be, by your logic, required to stay here for an indefinite period of time. It’s not only unreasonable, it’s unacceptable.”

Maybe I could distract them. “Well, why is it necessary for Sophie to quit her job?” I asked. “Is she unhappy here? Is the workload too strenuous, or taxing?”

“Sophie’s not unhappy,” Ron said, drawing a glare from his wife, which made him flinch. “But the time she’s putting in at your . . . theatre . . . is cutting into the time she’d otherwise have to better her position for acceptance at an Ivy League school. She needs to demonstrate some community service, for example. Now, surely you can understand that.”

“No, I can’t, and don’t call me Shirley,” I tried.
Airplane!
is a little recent for Comedy Tonight, but I couldn’t resist the reference.

“I said
suuuurely
,” Ron reiterated. So much for lightening the mood.

“Look,” I said. “Sophie has been spending all her free time while she’s here studying and doing college preparation. She’s been talking about nothing other than college, and how she’s working to get in just to make you two happy, for a week now. I can see to it that she has more free time while she’s here to do those things. But I’m asking you, on Sophie’s behalf as well as my own, not to insist that she give up her job. I think that holding a paying position while maintaining the exemplary grade-point average Sophie has should be impressive to any admissions board. I don’t think you’d want her to end that employment just as she’s trying to stand out to them, do you? And if you like, I could write a very strong letter of recommendation for her. So please, just let her keep the job, okay?”

“No,” Ilsa Beringer said.

“We all really like Sophie and want her to stay,” I blurted out.

“Oh, seriously.” Ilsa rolled her eyes. “Mr. Freed, Sophie will not be coming back to work. You need not worry about any salary you owe her. But don’t expect to see her in this theatre again. Is that understood?”

“No!” The shout came from just outside the office door. Sophie and Jonathan, he possibly looking even more aghast than she did, stood there, mouths wide open. I was seated in the office chair, so I would have had a straight look at them, but Ilsa and Ron, who had to turn to see their daughter and her boyfriend, had blocked me out. So we were all surprised.

“Sophie,” Ron said. “What are you doing here?”

“You can’t do this!” his daughter wailed. “I’m already working my ass off . . .”

“Sophie!” Ilsa admonished.

“What else do you
want
from me?”

“We’re just looking out for your best interests, baby,” Ron said. “We just want you to be happy.”

“Well, I’m
not
happy,” Sophie countered. “You’re making me give up something I really like doing, with people I really like seeing, and it’s all for things that couldn’t possibly make less of a difference.”

Ilsa’s eyes had hardened, and she’d looked directly at Jonathan when Sophie had mentioned “people I really like seeing.” So
that
was what this was about.

“Couldn’t make less of a difference!” Ilsa echoed. “It’s your future we’re talking about, Sophie. This is one of the biggest decisions you’ll ever make. Don’t you think that’s a little more important than this part-time job you have?”

“No, I . . .” Sophie began.

“Besides,” Ilsa continued, “we’ve already explained that since we’re paying for all your college expenses, we really believe it’s our right to advise you on how you’re spending your time. Don’t you agree?”

Sophie’s eyes darkened and dimmed, and her head bowed a little. I knew the financial issue was one she had no defense for; she’d always been one of those kids who felt guilty about taking her parents’ money. It was one of the reasons she’d applied for the job at Comedy Tonight to begin with, so she could have a modicum of financial independence.

“I dunno . . .” she mumbled. “I guess so.”

Jonathan’s head swiveled from Ilsa to Sophie, and back again in the time it takes a dog to not do anything. His face took on an expression I’d never seen on it before, so it took me a moment to recognize it: outrage.

“No!” he yelled. “You can’t do that.” Jonathan pushed his way into the room and stood towering over Ilsa, staring directly into her eyes. “You can’t do that. It’s not fair.”

“I’m sorry if Sophie won’t be able to see you as often, Jon,” Ilsa said in her best corporate-executive voice. “But she has more important things on her agenda right now, and you have to understand that.” Jonathan hates being called “Jon.” He also, as it turns out, isn’t crazy about having someone condescend to him.

“This isn’t about whether I get to see Sophie,” he said, his eyes afire and his mouth pretty much belching smoke. “This is about what Sophie wants, and not what you want, and not what I want. Sophie isn’t your employee; she’s your daughter. You should want her to have what she wants, not what you’ve decided she should want. There’s no reason you want her to quit her job, except that you don’t like her working here, and you don’t like her seeing me. I don’t know why you don’t like those things, but you don’t. And what you really hate is that Sophie doesn’t just do what you tell her to because you tell her to.”

I thought that had been all the words he had allotted for the month, but Jonathan went on: “You decide what Sophie should want because of who
you
want her to be. The job here is something that helps make Sophie the way Sophie is, and if you take that away, you’ll be taking part of her with it. Is
that
what you want?”

Ilsa had shrunk a little, to some extent because it was a very small room and she had to bend back to look up into Jonathan’s eyes. “I . . .” Ilsa’s mouth opened and closed once or twice, but that was all that came out. Ron, however, was staring at Jonathan, his face registering the last thing I would have expected:

Admiration.

“If you want to know what Sophie wants and why she wants it, ask Sophie,” Jonathan said. “She’s smart; she can answer you really well. But don’t just decide that because she was your baby a bunch of years ago that she still is, because now she’s Sophie. And that’s a pretty wonderful thing for her to be. You should be proud.”

Sophie stared at Jonathan, amazed, and reached out an arm, and he walked to her. She put her arm around him, still gaping up at his face. She’d probably never heard him speak that much before, and certainly hadn’t heard anyone say anything like that to her mother before. “Wow,” she said quietly.

There was a long silence. A very long silence. And then the plan that I’d been searching for since yesterday suggested itself to me.

“Besides, I can’t afford to lose Sophie now that I’ve promoted her,” I said.

All four heads turned to me at once. “Promoted?” Ron asked.

“Didn’t she tell you?” I asked him, innocent as O. J. Simpson. “Sophie is now the manager of Comedy Tonight.”

“I . . . am,” Sophie said, grinning. “Yes. I am. Sorry, Elliot. I’d forgotten to tell my parents.”

“Oh well,” I said, the very picture of appeasement, “of course you were adamant about her leaving. You thought Sophie was just our snack girl. My apologies. No, she’s now the part-time manager of the whole theatre. It’s a very responsible position, and I wouldn’t give it to anyone I didn’t trust completely. That’s a remarkable girl you two raised.”

“You don’t expect us to buy—” Ilsa began.

But her husband cut her off. “Why, thank you, Mr. Freed,” Ron said. “We are very proud of our little Sophie. And now, manager of a whole theatre, at her age! We couldn’t be more pleased.”

“Ron!” Ilsa said.

“We
couldn’t be more pleased
,” he repeated, and stared into his wife’s eyes. And there was something in his face that probably hadn’t been there for years, if not decades: defiance. He had seen Jonathan stand up to Ilsa, and that had reminded him of something.

It’s amazing what you can get from some looks.

Obviously Ilsa had gotten quite a bit out of it, too; her face transformed. She actually tried to hide a naughty grin. “Ron,” was all she said. She almost giggled.

Frankly, it was a little scary.

“We’ll be going now,” Ron said. “We need to get home. Ilsa?”

She took his arm, and they left through the office door. Jonathan and Sophie had to back up to let them by.

As the front door closed behind her parents, Sophie said, “Ewwwwww.”

Jonathan grinned down at her from his rangy height. “I guess you’re my boss now,” he said to her.

Sophie reached up and kissed him. “That was the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me,” she said.

“It was Mr. Freed who gave you the promotion,” Jonathan reminded her.

“That’s not what I meant. But . . .” She turned her attention to me. “Thank you, Elliot.”

“I meant every word,” I said. “And Jonathan did, too.”

She grinned.

From the lobby, I could hear Sandy Arnstein’s voice getting louder. “We need a plasterer,” he was saying, presumably to Dad. “These are old walls. I can’t just put up some Sheetrock and expect it to look right. This is gonna cost, and I’m not paying for it. A plasterer.”

“Here comes trouble,” Sophie said.

“Hey,” I said. “You’re the manager. Go manage it.”

“What? Elliot . . .”

I got up and closed the office door. I’d have to thank Anthony for giving me the idea: Sell Sophie the theatre.

That was one item off my list for the day: saving Sophie’s job. Check.

Now it was time to work on another one.

 

 

 

 

BY
the time I walked into Sharon’s practice, it was just after four. Betty told me Sharon was in her private office.

I knocked on the door, and she opened it, and gave me a hug that, under any other circumstances, would have completely knocked all other thoughts out of my mind. But I tried to maintain discipline, and for once, was capable of doing so.