Hotline to Murder (2 page)

She told him about a time a man had sent her
flowers.

“That must have made you feel special,” Tony said,
congratulating himself on introducing feelings into the
conversation.

“Very special. But what I wanted to say was I got
some of that same feeling just now because you listened to me, and
you didn’t judge me.”

When he was at last able to end the call, he figured
he had been on the line for twenty minutes. “Can you get fired for
giving a repeat caller more than fifteen minutes?” he asked.

Shahla smiled and said, “Julie is one of the hardest
ones to get rid of. Don’t feel bad. I have trouble with her too.
And you ended the call on an upbeat note, which is a miracle for
her.”

The phone rang again. Tony, who was still thinking
about the previous call, tried to mentally brace himself. He
answered the phone. Nobody spoke, but he was quite sure the line
was open. He said, “Hello,” as he pressed the button to place the
call on the speaker.

A male voice said, “I don’t want to go on.”

Startled, Tony looked at Shahla. She mouthed the
word, “Suicide.” He thought, my God, this is a real call. I’m not
playing a role in a class, anymore.

CHAPTER 2

“You don’t want to go on,” Tony repeated,
using a subdued tone of voice to match the caller’s. He realized he
had just used reflection, another listening skill.

The silence that followed was as deafening
as a rock band. He wanted to say something more, but he didn’t know
what to say. Shahla was listening intently to the speaker, but she
didn’t give any helpful hints.

“I’m going to end it,” the sad voice finally
said.

“What’s your name?” Tony asked. He needed to
establish rapport with the caller.

After a pause the caller said, “Frank.”

“Hi, Frank. Do you think you’re going to
hurt yourself?” He couldn’t bring himself to use the word
“kill.”

“Yes.”

“How are you going to do it?”

“I have a gun.”

The guy was serious. “Where is it?”

“In my hand.”

“Is it loaded?”

“Yes. It’s pointed at my head.”

Tony looked at Shahla in panic. She pressed
the mute button and said, “Try to get him to put the gun in another
room.”

“Frank,” Tony said, “I’ll make a deal with
you. I’ll talk to you, but I can’t do it when you have a gun in
your hand. I’m afraid there might be an accident. Will you do
something for me? Unload the gun and place it in another room.”

Silence. Then Frank said, “I won’t unload
it.”

“All right, but please put it in another
room, out of sight.”

They went back and forth for several
minutes. Finally, Frank agreed to take the gun to another room.
While he was off the line, Tony said to Shahla, “I’m sweating.”

“Stay with him,” Shahla said, “You’re doing
fine.”

Frank came back on the line and, without
being asked, assured Tony that the gun was gone. That was a good
sign. Tony said, “There are people who care about what happens to
you.”

“Nobody cares.”

“I care. I care very much.” And Tony found
that he did care.

Slowly, Frank’s story came out. He had a
degenerative disease that was making his muscles useless. He was
disabled and his physical condition was deteriorating. At some
point he would be completely helpless. Tony wracked his brain, but
he couldn’t think of a way to put a positive spin on that. He tried
to keep Frank talking. There were long periods of silence, during
which Shahla’s support helped Tony remain calm. The phone rang a
number of times, but she ignored it.

An hour into the call, Frank said, “This
isn’t going anywhere. I’m going to hang up now.”

“Don’t hang up,” Tony blurted. “I have
something more to say.”

Silence.

Tony talked desperately, repeating things he
had said, previously, while expecting to hear the click of a hang
up at any moment. He had to get some agreement from Frank. Frank
had said several times that he didn’t have any relatives or close
friends, but he had mentioned that he did have a cat. Tony decided
to focus on the cat.

“What kind of a cat do you have?” Tony
asked.

“Alley cat. He kept hanging around the
neighborhood. The neighbors fed him. I never did. But he came in
the house one day when I left the screen door open. I couldn’t boot
him out.”

“How long have you had him?”

“Five years.”

“What would he do without you?”

“Go back to being an alley cat.”

“But he obviously likes you, Frank. You
can’t desert him.”

It was a thin thread, one that might break
at any moment. Tony kept Frank talking about his cat. Little by
little, Frank agreed that he should stay alive because of his cat.
Or did he? Part of the time he seemed to be ready to disavow any
agreement.

Before he hung up, Tony said, “Please call
us tomorrow and tell us how you’re doing,” knowing that Frank might
never make the call.

As he put down the receiver, Tony realized
that his shirt was soaked. He glanced at the clock. It was almost
ten. He had been on the call for two hours. He said, “I’m not sure
I convinced him.”

“You did the best you could,” Shahla said.
“That’s all you can do.”

“To be honest, if I were in his shoes, I
would probably want to end it too.”

“That’s the hardest call you’ll ever get on
the Hotline. The suicide calls I’ve had are like, ‘I’m going to
kill myself on the anniversary of my father’s death.’ ‘Oh, when is
that?’ ‘Next February.’ Okay, that’s six months away. So I figure
I’m safe.”

They chuckled, which reduced the tension
that had been present in the room for so long, like a compressed
spring.

“I have to go to the restroom—badly,” Tony
said. “I’ve had to go for an hour.”

“That’s one thing I forgot to tell you,”
Shahla said. “Down the hall to the right. The key is hanging by the
door. While you’re gone, I’ll fill out your evaluation form.”

“Evaluation form?” He should have known
there would be an evaluation form. “I hope I passed.”

“Oh you did. With flying colors.”

***

Tony parked his car in one of the two
carport stalls allotted to his townhouse and noted that Josh’s car
occupied the other one. He had hoped Josh would be out. It was too
much to hope for that Josh would be asleep at this hour. He didn’t
feel like talking to his roommate—housemate—he had to quit thinking
like a college boy. After all, he had been out of college for
almost ten years.

He opened the wooden gate leading to his
small brick patio. The sliding glass door to the house was open. He
slid open the screen door. As he entered the house, he saw light
emanating from the living room and heard the sound of the
television set. Blaring. Explosive. Bang bang bang. Not a good
sign. On the other hand, if Josh was fully involved in one of the
ultra-violent movies he loved, maybe Tony could whoosh past him and
race up the stairs without being detained.

“Hey, Noodles. Where you going so fast? I
want to hear about your evening.”

Caught. And “Noodles.” How Tony hated that
nickname. But this wasn’t the time to lecture Josh for the
thousandth time about it. Josh lay fully reclined on the reclining
chair, facing the big-screen TV, which was the only thing in the
living room that belonged to him. He held a can of beer in his
hand. A cooler sat beside the chair to prevent him from, heaven
forbid, actually having to walk into the kitchen to get more beer.
Empty cans littered Tony’s carpet, undoubtedly dripping beer into
it.

“I can’t talk with that thing on,” Tony
shouted, over more explosions. He headed for the stairs.

Josh picked up the remote, aimed it at the
TV like a gun, and muted the sound. “There. I don’t want to hurt
your sensitive ears. Here, have a brewski.”

He picked a can out of the cooler and tossed
it to Tony, oblivious to the fact that it was wet from melted ice.
As Tony caught it, cold water spattered his face, arms, T-shirt,
and jeans.

“So, how did things go during your first
night on the Hotstuff Line?”

That wasn’t a question Tony could even begin
to answer, given his current state of mind. He was still thinking
about the suicide call. He popped open the can and took a long
swallow. The cold bite of the liquid felt good sliding down his
throat. Maybe this was what he needed.

“What’s the matter? Some pussy got your
tongue? Talk to Uncle Josh. Okay, let’s start at the beginning. I
believe, back in the days when you were actually speaking to me,
you said you would find out where the Hotline office is for the
first time tonight. So, where is it? And sit down, for God’s sake.
Don’t look like you’re about to fly off and execute some noble
deed.”

Josh flipped back his too long, but already
thinning, red hair and folded his hands on his ample belly, while
precariously balancing his beer can on said belly.

Tony sat down on the sofa underneath the
living room windows. He took another long swallow. He had to talk
to Josh sooner or later because Josh never let go. But it hadn’t
occurred to him that he was going to have trouble with this
question. “The location is confidential.”

“The location is confidential.” Josh
mimicked him, but with a voice of exaggerated piety. “So this is
how you treat your uncle Josh, after all the years we’ve known each
other, after all we’ve been through together. After all the times I
saved your worthless ass in college when you were about to flunk a
course. After all the girls I fixed you up with. This is how it
ends. ‘The location is confidential.’”

“Can the damned dramatics, Josh. I’m not
going to tell you, okay? I signed a statement, and I’m not going to
risk getting fired. I’ll tell you anything else.”

“I didn’t know you could get fired from a
volunteer job. But Josh has a big heart, and I’ll let it pass. Even
though it’s breaking. And let me risk another question, even if it
means another bruise on my ego. You told me you were going to have
a mentor tonight. Tell me about your mentor.”

Tony said, “Yes, I did have a mentor. She
was very good.”

“Jesus, you sound like a first-grade reader.
What was her name?”

“Uh, Sally,” Tony said, using Shahla’s
Hotline alias. Among his other faults, Josh was a bigot.

“And is this Sally a babe?”

The last thing Tony was going to do was to
admit to Josh that she was a babe. He said, “She’s a teenager.
She’s seventeen.”

“So, is there a statute of limitations on
babedom? Today’s teenyboppers are hot. I’ll bet she was wearing
low-cut jeans and a top that was barely there. And a thong. Did you
happen to notice when she bent over? Or does your new-found
sanctity prevent you from peeking?”

Josh was uncomfortably close to the truth.
To head him off, Tony said, “I took several calls. One was from a
guy who was talking about blowing his brains out.”

“Holy shit.” Josh’s blue eyes widened, and
he looked at Tony with what might be respect. “Did he have a
piece?”

“He said he did.”

“What kind?”

“Our discussion didn’t go into that kind of
detail. I got him to take it into another room.”

“So, did you convince him that life was
worth living?”

Tony hesitated. That was the question he had
been asking himself all the way home. “I…I’m not sure.”

“You mean, at this very moment he might be
lying on the floor with his fucking brains scattered all over the
room?”

A gruesome picture flashed into Tony’s head.
He said, slowly, “At this very moment he might be lying on the
floor with his fucking brains scattered all over the room.” He
couldn’t look at Josh. He knew Josh was staring at him, with the
freckles covering his face changing color, as they did when he felt
emotion.

“Noodles, you need another beer.”

Josh tossed this one across his body, and it
spattered Tony and the sofa with cold water. Beer was Josh’s answer
to all the world’s problems. Maybe Josh was right. By the time he
went to bed, Tony had drunk at least a six-pack.

CHAPTER 3

It was Friday evening, August 30, two weeks after
his first mentoring session. Tony walked into the building where
the Hotline was located. Once again he smelled the odor he had come
to associate with it. Perhaps it was some sort of cleaning
compound.

Instead of riding the elevator, he went up
the stairs, taking them two at a time, all the way to the third
floor. He was glad there was nobody at the top to see him
puffing—to see how out of shape he was.

He had also taken the stairs at his second
and third Hotline sessions with a mentor, eschewing the elevator.
Why? He could barely admit it to himself, but the reason apparently
had to do with the fact that he wanted to get into better shape,
lose those extra pounds that pushed his belt out. Why? It was
ridiculous to think that he would do something he had never done in
his life, at least for a woman—any woman, let alone for a
seventeen-year-old. Someone who was legally jailbait.

He had not seen Shahla since the first
session. His mentors for the other two sessions had also been
teenagers, a boy and a girl, and they had been good, but they had
made no lasting impression on him. Now he was on his own, an
experienced listener. As he walked to the office, he wondered
whether there would be anyone else on the lines tonight, or whether
he would be alone. He barely dared hope that Shahla would be here,
and he knew the odds were long against it. She had not been signed
up on the calendar the last time he had looked, several days
before.

Tony tried the handle of the brown door. It
was locked. He looked at his watch. Ten minutes to seven. Perhaps
there was no listener on the four-to-seven shift. Sometimes that
happened with a volunteer organization. Fortunately, he had learned
the combination to the lockbox on the door. He entered it and
pulled off the cover, looking for the key inside. Except that the
key wasn’t there. What was going on?