It Happened One Knife (34 page)

Anthony, still hideously grateful for my almost getting him killed, came in from the street and stopped on his way to the balcony stairs. He held a bag labeled DUNKIN’ DONUTS, and brought forth from said bag a large coffee with milk and a lo-cal sweetener, which I had not requested.

“Here you go, Mr. Freed,” he said. “Anything else I can do for you right now?”

“No, thank you, Anthony. This was really not necessary. ”

“Don’t even think about it. Would you like a doughnut?” he asked.

“No. Thanks.”

“I have chocolate-filled.” He sounded like my mother did when she was trying to get me to eat more eggs. I was six at the time.

“No, really. Thank you, Anthony.”

“No. Thank
you
, Mr. Freed.”

I wasn’t sure how much more of this I’d be able to take.

After about a half hour of sitting in the lobby, I’d started feeling separation anxiety from my computer, so I went back to the office and began paying some bills online. Around six, Vic Testalone walked in, no cigar in his mouth or hand. Never a good sign.

“Who shot your dog?” I asked him.

“Worse than that. I have to go up and tell the kid Monitor passed on his film.” Vic had been counting on upgrading to a higher-quality polyester on the profits he’d assumed would come from
Killin’ Time
. This must have been a blow.

“I’m sorry, Vic,” I told him. “What happened?”

“They said Westerns don’t sell. Can you imagine? The kid delivers a masterpiece of blood and guts, and they turn it down because they don’t like the costumes. Go figure studios.”

"Well, it was W. C. Fields who said, ’If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no use being a damn fool about it.’ ” I don’t know why, but I felt a little vindicated that the studio had rejected Anthony’s film, which made me feel guilty. Of course, almost everything makes me feel guilty. It’s my heritage.

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” Vic lied. “It’s the kid. Is he upstairs?”

I nodded. Vic still seemed reluctant to head upstairs and deliver the bad news to Anthony. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to volunteer. I’d rather have Anthony overly grateful than sulky again.

“Good luck,” I told Vic. “I’m out of here. Be back in an hour or so.” And I put on my jacket and headed for the door. Vic didn’t follow. “Come on, tiger,” I told him. “You need to go upstairs now.”

He really looked like a kid who had been summoned to the principal’s office. “Can’t I just stay here for a minute?” Vic asked.

“Not a chance,” I told him. “I lock my office door when I leave.” And I showed him the key in my hand.

“Since when?”

I
walked to Big Herbs to meet Sharon for an early dinner. We’d decided that this was a reasonable step between our usual lunch at C’est Moi! and a full-fledged date, since I’d be going back to work after we ate. We’d concluded that dating had been ill-advised for us while Sharon was still married to Gregory. Well,
she’d
concluded that, and I’d said I agreed. Like I had a choice.

Belinda waved at me from behind the counter, but this time, I was seated at one of the tables, looking over the menu as if I didn’t have it memorized. My polo shirt and khakis were a half step up from the usual grubby T-shirt and jeans, and Belinda smiled knowingly as she approached the table.

“You’re expecting a lady,” she said as she plunked down the flatware and filled my glass with water from a pitcher.

“Do you read tea leaves as well? Because I’d like to know what the lotto numbers are going to be this week. Powerball, if you’ve got ’em.”

“I have bad news for you, Elliot. She’s not coming.”

All right, that was odd. “I beg your pardon?” I said.

“Sharon’s receptionist called here earlier. She said the doc was dealing with a patient emergency, and to tell you she was sorry, she couldn’t make it to dinner tonight.” Belinda looked sympathetic, and sat down across from me. “Couldn’t be avoided,” she added.

“I’m used to it,” I told her with a brief sigh. “She was a doctor when we were married, too. But at least in those days she had the guts to call me herself, the coward.”

“You don’t own a cell phone,” Belinda reminded me. She reached into her pocket and produced a small box. “She sent this for you,” she said. “If it helps.” Then she got up and walked back to the counter, as another customer with a serious veggie craving had entered.

Maybe this was the way it would always be for Sharon and me. Maybe we’d always come close and never really get what we needed from each other. I hoped the medical emergency was a real one, and that she wasn’t just ducking out on me to avoid making the same mistake . . . a third time.

At least this time I’d gotten a present. I took off the wrapping paper Sharon had used on the box, which was heavier than you would have expected, and saw a small note she’d stuck inside the flap.

“This isn’t a bomb,” it read. “I got it for you from my cousin Jane in Colorado Springs. I’ll see you soon. Love you. Shar.”

Inside the box was a snow globe from Pikes Peak, identical to the one Wilson Townes, now a resident of Bergen County Jail, had crushed in his hand. I shook it, and snickered just a bit.

Belinda sat with me for a few minutes, until I felt a tap on my shoulder. Thinking Sharon might have gotten away after all, I turned with great hope, and saw Marion Borello standing behind me, leaning on a cane.

“What’s a gal have to do to get a cup of coffee around here?” she asked.

Marion sat down and Belinda went to find coffee with, as Marion put it, “extra caffeine.” I asked her how she’d found me.

“The girl at your theatre said you’d be here,” she said. “She’s quite a girl.”

“Don’t tell her that,” I said. “She says she’s a woman.”

“Hear her roar.”

“Precisely,” I said.

“You want to know why I’m here?” Marion asked as Belinda placed a cup in front of her and retreated to the counter. (I could be certain she was listening to every word; the distance wasn’t fooling me.)

“The question did come to mind,” I said. “Was it to tell me how you’d lied for Harry Lillis?”

Marion actually blushed, and made a point of looking at Belinda as she spoke. “Harry asked me to cover for him. Before we came to the theatre that first night, even. He told me the story he was going to tell you about Les and Vivian. He said it was a joke, that he was going to get you to chase around and then tell you how it was all a lie. I knew it was nonsense, but he asked me to back him up. Said you’d ask. I should just agree with whatever he’d told you.”

“Why did you go along with it?” I asked. Marion blinked, and I said, “Stupid question. I should have seen it that night at the theatre. You never took your eyes off Harry. You never looked at Les. It was Lillis, not Townes, you were in love with, wasn’t it? It was, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. “I never had an affair with Les Townes. I barely ever spoke to Les Townes. He was devoted to Vivian, and didn’t even look at other girls. But Harry . . . I loved Harry even back then. The ones that make you laugh, you know? I could tell you things about Chico Marx, even at the age he was when I knew him . . .”

“Let’s stick to Harry,” I suggested. “I can almost understand you corroborating his story, but after you thought he was dead, why keep it up?”

“I’d made him a promise,” Marion said. “It seemed like the last thing I could do for him.”

“I’m trying to understand Harry,” I said. “I can’t figure out why, if he was so filled with rage and guilt about Vivian, if he really thought Les killed her, why he’d wait fifty years to do anything about it.”

Marion shook her head. “He never said anything to me about it before,” she told me. “But when he was diagnosed, and he knew this was the end of the line, that’s when Harry had nothing left to lose.”

“I suppose he really loved Vivian,” I said, and instantly regretted it. I can fit a pretty big foot inside my mouth, when I give it all my effort.

“I suppose,” Marion agreed with a tear in her eye. “I was trying to convince myself that he loved me.”

“Maybe he did.”

She shook her head again. “That’s sweet, Elliot, but no. I just fooled myself. And Harry, he let me do it. I was better than nothing.”

“You’re a lot better than nothing,” I told her honestly. “And Harry was a fool for not noticing.”

She smiled. “Thanks,” she said.

THE
evening’s showings went off without incident, and after the staff left for the night (Sophie driving Jonathan in her Prius and Anthony heading back to campus, where he assured me he’d stay another year or two), I patted the snow globe on my desk and walked outside. I locked the front doors, then walked around the building into the alley.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Chained to the pipe, where I’d been expecting Bobo Kaminsky’s loaner bike, was my original bicycle, restored to something approximating mint condition. The pipes were straight and beautifully shined; the tires were new, the wheels unbent. The handlebars pointed in their intended directions, rather than in grotesque, splayed positions. And the pellet holes were gone. It was even a gleaming, metallic green, which I’m relatively sure was the color of the bicycle when I’d bought it, used, in another decade.

Speechless, I stood for a few moments, my jaw flapping open and shut a number of times. Finally, I managed to compose myself to the point that I could reach into my jacket pocket and pull out my keys. I unlocked the bike and rolled it, carefully, into the theatre.

In my office, I picked up the phone and dialed Bobo’s number. I knew he’d be at the store; it was only eleven thirty.

“Midland Cyclery.”

“Bobo, you’re a wizard.”

The pleasure in his voice was unmistakable. “As if that was ever in question,” he said.

“How did you get the old one out and this one in without breaking the chain? Do you have a duplicate key to my bike lock?”

“Don’t question the magic, muggle. Just enjoy it.”

I thanked him profusely until I started to sound like Anthony, then we hung up.

It was a pleasure to ride home. Even in the autumn chill, I paid more attention to the improvement in my ride than to the wind whipping through my
Split Personality
crew jacket. The suspension system (the shocks) had been strengthened, or more likely replaced, so I didn’t feel every pebble in the road. The seat was the same, but had been positioned properly, which I rarely bother to do. The tires, of course, were new and properly inflated. And the shine from the body was evident every time a car’s headlights passed on my left. I felt like I’d bought a whole new bike, and it probably cost me only a little more than if I had.

At the remarkably green door of my town house, I was sorry the ride was finished. Already treating my “new” ride better than I had when it was my “old” one, I was very careful about lifting the bicycle properly up the front stairs, and certainly about not scraping it against the doorframe. Inside the hallway, I placed it gently on the floor, using the kickstand instead of merely leaning it against the wall. Then I stood and admired it for a full minute before walking inside.

The ride had exhilarated me; I wasn’t tired, and I should have been. But, figuring that I could certainly sleep as late as I liked in the morning, I decided against going straight to bed. I had bought myself a book called
Teach Yourself to Play Guitar
, and tried a few chords quietly, but I was too antsy to pay attention to something I didn’t know how to do yet. Besides, I was hungry, so I toasted myself a couple of freezer waffles to compensate for my early dinner, sat down in my director’s chair, and pondered which of my thousands of comedy films on VHS or DVD to watch.

I’d been avoiding it for a while, but I couldn’t put it off forever, no matter what. I put the disc in the player, got myself a beer from the fridge, set up a snack table, and picked up the remote control to hit Play.

On the screen, the opening credits to
Cracked Ice
showed up on the flat screen, and I braced myself. After all that had happened, all that I knew about the men involved and where their lives would go from that moment, would the wondrous comedy that had sustained me through my adolescence and my young adulthood still be as perfect as it had been? Would I become depressed at the sight of them, distraught at the part I’d played in both their deaths? Was it possible that Lillis and Townes could still take me to the place that had meant so much to me with all the extra baggage my mind had accumulated?

I took a long swig from the beer and let out a deep breath. And I felt a knot in my stomach as the caveman sequence with Les Townes, which opens the film, began. I couldn’t help seeing in that face, with the pasted-on beard and the “caveman” hair that was obviously from the studio’s wig department, the look he’d had when he was bending over his partner, more than fifty years later, in a residence for elderly show business veterans moments before he died. It was hard to shake.

But within ten minutes, maybe four scenes into the movie, my dread had dissipated. I was caught up in the beauty of Harry Lillis’s delivery, Les Townes’s natural ability to set up the punch lines, and the amazing, dexterous slapstick each of them could perform. I heard myself laugh once, then again, and by the time fifteen minutes were showing on the DVD’s counter, I was totally engrossed and roaring with delight.

Damn, they were funny.

Okay, you got me. There is no movie called
Cracked Ice
, although there almost was. All of the Lillis and Townes movie titles were alternative working titles for Marx Brothers films.
Cracked Ice
became
Duck Soup
(1933);
Step This Way
and
Bargain Basement
were working titles for
The Big Store
(1941); and
Peace and Quiet
was the title of an early draft of
A Day at the Races
(1937). As for the Lillis and Townes stage show
You’re Making It Up
, well, I . . . made it up.