Smart vs. Pretty (19 page)

T
he phone rang and rang in the Greenfield apartment. Amanda didn’t hear one ring. She was busy arguing with Matt on the street below.

“I say we take this telegram and shove it up Todd Phearson’s dwarf ass,” said Matt.

Amanda cringed at the crassness. “I think he’ll want a check. Besides, we have to find Frank and tell her about this first.”

“So she can make all the important decisions in your life?” he asked. “Why don’t you take charge, for once?”

“Frank doesn’t make all the important decisions,” said Amanda.

“Name one important decision you’ve made in the last year,” he challenged her.

Amanda pulled her pea coat tightly around her body. “Why are we having this conversation in the middle of the street?”

“Trying to change the subject?” he asked. “There’s nothing wrong with letting someone else be in change, Amanda. If you’re content to be a subordinate player in your own life. Of course, we’re all pawns to the government. I mean on a personal level, between you and Frank.”

“And you’d have me roll all over her?” Amanda asked.

“I don’t mind the image, but I’m suggesting nothing of the kind. I have given you eighty thousand dollars, and your first instinct is to pass the responsibility off to someone else. When you ever get married, your husband will completely control you while you float about, happy and oblivious, sensing things.”

Amanda almost said, “And what’s wrong with happy and oblivious?” but she knew what was wrong with it. Look at what happy and oblivious had wrought so far. Matt’s vision of Amanda’s future—the same picture she’d painted for years, the one that had filled her heart with joy—now sounded tinny and childish. In the cold, visible breath of the moment, Matt had swapped her placid dreams with a void.

She said, “You hurt my feelings.”

“I should be able to speak freely and honestly with a friend and business partner,” he said. “Silent partner.”

“This is silence?” Amanda asked.

“Well, what’s your call?” he said. “Where do we go from here? And don’t tease me by saying we go to bed.”

“Maybe I should look for a husband who would rather be controlled than be controlling.”

“I said, ‘Don’t tease me.’”

Amanda laughed. “To the Heights Cafe.”

She wasn’t sure she could handle a confrontation with Todd or—worse—Paul McCartney, the bartender. She hadn’t seen him since the chase on the promenade. But the freezing air was turning her lips blue under red lipstick, making them look purple (a misery with her pale skin). She had to get out of the cold, and the Heights Cafe was close. Frank wouldn’t hesitate when daunted. She even seemed to enjoy facing off with an enemy. Amanda had to admit that Matt was right. She’d passed off the dirty work to Frank consistently and without qualms. The time had come for Amanda to be brave.

As they approached the front door of the restaurant, Amanda breathed deeply—in, out—and willed herself to
be
Frank. What would her sister say? What would she do? Morphing into her sister, in certain situations, could serve her well. Maybe she could incorporate a bit of Frankishness into her very soul. Then she’d never be alone.

Amanda muttered to herself, “I am Frank. I am Frank.”

Matt asked, “Are you schizing out on me?”

“Just channeling.”

Amanda pushed open the door of the Heights Cafe. Every eye in the bar set upon her skin, lighting it on fire. That was a nice change from frozen, but after an instant Amanda had to take off her coat, fearing that she might spontaneously combust. Todd was nowhere in sight. Matt said, “Let’s wait for him.”

Amanda nodded and sat on one of the familiar bar stools, draping her coat across her lap. Matt excused himself for a moment. On his way to the bathroom, he directed Amanda’s attention toward the kitchen.

Through the circular window of the “in” side of the kitchen’s swinging doors, Amanda watched Paul McCartney. He was talking, laughing to someone; she couldn’t see who. He pushed back into the bar and pretended not to see Amanda right away.

She said, “Hello, Paul.”

He refused to make eye contact. She said more loudly, “How’s it going, Paul?”

“You shouldn’t be here,” said the bartender.

Amanda studied the neon lights, bright and colorful even in the daytime. “I was sitting in this very bar stool. I can’t believe it was only three nights ago. Are you going to scream that you hate me again and run away?”

“I’m working,” he grunted.

“Then I’ll have the usual,” she said.

“Kir Royale?” he asked. “Now?”

“What’s stopping me? It’s not like I’ve got a store to open.” As Paul fixed her cocktail, she said, “How’s your wife? The girls?”

Paul put her drink in front of her on a napkin, leaned across the bar, and snagged her wrist in his fist. “Don’t you talk about my wife,” he said.

Amanda removed his hand, peeling back one finger at a time. She felt jittery, excited. Or was it fear? Did Frank respond this way when she instigated a confrontation? Did she like it? Amanda decided she wasn’t sure if “like” was an appropriate assessment, although she could see how conflict could be useful in oxygenating one’s skin (her heart was beating wildly). She was also forcing Paul to show another side of himself. In her conflict-free existence, Amanda wondered if she’d been seeing the whole world in just two dimensions (despite her third eye) all along.

“Why did you lie to that
Post
reporter about me?” she asked.

“I haven’t lied to anyone,” said Paul. “That reporter called me at home, said he was a cop and that if I didn’t tell the truth, he was going to bring me in as an accessory to murder. I told him what I knew. He made up every quote of mine. And then I got in trouble with Todd. He didn’t like his restaurant’s name in the paper, and he was furious at me for talking to a reporter. Your bad date almost got me fired.”

So he’d assigned the blame of his misfortune on me, Amanda thought. Of course, if they ever were, they could never be friends again. Her social circle shrank by the minute. At the rate she was going, Frank would be all she had. Maybe Frank
was
all she had.

“Did I miss anything?” asked Matt. Back from the bathroom, he stood at Amanda’s side, a protective hand on her shoulder. Would Matt turn out to be a loose connection, too? At least they were bound by money. Bound. That didn’t sound voluntary.

Matt looked at Paul (steam rose from the bartender’s head at the sight of Matt), and asked, “How’s the secret love?”

“Where did this secret love nonsense get started?” demanded Paul.

Amanda said, “Your wife told me."

“Sylvia?”

“Got another wife?” asked Matt.

“I’m so close to punching you,” Paul threatened.

Matt laughed at him, but stepped back a bit.

Paul’s head steamed a bit more (he could have cooked an entire bunch of broccoli), but then he simmered off. He actually sighed. Elbows on the bar, he said, “Sylvia was upset. She doesn’t like it when Todd gets angry at me. I tried to defend myself, and I might have said that I felt bad for you, Amanda. Sylvia said, ‘You care more about Amanda Greenfield than you do about Todd.’ And—this was my big mistake, I guess—I agreed. Well, she exploded at that. Ran off with the girls. She came back—I guess that’s when you saw her in our building, Amanda—packed a suitcase for herself and the girls, and left. I was supposed to meet her on the promenade to talk the next day, and you showed up there, too.”

“That’s why you were trying to avoid me,” Amanda said. If Sylvia saw them together, it would reinforce her wrong impression. “So you never had a secret love for me at all?” She was a bit disappointed.

Paul softened. “If it ever crossed my mind, I had no intention of acting on my attraction.”

Matt’s protective arm on her shoulder turned into a steel beam. He said, “Keep it in your pants.”

“You keep it in yours.”

“Boys!”

To Matt, Paul said, “You have nothing to worry about, junior. I’m not laying a hand on anyone until my wife comes home—which should be soon. She’s been staying with her father. And he won’t put up with the kids for too long.”

“Her dad lives in the neighborhood?” asked Amanda.

Paul seemed confused. “Of course.” Paul twisted his rag. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Paul said, “Why do I work so hard? Why do I put up with so much crap from Todd? Because I like it? I do it because I have to. I’m not going to be openly antagonistic to my father-in-law.”

“Todd is Sylvia’s father?” Amanda asked. She had no idea Todd had any family at all. Her parents always spoke about him as though he was a lonely, sad man who needed their company. She dredged up a vague memory of her parents discussing his divorce.

“Todd is her father. And I’m the son-in-law who’s expected to take over when he retires,” Paul said.

A business that would have doubled in size at 5:00
P.M
. had Matt not come to the rescue. Amanda said, “Tell me you didn’t know about the deal my parents made with Todd.”

Paul put his palm on the bar as if it were a pulpit. He said, “I didn’t have any idea until day before yesterday. I would have told you. Look, I realize I haven’t been treating you well—I’ve been wrapped up in my own personal nightmare—but I’m sorry about Barney Greenfield’s.”

“Where is Todd now?” she asked.

Paul said, “I think he went home to shower before the dinner rush.”

“Home is?”

“Two fifty-six Hicks.” Amanda knew the building on the corner of Hicks and Joralemon. One and a half blocks from Paul’s place on Grace Court Alley. And only half a block from Benji’s place on Joralemon Street.

Matt helped Amanda put on her coat. Her Kir Royale sat untouched on the bar. She said to Paul, “Drink’s on you. You owe me a lot more than that. You could have given me thirty hours’ warning about Todd and my café, but you didn’t. Why? Greed? Anger? Revenge? All of it makes me sick. We are no longer friends. We’ll never be friends again. When I see you on the street, I’ll look away. When you try to talk to me, I’ll ignore you. I’m not going to forgive you. And I’m not going to forget, either.”

Matt and Amanda left quickly. She was shaking from her speech. Matt hustled her along Montague Street, making the turn down Hicks toward Todd’s home. Amanda, calmed by the cool air, was able to slow her pulse and deepen her breath. She’d never said such cruel words to anyone before. And she meant it all the way to the marrow of her bones. Despite her shaken limbs, Amanda felt as if she had wrested control. She had taken responsibility, done some dirty work. She felt righteous.

Matt said, “Man, I hope I never do anything to piss you off. It’s scary when warm people freeze over.”

“Scarier if they never do,” Amanda said.

N
o one answered the phone. Frank stood at the pay phone in front of Rite Aid with a stack of withdrawal slips, filling them out one by one. Without the proper papers, Frank couldn’t get a money order. The teller told her she could take out up to two thousand dollars in cash without having to produce an ID. That meant twenty-eight slips, which all had to be processed in the next ten minutes.

Clarissa, meanwhile, used the neighboring phone to call the
Post
. She was thrilled with Frank’s news of the bank error.

“Does this mean I can have the other fifteen hundred today?” she asked Frank.

Frank nodded. “You can have it after you call Zorn for the information about Todd.”

That established, the women left the bank and began their phoning. Frustrated, Frank left an urgent message on the answering machine at home: “Amanda! If you get this in the next ten minutes, get my passport in my night-table drawer and run to the Citibank at the corner of Montague and Clinton!” She slammed down the receiver and ran back to the bank, leaving Clarissa at the phone booth. There were about seven people ahead of her, and only three tellers were open. According to her watch, teller service should close in about five minutes. But since she was already in line, surely they wouldn’t turn her away.

Wrong. At precisely three o’clock, the tellers quickly finished with the customers at their windows, and then a bulletproof screen slid down, closing up shop. The three people in front of Frank groaned in unison and walked away, leaving without a fight. Frank continued to stand in line, her twenty-eight slips in hand, and wondered what to do next. She banged on one of the bulletproof metal screens. “Open up! I have a banking emergency!”

Nothing. She ran into the main area of the bank. A security guard was helping the stragglers out. She avoided him and rushed over to the deserted information booth. “I need some service, Goddamn it!” she yelled, her voice bouncing off the marble columns. The bank personnel ignored her. Most of them were snapping their pocketbooks closed or disappearing behind an “employees only” door.

A security guard walked toward Frank. He said, “Ma’am, we’re closing up now. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow, or conduct your business at the ATM machines.”

She said, “You don’t understand! I was in line!”

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave now.”

If she were arrested, she’d never get that money. Frank said, “How much can you withdraw from an ATM?”

“I couldn’t say.”

Frank ran toward the ATM vestibule. There were ten machines; nine were in use. Frank put her card in the free machine and punched in her PIN, 447463 (“I grind”). She pressed all the appropriate windows. English, get cash, from checking. When asked to specify an amount, Frank typed in $55,000. The machine hummed for a moment, and the screen flashed the message: “The amount is too large. Please enter a smaller amount.” Frank tried entering $2,000. She dreaded the prospect of having to withdraw an even smaller amount—that would take forever. But the machine accepted the request, and Frank took her two thousand dollars in cash. The machine asked if she would like to conduct another transaction. She requested another cash withdrawal, same amount. She thought there was a limit, so the withdrawal surprised her.

By the time Clarissa came into the ATM vestibule, Frank had already withdrawn ten thousand dollars. She was running out of room in her pockets for the cash.

Frank said, “Give me your pocketbook.”

Clarissa hugged her black nylon tote against her chest. “It’s Kate Spade.”

“Give me the bag!”
Everyone in the vestibule turned to look at the deranged woman. She toned herself down. “I need it for just a few minutes. I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d hand over the fucking bag. Thank you.”

Clarissa surrendered her Kate Spade. “There’s something you should know, Francesca.”

Frank barely heard her. She stuffed the money into the bag and resumed her furious punching. A message on the screen suddenly popped up: “This ATM is out of cash. Please try another.”

“Fuck!”
Again Frank won the attention of everyone in the vestibule. Frank ran to get in line for another ATM. She impatiently stamped her feet as though she had to use the bathroom.

Clarissa stood next to her. “Francesca, listen to me,” she urged. “Piper Zorn has been arrested.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Frank.

“Don’t you want to know why?”

“Why is this line so long?” Frank asked herself out loud. She noticed Clarissa’s glare. “What did you get about Todd Phearson?” That would distract her from the wait.

Clarissa said, “You really don’t care why Piper was arrested.”

“Just give me the Todd Phearson notes, okay? I can only focus on one enemy at a time.”

The blonde said, “I had to speak to an intern.”

“What did she say?”

“He.”

“What did he say?”

Clarissa raised some scribbled Post-it notes to eye level. “Todd Phearson, two fifty-six Hicks Street, Brooklyn; Social Security number 111-09-8444; driver’s license number 235-111-222; registered owner of a Toyota Corolla; net income for 1997, sixty thousand dollars.”

“Sixty thousand?” Frank said. “That’s it? He must have a clever accountant.”

Clarissa continued, “Pays alimony to Lucy Phearson of fifty-seven Pineapple Street, Brooklyn. No minor dependents, but he has a daughter named Sylvia McCartney of five Grace Court Alley, and two granddaughters, Tracy and Betina McCartney.”

Frank said, “I think I knew he was divorced. Lucy Phearson?”

“Apparently she’s a writer of sorts. The intern did an Internet search on her name. She’d posted a few religious poems at some Christian Web sites.”

Lucy Phearson couldn’t be Lucy the crone, the crazy, Bible-thumping family valuer. She was way too old to be Todd’s ex-wife.

Frank stepped forward in line. “You can wait with me to get your money,” she said to Clarissa.

The blonde shook her head. “I’ll get it another time. I want to go see Piper. He’s been taken to two thirty-three Adams Street. That’s close to here, right?”

The Brooklyn municipal courts were only a couple blocks away. Frank said, “Make a right, walk to Court Street, and then go across that plaza to the courthouse.” Her curiosity finally caught up. “Why did Zorn get arrested?”

“The intern wasn’t completely clear on what happened, but allegedly he’d stolen some toxicology reports from Long Island College Hospital on Atlantic Avenue.”

Frank’s heart sputtered. That woman from the hospital morgue! Frank had completely forgotten the date she’d arranged for Piper when she took the call at his desk. She couldn’t keep herself from laughing out loud.

Clarissa said, “I don’t think this is very funny, Francesca.” Then she removed her wallet and keys from the Kate Spade tote and left.

Frank edged forward in line. She finally got her turn at a different ATM machine, and cleared it out of twelve thousand dollars. She got back in line and repeated this interminable cycle until she’d squeezed fifty-five thousand dollars into Clarissa’s bag. It was bulging with the load—Frank figured it weighed about twenty pounds (lots of fifties and twenties). She left the ATM vestibule, confident that no one had been watching her fill the bag with big bucks.

Despite the awkwardness of walking with the equivalent of a house down payment on her shoulder, Frank was awash with a new sense of calm. It was only three forty-five. She had over an hour to walk the few blocks to the Heights Cafe and save the day. She decided to stop in at her apartment first to put on a sweater (the afternoon had grown even colder while she was in the bank), and exchange the tote bag for a duffel.

As she neared her building, she couldn’t help notice the police car parked out front. The lights weren’t flashing—thank God—which would have made two highly public visits from the authorities in the last few days. She walked up to her apartment door and fumbled with her keys. Before she got a chance to open the door, one of the policemen, a tall, slim man with a mustache and a three-button wool suit and overcoat, approached her.

“Francesca Greenfield?”

“Yes?” she said, clutching the tote close to her body.

“My name is Det. Carlos Luigi. I met your sister the other day.”

“When you arrested Benji.”

He nodded kindly. “Are you familiar with a man named Piper Zorn?”

“Unfortunately,” she said.

The detective said, “We brought him in because he’s been accused of illegally soliciting information about a police investigation from a hospital secretary. But he’s confessed to a higher crime. We have reason to believe that you’re involved. We’d like you to come with us for questioning.”

Frank said, “The woman at the hospital…you mean about those reports? I don’t know anything.”

Detective Luigi blinked. “Zorn confessed to attempted murder.”

The bag began to weigh on Frank’s shoulder. She wanted to go inside and then get over to the Heights Cafe. She said, “When did this attempted murder take place? I was in my apartment all night. And I have two”—or three, depending on when Walter left—“witnesses who can verify my whereabouts.”

The cop nodded. “That sounded very
Columbo
.”

Frank smiled. “It’s the truth.”

“Don’t you want to know who Zorn attempted to kill?”

Frank had assumed it was some girlfriend in a domestic disturbance. “I suppose.”

“Walter Robbins. He’s currently warming a hospital bed with three broken ribs, a broken leg, and a concussion. Zorn confessed to pushing him off a subway platform into an oncoming number 2 train. Mr. Robbins is lucky to be alive.”

That couldn’t be true. “He called me this morning.”

“If he did, he called from Long Island College Hospital. Can you come with me, Ms. Greenfield? We’d like to talk to you about Mr. Robbins.”

Frank looked at her watch. It was too close. She had only an hour. “I can’t.”

“This is a serious crime, Ms. Greenfield.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Let’s discuss it in my office,” he said.

Frank hesitated. Politeness counts, she thought to herself. “I’m sorry, but something has come up. I just can’t make it right now.”

“I’m not asking you on a date,” said the detective. “Get in the car. Now.”