Saturday morning, Malcolm and I were sitting at the glass-topped wrought-iron table on the patio behind Grandpa Teddy’s house, playing the game that most inspired a desire for success and independence among young boys of that time: Monopoly. We were buying properties, putting up houses and hotels, bemoaning the unfairness of fines and unearned sentences to jail, when the phone rang in the kitchen. I’d left the back door open so that I could hear the ringing through the screen door, and I sprang up at once and hurried inside, hoping for Mr. Yoshioka’s voice when I plucked up the receiver. “Hello?”
He said, “Jonah, on my way to the bus stop yesterday, I realized that I had forgotten to thank you for the Coca-Cola and the cookie.”
“You brought the cookies,” I reminded him.
“Yes, but you shared them, and you provided the cola. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“You’re welcome. But … I hope you’ve got some news.”
“I do have some news, yes, some hopeful and some frustrating. On his own time, Mr. Otani has identified three buildings in the city that are owned by the Drackman Family Trust. Before he can go to his superiors regarding the opening of a case file and the issuance of a warrant, he needs to discover at which of the three Lucas Drackman is currently living, if in fact he is living at any. Mr. Otani now believes that he will not get a file opened sooner than Monday afternoon.”
“Well, I guess he probably knows what he’s doing.”
“He knows very well, yes. And he is not taking the weekend off, Jonah. He is watching those buildings, one at a time, until he sees whatever he needs to see.”
“Okay, sure. It’s just that I’m spooked. I mean, this whole thing is spookier than ever. I don’t know why, but it is.”
“Remember what you once told me.”
“Huh? What?”
“ ‘No matter what happens, everything will be all right in the long run.’ ”
70
Saturday, Grandpa played both the department store and the hotel gigs. Mom didn’t have to work a lunch-counter shift; but she had made two appointments—auditions—with booking agents, still struggling to find the right person to get her a singing job and put her on a solid career path; she would be out most of the day.
Under threat of having his saxophone taken away, Malcolm was forced to accompany his mother to lunch and a lengthy afternoon visit with her older sister, his aunt Judith. Judith had married well and lived with her husband, Duncan, and a pampered British white shorthair cat named Snowball in an elegant penthouse overlooking the city’s Great Park. “My mother hopes Aunt Judy will take pity on my exceptional geekiness and suddenly decide to make a project of me,” Malcolm explained, “in the process showering money on our entire family, which is no more likely than her roasting Snowball and serving him for lunch.”
Alone, I had books to read, a piano to practice on, and a TV on which daytime movies were always light comedies or love stories, never the late-night voodoo-in-the-city monster-on-the-loose fare that would make me want to hide under my bed. I tried to settle down and get interested in one thing or another, but I kept ricocheting around the house, like a pinball, checking the windows several times to be sure that the screens were intact, rearranging the clothes in my bedroom closet and then putting them back the way they had been, examining the gleaming cutlery in the kitchen knife drawer to decide with which blade I might best be able to defend myself if a horde of barbarians—or Fiona Cassidy—burst into the house with murderous intent.
When Amalia rang the doorbell at 3:10, I was overjoyed, hoping that she had brought her clarinet, which she hadn’t, hoping that maybe she had brought an art book full of Vermeers and Rembrandts, which she hadn’t.
“I’ve got like five minutes, Jonah. I’ve swept the carpets, mopped the kitchen floor, dusted the furniture, changed the paper in Tweetie’s cage while fending off his every vicious attempt to peck out my eyes. I’m making dinner for the family, while my nasty stepsisters dress to catch the eye of the prince at the palace ball this evening, and just to make sure I won’t have a shot at his highness, they smashed my glass slippers. You look weird, Jonah. Are you all right?”