Fry Me a Liver Read online

  Josephine was a bony five-foot-six. Part of that was the result of her vegan diet, but some of it was also due to the fact that she was sixty-eight and her skin just hung a little looser than it used to. She made a great tabouli salad with tangerine slices and that was what I was in the mood for.

  It was just after the lunch rush and Josephine welcomed me with a big, sympathetic smile and wide open arms.

  “I am so, so very sorry,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  I noticed, then, the tip of a placard with a wooden handle. It was upended behind the trash cans in the kitchen. I remembered Sandy’s father, Alex, having said something about an anti-meat protest at his butcher shop the day of the explosion.

  “Been out spreading the word?” I asked, dipping my forehead toward the sign.

  She looked behind her and frowned. “That was my business partner, Ronald. I have a public face. I cannot afford to be an activist. The only time I protested was in my early twenties when funding was being cut for the Atlanta Touring Ballet Association, which brought dance to schools. It was a very important project.”

  “Did you succeed in getting the money reinstated?”

  She smirked. “Do these things ever?”

  She was right. The only protests that ever made an impact were about civil rights. And the only groups that ever capitulated were those that stood to lose money by angering a consumer group. Ballet dancers were not such a bloc.

  I ate my salad at one of the tables which, coincidentally, had a photo of Josephine and Ronald Carroll from the opening of the restaurant two years before. Ronald was a bald, thirty-something trust-fund brat and spotlight whore who cut a big fat arc through the local social scene. He invested in things that made him more money and, just in case things got slow, he involved himself in causes that generated him some heat, like loudly protesting the treatment of pigs and cows.

  I often ate at places other than my own, though that was always a choice rather than a necessity. It was a crappy feeling. The place was more or less empty, just a few people chatting after lunch. I was huddled low around the ceramic bowl, which was locally handmade by Native American Chickasaws, yet another plaque on the wall said. My ancestors probably ate like this in the eastern European shtetls, protecting their meager meals from grabbing hands, ready to pick them up and run, in case the Cossacks attacked. I wondered how much of that was coincidence and how much was genetic memory.

  There was a wind chimey–type of bell over the door and it tinkled as I was finishing my salad. I heard low male voices but didn’t look up, which is why I hadn’t realized that Democratic Mayor Louis Benedict Dunn and an aide had entered the eatery until Josephine said his name. Well, of course. He had to compete with Moss “Com” Post and his Eden Party. Where else would he go for a late lunch but to an organic eatery?

  Josephine was all over the mayor, whose eyes were on me as I glanced up. His aide recorded the arrival on his cell phone; no doubt it would be on YouTube within the half hour, showing how Dunn was the sane green candidate. Truth be told, that was not something I disputed.

  Dunn walked over and shook my hand. The cell phone was still recording. He said he was sorry and asked if there was anything the city could do to help. I remarked that he could kick Big Jefferson Harkins and the rest of the sluggish, inhibiting Department of Codes and Building Safety in their collective baitsim.

  “Backsides?” The mayor chuckled.

  “Other side,” I said. “They come in pairs.” The mayor harrumphed and smiled uncomfortably and walked away, trailed by his flunky. I was pretty sure that remark would not make it onto the Internet.

  The two men went to a table as far from me as they could get, while I finished my lunch and checked e-mail and phone messages. There was nothing from any of my employees. I would stop by the hospital after leaving here.

  There was a text from Kane. He wanted to know what I was doing for dinner. I decided not to answer it yet. The way things had been going, who knew how I’d feel in six or seven hours?

  I paid and said my farewells to Josephine. “Gwen—you understand that, as much as I would like to help, I can’t offer you my facilities to store or cook your food. I mean, if you were planning on doing takeout or something.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “It’s like a kosher deli. Vegan and meat don’t mix here.”

  “You do understand, thank you. Just the smell of cooking chicken liver would—”

  “Would make your customers sick. Of course.” Odd that she chose liver.

  We embraced, and I waved good-bye to the mayor. He pretended not to see me, being buried deep in meaningful conversation—though you can always tell when someone is avoiding you by the way their eyes don’t move at all. I shouted a good-bye and, since he couldn’t feign deafness, he waved and smiled and didn’t bother to return to his discussion. Unlike his buildings department minion, this mayor had no baitsim. I drove to the hospital.

  When I arrived, I felt like I’d been hit in the back of the head by a baseball bat.

  A.J. Two was standing just outside the sliding lobby doors talking to Andrew A. Dickson III, attorney-at-law. Dickson and I had once been on opposite sides of a nasty property struggle. Just the sight of him gave me a heaping of umru—apprehension. He was about five-six, bald, African American. Instead of his trademark tan camel hair coat, he wore a navy jacket. Dickson wasn’t exactly an ambulance chaser, but he was not averse to following whatever gurney rolled from inside. I felt like making one of those moves I’d seen in detective shows, where you crouch real low and move between the cars to avoid being seen. But then, I asked myself, what did I have to avoid being seen about? And didn’t I just kvetch about not being seen by the mayor? If they were talking about suing me, let them.

  I walked boldly up to the two. Their conversation died instantly, like a mouse in a snap trap. I glanced at Dickson and then turned to A.J. Two. Her eyes were dark and bloodshot. She looked like she hadn’t slept in two days. I quietly asked how her mother was.

  “She’s still in and out of consciousness,” the young woman said.

  “You should find out whatever you need to know from the nurses, Ms. Katz,” Dickson said. “Now, if you’ll excuse us—”

  “Why?” I asked, firing him a look. It was the kind of look I used to give my husband when he was being a shmuck. Yet despite that show of defiance, my stomach dropped as though I’d swallowed a matzo ball whole. I didn’t want to add to A.J. Two’s woes, but I wasn’t going to let this guy, any guy, push me around.

  “That is, frankly, none of your business,” Dickson said in a voice that was silkier than his imported tie.

  I looked at A.J. Two imploringly. “Don’t do this.”

  She frowned. “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t talk to him. We’re family, all of us.”

  “I know that, Gwen, but—”

  “Ms. Katz, please do what you came here to do and leave us to our business,” Dickson insisted.

  “Don’t interfere, Mr. Dickson,” I insisted right back.

  The attorney puffed a little inside his jacket. He reminded me of a burrito in a microwave. “I was about to offer you the same advice,” he said. I turned physically from him. I was afraid I might kick him.

  A.J. Two looked at me like the mask of tragedy. “Gwen,” she said softly, “truly, this is nothing that concerns you.”

  “Then why did everything suddenly get hush-hush when I walked up?”

  Dickson replied, “Because if my client’s mother is awake, you will be speaking to her.”

  “Your client, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And what if A.J. is awake? Isn’t that a good thing?”

  A.J. Two became agitated. “Dammit, Gwen, that isn’t the point! We’re discussing the living will she left behind and I don’t feel like talking about it more than I have to, okay?”

  Dickson stood there, his expression perfectly defining the word “smug.” And I st
ood there—just barely, on legs that felt like freshly cooked kasha—perfectly defining the word “putz.” I wanted the concrete to consume me, as the Sinai did the sinful Children of Israel. But God wasn’t willing to oblige.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said to A.J. Two in a voice that was surprisingly strong and repentant. “Jesus, I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. God, am I stupid.”

  “No, don’t do that,” A.J. Two said. “Gwen, we’re all under a lot of stress and you’ve taken on all of ours on top of your own. I know you were just trying to help me.”

  She was wrong about that. I’d assumed they were talking about suing me. I hugged her tight and walked briskly through the doors. Tears spilled down my pale cheeks. I was so mortified I didn’t even want to be around myself. To find the last time I was this embarrassed, I had to go back to the second grade when I was playing the piano in an elementary school talent show and went blank on “Tomorrow” from Annie. To this day, I can’t look at an image of that blank-eyed mop head without cringing.

  That wasn’t the normal you back there, I told myself as I walked through the lobby toward the elevator.

  Or was it? Had I been getting crankier by the month, by the week, without realizing it? Had the stress of shootings and land grabs and everything else soured me? Had my staff been too polite to mention it? Was that scene outside the next stop on my descent from a moderately happy Wall Street titaness to what I privately thought of as a mindless organ grinder, chopping liver without enthusiasm?

  Oy gevalt. Big-time.

  But this is not the time to take an objective look at your life, I cautioned myself. Deal with one little mission at a time. The next minutes are about Thom and A.J., not you. Which is why I found myself praying that I did not run into Newt, Luke, or Dani while I was there. The cryptic exchange with Benjamin and Grace was still rattling around in my head. I didn’t want to deal with that now, either.

  Thom’s nurse said she was asleep after a restless night. She was recovering but really needed to rest. I asked the young man to tell my manager that I’d been there. He said he would. I went to A.J.’s room. The nurse met me in the hall and told me that A.J. was still unconscious and sedated, but was stable and breathing steadily. I went into the room and choked up. She was breathing as steadily as one could with tubes shtupped up her nose. The bruises she had suffered on her cheek, forehead, and bare arms were ripe and ugly. Her daughter had done her best to brush her mother’s hair and make her look presentable, but without her bright red lipstick and her brighter smile, without eye shadow and rouge, she looked like an ashen, broken thing. She reminded me of one of those zombies you see on TV.

  I sat for a while beside her bed and lightly held her cool fingers in my hand. I moved a thumb along them, felt their texture, was alarmed by their stillness. There were whistling birds outside and chirping electronics inside—beautiful, innocent, taken-for-granted reality on one side and a hard-fought struggle on the other. But we do fight. A.J. would fight.

  “I—,” I began, then stopped. This is about A.J. It shouldn’t start with “I.” “I’ve been thinking about what we were talking about in the kitchen yesterday,” I said softly. “You were glad you have a girl, not a boy. You said you know where your daughter has been because you’ve been there. Well, honey, you haven’t been faced with the kind of situation she’s in now. I’m begging you, wake up. Don’t make her decide about taking you off life support. I won’t make one of my usual smart-ass comments like, ‘If you do that I’ll kill you.’ Get better. Go back to her. She needs you and so do I. So do all of us.”

  “That’s the truth,” a man said from behind me. I recognized the voice. It was Newt. I gently put A.J.’s hand on the sheet, rose, and turned. I took in the “street” Newt, one I rarely got to see. The young man was dressed in gray sweat clothes and new Nikes. His dirty blond hair had been finger combed and his brown eyes seemed somehow darker than usual.

  “Hey, boss.”

  “Hi.”

  He stood there awkwardly for a moment.

  “Walked here,” he said. “Figured I’d better watch my gas money.”

  “Good thinking,” I replied.

  He hesitated, then came in, circling to the bottom of the bed. There was something off about him. He was usually in your face; he seemed guarded. Yes, it could be the sight of his frequent nemesis bedbound and helpless. Or it could be facing me, and not because he was planning to sue.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “Okes,” he said, using one of his neologisms.

  I walked toward him. “Glad to hear it.”

  “How’re you?” he asked.

  His question hit a stony face with disapproving eyes. “I want to talk to you,” I said.

  “All right. When?” He didn’t ask why. Maybe he knew. Or maybe, like I did with A.J.Two, I was vaulting to a conclusion that had no validity.

  “How about now?” I asked. “As soon as you’re finished with your visit.”

  He looked at A.J. lying on the bed, her hair splayed on the thin hospital pillow. He walked over to her, kissed her sweetly on the forehead, then came back.

  “I’m finished,” he said.

  I asked a nurse for directions to the cafeteria. It was one flight up. I took the stairs because I didn’t feel like waiting for the elevator in awkward silence. Newt followed. It felt to me like we were heading up a scaffolding to an execution, maybe because things were going to be said that could be fatal to our relationship.

  Newt must have sensed it too. He stopped suddenly.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “Can’t what?”

  “I can’t talk. I don’t want to.”

  “To me?”

  “To anyone,” he said. “I just want to go back home.”

  I was three steps ahead. I walked toward him. “Why? You don’t know what I’m going to say. Frankly, I don’t know what I’m going to say.”

  “There is suckage in the air,” he said. “I feel it. Why pretend? Things are never going to be like they were. I just want to go.”

  “Run away, is that what you mean? From what? You didn’t have anything to do with this, did you?”

  “Jesus, no!”

  “Then what? Talk to me! Is it Benjamin?”

  He looked at me like he’d just been shot from a cannon and didn’t see a net.

  “It’s all right,” I assured him. “He told me why he was in the basement,” I said, taking a stab in the dark that Newt was the inside accomplice.

  “He did?”

  I nodded calmly, trying not to scare him off, so I could get at the truth.

  Newt looked at me suspiciously. “What did he tell you?”

  “That he was interested in buying the place and that someone let him in.” I added, “Someone who may have left tape on my office door so he could go in there too and look around. The police are analyzing it now, looking for fingerprints.”

  Newt’s expression melted from frozen shock to unbridled laughter. It happened so fast, so unexpectedly, that it actually frightened me.

  “Newt, what—?”

  “They’re gonna find my fingerprints!” he said. “And the good news is, at least I won’t have to worry about getting a new job! The state’ll give me one!”

  “Why? I’m not going to press charges about letting that schmendrick in to look at the place.”

  “That’s not what he did,” Newt laughed. “Boy, I thought this would get me out from behind the grill and ahead in the world. What a dope. What a moron!”

  He turned and started back down the stairs, steadying himself on the banister. I went after him.

  “Newt, what did he do? What is this about?”

  “You’ll have to ask him,” he said. “Really. I want to hear what he’s going to come up with next.”

  I grabbed Newt’s shoulder and pulled him around. “I’m asking you!”

  As suddenly as the laughter had started, it stopped. “It’s about a Hail Mary pass by me to get more respons
ibility, get away from that job behind the grill. I don’t want to talk about it. Not to you, not to anyone.”

  With that, Newt wrenched from under my fingers, ran down the stairs, and kept going. I didn’t know anything more than I had before yet, somehow, I liked it all a lot less.

  Chapter 13

  I drove to the bed and breakfast and wasn’t surprised to find that neither Benjamin nor Grace were in. Benjamin also didn’t answer his cell. Detective Bean called to tell me that there was nothing definitive found on the duct tape. I didn’t bother to enlighten her.

  I sat in my car outside the Owlet, watching the sun slowly sink and, with it, my will to move. I thought about Newt, how afraid and crazy he was. And he hadn’t been down there with us. I knew he couldn’t be responsible for the blast; I knew that. But the duct tape—

  And then I wondered if I’d gotten it wrong.

  Wouldn’t I have noticed if my door didn’t shut? I wondered. Assuming the answer was an affirmative, why was the tape there—unless it was applied after the explosion. No one would have a reason to close my door, but if they did—

  Maybe it was one of the workers, the engineers?

  But why? They had no reason to go into my office. They didn’t have a reason to go anywhere near there, in fact. The plumbing in the building had been compromised so they’d brought a portable toilet to the courtyard, next to the Dumpster.