As Dog Is My Witness (19 page)

“Oh, I dunno,” I said, glancing at Big and Bigger,
who were on their feet at opposite sides of his desk, looking on
impassively.

“Believe me, I didn’t do half the things they say I
did,” Shapiro continued. “I’m a businessman, and businessmen
sometimes have to do things they’d prefer not to do in order to get
ahead. That’s all.”

“No offense, Mr. Shapiro, but I’m not your rabbi. Why
am I here?” If he was going to kill me, it didn’t matter if I was
rude, and if he wasn’t going to kill me, being rude didn’t matter,
either. Besides, I really wanted one of those Sonny Amster bagels
now, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“You’re right. I got—what do they call it?—off-topic.
You’re here, Mr. Tucker, because you continued with your
investigation even after my employees here informed you of my
preference that you stop. I’d like to know why. Has my myth
deteriorated to the point where I’m not fearsome anymore?” That
last question was delivered with just the right eye-twinkle to
convince me he was trying to be witty.

“On the contrary, because I thought you
were
a
myth, I didn’t think it was necessary to pay attention to you. But
even though Groucho, Harpo, and Chico showed up and warned me off,
I wasn’t able to stop.”

“Why not?” He seemed genuinely interested.

“Because you
are
fearsome. Because, if I got
out of the way, a friend of mine would have been the next most
visible target, and this friend wouldn’t be scared off. So I had to
stay the most visible target to protect my friend.”

“That’s very noble,” he said. “I admire that kind of
loyalty, however misguided.”

“‘Loyalty, however misguided,’” I said. “James Mason,
North by Northwest.
The same scene, even.”

“I like the movies,” he beamed. “But this is real
life, Aaron.”

“The question, really, is why you want me to stop
looking into the Michael Huston murder,” I said. “Certainly,
I’m
not so fearsome as to warrant this kind of
attention.”

Shapiro took a sip of coffee from a cup on the table,
and grimaced. “Decaf, can you believe it?” he said. “At my age, the
bagel, with no cream cheese, is about all I can enjoy. And they
call this living.”

“Why, Mr. Shapiro?”

He stared at me a moment, deciding whether or not to
be offended. “Do you think it’s because I’m afraid you’ll find out
I was responsible for the shooting?” he said. “Believe me, Aaron,
you’re looking in the wrong place for that one. I had nothing to do
with Michael Huston being shot. His death produced no benefit to
me.”

“I’m told he might have owed serious money to someone
in . . .  your business,” I said.

“Dry cleaning? He owed a lot of money to his dry
cleaner?” Shapiro was obviously having some fun now. “He had a pair
of pants altered and didn’t pay up on time? I don’t think so.”

“Perhaps it was one of your other businesses,” I
suggested.

Shapiro lost his mischievous grin and shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Michael Huston didn’t owe me a dime. I had no
reason to want him dead.” He actually looked sad.

“Then, why?”

Shapiro gave me a sharp look. “No,” he said. “You’ll
get no more information from me, Aaron. I’m sorry.” He glanced at
Big, and said, “It’s time for Aaron to leave.” Big nodded, and
started toward me.

Oh, shit.

I wasn’t above begging, I soon found out. The image
of Leah crying for her daddy was very strong. “Mr. Shapiro,” I
said, “please. I have a twelve-year-old son and a nine-year-old
daughter . . . 

He seemed confused. “What do you want, an autograph?”
he asked. “I don’t do that. I’m not a good role model for the
kindele.
”

“No, sir. I just mean . . . 

A light bulb went on over Shapiro’s head, and he
laughed. “Do you think I’m going to have them kill you, Aaron?” he
said. “Is
that
what you think?”

It had been. Now I was worried I’d insulted the old
gangster. “Well, I mean, with the three guys and the black car, and
. . . 

“Too many movies, Aaron,” he shook his head. “I told
you, this is real life. If I really wanted something to happen to
you, it would happen. But I don’t want that, and I can’t do it now,
anyway. Everybody from the Attorney General down to the cop on the
beat watches this house, and if you went missing all of a sudden,
believe me, this would be the first door they’d knock on. Oh,
you’re safe enough, Aaron. But I still want you to stop the
questions . . .  as a favor to me.”

Having embarrassed myself by begging, I could now
turn bold. I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Shapiro,” I said. “I
can’t do that.”

He nodded, understanding. “Well, there is one thing
you can do for me, Aaron, and I don’t even think you’ll mind.”

“What is that, sir?”

“I got more than a dozen of these bagels, and I don’t
want them to go stale. You’ll take some home?”

Sometimes, you have to make a moral stand and not
accept anything from people whose actions do not meet with
society’s approval.

On the other hand, these were Sonny Amster
bagels.

“What the hell,” I said. “Sure.”

B
iggest got me home a scant
few minutes before Leah burst through the door, shedding coats,
scarves, sweaters, and backpacks like a snake dropping skin. Howard
and Andrea were in the kitchen, waiting for me to make them lunch
with my fresh bagels, and Dylan had disappeared into Ethan’s room
and the sanctuary of PlayStation. I was trying to remember how not
to shake like a leaf.

“Yay!” screamed my daughter. “No more school this
year!” As I bent over to catch her, she flung her arms around my
neck and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I’m free, Daddy!” Leah did
the butter-churning dance, the international sign of joy for all
people who don’t remember music before Justin Timberlake.

“Where’s your report card?” It always comes home the
day of a vacation, so parents can forget what the grades are before
school starts again, and not complain to teachers quite so
much.

Her face froze, and she trudged to the backpack,
lying on the floor in front of the door, unzipped it, and removed a
small manila envelope with “LEAH” written on the front in block
letters. Such matters are serious in the fourth grade.

Leah’s face lost its usual glow as she handed the
envelope over. The kids are instructed in school not to look at the
report cards before they get home, but nobody listens. So I knew
she’d seen it, and she didn’t look happy.

“What’s wrong, honey?” She shook her head.

I opened the envelope, and took out the card. There
are always statistics aplenty about attendance and tardiness, plus
notes from teachers, including those teaching pass/fail courses
like music and health, and other important information. The heck
with all that— parents want to see the letter grades.

I scanned the card for the source of Leah’s
consternation. English: A. Math: A. Science: A. Social studies
. . .  hey, wait a minute . . 

“Leah!” I said, “You got straight A’s!”

She broke into a grin that threatened to leap off her
face and take on a life of its own. “Fooled you!” she said.

“Why, you little . . .  I hugged my
daughter and stroked her hair. “I’ll bet you don’t do that to
Mom.”

“Sure I do.”

I had made some tuna salad to put on a pumpernickel
bagel, so I was nice about it and made sandwiches for Andrea and
Howard, too. We sat down to eat at the kitchen table, and after
Leah took a few bites of her peanut butter sandwich on bagel, I
looked at Howard.

“So?” I asked.

He looked puzzled. “So, what?”

“So, is that the best bagel in the Western
Hemisphere, or what?”

“It’s good,” he said with a note of wonderment at
what all the fuss was about. Leah and I exchanged a look of
exasperation and moved on.

Ethan barreled in when I was about halfway through my
sandwich, and just as Dylan was coming down from upstairs. Dylan
sneered in Ethan’s direction, and Ethan, as was his habit, entirely
ignored Dylan.

“Where’s the report card?” I repeated.

Ethan reached into his backpack and produced it. He
really hadn’t looked at it before now, because he couldn’t possibly
have cared less about the grades he received. Ethan goes to school
because we’ve told him he has to, and he’s never questioned it.
Success or failure at his classes is entirely irrelevant to him
outside of his vague desire for us to be proud of him.

The scary part is that our son could probably be the
valedictorian of his class if he had any desire whatsoever to excel
in school. He is a very smart boy, and will someday be brilliant at
. . .  something. But his almost total lack of
motivation makes him frustrating to deal with. Frankly, Ethan would
rather be playing video games, and that’s not unusual, but the fact
is, he really
would
just play video games. Asperger’s is all
about being the same as other kids, only
more.

Dylan was trying to sneak a look over my shoulder as
I assessed the report card. I glanced at him to get him to back
off, but he wouldn’t. So I turned my back on my nephew and looked,
but it was too late.

“A B-minus in science?” Dylan crowed. “In sixth
grade? That’s the best you could do?”

Ethan doesn’t care about grades, but he knows about
teasing, and has known about it since nursery school. He hasn’t
gotten all that much better in dealing with it, and his AS started
to flare up in its most visible forms: his face reddened, his eyes
rolled up in their sockets, and his hands started to flap at his
sides.

I turned to Dylan. “It’s really not your place,” I
said. “I’m sure Ethan is good in subjects you have trouble
with.”

“I get A’s in everything,” he said. I wanted to flap
my arms and roll my eyes back, too, but somebody has to stay in
control. I looked into the kitchen for Howard or Andrea, but they
just sat and stared, chewing their sandwiches. Andrea was probably
trying to figure out what the hole in the round Jewish bread was
for.

“That’s really not the point,” I continued through
tightly clenched teeth. “Don’t you think that—”

Ethan cut me off, furious. “Stop fighting my battles
for me!” he yelled in my face. “I’m not a little kid anymore!”

Unfortunately, his outburst had more of an effect on
me—I was stunned—than it did on his cousin. Dylan just chirped with
an imitation of Ethan’s high-pitched voice, “I’m not a little kid
anymore!”

It was too much. Ethan raised his hand to go for
Dylan’s throat, and I caught it, holding his arm tightly. “Don’t do
it, Ethan,” I said. “What you need . . .  And that’s
when it hit me. I let go of my son’s arm.

Andrea called to Dylan, gently, from the kitchen, and
although he didn’t want to, he went to his mother. Ethan stared at
me. “What? What do I need?” he asked.

Of course. It made sense this way. Worked for
everybody. “What you need,” I told Ethan, “is to hang out with
someone a little more like you.”

“Another Asperger’s kid?”

I nodded. “Sort of. How’d you like to spend part of
your vacation investigating a murder with me?”

Visions of video games danced by his eyes and
vanished. “Do I have to?” my son asked.

“Yes, I think you do.”

He rolled his eyes a little. “Okay. But not now,
right?”

“No. Not now.”

“Okay.” He was halfway up the stairs before I could
even blink.

Dylan was smirking at me from the kitchen, so instead
of hitting him with a two-by-four, as I wanted to, I went inside
and called Lydia Soriano at
Snapdragon
to give her an
update.

“When will I have the story, Aaron?”

“When do you need it?”

“Next Wednesday is Christmas. How’s next
Tuesday?”

“Um, how’s next Friday?” I countered.

“Aaron, this is a little five-hundred-word story you
talked me into. The least you could do is get it in on time.”

“I think the mob’s involved.”

If I knew what Lydia looked like, I could have
pictured her chewing over that piece of information. “Okay,” she
said. “Make it seven hundred and fifty words. I’ll throw in another
five-hundred dollars. And I’ll give you until Thursday.”