The Scared Stiff (27 page)

But we were separated. For four weeks, we'd been apart.

"Arturo," I said, "I've got to get up there. I've got to find out what's going on." I was pacing again. "Listen," I said. "Do you need a visa between Guerrera and Colombia?"

"What? No," he said, scoffing at the idea. "People go back and forth all the time, man. But Rafez won't let you cross the border. He'll know if you try to do that."

"I'll find a way," I insisted. "Carlos can smuggle me across, he'll be glad to get rid of me. Then, in Colombia, I take a plane to New York."

"And do what,
hermano?"
he asked, curiously bland.

I looked at him, and he was watching me with amiable curiosity, head cocked to one side. Hmm. I had to remember this was Lola's brother, after all. I could feel loyalties shifting like tectonic plates.

"Arturo," I said, "I don't believe Lola's left me."

"Good," he said.

"I don't believe we
can
leave each other," I said, "not really. But what explanations do I have here? The phone is turned off. You see what I mean? The phone is turned
off."

"It's a problem," he agreed.

"Okay," I said. "Now, it's possible somebody else knew about the money, and they waited until she got the check and cashed it, and then they killed her and buried her in the basement. And turned off our phone?"

"Mmm," Arturo said.

"Or," I said, "it's possible she put the money in our checking account, and somebody's holding her prisoner, making her write checks, and they turned off the phone so she couldn't call for help. Except I don't believe that, Arturo, and neither do you. All they have to do is leave the answering machine on."

"Oh, man," he said.

"In fact," I said, "come to think of it, that's all
anybody
had to do. I mean, let's say — let's just for an argument here say that Lola found some other guy. She didn't, but we're saying."

"Sure," Arturo said.

"So they've got all this money," I said, "and they want to get away before I come looking for them, so they go to California or London or Rio or who knows where, and what do they want?"

"I dunno," he said.

"Time,"
I said. "The longest lead time possible. So do they turn off the phone? Of course not. Why don't they just leave the answering machine on? That way, I'll just dick around here another two — three days, maybe even another week, while they're gone and lost for good.
Why
turn off the phone, Arturo?"

"Save a couple
siapas
," he suggested.

"Arturo," I said, "they've got one billion two hundred million
siapas."

"Well, that's true," he said.

I paced. I paced. I stopped. I said, "There's only one reason to turn off the phone."

He looked interested. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah," I said. "Lola knows I'm waiting for her to call. She knows if she doesn't call me, I'll call her. She turns off the phone. Can't you see why?"

"No," he said.

"Because she
is
in trouble," I said, "some kind of trouble, and this is the only way she can send me a message."

"She turns the phone off to send you a message?"

"I know, I know," I said, "usually it's the other way around. But not this time."

"But what's the message?"

"That she's in some kind of trouble," I said.

"So why not call? Call on the phone? Why turn it off?"

"I don't know, I don't know." I paced some more. I stopped. I said, "What if somebody's got her in a motel room?"

He looked at me.

"No," I said, "not for fucking. To hold her there until the money comes in. Let's think about this, hold on here. Somebody finds out what's going on. They know the money's coming in; they say, Give me half, or whatever. Or they'll turn her in, she'll go to jail."

"Uh-huh," he said.

"And they make her go move to a motel," I said, "or someplace where you can't make a long-distance call, so she can't warn me or get me to help her. Or someplace where there'd be a record of the call if she did, and this person would see the call and turn her in."

"Okay," he said.

"But a call to your phone company business office," I said, "isn't charged. It doesn't even show up on your bill or any records."

"Jeez, man," he said.

I said, "What do you think?"

"I don't know
what
to think," he said. "I'll tell you the truth,
hermano.
I wasn't gonna, but now I will. When I first heard them announcements on the phone, I figure that's it, she found some other guy, and I guess I'm stuck with this one here, meaning you,
hermano,
until either Rafez puts you in jail or Manfredo and them from Tapitepe kill you. No offense, man."

No offense? I didn't have time to think about that. I said, "Lola didn't leave me. Lola sent me a message. And that means there's only one thing I can do."

He looked interested. "Yeah? You got something you can do? What's that?"

"Turn myself in," I said.

Arturo said, "Are you crazy?" Turn yourself
in
?"

"
It's the only way," I said. "If Lola's in trouble somehow, it's only because of the money. If I say I'm alive, there won't
be
any money, and she won't be in trouble anymore."

"And you don't get the money."

"But I get Lola," I said. "She and me, once we're together, we'll figure something else out. There's always a scheme somewhere."

"Hold on,
hermano"
he said. "If you say you're alive, Lola goes to jail."

"No, she doesn't," I assured him. "What I say is, it was a kind of a prank, the marriage wasn't getting along, I wanted to start over, a whole new life, I did it all myself, Lola didn't know a thing about it. She put in the claim because she thought I was really dead."

He considered me. He considered the situation. He said, "All this because the phone got turned off."

"The message," I said.

He nodded. "Yeah. But what if it ain't a message?"

"Come on, Arturo," I said. "What else is it?"

"She found a guy, like we both thought," he said, "and they took off, and she turned off the phone like it was, you know, automatic. Like make it neat, like people do. What if it's that?"

"I still turn myself in," I said, "and she still doesn't get the money."

"Only this time she goes to jail," he said.

I shook my head. "Come on, Arturo, I love her, you know that, no matter what happens. I don't want Lola in jail. My story's the same, no matter what."

He seemed dubious. He said, "What are you gonna do, go tell Rafez?"

"Not on your life," I said. "He'd put me in jail just out of spite."

"So what then?" he wanted to know. "How you gonna do this thing, when you're down here?"

"Leon Kaplan," I told him. "The insurance investigator. Did he leave a card here, a business card?"

"Yeah, I think so," he said, looking vaguely this way and that way at the room. "It's around someplace."

"Could we find it, do you think?"

"I dunno. But, if you call him, and you tell him you ain't dead, it's
you
go to jail."

"No, I don't," I said. "The second they don't have to pay out the money, they lose interest. They're not gonna pursue me all the way down here. I tried something and it didn't work, and that's the end of it."

"That's a risk, man," he said.

"I've gotta take care of Lola, Arturo," I told him. "Don't you feel the same way?"

He sighed and got to his feet. All this time I'd been pacing, and he'd been sitting there watching me, like a slow-motion tennis match. Now he got up and said, "Lemme ask Mamá, maybe she knows where that card is."

"Thank you, Arturo."

He started toward the kitchen, then turned back to nod at me and say, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Lola married the right guy," he said.

I grinned; I couldn't help it. "You bet," I said.

"That isn't always so easy to see, you know," he said, and went away to the kitchen.

I paced. I paced. I rehearsed the story I would tell Leon Kaplan. I even threw in some gestures, though I knew the effect would be lost over the telephone.

Arturo came back, holding a small white business card. "It was in Mamá's missal," he said.

"Well, because it answers our prayers," I explained, and took the card, and looked at it. Blue letters on white. Mostly it was about the insurance company, their logo and their name and their corporate address, but in the lower right was Kaplan's name and his business number.

I sat on the sofa next to the phone. I noticed, when I picked up the receiver, my hands were trembling slightly. That's okay, we just go forward, we don't worry about that little electrical storm of panic around the edges, we just do this and then it's done.

I dialed the number. I waited forever, and then a female voice came on and rattled off the company name in such a robotic way I thought at first it was a machine. But it was a receptionist, to whom I said, "Leon Kaplan, please."

"May I ask who is calling?"

"Barry Lee," I said.

Across the living room, Arturo sat down heavily in an armchair and watched me.

"One moment," she said.

It was actually three or four moments, and then she came back on the line to say, "Would you repeat that name, please?"

"Barry Lee," I said. "Would you like me to spell it?"

"No, that's all right. And where are you calling from, please?"

"Guerrera, in South America."

"One moment, please."

This time, it was one very short moment, and then Kaplan's voice was there, rasping in my ear: "
Who
is this?"

"Mr. Kaplan," I said, "I owe you an apology. I was trying to get out of that marriage, I wanted to start over, a brand new life, I did that hoax, I faked my own death, my wife knew absolutely nothing about—"

"What the hell are you saying?"

"I'm saying I'm Barry Lee and I'm not really dead," I told him. "And I just found out my wife put in a claim on my life insurance. I forgot all about that insurance, and I don't want anybody to think Lola's trying to defraud anybody, she's as—"

"Is this some kind of hoax?"

"
Yes
," I said. "I'm telling you, I'm still alive."

"Who is this?" he demanded.

"It's Barry Lee, I've told—"

"Barry Lee is
dead
!"

"He is not. I am not."

"You damn well better be," he snarled. "What do you think you're trying to pull?"

I was bewildered. "Mr. Kaplan," I said, "I thought you'd be pleased to know the company doesn't—"

And then I got it. All at once, I could hear Señora de Paula's voice: "Leon is just wonderful at catching the bad boys. And the reason he's wonderful is, he's a bad boy himself. I'm sometimes surprised he switched sides." And Kaplan himself: "Maybe I was never given a good enough offer on the other side."

It was
him
. Leon Kaplan, insurance investigator.

Had he pulled this kind of thing before? Well, he was in the middle of it this time. I could see it. He had something, he'd found something, he knew something, and he'd decided the scam was so solid he could let it ride and count himself in and profit from it. Nobody else would ever need to know Barry Lee wasn't dead. He could take — what, half? — from the "widow" or she'd go to jail.

He'd make her sign something, wouldn't he? So he'd have more control over her. Make her move into a motel or somewhere, monitor the phone calls, let her know if she calls Guerrera she goes to jail. So by the time I'd figure it out, it would be too late.

Except, she sent me a message. She counted on me to read it, and by God I read it.

"Hello?" His voice was harsh but wary.

"Mr. Kaplan," I said, "you seemed like such a decent guy when we had dinner together, but here you are preying on a poor widow."

"What?"

"Mr. Kaplan," I said, "my next phone call, if I have to make a next phone call, will be to the police, and as part of my confession, I'll admit that you were in on it from the beginning, that's why you and I had dinner together. I'll tell them—"

"We never had dinner together!"

"We did," I said. "With the de Paulas, at Casa Montana Mojoca. I was using the fake identity you'd given me, Keith Emory. And I'll tell the police—"

There was a brief strangling sound down the phone line.

I said, "Mr. Kaplan? Are you there?"

"You — you—"

"Yes, well, listen," I said. "Pay attention. You were in the scheme from the beginning, you promised us you'd arrange it so you'd handle the case, even though it wasn't assigned to you — you did that, remember? You said you'd make sure it went through the company investigation without a hitch — and you did, even after that anonymous letter came in. That's the story I'll tell in my next phone call, to the police."

"You'll go to jail!"

"I'll be calling from Guerrera," I said. "But I probably won't stay in Guerrera. That's all right, I'll give the police enough details so they won't need me around to get the goods on you."

"You son of a bitch," he growled, "you're supposed to be
dead."

"Well, here's what I'll do," I offered. "It's quarter to five, down here. Now, if I get a phone call from Lola by quarter to seven, saying she's free and happy, she's got
every penny
of that money, she's got whatever evidence you had hanging over her, you're never going to pester either of us ever again, and she'll be on the next plane down here, then I'll be so busy getting ready for her that I won't have time to make that phone call to the police. You see what I mean?"

"I'm not sure I can—"

"I don't care, Mr. Kaplan," I said. "Quarter to seven. Otherwise, you're gonna find out if all those awful stories you've heard about prison are true." And I hung up.

Arturo put his beer down to applaud me.
"Hermano"
he said, "you got that doped out. You did it. You're pretty grade-A smart."

"Thank you, Arturo," I said modestly.

"Lemme get you a beer," he said.

"At seven o'clock," I told him. "Then, one way or the other, up or down, I'll drink every beer in the house."