While Drowning in the Desert (7 page)

“So we’re on the lookout for a red car driven by an eighty-six-year-old man named Nathaniel Silverstein aka Natty Silver,” the trooper said.

“That about sums it up.”

“Which way was he headed?”

“He went thataway,” I said, pointing west.

“He could be a long way thataway,” said the trooper.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why don’t you think so?”

“Because he was driving about twenty miles an hour.”

Trooper Darius thought for what seemed like a long time. Then he said, “Get in the car.”

“The car’s gone.”

“My car.”

“Oh.”

We were cruising west on Interstate 15 when the trooper said, “I thought if we can catch up to the old man, and if everything checks out, then you can just get back in the driver’s seat and you won’t have to call the rental-car people or your insurance company and I won’t have to file a stolen-vehicle report.”

“I really appreciate that,” I said. “Thank you.”

We were doing eighty miles an hour so it wasn’t long before we found the car in a ditch at the side of the road.

We pulled over and I jumped out of the cruiser, my heart pounding. I was scared to death I’d find Natty slumped over the wheel, hurt or worse.

I jumped into the ditch and looked into the car.

Nathan wasn’t in it.

Chapter 9

Graham answered the phone.

I’d been hoping he wasn’t home so that I could leave a brief message after the beep. Something like, “
Hi, it’s Neal. I’ll call back.
”

But Graham was home, watching an exhibition game between the New Orleans Saints and the San Diego Chargers.

And they call
me
mentally ill.

“Hi, Dad,” I said.

“How’s Palm Springs?” he asked. After a couple of seconds he added, “You lost him again, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“How do you keep misplacing an entire person?” Graham asked. “I can understand a watch, a wallet, a glove. But an entire human being?! Twice, in the space of less than twenty-four hours?! Who is this guy, Harry Houdini?”

Sort of. Because he had simply disappeared. When Trooper Darius and I got to the car, there was no sign at all of Nathan. He was just gone. Without a trace. We even looked for blood on the steering wheel and windshield, thinking that maybe he’d hit his head. There was none, thank God.

Nathan was just gone.

“What do you mean, ‘blood on the dashboard’?” Graham asked. “I thought you were supposed to fly back.”

“I thought so, too.”

I told him about the scene at the airport. I told him about the Jeep and bouncing. I told him about Japanese cars, German cars—

“So what kind of car did you get?” he asked.

“Red, all right?!!” I hollered.

“Just asking.”

I told him about “Who’s on First,” about Lou Costello, Arthur Minsky, pastrami, Murray Koppelman, Irene the Irish Dream, Myra and her Doves of Love …

Graham asked, “How did she train the doves to land … ?”

“I don’t know!”

… about Benny the Blade, salami instead of pastrami, how I screamed at Nathan—

“That was hostile,” Graham said.

I stopped. “Since when did you start using words like ‘hostile’?”

“Since I talked to Karen earlier,” he said.

“You talked to Karen?”

“I called to ask her if she’s registered for her patterns,” Graham said. “And she told me you were hostile.”

“I’m starting to
get
hostile …”

“See?”

I swallowed hard and told him about pulling over at the gas station, about going into the men’s room, about—

“You left the keys in the car and he took it,” Graham said. “But you found the car again.”

I told him about Trooper Darius.

“That’s where the ‘blood on the dashboard’ thing comes in,” Graham said.

“There wasn’t any.”

“Which is good,” Graham said.

“Graham, I’m scared out of my wits. We checked at the trooper station, the Sheriff’s Office. I called the hospitals, the morgue. What if—”

“Neal,” Graham said, “somebody else probably saw him standing by the road and picked him up. Silverstein’s probably halfway home by now.”

“You think?”

“Sure,” Graham said. “Listen, leave the cops my number. Then you drive to Palm Desert. Check the rest stops as you go, in case someone dropped him off and he’s trying to call. Check in with me every two hours.”

“Okay.”

“You’ll probably get to his house and find him in his living room watching
Wheel of Fortune.
”

I started to feel better. Silverstein
was
probably sitting at home watching
Wheel of Fortune.
He was fine. Bored, but fine.

Thank God.

“Unless—” Graham said.

“
‘Unless’?
”

“Unless,” Graham said, “there’s a reason Silverstein doesn’t want to go home.…”

A reason?.…

Not wanting to go home?

What would make Graham think that Nathan doesn’t want to go home? Just because he disappeared yesterday, wouldn’t get on the airplane, wouldn’t get in the Jeep, wouldn’t get in a Toyota, a Mazda, a Nissan, a BMW or a Mercedes, then took the car, drove off, dumped the car and disappeared …

“You think he was stalling?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

“Why wouldn’t he want to go home?” I asked.

I asked Karen this question when I called her up.

“Before you say anything about sperm or hostility or knitting or anything,” I said when she answered, “I need to talk to you.”

“I’m listening.”

I told her the entire odyssey (so far) of my experience with Nathan and finished with the question, “Why wouldn’t Nathan want to go home?”

“Let me see,” Karen said. “In Las Vegas he has booze, a girlfriend, and an audience. And chocolate cake. In Palm Desert he has … television, I guess. The more interesting question is, why would he want to go
home?
”

“I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

“Neal, he’s a lonely old man who had some fun and company in Las Vegas,” she said. “Then you hurt his pride so he decided he’d show you. And he did.”

Yes, he did.

She said, “So go find him, apologize, and then talk to him about getting a nice condo in Las Vegas.”

“Karen, my job is to get him home, not take care of him forever.”

“Neal, life puts things in your way for a reason.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

This is a big difference between Karen and me. She thinks that life is a fated journey of challenges and discoveries. I think it’s a random sequence of arbitrary occurrences. I also thought that she was veering dangerously close to the baby thing. If Karen decided that having a child right now was fate, I was doomed.

“I’m glad you’re not mad at me anymore,” I said.

“I didn’t say that I wasn’t mad at you,” she said. “You said that you needed to talk. Now, when I tell you that I need to talk, which is about once a week, you listen, right? So when you tell me that you need to talk, which is once about every eight months or so, I’m going to listen because I love you. But I’m still royally pissed at you.”

“
Royally
pissed?”

“Royally.”

“Jesus.”

“Damn straight.”

She broke the silence by saying, “So go find Nathan Silverstein, get him settled, then come home and knock me up.”

Click.
Dial tone.

First things first, I thought. First find Nathan, then get him home.

Sigh. Then find out if he’d really rather live in Las Vegas. It shouldn’t be too hard to convince Friends to get him organized with a nice little condo in Vegas. Maybe somewhere near the Great Hope White, so they could do whatever it was they did together. Then Nathan could happily totter around, smoke cigarettes, drink vodka, ogle women, eat chocolate cake, and perform impromptu stand-up routines in cocktail bars. Karen and Graham were right. What was I so worried about?

Where to begin, where to begin …

Chapter 10

There’s a lot of talk these days about the learning curve. learning curve. You know, you’re “ahead of the curve,” you’re “behind the curve,” etcetera. Well, on the issue of why Nathan didn’t want to go back to his condo in Palm Desert, I wasn’t ahead of the curve or behind the curve.

I was standing flat-footed and stupid
on
the curve and the car was speeding
around
the curve right at me.

In my defense, I didn’t know then what I know now. At the time, I headed west through the desert on I-15 looking for the Nathan I knew nothing about.…

Listen, it ticked me off when I found out about it. I mean, when I finally had a chance to look at the following documents I thought something along the order of, “
Sure, now. Why didn’t you show me this when it could have done me some good?
”

I don’t want you thinking the same thing, so:

Craig D. Schaeffer
Attorney-at-Law
3615 Monterey
Palm Desert, CA

Ms. Pamela A. Holmstrum
Claims Superintendent
Western States Insurance Co.
801 Flower Street
Los Angeles, CA

17 July 1983

Dear Ms. Holmstrum,

Pursuant to your request that I evaluate the coverage situation
vis-à-vis
the fire that occurred to your insured, Mr. Heinz Muller, on 30 May, I undertook the following activities: I reviewed the fire inspector’s reports and spoke with Captain MacKenzie of the Coachella Valley Consolidated Fire Department; I took recorded statements of Mr. Muller and his tenant, Mr. Abdullah; I reviewed various financial records of both Mr. Muller and Mr. Abdullah; I attempted to contact potential witnesses to the fire; and I reviewed the applicable statutory and case law relevant to the insurance coverage issues. (Please refer to Appendix A for a discussion of the applicable case law.)

Based on this preliminary investigation I offer the following thoughts:

It seems clear that the fire which destroyed the insured’s house at 1385 Hopalong Way, Palm Desert, California, was incendiary in nature—that is, an arson fire. Sheriff’s investigators found trace elements of incendiary material—to wit, gasoline—in the flooring and subflooring. Additionally, traces of wicks—in this case bed sheets twisted and laid out in various strings throughout the house—were also found. Also, sheriff’s investigators state that this was a “hot” fire, a comment which might seem a redundancy on the surface, but which is actually a piece of jargon that refers to the relative temperature of the combustion, a “hot” fire being indicative of arson.

In English, Ms. Holmstrum, your insured’s house went up like a torch.

Equally suspicious is the fact that your insured’s tenant, Mr. Sami Abdullah (also your insured, as he has a rental policy with Western States Insurance Company), was out of town on a long weekend when the fire occurred. Mr. Abdullah states that he was in Las Vegas, but cannot remember the “precise name” of the hotel in which he stayed.

Mr. Muller, who resides in nearby Rancho Mirage, also seems to have been away that whole weekend. Mr. Muller states that he was in Big Bear, and offered hotel and restaurant receipts to validate this assertion.

As to Mr. Muller’s claim for policy limits benefits under his homeowner’s insurance policy, while we should by all means continue to investigate, I am afraid that, in the absence of any proof of Muller’s involvement in the fire, you will owe such benefits. While it is true that Mr. Muller has been trying to sell the house at 1385 Hopalong Way, it does not appear that he has any apparent financial difficulties that would be a motive for arson. In fact, Mr. Muller seems, as much as we can determine from his complex financial records, to be doing rather well in the international import/export market. Furthermore, he seems to have an airtight alibi for the time of the fire.

As to Mr. Abdullah’s claim for his personal property destroyed in the fire, I can only say that I have some personal doubts as to the legitimacy of Mr. Abdullah’s claim that he had (as a partial sample): 28 Armani suits, 37 pairs of Gucci loafers, 52 silk shirts, 2 large-screen Sony television sets, a valuable 1965 Mustang in the garage and an Edward Hooper (sic) painting valued at $137,000. The claim becomes all the more preposterous when you consider that Mr. Abdullah can show no proof of employment for the past five years although he claims to have been making between “thirty to two hundred fifty thousand dollars” a year during that period as a “consultant.”

I think you are well within your rights to deny Mr. Abdullah’s claim, cancel his policy and sever his additional living-expense payments immediately, based on fraud and misrepresentation. Unfortunately, I do not believe that we have developed sufficient proof to deny Mr. Muller’s claim, and advise that you pay him $600,000 forthwith.

If you have any questions, or if I may be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Craig Schaeffer, Esquire

Ms. Pamela A. Holmstrum
Claims Superintendent
Western States Insurance Co.
801 Flower Street
Los Angeles, CA

Craig D. Schaeffer
Attorney-at-Law
3615 Monterey
Palm Desert, CA

21 July 1983

Dear Mr. Schaeffer,

Thank you for your letter of the 17th inst. and for your valuable coverage analysis. I have only one question:

What are you, nuts?!

You know, I know—and if Helen Keller were alive, she’d know—that Heinz Muller and Sami Abdullah burned down this house. For God’s sake, Schaeffer, Muller had a $500,000 balloon payment coming up. The damn house had been on the market for fourteen months! It was either lose the house or sell it to his insurance company. As to that moke Sami Abdullah, you’re damned right we’re canceling his policy. (By the way, have you asked to see the little bastard’s green card? Let him go back to Beirut and file a phony claim there, see what happens. Don’t they cut off their hands or something?)