Stuart Kaminsky - Now You See It

I rolled over, got to my knees, stiff, sore, and wounded, stood and said to Dash, “So far so good.”

Then I rolled up the thin mattress on the floor, put it in the corner, dressed quickly, pants not terribly in need of pressing, fresh white shirt, and rewarded Dash with a bowl of corn flakes and milk.

At seven-thirty, the door to my room flew open. I was ready. Mrs. Plaut, broom in hand, looked down at where I would normally be lying on my back, eyes closed.

“Good morning,” I said cheerfully.

She turned her eyes to where I sat at the small table near the window.

“You are fully awake,” she said with a hint of suspicion.

“That I am,” I said.

“Have you been carousing all night instead of reading my pages?”

“I have not been carousing,” I said. “I’ve been getting shot, but I read your pages. Fascinating.”

She adjusted her glasses.

“Wooley is an interesting character,” I said.

“Breakfast in twenty-two minutes,” she said. She seemed maybe a little disgruntled at not having her ritual morning moment of terrorizing me into wakefulness. Then she stopped and faced me again, supporting herself with the broom, which was only a little narrower than she was.

“Wooley was not interesting,” she said. “He spent his life in family exile in Americus, Georgia, serving as assistant to a half-mad pharmacist named Spaulding.”

“But the bear, England?” I said.

“Wooley never was in England,” she said.

“You made it up?”

“Invention is the parent of truth,” she said.

“Who said that?”

“I just did,” said Mrs. Plaut.

I looked at Dash. He turned his head away and leaped onto the window ledge and leapt to the tree. Stiff, sore, and shoulder aching, I had neither the agility nor opportunity for such an escape.

“So none of the business about Wooley and the bear is true?”

“Not a lick,” she said.

“What about all the other stories about your family?”

“All true,” she said with indignation. “Every last word. What do you take me for Mr. Peelers?”

“But Wooley?”

“I felt the tome needed spicing up,” she said. “My imagination is futile.”

“Fertile,” I corrected.

“Breakfast this a.m. is Treet omelets accompanied by margarine-fried diced carrots gently mixed in,” she said. “There will also be an announcement of consequence.”

And she was gone.

That gave me time to shave, rub some Kreml in my hair, change the Band-Aid covering the pellet hole in my shoulder, wince a few times, wash, avoid my battered image in the mirror, and knock at Gunther’s door.

“Enter Toby,” he said.

“You know my knock,” I said, opening the door.

“I know that it is nearly eight and that Mrs. Plaut does not knock,” he said.

He was dressed in his usual three-piece, perfectly pressed custom-made suit. Since he was a little over three and a half feet tall, all his clothes had to be custom made, right down to his silk ties and leather shoes.

“Treet omelets this a.m.,” I said.

“Such a culinary delight is not to be missed,” Gunther said.

“And Mrs. Plaut says she has an announcement of consequence.”

“Then we should be at the table at the stroke of the hour,” said Gunther, rising from the chair at his desk and putting aside the book he had been holding.

At Mrs. Plaut’s dining-room table sat Ben Bidwell, the one-armed fortyish automobile salesman, and Emma Simcox, a light-skinned, shy pretty Negro who Mrs. Plaut said was her niece. I never asked about this relationship. I had the feeling that one night I would come home to an explanation of the Simcox connection in a chapter of Mrs. Plaut’s never-ending, and now fictionalized, memoirs.

Gunther and I sat. Bidwell and Emma were next to each other. He wore a grin. She wore a smile. Coffee was on the table.

“War’ll be over soon,” said Bidwell.

“Looks that way,” I said.

“Then we’ll have to deal with the national debt,” said Bidwell. “Two hundred and sixty billion dollars. How are we going to deal with that, I ask you?”

“There has been a meeting of forty-four nations at the Mt. Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire,” said Gunther. “A World Bank has been established. National debts are on the agenda.”

“That a fact?” said Bidwell with admiration.

“It is,” said Gunther solemnly.

Mrs. Plaut came in with omelet plates, placing one in front of each of us. It rated “A” for smell and something murky down the alphabet for looks. The omelets were a rainbow mixture of tree bark brown, burnt carrot orange, egg yellow, and speckled hints of some dark herb.

“Before we eat,” she said. “The announcement.”

In the sitting room behind us, Mrs. Plaut’s bird from hell began screeching.

“Ignore Jacob,” Mrs. Plaut said.

Gunther and I looked at her.

“Great,” I said.

“The changing of his name is not the announcement,” she said. “My niece and Mr. Bidwell are officially engaged,” Mrs. Plaut said.

Bidwell smiled. Emma blushed. He took her hand.

“Congratulations,” said Gunther.

“Congratulations,” I echoed.

“Nuptials on January 2 of the coming year,” said Mrs. Plaut. “In the parlor. All invited. Gifts mandatory.”

The doorbell was ringing. Mrs. Plaut didn’t hear it.

“I will begin preparing the menu,” Mrs. Plaut said. “You may eat now.”

The doorbell rang again.

The omelet was damned good.

The doorbell kept ringing. Mrs. Plaut was obviously not wearing her hearing aid.

“The door, Aunt Irene,” Emma said, standing.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Plaut, a forkful of omelet moving toward her mouth.

Emma left the room and passed through the sitting room, sending Jacob into a new frenzy of screeches.

When she returned to the room, Harry Blackstone was at her side. He was wearing a dark suit and red tie. His hair was brushed back and he reminded me of Adolph Menjou.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” he said.

“We are not in the market this morning for brushes, vacuum cleaners, knife sharpenings, or the like,” Mrs. Plaut said, turning to him.

“This is Harry Blackstone,” I said. “The magician.”

My announcement brought a smile from Bidwell and Emma and a look of respect from Gunther. It also brought a strange look to the face of Mrs. Plaut, who did not turn to face him. I thought she hadn’t heard me. I introduced everyone. When I got to Mrs. Plaut, she kept her back turned and held up a hand to acknowledge the magician’s presence.

“Would you like to join us?” Emma asked.

“I’ve eaten, thank you,” said Blackstone. “I must talk to Mr. Peters.” And then, to me, he said, “Something new has come up.”

“Let’s go in the other room,” I said, getting up.

Mrs. Plaut was still turned away. As I started to lead Blackstone out of the dining room, she made the mistake of turning her head to watch us.

Blackstone looked at her for an instant. She turned away and then he paused to look again.

“Irene Adaire,” he said.

Mrs. Plaut concentrated on her Treet omelet.

“You are Irene Adaire,” he said, looking at Mrs. Plaut.

We all looked at Mrs. Plaut.

“You’re the widow of Simon Adaire,” he said.

“I look nothing like her,” Mrs. Plaut said, head down.

“I can’t be mistaken,” Blackstone said, moving around the table, standing between Bidwell and Emma to look at Mrs. Plaut. “The birthmark on the back of your hand is unmistakable.”

Mrs. Plaut shifted the fork from her right to her left hand and put the right hand on her lap out of sight.

“I’ve been searching for her for forty years,” Blackstone said, looking at me.