Mary Clark - Where Are You Now?

And I know all about lowbrow! he thought ruefully. When I was a kid and Pop bought his first brand-new car, the cheapest one on the lot, you would have thought he’d won the lottery. We had to show it off to all the relatives just because Pop hoped they’d be drooling with envy.

I should start a blog and write about my own messed-up family, Howard told himself. I can’t let the Kramers retire. Maybe Olsen would get over it if I got some good new people in fast. On the other hand, it would be just like him to fire me and give my job to that sicko nephew of his. In thirty days, Olsen would probably be on his knees begging me to come back, but that’s a chance I can’t take. So what approach do I take with the Kramers?

Howard Altman considered possible solutions over the weekend. Then, satisfied with the plan he had come up with, at quarter of ten on Monday morning he stepped into the West End Avenue building where the Kramers lived.

He had definitely decided that pleading with them to stay, offering them a raise, and assuring them that the large apartment would always be their home was exactly the wrong way to go. If Gus Kramer thought that by quitting he could get me fired, he’d do it even if he doesn’t really want to retire now.

When he turned the key in the outside door and went into the lobby, he found Gus Kramer polishing the already gleaming brass mailboxes.

Gus looked up. “I guess I won’t be doing this much longer,” he said. “Hope the next guy you get is half as good as I’ve been for nearly twenty years.”

“Gus, is Lil around?” Howard said, almost whispering. “I need to speak to both of you. I’m worried about you two.”

Seeing the look of outright fear in Kramer’s face, he knew he was on the right track.

“She’s in the apartment sorting stuff out,” Gus said. Without bothering to wipe the final cloud of polish from the mailboxes, he turned and walked across the lobby to his apartment. He unlocked the door, pushed it open, and walked in, leaving Howard to grab it before it slammed in his face.

“I’ll get Lil,” Gus said abruptly.

It was obvious to Howard that Kramer wanted a chance to talk to his wife and possibly warn her before she saw him. She’s in one of the two bedrooms down the hall, he thought. That’s where she must be sorting things out. She’s finally found a use for that extra space.

It was almost five minutes before the Kramers joined him in the living room. Lil Kramer was visibly agitated. She was rubbing her lips together in a compulsive manner, and when Howard extended his hand to her, she rubbed her own hand on her skirt before she reluctantly responded to the greeting.

As he had expected, her palm was wringing wet.

Do the one-two punch right now, Howard thought. Send them reeling. “I’m going to talk straight from the shoulder,” he said. “I wasn’t here when the MacKenzie kid disappeared, but I was here the other day when his sister showed up. Lil, you were as nervous then as you are now. It was clear to me as an observer that you were afraid to talk to her. That tells me that you know something about why or how that boy disappeared, or that maybe you had something to do with it.”

He watched as Lil Kramer threw a terrified look at her husband and Gus Kramer’s cheekbones darkened to an ugly purple-red shade. I’m right, he thought. They’re scared to death. Emboldened, he added, “The sister isn’t finished with you. Next time she might bring a private investigator or the cops with her. If you think you’ll get away from her by rushing to Pennsylvania, you’re both crazy. If you’re gone when she comes back, she’ll ask questions. She’ll find out you quit abruptly. Lil, how many people have you told over the years that you don’t intend to budge from New York until you’re at least ninety?”

Now Lil Kramer was biting back tears.

Howard softened his tone. “Lil, Gus, think about it. If you leave now, Carolyn MacKenzie and the cops will be sure you have something to hide. I don’t know what it is, but you’re my friends, and I want to help you. Let me tell Mr. Olsen that you’ve reconsidered and don’t want to leave. The next time Carolyn MacKenzie calls to make an appointment, let me know, and I’ll be here. I’ll tell her in no uncertain terms that the management doesn’t welcome her bothering the employees. What’s more, I’ll remind her that there are stiff penalties for stalking.”

He saw the relief on their faces and knew he had convinced them to stay. And I didn’t have to give them a raise or promise to leave them in this apartment, he thought exultantly.

But as he accepted Lil’s groveling gratitude and Gus’s terse expression of thanks, he was burning to find out why they were so afraid, and what, if anything, they knew about the reason for Mack MacKenzie’s disappearance ten years ago.

S unday morning I went to the last Mass at St. Francis de Sales. I got there early, slipped into the last pew, and after that tried to study the faces of the arriving congregation. Needless to say, I didn’t spot anyone who even vaguely resembled Mack. Uncle Dev always delivers a thoughtful homily, frequently laced with Irish humor. Today, I didn’t hear a word of it.

When the Mass was over, I stopped in at the rectory for a quick cup of coffee. Smiling and waving me into his office, Devon said he was meeting friends in Westchester for a round of golf, but they could wait. He poured coffee into two thick white mugs and handed one to me as we sat down.

I hadn’t yet told him that I had gone to see the Kramers, and when I did I was surprised to learn that he remembered them clearly. “After we knew that Mack was missing, I went over with your Dad to that apartment on West End,” he said. “I remember the wife was all upset at the thought that something might have happened to Mack.”

“Do you remember anything about Gus Kramer’s reaction?” I asked.

When Uncle Dev gets a thoughtful frown on his face, his resemblance to my father is almost startling. Sometimes that gives me comfort. Other times it hurts. Today, for some reason, was one of the days it hurt.

“You know, Carolyn,” he said, “that Kramer is an odd duck. I think he was more upset by the possibility of media attention than he was concerned about Mack.”

Ten years later that was exactly my reaction to Kramer, but knowing Devon had to be on his way soon, I didn’t take the time to talk that over with him. Instead, I took out the recorder I had found in Mack’s suitcase and explained how I had discovered it. Then I played the tape for him. I watched my uncle’s sad smile at the sound of Mack’s voice speaking to the teacher, then his bewildered frown when Mack began to recite, “When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries.”

After I turned off the recorder, my uncle said, his voice husky, “I’m glad your mother wasn’t around when you came across that tape, Carolyn. I don’t think I’d ever play it for her.”

“I don’t intend to let her hear it. But, Devon, I’m trying to figure out its significance, if any. Did Mack ever talk to you about taking private lessons with a drama teacher at Columbia?”

“I remember that in an offhand way he did. You know when Mack was about thirteen and his voice was changing, he went through a period where it was really high-pitched. He got unmercifully teased about it at school.”

“I don’t remember Mack having a high-pitched voice,” I protested, then paused to search my memory. When Mack was thirteen I was eight years old.

“Of course, his voice deepened, but Mack was a more sensitive kid than most people realized. He didn’t show his feelings when he was hurt, but years later, he admitted to me how miserable he had been during that period.” Uncle Dev tapped the side of his mug, remembering. “Maybe some residual of that pain got him involved in the voice lessons. On the other hand, Mack wanted to become a trial lawyer and a good one. He told me that a good trial lawyer must also be a good actor. Maybe that could account for both the lessons and the passage he recited on that tape.”