Crusader (47 page)

I took out Mrs. Knight's business card and held it up so that she could read it. I picked up the phone and said, "We start by using the power of the media."

Kristin dropped me off at Century Towers at ten o'clock. I grabbed a banana and some iced tea and flopped on the couch—Mrs. Weiss's couch. I called Karl at home, and then Will, and then Betty.

Then I turned on Mrs. Weiss's TV. There was no
Last Judgment
show tonight. Instead the Eternal Word Channel showed a rerun of a gospel choir performance. Stephen Cross did not appear at all. I wondered if he was watching his video.

I arrived at the mall this morning at seven-thirty, in step with the early morning power-walkers. Mrs. Roman was already inside the card shop. She let me in, too, and we each selected a card from a Hallmark rack.

I found a white card embossed with a white dove; it was blank inside. Mrs. Roman found one with praying hands; it had a message about God inside. I don't know what she wrote in hers. But in mine I wrote,
I love you, Mrs. Weiss. I will not give up. Roberta.

When that was taken care of, she said to me, "We should pay for these cards, Roberta, but I don't want to put a cash drawer in the register and then leave. What if somebody breaks in and robs the place? They do that, you know. People are such devils. They look in the paper to see who died, and to see when the funeral is going to be. Then they go and rob them during the funeral."

I said, "That's terrible."

"Of course. People are so rotten and dishonest. I feel dishonest just for taking this card without paying for it. Isabel wouldn't have liked that. She was always very strict about the rules in the store. You should be the same way."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't relax the rules. The rules are the rules, right? You should keep them that way."

I said, "What are you talking about, Mrs. Roman?"

Mrs. Roman stared at me. "I'm talking about your store policies. I'm saying you shouldn't change the rules, because they work."

I stared back at her blankly. Suddenly her expression
changed. Her eyes grew wide. She pulled back and said, "Oh, my god. Roberta, you don't know."

"Know what?"

Mrs. Roman spoke very rapidly. "I asked her if you knew. I asked her a month ago. She said, 'I'm going to tell her. She'll know.'"

"What?"

"Oh, my god. She didn't tell you. She must have thought she still had time."

I was getting alarmed now. And a little fed up. "Mrs. Roman! What's going on?"

She held out her hands in an all-encompassing gesture. "Isabel left it to you. She left everything to you."

"To me? What to me?"

"Everything."

It took a long, eerie moment for those words to sink in. But they finally did. I understood. I understood that my life had just changed entirely. I repeated, "To me?"

"She never said anything?"

"No."

"It's all been going to you for a long time. For the last couple of years, at least. Isabel showed me the papers."

I bowed my head. I couldn't speak.

"And she asked me to handle executing the will. Can you believe that? Me? I never even balanced a checkbook before. Not until this year. My Joe always did all of that stuff. He paid all the bills for forty years. The first bill I ever paid was his hospital bill."

I interrupted her, "Please, Mrs. Roman, I need to understand this."

"What's to understand, Roberta? It's all yours. The business, the condo, the other properties."

I decided that I had to deal with this later. I couldn't fit one more complicated thing into my brain. It would have to wait.

Mrs. Roman assured me, "Listen, Roberta, we'll have plenty of time to talk about this ... estate business. For now, I think we should stand outside and wait. I don't want a big spectacle outside, you know? People standing around staring at the hearse, wondering who's in there. Isabel wouldn't like that. Come on. You bring the cards."

We locked up and walked back through the rotunda toward the entrance. As soon as we made the turn, I could see that we were too late. A long black hearse was already parked in front of the glass doors, and a group of old people were looking at it. Mrs. Roman muttered to me, "Busybodies."

But when we pushed the doors open, she called out to them in a friendly voice, "That's Isabel. Isabel Weiss. She lived in Number Three-oh-three at Century Towers. She owned the Hallmark store here in the mall."

The old people turned and looked at her; a couple of them nodded. Mrs. Roman added, "She was a nice lady."

The old people parted to let us through. The driver of the hearse jumped out and hurried around to open the back door. He was a small man with white hair and a blue suit.

He bowed slightly as he opened the door. "How are you, Mrs. Roman?"

"I'm fine, John. This is Roberta, the girl I was telling you about."

"Hello, Roberta. I'm very sorry about your loss."

I answered, "Thank you." And followed Mrs. Roman into the wide backseat.

I sat back and Mrs. Roman took my hand. I looked over at her and saw that she had begun to cry. She held my hand like that, and didn't speak, all the way to the airport.

We drove through a gate that said
SPECIAL CARGO
and stopped on the tarmac. Three workmen appeared and stood at the back of the hearse. As soon as John got out and unlocked
the back, I started to get a panicky feeling. I turned to watch out of the dark-tinted window as John slid out a stretcher on wheels and the three guys arranged themselves around it.

I shouted, "Oh, Mrs. Roman! This is it! This is really it. This is good-bye." I threw open the door and scrambled out onto the tarmac. I ran back to the casket, shouting, "Wait!"

John held up one hand to the other men. They stopped and took a step backward. I reached my hand out and touched the dark metal of the casket. Then I tried to encircle the entire top section, where Mrs. Weiss's head was, with my arms. My arms would only go about halfway around, but I hugged her as best I could.

After a few seconds I stepped back. John put his hand down, and the men moved back to their positions. I stood there and watched them wheel her away. I didn't need to put any fingers up to my face this time. I knew I was crying. I could feel hot tears running down my cheeks.

Neither Mrs. Roman nor I spoke again all the way back to the mall. Then it was like a spell had been broken. The funeral duties were over, and the work duties had begun.

Mrs. Roman looked at me nervously and said the strangest thing. "Well, Roberta, I don't know what to do now. You're the owner of the store. You tell me."

"Please, Mrs. Roman, don't do this."

She held up one finger. "Okay. Let me make a suggestion. You let me run the store like I've been doing, at least for the next few weeks. That'll give you time to mourn, sweetie. People need time to mourn. Me, I've been through this. I know mourning. It's easier for me to handle than for you."

"All right. Thank you." I sat down numbly on the stool behind the register.

Mrs. Roman didn't let me mourn for long, though. She
started right in, "Now, let me tell you some financial things that you may or may not know about. Your father signed a paper to open a trust fund that contains all of your money and property."

"He did?"

"He certainly did. Isabel showed me the paper. She showed me all the papers. One had his signature and, of course, a notarized seal."

I realized that I had probably tricked him into signing it, like everything else. I tried to focus on what she was saying. I asked her, "What is in this trust fund?"

"Everything that Isabel owned. Who else was she going to give it to? That daughter who didn't need her for anything? No. It's all yours, Roberta. And it's a lot—minus some money to the lawyer and whatever the funeral arrangements wind up costing. I have to pay those bills out of the estate. That's part of my job."

I pressed my fingers against my eyelids. "Because you're the executor?"

"Yes. I'm the executor of the will. That job only lasts for a week or two, until those bills get paid. But I'm also the guardian of the trust, because you're a minor. That job lasts until you turn eighteen. Get it?"

"Yes. I understand."

"You need a guardian of the trust to keep your father from getting his hands on the money. Isabel, of course, was very worried about that. Guess who the guardian was before I came along? Mr. Lombardo! Can you believe that?"

"I can't believe any of it."

"It's like you had a guardian angel."

"I guess."

"I don't guess. I know you did." Mrs. Roman turned on the register. I looked up at the clock. It was already ten-thirty. I gasped, "Oh no! Mrs. Roman! I have something I have to take care of today. I have to go."

"Then you should go. You should do whatever you have to do. I'll keep things running here." She unlocked the glass door enough to let me out.

I said, "Thank you. Thank you for everything." and hurried into the mallway. I walked quickly through the glass doors. Then I ran across the parking lot and down Everglades Boulevard until my side started to ache. I was walking fast along 111th Street when Kristin pulled up across from me in her Volkswagen. Karl was sitting next to her. I climbed into the back next to Will.

Karl turned toward me. His eyes were in focus. "So, cuz, I hear you got a secret plan."

"Yeah, I'll explain more when we pick up Betty."

Kristin asked, "So, where does our 'witch' live?"

We turned into the Golden Glades Mobile Home Community. A young guy with dark hair and a mustache was washing a pickup truck at the third trailer in. Kristin pulled into the driveway and rolled down the window. "Is this where Betty lives?"

The man turned off the hose. "Who?"

Kristin turned to me. "Oh no. Is that the wrong name?"

"I don't think so."

Kristin repeated, "Betty. The girl who works at the West End Mall."

The man said, "Yeah. She lives here." Betty came out of the mobile home. He turned to her and said, "Must be a mistake. This bunch looks normal."

Betty ignored him. She squeezed into the back with Will and me, and the man went back to washing his truck.

As soon as Kristin pulled out, Karl turned around again and said, "All right. We're all here. So what's this plan?"

I explained it this way: "I know the lady who books the
guests for
Angela Live.
If we can pass an audition today, we'll be on the show on Monday."

Betty asked, "How is that supposed to save our jobs? Isn't
Angela Live
always a freak show? What are we supposed to be? Freaks?"

I told her simply, "Yeah. They want a freak show about kids who can't tell virtual reality from reality. We need to go in and give them that."

Karl asked, "So ... what if we pass this audition?"

"They will do
Angela Live
from Arcane."

"Cool."

"Let me go over your parts, okay? It's very important that you understand your parts. Each of you is playing a different kind of freaky teenager."

I turned to Will. I noticed that he was wearing an Ironman T-shirt. That had to be the first time he'd worn it since the trash trailer incident. I told Kristin, "Good idea, Kristin. Will has on the perfect shirt."

She said, "Yeah. And check out Karl's feet."

Karl struggled to show me. Instead of his usual sneakers, he had on shiny black combat boots.

I said, "Great. Great."

I turned back to Will. "Listen, Will, you need to talk about how you listened to too much heavy metal rock music, and now you hear voices telling you what to do."

Will looked very nervous. "What kinda voices?"

"I don't know. Like, deep, loud voices. Try to say something really scary and demonic."

"Like what?"

Kristin broke in, in a fake baritone, "Like, 'I am the voice of Satan. Do as I bid you.'"

But Will just repeated it back in his normal, high-pitched voice. "I am the voice of Satan. Do as I bid you."

Kristin laughed. She told him, "On second thought, maybe you should say that you can't remember what the voices tell you. Yeah, like, you have blackouts afterward."

I said, "Good. That's good. Now, Karl, you're going to have to say stuff about Nazis. Like, you think Hitler is good. Like, 'Hitler had the right idea.'"

Karl was still in a clearheaded time. He answered, "But I don't know anything about Hitler."

I said, "Come on, Karl. You grew up in Germany."

"Hey, I never even heard about him in Germany. It's like he never existed there."

"Well, then, you can say that you read about him over here. And you listen to him on television."

Kristin objected, "Hitler's not on television. He was too long ago."

"He certainly is on television. I've seen him. I've heard him make speeches in German on the History Channel. And you actually speak German, right, Karl?"

"
Ja, ich spreche.
"

"So you could listen to his speeches and actually understand what he's saying?"

"
Ja.
"

"Then you say that you spend all your time listening to Hitler. Okay, Karl?"

"
Jawohl.
"

I turned to Betty. "Now Betty, what you need to do is—"

She cut me off. "Never mind what I need to do. I know what I need to do."

"Okay. But we all need to—"

"I said I know. I understand. I don't even care about the stupid mall."

"All right. Sorry."

Betty looked out the window angrily. I thought it best to leave her alone.

Karl asked me, "What about you?"

"Me? Im running the board. I hope."

We pulled into the studio lot. I directed Kristin to park in back, between Channel 57 and the Eternal Word. I led the group around to the front door, past the equipment area, and into Angela's studio. Mrs. Knight, Bill, and Mr. McKay were already in there.

Mrs. Knight walked up and looked over the group carefully. She definitely liked what she saw. I quickly introduced everyone, but I didn't think she was listening. I guessed she was calculating how the show would work best, and that was fine with me.