Getting Old Is Criminal (25 page)

And I can’t believe I am betraying my sister by saying cruel things behind her back, something I have never done before.

“We’ve got to get her out of there,” Ida insists.

I shrug hopelessly. “There’s no way to do that.”

“Kidnap her,” suggests Sophie.

Bella is not convinced. “That won’t work. We’re too old and weak to carry her out of there.”

Ida suggests, “We can drug her and drag her out.”

“No matter what we do, she’ll hate us for interfering.” I feel helpless. I have no idea what action to take.

Ida stands up and crosses her arms. “There’s only one way. We have to prove he’s a killer. Then she’ll come to her senses and come home.”

“But what if he isn’t a killer and this is real love?” Sophie finally starts rummaging through my fridge in search of a snack.

“But what if he is? How can we take that chance?” I ask.

Bella looks at Ida questioningly. “So, do we have a plan?”

Ida instinctively takes charge. She senses my helplessness. “I think we should consult with Barbi and Casey. Maybe their computers will come up with something. They helped us last time; maybe 2 4 8 • R i t a L a k i n

they can again. They’re out of town on some convention, but only for a few days.”

“Yes,” Bella says eagerly. “I’ll go, as long as I don’t have to drink any more of their weird chai.”

They look to me for my decision. I am desperate for any help. Whatever I do, I’m afraid Evvie will never forgive me.

With a heavy heart I give her my okay.

*

*

*

The girls and I have dinner together. It’s a somber affair. We’re worried about Evvie and light conversation seems too difficult to manage. Sophie sees our glum faces and tries. “Ya know, when I was on pot, I had a vision.”

We all stare at her. Sophie is back to her old happy self and that’s good news indeed.

“I saw a building that circles round and round like a merry-go-round and Sol falling madly in love with Evvie and Evvie falling in love in a red dress and the killer falling in love with everybody and they’re all jumping out windows. Falling.”

I fairly choke with laughter at that. So does Ida.

Bella beams. This sounds like fun.

I can’t resist asking, “So what does your drug-induced epiphany mean?”

Sophie takes a quick bite of her stuffed cabbage and says, “Well, I don’t know what a
piffany
means, but in my vision Evvie is in the mood to fall in love. That’s why she dated Sol.”

G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 2 4 9

Bella giggles. “Yeah and see how that turned out.”

Sophie continues, “And Sol is desperate to fall in love and have sex. Remember how he tried to get her up to his apartment?”

“Who could forget?” Ida chuckles.

Sophie continues with a logic all her own.

“Well, Evvie isn’t interested in Sol. She goes speed dating and jumps from chair to chair and the killer jumps from luxury hotel to luxury hotel and Sol, and Sol . . .” She loses her train of thought.

Bella claps her hands. “I get it. And Sol jumps from window to window!”

The two of them high-five each other.

Ida and I exchange amazed glances. “Are you thinking what I am?” she asks me. “Is Sophie’s subconscious under drug abuse giving us the clue we’ve needed all along?”

“Sol is the Peeper?” I ask.

We stare at one another. It all fits. Desperate Sol, who can never take his eyes off women’s bodies, is the Peeper!

I announce, “Tomorrow we have a serious talk with Mr. Sol Spankowitz. Good work, Soph.”

Sophie beams, proud of her accomplishment.

“So what’s for dessert?”

THIRTY-EIGHT

EXIT THE PEEPER

It’s early morning and we are drawn to a big crowd gathering at S building. There’s a lot of yelling.

As the girls and I get nearer, I’m aware of a number of our Canadian renters standing in some kind of circle. Some of the other neighbors have come out and are watching intently, many still in their bathrobes. Hy and Lola are there, too. No surprise. They never miss anything that goes on at Lanai Gardens. And Irving. Irving? It’s his third day at home since he left Millie in the hospital, and he is part of this crowd? Yolie, as always, is at his side. He looks tired, but seemingly involved. Dora Dooley is there. Dora? Why?

“Leave me alone! Get your paws off me.”

I know that voice. It’s Sol Spankowitz. He is G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 2 5 1

dressed all in black. A Superman Halloween mask hangs around his neck.

“We’re too late,” I say to my girls. They nod.

Looks like someone else unmasked the Peeper—

literally—before we could.

“Don’t hit him. Please.” This is from a very frightened Irving, Sol’s only real friend. He shakes his head back and forth.

One of the Canadian women, I think her name is Alice, points at Sol. “You disgusting creature!”

Her husband, Jim, has his arm around her, protectively.

Now Tessie hurries over, belting her bathrobe, and joins in. “What’s all the noise around here?”

Jim tells us. “There’s your Peeper! My wife caught him with his nose against our window. She woke me and I ran out after him.”

Another of the Canadians adds, “I was picking up my newspaper from my front step when I saw Sol run past. I see Jim coming after him and Jim yells for me to stop him. So I do.”

Sol is in tears. “I’m innocent, I tell you.”

“Liar,” Alice says. “I saw you good and clear.”

“How could you see me? I wore a mask—” Sol stops, realizing he’s just convicted himself.

Hy has to put his two cents in. “I always suspected the butcher.”

“Yeah, sure,” says Tessie, shoving him. “You always know everything.”

“Should I call the police?” one of the S building 2 5 2 • R i t a L a k i n

residents calls down from the second-floor balcony.

At that, Sol begins to crumple.

“Not so fast.” Tessie moves into the inner circle where Sol stands, quivering. She holds him up with her hefty arms. “He’s got a right to defend himself.”

“Not here. In court, when he’s on trial for lewd and lascivious behavior.” Alice must watch a lot of lawyer shows.

“All I want is a little love—is that so much to ask?” Sol raises his arms beseechingly to the crowd.

Hy chuckles. “With your weenie sticking out?

That’s what you call love?”

Now the laughter begins.

“I call that sex,” Alice says.

“I call that perversion.” Alice’s husband is close to grabbing Sol. Tessie places her large body protectively in front of him.

“My wife is dead, but a man still got needs.” Sol is practically on his knees. “I should have thrown myself on her coffin and died with her.”

Hy gives advice. “You got two hands, don’t you? And a VCR?” More chuckles and sneers.

Sol shakes his head. “That’s not love.” He looks around, appealing to his enemies. “I’m not what you call a handsome man.”

“That’s for sure.” Even Ida is rallying with the mob. I elbow her. She gives me a dirty look.

“I’m not very good with women.”

G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 2 5 3

Hy looks around. “Where’s Evvie? She can tes-tify to that.”

“I’m shy. I don’t know what else to do, so I just look. I don’t mean no harm. I’m a worshipper of lovely ladies’ bodies.”

This cracks Hy up. “The schmuck needs glasses.

He peeps on old ugly broads and calls them lovely bodies? Pathetic.”

Alice’s husband walks over to Hy and glowers down at him. “Don’t make disparaging remarks about my wife.”

Hy backs off. “I mean all the other old broads he peeped.”

Lola pinches his arm, warning him to shut up.

A bevy of women arrive. The news is traveling fast. May Levine, Eileen O’Donnell, and Edna Willis come barreling down the path. They push their way through the crowd and start pummeling Sol. Tessie tries to ward them off. These are women Sol peeped and they want revenge. Dora Dooley applauds. Revenge is sweet.

May steps out of the circle and smacks Hy. “I heard what you said. Old broads! You should talk, you dirty-minded, ugly
putz.
”

“Stop that,” says Lola, pushing May away from her adored husband.

Now Jane gets a shot at Sol. Sol covers his head with his hands as she hits his bald head over and over. Tessie pulls her away but Eileen and May get at him.

“I could use a little help in here,” Tessie shouts.

2 5 4 • R i t a L a k i n

Little Irving, though terrified and utterly embarrassed, enters the circle to help. He timidly reaches out to stop May but she shoves him away.

The audience is hooting and cheering and making side bets.

Sol pleads his case. “What’s a man supposed to do? Do I spend the rest of my life itching and scratching? Where is the justice? I see the married men and their wives. I am so jealous, I can’t stand it. Night after night I cry in my lonely bedroom. So what should I do? Somebody shoot me and put me out of my misery.”

“Why don’t you just get married and shut up?”

says Jim.

Sol sees a breath of hope. “Who would marry me?”

Tessie lifts him up in her powerful arms. “I would, snookums. And I’ll give you all the sex you want. A woman has needs, too.”

“You want to marry me?” Sol is clearly terrified of being dropped by this Amazon of a woman.

“I do!” With that she lifts him high in the air, triumphantly. “Name the date, pussycat.”

Sol turns at the sound of many sighs. The women are smiling. Even the peeped ladies forgive.

Women do like a good romance. Especially Dora.

The men applaud. Except for Hy, who’s disgusted.

Irving shakes his head sadly and walks away.

“Got any of those cute little blue pills?” Tessie asks Sol. “Ya know—wink, wink—Viagra?”

G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 2 5 5

Sol looks down at his grinning new fiancée and shudders.

Sophie is disappointed. “We shoulda been the ones to nab him.”

“Yeah,” adds Bella.

“We coulda got him last night.”

“Never mind,” adds Ida. “He made his bed and now he’s gotta lie in it!”

I shake my head in disbelief. Thus ends the case of the Peeper.

THIRTY-NINE

GOSSIP REVISITED

It still seems strange to me that our condo neighbors, the seemingly very sophisticated Barbi and Casey, work out of an inexpensive minimall in a store that used to sell shoes. Their research business name, Gossip, is the only word seen on the blackened outside windows. In very small letters at that. And their office, so to speak, is a huge work space done up almost totally in white. White floors, white walls, white furniture, except for their moveable desk chairs, which are black. When we walk in we automatically feel we should whisper as if we were in some hospital. Last time we were there, they offered us spicy chai, so this time Bella came prepared with her own Lipton’s tea bag.

Some exchange of hellos, and then from Casey,

“Where’s the fifth musketeer? How come Evvie G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 2 5 7

isn’t with you? You girls are always joined at the hips.”

The girls look nervously toward me. I toss out an answer. “New job. She’s at a retirement complex keeping her eye on our perp.” Well, it really isn’t much of a stretch. One could certainly say she’s doing just that.

“We did hear some rumors as to a new gig,”

Barbi comments.

“First we discuss price,” I say.

Casey laughs. “I thought that was supposed to be our line.” Barbi puts her arm around Casey’s shoulder and giggles.

Sophie has a suggestion. “What about a senior discount?”

“Look,” Barbi says, “we know you can’t afford us. Can we barter?”

“Barter? You mean trade for services?” Ida asks.

“Precisely,” says Casey. The two of them are wearing their wedding rings again, rings they do not wear around the condo. I get the feeling they wore them last time as a test, to see how we would react. We must have passed the test. Considering the fact that my girls can’t keep a secret about anything, they never said a word to anyone. And yes, Casey’s in masculine clothes—a shirt and pants—