It Happened One Knife (29 page)

I never got to bed again that night. I just kept playing the DVD. It wasn’t rational; there was a part of me that wanted to punish myself, and this was certainly the best way to do so. Maybe I just thought that one of the times I watched it, the ending would change.

And then, suddenly, it did.

39

MOE
Baxter was not happy about lending me a car, but that wasn’t at all unusual. I couldn’t call Sharon for a ride, clearly. Even if we’d been on good terms, she was at her practice and couldn’t take half a day to chauffeur me to Englewood. It was too long a drive to ask Dad again, although he wouldn’t complain. Besides, he had to take my mother to her dental appointment; Mom’s terrified of the dentist.

Now, I was just driving up to deal with the death of one of our favorite comedians. It wasn’t the most enticing thing I could imagine, but I didn’t have a choice.

And I wasn’t going to ask Sophie to put her Prius at risk again. Besides, she was at school. This is the social circle in which I travel.

Moe and I went through our usual cantankerous ritual, and I ended up with a 1999 Mazda 626 that had needed new brakes. Moe probably hoped that he hadn’t done a very good job.

The car radio only seemed to get static, and there was a cassette deck instead of a CD player, so I was forced to deal with the owner’s collection, which ran to easy listening. After a sleepless night, easy listening might have served as the equivalent of a faulty brake job, as I could have fallen asleep behind the wheel and ended up in a ditch just the same. Luckily, at the bottom of the pile in the center console was a copy of
Out of the Blue
by the Electric Light Orchestra. Slumming, sure, but it would keep me awake. And besides, who can resist “Sweet Talkin’ Woman”?

To tell the truth, though, I didn’t hear a lot of the music as I drove. There was too much to think about.

The hour or so passed in a swirl of what-ifs and what-does-this-means that left me feeling frustrated, even if I did have an idea percolating in the back of my head. There were too many loose ends and too many unanswered questions.

I needed to talk face-to-face with some of the personnel at the Booth Actors’ Home, and had called Walter Lee ahead of time to make sure it would be all right. Walt did not betray any impatience in his voice, which I considered admirable. If I were in his position, I would have considered this Freed guy one of the chief pests in Western civilization. Which was one of the myriad reasons I wasn’t in his position, and he was.

Pulling up to the entrance, I noticed that the burning smell had dissipated; the fire was no longer the first thing a person would think of when approaching the building. I walked through the Ed Herlihy Foyer and tried not to think of Velveeta commercials. I was not successful.

Before she could summon Walt, I asked the woman at the reception desk if she had noticed me wheeling Lillis out of the building the day I’d come to visit. It took her a moment, but she said she did. She also said her name was Linda, and I should use it.

“Had you seen Mr. Lillis walking around before that, Linda?” I asked.

She didn’t have to think very long this time. “Yes,” she said. “He was up and about quite a bit that day.”

“Didn’t you think it odd that he was using a wheelchair when you’d seen him walking perfectly well under his own steam before my visit?” I said.

Linda smiled vaguely. “Sure,” she said. “But then, I remembered. ”

“Remembered what?”

“That he was Harry Lillis,” Linda answered. “I figured it was part of a joke.”

She called Walt, and he appeared almost immediately, the smile on his face no longer as pained as it had been the last time I’d seen him.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Freed?” he asked.

“Elliot. And I’m wondering. May I speak to the doctor who was treating Harry Lillis?”

“Of course, but don’t expect her to disclose any confidential information. The doctor-patient relationship remains secure, even after the patient is deceased,” Walt said.

Dr. Victoria Spencer was a healthy-looking woman who could have been any age from thirty-four to sixty. I’m very bad at gauging such things, and she obviously took good care of herself. She had a fine bedside manner, which I could discern from the way she kept smiling even as I asked her questions that might have provoked violence in someone less even-tempered.

“Was Mr. Lillis’s hip injury so slight that it didn’t affect his walking at all?” I asked her.

“His hip injury?” Dr. Spencer repeated. She read through the chart she had in her hands. “I don’t see any note of a hip injury.” She glanced at Walt.

Oookaaay . . . “He told me he’d slipped in the common room and did some damage to his hip. That’s why he needed the wheelchair,” I said.

“I thought he asked for the wheelchair for some scene he was performing in drama therapy,” Dr. Spencer said, again looking in Walter Lee’s direction.

“That was my understanding,” Walt said.

The pattern was starting to make sense, but I didn’t want it to. “May I ask, Dr. Spencer: Why was Harry Lillis here? He said it was because he was having trouble ‘getting around,’ but I was never clear on what that meant.”

Spencer exhaled heavily, and looked thoughtful for a long moment. “I really don’t know if I’m comfortable saying, ” she said. “But since Mr. Lillis has passed away . . .” She gave Walt another glance, and he nodded very slightly. “The truth is, Mr. Freed, Harry Lillis had stomach cancer, and he probably would have been dead in six months even if this hadn’t happened.”

My head was reeling as Walter Lee led me to the front lobby on my way out, and then I remembered the last reason I’d decided to come to Englewood. “But Harry wasn’t in the nursing home facility; he was on the assisted living side,” I said. “If he was that ill . . .”

“Mr. Lillis didn’t require constant care,” Walt said. “There just wasn’t much the doctors could do to help him.”

“Walt,” I said, “Harry Lillis didn’t really get along all that well with the other residents, did he?”

Walt wasn’t going to admit any discord. “I wouldn’t say that, but he did keep to himself, for the most part, except when you came to visit him. Marion Borello would talk to him, but Mr. Lillis never sought her out. He’d be very gregarious with the other residents when you visited, and I think he confused some of them. The rest of the time, though, he’d spend mostly on the computers.”

“The computers?”

“Yes, we have desktop computers and Internet access in some of the common rooms, and Mr. Lillis was very taken with them. He spent a lot of hours in there. Seemed especially interested in Photoshop. I thought he was getting family photos e-mailed to him, then I recalled that his file showed no immediate family at all. But he loved the computer. It’s really a great blessing for some of our residents, because they can communicate with people who might not be able to come visit.”

Harry Lillis, webmaster. It was an interesting thought. “I’ve been feeling awful about something,” I told Walt. “Ever since Harry died, I’ve meant to talk to Mitchell and tell him how badly I feel about it. He seemed so devoted to Harry; this must have hit him very hard. May I see him?”

Walt’s eyes went up to his left as he mentally ran through rosters. “I don’t remember another patient named Mitchell, Elliot,” he said.

“Mitchell’s not a patient. He works here.”

Walter Lee gave me a blank stare.

“He’s an orderly, or a nurse, or something,” I tried. “Large African-American guy? Looks like he could lift a Mack truck? He drove Harry to Comedy Tonight the evening of the
Cracked Ice
showing. Mitchell.”

“We have a driver who takes any of the residents out whenever they ask,” Walt said. “They still like to go to the theatre and remain active. But his name is Ivan.”

“No,” I insisted, since clearly I knew more about Walt’s staff than he did. “This guy was Mitchell. It said so on his white coat.”

“I’ve been working here five years,” Walter Lee said, “and I don’t recall anyone named Mitchell on staff.”

The really sad part was that I’d gotten pretty much every answer I’d expected.

I
spent about twenty minutes on the phone in Walt’s office, and by the time I reached Jersey City, I had pretty much concluded what I’d find out, but it was necessary to hear it firsthand. And when I found the brownstone and parked, checked the apartment number and rang the bell, I knew the interview I’d set up on the phone would be exactly as I’d expected.

“Actually, my name is Darius,” said the man I knew as Mitchell the ambulance attendant. “Mr. Lillis hired me because I’d done some time working for a private medical transport company, but he wasn’t looking for a driver; he wanted an actor.”

The room was littered with 8x10 images of Darius/ Mitchell, in black and white and in full color, with an agency’s logo stamped tastefully over the top right corner. The requisite theatrical posters decorated the walls as Darius and I sat in facing armchairs. He offered me coffee, but I wasn’t in the mood.

“How did he find you?” I asked.

“How did
you
?” Darius asked.

“It wasn’t hard. Once I realized you weren’t a real ambulance driver, I figured you must be an actor, and I called Actors’ Equity. Gave the union the date and the place of your performance, and they hooked me up with your agent, who was very disappointed I wasn’t a producer. Now, how did Harry Lillis get in touch with you?”

“He put an ad in
Daily Variety
,” Darius said. “Very specific, had to be a big guy, had to be in the northern New Jersey area. I figured it was for a student film or something, and then I got the call from Harry Lillis. I’d never heard of him, but I looked him up on IMDb, you know.” I probably winced at the idea of someone who’d never heard of Harry Lillis.

“Did he tell you what he wanted you to do? How did he explain it?”

Darius smiled. “Said he was playing a gag on a friend. Wanted him to think Harry needed a wheelchair. He’d already rented an ambulance, now he needed someone to drive it and push the chair.”

“But the Booth Actors’ Home has a driver named Ivan who’ll take people wherever they want to go.”

“Yeah, I know,” Darius answered. “But Harry wanted the drama of an ambulance arrival. So instead, he had Ivan take him to a movie theatre in Englewood, then I came and picked him up in the ambulance. After the show, we drove back to Englewood, and Harry called Ivan to take him home. Told him he’d gone to see a double feature and then met a lady friend for drinks, if you know what I mean.”

“But you seemed so concerned,” I said. “You kept reminding him that he’d have to leave.”

He straightened up with an actor’s pride. “That was my motivation,” he said. “It was also my responsibility to get a uniform, and the one I found had the name Mitchell embroidered on it, so that became my character’s name.”

“Weren’t you the least bit curious about this elaborate gag, especially after you got to Comedy Tonight and saw what kind of an evening we’d planned?”

Darius shook his head. “I was too deep in the role to worry about inconsistencies,” he said.

Actors are crazy.

THE
drive home was even less memorable than the one coming up. I don’t even know if I put the music back on. Jeff Lynne and his cohorts could go on playing songs in the past without me.

Chief Barry Dutton thought it was odd that I was asking about Harry Lillis’s remains. Of course, he thought it was odd that I was calling at all, since his detective had never given him my message.

“What
about
Lillis’s remains?”

“I’m just curious when the ME released them, because I know the autopsy report took some time.” I wanted to approach this delicately, and delicacy is not my best thing.

Dutton sounded like a man whose forehead was wrinkling in puzzlement. “I’d have to check, but the last I heard, the medical examiner had released Lillis’s body, but nobody had claimed it. He didn’t have any relatives I know about. Do you?”

I’d already checked Internet sites and all the connections I had in the comedy community, so I knew the answer to that one. “No. He didn’t have anyone who would have picked him up. But you know, in the Jewish tradition, he’s supposed to be buried as soon as possible. What happens if nobody claims the body?”

“After a reasonable period of time, the county will inter the remains in a . . .”

“An unmarked grave. Even if the deceased had enough money to pay for a funeral?” I had to cover all the bases.

“Well, if there was a will, and a provision was made for some service, I’m sure that would be taken into account,” Dutton answered. “Even if there wasn’t a will in place, the County Surrogate would probably issue an order to garnish the deceased’s account.”

“There was a will,” I told him.

“Then I doubt Bergen County wants to pay for Harry Lillis’s funeral if it doesn’t have to.”

“Well, maybe I can help,” I said. “Would they release the remains to me?”

There was dead silence on the phone for some seconds. “You? What’s the plot now, Elliot?”

“No plot,” I said unconvincingly. “I’ve decided that there should be a public memorial service for Harry Lillis. Tomorrow. At Comedy Tonight.”

40

There’s one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him. If he says yes, you know he’s crooked.

—GROUCHO MARX

It Happened One Night
(1934) and
Screwball
(this week)

I
had to work fast to get the
Press-Tribune
to work up an ad for Friday’s newspaper, but since I was paying half-page rates, roughly eight times the size I normally buy, they were willing to work a little harder. There was no helping the expense: I didn’t want to wait for Wilson Townes to come and bend me into a pretzel, and I wanted to make sure the ad wouldn’t be missed by Wilson or his father. You can’t bury a Jewish man on Saturday anyway, and Sunday we have matinees, so the service had to be Friday, and for my purposes, the ad had to be large.