"Mona's here for you. Honey, wake up. I've come to take you home." She held her breath.
Mitch didn't move a muscle. Not a hair. Nothing. Maybe his hand twitched a little. Mona's lips twitched; her eyelid, too. This was more than scary. It occurred to her that the machine making all the noise was actually breathing for him or making his heart beat, one or the other, maybe both. She didn't know anything about these things.
She straightened up and looked around for a little support here. A doctor, a nurse. A chair. It was disgusting. There wasn't a chair to sit on. Not even a stool! The place was a hellhole. Her heart started beating faster. That wasn't good for her asthma. She wasn't supposed to get upset, and having Mitch in a place like this was a complete disgrace. He'd hate it. The room had a fucking picture window in it. How much could she do to cheer him up with the whole world watching? She looked closer at the machinery. Was that big white one breathing for him, or what? She looked around for an answer, but none was forthcoming. She was very afraid.
"Honey, can you hear me?" she whispered.
No answer.
"Oh Mitch, do you have any idea what's going on?" She took a step closer. His face was bloodless. His eyes were pretty much closed. She had to get those eyes open.
"Cassie's on the rampage. You have to get out of here. Listen, wake up. I'm not kidding here. Oh baby, I love you so much. Don't leave me."
It seemed pretty hopeless. No part of Mitch moved except the lid of one of his eyes. For a second it looked as if he winked at her. She turned to the window, seeking help. When she turned back to him she was certain that he winked at her again. Fat lot of good that was going to do.
"Wake up, honey," she urged. "You have to get out of here. Did Cassie hurt you, baby? Tell Mona."
Nothing but the winking. It was terrible to watch.
"Honey, I mean it. This is serious. Wake UP!" Mona tried and tried, but no matter what she did, Mitch refused to get up and walk out.
CHAPTER 26
"YOU HAVE TO MAKE A DECISION about the car," Ogden announced at breakfast the ne xt day.
Ogden Schwab had been a handsome man in his youth, tall and slender with sharp blue eyes and wavy brown hair. But now he was very thin, almost emaciated, because of his swallowing problem caused by a disease called acalasia, which interrupts the usual smooth undulations of the esophagus, so the food just stalls midway to the stomach. Every swallow is touch and go. No one but the Rau family had bothered to nag him about anything since his wife Trudy had died thirteen years ago, so his clothes didn't always match either the season or each other. Likewise, the bath issue. Back in the 1950s a doctor had told him that he shouldn't bathe every day because of his dry skin. None of the thousands of advances in skin care products since then had been the slightest bit effective in persuading him that it was now safe to go into the water.
He was spry at seventy-six, though, and never let his little peculiarities stop him from making himself useful in every way he could. He kept up with politics and the stock market on CNN, and took a keen interest in the affairs of his son, Charlie.
"What do you say, son?"
"About what?" Charlie poured himself some of the nasty coffee that was one of his father's many morning rituals. This important one he couldn't seem to get right no matter what he tried. Every day there was a major complication with the coffee process. Ogden would set up the machine wrong, so that the little drip hole that should be closed was open. Whenever the carafe was not in place-which was often-hot water flooded the filter and kept right on going. The coffee poured out on the hot plate and hissed like an angry cat. Alternatively, if the hole was stuck in the closed position, the grounds became a tidal wave of sludge that poured over the top, flooding the counter. Whenever coffee actually made it into the carafe, it tasted like a mouthful of dirt. Today the coffee was the color of tea. Maybe it was tea.
"About getting a new car from Taj."
"What's wrong with my old one?" Charlie asked. He wasn't in the mood for car talk after last night. During their game, he'd encouraged Taj to brush up, brush up, with his racket in hopes that it would eventually connect with enough spin to get the ball over the net. Taj was always leaping around the court energetically chasing down the balls, but he had no force behind his swing at all. Who would have guessed that yesterday he'd acquired a new power racket that could make any hopeless child a Safin? Taj had brushed up on the ball just when Charlie wasn't looking and hit him in the eye. Then he wanted to sell him a car because his old one was such a piece of shit.
Charlie looked so ridiculous with today's bruise that he'd made a huge sartorial effort with a brown tweed suit, a yellow and blue tie over a blue shirt, and rust-colored suede shoes. All from his happiest days, before he'd ever thought of marrying Ingrid: the seventies.
"You've got to get that muffler fixed. You're gonna get a violation for that. Then jail, mark my words."
"Oh, I don't think so."
"Oh yes, mark my words," Ogden insisted.
Charlie had been marking his words for a long time. Odgen always predicted the worst. Now he spooned a bite of oatmeal and grated apple into his mouth, then forgot to work on it for a while. His face took on the odd, comic expression of surprise he always got when a swallow wasn't going well.
"Drink," Charlie commanded.
Odgen pounded some water. When that didn't do the trick, he got up and jumped up and down a few times. He was wearing Charlie's Yankees sweatshirt and a winter parka with the hood up over pajama bottoms. He looked weird and needed a bath, but Charlie didn't like to bother him about things like that when every bite was a life-threatening peril. Still, the outfit was pretty funny and reminded him of the Sales lady who'd called the cops on him. He smiled at the thought of the crazy woman who was as bad as his dad.
"What's so funny? You laughing at me?" Ogden's face cleared, and he sat down.
"No, of course not. I was thinking about a girl I met yesterday."
"You met a girl?" Ogden's eyes lit up.
"Not a girl, really. I'm working on a case of a wine importer. Perfectly run-of-the-mill tax returns. Nothing out of the ordinary. It's a big operation, but not one of the giants. The guy reports good profit, doesn't take huge deductions, and pays pretty much what it looks like he should. But… you okay, Dad?"
Ogden nodded. "So you think this is an ATF case," he said, nodding sagely. He was so proud when his son worked the big cases that made it to the newspapers.
Charlie laughed. "Well, not ATF, yet, Dad." But he wouldn't be a bit surprised if it came to that.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms did rigorously control the many regulations that had to be met when distributors moved alcohol in and out of the country, and even from state to state and buyer to buyer. Regulations were so strict in New York that a private collector could not sell to another private collector unless the buyer happened to have a retailer's license. It was a whole big thing. Every case of wine and liquor had to be tagged and checked and reported and rechecked. Still, it was just amazing how much stuff disappeared one way or another, off trucks and out of warehouses. These cases were never reported either stolen or sold, just disappeared.