Getting Old is the Best Revenge (3 page)

The Case of the Little Old

Lady from Plantation

W
e are in my dining room, which I suppose I

can now officially call my conference room. My minuscule kitchen, because it has a phone, is the office. Such are our business quarters.

The girls were so excited I could hardly contain them. This may be our first case with some zip to it. The lady in black, who has introduced herself as Mrs. Angelina Siciliano from Plantation, also seemed about to burst a blood vessel.

Obviously whatever's been bothering her has been building up for quite a while. I sent the girls home to get out of their wet bathing suits. And I excused myself to put on dry clothes and left Mrs. Siciliano drinking chamomile tea. It would calm her down. I hoped.

The girls were back in a flash. I've never seen them change clothes so fast. Bella, always fastidious, is in one of her usual beige tailored pantsuits with tan sneakers. Evvie, always the optimist, wears a favorite pair of bright aqua capri pants with a matching Hawaiian-style shirt. Ida, she of the morose personality, wears a darkcolored plain sundress--always with sensible flat shoes. Sophie, ah Sophie, that queen of color coordination, is swathed totally in lavender. Lavender polyester slacks, lavender blouse, lavender sandals, and, the crowning touch (pun intended), a lavender ribbon in her hair.

I opted for comfortable and am wearing my usual light cotton pants, T-shirt, and white sneakers.

The girls swarm around Mrs. Siciliano, chattering in her ears.

I delegate. "Evvie, please take notes. Sophie, get the cups and plates. Ida, bring another chair to the table. Bella, stop hovering. Thanks."

We are all finally seated and sipping tea. I face our visitor and introduce the girls to her.

She looks puzzled. "You're all detectives?"

"Yes," the girls say in unison.

"They're my associates," I tell her.

"Just find out who my husband is humping!"

First, they are scandalized by Mrs. Siciliano's frankness, but they get over that fast. Then they all jump in.

Ida: "How do you know he's doing it?"

Sophie: "Do you have proof?"

Bella: "Did you catch him in the sack?"

Evvie to Bella (shocked): "Bella! Shame on you."

"How can I catch him? Look at me. In this

walker?" The woman glares indignantly at Bella. "If my five brothers were still alive, they'd find him with that
puttana
and string him up by the
coglioni!
"

Bella throws Evvie a dirty look. "And you think I talk dirty!"

Evvie says, "What's it mean?"

Bella shrugs. "Who knows, but it sounds terrible."

Mrs. Siciliano slaps her teacup down. Hard. "You want proof, I'll give you proof. My husband, Elio, he plays poker with the men from St. Anthony's Benevolent Society every night after dinner. Forty years he comes home when the clock strikes ten. Now, one night he's twenty minutes late. Then forty. Once, even an hour."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Sophie comments. "Maybe he has to clean up the cigarette butts or something."

"Sure. He always has an excuse. Dom's car broke down. He had to drive him. Dom is a mechanic. His car don't dare break down. Vinny had a headache. He had to drive him, too. Fifty years I know Vinny. He never had a headache in his life. Sal's aunt Costanza died. He was too broke up to drive. Sal
hated
his aunt Costanza. Now I question everything. Is he really playing bocce on Saturday? Is he really sitting home with the ball game on TV when I go to mass?"

I interject as delicately as I can, "Has your husband a habit of, well, seeing other women?"

Angelina smacks her old, black cracked leather

pocketbook hard on the table. "Never! He wouldn't dare!"

"Then why do you think he's doing it now?"

I hear the scrape of their chairs as the girls lean in closer, fascinated by this most unusual personality.

"I'll tell you why. Because every time he's late he comes home smelling from Johnson's talcum powder, that's how I know!"

Sophie scrunches up her forehead, which tells me she's puzzled. "Maybe he's diapering a baby somewhere?"

Angelina glares at her. "That's like perfume! A woman has her own smell. I use a little vanilla extract, myself. My cousin Josephine, before she got rich, she put a dab of virgin olive oil behind her ear. But this one!
She
uses talc! That's how I know!"

I pour her another cup of tea, but Angelina remains agitated. "If I only was seventy again, I'd go catch them myself."

I'm still trying to calm her. God forbid she has a stroke in my apartment. "A little history, please. How long have you and Mr. Siciliano been married?"

"Fifty years. We have six children," she adds proudly.

"How old is Mr. Siciliano?"

"Eighty-five."

Evvie is in awe. "And he still
shtups
?"

"Shtups
?" Angelina grimaces, confused.

"Yeah, like you said--humps," Sophie translates.

I ask one more question. "If we do find out that Mr. Siciliano is having an affair, what do you intend to do about it?"

The old woman raises herself up from her chair and hangs on to the table for support. "What do you think?!
Mia famiglia
is from Sicily. You heard of Sicily? When I catch that
bastardo,
he's
kaput!
"

Angelina sits down again and sips her tea, apparently feeling much better now that she got it all off her chest. "Now let's talk about a senior discount."

6

The Meeting Is Called

to Order

I
'm still not sure we should take this case," I say to the girls as they swarm about my kitchen. A few minutes ago, it was the office; now it's the cafeteria. They're busy organizing their contributions to a communal lunch.

We put Mrs. Siciliano in a taxi an hour ago and we're still debating as the five of us squeeze in and out of that tiny space preparing and carrying food.

Evvie's smart. She's staying out of the crush by standing in the hallway, looking in. "But she gave you her word that she won't knock him off."

Ida huffs as she walks past, carrying her casserole dish into the dining room. "And you believe her? She may be eighty-two, but I wouldn't like to meet her in a dark alley. She scares the hell out of me. And that black outfit! She dresses like he's dead already."

"Oy,"
cries Bella as if she is in agony.

"What now? What's taking you so long?" demands Sophie impatiently. Bella has been in and out of the kitchen a dozen times, and still no food.

She stands in front of the stove pathetically looking at the boiling water. "You wanna know how often I eat hard-boiled eggs?" she asks poignantly. "Every time I make soft-boiled."

From the hallway Evvie shakes her head. "I told you a million times. You can't leave a stove when you're old."

"Get out of my way," Ida snaps, pushing past Evvie on her way back into the kitchen for another plate.

"Let's eat," says Sophie, now placing napkins on the table, adding her two cents. "I'm starving!"

"All right already," I say. "Grab your food, and everybody out of the kitchen." I shake my head at the disaster they've left me. The counter is littered with paper bags, plastic wrap, and odd remnants of food; the sink is a mess from all the chopping and slicing and peeling.

We're going to have to get a real office soon, or I'll go wacko.

Finally all the lunch contributions are on the dining room table. Since everyone brought over what they had left in their refrigerators, we are having smorgasbord.

Evvie passes me her chopped liver. "I say take the case. It was an empty threat."

Sophie serves her cottage cheese and vegetable salad. "I say it was a full threat. We catch him doing it, he's a yunich."

Evvie corrects her. "That's eunuch."

Sophie makes a downward-slashing gesture. "Yeah. Bye-bye, balls."

Bella serves her now hard-boiled eggs. "She looks like she goes to church a lot, so she has to forgive him."

Ida sneers into her strawberry Jell-O mold. "Yeah, sure, first she'll do a couple of Hail Marys, following which she'll put a knife in his heart. Then she'll cut off his
schmuck.
"

"Right," Bella chimes in. "And then Jesus will forgive her for icing him."

I must pause to mention that ever since we started the business, the only things the girls read or watch on TV are mysteries, so they've picked up a lot of jargon.

I contribute my onion bagels and cream cheese. "I think we owe it to the husband to confront him if we catch him in the act. It might save his life."

Bella giggles. "Or at least his
coglioni.
"

I suggest we get down to our business meeting. Sophie immediately waves her hand wildly in the air. "I thought of a name for us."

Ida moans. "We already agreed on a name. And not one word about T-shirts."

Sophie ignores her. "What about 'Glad's Girls'?"

"Forget it," says Evvie.

Ida moans. "Why does she always have to name everything?"

Sophie folds her arms across her chest. " 'Cause I always named things ever since I was a little girl. I named all my dollies and my turtles and my toys and my socks and my sneakers. . . . There was Susie and Selma and Shirley and Sidonia, my dollies. And Tony and Tootsie, my turtles, and--"

Ida presses her hand across Sophie's mouth. "Stop already."

Sophie defiantly burbles through Ida's hand. "And goo-goo . . ."

"Enough!" I say. Sometimes I feel like a traffic cop. Or a kindergarten teacher.

Bella raises her hand. "Since I'm on the advertising committee, I wish to make a suggestion. We put Gladdy's picture on bus stop benches. She's prettier than those ugly old bail bondsmen."

"But with what name?" Sophie insists. "I don't like the one we have."

"What's wrong with 'Gladdy Gold and Associates Detective Agency'?" I say, peeved.

Sophie yawns melodramatically. "Borrring . . ."

Evvie, secretary and treasurer, pipes up. "And where are we supposed to get that kind of money for billboards?"

"Also," says Bella, reading from her notes--she has obviously come prepared for this meeting--"I think we need to be armed and dangerous. We need a salt shaker and a jerk."

We look at her, dumbfounded.

Ida glares icily at her. "Don't you mean pepper spray?"

"Didn't I say that? I thought I said that. I know I said that."

"And what the heck is a jerk?" Evvie asks.

"You know," Bella says, gesturing, "that funnylooking thing that looks like a rock in a black sock. Cops hit guys with 'em all the time. In the movies . . ." she finishes lamely.

Evvie says with disgust, "I think she means a sap."

"Knock, knock," a male voice calls from the screen door.

Bella rushes across the room to unlatch it. "Come on in, Jack, and join the festivities."

Jack Langford enters. My heart goes flippityflop at the sight of him; I can't help it. Who says men in their seventies can't look sexy? He looks delicious to me. The girls, on the other hand, do not melt under his charm. They stiffen and you can feel the icicles forming.

He is holding a cardboard box and five small bunches of posies. He winks at me as he puts the box down on the table and starts handing the flowers out to the girls.

"Bribery will get you nowhere," Ida mutters under her breath. Jack, of course, hears her and smiles.

Fasten your seat belts. Here we go.

7

The Fly in the Ointment

B
ella is all aflutter when Jack comes around.

She's the only one of the girls happy to have a man on the premises again. For years she was friends with his lovely wife, Faye, and always saw Jack as a decent husband. She quickly clears a space for him at the table and brings in another place setting. "Sit, Jack. Have a bite," she offers.

Watch the body language. Ida, our resident man-hater, backs out of the dining area and as far into the living room as she can without actually falling out the window. A bitter marriage long ago supposedly made her this sour, but I have a feeling there's more to it than that.