More Stories from the Twilight Zone (26 page)

“Wow, a hundred thousand words.”

“That's why it's taken so long. That and the arthritis in my fingers slowing me down some. Thought I was done writing, I say, retired so to speak. But I'd gotten the bug again, damn the arthritis. See the knobs? It's rheumatoid—RA. Have some more tea. It's Earl Grey, imported.”

“How many words do you write a day?”

Stanley shrugged, the gesture setting a wrinkle in his sweater. “Don't track it that way. Been writing on one of those newfangled laptops because my editor said he wouldn't deal with typewritten manuscripts anymore.”

“Your fans will snap this new book up, I'm sure,” the reporter gushed as she noisily sipped from the cup. “There hasn't been a new Stanley Rossini in a bookstore in . . . what . . .”

“Nine years,” he finished. “Like I said, I'd thought I was done writing.”

“And the name of this new book?”

“
Statistics,
” he answered. “Comes out in hardcover next May. Hope I live long enough to see it.”

That would be eight months away, and Josh felt certain Stanley would more than make it—if nothing untoward happened to him. Though Stanley had to be eighty-five if he was a day, he was in great shape. Stanley didn't need Meals on Wheels. He didn't need a housekeeper. He was spry and could well take care of himself; in fact, he drove himself to doctor appointments and town meetings in his old BMW. Josh suspected Stanley ordered the Meals on Wheels—and had to pay full price since he wasn't financially limited—because he was lonely and liked the contact with the delivery man. All of the geezers Josh delivered to were lonely. And none of them, Stanley included, seemed to miss the figurines Josh helped himself to.

Geezers had so many dust-catchers sitting around anyway that they probably couldn't remember precisely what they had. Bits of jewelry, Meerschaum pipes, ivory letter openers, 14K thimbles, and all manner of things strewn here and there that the geezers probably didn't know were valuable. Josh was careful never to take too many pieces from any one place . . . unless a geezer was sick and on his or her way out. Then Josh got a little greedier. Only on a few occasions had Josh helped a geezer to the hereafter so he could take some bigger pieces.

Well, a few more than a few occasions.

But he'd never been caught.

Never would, he figured.

Working for Meals on Wheels paid very well.

“
Statistics
?” the reporter pressed. “Did I get that right? The name of your book is
Statistics
?”

“I always favored one-word titles. Lets them set the print on the cover bigger.”

“And it's about—”

“—a number cruncher in the police department who finds trends in crime statistics and uses them to break a burglary ring and later track a serial killer.”

Josh poked his head out farther and watched the woman scribble furiously in her notebook.

“So, Mr. Rossini—”

“Stanley. I like to be called Stanley.”

“So, Stanley, I heard this book doesn't feature your usual hero, Sergeant Alfonso . . .”

“Detective,” he corrected. “Alfonso got a promotion and his gold shield in the seventeenth book. No,
Statistics
is not about Detective Alfonso, but he puts in a cameo just for old-time's sake. The number cruncher is a new character—based him on my father, actually.”

“Interesting,” she said.

“My father used to work for the FBI's UCR division—helped form it, in fact. And I got a lot of the statistics I use in my book from the UCR—well, double-checked them, actually. There's magic in statistics, but only a few people know that. The numbers have a life of their own, you see. Statistics have been following me my whole life, just like they followed my father—and eventually got him the day after his sixtieth birthday, hit-and-run in downtown Manhattan. Every nine days someone in
New York City is killed by a hit-and-run driver. And of those drivers, twenty percent leave the scene. I know statistics, I know that this is a cruel world, and I protect myself as much as I can. That's why I have so many locks on my doors and the most expensive security system I could buy—keeps me from being one of the statistics. I drive an older car, dark blue, statistically safer on the road. I have to be so very careful. The statistics want me badly.”

The woman politely bobbed her head, but stopped writing. Josh could tell that she'd figured Stanley had ventured into that twilight zone of addle-brained geezerhood. Alzheimer City.

“The statistics can be quite malicious, you know,” he continued. “So I decided to finally, after all these years, write a book about them. Should have done it earlier, just didn't occur to me. My editor thinks it's going to be a sure-fire best-seller and will open on the
New York Times
list in the top ten.”

“Uhm . . . UCR.” She bobbed her head quicker. She had a long neck and a long nose, and so the gesture reminded Josh of a pigeon. When Stanley didn't get back on track, she tapped her pen on the notebook. “What's the UCR?” Even her voice sounded all twittery and birdlike.

“The Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Like I said, my father helped establish it back in . . . oh, 1929 I think it was. I was just a little tyke. By the way, Stanley was the forty-third most popular baby boy name in 1925, the year that I was born. A pretty harmless statistic, that one.”

“UCR . . .” she pressed.

“Right. There was this organization called the IACP—the International Association of Chiefs of Police. My father was heavily involved in it for years before joining the FBI, and the Association had pushed for an archive of crime statistics. The FBI . . .” He paused, probably waiting for her to ask what those initials stood
for, Josh guessed. “The FBI collected all the statistics from police and sheriff departments across the country, gathered them all into the Uniform Crime Reporting Program, the UCR. Back then it was all on paper. Now it's computerized.”

“Statistics,” she stated.

“They have lots and lots of statistics, the UCR.” Stanley puffed out his chest, the first time Josh had seen him do that. “I usually can rattle off statistics for this and that without much thought . . . the statistics follow me around, you know, whittle their way into my brain and beg me to become one of them . . . one more statistic. But I called the UCR before I started my novel just to verify everything, all the statistics I wrote about and had my number-cruncher character analyze. I hadn't needed to bother though, as I instinctively had all of them correct.”

“The statistics?”

“Yes. The UCR's statistics—and the statistics that pop into my head—come from almost seventeen thousand police agencies, and they're bundled under all sorts of categories—general crime, hate crimes, law officers killed and assaulted, thefts, drunken driving, what-have-you. More tea?”

Josh bit his lip when the reporter reached for the teacup and nearly knocked it over. The tea service, he'd researched after yesterday's delivery, was circa 1890, and all totaled had eighteen pieces, each stamped on the bottom and signed with Japanese letters. The pot had a blue picture painted on it of a delicate-looking house that was perched over a stream and wooden bridge. When Josh stared at it, he imagined he was in Japan. The cups displayed a thick gold border lining, which given the immaculate condition of everything put it easily at $5,000. If the reporter broke the cup, the value of the set likely would be halved.

Stanley would have to die soon, Josh realized in that moment. Very soon. There were too many large pieces in this house that had to be filched and sold before anything happened to them.
The set of “good” dishes, for example. Josh tiptoed back to the kitchen table and touched the edge of the plate he'd put out.

Stanley had said his wife received the set from a relative during their twenty-fifth anniversary party. Stanley had no clue what they were worth—at least $87,000 according to a collector Josh had contacted. The china set was exceedingly rare, Flora Danica in near-perfect condition. The plates had hand-painted flowers and bore maker's marks on the undersides.

Yes, Stanley would have to be helped to the hereafter very soon, before a single piece of Royal Copenhagen got a chip in it. Before the Japanese tea set was ruined.

Josh had only been in three rooms . . . he tried to imagine the valuables on display in the rest of the house. He would have to bring several duffel bags on the day that Stanley would die. A couple of cardboard boxes. Maybe borrow a friend's van so he could also make off with the early French Art Deco Macassar chair that sat in the entry. Josh put it circa 1915, faux ivory border, caned seat, veneer only slightly weathered and easily worth more than a grand. The signed Norman Rockwell print that hung above it was probably worth something, too.

He returned to the cupboard and took down a pitcher, filled it with water and ice, and set it on the table. It was an Anthony Shaw Burslem Peruvian horse hunt pattern, hard to find in this condition and color—lavender, made in 1850, Josh had learned, likely something else Stanley's wife had inherited. Josh had stolen and sold a few other Shaw pieces through the years and was familiar with the artisan, who was born in Cheddleton, Staffordshire, in 1827, married in 1833, and established himself as a potter in 1851.

Josh couldn't help but smile. Stanley thought he knew all about statistics. Josh knew about statistics, too. He knew that the top-selling antiques on the Internet this week were an American cherry secretary desk that went for $16,000, an Armenian Kazak
rug from the nineteenth century that went for $11,000, an art nouveau inlaid dining set that sold for $8,600—that one had been his, stashed for two years so it wouldn't be traced back by nosy relatives of a geezer who died after lunch—and a bronze Putti clock garniture from the early 1800s that went for a whopping $11,000.

Stanley made a harrumphing sound and Josh returned his attention to the conversation in the other room. “No one knows more about statistics than me. For example, your little daily dates back to 1886 and currently has a subscription base of forty-six thousand, down twelve percent in the past eighteen months, a little greater than the national trend given this current sad economy. But I don't need to tell you about your own statistics. You want to know about my book.”

“That would be nice,” the reporter said. “Can you give me an example of some of the statistics in your book?”

“My fictional city is New York City in disguise,” he admitted. “But most of my readers know that. So I used crime statistics from New York for an authentic feel. Last year there were eight hundred and thirty-six murders, two thousand eight hundred and one rapes, sixty-five thousand home and apartment burglaries, and—”

“—and your number cruncher finds patterns.”

“Oh, yes. There are even patterns to the crime statistics in this small town . . . though thankfully there's not as much violence as in the cities. Statistics say it's safer to live in smaller places, like this. Using double-locks and a security system helps, too.”

“And driving older model cars,” she added a little sarcastically.

Stanley seemed not to notice her tone. “Yes, it's important to protect yourself from the statistics. For example, women in your age range—”

“Your lunch is getting cold, Stanley,” Josh called from the
kitchen. “And I have to get going over to George Brenner's. He'll be hungry.” Josh felt only mildly bad that he'd tarried here so long. The rest of the meals in his car—despite their thermal wrapping—would be delivered lukewarm at best. “I need to be on my way.”

Stanley made a tsk-tsking sound. “Can you heat it up in the microwave?”

“Sure.”

“Are we done?” Stanley asked the reporter as he stood.

“I have enough material,” she answered politely. “Thank you for taking the time, Mr. Rossini—”

“Stanley. I like to be called Stanley.”

“Thank you, Stanley. I look forward to reading your book.”

“Statistics.”

Josh waited a while longer, so Stanley could finish the broccoli fettuccini. He carefully washed the Royal Copenhagen plate and put it back in the cabinet, wanting to make sure that it would still be intact when he came tomorrow to retrieve it.

Yes, Stanley would die tomorrow, Josh pronounced. He'd poison the Meals on Wheels, with something from his basement chemical box that would be fast-acting and practically nondetectable. At eighty-five, there wouldn't be an autopsy on Stanley . . . there hadn't been on any of Josh's other deceased clients. Natural causes, the coroner always ruled. Geezers.

Josh felt sad, in a way, because all he would have left would be clients that smelled of cheap cigars and bargain-brand colognes, who wore old clothes slick-shiny-thin at the knees and elbows and a bit too baggy—shirts and pants that had an assortment of stinks and stains.

“See you tomorrow, Stanley,” Josh said, heading to the front door. While he waited patiently for the geezer to undo the chain and the double-locks, Josh glanced at the French Art Deco
Macassar chair and the Norman Rockwell print. “See you tomorrow.”

 

As usual, Josh rang the bell and waited ten toe-taps. This time Stanley didn't open the door. Josh rang the bell again and again, and considered going around back to see if maybe Stanley was in another room and making some noise so he couldn't hear the doorbell. But Josh worried that he might trip some security alarm, and so he tried the bell one more time, and then he cautiously tried the door . . . it wasn't locked.

Josh tentatively pushed it open and edged into the living room, half expecting to see Stanley flick his age-spotted hand to gesture toward the kitchen and to say, “Just set my lunch up on the table, Joshua, if you don't mind.”

Josh had the tainted Meals on Wheels package in hand. He'd left the duffel bags and packing material in the van he'd parked out front; he intended to retrieve them after Stanley was dead.