Free Getting Away With Murder by Howard Engel Page A

to make the attempt, that’s all. The price of a little peace of mind was cheap. It only took the effort. Half an hour later, when my father came in and draped his coat on another of the dining-room chairs, I put the idea of a southern holiday to him. He cocked his head as though I was going insane before his very eyes and said that he would think it over.
    “What’s to think over, Manny? Money doesn’t grow on trees in Ontario.”
    “I wouldn’t mind Palm Beach,” Pa said.
    “You can’t get another day’s wear out of that white suit, Manny. Forget it. Besides, it’ll be spring in no time. I love a Canadian spring. It’s over so fast. You blink and it’s gone.”
    “Why don’t you fly down to Arizona? They do a great spring in Arizona,” I said, selling the idea with as much conviction as I could muster.
    “Paul Weinberg found a scorpion in his garage in Arizona. Are you trying to send us to our deaths?” The conversation drifted from the Arizona murder plot to other things.
    “Boy, did I get a shock at the club this afternoon,” Pa said. It was his way of announcing the death of one of their contemporaries.
    “Manny, I don’t want to hear about it!” Ma always tried to postpone the news. Maybe she thought she could breathe a moment of life into the dear departed by keeping at bay the specifics of who exactly had died.
    “And he was only retired a few years.”
    “I don’t want to know!”
    “A better hand at poker you couldn’t wish for.”
    “Are you talking about Dave Kaplanski?”
    “I thought you didn’t want to know.”
    “I don’t want to know if you’ll shut up about it. If you won’t shut up, then I’ve got a right to guess. Is it Louie Stein? He played poker. And I think he just came back from Florida. I thought that such a tan was criminal. Now he’s dead. That’s the way the world goes.”
    “Sophie, what are you talking about? Lou Stein’s face told you every card in his hand. A poker player? Lou Stein couldn’t understand Snakes and Ladders! I’m talking about the old deputy police chief, Ed Neustadt, not Lou Stein. Lou’s been in his grave for six—seven months already.”
    And so it went. I tried my best to save their lives in Palm Beach or Flagstaff, but to no avail. I looked at my watch, kissed them both and left them to their steaks. I was beginning to feel hungry, so I pointed the Olds in the direction of home.

EIGHT
    “Benny! Which way did you go?” I was sitting in my apartment at the all-purpose table with Anna Abraham staring across at me. With the certain knowledge that Phil, the hood, or one of his pals was keeping at least half an eye on my windows, I was not brilliant company.
    “Huh?”
    “I couldn’t have said it better myself. Benny, what’s the matter with you tonight? You sulked through dinner and haven’t been listening for at least the last twenty minutes. Are you telling me that you could do with less of my company? I can take a kick in the pants as well as the next girl.”
    “I’m sorry, Anna. I know I’m being lousy company.”
    “An understatement if I ever heard one!”
    “I said I was sorry.” I stared at the wine stain on the tablecloth. I’d poured salt over it to prevent it becoming permanent, but I wasn’t sure it wasn’t just an old wives’ tale. The wreckage of two approaches to eating grilled salmon lay before us: Anna’s tidy clean plate; my chopped-up remains, partly hidden under the mashed potatoes.
    Anna had come early, letting herself in with her own key, and had a good dinner on the stove when I returned from playing travel agent at my parents’. I was delighted to see her, of course, but I knew that I had put her in danger by just knowing her. I wanted to tell her, but I was afraid of the consequences. I was sure that she would stick by me. In fact, her loyalty was the problem. The last thing in the world I needed at the moment was damn-thetorpedoes loyalty. What I needed was everyday indifference, the sort