1 Breakfast at Madeline's (2 page)

I turned my key over: "2074." I was in luck. With a number so close to The Penn's, my safety-deposit box was probably located right near his—which fit my plan perfectly.

"Baby, this is a hot project," Andrew wheedled. "I'm talking burning.
Sherry Kaplan
is producing."

"Great. Sherry Kaplan is the only Jew in Hollywood who supported Bob Dole."

"Jacob—"

"Look, I'm sorry, Andrew, I'm taking a vacation—"

"Well, isn't that jus
t peachy," Andrew said sarcasti
cally. "Tell me, you
bozo
, how long do you think these offers are gonna last? I hate to inform you, but you're not the world's most
brilliant screenwriter." The ma
nipulative creep was on a roll. "You got lucky with that one movie, you better milk it for all it's worth. Don't be a jerk!"

Screw you, pal.
"Actually, Andrew, I'm in the middle of a very important project."

"Oh yeah, like
what—memorizing the sports sec
tion?"

"No. Like robbing a bank." I hung up the phone, turned off the ringer, and went back into the kitchen, where I poured myself a cup of coffee.

Then I sat down and began making my plans.

3

Even if I got caught breaking into The
Penn’s
box, I told myself, they wouldn't really
do
anything to me. Maybe yell a little. I mean, I was pretty much the de facto executor of his estate, so what was the big deal if I cut a few corners?

Besides, I had an airtight plan. Saratoga Springs, being basically a one-horse town, still had banks that used a one-key safety-deposit box system. Clearly they didn't expect devious folks like me to try breaking and entering.

So here's what I'd do: simply give Thin Lips the key to my own box. Then she'd open it, and I'd tell her I didn't need the private room. She'd turn her back, just like always. Except this time
...
this time,
while her back was turned, I'd quickly open The
Penn’s
box, grab his stuff, close it again real fast, boom boom, and she'd never know.

Piece of cake.

Only one problem: After yesterday, Thin Lips would be suspicious. So I'd wait until she was on break, then hustle somebody else.

I was so revved
up about tomorrow's grand adven
ture I couldn't sleep that night. I decided not
to tell An
drea my plan because I knew that, practical person that she is, she'd try to talk me out of it. And I knew I'd never let her. After six months of sudden wealth that
had left me shell-shocked, reading endless newspapers in lonely coffee shops, I suddenly felt awake and alive again.

So bright and early the next morning, I put on my dark sunglasses, pulled my Adirondack Lumberjacks cap down low over
my eyes, and established my tem
porary reconnaissance headquarters next to some shrubbery on the post office steps. It was the ideal spot. I could peek around the bushes, across the street, and through a window straight into the Saratoga Trust Bank—in fact, straight into the office of the enemy, Ms. Thin Lips.

So I watched and I waited. And waited some more. Thin Lips turned out
to be an extremely dedicated em
ployee—so dedicated, in fact, that for the entire morn
ing she didn't take a single coffee break or go to the bathroom once. Maybe bank employees didn't make peepee.

Meanwhile it seemed like everyone I knew in Saratoga Springs was mailing a letter that morning, and they all felt compelled to come over and chat. I began to feel abou
t as inconspicuous as O.J. Simp
son—not a great feeling when you're plotting grand larceny.

I had hardly begun my top-secret spy operation when I was approac
hed by Bonnie Engels, local the
ater impresario/direc
tor/teacher extraordinaire. Bon
nie ran the Shoeshine and a Smile Theater School, where she produced an astonishingly large-scale
Christmas Carol
every winter, with a cast that included practically every child in Saratoga County. During the rest of the year she o
rganized a wide array of perfor
mances, workshops, and classes, managing by sheer force of personality to e
ke out a decent living from the
ater.

Bonnie was also the town's resident woman boxer.
Ever since I hit the H
ollywood jackpot, she began hus
tling me to invest in a boxing video starring herself. She wanted to become the Jane Fonda of women's boxing. Or maybe I should say the Deepak Chopra of women's boxing, since she was always babbling about how boxing is a spiritual experience.

Right now Bonnie came up and hugged me so tight that if this were a boxing match, the referee would have blown his (or
her) whistle. The woman had al
ways been a serious hugger, but after taking up her new sport she'd become downright dangerous. Her forearms seemed to have grown three inches thicker since I saw her last, and she almost broke my back. Then she started crying. "Oh God, Jacob, I'm so sorry. I am so sorry!"

"About what?" I asked, genuinely befuddled. I didn't yet realize that the
Daily Saratogian
article would give everyone the mistaken impression that The Penn and I were bosom buddies.

Bonnie gave me a piercing look, then softened. "I mean about Donald. What an amazing
spiritual person
. Such
beautiful positive energy
. I didn't know you knew him so well."

"Actually, I didn't.
”

She didn't seem to hear me. "I always thought he was an
incredible
writer. So much
passion
. Did he tell you yesterday what he was working on?"

"No, he was too busy dying."

I got another piercing look. Then Bonnie wrapped her arms around me again, refusing to let go until I promised to call her any time
—"any time, day or night"
—if I needed "a friend to talk to, a shoulder to cry on,
whatever."

That
"whatever"
made me wonder. Did Bonnie have some kind of special late-night boxing match in mind for me? She was actually a pretty attractive woman,
even if she was looking more and more like Popeye with every passing day.

I shook off that thought and tried to hide behind a newspaper so I could do my spying properly. But I must not have held the paper high enough, because I was quickly spotted by Henry Kane, the mayor of Saratoga Springs. Also owner of Kane Construction Company. And owner or part-owner of several other lucrative capitalist enterprises—including the very bank I was keeping within my criminal sight.

Kane did all of the do-gooder things you expect from small-town bus
inessmen/politicians, like serv
ing on the board of the Saratoga Coalition Against Child Abuse, the Literacy Volunteers of Saratoga, and other local charities. My wife, a board member of the Literacy Volunteers, said he donated generously, and I guess I shouldn't ha
ve disliked him as much as I in
stinctively did. He was fifty years old wi
th distin
guished silver hair but a youthful face, no doubt helped by the fact he'd never had a day's worth of worry in his life. He came from money, of course, and wore a perfect power tie, perfect capped teeth, and perfect black ribbed socks. Probably saw a barber each week to get his nostril hairs clipped.

Kane shook my hand warmly. "Jacob, I don't know what to say," he intoned.

"Neither do I," I answered truthfully.

"As President of the Saratoga Arts Council, I hate to see one of our most intriguing artists cut down in his prime. My deepest sympathies."

I thought about explaining to the mayor that The Penn and I weren't really close. But the words died on my lips, because it suddenly struck me—maybe I was The Penn's best friend.

Kane cleared his throat. "I hear Donny was making
a"—he paused meaningfully—"a significant writing breakthrough toward the end of his life."

He looked to me for confirmation. I was strangely embarrassed that I, The
Penn’s
best friend, hadn't even known what he was writing. Not wanting to admit my ignorance, I nodded wisely. "Such a terrible thing," I agreed with a sigh. "Who knows what might have happened if he'd lived?"

The mayor gave me a piercing look. Must be my morning for piercing looks. Something passed through his normally complacent face—confusion? Fear?

Then his expression turned bland again. Patting me on the back and mu
rmuring a few more words of com
fort, he eased off down the steps.

All morning long, the procession of well-wishers on the post office steps continued unabated. For someone who'd been so obscure his whole life, Penn was sure attracting a lot of attention now.

A little after 12:30, Rob Bassin walked up. He was one of the guys working the counter at Madeline's when Penn died. A twenty-eight-year-old Skidmore film grad with a g
oatee, Rob bounced around Holly
wood for five years after college, then gave up on that dream and came back to Saratoga, where he got a minimum-wage job at Madeline's. But then his luck improved. He got engaged to Madeline herself.

Now that he was happily ensconced in Saratoga, he'd become more san
guine about his California expe
rience. I enjoyed talking movies with him, because whenever he liked a movie, I hated it. We had our own Siskel and Ebert routine going.

Right now I could tell from Rob's sad cocker spaniel face that he was about
to offer me his heartfelt condo
lences. I was getting sick of this preposterous business already, so I tried to distract him by asking how his fire sale was going—engagement sale, actually. Since he
was about to move in with Madeline, he was selling his sofa, bed, computer, "and other household items," as his classified ad in the
Daily Saratogian
read.

But Rob didn't let himself get distracted. He put his hand on my arm and g
ave it a squeeze. "How you feel
ing, man?"

"Fine," I said irritably.

But then, out of nowhere, a wave of terrible sadness flowed through me. So many people were treating me like I was deeply bereaved, I was starting to actually feel that way.

Or maybe what I really felt was some kind of deep subterranean psych
ic bond between me and Penn. Be
tween my shell shock and his insanity.

I turned away
from Rob, embarrassed by my emo
tions, as he said, "Madeline's feels so empty without him. I'm thinking w
e should hold some kind of memo
rial service—"

But then I stopped l
istening. I'd just noticed some
thing
moving
out of the corner of my eye. Could it be?

Yes, it was! Thin Lips was actually standing up. And actually walking away from her desk, opening the door—

I jumped up. "Rob, I gotta run."

"Listen, Jacob—"

"Later!" Ignoring a
don't walk
sign and a large fast-
moving Bruegger's truck, I dashed across the street and through the bank's back door. No time to lose. Thin Lips was undoub
tedly the kind of obsessive cor
porate lackey who would gobble down a ten-minute lunch and then rac
e back to work. Stuffing my Lum
berjacks cap in my d
ay pack so I'd look more re
spectable, I hustled past the ATM machines to the main lobby.

I strode up to Thin Lips's office and acted dismayed
to see her empty chair. "She's not here?" I said aloud. "Oh, boy!"

When you're in a bank—a small-town bank, at least—a loud "Oh, b
oy!" qualifies as a major cuss-
word. Banks have zero tolerance for strong emotion; I guess when you've got that much cash money lying around, you try to keep things as calm as possible. So my "Oh, boy!" got immediate results, in the form of a short, pudgy young woman hurrying toward me with a nervous smile plastered to her face, asking, "May I help you, sir?"

"Absolutely. I
need something from my safety-
deposit box, and Ms. Thin L—I mean, Ms. Reingold— isn't here."

"Don't worry, sir, I'm sure she'll be back soon. She never takes long lunches."

"But I'm late for my plane and I need it
immediately
. It's absolutely
essential
."

"I'm sorry, sir, but Ms. Reingold is the only one who's authorized—"

"Oh no, this is terrible!" I raised my voice so th
e cus
tomers in the lobby could hear me. "I'm on my way to Hollywood to meet
with Steven Spielberg and I des
perately
need
my comput
er disk, but it's in my safety-
deposit box. You've probably heard of me. I'm Jacob Burns, I wrote
The Gas that Ate San Francisco
, which is about to become a major motion picture—"

"Mr. Burns, I'm sure it won't be long—"

"One o'clock in the freaking afternoon, and I can't even get into my own safety-deposit box?!" I yelled.
"What the hell kind of bank is this?!"

The poor young woman stood there openmouthed. The entire bank was watching us now.

A skinny, frightened guy wearing a gray suit, even younger than the y
oung woman but evidently her su
perior, rushed toward us. "Maybe I can help you, Mr. Burns."

"I certainly hope so," I growled, brusquely handing him my safety-deposit key.

Young Gray Suit started to say something, but instead just nodded. The paperwork went down smoothly, and in les
s then three minutes we were in
side the vault.

He unlocked my safety-deposit box and handed it over. He offered me the private room, and I turned it down. So far, so good.

But then, to my dismay, he watched me as I put my box on a metal shelf and pretended to look inside it for my computer disk.
Com
e on, birdbrain, turn around al
ready,
I implored silently. But he stayed put.