The Balloon Man (8 page)

“Seems to be. I'd better go back down and see if there's any sign of that fool driver. How about you calling the police?”

Sarah wasn't falling for any of that he-man stuff. “How about you sitting right here on the steps and resting your leg? You
said the car had gone.”

“Okay, if you say so.” Max was quite willing to bask in wifely concern. With all of them running around checking doors and
windows, a would-be intruder would have been spotted immediately. “You might bring me one of the portable phones.”

In addition to the official instruments in the office there were telephones, corded and cordless, all over the house. Max
ran up ferocious bills keeping in touch with his personal secret service connections at strategic points at home and abroad.
Sarah opted for a cordless one, those being of
the sort that the neighbors could tap into should they desire to do so, as they frequently did. It was neighborly gestures
like this that kept the Bittersohns' popularity rating high. They seldom had time for socializing, so the least they could
do, Sarah argued, was stay in touch via this modern version of the old party line. She carried the phone out onto the step,
pushed the 911 button, passed the handset over to Max, and asked him to give Sergeant Jofferty her regards.

Max knew everybody on the local police force. He was a third-generation immigrant from Saugus, and everybody knew his brother-in-law,
Ira, the only honest garage owner in the area, and his uncle Jake, one of the few honest lawyers in the area. Max had a more
intimate acquaintance with the local constabulary as a result of his involvement in several local crimes, most of them involving
Sarah. She and Sergeant Jofferty had formed the foundation of a warm friendship on that fateful day when her elderly first
husband and his autocratic mother had hurtled over a cliff into the sea in their 1920 Milburn Electric.

Jofferty sent his regards to Sarah, and then listened in only mild surprise as Max told him what had happened. He'd got used
to peculiar goings-on at the Kelling place.

“Smoke bomb? You mean one of those things we used to set off on Halloween?”

Max admitted he'd set them off, too, and explained the difference between those examples of boyish joie de vivre and the industrial-size
variety that had been used. He could
give no accurate information as to how long a smoke bomb took to disperse and was not inclined to acquire such data the hard
way, but he didn't think it would take very long unless the wind backed around and blew the cloud inshore again, which it
probably wouldn't. In fact, it was dispersing rapidly. However, he advised Jofferty to take it easy when he approached the
Kelling place, since there had already been one accident, though it obviously hadn't been serious.

What with one thing and another, Sarah was kept on the doorstep longer than she'd expected to be. A mitigating circumstance
was that Max was holding her within easy kissing range while getting on with his telephoned report. The circumstances proved
to be so distracting that they were still sitting there when the police car drove up and Jofferty got out.

“All clear now,” he reported unnecessarily, since they could see for themselves that the worst was over. “You folks okay?”

“Yes, except for Max's leg,” Sarah said. “Let me have a look, darling.”

“What happened to ft?”

“I fell over Davy's alligator,” Max said. Knowing Sarah would do it herself if he didn't, he rolled up his pant leg. Sarah
let out a cry of distress.

“Darling, that's a terrible bruise. You couldn't have done it tripping over Davy's toy.”

“It's a long story,” Max said. “Why don't you come in and have a cup of coffee, Jofferty?”

“Thanks, but my wife's decided I'm drinking too much coffee and I've got to cut down. The heck of it is, she's right.”

“Tea, then, or milk or mead, or anything that suits your fancy. This may take a while. By the way, was there any sign of that
idiot who crashed his car?”

“Nope. To tell you the truth, Max, I didn't bother making out a report on that. The car couldn't have been damaged much or
the guy wouldn't have been able to drive it, and nobody else was involved.”

The steps were getting cold. Sarah was about to suggest they go indoors before Max got a chill in his fractures when she saw
a truck approaching. “Finally, there are the tent people. They said they'd be right over.”

“Maybe they were held up by the smoke bomb,” Max said.

Jofferty looked out across the lawn toward the sprawl of crumpled fabric. “How come they didn't pack the tent up yesterday?
When my niece got married the caterers were in such a hurry to finish up they practically grabbed plates and glasses out of
people's hands. My sister-in-law had a fit about it.”

“They would have done it yesterday if the balloon hadn't landed on the tent,” Sarah explained.

“Balloon? Gosh, Mrs. Bittersohn, you people sure lead confusing lives.”

“This is going to take even longer than I thought,” Max said. “Mind if we get the tent business over and done with
first, Jofferty? I'm getting a little confused myself. You've got the check, haven't you, Sarah?”

“Yes, dear. I'll go and get it while you find out how good you are at terrorizing tent makers.”

Accompanied by Jofferty, Max started off across the lawn toward the tent makers' truck. It was a sorry-looking affair, rusty
around the fenders and sagging around the edges. One of the back tires was almost bald. The man in charge, or so Max supposed
him to be, came to meet them. Like the others, he was wearing a pair of grubby white coveralls with yellow trim. The words
“Omar Inc.” had been applied, also in yellow, across the chest.

“Sorry, Mr. Kelling,” he began.

“Bittersohn,” Max said.

“Oh? Sorry again, Mr. Bittersohn. We would of been here before this, but I'm short-handed, one of my guys walked out on me
yesterday, and then we ran into this weird black cloud, if you can believe it—”

“I believe it.”

“—and José and Willoughby were late anyhow, they don't own cars, and the bus they usually take was full up and wouldn't stop,
and the next one—”

“That's all right,” Max said loudly. “So long as you're here. How long will this take?”

He shouldn't have asked. The foreman was an embittered man, with a lot on his mind. His explanation ended in a tirade. “How
do they expect me to get good people when they pay peanuts and only hire part-time? Look at that
bunch of bumbling jackasses. Half of 'em are senile and the other half are illegal. I swear, I don't know what the world is
coming to. The time is out of joint.”

“Oh, cursed spite,” Max agreed politely. Maybe it did take a steely-eyed Kelling to get this bunch moving. What was taking
Sarah so long? He decided it would be unmanly to wait for his wife to do the job for him. Squaring his shoulders, he suggested
that the bunch of bumbling jackasses might get on better with some expert leadership and led the way toward the heap of fabric.
The men weren't even bumbling. They stood in a huddle, muttering among themselves.

“Well, get on with it,” the foreman said irritably. “What are you standing there for?”

“Uh—we don't know what to do with it, Mr. Mortlake.”

The speaker, a gaunt, grizzled man of advanced years, gestured toward the nearest fold of fabric.

“Don't know what to do with it? Damn it, Willoughby, I spent a good ten minutes yesterday showing you how to roll up a tent.”

“Yessir. It ain't the tent, Mr. Mortlake. It's the body. We don't know what to do with it. You never told us what we was supposed
to do with bodies.”

Sarah could have sworn she'd put the check in her purse. It wasn't there. She went through the drawers of the dresser and
nightstand, her search considerably hindered by Davy,
who trotted at her heels, demanding that she admire the drawing he had made of a flying saucer, complete with Martians. Finally
she located the check in the pocket of the shirt she had worn on the day in question and was able to turn her full attention
to her son.

“It's a beautiful drawing, darling” she said warmly. “Now I have to give Daddy this check. I'll be right back.” I come, too.

Sarah couldn't think of any reason why he shouldn't.

Somehow she wasn't surprised to see that nothing had been done. The men, including her, wonderful husband and the able Sergeant
Jofferty, were standing perfectly still, staring blankly at the folds of fabric. Bless their hearts, men did have a way of
engaging in endless discussions about how things ought to be done instead of getting on with the job.

Max turned, started, and came hurrying toward them. “Go back to the house, Sarah. Don't let— Here, you young rascal, where
do you think you're going?”

He caught Davy by the collar and held on to him, despite his protests.

“What's the matter?” Sarah asked faintly. She had known when she saw the look on Max's face that something was wrong.

He hesitated, trying to think how to tell her without informing Davy. His intellectual son knew as much Yiddish as he did
English, which was quite a lot for a three-year-old, and he was equally accomplished at pig Latin. “Our initial
assessment of the aeronautical occurrence was erroneous. The evacuation of the premises was not complete.”

“My God! Do you mean…” She got hold of herself Davy had stopped squirming and was looking at her in alarm. She forced a smile.
“What Daddy means, darling, is that the men are very busy and we'll just be in the way. Let's go and—and make more blueberry
muffins, shall we? Your faithful camel ate them all, and Uncle Jem will want some for breakfast.”

“What about muffins for me?” Max demanded with false heartiness.

The performance convinced Davy, though. He gave his father a measuring look. “Will you be a camel?”

“You strike a hard bargain, kid. All right, a camel it is,” Max promised. “Hurry up, now, because I'm getting very hungry.
Sarah, you might ring Brooks and tell him we won't make it this evening.”

Sarah nodded. “Here's the check. You won't be long, will you?”

“No longer than I can help, süssele. Have I mentioned lately that I love you?”

Sarah stood on tiptoe and gave him a quick kiss. “Me too, as Davy says.”

“Me too,” Davy echoed.

Max waited until they were well on their way before he went back to the awestruck audience. Jofferty had his notebook out,
but he wasn't getting much information out of
the witnesses. The foreman kept shaking his head and muttering.

“Poor old Mac. What a way to go.”

“How do you know it's him?” Jofferty asked patiently. It was the third time he'd asked the question, but he knew he had to
wait till the witness had recovered from the initial shock. This was a nasty one. The damned balloon must have landed on the
face of the corpse.

This time he got through. “Well, sure it's him. He's wearing one of our uniforms, and Mac was the only one who didn't show
up this morning.” He swallowed and averted his eyes from the battered remains of the face. “He's the same height and build,
and there's that finger he mashed yesterday when he dropped his end of the pole, the pinkie on the left hand. Poor old Mac,
he was a lousy tent maker, but he tried.”

And what a lousy epitaph, Max thought, staring at the pathetic remains. The defunct tent maker hadn't been a young man. The
hair that wasn't stained ugly brown was pure white. He knelt and ran his hand over one of the twisted legs.

“Don't touch anything,” Jofferty said automatically. “Sorry, Max, I wasn't thinking. That's what I'm supposed to say at a
crime scene. Not that this is one.”

“Are you sure?” Max didn't look up.

“Well, it sure isn't murder. I mean, trying to mash a guy by dropping a balloon on him is a damned unreliable way of killing
him. I rode in oe at the country fair once—once
was enough for me, I cant stand heights—and the balloonist, if that's what you call him, said only an expert could guide the
thing, and even an expert couldn't bring it down on a precise spot unless…” Jofferty pulled out his handkerchief and wiped
his perspiring brow. He'd seen plenty of mangled bodies in his time, including that of Alexander Kelling, but he never would
get used to them.

“Right.” Max stood up and brushed off his pants. “All the same, I think you'd better play this one by the book, Jofferty.
You can use the radio in the cruiser to call in, can't you? Ask them not to use the siren, I don't want my family to know
what's going on.”

“If you say so, Max. Just let me get a little more information on the corpse. What was his name?” He nudged the foreman, who
was still staring at the body. “He did have a name, didn't he?”

Mortlake shook his head. “Poor old Mac,” he intoned. “He was a man, take him for all and all.”

“His full name,” Jofferty insisted. “Mac what?”

“Macbeth.”

“Come off it.”

“Macbeth, I said. Joe Macbeth. He said we should call him Mac. I have a hard enough time keeping track of the names of the
crew, they come and go so fast, but I couldn't forget his. I happen to be a Bacon buff.”

“Yeah? Me too. All those health nuts keep saying it's not good for you, but I say what the hell, something's gonna get you
sooner or later.”

“Just a minute” Max said, trying to keep a straight face. Laughter wasn't suitable for the occasion, but at that moment he
was grateful for a little comic relief “I don't think he means that kind of bacon, Jofferty.”

“Certainly not. It wasn't Shakespeare wrote those plays, you know. It was a guy named Bacon.
Macbeth
is one of his masterpieces. Personally I thought Orson Welles's performance was the best, even though the critics tore him
to pieces.”

Max returned to the bosom of his family just in time to prevent the two most immature members of it from rushing out to find
out what was happening and why. He managed to distract Davy by offering to play camel, but Jem Kelling rejected the invitation
to be another member of the herd. Heel heard about the body from Sarah and was determined to offer his advice and assistance.
He'd also polished off the last of the second batch of muffins, which was okay by Max, since it was almost lunchtime anyhow.
By the time Max had been led across the Sahara and helped to discover a new pyramid (built by Martians), he was ready for
a nap even if Davy wasn't. However, the elder Bitter-sohh was rescued from the younger by the devoted wife of the former and
handed over to Mrs. Blufert, who took him off to his room for a picnic lunch. Jem had returned, accompanied by Sergeant Jofferty,
and they settled down at the kitchen table for food and conversation.