Death Wish

“Jesus H. Christ.” There was a moment of silence, either for thought or for prayer; finally Nemserman said, “What do I do about it?”

“Pay it.”

“Nuts. I’d sooner go to jail.”

“They probably could arrange that.”

“Come on, Benjamin, you’re the whiz kid. Tell me what to do.”

“Well, you probably know the dodges as well as I do.”

“The hell. Who’s got time to read all that crappy fine-print?” The man had an a

“Well, of course you’ve got the standard gambits. Inflate your expenses grotesquely—they may buy part of it. You could cut thirty-five thousand off your tax bill by getting married, of course.”

“Forget that.”

“You could establish some trusts, taxable at the twenty-six percent rate. That would cut you back to the capital-gain level. It’s a little late in the year to try that, but if you moved fast you might swing it.”

“Yeah?”

“Or foundations. You can set up your own foundation and donate money to it, and then borrow the money back from the foundation.”

“How do I do that?”

“IRS Form Ten-twenty-three. You fill it out and send it in to apply for tax-exempt charitable status. If you can make your foundation look religious or educational or charitable, you’re in.”

“What are you waiting for then? Set me up a foundation.”

“It would be better if you had your lawyer do that, Mr. Nemserman.”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, okay, Benjamin. Thanks. I’ll get right on it. Christ, they’re bandits, these federal guys, you know that? Christ, what a puking mess we’re in in this country.”

“Well, maybe you’ll get a sympathetic computer.”

“Haw.” Nemserman hung up on him without amenities and Paul leaned back in the chair filled with amused disbelief. After a moment he uttered a jocular bark of laughter. He laced his hands behind his neck and reared his head back lazily.

The smog was burning off the river and he saw a freighter fighting its way up against the current, screws churning the water. The electric plant was making a lot of smoke on the Queens side of the river.

The headache was gone; he felt good. Forty-seven years old, a little overweight maybe but in good health; all you really needed was a few laughs and with friends like Sam Kreutzer and Bill Dundee, and clients like Nemserman, the requirement wasn’t hard to meet.

He reached for the stack in his In box.

The intercom.

“It’s your son-in-law, Mr. Benjamin? Mr. Tobey?” Urgency in Thelma’s voice. “He says it’s an emergency?”

He punched the lighted button on the phone, more puzzled than alarmed. “Hello, Jack?”

“Pop, I—something’s happened.” Jack Tobey’s voice was metallic—emotion held severely in check.

“What is it?”

“I don’t—oh, hell, there’s no way. Look, they got mugged. Right in the fucking apartment. I’m on my way over to——”

“Jack, what the hell are you talking about?”

“They—I’m sorry, Pop. I’ll try to make sense. I just got a phone call. Carol—and Mom. Somebody broke in, beat them up, God knows why. They’re taking them in an ambulance over to emergency receiving at Roosevelt Hospital—you know where it is?”

“On West Fifty-ninth?”

“Yes. I think—I think Mom’s pretty bad. Carol told the cops to call me.”

Cops. Paul blinked and gripped the receiver hard. “But what happened? How are they? Did you call Doctor Rosen?”

“I tried. He’s out of town.”

“My God. But what happened?”

“I don’t know. I’m on my way up there. The cop was pretty brusque on the phone.”

“But what—”

“Look, Pop, we’d better not waste time on the telephone. I’ll meet you up there.”

“All right.”

He put down the phone and stared at the freckled back of his hand.

3

He followed the signs to Emergency and found Jack sitting tense with one shoulder raised, twisting his knuckles. Jack looked up without recognition.

“I’m sorry. My cab got hung up in traffic. You must have been here quite a while already.” He felt he had to apologize to someone.

Jack said, “You may as well sit down. They won’t let us in there.”

People on the hard wall-benches sat holding minor wounds and invisible illnesses. The room had a smell and a sound; the sound was a muted chorus of agony but it was the smell that Paul couldn’t stand. Hospital staff in dirty white clothes kept hurrying in and out. An empty ambulance pulled away from the open ramp. There must have been twenty people in the room, most of them sitting, a few rushing in and out, and except for one woman who sat blindly holding a little boy’s hand, none of them seemed to pay any attention to one another. Pain was private, not for sharing.

A cop sat on the bench beside Jack. Paul sat down on the other side of him. Jack said, “The officer’s kind enough to stay and see if he can help. This is my father-in-law.”

The cop extended a hand. He had a tough black face. “Joe Charles.”

“Paul Benjamin. Can you tell me—what’s happened?”

“I was telling Mr. Tobey here. We didn’t want to question Mrs. Tobey too much, she’s pretty shaken up.”

“What about my wife?” He said it quietly; he wanted to scream it. But you talked in muffled tones in a room full of strangers in anguish.

A man sat holding an injured arm against his belly, bleeding onto his lap. Paul wrenched his eyes off him.

The cop was saying, “We don’t know. She was still alive when they took her out of the ambulance.”

She was still alive—the implications of the cop’s choice of words set the pulsebeat drumming in Paul’s temples.

A young man in white came into the room in company with a nurse. The young man beckoned to the woman with the small boy. The woman took the boy by the hand and followed the intern and the nurse out of the room. The man with the injured arm watched them until they were gone. Blood kept soaking into his trousers. After a moment the cop said, “Excuse me,” and got up to walk over to the man, dragging a handkerchief out of his pocket.

Paul stared at his son-in-law: Jack’s face was gray. He didn’t seem compelled to talk so Paul prompted him. “What did he say?”

“Not much.” Too stu

“Did you talk to Carol?”

“Yes. She didn’t say much that made sense. She seems to be in shock.”

“And—Esther?”

Jack shook his head. “Look, it’s very bad.”

“For God’s sake tell me.”

“They beat them both up.”

“Who? Why?” He leaned forward and gripped Jack’s wrist. “You’re a lawyer. Think like one. Testify like a witness, can’t you? Tell me.”

Jack shook his head as if to clear it. “Pop, I just don’t know. Two men, maybe more. Somehow they got into your apartment. I don’t know if they broke in or if Mom or Carol let them in. I don’t know what they wanted there. I don’t know what they did or why, except that they—attacked—them both. Oh, not rape, I don’t mean rape. That wasn’t it. They just—beat them up.”

“With their hands?”

“I guess so. There was no blood that I could see. I don’t think they could have used knives or anything, there would have been blood, wouldn’t there?”

“Who called the police? You?”

“No. Carol called the police. Then the police called me.”

“When did it happen?”

“I don’t know.” Jack looked at his watch and shot his cuff absently. “Couple of hours ago now, I guess.”

Paul tightened his grip on Jack’s wrist. “What about Esther? What did he mean, still alive?”

Jack’s chin dropped; he stared at his shoes. “Pop, they—they must have twisted her neck as if she were a rag doll.”