For Whom the Minivan Rolls by JEFFREY COHEN Read Free Book Online Page B

standing-up game. My
intention, however, was not to intimidate Beckwirth. My intention
was to leave.
    “Mr. Beckwirth. . .”
    “Gary.”
    Oy gevalt . “Mr. Beckwirth,” I began.
“I’m a reporter following a news story. I’m under contract to the
Central New Jersey Press-Tribune to investigate, and write
about, the disappearance of your wife. I’m under no obligation to
you whatsoever. So we’re either going to proceed by my rules, or I
will go home, call my editor, tell him I’m unable to find out
anything, and your wife will remain missing. Until such time as the
police find her, which in all probability they will. Now. Am I
going to get to talk to your son, or am I going to turn down the
assignment and get back to something I know how to do?”
    “Joel isn’t here.”
    In retrospect, I don’t know why I didn’t go for his
throat at that moment. I certainly wanted to go for his
throat. It would have made me feel better. It would have been the
right thing to do. Probably visions of arraignments and prison
terms danced in my head. I’ve not been married to an attorney all
these years for nothing, after all. In any event, I didn’t give
Beckwirth the throttling he deserved.
    I didn’t even ask why he hadn’t mentioned his son’s
absence throughout this conversation. I merely stared at him a
moment, hoping my eyes would convey contempt and astonishment at
his behavior, and pressed on.
    “Fine,” I said a little too forcefully. “I’ll talk
to him later.” I didn’t give Beckwirth time to interject. “Now, may
I see your last three months’ worth of phone bills?”
    Beckwirth put down the croissant and turned away to
look out the window. I half expected him to walk to a wet bar and
pour himself a brandy from a crystal decanter, like they do on all
the soap operas when the director can’t think of any other way to
communicate tension.
    “I don’t see what benefit that would have,” he
said.
    I turned and left.
    Oy gevalt .

Chapter 10
    “So this guy wants you to find his wife, but he
doesn’t want you to ask questions or anything. Is that it?” Jeff
Mahoney stuck another shim under the screen door we were both
holding up, and tapped it in with a hammer. It stayed, and we each
went to work on a hinge, screwing each into the door jamb. “What,
are you supposed to throw a dart at the map and start looking, or
drive up and down the Turnpike yelling her name?”
    Mahoney has been my best friend ever since he wore
sneakers to our senior prom. He’d lost a bet to me at the high
school cafeteria lunch table (it hinged on the name Gummo Marx, but
that’s a whole other story), but I had never intended to hold him
to it. Prom night, he showed up in a cream-colored tuxedo, light
green shirt, brown bow tie, and high-top Converse tennis shoes (it
was the ‘70s—get off my case). In admiration for his personal
integrity, I took off my shoes and spent the rest of the evening in
my stocking feet. Strangely, neither of us ever heard again from
our prom dates. Women, we theorized, just didn’t understand codes
of honor.
    Now, Mahoney was six-foot-three and built roughly
like that big hunk of rock that confounds everybody in 2001: A
Space Odyssey. Needless to say, during our little home
maintenance chore, he was concentrating on the upper hinge of the
door, while I knelt down to deal with the lower one. We each had a
cordless screwdriver. I found this amusing, since I’ve never seen a
corded screwdriver.
    “I’m stuck,” I said.
    “What, did the shims come out?”
    “No. On the story.” Mahoney works as a mechanic for
one of the larger car rental agencies at Newark International
Airport, and travels around the state fixing their broken-down
junk-heaps. He is also a disciple of Bob Vila, so whenever I need
to do anything more complicated than change a light bulb in the
house, he gets a call. It’s a ritual: I ask him how I should do it,
he suggests using a tool I don’t have, and the next thing I