Angels in Heaven

racking
up her cue. She came over to me and we gave each other a kiss. “When did you
get back, dear?”
    “Just now,” I said. “Is there
someplace we can go and have a word?”
    “Sure,” she said. “Erwin, same time
tomorrow and I’ll give you another lesson. My boy’s going to buy me a drink in
the cafeteria.”
    “Anytime, toots,” said Erwin.
    “Lead the way, toots,” I said.
    She led the way briskly back outside
and then into the central building and through a lounge into the snack bar-cafeteria.
When I had gotten her a decaf and me an orange pop and we were sitting at a
table for two in one corner, she gave one of my hands a pat and said, “Now,
Vic, it’s done and it’s going to stay done and I’m glad for everyone I did it.”
    “Mom, you’re something else,” I said.
“I like Doctor Don.”
    “What’s not to like?” she said.
    “How’s your room? Do I get to see
it?”
    “If I don’t get tired,” she said.
“And it is a self-contained flat, not a room. That makes it sound like I’m
living in a cheap fleabag somewhere. It’s like our place but smaller. Tiny
kitchenette but big enough. Tiny bedroom but big enough. Nice colors. Nice
curtains. Rails to hold onto everywhere. Bath a lot easier to get in and out of
than ours. Buttons to push every two feet in case of emergency. We can bring in
any of our own furniture, within reason. That reminds me—next time you come,
I’d like a few things. I’ll give you a list. You look tired, Victor.”
    “I am tired, Mom, is why,” I said.
“How about you?”
    “Ah, you know,” she said. “Comes and
goes, dam it.”
    “Mom,” I said, “it may be none of my
business, but where’d you get the money, hustling pool?”
    “Very funny,” she said. “Give me a
couple of weeks, that’s all. I got two thousand five hundred dollars in
insurance from your father’s union when he died. After paying the funeral
expenses there was just under two thousand left, so I put it in a savings
account for a rainy day. I never did have to touch it, what with what I made
working, and then thanks to you and Tony and Gaye.”
    I tried to figure out just how much
two thousand smackers in a deposit account would accrue in thirty years but
soon gave up. Mom stopped talking the middle of her next sentence, as she was
more and more wont to do, and sat there, hands folded neatly on the table in
front of her. Then she shouted something and swept her plastic coffee cup off
the table. When she’d come back from wherever it was she went, I delivered her
to a nurse at the reception desk who walked her to and then into the elevator.
The last thing I said to her was, “Move your bridge hand closer to the cue
ball, Mom. That way you’ll get a smoother stroke.”
    “You got it, hotshot,” she said, from
which I deduced that Erwin had been teaching her some outdated slang along with
how to shoot Eight Ball.
    All right.
    None too emotional a parting, but we
were never a demonstrative family, the Daniels. It didn’t mean we didn’t love
each other—hell, I even almost loved Tony sometimes occasionally.
    I was hunting about for Feeb outside
when Doctor Don intercepted me.
    “How’s the big match going?” I said.
    “They’re knocking the hell out of
those balls, and each other once in a while too,” he said. “I dunno why croquet
is considered a sissy game. Listen, I saw on Mrs. Daniel’s file you’re a
private investigator?”
    “That I am,” I said. “Why, got a
problem?”
    “That I have,” he said. “Got a minute
to take a small stroll ’crost the sward?”
    I allowed I did, and so we strolled
’crost the sward, Doctor Dan not only stopping to have words with every
patient, nurse, gardener, and visitor he passed, but also pausing to exchange
greetings with a mangy black cat he called Fred, who was sitting under a tree
pretending it had no interest at all in the slightest, perish the thought, with
the family of squirrels who were frolicking overhead.
    After a while we parked ourselves on
a newly painted green bench and I said, “What’s up, Doc?”
    “Petty pilfering is what’s up,” he
said, rubbing his beard vigorously. “A dollar here, a dollar there, never a
lot, but it is annoying.”
    “From the patients’ rooms?”
    “Yep.”
    “Do they have locks on them?”
    “Nope, in case we have to get in
quickly. What they all have is a sliding thing that says ‘I’m in but please do
not disturb,’ or ‘I’m in and please do