Shallow Graves

couldn’t promise anything. I told her I was sure that Mr. Winningham would think that she’d done the right thing.
    I went down to my car and headed toward the Boston Herald, one of the two big newspapers in town. I wanted more background information on the Danucci angle, and there was one reporter I was pretty sure could help me.

    “You notice it, don’t you?“
    I said, “Notice what, Mo?“
    “Notice what. Notice what’s different.“
    I looked around Mo Katzen’s office. The old typewriter was still on the stand next to his desk, Mo detesting the concept of computerization. The avalanche of papers, both documents and sandwich covers, was still on top of his desk. Mo himself sat behind the desk, wavy white hair on his head and a dead cigar in his mouth. He still wore the vest and pants of a three-piece suit, the jacket to which I’d never seen on him in all the years I’d known him.
    No visible changes. “Sorry, Mo.“
    “Christ, some detective you are. This.“ He reached up to his left ear and pulled out a tiny, flesh-colored lump of plastic. “This little bugger.“
    I took the other chair. “A hearing aid?“
    “Finally. Can you believe it? A few years past my prime, and I got to wear one of these things.“
    Mo’s prime may have passed recently, but he was never going to see seventy again. “How long have you had it?“
    “Couple weeks now. My wife and I are at this banquet thing back in March, and we’re sitting around this big round table, like for poker. This guy I never met before is asking me some kind of cockamamy question from across the table and I’m answering him and then my wife starts elbowing me in the ribs, telling me I’m ‘not replying in the context of the question.’ Can you believe that?“
    “Hard to believe about you, Mo.“
    “Damn straight. Anyway, this happens like two or three more times in the course of the evening, and my wife is just about to file papers on me, so I tell her, ‘All right already, I’ll go see my doctor.’ And she tells me, ‘You need an audiologist.’ And —I gotta admit—I say ‘A what?’ And she smiles this superior smile of hers, and she doesn’t have to tell me ‘I told you so’ before she makes an appointment for me.
    “So, all right, I go to this audiologist guy. Only instead of an office like a doctor, it looks like an appliance store. But, she made the appointment, I go in anyway. The guy asks me some questions, takes some kind of a ‘reading’ he calls it, then pokes around in my ears with this thing, looks like a miner’s pick with a light on it. He says to me, ‘Well, Mr. Katzen, no trouble with your wax,’ like I’ve been to the dentist and he tells me I’ve been flossing right. So then he puts me in this sound booth with keys, but not like a piano.“
    “Like a recording studio. Mo.“
    “What?“
    “Like—“
    “Just a second.“ Mo put the aid back into his ear. “Like a...?“
    “Like a recording studio?“
    “Yeah, yeah. Like that. Except instead of earphones. I’m wearing this stethoscope thing. And he beeps me up and over the cowshed, both ears. Then he says I hear the low tones okay, but not the high ones. So now I get to sit in this chair and he pours a moulage of like wax in my ear, with a wick in it. He lets the wax harden, which is not the greatest feeling in the world. I’ll tell you.
    “Then, maybe ten minutes later, he pulls the wax plug out of my ear by the wick. Then he puts it on the side to harden some more while he asks me questions. He tells me he’ll mail the little plug out to some company and my aid will come back in like three to six weeks.“
    “So now you have a custom-made hearing aid.“
    “Yeah. Only they don’t tell you some things. Like the little bugger’s custom-made for only one ear, not the other. My case, it’s the left, but guess what?“
    “What, Mo?“
    “My left is the ear I use for answering the phone. Guess what else.“
    This could take a while. “What, Mo?“
    “The thing’s murder if you put the receiver to that ear. The habit of a lifetime, John, and I’m supposed to change it now?“
    “That’s a tough one, Mo.“
    “Huh. Tell me about it. Another thing. The little bugger costs like a thousand dollars, and I’m riot completely covered by insurance.“
    “How come?“
    “Because it’s not from an accident. Can you believe that? I tell the guy, ‘What, you can’t see your way clear to reimburse me for all the years I’ve been on