Make Believe

from their moorings.

Ava stammered, “Are you out of your mind, Ethan? Do you really believe that preposterous story?”

A long pause. “Well, no, of course not. But it works. We plan a story, make believe it’s true, and at least it gets the police thinking…maybe, maybe.”

I flared up, the hair on the back of my neck bristling. “Have you people all lost your minds out here? Is that all you can do? You fashion clever storyboards for real life, like you’re sketching out the next scene of a Metro thriller? Do you hear yourself, Ethan? You’re talking about peoples’ lives here.”

He looked at me with cool deliberation, eyes shiny. “They’re both dead, Miss Ferber. Let them solve a situation that implicates…Frank.”

Ava covered her face with her hands, muttering, “Why do I put up with this?”

Tony bubbled over, excited, rolling in his seat. “Maybe Sol did kill Max. Maybe Max screwed up his career, too. He killed himself because…”

I stood, raised myself to my full five-foot height, and my voice cut through the blather in the room. “Enough. You’re maddened…all of you. Frank”-I cast him a steely eye-“do you agree to something so absurd and deleterious?”

He waited a long time. Finally, he sputtered, “No, of course not. I’m not crazy… I may be a lot of things but…not crazy. It’s nonsense.” Another pause, a heartbeat. “Sol loved Max.”

It was, I thought, a simply beautiful statement, and took me by surprise.

Ethan broke in. “People kill folks they love.”

Frank held up his hand. “Come on, gang. No.”

Ava snarled, “Why don’t you turn in Sophie Barnes? You always made fun of her, the crazy secretary with the hots for Max. Maybe she got tired of her pain, her loneliness, and…and she shot him. Remember Harry said she stormed out of the Paradise Bar in a fury, sending the candles flying. In a rage. Maybe she killed Max because…” She stopped.

“She did run out of the restaurant. We saw her.” Tony glanced at his brother.

Ava screamed, “Francis, stop them. Now. The police are doing their job, just as Edna said. You know that. Nobody is going to arrest you. You’re allowing these fools to enflame you. Come off it.”

Frank nodded at us. “Let’s get out of here. Screw this!” He pointed at the brothers-bang bang, as though he had a gun-and turned away. The brothers leaned into each other, their voices overlapping, doubtless formulating other outlandish suspects: perhaps the headwaiter at Chasens’…or Greta Garbo…or…Lana Turner. Why not? Eleanor Roosevelt, sneaking into town…I imagined their scrambled minds teeming with such absurdities.

“I think Alice did it,” Tony blurted out. “Before she left for the Paradise.”

“No,” I said. “Remember Lorena called from the bar and spoke to Max. He was alone. Someone knocked on his door. He hung up. Alice was on the way to the restaurant.”

“I don’t care,” Tony said. “She snuck back in.”

His words suddenly made me wonder about that knock on the door. Who did arrive that night? Sophie before she joined the party at the Paradise Bar? A mysterious woman, this Sophie Barnes. Blighted love, anger, passion, a volatile temperament.

“How do we know Lorena’s even telling the truth?” Tony added. “Maybe she was there first. Maybe. You see how she’s weeping for Max, Frankie. Like she’s out of control. She was always so friendly with him. Maybe an affair…maybe he turned on her…” He was counting off the reasons on his fingers, the none-too-bright schoolboy trying to do sums.

Ethan glared at his brother. “Leave my wife out of this.”

“She ain’t your wife anymore.”

Ethan raised his voice. “You heard me, Tony. Lorena isn’t part of this. She spoke to Max, and she then told you to call him. I was there. You mean she’s making that up about the job he’d get you?”

Suddenly, Tony crumbled, his eyes tearing up. Looking at Frank, he blubbered, “Liz told me to get out-now that I lost that job at Poncho’s. She’s leaving me, Frankie. I thought that if I can get another job, she’ll…you know…take me back.” He faced his brother. “I promised her I won’t drink. I got nowhere to go.”

Ethan softened. “Tony, I told you. She won’t leave you. She won’t.”

Tony smiled at him. “She used your favorite word, Ethan. Failure. I’m a failure. She called us both failures. Me and you, Ethan.”

“Me?”

“You ain’t got your dreams, she said. Nobody does…except some. She wants to be rich and famous and I’m a…a burden.”

“She called me a failure?” Ethan looked stunned.

“Because you came out here to make millions, and you took that job in accounting at Metro.”

Ethan was furious. “I will be rich. Someday. Why else come out here?”

His eyes narrowed, Frank mimicked him. “I want to be rich, too, boys.” His voice became mocking. “Why else come out here?”

Why else come out here?

It was brutal imitation of Ethan’s whiny declaration, and Ethan glared at him. I expected him to say something but he watched, eyes slatted. “How can I become rich when I got to support Tony? Lenny left us nothing.”

Frank sang in a silly singsong voice: “I wanna be rich. I wanna be rich. Listen to the two of you. Your brother Lenny knew the game. He had smarts. That’s what Lenny had that both of you don’t. He built a fortune out of grit and sweat. That man understood honor and loyalty. I wouldn’t be alive if he hadn’t stepped in. They were gonna take me out. You two are pale imitations of that pal of mine.”

“All right, Francis. Enough.” Ava was blinking wildly.

Tony sagged into his chair, moody, hunched over. Looking up at Frank, he moaned, “You’re rich, Frankie.” At Ava. “You’re rich, Ava.” At me. “Even she’s rich. Show Boat fills her pockets with gold. She doesn’t even have to work anymore.” He turned back to his brother. “We’re the only two poor people in this room, Ethan. You and me.” He started sobbing and wiped away tears with the backs of his hands.

“Oh, Christ,” Ethan muttered. “Stop it, Tony.”

“Are they smarter than me? Frankie? Ava? Her?”

Her had already answered that question some time ago, but decided now silence was preferable. Why articulate the obvious? Let them rattle on, I thought, these destructive hangers-on.

Ethan snickered. “Actually they are, Tony.”

“No, they ain’t. Mr. Adam and Miss Ava. You told me Frankie was just plain lucky. Luck is the game in this town.”

Ethan squirmed. “Not everyone is lucky, Tony.”

“You deserve to be rich, Ethan.”

“Okay, enough, Tony.” He stared at Frank, nervous.

I broke into the brotherly keening. “Who gains from Max’s being murdered?”

My startling outburst, intentionally off the subject, silenced the brothers’ inane bickering. All eyes landed on me.

Sitting up, Tony started to say Alice’s name, but Ethan reached out and touched his sleeve. “Not now. Haven’t we embarrassed ourselves enough tonight?”

Ava whispered to Frank. “Get them out of here.”

Frank smiled. “Did you hear them, though? They don’t think much of my brain, Ava. I’m just a lucky so-and- so…”

Ethan pleaded, “Don’t listen to him, Frankie.”

Tony looked helpless. “Do you really think Max found me a job? Lorena said she talked to him.”

His shoulders stiff, Ethan walked to the door. “Maybe Lorena lied, Tony. Maybe she made the whole damn thing up. We’ll never know, will we? Maybe Lorena was trying to make Max look good. Good old Max, unselfish Max,