Triple Threat

If they steamed up to her on the street outside the townhouse, they attached themselves like leeches and no amount of “Better be going” or “Have a good day now” could dislodge them. She stopped inviting them into her own two-story apartment—the top two floors of the townhouse—but when they tracked her down outside they would simply walk in with her when she returned.

Miriam would take her groceries and put them away and John would sit forward on the couch with a glass of water his mother brought him and grin in that got-you way of his. Miriam sat down with tea or coffee for the ladies and inquired how Sarah was feeling, did she ever go out of town, did you read about that man a few years ago, Bernie Madoff? Are you careful about things like that, Sarah? I certainly am.

Oh, Lord, leave me alone…

Sarah spoke to the lawyer and real estate management agent and learned there was nothing she could do to evict them.

And the matter got worse. They’d accidentally let slip facts about Sarah’s life that they shouldn’t have known. Bank accounts she had, meetings she’d been to, boards she was on, meetings with wealthy bankers. They’d been spying. She wondered if they’d been going through her mail—perhaps in her townhouse when John was sitting on the couch, babysitting her, and his mother was in Sarah’s kitchen making them all a snack.

Or perhaps they’d finagled a key to her mailbox.

Now, that would be a crime.

But she wondered if the police would be very interested. Of course not.

And then a month ago, irritation became fear.

Typically they’d poured inside after her as she returned from shopping alone, Carmel Rodriguez having the day off. Miriam had scooped the Food Emporium bags from her hand and John had, out of “courtesy,” taken her key and opened the door.

Sarah had been too flustered to protest—which would have done little good anyway, she now knew.

They’d sat for fifteen minutes, water and tea at hand, talking about who knew what, best of friends, and then Miriam had picked up her large purse and gone to use the toilet and headed for Sarah’s bedroom.

Sarah had stood, saying she’d prefer the woman use the guest bathroom, but John had turned his knit brows her way and barked, “Sit down. Mother can pick whichever she wants.”

And Sarah had, half-thinking she was about to be beaten to death.

But the son slipped back to conversation mode and rambled on about yet another real estate deal he was thinking of doing.

Sarah, shaken, merely nodded and tried to sip her tea. She knew the woman was rifling through her personal things. Or planting a camera or listening device.

Or worse.

When Miriam returned, fifteen minutes later, she glanced at her son and he rose. In eerie unison, they lockstepped out of the apartment.

Sarah searched but she couldn’t find any eavesdropping devices and couldn’t tell if anything was disturbed or missing—and that might have been disastrous; she had close to three quarters of a million dollars in cash and jewelry tucked away in her bedroom.

But they’d been up to no good—and had been rude and frightening. It was then that she began to think of them as the He-Beast and She-Beast.

Sycophants had given way to tyrants.

They’d become Rasputins.

The Beasts, like viruses, had infected what time Sarah had left on this earth and were destroying it—time she wanted to spend simply and harmlessly: visiting with those she cared for, directing her money where it would do the most good, volunteering at charities, working on the needlepoints she loved so much, a passion that was a legacy from her mother.

And yet those pleasures were being denied her.

Sarah Lieberman was a woman of mettle, serene though she seemed and diminutive though she was. She’d left home in Connecticut at eighteen, put herself through college in horse country in Northern Virginia working in stables, raced sailboats in New Zealand, lived in New Orleans at a time when the town was still honky-tonk, then she’d plunged into Manhattan and embraced virtually every role that the city could offer—from Radio City Music Hall dancer to Greenwich Village Bohemian to Upper East Side philanthropist. At her eightieth birthday party, she’d sung a pretty good version of what had become her theme song over the years: “I’ll Take Manhattan.”

That steely spirit remained but the physical package to give it play was gone. She was an octogenarian, as tiny and frail as that gingko leaf outside the parlor window. And her mind, too. She wasn’t as quick; nor was the memory what it had been.

What could she do about the Beasts?

Now, sitting in the parlor, she dropped her hands to her knees. Nothing occurred to her. It seemed hopeless.

Then, a key clattered in the lock. Sarah’s breath sucked in. She assumed that somehow the Beasts had copied her key and she expected to see them now.

But, no. She sighed in relief to see Carmel return from shopping.

Were tears in her eyes?

“What’s the matter?” Sarah asked.

“Nothing,” the woman responded quickly.

Too quickly.

“Yes, yes, yes… But if something were the matter, give me a clue, dear.”

The solid housekeeper carried the groceries into the kitchen, making sure she didn’t look her boss’s way.

Yes, crying.

“There’s nothing wrong, Mrs. Sarah. Really.” She returned to the parlor. Instinctively, the woman straightened a lace doily.

“Was it him? What did he do?”

John…. The He-Beast.

Sarah knew he was somehow involved. Both Marian and John disliked Carmel, as they did most of Sarah’s friends, but John seemed contemptuous of the woman, as if the housekeeper mounted a campaign to limit access to Sarah. Which she did. In fact several times she had actually stepped in front of John to keep him from following Sarah into her apartment. Sarah had thought he’d been about to hit the poor woman.

“Please, it’s nothing.”

Carmel Rodriguez was five feet, six inches tall and probably weighed 180 pounds. Yet the elderly woman now rose and looked up at her housekeeper, who’d been with her for more than a decade. “Carmel. Tell me.” The voice left no room for debate.

“I got home from shopping? I was downstairs just now?”

Statements as questions—the sign of uncertainty. “I came back from the store and was talking to him and then Mr. John—”

“Just John. You can call him John.”

“John comes up and, just out of nowhere, he says, did I hear about the burglary.”

“Where?”

“The neighborhood somewhere. I said I didn’t. He said somebody broke in and stole this woman’s papers. Like banking papers and wills and deeds and bonds and stocks.”

“People don’t keep stocks and bonds at home. The brokerage keeps them.”

“Well, he told me she got robbed and these guys took all her things. He said he was worried about you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, Mrs. Sarah. And he didn’t want to make you upset but he was worried and did I know where you kept things like that? Was there a safe somewhere? He said he wanted to make sure they were protected.” The woman wiped her face. Sarah had thought her name was Carmen at first, as one would think, given her pedigree and appearance. But, no, her mother and father had named her after the town in California, which they dreamed of someday visiting.

Sarah found a tissue and handed it to the woman. This was certainly alarming. It seemed to represent a new