The Florentine Deception Read online

  “I’ve got no idea. I was up ’til five cooking up schemes, but they all seem too risky.”

  My phone beeped. Call waiting. “One sec. It might be her.”

  “Alex.” It was my grandpa, in his usual hoarse, drawn-out voice, “Aluuuhx.”

  “Hi Papa.”

  “How is my grandson this morning?”

  “Fine, Papa. Can I call you back in a few minutes?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Thanks Ingy. I’ll call you in a few.” I clicked back to Steven.

  “So?”

  “It was Papa.”

  “Say no more. Still sane?”

  “As crazy as ever,” I said.

  “Anyway, back to the hospital—give me a few of your ideas.”

  “Right. The best I’ve got so far is: I’m going to throw on a pair of medical scrubs, hang right outside the morgue, wait for a student to walk in, and sort of tailgate in before the door closes.”

  “It could work,” he said. “But it’s risky. What if they ask who you are?”

  “God only knows. You’re the one who suggested this in the first place. Got any better ideas?”

  Steven went silent for a second. “I need to think about it.”

  The phone beeped again. “Got another call,” I said.

  “You’re not going to make me—” I clicked the flash button before he could finish.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi Alex, it’s Linda.”

  “Hey Linda. Any news?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Listen, I haven’t got long. I just wanted to tell you that Richard’s checked in and enjoying the cool spa treatments. Not sure if the kiddies are taking him apart yet, but he’s here somewhere.”

  “Thanks Linda!”

  “Oh, you got a pen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Write this down: Oh-five-seven-seven-nine-six-oh-five-four-oh. That’s his tag number.”

  “Thanks.” I scrawled it down.

  “One more thing. The door’s unmarked, but it’s hard to miss—it looks like a walk-in freezer. They used to change the security code every six weeks or so, so I’m not sure if this’ll still work, but the morgue’s door code was five-four-five-five when I worked down there. If that doesn’t work, Clarence’s got a backup key in his desk.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “About half a year ago.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Look, it’s the best I’ve got, and you still owe me two chauffeured trips to Tahquitz. And margaritas. Don’t forget. I gotta run. And not a word to anyone.”

  “Thanks Linda.”

  “No problem. And good luck!”

  I clicked back to Steven.

  “Still there?” I asked the phone.

  “Yeah, but a little bruised from this on-again-off-again treatment.”

  “Oh get over it. He’s still at UCLA, in the med school morgue.”

  Steven whistled. “We’ve got to do it. Want to meet up to discuss the plan?”

  Hillary’s muffled voice came over the phone. “You’re not thinking of breaking into the hospital, are you? You could go to jail. You go through with this and—”

  “I’ll call you back in a bit,” mumbled Steven into the phone, and the line went dead.

  A minute later, I had Papa on the horn.

  “Hi Ingy, it’s Alex.”

  “My lovely grandchild, I’m so glad you called.”

  “Of course. What’s new with you?”

  “Oh, I went over to Mama’s and saw your dad. He bought a few cantaloupes for me, beautiful cantaloupes. Said they were only twenty cents a pound.” It amazed me how excited grandparents got about cheap produce. Would I someday be just as excited about cheap smartphones?

  “How’s Hyman?” Hyman was the new buddy from the senior center.

  “He’s well. We went wading together yesterday.” In the shallow end of the YMCA pool, no doubt, followed invariably by a trip to Denny’s for eggs and four strips of bacon, extra crispy.

  “Say, Alex, could you come over and help me with the sprinkler? It’s been hot and it’s only running three minutes per day.” That was code-talk for “you haven’t visited in a while, and that’s as good an excuse as any.”

  “I’d like to, Papa, but I don’t have any time today. Maybe next—”

  A light bulb went off.

  “Actually, will you be free in a half hour?”

  “Sure!” he said excitedly. “What kind of fruit would you like?” Papa always felt he wasn’t being hospitable if he didn’t have some sort of fruit or nuts for me.

  “I just ate,” I fibbed, “save your money.”

  “All right. Then I’ll see you in half an hour?”

  “It’s a date.”

  Papa’s house had the usual old-person smell, topped 85 degrees, and was characteristically messy. I sat down at the dining room table, as I always did, and grabbed a handful of paper clips while he pulled up a chair. Papa was wearing thirty-year-old gray trousers cut at the knees into makeshift shorts and a loose tank top showcasing sheep-like tufts of gray hair from all exposed areas of his chest, arms, and back. A purple nipple stared at me from amidst the down.

  “So what’s new, my boy?” asked Papa.

  “I’ve been involved in a little adventure recently.” I gave Papa the now well-practiced, five-minute edition, sans the kidnapping part. He listened carefully.

  “So you think there’s really a diamond in this new house? And that this stiff’s got the combination?”

  “That’s how it looks.”

  “How you going to get to the body?” asked Papa, unfazed.

  “I don’t know. Any bright ideas?” I shifted uneasily to avoid the lightning bolt I was sure was on its way down.

  “You know, I used to work as an orderly in Mass General.”

  “That’s right. You used to sew up the bodies after the autopsies.”

  “No,” he leaned in and spoke more softly, “what I’m saying is I know my way around a hospital. I could help you get into the morgue.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Mom would kill me if anything happened.”

  “Your mother isn’t my master.” He dismissed her with a geriatric wave of his hand. “What the hell’s going to happen, anyway? I’m eighty-eight. They going to throw me into jail?”

  “Pop, you know how nervous you get.” I paused for effect. “What if it takes four hours? Are you going to be able to sit for four hours? No bathroom breaks? No complaining that your leg is hurting?” He also had a bad case of sciatica.

  “Ahh, shit,” he said, suddenly irritated. “You never have any respect for me. For once, why don’t you give me some respect? You always treat me like a child.” He wiped a drop of spittle from his chin, bristling his three-day-old shadow of gray whiskers.

  “All right, you want to come? You promise me now that you’ll do whatever I tell you. And no complaining.” I paused for effect. “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “I need to go as soon as possible. Tonight. You can go tonight after ten or eleven?”

  “Of course. What the hell do I have to do? I barely sleep anymore anyway.”

  “I still need to give it some thought. I’ll call you in a few hours.”

  My trip home was punctuated by a quick visit to the medical supply store (which I’d been to a hundred times with my mom as a kid) and a call to Steven on my cell. As expected, Hillary had no intentions of budging, and in fact, the two weren’t speaking. I couldn’t remember the last time they’d been so angry. Steven merely grunted “good luck” when I told him I was bringing Papa. By two p.m., I’d formulated a makeshift plan and estimated the amount of time for each phase:

  1. 15 minutes: I’d start by wheeling Papa back and forth through the basement to do some reconnaissance.

  2. 5 minutes: Once I found the “freezer” door, as Linda called it, I’d drop Papa off in the lobby with ample reading materials to keep him occupied.

  3. 10–20 min
utes: Then I’d go back and enter Linda’s code. If that didn’t work (most likely scenario), I’d wait until Clarence went for a bathroom break and surreptitiously grab his master key.

  4. 10–20 minutes: When the coast was clear I’d enter the room.

  5. 20–30 minutes: I’d locate the body and copy down Richard’s lip code.

  6. 5 minutes: I’d pick Papa up from the lobby and we’d take off.

  Assuming we started at ten p.m. we’d hopefully be done by eleven-thirty; I’d have Papa home and in bed by midnight, and I’d have the panic room open by one. At least that was the optimistic version. What could possibly go wrong?

  By three, I’d reviewed the entire campaign half a dozen times. To be sure, there were lots of potential hiccups, but I resolved to abort, play dumb, and wheel Papa out the front door if I felt at any time I might get caught.

  It just might work.

  Chapter 24

  Papa leaned eagerly on his cane as I pulled into his Reseda driveway. His blue-collar, twelve-hundred-square-foot house, circa 1960, had the distinction of being the only one on the block with a lava rock garden in the front yard. While my grandmother was alive, the yard was peppered with a variety of cacti; now, all that remained in the center of the field of red rocks was a single, four-foot-tall phallic specimen covered in gray hairs—the envy of the neighborhood, no doubt. Papa’s lightly tattered United States and California flags tussled in the August breeze while I put my Outback into park and exited to assist him.

  Now it was time for twenty questions.

  “Did you use the bathroom before you came out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you take all of your meds?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have your house keys?”

  “Yes.”

  “Show me.”

  He felt in his pocket, cursed, then ambled over to the kitchen table and grabbed them.

  “Have you had dinner yet?”

  “Of course.” He began to get irritated. “Let’s get going already.” This was going to be an exciting evening. I’d fill him in on my plan in the car; we had a thirty-minute drive over to UCLA, plenty of time.

  “Oh, where’s your wheelchair?” I’d almost forgotten.

  He pointed at the garage door. “It’s next to my Jeep.”

  A few minutes later, I had the chair folded and packed in my trunk and Papa safely buckled into the front seat, clutching his seatbelt with shaky hands as he always did when I drove.

  “So, ready to hear the plan?” I asked as I backed out of his driveway.

  “As ready as can be!”

  “When we get to the hospital, I’m going to wheel you in and we’re going to take the elevator to the basement.”

  “That’s where Radiology is,” he said authoritatively.

  “That and the morgue, apparently. When we get to the basement, I’m going to wheel you around until we find the morgue door. It looks like a big freezer door, so if you see it, holler.”

  “We’re looking for a freezer door,” he said as much to himself as back to me.

  “If anyone asks what we’re doing, I’m going to tell them you’re recovering from surgery and I’m taking you for a walk because you couldn’t sleep. What kind of surgery should we say you had?” I asked.

  “A hernia,” he responded. Not half bad, I thought.

  “Sounds good. So if anyone asks, you tell them you’re recovering from hernia surgery and are hoping to leave the hospital in the morning.”

  “Okay.”

  “Once we find the door, I’m going to wheel you up to the lobby, then head back down, go inside, and find the body. I’m hoping that’ll take about an hour.”

  “I’d like to go with you into the morgue,” he said deliberately.

  “I’m not sure that’d be such a good idea, Papa. If I have to run, I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

  “I don’t know what there is to worry about.”

  What could go possibly go wrong? I thought again, rolling my eyes.

  “No arguments,” I said and continued without a beat. “As soon as I’m done, I’ll pick you up in the lobby. No matter what, stay in the lobby and I’ll pick you up. It might take a little longer than an hour, so you’ve got to be patient.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ve got plenty of reading material for you too.” I pointed over my shoulder to a stack of large-print Reader’s Digest back issues, Papa’s favorite.

  An hour later, I grabbed the parking ticket from the UCLA Medical Center parking kiosk and pulled my Subaru under the rising wooden arm into Lot 9. We’d forgotten to bring Papa’s disabled-parking placard, so I wiggled into a skin-tight compact spot on the fourth level near the south elevator. Papa sprang from the car with an air of enthusiasm not befitting an eighty-eight-year-old, let alone one who just endured hernia surgery.

  “Hey, you’re supposed to be sick, Ingy,” I said as I pulled his ride from the trunk and unfolded it. “Take a seat.”

  “I can walk on my own to the hospital,” he said with mild resentfulness. This was true; he could still walk short distances without aid, but this was a moot point tonight. “You’re supposed to be recovering. Ill. In pain. One foot in the grave. Sit.” I pointed at the wheelchair, then steadied it while he gingerly lowered himself onto the worn green canvas.

  “Ooh, I almost forgot the most important thing,” I said. I popped open the back door, grabbed three magazines and plopped them into Papa’s lap.

  “Okay, let’s review,” I said, wheeling him to the elevator in my new set of scrubs. “You’re recovering from hernia surgery, hoping to leave the hospital tomorrow. You couldn’t sleep so we’re taking a walk around the hospital.”

  “Right, ever sharp, kid.”

  Up to this point, my calm astounded me. I was about to brazenly walk into a hospital, break into the morgue and hunt for a corpse. Yet, somehow I was totally relaxed. Papa and I emerged from the elevator and navigated a zigzagging ramp toward the main entrance.

  “Act sick, like a recovering patient,” I murmured, bending over to his ear. He slumped and proffered a sickly look. “Genius!”

  A blast of cool air hit my face as I pushed Papa past UCLA’s sliding glass doors and into the hospital lobby; except for a guard and two tired-looking staffers behind the reception desk, the lobby was deserted. The guard, sixty-plus years old and balding in his navy-blue uniform, nodded at Papa as we strolled past him toward a bank of elevators.

  “Catch any terrorists lately?” exclaimed Papa, to my horror. The guard swiveled around to face us, vaporizing any semblance of calm I’d enjoyed moments earlier. Gripping the handles tightly with frustration, I rotated the wheelchair.

  “Excuse me?” he said, shooting a severe look at Papa. My grip tightened further, now visibly whitening my knuckles. “Caught a ninety-year-old trying to steal an extra helping of lime Jell-O from the cafeteria last week. That count?” He smiled.

  “You old dog,” replied Papa.

  “He’s always kidding around.” I gave the guard a “sorry, this guy’s a little crazy” look and swiveled Papa’s chair around toward the elevators. “Good night,” I continued.

  The nearest elevator was waiting open, so I wheeled Papa in, facing the back of the elevator to prevent any further banter, and pumped the basement button. My left hand relaxed slightly on the handle as the door closed behind us.

  “What were you thinking?” I asked, once the doors shut.

  “Oh shithouse, I was just being friendly.” He did have a way with words.

  “Pop, you’ve got to try not to draw attention to us. I want to get in and out of here as quickly as possible—unnoticed.”

  Papa grunted and inserted the tip of his index finger into his right nostril.

  A few seconds later, the elevator doors slid open. I rolled him into the corridor and then stopped at a T-shaped intersection connected to the main hallway. The basement was truly miserable; I could only imagine what it’d
be like to have to wait down here in the gloom for an x-ray, nervous enough about having some horrible disease. Overhead, bank after bank of fluorescent tubes cast an austere tinge on the discolored, off-white walls and seventies-style speckled linoleum. For a school with so much funding, UCLA had obviously spent their money elsewhere.

  A pointing hand stenciled on a green placard at the junction indicated that Radiology was to the left. Overhead, the tubes produced a dreary sixty-hertz hum. The place was totally deserted.

  “That’s where you go for x-rays?” I asked Papa, pointing down the corridor.

  “For x-rays, and when they take blood.”

  “Ever see a door that looked like a freezer there?” I asked.

  “No. Not that I remember,” he said earnestly.

  “Ever been down this way?” I asked, pointing toward the right.

  “No.”

  “Well, what do you say we try the road less traveled, Ingy?”

  “Sounds fine to me.”

  “Hold on!” Papa wisely grabbed the armrests (he’d learned from experience) and I accelerated the chair forward with both hands, momentarily kicking up the front wheels before rounding the corner toward the right hallway. The wheelie maneuver drew the ire of my parents, but always gave Papa a kick.

  This hallway emanated the same depressing mood and continued another hundred feet, sprouting offshoot corridors every twenty-five feet. With a single glance, I could tell that none of the hallway’s nondescript wooden doors met our criteria. Papa began humming softly to himself while I proceeded down the hall to check each of the branches. After another fifteen minutes of exploration, we finally hit a dead end with an alarmed emergency exit. It’d be easy to get lost here, and the experience now rekindled memories of UCLA Student Orientation where mischievous counselors told Edgar Allan Poe-esque stories of careless freshmen getting lost for days in the medical center’s twenty-seven miles of hallways. Papa continued to hum, now with a more nervous tenor, or perhaps I was just projecting.

  “I think we should’ve taken door number two,” I said, dejected. I looked down at my watch; it was 10:15, way behind schedule.

  “Its kind of frustrating when you’re looking for something and can’t find it,” said Papa comfortingly.