For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,47

another human being waiting on the line.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” I blabbered. “It was. . .”

What was I going to tell him? That I was about to resign from the story he’d given me—which meant I’d probably never get any work from Dave or his paper again—but decided against it when the woman I was supposed to locate had located me instead? In that case, he’d hire Madlyn to write the story, and cut me out of it entirely. She called me—it was embarrassing. Did Richard Nixon call Bob Woodward and let him in on the whole Watergate thing? Well, they never did find out who “Deep Throat” was. . .

“Spare me the details,” Harrington said. “You were about to explain to me why this thousand-dollar story you’re working on isn’t going to be in my computer by tomorrow.”

Wait a second. That was the point, exactly. Madlyn had called me, not the other way around. And that meant. . .

“Dave,” I told him, “forget everything I was about to tell you. You’ll have a story on your screen tomorrow, and it’s going to be much better than you have any reason to expect.”

“Well, how hard is that to do?”

“I’ll talk to you later,” I said, and hung up on him before he could commit another atrocity of wit. Immediately afterward, I pressed the line button for incoming calls on the phone and dialed *69.

“This is—your return-call service,” the automated voice said. I held my breath. If the number was out of the area, like MacKenzie’s, I was completely screwed, and would have to call Harrington back and offer to wax his car by hand every week until Leah got out of graduate school. “The number of your last incoming call is: Six-zero-nine. . .” A sigh of relief was heard in houses up and down my street.

So there it was, I thought, jotting down the entire ten digit phone number on the back of yesterday’s sheet-a-day calendar, the official Aaron Tucker Editorial Services scratch paper. A six-zero-nine area code meant South Jersey, and this exchange sounded like Atlantic City, which was easily a two-hour drive away. But I couldn’t just call Madlyn back. She might flee. I needed to see her, bring her back, show everyone that I could, in fact, do the job I was asked, however mistakenly, to do.

The phone number I’d gotten ended in a hundred, so it had to be a business, and, if Madlyn was holed-up in Atlantic City, probably a hotel. I dialed the number.

“Bally’s Casino Hotel.”

It’s hard to talk when you’re holding your breath, but I managed. “What room is Madlyn Beckwirth in?” I asked. “Don’t connect me,” I added quickly.

“There’s no Madlyn Beckwirth registered here, sir, and even if there were, it’s our policy not to give out room numbers over the phone.”

“Well, I just received an abusive phone call from your hotel, and I’d like very much to know who might have called and threatened the lives of my children,” I scolded. The operator, if I was lucky, wouldn’t know it was against the law to make such calls and immediately insist the cops be brought in.

“Oh, my!” she said. “Well, I can access the phone records to see which room called your number, sir.” Once in a while, I get lucky.

“That’s better,” I said, and gave her my number. It took a few seconds.

“I have it. A call made about eight minutes ago,” said the operator proudly. Way to get around the hotel rules, Tucker. “That’s room twenty-two-oh-three, but there’s no Madlyn Beckwirth registered there, sir.”

“Who is registered in that room? Maybe there’s been a mistake.”

“That room is registered to Mrs. Milton Ladowski.” I almost dropped the phone, but managed to thank the operator, and hung up.

I ran across the street and asked Miriam to watch the kids until Abby got home. She said her daughter Melissa would be glad to play with Leah. Ethan, I informed her, would do his homework and then disappear into the land of Nintendo, emerging only for sustenance. In other words, Miriam said it was no problem. I was in the car before I really knew what I was doing.

Once on the road, I plugged the cell phone into the cigarette lighter and called Abby in her office. She was on the phone, but I told her assistant Lorraine it was important, and gave her the cell phone number to call back. I’d barely gotten two miles before the phone rang. I pushed the “hands-off”