= "The Living Will of Rupert Ames"
  by Arthur Montague


Neighbors and business associates alike said dying was the kindest thing Rupert Ames ever did. That he was shot dead in his bed made no difference to them. 

Who murdered Rupert Ames? And why bother? He was eighty-eight years old and ailing. Bed-ridden, in fact. The killer had slipped into his bedroom through a second floor balcony door, whacked him, and exited by the same route.

By the time Cripps and Yablonsky, the homicide partners who caught the call, arrived at the scene, techs were already dusting for prints. Rupert Ames was well into rigor mortis, and the coroner's people were impatiently waiting to package him up before he was too distorted to fit easily into a body bag.

Cripps and Yablonsky were in their mid-thirties, fast trackers in the department. Both had powerful rabbis in the department, of course, but they were also good detectives, running an average of 92% cleared cases, 24% convictions. The department median was 65% and 8%. They were the department stars. For this case, they'd have to be.

On this day, however, Cripps and Yablonsky were not at their sparkling best. Cripps had just returned from three days of specialized baton training, and every part of his body was bruised. He vowed, "no more learn by doing courses," and was preoccupied with how to get out of that two-day chemical deterrent workshop he'd signed up for. Yablonsky had his own preoccupations. He hoped one day to do SWAT work, and he'd just come back from three days of apartment extrication training. Now he wouldn't go near a wall, fearing a ricochet might hit him, and he stood crouched in the center of every room he entered, spinning about trying to see everything at once. So, at bottom, Cripps needed a chiropractor and Yablonsky needed a deprogrammer. Neither was ready for serious homicide sleuthing.

Despite that, they went through the motions. First, the live-in housekeeper. She'd discovered the body that morning when she went to deliver Ames his breakfast.

"I've been with him twenty-six years," she volunteered. "The wage was twice what I could get anywhere else. If it wasn't for the money, I'd have left him in the first week. He looks good with an extra hole in his head."

Then, the wife. Her bedroom was separate, as far as possible from Ames' but on the same floor.

"He was a hard man to live with, but I guess I loved him dearly." She attempted a mournful sniffle, but it didn't work and she gave up. "What the hell, he was an asshole from the get go. I married him for his money, which I'm telling you right now because everyone else will tell you anyway. That was my mistake because I never saw any of the money. At least I will now." Motive, Cripps and Yablonsky decided, nor had they discounted the housekeeper as a suspect.

Because he was handy, Ames' cousin was the next to be interviewed. He'd shown up at the front door that morning with a gift-wrapped basket of fruit for Rupert.

"I heard he was sick, so I thought it'd be nice to bring him some fresh fruit. He's always hated fresh fruit."

"You didn't like your cousin?" Cripps asked.

"Does a bear have hair?" chortled the cousin.

Later, Cripps and Yablonsky nearly took the cousin off the suspect list. After all, he was seventy-nine years old. What kept him on the list awed both detectives: the old man had finished in the 28-mile Spokane Marathon the year before. He, as easily as anyone, could have scaled the wall to the balcony door.

If there was ever doubt Rupert Ames treated his own shabbily, his ex-wife erased it. The detectives found her living in the Projects.

"The man was a prick, plain and simple. I bore him a son. He said, 'Thank you, hit the road,' like I was just there to give him an heir. I'm a manicurist now. He chiseled me out of support. He had lawyers, I didn't, simple as that. Would you fellows care for some of this wine?" Both Cripps and Yablonsky cringed; it was screw top in a gallon jug. The ex definitely harbored a grievance.

The detectives needed two days to locate the son. By then, the coroner's report was in, putting the time of death between one and three a.m. The son, Roderick, was vague about his alibi.He had a criminal record. Like everyone else interviewed by the detectives, he wished Rupert Ames a long, tortured sojourn in hell. He made Number One on the suspect list. 

Everybody on the stroll knew Roderick, and everybody knew his story. They knew about the father, rich as Croesus, who'd dumped his own son without education or skills to fend for himself. Roderick had managed, however. Vice reported he was strictly small time but he got along. He still had some good looks, although now, in his early fifties, he was getting a little long in the tooth for a street rounder. Record-wise, he was a two-time loser; once for assault with a weapon, which the homicide detectives liked to see, and once for grand larceny, which also fit nicely if money was a motive.

Roderick's fingerprints in Rupert's bedroom? "I visited him a week before he died," explained Roderick. "That night, too, when he died. He gave me a $200 a week allowance on the condition he personally handed it to me in cash. That way, he got to tell me week in and week out that I was a piece of white trash just like my mother. I guess he figured that was worth $200 a week in entertainment value."

The detectives had Roderick placed at the scene, if early. Early enough, they reasoned, for him to have sidled over to the balcony door and unlocked it. The more they looked at Roderick, the more enthused they became. Everyone was a suspect, but he was Number One with a bullet. 

By the day of Rupert's funeral, Cripps and Yablonsky had completed extensive background checks on most of Rupert's relatives. Roderick was handy, but any of the other relatives could as easily be a stone killer. Rupert himself seemed to be all people said he was and more. Going back further, his father and grandfather had had reputations just as bad. 

Rupert's will turned out to be a choice piece of work. Cripps and Yablonsky attended the reading in the cemetery chapel. The family wasn't wasting time; Rupert's plot was only half-filled by then, the sound of the backhoe coming in through the open window.

The will was clear on two points. First, all of Rupert's considerable assets were to be turned into cash and invested. Second, initially no one got a dime. The entire estate would be held in trust for the last Ames survivor, whether that was the widow, ex-wife, son, or cousin. The housekeeper didn't get mentioned.

The two detectives nearly laughed aloud. Both saw a slaughter in the offing, and by that point, both figured it couldn't happen to a more deserving group of people.

Rupert's widow, June, exploded, cursing all Ames, born and unborn. Admittedly, she had reason; Rupert had just decreed the family estate be sold out from under her. No house, no car, no plastic, and, especially, no money.

Probably knowing he'd never get a word in edgewise after the reading, the estate lawyer handed June Ames a note letting her know the house was already sealed and advising her to make an appointment to remove her personal belongings.

The ex-wife, Cecilia, read the note over the stunned June's shoulder and laughed like hell. Maybe Rupert wasn't so bad after all. Cecilia had not forgotten that she'd been thrown over for a set of pneumatic boobs and an orthodontist's dream smile. All the cheap wine in the world wouldn't erase that memory.

June stood imperiously, took one deep, angry breath, glared coldly about the room, and proclaimed, "My lawyers will break this will in a week. The old man was out of his mind when he wrote it. If he wrote it!"

Unperturbed, the estate lawyer replied, "I think any court will find everything in order. Of course, contesting the will is your right."

"I'm with you, June," chimed Roderick. "We can prove he never drew a sane breath in his life."

"You're living testimony to that," Clifford, the cousin, tossed in.

The four bickered, threatened, and cursed for another twenty minutes; their anger was directed first at Rupert, then the estate lawyer, and, finally, predictably, each other. At last the lawyer got the door closed behind them and turned to the detectives.

Apparently unruffled, he offered apologies. "I'm sorry about that display," he said. "Bereavement can manifest itself irrationally sometimes."

"They seemed more bereaved about the contents of the will than about Ames' passing," quipped Cripps.

"Perhaps their expectations were a little high." The lawyer returned to his chair and began putting papers back into his briefcase. "Is there any way I can be of further assistance to you?" he asked.

"What are the chances that there's another will?" Yablonsky asked.

The lawyer smiled tolerantly. "None. In the course of the past few years Mr. Ames changed his will twice. We have both previous wills in our files. In any case, the fundamentals of his bequests, or lack of them, have always been a common thread in all three. I can provide you copies if you wish."

"Tell us again about the Rupert Ames you knew," said Cripps.

The lawyer, Morris Restman, shrugged slightly. 

"Mr. Ames was born to a family fortune. Over the course of his life he more than doubled that fortune. His grandfather was considered something of a robber baron, though not on a scale of a J.P. Morgan, for example. So was Mr. Ames. Real estate was the primary focus of Mr. Ames' business initiatives.

"As you may have surmised, he had little time for family life, but that's not to say he wasn't a caring man. He always tried to do for his family what he thought best. Being so decisive a man, what he thought best usually prevailed."

"Mr. Restman," Cripps interrupted. "How did an eighty-something tycoon decide on hiring a thirty-something lawyer to represent his fortune?"

"I'm a full partner in one of the oldest, most respected law firms in the state and have been for nearly ten years. The Ames account goes back with our firm even further. The magnitude and complexity of the Ames holdings requires personalized legal attention. Mr. Ames and I had, how to put it, a rapport almost from our first meeting."

Cripps and Yablonsky grabbed a late lunch at a Denny's on the way back to the precinct. Funerals made them hungry. They were quiet until the coffee came.

Cripps opened the conversation. "I don't like that lawyer," he said.

"I don't like any of them."

"What do we tell the Captain?"

"The son still looks good for it. I get the feeling the cousin is just along for the ride. Too old to give a damn, and laughing at the rest of them. The ex is probably too far into the booze to have two coherent thoughts in a row. As for the wife, maybe she needs another look. She could have been getting some on the side from the gardener or some other guy."

"Maybe even the son," Cripps suggested. "He was at the house often enough."

"Hold that thought," Yablonsky grinned. "Let's go see the Captain."

Despite having no money for a retainer, June Ames had a lawyer in jig time. She started by trying for an injunction to stop sale of the house. Too late; Restman had already sold it. She then tried for an allowance pending disposition of other actions. Too late again; everything had been moved off shore. The estate of Rupert Ames was now out of reach, pending satisfaction of the terms of his will.

Yablonsky observed that Ames had everything set up so well for his death he must have known it was coming.

Cripps, the thinker, noted, "When you're eighty-eight years old you don't have to be a genius to know the reaper is sharpening his scythe for your neck."

The Captain had instructed them to concentrate on Roderick Ames, the son. Dutifully, they picked him up for a talk. Yablonsky did the questioning.

"We can prove motive and opportunity," he began. "We can get your record in. You have no alibi. Give us a statement and we may be able to deal the charge down to second degree. Screw us around and you'll be looking at first degree and a death sentence. Your choice." Yablonsky had a cold, cold smile.

They went around and around with Roderick for nearly five hours before they got an admission of sorts from him, though not quite the admission they were after.

"I have an alibi. I was with certain people when a deal went down. If I name names, I'm dead in a day."

"You're dead anyway. Maybe we can help out with these certain people. Or we could just cut you loose and put out the word you already named certain people. Save the courts a lot of money."

"I was just a bystander. Somebody ended up dead. My alibi for one charge will just get me convicted on another, or killed, which is more likely."

"That somebody you're talking about. Do we have him on our books? Maybe just give us a name, a little good faith."

Roderick took his time, weighing this, weighing that. Finally, he said, "Pickles Kinsky."

Yablonsky and Cripps exchanged long looks. Pickles was on the books all right; found shot in a motel room, probably the result of a drug deal gone awry.

"You expect to trade the killer of a nothing dime dealer for a pass on killing a millionaire. Where's your sense of economics?"

"Your people know exactly when Pickles was whacked because they were coming in the front door when I and other certain people were bailing out the bathroom window."

Yablonsky sighed and got up. "OK, Roderick, I'll find out who has Pickles' case file, and we'll see if they'd like to deal for your testimony. In the future you should pick your friends more carefully. And hope they can't make bail."

The detectives were not optimistic about Roderick's career prospects. He made his deal and he walked, but the people he gave up were well known and definitely violent types. The detectives didn't have to worry about it for long. The untimely death of June Ames ensured that.

"Hit and run," reported the uniform first at the scene. "She flew from the middle of the street right into a fire hydrant. If the first impact didn't kill her, the hydrant would have."

"Anything on the car yet?" Cripps asked.

"Not yet. We've started a canvass. There's some broken glass. That's about it so far."

Back in their car, Yablonsky commented, "One down, two to go. What do you think?"

"Roderick owns a car but he's not stupid enough to use it for this. He'd steal one in a flash though. The cousin probably has a car. Maybe the ex, too."

The death car was located two days later on a side street in the Projects. What was left of it, that is. Most of it had been stripped. Just as the detectives had concluded, it had been stolen on the day it was used to run down June Ames.

Forensics couldn't find so much as a hair. "I've never known the bros to be so meticulous," opined the department criminalist, Metcalf.

"Maybe too meticulous," said Yablonsky.

Roderick could not be located. He'd crawled into a hole somewhere; shrewd move on his part, since his certain people were out on bail and probably looking for him.

By catching her early in the morning, Cripps and Yablonsky were able to talk to the ex-wife before she was all the way drunk. Her one-bedroom in the Projects was just a block from where the death car was dumped. The detectives thought she might have a boyfriend with enough ambition and greed to secure her the inheritance.

Not to be. Her memories were too fuzzy to make sense, and she scoffed at the idea of a boyfriend. The detectives couldn't find it in themselves to treat her as a serious suspect. They decided someone was trying to muddy the waters. Cecilia blamed the cousin.

"He's old, but he's treacherous. Him and Rupert were cut from the same cloth. That's why they always hated each other. They were alike and knew it. You want a killer, go find Clifford."

They took her at her word and went to find Clifford. This interview was about the same as their first with him. He was old, fit, cranky, and sharp. They found him feeling expansive.

"Officers, the only way I could enjoy having Rupert's money would be if I could have taken it from him while he was alive. I've never needed his money, nor even wanted it. The satisfaction for me would have been in him not having it.

"I also happened to like the idea of him dying from a lingering disease, something painful. I'd never think of hastening the process with a bullet.

"As for June, she was just a bimbo who managed to get her hooks into him during a lapse on his part. She was mad because she couldn't get them in as deep as she wanted."

"That leaves Roderick and Cecilia, Clifford," said Yablonsky. "What are your thoughts on them?"

"Rupert was too tough for Cecilia. She was already on the booze when he dumped her. Smart money would be on Roderick. He's a little on the spineless side, but he's a cunning bugger. That makes him dangerous in a sneaky, back alley way. On the other hand, he hardly ever finishes anything he starts, even a family."

"We didn't know he was married."

"Oh, he wasn't. Just didn't bother with birth control. Hell, even I have sense enough to practice safe sex," he cackled.

Cripps and Yablonsky were right back where they had started.

All the Captain said was, "Find Roderick!"

They found Cecilia Ames first. She turned up as a floater in the backwater canal that oozed along behind the Projects. Drowned. Death by misadventure, reported the coroner. No sign of violence. Lots of signs of intoxication. Two down, one to go.

"So the question," speculated Yablonsky,."Was she so drunk she fell in the canal and couldn't climb back out, or was she pushed in and prevented from climbing back out?"

"I like pushed," Cripps offered.

"Funny, so do I."

Cecilia went out with some dignity. Clifford paid for her funeral. There were lots of flowers. None came from Roderick, but Restman, the lawyer, sent a wreath. He'd also sent a wreath to June's funeral.

Another month passed before Roderick surfaced. He called Yablonsky at the precinct and arranged a meeting.

When they met in a nondescript suburban bar, he looked to be a very frightened man.

"You've got to help me. You got me into this mess. I'm a marked man."

"You mean if your pals don't get you, your relatives will. If it's any consolation, there's only one relative left."

"I'm not worried about Clifford."

"He could always hire someone."

"He's too cheap. Worse than my father. At least my father gambled sometimes. That's how he made so much money. Taking chances, even if he always stacked the odds first. Not Clifford. He's so careful he looks both ways before he crosses a sidewalk, let alone a street."

"You don't leave us much, Roderick. Three dead relatives and you. If Clifford goes any time soon, I'd say you're in real trouble."

"Come on, the guy's nearly eighty. He could go any time."

"True enough," Yablonsky conceded.

A few days later Cripps and Yablonsky were sitting at Pistol Pete's, a cop hangout, with bourbons, beers back. The drinks were strictly medicinal; they were anesthetizing their wounds. Precinct wags were making fun of their dilemma. Three corpses--the Captain had ordered Cecilia's drowning kept open--two solid, in your face suspects, motives up the wazoo, no charges, no arrests. The team's monthly statistics were skewed to hell by the three uncleared cases. It didn't help that their investigation had boosted someone else's stats by getting the line on the Pickles Kinsky killing.

"We're missing something here," opined Cripps.

Yablonsky nodded in agreement. "We need a fresh approach."

"Follow the money," proclaimed Cripps loudly. He was slightly drunk.

"Well, right now the lawyer's sitting on all of it."

"Maybe he's an embezzler. I never have liked him."

"Nope, if he was his best move would be to keep all of the relatives alive."

"Too true. Damn, I can't get over how a guy that young could win the confidence of a paranoid weasel like Rupert Ames."

"Let's go ask his boss," Yablonsky suggested. "We haven't got anything better to do."

They were en route when they took a call in the car. Clifford had turned up dead in Cityview Park, the apparent victim of a mugger while out jogging.

His body was still warm when Cripps and Yablonsky arrived at the scene. Clifford had been stabbed, two in the chest, one in the back. His cash and watch were missing. So were his runners.

"He would have had first class runners. He was practically a professional," said Yablonsky.

"You mean we just have to find someone with size nine feet and we're in business."

"Sure, if that happens to be Roderick's size."

"He can afford to buy his own now. He just became an instant millionaire."

Yablonsky shrugged. "Let's go pick him up."

Roderick was another waste of time. They found him in the same suburban bar where he'd met Yablonsky a few days before. The bartender confirmed Roderick had been there since opening. It was now six-thirty in the evening.

"Who'd you hire, Roderick?" Cripps asked, frustration putting a harsh edge to the question. "You could afford it; he was the last of the family."

"All that means is that I probably have to pay to bury him. My pleasure, and then what? Thanks to you two, I get whacked anyway. From here on, if you two want so much as the time of day from me, call my lawyer!"

The precinct was their prison. Cripps and Yablonsky found a corner with a desk, a phone, and a separator wall to dull the sound of snickers from their fellows. The easiest case they'd ever been handed, their colleagues kept saying. Wait until the killing ended and bust the last person standing. That seemed about as clear as spring water in a bottle.

"Ok," said Yablonsky for the umpteenth time, "let's take it from the top. We've got four people with motives. Three are outside possibilities and the fourth who, incidentally, reaps the fruits, is also the prime suspect from day one because he's so obvious a choice. But we can't find the hook for this guy. We know he's it! But he's not. Yes, he is; no, he isn't. What's left? Who's left?"

"What should we know about him that we missed? Some stupid little thing so obvious we missed it." Cripps wasn't any happier.

"I like the lawyer."

"Screw the lawyer; he gets his fees no matter who kills who."

"True, but we were having thoughts about him just before Clifford interrupted us."

"Sorry, Pal, but if we're going to make a case it's Roderick all the way. He must've hired someone."

"If he did, him and the perp will be long gone as soon as Restman releases the money."

"You got it, partner. Let's give it one more shot. We'll go to Clifford's funeral. Maybe Clifford will have an extra mourner, like the perp protecting his investment."

In fact, Clifford had no mourners, unless Restman, the lawyer, counted. Roderick didn't show up.

"He's the survivor. You'd think he'd have at least enough class to show up to gloat a little," muttered Yablonsky.

"Maybe he's smarter than we give him credit," said Cripps. "Look to your left and two rows back. Enrico Vasquez and two heavies with pencil moustaches and snake eyes. Recall those certain people Roderick mentioned? Enrico's one of them. Maybe Roderick decided to do his mourning in private."

Yablonsky's cell phone rang. He answered, listened for a minute, grunted, slapped it shut and put it back in his pocket. He chuckled cynically.

"You won't believe this," he said.

"What?"

"Roderick. His car missed a curve and went over a cliff. The car was remarkable for its lack of brake fluid. I guess he was on his way to the funeral after all. He's as dead as the rest of them now."

The pair sat in silent contemplation for several minutes.

Cripps finally said it. "That son of a bitching lawyer. Has to be."

"What's he get out of it? Making a case won't be easy."

"Probably. But there's personal satisfaction; call it need to know, even if we can't get it into court."

"Let's go to work. Again." They left Restman sitting in the front pew of the funeral chapel.

The two detectives reviewed each killing, case by case, but found no connection to Restman. They dug into Restman's financial records. No inordinate expenditures, no unusual credit card activity. He didn't gamble, didn't chase women, and didn't give to charities. He owned his condo. His net worth was nearly seven figures. He drove a two-year old Chevy.

The detectives spent an entire weekend on their own time canvassing the Projects with photos of Restman, reasoning that he would have been noticed because he would have been so out of place. They offered their own cash for tips. Zip. They got into his phone records. Nothing there either.

Finally, they set up a meeting with his boss, Crawford Braithwaite, senior partner in Braithwaite, Suddaby, Klein & Restman. At last came a glimmer.

Braithwaite was forthcoming enough, although he didn't tell the detectives much that more digging wouldn't have turned up eventually.

Morris Restman was indeed a full partner in the firm. He had made full partner because he handled the Ames accounts--and he handled the Ames accounts because, family history notwithstanding, Rupert Ames had made it clear that he would take his business elsewhere unless Restman was put in charge of it. 

"So," Cripps asked Braithwaite, "Ames more or less held a gun to your head?"

"That puts the situation in rather a cold light, but, yes, that about describes it. Now, please do not misunderstand, Morris Restman is a fine lawyer. Ames wasn't suggesting we take on an amoral ambulance chaser or an idealistic plodder better suited to be a public defender."

Braithwaite opened a file, presumably Restman's personnel file, and rattled off some information.

"We have here private schools since kindergarten; some in upstate New York, others in Montreal. Harvard Law, fourteenth in a class of one hundred and sixty-two. Also from Harvard, Restman has an MBA." He closed the file. "We would have likely made him an offer anyway," he concluded.

"As a full partner?" asked Cripps.

"Oh, certainly not at that point. As a junior associate to begin with. A few years of experience at that level, then senior associate, and then an offer to purchase a partnership if things were working out satisfactorily."

"Purchase a partnership? I don't understand," said Cripps.

Patiently, Braithwaite explained. "A partnership is a share of the business, ownership. It has a book value and, therefore, must be purchased. In some cases, most actually, the partnership is offered and the purchase price is deducted over a term from the partner's earnings."

"So, Morris Restman purchased a partnership? That must have been expensive, or is he still paying it off?"

Braithwaite smiled. "Yes, it does have considerable value but his grandfather paid our full asking price, and of course guaranteed the Ames accounts."

"His grandfather?" asked Cripps.

Braithwaite looked puzzled, not easy for a smooth big time corporate lawyer.

"Why, yes," he said. "Morris is Rupert Ames' grandson. You knew that, of course."

Well, no, they didn't. Now that they did, they knew a lot more too.It didn't take the detectives long to turn over a few more rocks. The scenario became clear. Unfortunately, evidence was another matter entirely.

Restman was one of Roderick's strays. The mother, named Restman, had died giving birth to Morris. Rupert had taken over Morris' rearing, and Roderick had promptly forgotten the entire business. Probably Roderick had other offspring somewhere, but who knew? Rupert apparently wanted only the one, and he'd taken the time to groom him properly in the Ames manner--nasty. Murderous, even.

Cripps and Yablonsky took what they had to the DA. They were shown the door. Maybe an intruder had shot Rupert Ames. Maybe June Ames had been killed by a joyriding kid from the Projects. Maybe Cecilia had accidentally fallen into the canal and drowned. Maybe a mugger had killed Clifford in the park. And maybe one of those certain people so feared by Roderick had cut his brake lines.

Unwilling to let it go, Cripps and Yablonsky decided that at a minimum they had to let Restman know they had his number. They called him for an interview, and he dutifully showed up at the precinct accompanied by a younger version of Crawford Braithwaite, except this one specialized in criminal rather than civil law. By then Restman must have known the police had some of the pieces, but he was cool.

Yablonsky led off. "We realize you're not obligated to say anything, Restman, but for the record, we'd like you to tell us your story. We'd kind of like to hear it first hand."

"This is only a courtesy, you understand," said Restman. "But I know you've both worked very hard, if fruitlessly. For the record, Roderick, my father, never acknowledged me. Probably a good thing for me. My grandfather didn't tell me my father's name until I was seven and by then it didn't matter. Ironically, I'd run into him at the estate periodically. I knew him; he didn't know me. Rupert and I used to laugh about that. My mother had died; that's all I knew about her.

"My grandfather paid the freight. Governesses at first, then schools, even the law partnership. During school breaks he taught me his business. Later, he taught me how to conduct business. Quite a difference. He taught me about people, and he taught me about my relatives. Neither here nor there, certainly not now. He also taught me that if circumstances are appropriate, nature invariably takes its course, as witness events of the past few months."

"You may not have had any use for your father while he was alive but he sure did you a favor when he died," said Yablonsky.

"Fortuitous coincidence, I assure you," said Restman with a smile. "Roderick was the survivor and I am his only known heir, as I'm sure you know. But what's more important, I think, is that Rupert wanted an Ames in the Ames tradition, and I am he. If there's nothing else, I have appointments."

"Thank you for coming in, Mr. Restman," said Cripps. "We may be in touch."

Once Restman has closed the door behind him, Yablonsky asked, "What's that about we may be in touch? We have zip today and we'll have less than zip tomorrow."

"I don't know. Just to put the wind up the guy."

"Forget it," Yablonsky shrugged. "He's an Ames."


ARTHUR MONTAGUE. A writer early on for trade journals and newspapers, Art Montague became sidetracked in his thirties and spent more than twenty years working throughout Canada as an administrator and/or community development professional. By sheer will, he managed to escape to resume a full-time writing career. Montague is a regular contributor to technical print mags. He also writes lighthearted essays on being a grandparent and fiction with an edge, the latter leaning more often than not toward the dark side of human nature.

Copyright (c) 2001 Arthur Montague