Motambo Tiempo

Somewhere in Overtown, Miami Florida
Motambo Tiempo lie drunk and bleeding beneath the overpass that gave this rough-sled section of Miami its name.  Two cop cars passed by in clear sight, one after the other, heading toward I-95 and a possible rendezvous at an all-night eating joint.  If the cops noticed Tiempo, maybe caught a glimpse of him in a peripheral field, or made him the subject of passing conversation, no one knew, except Tiempo.  He knew damn well because he'd managed to bug almost every cop car that made the Overtown rounds and could activate the proper listening channel that corresponded to a particular vehicle.

The first car was quiet, except for the constant buzz and blather of the police radio.  The second car carried a fat pig that Tiempo hated, along with his partner, Rosalita Rodriguez, who was taking none of Fat Pig's swag on this sweltering night.

"Shut the bleep up, Ronnie, you fat piece of ca-ca," was the most memorable line Tiempo heard as the partners drove by.

Another slow night in Overtown for hip-hop DJ, part-time body guard and full-time detective, Motambo Tiempo.  He rose slowly to his feet, wiped the fake blood from his chin and sprayed himself with half a bottle of Realm cologne to mask the stench of the cheap port wine he'd spilled all over himself.

"Time to take a dump," Motambo Tiempo (nee Ralph Smith) said to himself.

Felipe Carrabas
A bad case of the flu felled Felipe for three or four weeks, but when he came to his senses he was mildly aware that some of his belongings had been disturbed.  Not a dramatic recognition for the lethargic 24-year old, whose latest illness hit him only about as hard as an exaggerated weekend bender.  Not a penny creased his pockets.  And industry was anathema to the laser-thin Colombian.  But nowhere could he find the Rolex Presidential watch he'd worked the middle-aged congressman so hard to acquire.  The phone call from Motambo Tiempo was the last thing Felipe needed or would remember.

The explosion rocked the South Florida front pages and the chuckle-huckster TV news shows for months, but to Felipe Carrabas it was a fitting end to what he'd thought was just the beginning of the really big things to come.

Neither bad juju, Haitian voodoo or any untoward thing he'd ever done or thought about prepared Tiempo for the percussion of the violence that put an end to Felipe and 340 other unfortunate folks who happened to be spending time at the Sunlit Chimera, South Beach's edgiest new Art Deco hotel.

The Haves and the Haves Not
In Miami the folks who exist in a gauzy niche between the haves and the haves not, dwell in places like the southern parts of North Miami Beach, where Don does his mom's laundry every Saturday morning.  Picking at his laptop while the barrel-bellied custodian mops the floor in front of him, he smiles as the smell of Sandy mingles with the whiff of soaps.  The machines gently whir away, offset by the sounds on a ceiling mount CRT television of a smiling hostess on QVC selling discount China.

A welcome refuge from the wake of the South Beach bomb; at this hour only two black girls folding clothes and the custodian join him in the calm after the storm.  Indeed, the 21st Century's early years had been marked by relentless disaster, beginning with the coup d'tat that prevented the Gore Administration from taking its lawful office.  While millions of the righteous marveled at the cool precision with which the right wing wrested power from their grasps, the Christians and opportunists raved at the courage and stubbornness of the simian puppet who would reign supreme for the first eight years of the new millennium.  Once the puppet's strings were cut from forces unseen, the specter of its fitful collapse left the world anxious and willing for the Phoenix to rise again from the ashes that the Bush administration had left behind, but it would be a harrowing task that would doubtless take generations.

Suddenly Donnie saw it unfolding before him and he knew what Sandy and he ought to do.  The bloodless coup, September 11th, the criminal incursion into a sovereign third-world country were but the shock waves caused by the collapse of the American Empire.  He well remembered when he became aware of it while watching a silly program where a wealthy man picked his bride among several exquisitely shallow women whose physical charms could give the Pope an erection.

Mary Frances and Donald in Hialeah

Mary Frances and Donald walked down E. 49th Avenue a few yards until they found Don's scooter, a 45-year old Lambretta his late buddy Elliott gave him shortly before a super-aggressive cancer claimed the 26-year old.  The Lambretta was perfect for the bustling streets of Hialeah and was particularly handy because Don could maneuver it easily over the sidewalks and chain it almost everywhere.  An added bonus was the Lambretta's wide chassis and cushioned seats.  His mom had a fine time riding on the back of the scooter, the hot wind blowing what remained of her hair.

"Whoa!" Mary Frances shouted as Don accelerated to 6 miles an hour.

Although her impatient son had written off the pawnshop tour as a loss, Mary Frances had gathered a number of promising clues.  She learned that for the last 5 or 6 years no pawnbroker had seen or heard about a ring like the one Lazarus had found beneath Mary's fridge.  After talking Penelope into making a bunch of phone calls, Mary found that no estate jewelery dealer in Dania or Hollywood had seen such a ring in more than 10 years.  Employing Donnie as her research assistant had also been a good move that only cost Mary Frances a kettle of her famous chicken soup whenever he'd drop by for a visit to take the sting from his recent move to Hialeah.  Donnie's web surfing had identified a ring just like Herb's, but its availability was limited to a few web sites.  And the jewelry dealers who ran those sites weren't ab le to give Mary an historical lineage of their rings.  They'd purchased them from estates belonging to folks who were long gone.

Back at mom's condo, Don asked Mary Frances what was burning on the stove.

"Thaglosustingriblendetickburgers/"

"I told you I wanted chicken soup, not burgers.  It's the only thing you know how to make that won't poison me, mom/"

"I'll slap you down."

"So, now you're a full time detective, mama?"

"I don't see why not."

"Yeah, I guess an old fart's gotta do something with her life," Donnie said.  "Next you're gonna be asking me to take you to get your detective's license."

"Thagznodabegidee,"

"It's not going to happen."

A half hour later Don was busy at the computer keyboard with Mary Frances attempting to dictate.

"Look, this is too painful.  Trust me.  I can write the letter without your having to dictate; it'd take me a month and by then you'll misplace the ring and your trail will run cold."

August 2, 2005
Florida Department of State Division of Licensing
P.O. Box 6687
Tallahassee, FL 32314-6687


To Whom it May Concern:


I am an ancient 88-year old female who would like to know the procedure for getting a Detective's License in the State of Florida.  Do you have any photos of buffed 75-year old male detectives with lots of money I can collaborate with?  Please send me the necessary information so I can get my license before I drop dead.

Sincerely,

Mary Frances Cohen
1700 NE 191 Street
Miami, FL  33179


"Here, read it."

The old woman read the letter and said:

"Now edit it.  You think you're so funny."

"You're derned tootin I'm funny!" Don said.

"

Chapter 10 (Mah Jong Murder Sneak Preview Continues!)

They're all dead.  All four of them.  Not a big deal.  All Alzheimer's victims.  Not unusual given the age range.  Herb the first by ten years.  Only 76.  Mary Frances shook her head, riding her palsy into an exaggerated shrug. He was not supposed to die that way.  Four of them dead.  All dead.  No big deal.  Alzheimer's Disease.  It happens.  Maybe it's happening to me.  She remembered the unopened bottle of Arecept in Lizzie's medicine cabinet.  Maybe it was just a new bottle.  Maybe she forgot to take it.  God, I hope it wasn't her last bottle, Mary thought, as she fumbled in her purse to grab the pilfered medication.

"Here, read this to me," she said as she took a one-page product information sheet out of her purse.

"I'm driving, mom," Don said.

"Then pull over."

"Aricept.  Helping people be more like themselves longer.  Now you're fighting back!  Living with Alzheimer's is heard.  But you've taken an important first step.  With Aricept you're fighting back against Alzheimer's."


"Interesting that it's written on a third-grade level," Don said.

"Keep on reading, Donald."

"How do I know Aricept is working?  Aricept works differently in different people.  Studies have shown that things like memory, thinking and behavior may improve, get better in small ways or stay the same, get worse over time, continue to get worse as expected.  If symptoms stay the same or get worse over time..."


"Enough already.  This is morbid."

"C'mon, finish it," Mary frances said.

"Okay.  if symptoms stay the same or get worse over time, but slower than expected it can still mean Aricept is working."


"What did I just read, mom?" Dan asked.  Testing her.  Always testing.

"Stop it.  You know I know what you read."

"Okay, mom.  Why did you steal Lizzie's Aricept.  And why are you taking Aricept?  You don't have to answer.  It's those drug companies and the freaking HMOs and the god damned doctors.  Why not make all you old farts think you have Alzheimer's?"

"Are you finished?" Mary Frances asked.

"No I'm not.  It's bullshit."

Early Evening That Day
Dynasty Buffet Restaurant
Sky Lake Mall
Unincorporated Dade County, Florida


Don and Mary Frances pulled into a handicapped parking space close to Dynasty's front door.  Seconds later Penelope and Hannah showed up in Hannah's new car, a silver colored, racing style Japanese or Korean sedan whose sleek lines were offset by an array of tacky bumper stickers:  "Honk if You Brake for Shi Tzus", "God Loves Tzus," "Broward County Animal Rescue Mission,"  "Kerry/Edwards 2004."

"How do you like my new car," Hannah said when she'd caught up to her limping mother and wary brother.

"Bidigumablfragumstigas."

"WOULD YOU TALK CLEARLY, MOTHER.  NO ONE UNDERSTANDS YOU WHEN YOU MUMBLE," Hannah said.

"She said, it would be a nice looking car if it weren't for all the F'ing bumper stickers," Don said.

Meantime, Penelope was busy working in Hannah's trunk, taking packages out of a Whole Foods grocery bag, transferring them into her giant straw purse, a duplicate of the Shi Tzu-decorated bag Hannah had given their mother.

"Steve, please help me with these groceries."

"My name's Donald.  Steve is your son.  You know, the big guy who lives in Ireland," Donald said.

By the time Don and Penelope had finished putting Penelope's organic fruit and vegetables into zip lock bags and containers, Don had worked up a lather of sweat, courtesy of South Florida's sweltering humidity.  Hannah was already inside the restaurant, attacking the buffet, while Mary Frances sipped a cold lemonade comprised of a glass of iced water, five lemon wedges and two packets of Spelda.

"Go get mom some soup and I'll get the rest of her food," Penelope said.
)q
Donnie returned to the table with a big bowl of soup filled with three different broths (sweet and sour; egg drop and won ton), a few dollops of coconut shrimp, several plump fried won tons and an abundance of green chives that spilled from the floating shrimp onto the sides of the soup bowl."

"I'm never coming back here again," Penelope said after decrying the restaurant's ever-dwindling supply of long-legged crabs.  She'd made similar threats many times before, and no one paid attention to her pronouncement.

After more than an hour watching mom pick at her food, leaving behind far more offerings than she'd consumed, a departure from her normal behavior, Don dropped Mary Frances off at her condo and drove towards I-95 and the office he'd abandoned during the past two weeks while on vacation.  Don's job ws a simple one.; maintain the "editorial" content of on eof the world's most popular retail computer and electronics web sites.  Writing ads about the PCs, plasma televisions, printers and electronic gizmos came easily to him on most days, a bit more challenging during his times of decreased creativity and rarely gave him much reason for anxiety.

Otherwise he worked hand-in-hand with the vice president of creative to give the site some vitality and verve.  Enjoying the freedom of almost no supervision, the direction Don took with his work depending almost entirely on his own interests from day to day.  His boss described maintaining a huge web site as similar to shoveling coal into a freight engine.  The work never ceased, but it was up to Don to allow himself to take his hands off the site and walk away from the still-moving freight train, even if the engine didn't seem to have enough coal.  the pay and benefits weren't bad after six years of toil, and the position's stability made his job as senior editor of WolverineDirect.com and CompAmerica one he'd planned to keep until retirement.

Excerpt: From Chapter 5

The northbound traffic on the Palmetto Expressway was at its usual rush-hour standstill between NW 36th Street and the off ramp to I-75, but on this night it stood still for a couple of hours.  A near paralytic headache from a herniated neck disk came at the perfect time.  With nowhere to go, Donald had time to grow accustomed to the pain, let it ride through his head for a while and then dispose of most of it. He put his seat to full recline, shoved a Jacqueline Du Pre cello concerto into the CD player and napped until some idiot gave him a horn blast.  The next Du Pre cut was a spirited romp in accompaniment with her husband Daniel Barenboim, the great Argentinean pianist. Every time Donnie heard this piece it reminded him of a scene from the movie HIlary and Jackie, a well-crafted work based on the book written by Hilary and Piers Du Pre about their celebrated sister.  In the scene from the movie, Du Pre and Barenboim had been rehearsing laconically when Barenboim suddenly played the first few chords of the classic Kinks tune, "You Really Got Me Girl."  Together Dupre and Barenboim engaged in a peerless version of the famous tune that no rock musician in the world could dream of besting. 


 After a couple of moments of Dupre and Barenboim;'s artistry, the CD player crapped out the disk so violently that it landed on Don Cohen's lap.  He turned on the radio, selecting one of the only stations that broadcast local news:


"...of an apparent heart attack.  The 83-year old philanthropist made his mark of the community when he founded the South Florida Yiddish Culture and Experimental Arts Center in Aventura."


Donnie clicked off the radio before the end of the news story.  After a pause of about four seconds, it struck him:
"Damn, that's Milton Kravitz."  A foghorn from the Beamer behind Don's Corolla made him jump a few inches out of his seat.  When he realized that the jerk-off behind the wheel wanted him to edge his Corolla a few feet closer to the car in front of him, Cohen powered down his windows and shoved his arm up toward the sky; stiff middle finger beseeching Beamer boy to quit blowing his freaking horn.  Once again contemplating the demise of Milton Kravittz, Donnie was surprised to see Beamer boy standing inches from the Corolla's open window, a 3-iron on his right shoulder.

Donnie flashed B-boy a broad smile and said, "Hey big fella, I'd think you'd need a wood from this distance."


In the split-second it took Beamer Boy to come up with a rejoinder, Don slammed the car door into his knees, and before the golfer landed on the ground, buried a right hand to the stricken man's solar plexus.  Gasping for breath, Beamer Boy held up both arms as if to fend off Don's next attack.


"Don't worry your sweet heart, my little man.  I won't hit you again.  And I'm not even going to have you arrested for assault."


"Assault?" Beamer Boy gasped, "You hit me."


"Assault, my stupid friend, is an act which leads the victim to fear an immediate attack."


Don abandoned Beamer Boy on the ground where he'd left him and climbed back into his car, knowing that someone who'd witnessed the fray had undoubtedly called the cops.  Good fortune interceded as the traffic jam broke open just enough for him to ease the Toyota through three lanes of traffic and onto the 36th Street off ramp a couple of hundred yards north.  Once on 26th Street Don pulled into the back part of a gas station parking lot, the Corolla unseen from the highway, an evasive maneuver that ensured he wouldn't be engaged in any police business just yet.  This being Miami, he'd thought it was odd that a crowd of people hadn't gathered to cheer on the traffic jam combatants.  Perhaps they'd been so pissed off from being stuck in traffic for two hours that a minor skirmish wasn't a big deal.  After all, this is South Florida, the land of cockfights, crooked cops, a thriving narcotics trade and a murder rate that made the local news actors drool.  A couple of white boys slap fighting in the middle of a Palmetto Express traffic snarl - so what?

The rest of the ride home took Donnie through many layers of introspection.  He'd always felt sickened after instigating a violent encounter.  The fact that he'd never been punched out, arrested or had his head blown off was miraculous.  An undercurrent of anger weaved through all of his thoughts and emotions, by and large imperceptible, but ready to erupt at any moment.. Too humiliated to return home right away, Don killed three hours at the Denny;'s Restaurant near LA Fitness, picking at a Grand Slam's runny eggs, cold Canadian bacon, a glob of grits and a blueberry and pecan short stack.  Big breasted waitress.  Coffee stained teeth.  The faint smell of cigarettes in her hair.  Lovely brown eyes, as big and soulful as Audrey Hepburn's.  Something about her stirred Don a couple of levels beyond lust; a hunger that confused him nearly as much as the violence inside.


"Where you been, hon?"


"In a land far away, darling."


The feel of the waitress' tongue still in his head, Don slipped into the condo just after 4 a.m., surprised to see Mary Frances picking through the recycle bin, a crinkled bag from CVS drugs.


"Where the hell have you been?" she said after Donnie tapped her on her shoulder.


"Why are you always rooting around?" Don said.


"Hmmm?"


"I AM GOING TO BED, MOM."


He kised her on the cheek, picked up the cat and headed for his couch.

Khasene hobn zol er mit di malekh hamoves tokter

EXCERPTED FROM THE MAH JONG MURDERS PART III


He Should Marry the Daughter of the Angel of Death


Nobody knows what goes on inside another being's head.  Lovers, and those long-acquainted think they do, simply because those in love possess pheromone-fueled sensory perceptions which are so acute that those involved in the erotic dance will believe anything about their partner, as long as it flatters them.  Lifelong friends can almost always predict the actions, and therefore the thoughts of their kindred spirits.  However, Mary Frances Cohen had long put her deepest emotions under a rock.  Someday a team of scientists might indeed make it possible for us to read each other's minds and feel our emotions, but not on this October day in 2006, the anniversary of the fatal attack on Mary's husband.  Mary Frances arose at 3 in the morning, acutely aware of the significance of this day.

25 years.  A quarter of a century.  So many years gone by since the physical presence of Herbert Ezra Cohen had existed.  From the years 1900 to 1925 the flying machine had been invented, the world had fought a war that involved nearly every nation and cast its shadow over almost every human on the planet.  In that quarter century came the Black Sox scandal, pogroms in Russia that sent millions fleeing the Czar, and the presidencies of McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge, along with the births of Mary and Herbert Cohen.

Yes, a lot of shit happens in 25 years, but on this particular day, Mary Frances remembered vividly what had occurred at just about this time of day on October 4, 1980.  The phone call from Hollywood Memorial Hospital.

Chasing Away the Blues

Herbert and Mary Frances Cohen had played bridge throughout their marriage until Herb's Alzheimer's disease extinguished his spark of brilliance. With Herb fading, Mary Frances fell into the spirited weekly mah jong games, which had continued each week until this unforgettable late summer evening.  After Herbie's brutal murder at the hands of a fellow psychiatric patient at Hollywood Memorial Hospital, the mahj games were among the few things that Mary truly enjoyed.

"What's wrong, mom?"

"Hmmm?"

"I said, what's going on?" shouted her lazy son from his customary prone position on the tattered living room couch.

"You're what's wrong.  You NEVER do anything," said Mary Frances.  A sentiment that was essentially true save for the 50 hours he spent toiling as Senior Editor in the underbelly of a publicly traded computer reseller that conducted most of its business on the Internet, along with the 1.5 hours per day he spent driving to and fro.

"I'm depressed," Donnie Cohen said.  "Leave me alone.  It's all I can do to do my job and drive home."

"Snabougmait."

"What?"

"Hmmm?"

"Did you just tell me to snap out of it?"

"Yes I did," Mary Frances said emphatically enough that her garbled speech had become crystal clear.  Nothing irritated her more than seeing her talented son wasting his life, vegging away on that couch.

"You're changing the subject, mom.  I'm almost always depressed, it's you I'm worried about."

"Don't worry about me," Mary Frances said.  "Just get your damn shoes off the couch!"

At Donnie's refusal to move, Mary Frances hobbled to the couch and removed the shoes from his feet."

"Donald Cohen, when are you going to learn?"

"Never.  As long as I have such great service."

The roomies never stopped jousting, mostly with Donald initiating the combat.

"Isn't she a knockout?" he'd ask a store clerk.

"She's adorable," was the near unanimous response.

"Pretty damned good looking wench for a 102-year old," a statement that typically earned Donald a gentle swipe from the old woman's cane.

Running his hand through his mom's thinning blonde hair was one of Don's favorite public maneuvers, followed by a mournful, "Old lady patterned baldness."

Through the toughest of times, mother and son rarely got angry at each other, though they existed in a perpetual state of mild irritation.

However, Mary's career as a sleuth was to begin that very August day, although she'd been acquiring and perfecting her deductive genius for as long as Donald could remember.

From Riches to Rags

Herbie Cohen was a tough act to follow, and Mary's life since her late husband's death had taken a sharp turn from edgy affluence (The Cohen's never had much in savings and investments, but plenty of cash from their jewelry business) to a quiet plunge to near poverty.  Mrs. Cohen had invested much of the remaining money and merchandise from the jewelery store to set up shop with Penelope in a beautifully designed store located in a lifeless strip mall on Biscayne Boulevard, just south of what would become the City of Aventura, a concrete canyon flanked by the gaudy Aventura shopping mall and sky-scraping condominium buildings.  Days would go by without a visit from a single customer.

 Soon the proud 60-year history of Stanley Jewelers (opened in 1920 by S.A. Stanly) ended.  The Enron scandal and a handful of poor investments left the old woman nearly penniless, while Penelope had to settle for a life in a comfy little condo on the poor side of Aventura.

A couple of years later the theft of Mary Frances' ancient, rusted Monte Carlo, bare tires and all, removed one more vestige of mobility and pride from the hardy by disheartened woman.  Ironically, Mary's kids were grateful for the crime, as her driving had become dangerously erratic.

And so, depression intermittently found itself creeping into Mary Frances' Lion-sized heart.  Nevertheless, Mary remained stoic, never showing outward signs of distress about her plight. However, her son knew she could be despondent from time to time, as he lived with her to help his mom manage the rapid-fire transitions in her life along with the inevitable trappings of advanced age.

Excerpt: The Mah Jong Murders (The Charleston Years)

During her surprise 80th birthday party at her daughter Penelope's house, Mary Frances had shocked dozens of friends and relatives by announcing (while chewing on some of Penelope's famous chicken salad), that Lil Steup's daughter had been spotted by one of Mrs. Cohen's acquaintances at Lohmann's Plaza.   After fielding the usual chorus of questions:  "Who the hell is Lil Steup?" and a "Who cares, mother," Mary Frances dropped the subject to segue to more interesting topics like the ecstasy she experienced whenever she tasted Penelope's food.

"Ummmmm, uhhnhmmm uhmmmmm," Mary Frances exclaimed  while savoring another bite of the delicious salad.

All in all it had been a good life.  A 42-year marriage to an interesting man who adored her, the love of her three kids, and lots of beloved friends, many of whom were long dead.  A kind hearted grandson, the spawn of Penelope's marriage to a fun-loving beach boy, and two surviving sibling twins (Mervin and Molly) seven years Mary's junior and steadfasat in their devotion to their older sister.

Odd as it seems, Mary Frances and her family lived in Charleston, West Virginia for the first 21 years of her life. Shortly after Teddy and Sarah Newman arrived in Charleston from their Lithuanian homeland they opened a butcher shop and quickly made friends within the small, close-knit Jewish community on the south side of the city.  In 1917, five years after Teddy and Sarah's emigration to America, Mary Frances was born.  Because the good-natured Sarah Newman was not a disciplinarian and Teddy spent more hours playing cards in Charleston's colored town than toiling in the butcher ship, it fell on Mary Frances to be the driving force of the family, with some assistance from Sarah's younger sister, Anne.  The responsibilities of holding a family together at such an early age fell like a boulder on Mary's shoulders; she suffered what was then called a nervous breakdown at age 12, but Aunt Anne rushed to her side to nurse her back from depression.

Tall, attractive and gregarious, Mary Frances had an easy time at school, play and in the butcher shop, quickly becoming one of Charleston's most eligible young Jewish women.

Around 1937 a 30ish man named Herbie Cohen landed in Charleston shortly after a year-long odyssey with childhood friends which took him from his home in Brooklyn to Hollywood, California.  The Brooklyn boys crossed the country in a Cadillac Herbie co-owned with a fellow adventurer.  He returned to Brooklyn, but the ever-restless Herb soon found himself in Montgomery, West Virginia selling clothing to retail stores in coal mining towns and in the larger towns of Charleston, Huntington and Parkersburg.  While hawking his goods in Charleston, Herbert E. Cohen met and fell in love with  beautiful Mary Frances, whom he embellished with compliments, including:  "You are the ugliest woman I've ever dated."

Tall, handsome and rugged, Herb Cohen had cut a swath through Brooklyn and Manhattan, leaving a trail of jilted fiancées' in his wake.  He'd built his body by playing handball and semi-pro football.  He always claimed that his admiring teammates would chant:  "Who would lay the enemy low?  Cohen with his left elbow."

Herbie trained his brilliant mind by immersing himself in Democratic politics while engaging in long-winded discussions with his gifted cadre of close chums, two of whom would become justices on the New York State Supreme Court.  But it was Herb's younger brother, Al, who would break his heart and lead him to flee New York City in embarrassment and shame.

SNEAK PREVIEW! Chapter 3 "It's Your Damned Toenail!"

Donald came home from work to find his mom slumped over her keyboard; he rushed to her side to confirm that she was among the living.

"Mother!"

The ancient woman slowly raised her head and upper torso, her left hand was digging at the keyboard.

"You scared the crap out of me, What the hell are you doing?" Donald said.

A little smile creased Mary;s lovely face as she held up her hand and the bounty within.

"Got it!" she said.



"You frightened me to death just to dig out a fingernail."

"It's a toenail.  I wish you'd stop flinging them all over the place when you;re done cutting them."

"Okay.  Okay."

"You're such a pig," Mary Frances said.

"Yeah.  Yeah.  What's for dinner?"

While the old woman worked in her tiny kitchen, Donald rested on the couch, surfing channels on his 15-inch television/VCR combo.  A DVD player collected cat hair in its box -- the key to a much better entertainment experience -- but it hadn't been used in the year since Don had bought it, thanks to his ineptitude with machines of any kind.  Finally finding ESPN, he was soon absorbed in University of Miami versus Florida State football highlights, unconcerned with his mother's kitchen labors.

"When's dinner gonna be ready?" Don said.

"What?"

"I said, when's dinner gonna be ready?"

"Hmmmm?" Mary Frances asked.

"Oh for chrissakes, when are you going to get a hearing aid?"

"I don't need a hearing aid.  I hear just fine?"

Donnie shook his head and went back to the highlights, a Jeremy Shockey over-the-shoulder touchdown grab of a slow-moving spiral from Ken Dorsey, shown for the third time backwards and forwards, in slow-mo, stop-action, and finally from the Goodyear Blimp.

"I hope someday they get a freaking Tourette's-cam complete with audio": Donald thought.
"That would be    amazing, with lots of crazy movement.

Suddenly he saw on the periphery that there was no sigh of his mom in the kitchen.

"Where the heck are you, mom?"

Don never knew when the old girl would slip outside to empty a tiny bag of garbage down the :shoot as Gene Meadows, the building's janitor spelled it on the computer-generated sign he'd posted above each floor's trash shoot that read:  "Drop your trash down the shoot and don't put it on the floor, please."

Mom loved to do as much work as she possibly could, while Donald let her do exactly what her bent body could bear.  Intuition told him that she'd benefit by doing as much as she could, physically and emotionally.  Plus, being as lazy as a fat tick after breakfast, Donnie was always happy to let someone else do the work for him.

"Jorsujapeeg," Mary Frances said.

"What?"

"Hmmm?"

"Oh forget it," Donald said as he took the 17 foot journey from his perch at the rear of the condo to the kitchen, whose deepest boundary was less than 6 feet from the front door.  Any excessive effort pained the aging writer.

Upon discovering his mom stooped over so far that the palm of one hand was flat on the floor, while the other was engage din a futile attempt to grasp a long grape stem.  She finally latched her middle finger onto one of he stem's tiny ganglia-like offshoots that had been strong enough to hold a plump black seedless grape but not elusive enough to escape Mary Frances' persistent digits.

"You are such a pig," she said.

"So you have said, ad nausea," Donald said.

"What?"

"I said you always say that."

"Thagzbicimtoo."

"What?"

'THAT IS BECAUSE IT IS TRUE," mom shouted

"Yeah.  Yeah.  I'll be more careful."

A half of football later, Donald was snoring away on the couch while the University of Miami's Band of the Hour marched on the Orange Bowl's manicured field.  Awakened  from his strange dream (he'd walked from North Miami Beach to Winston-Salem, North Carolina with a knapsack filled with deviled eggs on his back). Don heard the cat's claws digging up and down his scratching pad and dropped his right hand to stroke Lazaraus' head.  Except Lazarus was nowhere to be found, it being time for the creature's 5-hour mid-afternoon nap.

Instead, the scratching sound came from the kitchen.  There Donald found a peculiar team effort.  Mary Frances crouched down in her divining-rod position, right in front of the fridge, while Lazarus reached beneath the appliance, swiping at an object that had found its way in that small shadowy area, a repository for dust, dirt and paper wads errantly swatted there by the cat.

Mary's right hand was coated with a thin veneer of neath-the-fridge slime (thank goodness she wasn't given to bouts of nose picking, Donnie thought).

The feisty old woman was urging the cat to complete his missioin.

"Little baby.  I know you can."

"He can do what, mom?"  Donnie said.

In the five minutes it took Mary Frances to inform Don what the critter and she were looking for, Lazarus had dislodged the object with one energetic slap.  Across the kitchen rolled a gorgeous men's ring, which even while in flight could do little to hide its splendor.

THE HISTORY OF MAH JONG (excerpt from several chapters from the beginning)

The history of the game of Mah Jong is nearly as complex and intriguing as that of its country of origin.  Its seeds were planted in a climate of rigid class division, political intrigue, and the game lived on through the death of Chinese dynastic rule.  Created by an elite class of aristocrats some 4,000 years ago, Mah Jong was such a closely guarded secret among its practitioners that it wasn't introduced to the lower elements of Chinese society until 1911. Mah Jong finally made its way to New York City in 1920, where it became an instant sensation.  Part of its charm and mystique is a product of language barriers among the many Chinese dialects and English as spoken in the melting pot known as Manhattan.  Consequently, the Chinese rules became merely suggestions to the Americans.  The translations of the tiles with their Chinese characters were improvised.  As a result, Mah Jong morphed into a hodgepodge of games whose standards and practices varied from home to home, neighborhood to neighborhood.  But never before had a vintage Zambian emerald ring been injected into its crazy quilt fabric

THE MAH JONG MURDERS Chapter One (Continued)

Mother and Son

After picking Carmillia's brain with the limited energy she had left on this humid summer day, Mary Frances hobbled toward the 3rd floor elevator, cane in hand, along with a huge canvas purse with green stenciled drawings of three Shih Tzu pooches on front and back, a gift from her daughter, Hanna, who owned three of the nervous creatures.  As usual, some kindly soul helped Mary Frances into the elevator.  By the time the two reached the ground floor, Mrs. Cohen had issued a half-dozen, "what's" and received an equal amount of "What's that's."  The conversation continued all the way to the swimming pool nearest Mary Frances' building, a healthy jaunt that would take a young person about 5 minutes, and our gentle octogenarian nearly 25.


Jade Winds' easternmost swimming pool was a source of rich data for Mary F's computer-like mind.  On any given afternoon she'd find a group of Russian men and women alternatively speaking their national tongues and Yiddish, the multi-textured, polyglot lingo that Jews from around the world ingeniously created to make communication possible even as they moved from homeland to homeland, chased away by one form of bigotry after another.  Although a typical discussion among Mary Frances and her Russian neighbors could test the will of a marathon runner, Mrs. Cohen always left with plenty of gossip and historical information which she gladly shared with her family members.


"You know that old woman with the curly red hair?" Mary Frances said.


"What woman with curly red hair?" her middle-aged ne'er-do-well son replied.


"You know.  Mrs. Cherbov , the one with the son whose ex-wife lost their estate in a poker game."


At this point, Donald Cohen would inevitably revert to his I can't understand you maneuver, even though he had acquired a fluent understanding of Mary Francesese over the decades.

SNEAK PREVIEW! Chapter One

The Maj Jong Murders
A Mary Frances Cohen Mystery
By Donald Owen Cohen


The ancient woman looked like a question mark.  Her southward posture brought her head halfway down to the ground.  Her piercing vision narrowed by macular degeneration had declined, but she was still able to detect a straight pin on the floor, even in shrouded light.  Left with 2/3 of her original hearing, Mary Frances Cohen's audio recognition was low, but she made up for it by forcing her friends, relatives and every one she'd meet in the grocery store and other stops along the way to repeat what they'd said.

"What's that?" she'd say sweetly in a gravelly voice rendered almost unintelligible after a bout with laryngitis in her youth.

On this late August afternoon, Mary Frances' discussion with her neighbor, Carmillia, a stocky little Haitian woman who resembled an ebony hued fire hydrant, centered on the weather:

"It's gebbun kinahot," Mary Frances said.

"What?" said Carmillia.

The conversation bounced back and forth for about ten minutes, until Mary Frances had discovered that Carmillia's son was in jail on a DUI bust, her sister had to return to Haiti to get some money from her ex-husband, and that the entire building was being overrun by termites.  Such was the way that the affable 89-year old Jewish woman with the Catholic names gathered a wealth of information, some profound and some less than trivial, but all of it important to Mary Frances Cohen.

Widowed at age 64, Mary Frances never put much gusto into the dating scene.

"All those little mumzers want to do is grab my tits," she said after an encounter with a pudgy fellow formerly from New Jersey who'd lived in Mary Frances' condo complex for nearly 15 years.  Sy Horowitz had been her final date, and the brief encounter with the breast-grabbing nebbish ended when Mary Frances laughed at little Sy's attempt to invade the land of milk and honey.

Yet, the Charleston, West Virginia-born retiree was rarely bored.  She had a weekly mah jong game that rotated among the homes of the four participants.  Plus, computer solitaire, looking after her three kids, two of whom were card-holding AARP members and the youngest, a 54-year old drifter whose main purpose in life had never been known.  To say that Mary Frances Cohen was happy in her dotage would be inaccurate.  For the active-minded woman was often mired in mild depression when her brain wasn't engaged.  Little did she know what excitement lie ahead.