Total Recall

Baby-Sitters' Club "They wouldn't even start the funeral service. The church was full, ladies were crying. My uncle was a deacon and he was a righteous man, he'd been a member of that church for forty-seven years when he passed. My aunt was in a state of total collapse, as you can imagine. And for them to have the nerve to say the policy had already been cashed in. When! That's what I want to know, Ms. Warshawski, when was it ever cashed in, with my uncle paying his five dollars a week for fifteen years like he did, and my aunt never hearing word one of him borrowing against the policy or converting it." Isaiah Sommers was a short, square man who spoke in slow cadences as if he were himself a deacon. It was an effort to keep from drowsing off during the pauses in his delivery. We were in the living room of his South Side bungalow, at a few minutes after six on a day that had stretched on far too long already. I'd been in my office at 8:30, starting a round of the routine searches that make up the bulk of my business, when Lotty Herschel called with an SOS. "You know Max's son brought Calia and Agnes with him from London, don't you? Agnes suddenly has a chance to show her slides at a Huron Street gallery, but she needs a minder for Calia." "I'm not a baby-sitter, Lotty," I'd said impatiently; Calia was Max Loewenthal's five-year-old granddaughter. Lotty swept imperiously past that protest. "Max called me when they couldn't find anyone it's his housekeeper's day off. He's going to that conference at the Hotel Pleiades, although I've told him many times that all he's doing is exposing but that's neither here nor there. At any rate, he's on a panel at ten otherwise he'd stay home himself. I tried Mrs. Coltrain at my clinic, but everyone's tied up. Michael is rehearsing all afternoon with the symphony and this could be an important chance for Agnes. Vic I realize it's an imposition, but it would be only for a few hours." "Why not Carl Tisov?" I asked. "Isn't he staying at Max's, too?" "Carl as a baby-sitter? Once he picks up his clarinet the roof of the house can blow off without his noticing. I saw it happen once, during the V-1 raids. Can you tell me yes or no? I'm in the middle of surgical rounds, and I have a full schedule at the clinic." Lotty is the chief perinatologist at Beth Israel. I tried a few of my own connections, including my part-time assistant who has three foster children, but no one could help out. I finally agreed with a surly lack of grace. "I have a client meeting at six on the far South Side, so someone had better be able to step in before five." When I drove up to Max's Evanston home to collect Calia, Agnes Loewenthal was breathlessly grateful. "I can't even find my slides. Calia was playing with them and stuck them in Michael's cello, which got him terribly cross, and now the wretched beast can't imagine where he's flung them." Michael appeared in a T-shirt with his cello bow in one hand. "Darling, I'm sorry, but they have to be in the drawing room that's where I was practicing. Vic, I can't thank you enough can we take you and Morrell to dinner after our Sunday afternoon concert?" "We can't do that, Michael!" Agnes snapped. "That's Max's dinner party for Carl and you." [read more]