Flesh and Blood (11 page)

Frank quickly wrote it down, then glanced back up toward Riviera. “How did you happen to meet Hannah?”

“I was doing some work for a guy named Bornstein in those days,” Riviera said. “I was a bundle-boy back then, a kid who carried bundles of finished garments out of the sweatshops. I worked for Bornstein in various ways. He was a big
macher
—a big wheel, you might say—in the garment shops. A sort of broker, if you know what I mean.”

“I don't.”

“He was hired by the people who owned the shops to keep them supplied with workers,” Riviera explained. “When you got piecework production, a high task-rate, and a lot of cash sunk in the machinery, you don't like to see the machines sitting idle. It was real important to keep that bobbin on the move. Bornstein brokered for the owners, made sure they had a steady supply of people.”

“Brokered?”

“It worked this way,” Riviera went on. “If you had a problem, maybe some girl who all of a sudden got sick, got married, sewed her fingers together, anything like that, you had to get a replacement right away. If you own a garment shop, every second a machine is idle, you're losing money.” He laughed again, this time almost coldly. “The needle trade runs on speed. Fast fingers. Fast brains.”

“And it was Bornstein's job to get replacements?”

“To keep me shop full of workers, that's right,” Riviera said.

“And Hannah worked for him?”

Riviera shook his head. “No. At that time Hannah was in the shops. You know, at the machines, like just about every other nice Jewish girl on the Lower East Side.”

Suddenly, for the first time, Frank saw Hannah Karlsberg in her youth, a young girl stooped over a sewing machine, her fingers dancing around the needle as it incessantly hammered the stitching home.

“Now, like I said,” Riviera continued. “I did a few odd jobs for Bornstein back in those days, and one afternoon I was going to meet him at Battery Park, and when—”

“What year was this?” Frank interrupted quickly.

“Well, that was the winter of 1935,” Riviera told him. “Cold goddamn winter it was, too. I remember the way the place looked that day. Very run-down. There were Hoovervilles all over the city back then. Little shantytowns on the wharfs. And Battery Park was pretty dreary. It was cold, too. It looked like the bay was going to freeze over. I remember there was a bunch of guys standing by a fifty-gallon drum. They'd made a fire in it and a huge blaze was coming out of it. They were huddled around it to keep warm.”

“And this was in Battery Park?” Frank said, as he wrote it down.

“That's right,” Riviera said. “And when I got there, I could tell that Bornstein was trying to pick up this young girl.” He laughed heartily. “I mean, I was a kid, but I'd been on the streets for a while, and knew about things. And I could tell that Bornstein had a real eye for this girl.” The laughter trailed off. “He ran through quite a few girls in those days, let me tell you. He did a little agenting on the side, you know, actresses from the Yiddish theater who had hopes for Hollywood. I think he may have even pimped a little, set up an out-of-town buyer with something for his big weekend in the city.” He shook his head. “Bornstein was into everything.”

“And Hannah?”

“She was just sitting next to him on a bench in the park,” Riviera said. “When I came up, she left. Bornstein kept an eye on her as she walked away. He was really pissed. ‘The rabbi's daughter,' he said. ‘She don't spread her legs for nobody.'” He grimaced. “Bornstein was a crude bastard, a real crude bastard. I didn't like working for him, but in those days, you had to take whatever came around.”

Frank said nothing.

“I mean, it was the early thirties, like I said,” Riviera added. “Hard times, let me tell you. People today, they don't know what trouble is.” He frowned contemptuously. “They're soft. They got no guts. There are some things they won't do, you know?” He laughed mockingly. “But you couldn't live like that back then. Not on the Lower East Side. You couldn't afford it. Like they say, the wolf was at the door.”

Frank wrote it down in his notebook, then glanced back up at Riviera. “You said that Bornstein called Hannah ‘the rabbi's daughter'?”

“Yeah.”

“Was that true?”

“Yes.”

“Did he have a synagogue in New York?”

“Yeah.”

“Which one?”

“I don't remember the name of the synagogue,” Riviera said. “But it was on the east side. Down on Fifth Street someplace, I believe.” He thought a moment. “Somewhere around the Bowery. That's where she came from.”

“How did you know about her father? Did she ever mention him?”

“No. She didn't talk much about the old days,” Riviera answered. “Only old fools sit around doing that. But she did mention that she'd grown up on Fifth Street, and from what Bornstein said that day, I knew she had been a rabbi's daughter.”

“What about relatives?” Frank asked. “Did she ever mention any?”

“She had two sisters,” Riviera said. “That's all I know.”

Frank felt his fingers tighten around his pencil. “Two sisters?” he asked immediately.

“Yeah,” Riviera told him. “You didn't know that?”

“No.”

Riviera shrugged. “Well, now that I think about it, I'm not surprised,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because Hannah put all that behind her,” Riviera said.

“Her sisters?”

“That's right,” Riviera said bluntly.

“Why?”

“Because she'd moved up in life, you know what I mean?” Riviera said. “Who knows what she'd left behind? Who wants to be reminded of some little hovel off the Bowery?” He smiled knowingly. “Sometimes it's not enough to have come up in the world, made a different future for yourself. Sometimes that's not enough, you know what I mean? Sometimes you want a different past. Of course, that's the one thing you can never get.”

“Was Hannah like that?”

“A little, maybe,” Riviera said. “A lot of people are. But some aren't. Miss Covallo goes the other way. Did she take you on her little tour of Prince Street?”

“Yes.”

“She likes to do that,” Riviera said. “Remind people where she came from. Hannah didn't. I don't know why.”

“What do you know about her sisters?”

“Nothing really,” Riviera said. “I don't think they were in very close contact.”

“How did you know about them?”

“From Bornstein.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, as Hannah was walking away, Bornstein smiled that shitty little smile of his. Then he looked at me, and he said something like, ‘All three of them need work. What you bet I
shtup
them all?'”

Frank looked at him, puzzled. “
Shtup?
”

“That's Yiddish,” Riviera explained. “It means ‘fuck.'”

Frank felt a wave of contempt roll over him like a line of fire.

Riviera looked at Frank curiously. “Is this all for history?” he asked.

“Well, no one has claimed Hannah's body,” Frank told him. “It's still at the morgue.” He glanced down at his notebook. “I was thinking that maybe some relative would—”

“Claim it?” Riviera interrupted. “Give it a nice Jewish plot in a nice Jewish boneyard?”

“Something like that,” Frank said. He glanced down at his notebook. “Did Hannah ever mention her sisters?”

“Not after she came to work here,” Riviera said. “Maybe they moved away. Maybe she broke off with them. Maybe they died.” He shrugged. “I mean, who knows what goes on between sisters?”

Frank wrote it down quickly, then looked back up at Riviera. “And that was all you heard?” he asked. “What this Bornstein said?”

“That's the first and last I ever heard about the Karlsberg sisters.”

“How about a brother?” Frank asked.

“Never heard of one.”

“Nephews? Nieces?”

“Nobody.”

Frank turned to the next page of his notebook and changed the subject.

“Did Hannah have a regular schedule?” he asked.

“Of course,” Riviera said. “The fashion business is a tight ship.”

“Do you have a record of it?”

“Absolutely,” Riviera said. “I kept her itinerary myself. It was one of the jobs Hannah gave me.”

“What was her job, exactly?” Frank asked immediately.

“She was Imalia's right-hand woman,” Riviera said. “She handled a little bit of everything. She even did some of her own designs. They always came out under Imalia's name, but they were Hannah's.” He pointed to a square of cloth which had been framed and hung on the office wall. “She did that one, as a matter of fact.”

It was a swirl of eerily darkening reds, and as Frank looked at it, he realized that it had the effect of drawing you steadily down into its deep ebony center.

“It's very nice,” he said.

“Sold very well last season,” Riviera said appreciatively. “One of the most successful designs we've had.”

Frank glanced back down at his notebook. “So Hannah did most of her work in this office?”

“That's right,” Riviera told him.

“So she must have known everyone who worked here?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Do you know of anyone she was particularly close to?”

“You mean, someone who might know more about her private life?”

“Yeah.”

Riviera shook his head. “I'm not sure she had much of a private life,” he said. “I think she was one of those people who put everything into their work. She was always here. All hours.” He pulled out a drawer, removed a large gray ledger and slid it across the table. “Here's her office log. You can see for yourself.”

Frank took the book and opened it. A maze of lines and figures swept up toward him.

“It may take you a while to figure it out, Mr. Clemons,” Riviera said, “so I'll give you the bottom line.”

Frank looked up from the ledger.

“Hannah worked a full day, every day,” Riviera said with an odd weariness. His eyes glanced down toward the book and lingered there. “She had a nice apartment, I understand.”

“Yes, she did,” Frank told him.

Riviera looked up, surprised. “You've been there?”

“Yes, with the police.”

“Nice, I hear.”

“Very nice.”

Riviera looked at Frank determinedly. “Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Clemons. She deserved it.” He turned slightly, and glanced out one of the enormous windows. “In the business, you hear a lot of bullshit about this person being self-made and that person being self-made. Then, later you hear that Papa floated them a loan of maybe a million or two. Or maybe some uncle did it. You know, from the ready cash.” He shrugged. “It doesn't matter where they got it, because you know that if things had gotten tight, no palooka loanshark would have come around to rearrange anybody's knees.” He turned back toward Frank. “You call that self-made?”

“No.”

Riviera smiled, but his eyes remained deadly cold. “I like my knuckles, Mr. Clemons. I respect them.” He lifted his hands up into the soft evening light. “I look at these hands, and I think, ‘Well, Tony, no bullshit here.'” He lowered them slowly back down on the table. “And that's the way it was with Hannah, too,” he said. “She crawled out from under that synagogue using nothing but her bare hands. Everything she had, she got for herself.” A strange fierceness swept into his face. “Who's to say that that's not beautiful, hm?”

Frank said nothing.

Riviera massaged his hands gently. “There's only one goddamn thing Hannah didn't deserve,” he said, “and that's the way she died.”

Frank saw her face again, first in the photographs in the small wooden chest, then bathed in the hard light of the morgue.

“Where did she work before she came here?” he asked.

“Before here?” Riviera asked hesitantly. “What difference would that make? She's been with Imalia for over twenty years.”

“I'm running a few things down,” Frank told him.

“You're reaching way back.”

“Sometimes you have to.”

“Well, I can't be of much help on that,” Riviera said. “All I know is that one day Hannah showed up here.”

“How about a personnel folder?” Frank said insistently.

“Imalia wants you to have that?” Riviera asked, surprised.

“Yes.”

For an instant, he hesitated once again. Then he turned quickly, walked to a file cabinet, and pulled out a dark blue folder.

“This is all I have,” he said as he handed it to Frank. “It's Hannah's original application. I noticed it a few days ago when I was cleaning out her desk. To tell you the truth, I was a little surprised by it.”

“Why?”

“Because there's not much on it,” Riviera said.

Frank opened the folder and glanced down at the nearly empty page.

“She didn't list any employment between 1936 and 1955,” he said.

“No, she didn't.”

“Or references.”

“That's right,” Riviera said.

“You mentioned this man, Bornstein,” he said. “Is he still alive?”

Riviera waved his hand. “No. He died years ago. He was a legend in the trade. They gave him a big send-off. Lots of flowers. Fancy hearse.”

“Did you go to the funeral?”

“Sure, I did,” Riviera said. “He gave me my first steady work.”

“Did Hannah go?”

“If she did, I didn't notice her,” Riviera told him. “But there was a big crowd for Bornstein's funeral. He was ruthless. And in this business, that gets you a lot of respect.”

Frank wrote it down. “Do you know of anyone else who might have known Hannah in the thirties?”