Flesh and Blood (15 page)

“How long has it been closed?” Frank asked as he stepped toward the middle of the room.

“I think maybe fifteen years.”

“What happened to the rabbi?” Frank asked.

“The last one? He went to a bigger place. Somewhere in California, I think.”

“I meant Rabbi Kovatnik,” Frank said.

The old man didn't seem to hear him.

“And the people who used to come here, the ones who used to hear the prayers on Shabbas?” he said, almost to himself. “Dead. All dead.” He drew an old, badly wrinkled prayer shawl from one of the unpainted wooden pews. “Where have they gone, I ask myself?” He drew his eyes over to Frank. “But who ever hears an answer?” He folded the prayer shawl neatly and draped it over the pew. “You want to see where they lived. Rabbi Kovatnik and his daughters?”

“Yes.”

“Come with me.”

A narrow wooden staircase led shakily to the basement, its steps creaking loudly as Frank and the old man made their way down.

“For the time, it was not so bad,” the old man said as he switched on the light.

The walls were whitish-pink, and paint hung from them like strips of skin. A small pool of filmy water rippled in the far left corner, and Frank could see tiny wet tracks leading out of it and into the dark adjoining room. There was a single table at the center of the room. A menorah rested in the middle of it, along with a stack of crumbling prayerbooks. A rickety stand of bookshelves leaned heavily to the right, its scarred sides bearing down on a small wooden high chair.

“Is there anything interesting in this place?” the old man asked as he looked quizzically at Frank.

Frank shook his head. “Not much.”

“You want to see the rest?”

“Yes,” Frank told him.

“A regular tour,” the man said with a wave of his hand. “But I got nothing but time.” He motioned to the right then walked into the next room and turned on the light.

It was the bedroom, and it was not unlike what Frank had briefly imagined as he had lingered outside, leaning on the gate. Three iron beds stretched end to end across the room, their metal springs drooping almost to the ground. There was a paper calendar above one of them. A red
X
had been placed on the date, October 15, 1929, and as Frank stepped over and looked at it, he tried to imagine which of the sisters had put it there and what it had marked: a date, a religious holiday, some upcoming event that had been important enough to signify. He could feel the heaviness of time all about him, the brevity of life, the way it drained away in a quiet rush of days until it was gone, gone as if in one quick, invisible streak.

“He died suddenly, Rabbi Kovatnik,” the old man said. “And after that, the new rabbi lived across the street. So they closed the basement.”

“When was that?”

The old man squinted toward the calendar. “Right after Rabbi Kovatnik died, I think. Things have been left to go since then.” He shook his head despairingly. “What a pity. It's not a bad building. Not a bargain, I admit it. But not such a bad building.”

Frank's eyes moved slowly down the bleak row of iron beds. “There were three sisters,” he said, as his eyes turned toward the old man. “Do you remember them?”

The old man nodded. “Gilda, I remember. And the oldest one.”

“Hannah.”

“Ah, yes, Hannah,” the old man said. “What her father didn't have in the head, she got it.” He looked at him intently. “She was your friend, maybe?”

“No.”

“But something to you, yes?”

Frank nodded. “Something to me. yes, she is.”

The old man shrugged. “I did not know her very well,” he said. Then he turned and pointed down the street. “I lived on Second Avenue in those days. But we came to synagogue here, and so I would see them, the girls.” He smiled. “Hannah was the leader. When the rabbi died, she took them away.”

“To Orchard Street,” Frank told him.

“And did they stay together, the sisters?” the old man asked.

“For a while.”

The old man laughed. “Oh yes, I remember.”

“Remember what?”

“Was a scandal or something,” the old man said. He waved his hand. “I can't remember.”

“What kind of scandal?”

“They went to work,” the old man told him. “All of them. Even the youngest, the pretty one.”

“Gilda,” Frank said.

A kind of odd radiance rose in the old man's face. “Yes, Gilda. Such a beautiful girl. She must have been thirteen.”

“What about a scandal?”

“For a bachelor, they went to work,” the old man said. “Yes, a bachelor, I think it was. People said it wasn't right, him taking in those three girls.”

“They lived with him?”

“Upstairs from him.”

Frank took out his notebook and wrote it down. “Where was that?”

“Around Orchard Street,” the old man said, “but it's all been torn down. Nothing but projects where it used to be.”

“The man, what was his name?”

“Feig,” the old man said instantly. “Sol Feig.” He shook his head. “People said it wasn't right. The rabbi's daughters, you know.” He shrugged helplessly. “I don't know. It was the middle of the Depression. People have to eat.” He glanced over toward the row of beds. “She was such a bright little thing, Hannah,” he said, “always taking charge.” He smiled. “The old people still talk about it, how Hannah ran things. Even the rabbi. Around her little finger, that's where she had him.” He lifted a single crooked finger into the yellowish air, then made a circle around it with his other hand. “Around her finger,” he repeated.

“That sometimes happens,” Frank said.

The old man nodded. “Such a smart little girl, Hannah. A quick mind, that one. Everyone said, ‘Watch Hannah, she'll go far.'” He cocked his head slightly and looked at Frank quizzically. “Where did she go?”

Frank glanced back toward the row of beds. Their dark gray shadows seemed to climb slowly up the rough, grimy walls. “I don't know,” he said.

“But you are looking for her?”

“In a way.”

The old man nodded. “We go, now,” he said as his hand moved toward the light.

Back on the street, Frank waited while the old man carefully locked the gate. Then they walked slowly west toward the Bowery.

“Do you have any idea what happened to the sisters?” Frank asked when they reached the corner.

“No.”

“How about any other relatives?” Frank added insistently. “Nephews, nieces, cousins? Anything?”

The old man shook his head emphatically. “When they left this street, we heard only there was a scandal.”

“You mean about them living with Feig?”

“Something was bad, something about Feig,” the old man said. “Don't ask. I'm an old man. What do I know?”

“But that's all you heard?” Frank asked. “Something about a scandal of some kind?”

“If there was more, it was not for me to hear,” the old man said. “I was a little boy. When my parents spoke about such things, they spoke in Polish. Polish they used for secrets.”

“But as for yourself,” Frank said, “you never saw or heard from them again?”

“Never,” the old man said emphatically. “Who knows what happens to people when they leave the neighborhood?”

Frank glanced back down Fifth Street. From the corner it looked like a long black tunnel.

It was a long walk from the old synagogue to the New York City morgue and night had fully fallen by the time Frank got there. Silvio Santucci was the night orderly, and Frank had made it his business to take him out for a drink not long after getting his license. Santucci worked what he called “the graveyard graveyard shift,” and Frank had sat in the dark bar for several hours listening to his tales of high-class corruption. “When the Archbishop's sister goes off a roof,” Santucci had said toward the end of the evening, and with an air of conclusion, “it ain't a suicide, you know? She may have been depressed. She may even have left a bitchy little note detailing her complaints. But it ain't no suicide. Hell no. The fucking wind blew her off, blew her over a six-foot storm fence topped with another foot and a half of concertina wire.” He had then smiled impishly. “I believe that, Frank. But then, what can I say, I'm a fucking fool.”

“Hello, Frank,” Santucci said now as Frank approached his desk.

Frank nodded.

“So,” Santucci said. “Come to wet my whistle again, or cash in on the last one?”

“Cash in.”

“Stands to reason,” Santucci said. “No such thing as a free drink, right?” He leaned back in his chair. “So what can I do for you?”

“I'd like to see a body.”

“Any one in particular?”

“Hannah Karlsberg.”

“How come?”

“I'm working on the case.”

“That's Midtown North. Got an okay?”

“Not in writing.”

“You talk to Tannenbaum?”

“Yes.”

Santucci nodded. “Okay,” he said. “No big deal.” He smiled cheerfully. “Hell, I'd of let you in anyway, Frank, you know that.” He stood up and headed down the brightly lit corridor which led to the freezer room.

“Ever been here before?” he asked as he plunged through the wooden double doors.

“Not this one,” Frank said. “Others.”

“Karlsberg's in number 14,” Santucci said as he marched to a wall of stainless-steel refrigerator cabinets. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” Frank said.

“Not a relative, right?” Santucci asked. “You said a case.”

“That's right.”

“Good,” Santucci said lightly. “That's the only fucking thing I hate, showing the stiffs to the relatives.” He shook his head. “I don't get paid for that. That's cop shit.” He grabbed the metal handle and swung open the door. “Heeeeeere's Johnny,” he cried with a short laugh as he drew out the carriage.

A huge black bag covered Hannah Karlsberg's body.

“You just interested in the face,” Santucci asked, “or the whole thing?”

“Her face,” Frank told him softly.

“Easiest part,” Santucci said. He reached over and unzipped the bag a few inches. “Looks like a nice old lady,” he said as he glanced down at Hannah's face.

“Yeah, she does,” Frank said quietly. The skin was very pale, the lips a deep blue, but the face itself seemed soft and kindly. He could imagine how she must have looked in her youth, neither plain, nor beautiful, but a face that could be either with high rounded cheekbones, large oval eyes, and a full mouth.

“She was slashed real bad,” Santucci said, “but I guess you know that.”

Frank looked up. “Yes,” he said. “And her hand, I know about that.”

“That's the psycho touch if you ask me,” Santucci said, “that's the thing that lets you know it wasn't her favorite kid with an eye to the insurance.”

“Unless it was faked,” Frank told him.

Santucci shrugged. “Always a possibility. Is that what Tannenbaum figures?”

“I don't know.”

“Want to see it, the hack job?”

For a moment he didn't, then suddenly Frank realized that he had to see it, that it was part of what he had to know.

“Yes,” he said, “I want to see it.”

“Fine with me,” Santucci said. “I've showed a lot worse things in my time, you know?” He drew the zipper down a few inches farther, then reached in and brought out Hannah's lower arm. “There you go,” he said as he laid it across the plastic. “What I call the psycho touch.”

The arm was white and smooth, except for the few slits which the autopsy had confirmed as defensive wounds. The hand had been severed at the wrist, and from the look of it, it had been done raggedly, with a twisting, tearing force that had left tattered skin and jagged bone in its wake.

“It looks messy to me,” Frank said.

Santucci smiled. “Well, I'll say this, a surgeon didn't do it.” He glanced down at the hand. “Or even a fucking butcher, if you know what I mean.” He shook his head. “This was a yank-and-pull job, if ever I saw one.” He looked at Frank. “Of course, this guy was probably in a hurry, right?” The smile broadened. “Not to mention his frame of mind.”

“I read the autopsy report,” Frank said. “Did anything else come along after it?”

“No.”

“Any visitors drop by?”

“Cops and you, that's all.”

“No word from the family?”

“Far as we can tell, this old lady was like the old ME used to say, ‘alone in the fucking universe.'”

Alone, Frank thought, as his eyes once again drew down toward her face. He saw her with her sisters in their bedroom, then with the other workers in the shop, and finally standing before the sweeping crowd at Union Square. Alone, he repeated in his mind, and the word seemed to move through him like a darkly weaving ribbon.

It was a long walk from the East Village back to midtown, but he took it anyway. The night was dark and cold, but the movement of the crowds, the noise, the speeding traffic seemed to connect him to the city. It was as if the random jostling and nameless faces provided him with something that worked in the place of something else that never had, a sense of being woven, despite his isolation, into an immense, eternal fabric.

He stopped at La Femme Gatée, the small delicatessen at the corner of Ninth Avenue and 49th Street. A few of the regulars were there, the old lady with her two pet dogs, the exhausted night watchman who patrolled the building site across the street, the Puerto Rican super who read
El Diario
in the back corner of the room.

He ordered a coffee, then sat down at one of the large windows that overlooked the street and began to go through the stack of old newspapers Etta Polansky had given him. The first was dated December 12, 1931, and toward the back there was a letter which had been written by one of the union's younger members, a woman who worked a sewing machine on Orchard Street.