Flesh and Blood (18 page)

“I believe so,” the receptionist said.

Frank took out his identification. “Would you tell him that I'd like to talk to him about the pictures he took a few weeks ago at Hannah Karlsberg's apartment?”

The receptionist's eyes widened. “Isn't she the woman who was murdered?”

“Yes.”

“Just a moment,” the receptionist said quickly. She disappeared behind a tall gray partition and returned, almost instantly, with a short, stocky man in a thick sweater and blue jeans.

“I'm Peter Kagan,” the man said. “I understand this has to do with the Karlsberg shoot.”

“That's right.”

Kagan looked over at Farouk. “Are you with him?”

“Yes.”

“Please come in,” Kagan said as he ushered them behind the partition and into a small art room only a few feet away.

“As I told the police,” Kagan began, “I didn't know Miss Karlsberg at all. I'd never seen her in my life before that day.”

“We're more concerned with any conversation you might have had with her,” Frank told him.

Kagan looked surprised. “Conversation? With Miss Karlsberg? Why?” He laughed nervously. “My God, I took those pictures weeks before Miss Karlsberg was killed. We have a three-month lead time on these things.”

Frank took out his notebook. “Was Miss Karlsberg with you when you took the pictures?”

“Yes.”

“In all the rooms?”

“All of them,” Kagan said. “She followed me around the whole time.”

“Followed you around?”

“Yeah,” Kagan said. “Like a watchdog.”

“Watchdog?”

“Like I might steal something,” Kagan explained. “Like she was worried about that.”

Frank wrote it down. “Did she talk much?”

Kagan's eyes fell toward the magazine. “No. I mean, almost not at all.” He shrugged. “She was very stiff. Very quiet. She looked at you in a strange way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you weren't really there,” Kagan said. “It gave you a weird feeling.”

“What kind of feeling?”

Kagan thought about it for a few seconds. “It was like you didn't exist, except for that moment. I mean, except for the time that you were with her. It's like you were there for her, and that's all you were.”

“As a servant?” Farouk asked. “As if you were there only for her service?”

Kagan shook his head. “No, it was different from that.” He smiled. “I mean, I've seen that before. This was different. It was like you didn't exist for her after you left. You had sort of materialized to do these pictures at her apartment, and when that was over, you just …”

“Disappeared?” Frank asked.

“Ceased to be,” Kagan said. “Ceased entirely to be.”

Frank wrote it down. “How about her life,” he asked. “Did she mention anything about her life?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Nothing.”

“How about her past? Anything about that?”

Kagan shook his head. “I didn't even get the idea she had one.” He glanced down at the magazine, his eyes lingering on the wall of photographs. “I mean, check this out. All the photographs are in color. Now this woman was what, seventy, something like that?”

“Seventy-four,” Frank told him.

Kagan nodded. “Which means that she was a lot older than color photography.” He pointed to the wall of photographs. “But all her personal pictures, at least the ones she had on the wall, all in color. That means they were taken relatively recently.” He shrugged. “Now maybe she's got a trunk full of old black-and-whites stuck away somewhere. But most people, if they have pictures at all, they have a few from the past, you know.” He glanced back and forth from Frank to Farouk, then back to Frank again. “But this woman, it's like she'd been born exactly the way she was.”

Frank wrote it down, then stared at the letters silently while Farouk questioned Kagan about relatives Hannah might have mentioned, places she might have been. Exactly as she was, he repeated in his mind, born exactly as she was. But he had already seen her in her youth, seen her with others, seen her in the sweatshops and the snow.

Back at his office, Frank poured Farouk and himself a drink, then settled in behind his desk, his eyes scanning the stack of old union papers.

“She was involved in a strike years ago,” he said.

Farouk lowered himself heavily into the chair in front of Frank's desk. “How many years?”

“It was in 1935 and early 1936.”

“She was young.”

“She sort of led it,” Frank told him. He nodded toward the papers. “She wrote things for the union paper. She made speeches.”

Farouk smiled quietly “And so she rose.”

“Rose?”

“When you do such things, you rise.”

“In the union, you mean?”

Farouk nodded. “What happened after the strike?”

“I don't know,” Frank admitted. “I'm not even sure if she won.”

“The papers did not tell you?”

“People went back to work at her shop,” Frank told him. “I'm not sure why.”

Farouk took a sip from the glass, then leaned back slightly in his chair. “It is an old struggle,” he said, “and it will not end, as my father used to say, until he who grows the fig can eat it.” He took another sip of whiskey, and allowed his eyes to drift back toward the window. “So little light,” he added. “You do not find that troubling?”

“I don't really notice it,” Frank told him. He took one of the papers from the stack and opened it. “She left the shop not long after the strike ended.”

“And where did she go?”

“I don't know,” Frank said. “On her application, the one she wrote for her last job, she listed only one job after 1936.” He found the picture of Hannah at the Union Square rally and turned it toward Farouk. “This is the way she looked back then,” he said.

Farouk's eyes concentrated on the photograph. “Strange,” he said, “how you can sometimes feel another person's force.” He leaned forward, still staring intently at the picture. “Such conviction,” he added. “In my opinion, it is the hardest thing to live without.” He shook his head despairingly as he eased himself back into his seat. “Love comes and goes, yes? The same for money. One goes on with it, one goes on without it. But conviction, when it is missing, leaves a hole, I think.”

Frank took the application from his pocket and unfolded it on the desk. “She mentions that she worked for Feig,” he said, “and she lists one other job. In Brooklyn. At a place called Maximum Imports. But that's all.” He handed the application to Farouk. “Other than that, it's been a blank.”

Farouk took the paper and perused it casually for a moment. Then he looked up and smiled. “Do not fear, Frank,” he said confidently. “In time, we shall fill it in.”

15

Farouk had already left on something he referred to only as “other business,” when the phone rang in Frank's office.

“Frank Clemons.”

“Hello, Frank, it's Imalia Covallo.”

“Hello, Miss Covallo.”

“I've tried to reach you a couple of times today.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No,” Imalia said. “I was just wondering if you'd made any progress so far.”

“A little,” Frank told her. “I found out that Hannah had two sisters.”

“Two?”

“Yes.”

“Really? Is one of them still alive?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, that should be easy to find out, shouldn't it?”

“Yes,” Frank said. “If she doesn't mind being found.”

There was a long pause. “Mind?” Imalia said finally. “Why would she mind?”

“Well, there's no indication that Hannah was in touch with her,” Frank said. “Would you know anything about that?”

“I didn't even know she had two sisters,” Imalia said. “As I told you before, the only sister I ever heard Hannah mention was dead.”

“Did you know that Hannah had changed her name?” Frank asked.

“Hannah? She changed her name?”

“Yes.”

“What was it before?”

“Kovatnik,” Frank said. He glanced down at the application which Riviera had given him. “I have something Hannah filled out when she came to work for you,” he said. “Sort of an application. It was in with some papers Mr. Riviera gave me.”

“What about it?”

“She doesn't list any work between 1936 and 1955.”

“She doesn't?”

“No.”

“I didn't realize that.”

“Did you read her application?”

“I don't think so,” Imalia said. “But that wouldn't be unusual. I didn't personally hire Hannah.”

“Who did?”

“I suppose Stanley did,” Imalia said. “Stanley Burke. He more or less handled things like that in the early days. I remember that Tony brought Hannah in, but it was Stanley who actually hired her. She might have told him about the other places she'd worked.”

“I thought you handled everything,” Frank said.

“Well, almost everything,” Imalia answered quickly. “Stanley did a few things. He was sort of my floor manager for a while.”

Frank took out his notebook. “Where would I find him?”

“He lives in Queens,” Imalia said. Then she gave him the address.

Frank wrote it down.

“So there's a gap,” Frank said when he'd finished the address. “In time, a long gap.”

“Well, maybe she was just negligent,” Imalia said. “About the application, I mean.”

“Well, I never knew Hannah,” Frank said. “But from what I've been able to pick up about her, she wasn't a negligent person.”

“Well, maybe it was an interview situation,” Imalia explained. “With Stanley, I mean. Maybe she filled him in, and writing it all down on an application form wasn't necessary.”

“Maybe,” Frank said.

“I mean, if she told him everything, that's all he'd need.”

“Did this Mr. Burke ever mention anything she might have told him?”

“No.”

“Did he mention anything about where Hannah had worked before he hired her?”

“No, nothing,” Imalia said. “All I know is that he said she was very experienced in the trade, and that we could get her cheap.”

“Cheap?”

“That's what he said.”

“Why cheap?”

Imalia thought a moment. “I don't know,” she said finally. “But maybe Stanley can tell you.”

It was a large brick house on a lovely tree-lined street, and a nurse in a neatly pressed white uniform answered the door.

Frank showed her his identification. “I'm looking for a man named Stanley Burke,” he said.

“Mr. Burke lives here,” the nurse told him. “Is he expecting you?”

“I don't think so,” Frank said, “but you could tell him that Imalia Covallo sent me.”

“Okay,” the nurse said. “Come in.”

Frank followed the nurse to the rear of the house where an old man sat alone in a large greenhouse.

“Mr. Burke,” the nurse said as she slid back the glass door of the room, “this is Mr. Frank Clemons. He says that Miss Covallo sent him over.”

The old man raised his head slowly, his watery blue eyes blinking hard against the bright greenhouse light. “Come in, Mr. Clemons,” he said.

Frank brushed a thick strand of vine from his path and stepped into the room. It was filled with an assortment of plants. Vines twined up white wooden posts or poured over the sides of their hanging planters. Huge ferns rose from the four corners of the room, their wide green fronds swaying delicately in the moist warm air.

The old man pointed to a small director's chair. “Please, sit down. Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“The heat in here will make you thirsty,” Burke said. “But I like it. It reminds me of the tropics.”

Frank sat down and took out his notebook. “Thanks for seeing me.”

Burke laughed quietly. “Well, you know how it is with old employers, you always feel like they're still your boss.” His eyes brightened slightly. “She sends me a Christmas card every year.”

“How long did you work for Miss Covallo?”

“Just a couple of years,” Burke said. “I sort of kept tabs on everybody else in the early days. I did the payroll, hired and fired, that sort of thing.”

“When did you do that?” Frank asked immediately. “What years?”

“When she first started out,” Burke said. “That was the fall of 1968. I was juggling a lot of things in those days. The whole operation was on a shoestring.” He laughed. “Or a hamstring, depending on how you felt about it.”

“I understand you hired Hannah Karlsberg.”

The old man nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“Were you aware that that was not her actual name?”

“Yes,” Burke said. “Her real name was Kovatnik.”

He watched Frank expressionlessly. “But I only knew her as Hannah Karlsberg.”

Frank took out the application and handed it to him. “Do you remember this?”

Burke looked at it casually. “Yes.”

“It's not much of an application,” Frank said.

Burke handed the paper back to Frank. “Hannah didn't need much of one.”

“Why not?”

“Because when one of the grand old men of the rag trade recommends somebody, you hire her.”

“Grand old men?”

“That's right,” Burke said. “One of the grandest. Like the saying goes, present at the creation.”

“And someone like that recommended Hannah?”

Burke nodded firmly. “Not only recommended her,” he said. “He brought her to me personally. He was quite insistent, even though he didn't have to be.” He smiled. “I mean, in 1955, he was still an old master.”

Frank glanced down at his notebook. He could feel his fingers press down on the pencil. “This grand old master,” he said. “Who was that?”