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Authors: Thomas H. Cook

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BOOK: Flesh and Blood
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“Not a suspect, no,” Farouk said. “As my source put it, ‘such a trail is too cold for a crime of such hot blood.'”

“That may be true,” Frank said, “but if he were alive, he could get the body released.”

Farouk nodded. “It would be a long way for him to come.”

“I'm sure Miss Covallo would make it worth his while.”

Farouk smiled quietly. “I will try to find him.”

“Good,” Frank said. Again, he eased himself off the desk and headed toward the door.

Farouk joined him there. “You have found things, too?” he asked as he stepped into the narrow corridor.

“Yes.”

“May I know them?”

Frank locked the door of the office and walked up the stairs to the street.

“She had some problems with the union,” he said. “Some sort of dispute. She was charged with something. It's still not clear what.”

“You are pursuing this?”

“Yes,” Frank told him. “But your lead is a lot better.” He smiled. “I'll have to settle up with you, Farouk—about money, I mean—when we've finally got the picture.”

“We shall do that at the proper time,” Farouk told him.

“I just wanted you to know that I owe you,” Frank said.

“Owe me, yes,” Farouk said. “That is true.” Then he smiled quietly, his dark eyes almost black in the late afternoon light. “She is a strange woman, yes?”

“Hannah?”

“Truth,” Farouk said softly as he turned very slowly and walked the other way.

The private elevator was in the rear of the building, and it was manned by a single uniformed guard, a tall, bulky man who had a forty-five automatic strapped to his waist.

“My name is Clemons,” Frank told him as he stepped up to the bronze-colored elevator doors.

The guard glanced at a notepad, checking for his name.

“Do you have some sort of identification?” he asked when he had finished.

Frank showed him his card.

“Thank you,” the guard said politely. “Please step in.”

The elevator doors opened onto a luxuriously decorated room, its walls festooned with large photographs of lean, beautiful women wrapped in an assortment of oddly gleaming fabrics. The words beneath the photographs proclaimed “The Imalia Covallo Look.” A large mahogany table sat in the middle of the room bearing a bottle of champagne tilted slightly in an ice-filled cooler. Trays of hors d'oeuvres surrounded the champagne, along with an assortment of wines.

“Hello, Frank,” Imalia said as she stepped up to him. She turned toward the room. “Like it?”

“It's very nice.”

“This is the exclusive shop,” Imalia explained. “It's different from the one downstairs.”

“I see.”

“Some people prefer to shop in private.”

“Is that right?” Frank asked dully.

“Sometimes I go to their homes,” Imalia added. “But sometimes they come here.” She stepped over to the table. “Would you like something?”

“No, thanks.”

Her hand gently grasped the neck of the champagne bottle. “It's a lovely champagne,” she said coaxingly. “I always have it around. It's part of the price of doing business. The people who come here expect the best.”

“No, thanks,” Frank repeated.

“Fine,” Imalia said. She walked over to a large velvet chair and sat down. “Well, have you made any progress?”

“Yes,” Frank told her.

Imalia smiled. “Good. I'm glad to hear it.”

Frank took out his notebook and began to flip through the pages.

“You may sit down, if you like,” Imalia told him.

Frank remained standing. “I've found out a few things,” he said, “and so has an associate of mine.”

Imalia's eyes tensed. “Associate?”

“A guy who's working with me on the case.”

“I wasn't aware that you had an associate.”

“He's very helpful,” Frank assured her. “He knows how to research things, and he's come in with a few important details.”

Imalia did not look convinced. “Like what?” she demanded.

“Like the fact that Hannah spent some time in Colombia,” Frank said. “And that she was married there.”

Imalia sat up slightly. “Married? Hannah?”

“She never mentioned it?”

“No.”

“Well, it was over before she came to work for you,” Frank said. “The husband went back to Colombia. But technically, they may still be married. And if they are, then he has the authority to get the body released.”

“So you're trying to find him, I presume,” Imalia said.

“My partner's doing that right now.”

“Good,” Imalia said. She seemed to relax a bit. “You'll let me know when you find him, of course.”

“Yes,” Frank said.

“And of course, if he has to come to New York to get the body released, I'll be happy to pay all his expenses.”

Frank nodded. “That might be necessary. But I really don't know.” His eyes dropped back toward his notebook. “I've also made some progress on Hannah's sisters,” he said.

“Really? What?”

“One of them, Gilda, is dead.”

“I'm sorry to hear it.”

“She died in Colombia in 1954,” Frank added. “The body was brought back here. I assume Hannah brought it.” He looked up from the notebook. “Someone applied for a death benefit to offset the cost of the funeral. A man named Fischelson, Joseph Fischelson.”

Imalia stared at him expressionlessly.

“You never heard that name?” Frank asked.

“No.”

“Did Hannah ever mention living in South America?”

“Not that I know of.”

“How about the name Emilio Pérez?”

“No,” Imalia said. “Who's that?”

“Her husband.”

Imalia looked surprised. “She married a South American?”

“Apparently.”

“Is it possible that they had children?”

“I don't think so,” Frank said. “They don't appear to have ever lived together.”

Imalia leaned forward slightly. “But they were married.”

“I'm not sure what kind of marriage it was,” Frank said.

Imalia struck a worldly pose. “Well, there're all sorts of contracts for living together, of course, but that sort of thing usually comes later, doesn't it?” She smiled. “As they say, ‘when love has fled.'”

“Yes.”

“But with Hannah and this Emilio,” she added, “it was odd from the beginning?”

“He lived in Brooklyn,” Frank said. “Hannah lived in Manhattan.”

Imalia shook her head wonderingly. “She never mentioned having been married.”

“He went back to Colombia,” Frank said. “We don't know what happened after that.”

Imalia rose from her seat, walked over to the table and poured herself a glass of champagne. “So where does all this finally leave us?” she asked.

“We're moving in two directions,” Frank said. “We're trying to trace the one living sister through the union, and …”

“What union?” Imalia asked.

“The American Garment Workers,” Frank told her. “Hannah was a member until March of 1936. I'm hoping I can find someone who knows something about the other sister.”

“Naomi.”

“Yes.”

“And the other direction?”

“Pérez, the husband. If he's still her husband.”

“Two directions,” Imalia said thoughtfully. “It sounds very complicated.”

“It's a life,” Frank said, “so it's complicated.” He closed the notebook and returned it to his jacket pocket.

Imalia lifted her arms gracefully. “By the way, I gave Karen one of my dresses. Did she show it to you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you like it?”

“It was beautiful.”

“They're wonderful, aren't they?” Imalia asked. “Beautiful things.”

“Yes,” Frank said. He turned slowly and headed toward the elevator.

“But expensive,” she added, almost sadly. “Very, very expensive.”

“Most good things are,” Frank said offhandedly.

Imalia stared at him questioningly. “Do you think that's so, that good things are expensive?”

“Yes,” Frank told her. “But not always in money.”

Imalia sat back slightly, her eyes boring into him. “No matter what you find out,” she said. “About Hannah, I mean. I want to know what it is.”

“Of course.”

“I want to know everything,” Imalia added emphatically. “And I want to know it first.” She looked at him commandingly. “Before anyone. Even your associate, whoever he is.”

Frank nodded. “You'll be the first,” Frank assured her.

Imalia smiled thinly, her long white arms drawing a dark blue scarf languidly along her throat. “Good,” she said softly. “Because the customer is always right.”

21

It was late in the afternoon by the time Frank got off the subway in the Bronx. He walked down the long flight of metal stairs that led from the elevated tracks to the crowded streets along Sedgwick Avenue.

According to union records, Philip Stern still lived in the Consolidated Housing Project, two enormous brick buildings which the union had built for its members in the fifties, and which, as Silverman had put it when he gave him Stern's address, still housed “the real history of the garment trade.”

Stern's apartment was on the sixteenth floor, and the door opened almost immediately.

“My name is Frank Clemons,” Frank said to the short, middle-aged woman who stood in the doorway. “Mr. Silverman said he would call you.”

“He did,” the woman said. “You want to see Papa, right?”

“Yes.”

The woman dried her hands on the large floral apron which hung from her neck. “I was fixing him dinner. You like pot roast, you could eat with him.”

“No, thanks,” Frank said.

“He could use the company,” the woman said. “You know how it is with old people, they get into low moods. Papa gets into real low moods.”

“Is he here?”

“He likes to sit in the park before dinner,” the woman said. She stepped away from the door. “Come on in. I'll show you.”

Frank followed the woman through the apartment and out onto a small, concrete terrace.

“There he is,” the woman said as she pointed down below. “On the bench next to the street.”

Frank could see a small man. bundled up in woolens.

“That's Papa,” the woman said. “He's got thin blood. He wears a hat and overcoat all the time.”

“Thanks,” Frank said as he turned back through the apartment.

“You can have dinner with him if you change your mind,” the woman called to him as he closed the door.

Philip Stern sat silently on the small wooden bench, his back very erect, his hands tucked inside the sleeves of his black overcoat. A wide-brimmed gray hat was pulled down tightly over his head, and his throat was wrapped securely in a thick red scarf.

“Mr. Stern?” Frank said softly as he approached him.

Two flashing brown eyes shot over to him. “Yes.”

“My name is Frank Clemons. Harry Silverman gave me your address.”

“My address?” Stern asked in a deep, steady voice which seemed as dense and powerfully alive as his body. “Why?”

“Mind if I sit down?” Frank asked politely.

Stern nodded toward the bench. “Please.”

Frank took a seat beside him and reached for his identification. “I'm a private investigator,” he said as he presented his card.

Stern smiled slyly. “Well, I've seen a few of those in my day. Informers, too. Who do you work for?”

“I'm not allowed to say,” Frank told him. “But since Mr. Silverman sent me—”

“I can trust you,” Stern said.

Frank nodded. “Yes.”

“Okay,” Stern said. “What do you want?”

Frank returned his card to his coat pocket. “It has to do with a woman named Hannah Kovatnik.”

The old man turned away slightly, his eyes drifting up into the reddish leaves that hung above him. He did not reply.

“Mr. Silverman thought that you might help me?”

Stern's eyes remained on the gently trembling leaves. “Help you what?”

“Miss Kovatnik was murdered,” Frank said. “The police are holding her body until a relative makes them release it.”

“We weren't related.”

“No,” Frank said. “But you wrote an article about her in 1935.”

Stern's eyes swept over to him. “Did Harry tell you that?”

“No,” Frank said. “I found the article in one of the old union papers.”

Stern smiled wistfully. “I wanted to be a writer back then,” he said. “A real writer. The kind who has a feel for things, who cares about something besides his own narrow little life.” He nodded slightly, and the bitterness that had inched into his voice suddenly fell away. “There seemed to be so much to write about in those days. The struggle, you know, the sacrifice. Great themes.”

Frank took out his notebook and opened it. “That piece you wrote about Hannah,” he said. “It was very good.”

The old man smiled. “As it turned out, I wasn't a great writer, but I was a pretty good one. And Hannah? Well, a young man couldn't have hoped for better material.”

Frank wrote it down quickly.

“I tried to capture her,” Stern went on. “Her beauty. Not her body, or her face, or anything like that. Not that kind of beauty. That's for movie stars, fashion magazines. I wasn't after that. I was after Hannah, herself. Not the way she looked, but the way she acted, the way she made people feel.”

“Her hand in the air,” Frank said.

“Yes, that's what I mean.”

“You did it, I think,” Frank told him.

Stern nodded. “I think so, too,” he said with a sudden muted pride. “A man can write well when he's inspired.” He smiled. “That's the only time a man can write well. Everything else is just some kind of bad faith, as the French call it. Inauthentic nonsense.”

BOOK: Flesh and Blood
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