Summer Accommodations: A Novel (19 page)

“I'm an only child so I haven't experienced feelings like that myself but I think it would be worth it just to have a sister or a brother.”

“My brothers are so much older that sometimes I feel like I am an only child except the snow is always full of their tracks.” Sarah looked confused. “That means there's no place I can go where they haven't already been first. That's one reason why Columbia was so important. Then there's the education of course.” We both laughed. “So, an only child. I bet you had lots of imaginary friends for company.”

“Aren't you smart!” she said, giving me a gentle shove, as if to say ‘get out of here, how did you know?' “In fact I only had one imaginary friend. Her name was Alice because my mother used to read to me from Lewis Carroll all the time. Alice was my most trusted friend,” she said dreamily. At the lake's edge I searched the sand for flat stones that might skip across the water. I side-armed the first one I found and it hit the lake's shimmering surface and immediately sank to the bottom.

“Let me try,” Sarah said, lifting a stone from the ground. She zipped it like a bullet and it skipped four times before sinking. “Not bad, eh? Sandy Koufax is my cousin. He's taught me a few things about throwing.” In 1956 Koufax was five years away from beginning the brilliant career he is celebrated for, but a Jew in professional baseball was still something approaching the miraculous. There was Hank Greenberg and then there was Sandy Koufax.

“You're kidding me!”

“I certainly am not kidding you. Do you think Sandy came into this world without a family?”

“Well, I'd really like to meet the rest of your family someday.”

I don't remember much more of what else happened that night. Today, everywhere you go you will see people with camcorders busily recording everything in their field of vision but nothing in their field of dreams. Those recordings are pictures, they are not memories. To make a memory you must mix experience with some of your older memories and expectations, then knead in some of your feelings and longings, add a generous portion of fantasy and desire, and then allow the mixture to simmer gently in the deeper and invisible recesses of your mind, turning it over, recalling it and retelling it to yourself from time to time as a way of tasting it and then, after a while, you have a memory, hearty as a good cassoulet and just as nourishing—if it is a happy one. Even after all these years I sometimes feast on memories of that sweet Sarah.

4.

The wolf, the natural enemy and killer of deer, had already been replaced by the automobile in the woodlands of the northeastern United States by the summer of 1956. The carcass of a dead deer lying alongside the narrow state roads of Sullivan County though not an uncommon sight always made my stomach knot and my heart sink. There lay innocence slaughtered.

“Look! There's Bambi's mother. Sonofabitch hunters!” Ron was in a raucous if heartless mood. “Gather ye rosebuds, Melvin, that could just as easily have been you,” he said as we drove towards Liberty for the meeting he had set up with a newspaper reporter.

“And how can you compare me to a deer? I may be nimble but I'm not stupid.”

“Smitten, not stupid. You're dead in your tracks in Harlan's headlights, my boy. You trust someone who would just as soon run you down as brake for you when he has no more use for you.”

“In your twisted opinion no one should trust anyone else.”

“You're looking at trust there on the side of the highway. That poor dumb animal trusted some buck or some other deer to lead her across this road, and there she is, BANG!! you're dead.” He shouted so suddenly and startlingly I jumped in my seat.

“Jesus, Ron, get a hold of yourself.”

“You
are the one who needs to get a hold of himself. What that deer is telling you is that life is short, that you can be snuffed out in a second. BANG!! There is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, there is only now, there is only a Martha at this hotel for me, there is only what you can see, smell and touch. You are lucky to have Sarah today but don't count on tomorrow.”

“Do you know something I don't know?”

“Are you kidding? I know a ton that you don't know, but nothing about Sarah, don't worry. No, what I mean is, well look at Judge Crater, for example. He came up here to play poker, drink some Canadian whiskey and maybe get laid. Probably in his mind he was like a king, a big man with power and money, the two most potent aphrodisiacs there are. I doubt that he even carried a gun or hired a bodyguard and then, BANG!! into the well.”

“What if he's not in the well; what if there is a body down there but it's somebody else's?”

“Don't be ridiculous. The judge died from what that poor, dumb deer died from: yearning. The deer was yearning for water or for some particular blade of grass, allowed herself to be distracted by her yearning, lost control of the moment, the now, and BANG!! she was gone.”

“Will you please stop that
bang
nonsense you're making me deaf.”

“But that's the truth, that's what makes it so hard for you to listen to it. Crater came with his own set of yearnings, lost control of the moment, and then lost his life.”

“If that's what you want to believe go right ahead.”

“It's not just what I want to believe it's the truth. Lenny has no reason to make up something as crazy as this, so it has to be the truth.”

“I like the way you think, Ron, crazy ideas are so crazy they must be true. You'll really go far with that kind of analytic approach. Maybe you should skip law school and consider another field where that might be more accepted, one like psychiatry or journalism.” I was still dubious about Lenny's tale.

“Melvin, don't piss me off. I let you in on this because I had to tell somebody and you were the one I chose because I thought you could keep it just between the two of us and also be more serious. When we talk to the reporter in Liberty if you're gonna make wisecracks I'd just as soon you wait in the car. As it is it'll be hard enough to convince him this is not some trick or crazy joke.” He accelerated into the next curve in the road.

Every television station Ron had called in New York City had thought he was just another crank. Only once was he actually put through to a newsman and that wasn't John Cameron Swayze or Mike Wallace either, and the guy he spoke with thought he was talking to a lunatic. “In a well? In the Catskills? He never went there in his life, lame brain!” And then the phone crashed down on its cradle. Furious but undefeated, Ron set his sights on more modest goals. That was why he was determined to talk to this reporter even if he was only working for a local tabloid.

“Sorry. What do you think this reporter can do anyway? Maybe he'll talk to Lenny and get the same story from him that you got or maybe Lenny won't want to talk to him at all. I don't see what a reporter on The Liberty Sentinel is going to accomplish for you.”

“Sometimes I forget what a kid you are. You have to get into the real world and play there, not just in your mind. This is the difference between playing poker with your friends on somebody's kitchen table and playing poker at Las Vegas.”

“The Liberty Sentinel is the Las Vegas of newspapers?” I said with undiluted sarcasm. Shaking his head, steaming but low key, Ron said, “One more of those and you'll be keeping company with Bambi's mommy back down the highway.”

“I'm here aren't I? I just don't want you to get your hopes up too high, that's all.” Day by day I was less intimidated by Ron's belligerence. I had finally come to understand that while he had a pretty ferocious bite he was much more likely to bark at me and chew me out than he was to chew me up.

“Well, let me do the talking. You're there just to verify what I tell the reporter.” This was his way of conciliating.

When we got to the newspaper's office, a small wood frame building with a liquor store at street level and The Liberty Sentinel on the floor above, Ron looked discouraged.

“I never noticed the paper was in this building before. Not very much of a newspaper is it. Where's the printing plant?”

“Hey, what's the difference, let's just get to the reporter and see what he has to say. If he prints the story we can mail it to the New York papers and the TV stations and take it from there.” “Boy, suddenly you're Sol Hurok, Mr. Producer. I'll take care of what happens next, okay?” He stared at me for a minute. “I can't figure you out. One minute you're making fun of me and the next you're an eager beaver.” He shook his head. “Let's just go in.”

We climbed the worn, uncarpeted wooden stairs to the office of the newspaper and entered through a door with the logo of the paper stenciled on its frosted glass window. There were a couple of desks, a wall of files, and only one person in the room, a man in shirt sleeves about fifty years old who was standing at the window that looked out over the street.

“There's more people here in the month of August than in all the other months of the year combined. Even July doesn't seem to be nearly as busy a time the way August does. Must be the vacation month of choice for your city businesses.” He had remained standing with his back to us while delivering his observations, but even at a distance the harsh, frowsy smell of his body odor reached us. I looked at Ron who shrugged and approached the man.

“Excuse me, are you Bill Freeman?”

“That's me.”

“I'm Ronald Alter, Mr. Freeman, I spoke to you a couple of days ago about a story you might be interes …”

“The judge Crater guy, yeah, I remember your call. God, the judge must be gone twenty, thirty years now.”

“Twenty-six years this month,” Ron said quickly, proudly, like a contestant on a quiz show.

“Yeah, that sounds about right. So what's the story you want to tell me about him,” he said, turning and facing us.

“We think we know where his body is. We think we can prove that he's buried on the grounds of a hotel nearby. Interested?” A horn blew on the street followed by the screech of brakes and the sound of metal crunching. The reporter turned back to the window and leaned forward.

“Now that sounds interesting,” he said, craning his neck to see the street below. “Nah, just a couple of vacationers crunching fenders. They get so busy looking at the shops instead of the street you'd think they were on Fifth Avenue.” He left the window and pointed at me.

“You his friend?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe the story he's telling me about the judge? No, that's not fair, why do you believe his story about the judge?”

“Well …” Surprised by his question I groped for an answer; “I think it could be true. He did disappear so some kind of foul play is possible and …” He interrupted my explanation with an easy, conversational tone, nothing angry or impatient.

“Who says foul play? Who says he didn't just run off with one of his girlfriends?” He raised both his hands and rubbed them through his hair, a ferocious storm of body odor raged out from his underarms as he rubbed his fingers through his oily hair. “I mean why do we always suppose that there was some kind of nasty mess rather than somebody just wanting to give it all up and get away? You boys are too young now but some day you'll understand that a man can just come to a place in his life where all he wants to do is put on his hat and coat and walk away. I think the judge came to that point.” He turned to Ron and stared at him long enough to make Ron fidget. “You work at Braverman ‘s don't you? Lenny told you his story about judge Crater and the night he got shot gambling at the poker table, didn't he.” While Ron's face turned red his lips pressed into each other bleaching the color from them. “Yeah, I see that he did. And you thought you were the first person he'd told this story to.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “Poor Lenny, it's the only thing he's got to give to anybody who's nice to him and that only happens once or so every three, four years. I asked Mr. Braverman if there was an old well on the grounds and he laughed at me. ‘Why build a new well sitting on this water table when it's all I can do to keep the basement of my house dry in a draught?' I think he made good sense.”

“But there is an old well,” Ron said eagerly, “I've found the place where it was. Maybe Ben Braverman doesn't want any prying by a reporter. That could bring in the police.”

“Maybe, and maybe not. But this is a small town. When things happen it's hard to keep them a secret. Even the judge's making a trip up here to gamble would have been something to gossip about when the winter closes in on you. Heck, by November if a man slaps his wife in Monticello people up in Swan Lake'll say they heard it happen, see what I mean? But gunshots? Murder? Not likely to have occurred.” He went to his desk and picked up a copy of the newspaper. “Look at this,” he said, pointing to a story on the bottom of the front page, “Ben Brotkowski Injured in Fight. Does that name mean anything to you? Of course not, don't even try to answer, but my point is that in Liberty, New York that's news. Don't you think Judge Crater would have made the news just for showing up here? Forget about this Crater story boys, it's just not true.” He laid the newspaper down and returned to the window. “Please close the door after you leave.”

We left the building without speaking and as soon as we were in his car, after lighting up our cigarettes, Ron started to challenge Bill Freeman's stand. “Too neat, too glib, too ‘go away and leave well enough alone.' I don't think he's telling the whole truth. Besides, did you smell that guy? He smells like someone who's a complete stranger to wells and water.”

“Yeah, I was looking for a gas mask in there but what about what he said about Lenny telling this story to other people before, doesn't that bother you?”

“A little, but I'd have to talk to Lenny first. Look, even if he did tell somebody else nobody's done anything about it. As far as I'm concerned until proved otherwise, Crater is still at the bottom of that well.” He flicked his cigarette out into the street and lit up another. “This really pisses me off. This is such an exciting story, such a find, why isn't anybody else interested in getting to the bottom of this?”