Nate Rosen Investigates

by Ron Levitsky

  The corridor led to one enormous room, which served as Lucila’s studio. Except for a small bedroom, which appeared to be an alcove between the kitchen and far corner of the room, everything else was open space. At least two dozen people sat in clusters of folding chairs throughout the room. Six or seven children sprawled on Lucila’s bed watching a portable TV on a rickety stand.

  Lucila sat with her sister-in-law at the opposite corner, as people approached in single file to pay their respects. Esther sobbed softly into a handkerchief, barely glancing at those who passed by.

  When Sarah stood before her and said, “I’m so sorry,” the woman trembled and, looking up, drew Sarah to her.

  “Mi hijita. Una angelita, como mi Nina. Quédate conmigo. Quédate conmigo.”

  Sarah dropped to her knees and hugged the woman.

  “Quédate conmigo,” Esther repeated, wrapping Sarah in her arms. Bess stood over them, her hands resting gently on the other woman’s shoulders. Unsure of what to do, Shelly thrust his hands in his pockets and stepped behind his wife.

  Rosen moved to one side, next to the man who had accompanied the Ellsworths to the funeral. He wore a pinstripe suit tailored both for his muscular shoulders and thick waist. The sunglasses lay folded in a coat pocket, and his gray eyes didn’t seem to blink. His jetblack hair was cut short, accentuating a flattened nose and puglike face. His wide mouth balanced a thick mustache that ended precisely at the corners. “Quédate conmigo,” Esther murmured once again.

  The other man said to Rosen, “She’s asking your daughter to stay with her.” He spoke softly for a big man and with a slight New England accent.

  “Thanks. My Spanish isn’t so good. You’re . . .?”

  “Ed Masaryk.” His grip was what Rosen expected from a hand nearly as big as a fielder’s glove.

  “Aren’t you the Ellsworths’ bodyguard?”

  “I’m chief of security for Mr. Ellsworth’s firm.”

  “But I understand you live on their estate.”

  “I do have quarters there.”

  “So your duties are split between the family and the company.”

  Masaryk stared at Rosen, his eyes still unblinking. “I like to do a thorough job.”

  Just then Chip Ellsworth and Margarita Reyes walked up to Esther Melendez. The boy had his mother’s green eyes and slim build. His blond hair was a little too long; he kept brushing it back.

  In contrast, everything about the girl was dark—thick curls reaching her shoulders, her dress a little too tight around the bust and hips, and the sheer stockings. The only bit of color was her makeup, too red, and a gold necklace with the name “Margarita.”

  Chip mumbled his condolences, then the girl took Esther’s hands and, speaking softly to her in Spanish, hugged her tightly.

  “Gracias, Ita, gracias,” Esther said, still holding Sarah tightly.

  Chip and the girl walked to Masaryk.

  Chip said, “Soldier, we’re probably going to split.”

  “Probably?”

  “Well, yeah, I mean, we’ve paid our respects, so we’re going.”

  “What about lunch?”

  “I don’t like all this soupy stuff. We’ll just grab something at McDonald’s.”

  Keeping his gaze on Chip, Masaryk said to the girl, “He doesn’t know what he’s missing, does he, Margarita?”

  Smiling, the girl took Chip’s hand. “He knows what’s good for him.” Then she rattled off several sentences in Spanish.

  Masaryk responded in Spanish, speaking with an excellent accent. They spoke too quickly for Rosen to follow, and the big man’s face betrayed no emotion.

  Finally the girl laughed and said, “No te preocupes.”

  Masaryk’s eyes suddenly narrowed. Rosen sensed something was wrong, but what was it? She’d only told the other man not to worry.

  Masaryk said to the boy, “I know you two will have lunch, then drive over to school in time for your afternoon classes.”

  Chip swallowed hard. “You’re not gonna have us followed?”

  Laughing, Margarita pulled him away. “That makes it more fun. C’mon.” She saluted. “Adios, Soldado.”

  Nodding curtly to Rosen, Masaryk walked to the kitchen counter, where Kate Ellsworth served food to a line of men carrying their plates before them like a religious procession. She glanced at the door and seemed about to follow her son. Masaryk, however, put a hand gently on her shoulder and whispered to her. Her face made a tight smile, but she nodded and continued ladling something thick and steaming onto the plates. He stayed, watching her the whole time.

  Someone suddenly screamed—a child by the television set. Other children began shouting, while pointing toward Esther and Sarah.

  “Dr. Foot, Dr. Foot!” the children shouted.

  Shelly blushed and nodded shyly. One of the little boys pulled him toward the TV set, as the other children sang in harmony with the commercial:

  “Call today, the first visit’s free, 933 F-O-O-T!”

  Jumping up and down, the children grabbed at Shelly as if he were Santa Claus. A matron hobbled over and slapped the children on the head, pulling one boy’s ears until he screamed. However, several men eagerly shook Shelly’s hand; one of them kept pointing to his left foot.

  “Such is the price of fame.”

  Rosen turned to see Lucila standing beside him. She held a bowl heaped with some sort of chicken stew. A big spoon had been pushed into the steaming mass.

  “Here. I thought you might be hungry.”

  “Thanks. What’s it called?”

  “Sancocho. Chicken, carrots, plátanos, onions, and rice.”

  “Potatoes too.”

  “That’s plátanos—plantains. You’ve seen them—they look like big bananas, only they’re like potatoes. Starchy.”

  Rosen shook his head. “I saw these little bananas in the store downstairs.”

  “Those are called niños.”

  “And they’re . . .?”

  “Little bananas.”

  They both laughed. Lucila’s came brittle as broken glass. She rubbed her eyes, already raw from crying.

  Rosen said, “I’d better sit down. You’ll join me?”

  “There’re a couple chairs over there by the wall. I’ll get you something to drink. Is iced tea all right?”

  “Perfect.”

  Tasting the first spoonful of sancocho, Rosen realized how hungry he was. For the next few minutes, he was absorbed with his food, pausing only to sip the iced tea.

  Lucila said, “So the food doesn’t displease you.”

  “It’s delicious. Did you make it?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I didn’t realize you were so domestic.”

  “I’m not. When I’m working, I usually throw together some rice and beans or fix a salad.”

  Putting down the empty bowl, Rosen thumbed through several canvases stacked against the wall. The last one depicted an older woman placing her hand on a younger woman’s pregnant belly.

  “These are wonderful paintings,” he said.

  “Thanks. They’re usually on the wall, but I took them down today. Too much of Nina. They’re interpretations of Gabriela Mistral’s poetry. You’ve heard of her?”

  “Sarah and Nina used a poem of hers at school the other night.”

  “That’s right. Mistral was Chilean, a Nobel Prize winner who wrote of her love for children. That last painting is based on a poem in which a young woman, afraid of her first pregnancy, seeks comfort from her mother.” Lucila recited something in Spanish, then translated, ‘I fell on her breasts, and all over again I became a little girl sobbing in her arms at the terror of life.’”

  Rosen said, “Mistral must’ve had a large family of her own.”

  “She was childless—never married. There was a broken love affair, in which the man committed suicide.”

  “How terrible.”

  Lucila stared at the painting. “I’m not so sure. If she had married, he probably would’ve chaine
d her to the house—bearing children, washing clothes, cooking beans and rice. It might’ve killed the poetry within her.”

  “Is that really fair to say?”

  Blinking hard, she turned to Rosen. “You don’t know what it’s like for a woman in a Latin American country. It’s a kind of slavery. First she obeys without question her father, who passes the manacles and chains to her husband.”

  “But there must be women in your country who are doctors, lawyers, and writers.”

  “And here there’s a black Supreme Court Justice. Does that mean your blacks are really equal? I tell you what I know—what I saw in my mother’s life. I won’t be put in those chains.”

  “So instead, you’ve chained yourself to your work.”

  Crossing her arms, she nodded slowly. “My own choosing.”

  “I’m not being critical. It’s just, with your obvious love of children, I’m a little surprised you’re not married.”

  “But now you understand.”

  “I may be a little thick, but the lesson’s sunk in.”

  Lucila said, “You’re anything but thick. I’ll get you some more iced tea.”

  Watching her walk to the kitchen counter, Rosen felt something stir within his heart. He wanted her sitting close to him, yet was ashamed to have those feelings at such a time, in such a place—a house of mourning. His face growing warm, he turned back to study the painting.

  Lucila seemed to have been away for a long time. Finally she returned, handing him his drink. She also held a notebook.

  “What’s that,” he asked, “more poetry?” Then he looked at the notebook more carefully. “Nina’s diary.”

  Moving her chair closer—he smelled the fragrance of her hair, Lucila opened the diary. “This is Nina’s first entry, dated about a month ago. ‘On my way home he drove by and gave me a lift. He said today for the first time he really noticed how pretty I was. I’m keeping this diary, because I can’t tell anybody, not even Sarah—at least not yet. She’s still a child, doesn’t understand what I feel inside when I see him.’”

  Lucila flipped ahead several pages. “This is about a week before Nina died. ‘When Mami was asleep, I slipped out and met him in the park. We just held hands and watched the moon over the lake. He said he’s going to give me a special present for my birthday. I wanted him to kiss me, but he didn’t. Maybe next time.’”

  Closing the notebook, she stared at the cover for a long time.

  Rosen asked, “Did you show Nina’s diary to the police?”

  “Yes, but they won’t do anything about it. The police chief says it’s not evidence, not if there’s nothing else to go with it. Besides, Nina was just a little brown girl from the city. They’re going to bury the case, just the same as we buried my niece today.” She looked up at Rosen. “That teacher killed her.”

  “Maybe, but the police are right about needing more evidence.”

  “They have to keep the case open to do that, and they won’t for Esther or me. But if you, a lawyer, or Mr. Gold insisted, they’d listen. After all, if Bixby was after Nina, he might’ve been after your daughter as well.”

  Rosen grimaced. That’s what had bothered him all along.

  She said, “I’m not going to let this thing go.”

  “I understand. She was your niece.”

  “It’s more than that. Two years ago, I met Kate Ellsworth through our mutual interest in art. When she needed a new housekeeper, I sent for my sister-in-law and Nina from the Dominican Republic, mainly to give Nina a better chance in life. I brought her here, and that’s what killed her.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for what might’ve happened.”

  “He’s going to be punished, no matter what.”

  Lucila’s eyes flashed with that same terrible righteous anger Rosen had seen so often in his father’s eyes.

  It frightened Rosen, but he also saw the swell of her breasts as she leaned toward him and asked, “Will you help us?”

  For a moment the word stuck in his throat, cold as iron drawn by a magnet.

  “Yes.”

  Chapter Six

  Leaving Lucila’s apartment about one in the afternoon, Rosen walked a few blocks down Diversey and caught the Jefferson Park “L” that would take him downtown. The el was nearly empty at that time of day. A blond wearing too much makeup held a large box in a brown Marshall Field’s bag, while a young couple in DePaul University jackets crammed for a political science exam.

  Rosen watched neighborhoods repeat themselves with the same regularity as the clackety-clack of metal wheels against the rails. The train passed so close to the backs of tenements, he could almost touch the flapping laundry strung from the third-floor landings. He wondered how people could live like that—not so much the poverty, but the daily exposure to a thousand voyeurs, each eye blinking like a camera before moving on to the next back porch. What passion or crime could go undetected for long? No wonder people like the Ellsworths built walls and locked their gates to strangers.

  The “L” slipped underground, as it reached the north end of the Loop. It seemed to move faster, roaring through the darkness into the sudden greenish glow of each stop. The young woman left the train at Washington Street for Field’s. Rosen exited with the two students at Jackson. Climbing up the stairs, the boy and girl turned east toward DePaul, while he walked west into the heart of the financial district, LaSalle Street.

  Although it was sunny and about sixty degrees, the lake breeze put a chill into the air. Still, Rosen enjoyed the walk; the sancocho had been delicious but lay heavily in his stomach. Men carrying leather briefcases checked their watches, women in gray blazers and swishing skirts hurried past in sneakers, and deliverymen balancing packages bounded from their trucks. Young traders or their runners, each wearing a colored jacket and large ID on the lapel, gesticulated as if still trading on the floor of the exchange. Turning at the Board of Trade, he walked up LaSalle, passing the Federal Reserve and a dozen other banks with their Corinthian columns, the great temples to capitalism. The Leary Building was a few blocks north. An old squarish structure of ten stories, its brick had darkened to squirrel gray, and its top floor windows were crowned with Gothic arches.

  Past the lobby, to Rosen’s right, stood the Leary Gallery. Although Kate Ellsworth was probably still at Lucila’s apartment, he walked into the gallery.

  The art was Eastern—landscapes with distant mountains shrouded in clouds, pagodas secluded in the wilderness, and barefoot pilgrims crossing tiny bridges. Potted palms and hanging plants with scented flowers reinforced the theme. Sculptures of East Indian goddesses reminded Rosen of the Nahagian home in Evanston, where he was staying. He wondered if Mrs. Nahagian was a customer.

  “I’ll be right with you, sir.”

  A young Asian woman in a green knit dress and copper-colored scarf sat across the desk from a heavily jeweled dowager. “Now, Mrs. Seton, by next week we’ll have for you two more Nagashimas to perfectly complement the one you purchased today.”

  He walked through a narrow entranceway into a large room devoted to Latin American art. More plants and rocking chairs beside small round mahogany tables topped with dominos and bowls of tropical fruit. A corner table offered coffee, tea, and a plateful of oatmeal raisin cookies. No Lipton, so he chose “Passionate Papaya.”

  Although more than a dozen canvases hung on the four walls, one painting dominated the others in both size and intensity. Even from across the room, Rosen knew it was Lucila’s. Walking closer, he studied it intently, trying to understand why it moved him—no, why it frightened him so.

  The painting was called Flowers of Madness. A mountainside of the most vibrant greens and browns, with a threatening sky of Prussian blue. A young girl in a flowing white gown knelt before a woman who looked, not at the girl, but straight ahead. The girl, delicate with long black hair falling below her shoulders, was Nina. The woman held crimson roses that dripped blood down her dress and into a stream. She was incredibly sensual, with pout
ing lips and heavy breasts; her thick hair was cropped below her ears as if by a knife. Above all her eyes, big and dark and burning, struck Rosen like a brand.

  “I see it’s enchanted you too.” The Oriental woman stood beside him. She held a white folder. “That figure in the center—so intense.”

  Rosen nodded.

  “The artist is Lucila Melendez, extremely talented. We’re giving her first Midwestern exhibit next month. All her paintings in the show are based on the poetry of Gabriela Mistral. Most deal with children.”

  “This one?”

  “Well, there is the kneeling girl, but it isn’t at all like the others.” She opened the folder. “Here’s what Ms. Melendez included in the gallery notes for this painting—verses from Mistral’s poem, which is called ‘The Flowers of the Air.”’

  Rosen read the verses:

  “I scaled the rocks with deer

  and sought the flowers of madness,

  those that grew so red they seemed

  to live and die of redness.

  When I descended happily trembling,

  I gave them as my offering,

  and she became as water

  that from a wounded deer turns bloody.”

  Handing her the folder, Rosen asked, “Do you know anything more about the painting—if the artist based the two characters on anyone in particular?”

  The woman shrugged. “Ms. Melendez will be here next month at the showing. You could ask her then. If you’re interested in purchasing this painting, I could arrange—”

  “No, that’s all right.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to look at some of these others. They’re all by young female artists, all of whom, like Melendez, are establishing quite a reputation.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “In our other rooms, just through that entrance, we have some very striking—”

  “No, thank you.”

  She frowned slightly. “Perhaps if you told me the type of painting that interested you, I could be of better service.”