Unfinished Sympathy

by Andy Conway

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do. You did something wrong, much worse than writing a hammer into a composition, and now you suffer for it.”

  The name came to Mitch unbidden through the fog: Pete Wethers. He fetched the decanter and poured himself another brandy. Gustav shook his head, so Mitch put the decanter on the morning table between them.

  “I once sent a man to a do a job,” Mitch said. “A dangerous job. I told him he’d be all right. But I lied.”

  “I’m sure you would never knowingly endanger someone’s life,” Gustav said.

  “No, it might have been worse than that.”

  “Worse than endangering his life?”

  “Yes. His soul.”

  Gustav smiled. “I did not have you down as a God-fearing man.”

  “I sent him to investigate a woman — a dangerous woman — and I told him I’d chosen him because he was happily married. But I knew the woman would seduce him. I pushed him into the lion’s den.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it solved my problem. I guess that makes me a home wrecker. I deserve to be punished. Maybe this is my punishment.”

  Mitch shivered and hugged himself with a sickening sense of dread.

  This was why he couldn’t get to Eleanor.

  He knew it now.

  He didn’t deserve to escape into some cosy past with the love of his life, when he’d denied Pete Wethers his true love.

  “You believe God is punishing you?” Gustav asked.

  “No, Gustav, but I believe our inner guilt can lead us into punishing ourselves.”

  “Ah, this is the teachings of this professor Freud, I think. Such startling nonsense.”

  Mitch sighed and waved it away. Gustav would rush to Freud and be psychoanalysed. Sometime soon. How strange that Mahler didn’t yet know this. Mitch wondered if he should tell him, but no, there was nothing to be gained from interfering with more lives, more loves.

  He opened his mouth to speak, to say something about the need to atone for past sins before one could psychologically move on, but just as he did so, there was a knock at the door.

  — 31 —

  A BELLBOY WITH A LETTER on a silver platter. Behind him, down the corridor, Clarence watched from the elevator, keeping the door open.

  An envelope this time, but the same uncultured handwriting.

  Mr Mahler.

  The Majestic Hotel.

  Most urgent.

  Gustav tipped the bellboy a dime and closed the door. He rushed to the bureau in the corner, took a silver letter opener and sliced open the envelope.

  Mitch thought of fingerprints and DNA and all kinds of things that might be beyond the police here in 1908.

  Gustav read it, squinting through pince-nez and nodded as if it was news he was expecting. He handed it over and Mitch read:

  We want $100,000 (1 hundered thousan dollar) and Mrs Mahler will be returned safe. Get it Monday morning and have ready for midday. We will tell you where.

  Hadn’t Alma said that same amount was Conried’s pay-off that Otto Kahn was trying to negotiate? How strange that it was the same amount. Did that point to Conried once more, or even to Otto? It was hard to believe that a billionaire would resort to blackmailing an employee for what must be to him small change found down the back of the sofa, but then perhaps it was a trifling shifting of figures from one column to another. No, it was absurd: the thought of Otto writing ransom notes upside down with his left hand, deliberately misspelling the words. Unless he was a sociopath, amusing himself at the misfortunes of his minions.

  Gustav slumped on the sofa. “I don’t have this kind of money.”

  “Unless you know a billionaire.”

  “Pah. I could not go to Otto Kahn, or Mrs Seney Shelden. The scandal would break us.”

  “Which has always seemed to be the whole point of this. Someone wants to destroy you, Gustav. Perhaps that’s why they’re making this impossible ransom demand.”

  “Then what will they do to Alma?” He whispered it, afraid of alerting the governess.

  It was a bluff no one was prepared to make. The aim seemed to be to publicly shame the Mahlers by drawing them into a blackmail plot. Rumours of her infidelity, through a letter that was forged or real. If that was so, there was no point in murdering her. But perhaps things had taken a desperate turn. Mitch investigating and confronting Selig might have pushed them to this — kidnapping the woman they wanted to shame. Selig Silverstein and his gang of shabby hoodlums — all bad breath and resentment — drawing their knives at the slightest provocation. They would have sliced Mitch up like a pound of tripe if the police hadn’t raided Mitchell’s. Left him for dead in that alley. Maybe that was what was going to happen when he’d rescued Alma. Maybe it was Selig about to cut her up and leave her for dead.

  He was a psychopath, that much had been evident. If he didn’t get his money — and he must surely feel by now that the money belonged to him and that Gustav was unreasonably keeping it from him — he would slit Alma’s throat as easily as he stubbed out a cigarette.

  “We’ve got 24 hours,” said Mitch. “We can find her before then.”

  “But how?” Gustav waved his arm to take in the entire sweep of New York.

  A gentle knocking at the door stilled them. They froze, wondering what to do. Was it the kidnappers, another message, perhaps Alma had escaped?

  Mitch put a finger to his lips and crept to the door, easing it open.

  Clarence, his shift over and on his way home, in a thick overcoat and a baker boy hat. “Sir, I couldn’t help but notice, something is badly wrong. I think you wanted to ask me about those men who left with Mrs Mahler. I just wondered if I can help.”

  Mitch stepped aside and Clarence shuffled in, swiping his cap from his head.

  “Gustav, this is Clarence.”

  Mahler looked at him without recognition. Was he still in shock or did he just not recognize this man without his livery?

  “Clarence is the bellhop. He saw Alma leave.”

  Gustav nodded and seemed far away.

  “Those men with Mrs Mahler,” Mitch said. “They weren’t on the level, were they?”

  “It didn’t seem so.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “Jewish. No disrespect, sir.” Clarence nodded to the great composer but there was no indication that Mahler understood him. It was as if Mitch had brought in a canary. “I know Mr Mahler is a Jew. The respectable kind. And we get a lot of that kind here at the Majestic. You know what they call it, I guess.”

  “The Jewish Place, yes.”

  “But these weren’t that kind. These looked like they were from downtown.”

  For the second time, Mitch cursed himself for not having his phone with him. If he could have taken a photo of Selig Silverstein, Clarence could have identified him, then this whole case would be solved. But the description sounded like Selig and his cronies.

  “Thank you, Clarence. That is a great help.”

  “Is Mrs Mahler in danger, sir?”

  “Yes she is, Clarence, but we’d like to keep it a secret. No one knows this except you and me, and Mr Mahler here. Absolutely no one else. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir. I understand.” Clarence nodded and examined the pattern of the Persian rug, making a move to the door.

  “There is one thing you could do for me, Clarence.”

  “Yessir. Anything.”

  “I need to send a couple of messages, but I don’t know how to do that. One to Marshall’s Hotel and another to Jimmy Kelly’s Saloon near Union Square.”

  “I’ll call a messenger boy for Union Square, but I can deliver to Marshall’s myself. I go home by that way.”

  Mitch scrabbled for a pen and paper from the bureau and sat at the dining table.

  “Take a seat.”

  Clarence stared in horror, looked at Mahler, shuffled again, and perched on the edge of one of the chairs, as if he’d never sat in a chair befor
e.

  Mitch scribbled a note to James Reese Europe at Marshall’s:

  If Selig Silverstein returns, let me know immediately. Urgent. Life or death. Leave a message for me at Majestic reception and I will check with them.

  He dashed off another similar message to Izzy Berlin at Jimmy Kelly’s saloon, and sealed both in envelopes, handing them to Clarence with a couple of dollars.

  “That’s too much money, sir, the messenger boy will only cost a—”

  “You’ve probably guessed I’m not from here, Clarence, and the money and your tipping customs are foreign to me. But take it. As a barely worthy gesture of thanks. Please.”

  Clarence nodded and slipped the envelopes and two crisp dollar bills into the inside pocket of his overcoat. He seemed happier to stand and put his cap back on and make for the door. He nodded and bowed once more, to Mitch and to Mahler, and left.

  “Write another letter,” said Gustav, legs crossed, chin resting on steepled fingers. “Tell the governess that my wife and I have been called out on urgent business with the Met, so she must look after Gucki herself for the day.”

  It was a good idea. The governess would be up soon with the child and asking questions. It was best to avoid them altogether.

  They left the letter on the table in plain sight and crept out, Gustav in a tweed flat cap and black overcoat that he must have thought made him look like a common man. ‘Where are we going?” he asked, as they approached the elevator.

  “To Chinatown.”

  — 32 —

  “FIRST THINGS FIRST,” said Gustav, as they reached the hotel lobby.

  He veered to the side and headed for the restaurant.

  “What?”

  “An army marches on its stomach.”

  Mitch followed him in and watched aghast as he hung up his hat and coat and took a table, summoning a waiter who was already gliding over with a menu. How could he be so callous, stopping for breakfast when his wife was in the hands of kidnappers?

  A blast of sweet bacon scent wafted through the air and his belly flipped over and grumbled like an earthquake. Gustav was right. It was early on a Sunday morning and they were setting out to investigate a city that had barely woken. They needed to eat or they would be dead on their feet before they got to Chinatown.

  He took a seat with him and ordered as much as he could. They ate in grim silence, washing it down with a gallon of coffee, and Mitch wondered if this might be his last ever meal. There was always that chance.

  As they ate, he mulled over the case.

  The more he had investigated the blackmail attempt on Alma, the more it had seemed like Selig Silverstein was nothing to do with it. But there was his name scribbled on the Marshall Hotel flyer, the card that the blackmailer had dropped. Selig’s name had been the one true fact about this, right there from the beginning. And if someone had sent Selig Silverstein to Chinatown, then maybe that was where they’d find him. Or find someone who knew where he was. He was something to do with this, maybe even working with Jack Zelig.

  If they found Selig, they could find Alma. It was pretty much their only hope.

  Waiters took away their plates and Gustav smoked a cigarette, humming to himself. Mitch waited in silence. Finally, Gustav stubbed out the butt in the ashtray and stood, dropping his linen napkin to the table.

  Outside in the bright street, the temperature had dropped to a mean, frigid shock that turned their breath to ice. The cab drivers flapped their arms around their bulk, each one wearing three or four coats.

  Gustav was about to shout out their destination to the driver at the front of the cab queue, but Mitch pressed his arm.

  “Lexington and 68th, the metro station.”

  The driver saluted and climbed up to his perch, and in a moment they were taking the same route across the park as they had the other night for Otto Kahn’s dinner party.

  When the driver dropped them on Lexington Avenue, Gustav asked, “Why are we going to Chinatown?”

  He seemed suddenly like a lost boy on a street corner asking the way home. Of course, he had so removed himself from everything that was happening around him that he didn’t know Mitch had been attacked by Selig Silverstein and his cronies, spent a night in jail, threatened a Jewish mobster and picked up a clue about Mann Fang and Mock Duck while a knife was shoved in his face. He didn’t know any of it. He’d simply hired Mitch to investigate it for him and got on with his life as a conductor.

  Mitch explained it all to him as they entered the metro station and got in a train hurtling downtown. Gustav was looking all around in wonder so much that he might not have taken it in.

  When the train stopped at Union Square, Mitch wondered if he should jump off and go seek Izzy Berlin. There seemed little point. Would Jimmy Kelly’s bar even be open on a Sunday morning, and would Izzy be working if it was? Anyway, Clarence’s messenger boy was already heading there with the message.

  The train rattled on through Astor Place, Bleecker Street, Spring Street; places he knew from the future, but he was happy to pass under them without seeing the sprawling chaos they were now. The visceral gut punch of the East Village two days ago had knocked him sideways and he was still holding up that dam that protected him from the tsunami of their emotions.

  He flipped through the pages of his notebook and found Dr Fraenkel’s name and scribbled He knows what you are?

  Canal Street loomed.

  This was about where to get off for Chinatown. After this the metro went straight for City Hall and Wall Street.

  The carriage had filled up as they’d snaked down Manhattan, and he noticed the chatter around them was a Babel of languages: Yiddish, German, Italian, Russian.

  They went with the press of bodies streaming up and out onto Canal Street and he braced himself for its impact as the subway spat them out onto a wide open boulevard teeming with bodies. There seemed to be a market in the street. Men in shabby suits and derby hats, hands in pockets, women in shawls, some with head scarves, others with their hair piled up in parodies of fashion, aping the look of rich women like Alma.

  They pushed east down Canal Street, noticing the boulevard seemed to divide two distinct cultures — Italian this side, Chinese on the other — and the further east they walked, the increasing feeling that they had stepped into a St Petersburg ghetto: snatches of Russian and Yiddish all around, old men with the traditional garb of Orthodox Jews: skull caps, sidecurls, tzitzit threads dangling from their waists.

  Gustav sneered. “Look at them. Disgusting peasants. Why do they wear such ridiculous clothing? Why don’t they try to assimilate? They come to this great country and live like dirty peasants from the stetl. They make no effort to take part in American society. No wonder they are persecuted.”

  Gustav was the cliché of a self-hating Jew. He’d come from the ghetto and hated the vulgarity of his own upbringing. The squalor of immigrant life reminded him of his roots, and that he too would never belong.

  “They spoil it for all Jews,” he spat, without admitting that all Jews might include himself. “Everywhere they go in the world, spreading their filth.”

  The words Gustav, you talk like Hitler caught in Mitch’s throat. It was pointless. Gustav didn’t know any Hitler. That horror was yet to come.

  Every third shop seemed to be a nickelodeon, their garish displays shouting five cents a show, promising ‘changes daily’ and ‘popular Vaudeville’, their painted displays harkening to both the tradition of theatre and the novelty of moving pictures.

  Gustav lit a cigarette, ostentatiously holding it to one side on its ivory cigarette holder, as if compensating.

  A man with a weasel face stepped in front, aimed a clumsy box camera, took a shot and grinned. He scuttled away in a shabby overcoat.

  “He recognized you,” Mitch said.

  “No one will believe him,” said Gustav. “Why would the world’s greatest conductor be tramping the slums of Manhattan?”

  The photographer dashed off and disappeared
in the crowd.

  “We need to cross the street,” Mitch said, guiding Gustav into the road.

  They dodged carriages and carts and crossed into the narrow, twisting streets of Chinatown, slipping into Mott Street. Mahler slowed and leaned on a fire hydrant, wheezing at the exertion, or the cigarette smoke that still coiled from his hand.

  “Damn this illness, “ he wheezed. “I used to climb a mountain before breakfast. Now look at me.”

  It was claiming him, slowly, a little more every day, the heart disease that would kill him. In three years he’d be gone.

  Mott Street was as crowded and teeming with life as Canal Street, but in a few hundred yards they had stepped from Rome through St Petersburg to Shanghai. Here the men mostly wore that traditional garb of loose changshen shirts, slippers, hair in a pigtail, though many sported cheap homburg hats as if they were being assimilated from the head down. A woman passed with a tray on her head, bearing copper pots of tea.

  Gustav finished his cigarette and popped his ivory cigarette holder in his top pocket with his handkerchief. They tramped on down Mott Street till they found the Mann Fang restaurant, easy to see as its hoardings were in English as well as Cantonese. It appeared to be closed.

  Gustav hammered the door and yelled, “Open up at once!”

  A few people stopped and stared. It was the Chinese who put on a show for white tourists, not the reverse.

  “I demand to see Mock Duck!”

  Laughter came from the gathering crowd. But Mitch noticed one man who wasn’t laughing. He glared with menace and peeled off, rushing away.

  Trouble was coming.

  Gustav stooped and picked up a rock from the gutter. He went to launch it at the Mann Fang window.

  The crowd gasped.

  Mitch caught Gustav’s arm and the rock fell to the dirt.

  “Gustav, if the police come now, you’ll have to explain the kidnapping, make it all public.”