House of Ghosts

by House of Ghosts (epub)

  Finding a parking spot could be a challenge in the vibrant commercial center where meters had appetites larger than sharks for raw meat. He squeezed the Volvo between a BMW 7 Series and a Mercedes 500 in front of the Fitz Randolph Gateway. Joe removed a manila envelope from under the passenger seat, grabbed the five-iron, and checked the traffic in the side mirror. With his leg barking, he stepped on the sidewalk. Standing under the famed arch of the university, Joe waited for the traffic light to change. He closed his eyes, visualizing Preston meeting Clark Johnson at the Balt across the street. The rustle of feet brought him back. A sub shop occupied the former landmark’s space.

  Joe crossed to the south side of the street, turned west and headed toward Palmer Square following the steps Preston and Clark took to Breslow’s cleaners. The news kiosk on the corner was doing a brisk business. The New York Times’ lead story—“Bush Readies Transition Team As Democrats Ready Appeal to Supreme Court.”

  “Good luck,” Joe mumbled, “about the same chance as the Jews on the St. Louis had appealing for a country to take them.”

  “Excuse me?” said the Indian proprietor.

  “Talking to myself,” Joe said, popping fifty cents on the counter.

  Joe trudged past The Princeton Inn. To his surprise, Breslow’s was still in business. He crossed the street to peek through the window. Than, the Vietnamese proprietor, was behind the computerized register taking payment from a black customer. Many things had changed over the sixty-two years since Preston brought his mustard stained pants into the shop, one thing hadn’t—the orange tape measure hanging around Than’s neck. Joe was tempted to ask if the tape measure came with the business.

  Joe paused at the wrought iron gate bordering the alley Preston ventured into looking for Clark. A Fed Ex truck was making a delivery. He tossed the newspaper into a curbside trash receptacle then pushed the gate opened with his foot. Gone were the overflowing garbage cans. Asphalt replaced the decaying cobblestones. Joe, limping and dragging the five-iron, searched above the security doors. There it was—The Tiger’s Claw mosaic. The receiving department of Anne’s European Boutique occupied the space. A woman cutting up cardboard boxes on the cement step eyed Joe suspiciously. “Do you need help?” she asked.

  “I was looking for the Tiger’s Claw,” Joe replied, repositioning the envelope under his arm. “A friend of mine spoke of it in glowing terms.”

  “Never heard of it.” She placed the cardboard into a garbage dumpster, slamming the door behind her.

  Joe massaged his calf. The fifty yards to the gate looked farther than when he entered. Sweating and with his heart pounding, Joe rested against a converted gaslight lamp post.

  He crossed the street. The doorman at the inn welcomed him. “Happy hour in the lower bar. Best drinks in town.”

  “It’s three o’clock,” Joe laughed.

  “But it’s later somewhere else. Pass the front desk, short hallway to the right of the elevator bank,” he said with a tip of his cap.

  The lobby bustled with a bevy of Red Hat geriatric women leaving the hotel’s restaurant. Joe sidestepped a baby stroller, turned right at the elevators, and proceeded toward the Wilson Room, named for Woodrow Wilson, past president of both the university and the country.

  Despite the high marks from the doorman, the first floor saloon held but a handful of patrons. Three Red Hat ladies sat at a table tucked into a corner. Two middle aged suits were at the burled bar in animated conversation. The blonde thirtyish female bartender refilled a bowl with salted peanuts that the two were eating with both hands. Two glasses stood before them.

  Joe stepped into the room where George Washington had hoisted a stein of lager. The original pine paneling had long ago taken on a caramel patina. “Connie, two more,” one of the suits said to the barkeep, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

  Connie moved to the taps, sudsing two new glasses. She smiled at Joe, pointing to an empty seat at the far end of the bar. Joe winked back. The smell of beer and cigarettes attracted him like a magnet. Connie was an inducement he didn’t need.

  Joe took a deep breath. “Looking for a friend,” he said, turning on his heels. The hall running parallel to the lobby led to the Bank Street side of the building. Joe pressed the “Emergency Only” lever on the door, stepping into the fading sun. Across the street, the renowned Gallup Organization occupied half the block from the not so famous Princeton Gazette.

  The offices of the paper were ripped from a Dickens novel with the receptionist seated behind a desk located on a platform. The nameplate read Ms. Chandler. “As I live and breathe, how in the hell are you?” Francine said. Her porcine features and red-orange hair were startling. “You’re not walking too bad for an invalid.”

  “Don’t tell anyone,” Joe whispered. The Man, if he finds out, could revoke my disability pay.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Francine whispered back.

  “Where’s the boss?”

  “Manny’s in the morgue. I’ll buzz him.”

  “Don’t. I want to surprise him,” Joe said. The repository for past issues was located in the rear of the building. A hallway to the right of the reception area was lined with framed front pages of papers published from the 1860s. The Gazette had been a daily up to 1950 when competition from The Trenton Chronicle caused a change to a weekly edition. Offices for Manny, reporters, advertisement and layout broke off like spokes of a wheel.

  A cacophony of hisses and thumps rattled behind a metal accordion gate where out of date presses struggled to print the week’s issue. Joe circumvented rolls of paper stock. The morgue had been the supply room when lead type was set by hand.

  Joe rapped twice on the door frame with the five-iron. “Doughnuts!” he growled to the gray haired pudgy figure looking at a microfilm viewer situated on a battled scared gray metal desk.

  Manny’s beige neck support limited his mobility. He swiveled to face Joe. “If I knew you were coming, I would’ve…”

  “Laced a cake with arsenic,” Joe said, stepping into the blue tinged light of the overhead fluorescent bulbs. A mish-mash of file cabinets labeled by year lined the windowless walls. Newspapers not converted to microfilm were stacked on top.

  “I would’ve been out,” Manny snarled.

  Joe knew what was coming. How he didn’t return calls or e-mails. “I was in a bad place.” He tucked the envelope under his arm. “I was in town and thought it was time to say that I no longer hold you responsible for ruining my life.”

  “That’s big of you. I always said you’re one heck of a guy.” Manny understood Joe’s demented sense of humor and his pride. “What’s happening with Elaine?

  “Arizona agrees with her so much that she ain’t coming back,” Joe said with a faint smile.

  Manny stood, giving Joe a hug. “What can I say?”

  “Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m having the time of my life.” Joe sat on a folding chair at the side of the desk, placing the envelope on his lap. He kept a hand on the five-iron.

  “How’s the leg?” Manny asked, startled by the change in Joe’s appearance

  “Better than your neck. When are you going to retire the brace?”

  “Probably about the same time you stop limping.” Manny countered. “What’s in the envelope?”

  “Do you know Gloria Johnson?”

  “Since I was a cub reporter,” Manny replied, eyeing Joe warily. “Why do you ask?”

  Joe leaned on the five-iron. “How about her husband Clark?”

  Manny adjusted his neck support. “I was with him the night he died.”

  “I was told he died suddenly,” Joe said. “From what?”

  Manny returned to the viewer. “There it is. A writer doing a piece on old Princeton requested an article from the 1930s.” A printer on the side of the desk whirred. He removed the spool returned it to its storage box. “Clark Johnson died of lead poisoning.”

  “Something like that takes years,” Joe said, shifting on the chair. “Painful.”
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  “His was quick and painless. Clark took a .38 slug to his chest. Never knew what hit him. I was there.” Manny wasn’t smiling. “Again, I pose the same question, why do you ask?”

  “When the old pain in the ass across the street from me croaked, I acquired his personal papers.” Joe handed Manny the envelope.

  Manny undid the clasp on the oversized envelope, sliding the contents onto the desk. He skimmed the first pages of each diary. “Two different hands.”

  “Very astute. The leather bound were written by my nemesis. Put your Evelyn Wood speed reading skill to use,” Joe said, propping his leg on a stack of old telephone books as Manny’s finger cruised down the diary pages. “I’ll relax for a while,”

  After fifty minutes and three trips to the sidewalk by Joe for a nicotine recharge, the publisher of the Gazette finished. “Incredible stuff if they’re true,” Manny said, rubbing his neck.

  “Why wouldn’t they be?”

  “For starters, I’ve never heard of any underground Jewish defense organization operating in the United States before World War Two,” Manny said, flipping through one of Preston’s diaries.

  “Doesn’t mean it didn’t exist,” Joe chafed. “I’m not surprised that someone drilled Clark. Enlighten me.”

  “I came to work here in 1959. Single, with not many choices to go after work in those days, I hung out at Jensen’s Roadhouse, a joint on the outskirt of town. Clark was a regular. I came to know the guy who, if it was possible, was viler than in these pages.” Manny held up one of Preston’s diaries. “When he had a snoot on, the most hateful things flowed out of his mouth.”

  Manny rolled the chair to a file cabinet, returning the box to its proper place. He scooted four files to his right. “Here’s the microfilm for the week Clark died.” Threading the film in the viewer, he said, “Read.”

  Joe moved his chair to face the screen.

  Manny continued, “July 9, 1960. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a Tuesday night, hot as hell. Clark was on his stool. If the bar was a football field, his spot was on the fifty yard line. He had a repertoire of obscene jokes and was in the middle of his routine when Ellis Price walked in.”

  “Ellis Price from Preston and Clark’s dormitory?” Joe asked, lighting a cigarette.

  Manny slid a metal garbage wastebasket toward Joe. Pointing to the “No Smoking” sign would’ve been futile. “The one and the same.” He took a bite of a jelly doughnut wrapped in a napkin that looked as if it was used to clean the concrete floor. “Price sits to Clark’s right in a spot near the end of the bar and Clark comments about his suit.”

  “I got the idea that Price was on the prissy side,” Joe said, scrolling the pages.

  Manny wiped his mouth with the napkin. “Price was on the effeminate side. He orders a drink and things settled down until Ellis yells at Clark, ‘You had to come back.’ He got off his stool, slapped two dollars on the bar, and walks up to Clark. In one motion, he pulls a pistol out of his jacket pocket and fires one shot into Clark’s chest. Glasses, peanuts and ashtrays went flying as Clark fell off his stool. Like nothing happened, Price walked away.”

  “Nobody tried to grab him?” Joe asked.

  “It was such a shock. Besides, Price had a gun. After five or ten seconds, all hell broke loose. Price raced to the parking lot and hightailed it away.”

  “This article doesn’t mention half of what you’re telling me,” Joe said, shaking his head.

  “Not exactly Pulitzer Prize material is it?” Manny chortled. “It was and still is a family paper.”

  Joe continued to scroll down. “Jesus Christ. He committed suicide in a park three blocks away?”

  “In the section that was known to be a gay pickup spot.” Manny said. “There’s something else.”

  Joe tapped his cigarette against the wastebasket. “Pray tell.”

  “A guy at the end of the bar where Price sat called himself Ted Steele.”

  “How big?”

  Manny took a slurp of his coffee. “The guy was a monster. Six-five, Six-six and a good two sixty. He started coming in a few of months before Clark’s murder. I spoke to him a couple of times, said he did business in Philly on Tuesdays and stopped on his way home.”

  “Clark was a Tuesday regular?”

  Manny thought for a moment. “Yeah. A lotta nights he was at his old eating club on campus. The guy wanted to relive his college years.”

  “Sounds like Jake Rothstein made it a point to be there when Clark was sure to be in attendance.”

  “His name really could’ve been Ted Steele. It’s possible.” Manny clasped his hands behind his head. “After Clark’s death, Ted Steele no longer came into Jensen’s.”

  “And maybe the guy lost his job or was too frightened by Clark’s murder to go back to Jensen’s.” Joe said with a chuckle. “What about Gloria?”

  “You paid her a visit before coming here, right? I’m surprised she agreed to talk about Clark.”

  “I can’t tell a lie,” Joe said with a grin. “I told her I was an author writing a book about the members of the isolationist movement who became good soldiers. She went on a rant how the Nazi loving bastards were treated badly. She’s still burning a candle for Charles Lindbergh. After agreeing with her, she let me into Clark’s den that she’s maintained exactly as it was the day he died. I got a good look at his flight logbook.”

  “I’ve came to know her well over the many years. She’s a tireless worker for countless organizations, including the Jewish Center. One classy lady.”

  “She had something in common with Preston Swedge. He became a big-time donator to the Westfield temple.” Joe took a sip of Manny’s coffee.

  “Help yourself,” Manny said.

  “Mrs. Johnson kicked me out after doing a web search on me.” Joe showed Manny the photo of Paul Rothstein. “I showed her Rothstein’s picture and drew a blank response. She claimed she never heard of him, but Reverend Miller, Preston Swedge’s minister, the gent who gave me her address, was in her company when Clark toasted the dead airman.” Joe wagged his finger. “She knows what happened to Rothstein. I’d bet your pecker on it.”

  “And Jake Rothstein was stalking Clark because he had something to do with his brother’s death.”

  “Something like that,” Joe said with a wave of his hand. “Clark came from Michigan. Why did he return to Princeton?”

  Manny shut off the viewer. “Clark followed his father’s footsteps and worked for Ford. After stints in Michigan, Kansas City and Atlanta, he was transferred to run the Edison plant. If you had a choice, would you live in Edison when you could easily afford Princeton?”

  “You have a point. Clark’s been dead for forty years and his widow is still living large,” Joe said. “How does she do it?”

  “Gloria has been living off of Clark’s trust fund, life insurance and inheritance. She’s protective of the Johnson family name.” Manny stood. “I wouldn’t want to see her or her son Brad hurt if Clark’s dirty linen is thrown onto the street.”

  Joe returned the diaries to the envelope. “Being married to Clark Johnson, she earned every dime, and it should be punishment for a lifetime. But…”

  “But what?” Manny asked tensely.

  “I found a map among Swedge’s papers that detailed the route bombers took from their base in Italy. The mission took them over Auschwitz to a target four miles away. If I’m right, Clark Johnson was part of a plot to prevent Paul Rothstein from knocking out the gas chambers. Three hundred thousand Hungarian Jews died after August 20, 1944. What about their laundry they left behind as they walked naked to their deaths?”

  Manny looked at the ceiling. “My grandparents were among the last Hungarian Jews deported from Budapest.”

  Chapter 28

  WESTFIELD, NJ NOVEMBER 2000

  PAUL ROTHSTEIN REMAINED AS ELUSIVE as a wisp of smoke. Joe reasoned if Preston graduated Princeton in 1942, Rothstein graduated from New York University in the same year.

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p; Kopel Weinstein, uncle to Mel Katz and one of Joe’s golfing buddies, went to the N.Y.U. School of Commerce, graduating in 1942. With a campus population of ten thousand, Joe knew it was a long shot that Kopel or his wife Naomi, also a ’42 graduate, but of the School of Education, had any dealings with Paul Rothstein or Dave Cohen.

  The Weinsteins loved dogs and had made a fuss over Roxy since she was a pup. Joe snapped a leash on the Labrador. “Between your lovely face and this coffee cake, we’ll soften them up. The old folks will be talking up a storm.”

  He let Roxy out. She ran down the front steps with her nose to the ground, passed the Volvo, and then raced around the side of the house to the backyard gate. Joe checked the street in both directions. Looking for the white compact had become another addiction. Agitated, Roxy galloped back to the driveway. “The ‘bad’ man again? Come on Roxy, tell me where can I find him.” He put the bakery box onto the passenger seat.

  Joe followed Roxy to the gate where the dog danced in anticipation. Joe reached for the latch. “Get him!” he said, putting a shoulder to the cedar slats. Bursting into the yard, the ninety pound cookie killer stopped in her tracks, growled at a squirrel foraging in the decaying tree stump in the far corner, and then looked at Joe. “The ‘bad’ man isn’t here. Let’s go.”

  Disappointed, Roxy slinked back to the Volvo. “You’ll get another go at him.” Joe said, opening the rear hatch.

  Cruising through the center of town, Joe detoured to Elm Street, double parking outside Basics and Bras. Kim scrambled out of the small shop at the sight of the white Volvo. Joe rolled down the passenger window. “I have a craving for Italian. How about I pick you up at six?”