First, Do No Harm

by Larry Karp

  I must’ve looked like a comedy-puppet, head bouncing down to look into a drawer, up to check the office doorway, then back to the next drawer. First five drawers held nothing beyond ordinary office stuff—paper, receipt books, staples, tooth-marked pencils. But in the left bottom drawer I hit paydirt. A metal strongbox.

  I glanced toward the doorway, then carefully lifted the box to the desktop. Heavy. Probably a thick layer of lead under black-painted steel. O. FLEISCHMANN scratched clumsily across the top, probably with a knife point. About a foot long, foot-and-a-half deep, six inches high, held shut by a brass padlock with a thick steel bolt. Big enough to hold a ton of photographs and documents.

  My heart danced a jig in my throat. The lock was a Yale, the kind you could buy at any hardware store for less than fifty cents. I pulled at it, no luck. Ride the box home on the handlebars of my bike, take a hacksaw to the lock, replace it, sneak the box back that night?

  Rhetorical questions. No way to know how often Oscar opened that box. Maybe he always checked the drawer before he went home after work. George was all the way out in Six-Six but he’d probably seen me, just as I’d seen him. I’d have to come back another time, better prepared.

  I put the box back, closed the drawer, stood up, started to leave…wait, file cabinet. I opened the top drawer, riffled through grimy manila folders, the story of a junkyard’s day-to-day business, alphabetically arranged by customer name, accounts pending, accounts receivable. Bottom drawer, tools. Drill, hammer, screwdrivers. I kicked the drawer shut, opened the one above it. Catalogs and reference books, good place to hide documents or photographs. I grabbed a manual on radio repair, flipped it open—and right then it hit me. Motor noises, outside. I’d been hearing them but they hadn’t registered; the chatter of the ball game announcer on the radio was like an anesthetic. A door slammed, then another. Murray and Oscar, back from a run in the truck.

  I dropped the book into place, eased the drawer closed, heard boisterous singing. Murray. “What’s the use of Goering? He never was worthwhile—so! Pack up your Goebbels in your old kit bag, und Heil! Heil! Heil!”

  “You got that off Red Dexter.” Oscar, disgusted.

  “Yeah, well, so what if I did?” Louder, clearer, closer to the office. “He’s a funny guy.”

  “Yeah, a goddamn riot. Way you’re all buddy-buddy with him and Sammy Firestone, you’re gonna fuck us up yet.” Oscar, coarse, surly.

  I slid into one of the chairs opposite the desk. Ninety-plus degrees, but the sweat on my body and arms was like ice water. Did I put the strongbox back just the way I’d found it? No chance to check, they were right outside the door. “Like I’ve fucked up anything so far,” Murray growled. “When’s the last time—”

  Murray stopped in midsentence as he and Oscar came through the doorway. They looked at me, then at each other. Oscar tried to wither me with a look. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ! Hey, Pussy, the hell you doin’ in my private office?”

  I almost said I didn’t answer to Pussy, but the expression on Murray’s face rerouted my line of talk. “I had to take a leak,” I said. “And I was thirsty.” I pointed at my almost-empty Coke bottle on the desk. “I put my nickel in the can.”

  “And then you just decided you’d sit your ass in my office, in my chair.” Oscar stomped over, thrust his face into mine. Black hairs sprouted from his nostrils and ears. “Listen up, Pussy, last time I’m tellin’ you.” He aimed a bloated finger at my chest. “I’m lettin’ you play with that fuckin’ music box on account of it’s too goddamn much trouble to fight about it with my idiot son, but from now on, you gotta piss, you go over by the fence and piss on the garbage fire. You want a drink, go down to the soda shop on Fourth Av. Keep the hell outa my private office. You got that?”

  I half-turned to leave, but Oscar grabbed my shirt sleeve. “I didn’t hear no answer,” he snarled. “I taught my kids better manners’n that. You want, I’ll teach you some, same way I taught them.” He raised his free hand.

  I wrenched out of his hold, felt my T-shirt rip. Smelly old son of a bitch—he was going to teach me manners. Only my promise to Murray kept me from going after him. He glared at me. I glared back. “I still don’t hear no answer,” he growled.

  I glanced at Murray, all it took. Oscar went off like a bomb, grabbed the Coke bottle by the neck, brought it down on the edge of the desk. Glass and soda flew in every direction. He waved the jagged bottle, moved toward me. “Pussy-bastard, I’m gonna send you home to daddy in a box.”

  Murray rushed him from the side, grabbed his arm, twisted his wrist. The old man howled as the bottle flew across the room and shattered against the wall. I ran out, straight to the worktable. From the window above me, Oscar’s and Murray’s voices played a strident counterpoint, volume rising with every exchange. I slid Chester Hogue’s tools into the paper bag, quickly screwed the comb back onto the bedplate, put the mechanism into the wooden case, ran for my bike at the side of the office. I’d have made it home in record time, but I stopped at the hardware store on Eleventh Avenue and spent thirty-eight cents on a brass Yale padlock with a thick steel link.

  Chapter 12

  Dad’s voice faded. He raised his glass like an automaton, then drained it, his fifth Manhattan. I’d seen him drink that much and more, but I’d never heard him talk like this. As if the booze were throwing a bright white beam into some long-darkened no-man’s-land behind his eyes. The waiter strode up, took the glass from Dad’s hand, looked at me.

  I nodded. “I’m driving the cab.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The waiter marched away. Dad stood. “Got to go.”

  I watched for a weave or a wobble as he strode off, but he could’ve passed any cop’s test on a straight line. Seventy-six years old, the man was a human alcohol-detoxification plant. I tried to remember a single time I’d seen him down for the count, but saw only a procession of unconscious poets, novelists, painters and musicians sprawled on our living room couch or floor, Dad standing over them, half-full glass in hand, shaking his head and muttering, “Lightweight” to Mother. But this was early in the day for Dad to drink seriously. I picked a strawberry from the tray, nibbled.

  When Dad returned, his drink was waiting. He took a swallow before he was fully seated, ate a couple of crackers, coughed. “Where was I?”

  “Riding home with Mr. Hogue’s tools and your thirty-eight cent padlock.”

  Right. From a block away I heard “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” raucous, boisterous, one impish embellishment after another. I wheeled into the garage, jumped off my bike, tucked Mr. Hogue’s tools and the music box under an arm, ran across and down into the cellar. Harmony raised her eyebrows as I came in, but kept playing. I set the music box and tools on the washing machine. Harmony went right on playing. Finally, at the end of the stanza, she ducked through the leather neckband, then slowly, carefully, laid her sax on the table. Her face was like an elf’s. She chewed at her upper lip, didn’t say a word.

  “Cat got your tongue?” I finally asked.

  She blew me a razzberry.

  “All right, you’ve got your tongue and it works. What’s up?”

  Big grin. “People really do talk at funerals.” She crossed her legs, looked at the ceiling, tapped fingers on the table, full measure for her every moment on stage. “I put a black dress into a paper bag, took it to work, changed in the ladies’ room. Then I ran over to the church and sat in the back, next to a little old man in a cheap suit. I gave him a look like Claudette Colbert gave Clark Gable in It Happened One Night… Leo, damn you, stop smirking. I told him I was Linda Broomall, a niece from Connecticut, and I came by myself on the train because Daddy was overseas and Mom couldn’t get anybody to stay with my little brother. I said none of us knew Uncle Newt was sick. Then I batted my eyelashes right smack in his face—”

  “Just like Claudette.”

  Little snicker. “Yes, just exactly like Claudette, and it worked. So there, weisenheimer. ‘He was
n’t sick, honey,’ the old guy said. ‘Cops say some guy came lookin’ to rob the place and shot your uncle, but you ask me and a whole lotta other people besides, it was something else altogether. Newt was an honest joe, you follow what I’m sayin’. Wouldn’t sell scrap metal where some people wanted him to.’ So what do you think of that?”

  “Claudette couldn’t have done better.”

  Whatever else I might’ve said went on hold because right then Harmony looked at the washing machine. Wham, hands to cheeks. “Leo, you fixed it! My music box.”

  “Not quite.”

  I don’t think she heard me, just ran to the box, opened the lid, murmured, “Oh, so shiny…,” then flung her arms around my neck and kissed my nose. “Play it for me.”

  I leaned around her to push the start lever. At the first notes, she let go of me and stood there listening with both hands over her mouth, as if she were afraid she might accidentally make a sound and shatter something fragile. Nice little tune, “Beautiful Dreamer,” but squeaky as all get-out. Not as bad as before I’d done any dampering but it still had a way to go. When the music stopped, Harmony closed the lid and hugged the box. “Oh, it’s wonderful, Leo. I’m going to keep it forever.”

  “Not ’til I finish it.” I held out my hand. “Didn’t you hear those noises?”

  “I don’t care. Come on, Leo, please. I absolutely love it.”

  I shook my head. “Soon.”

  She stamped a foot. “Leo, damn you anyway! Why do you have to be such a fussbudget?”

  “Just a couple more days,” I told her. “It’ll sound a lot better, and then you can have it.”

  Her eyes, when she looked at that music box… “Promise?”

  “Promise.” I took the music box, closed the lid. “Now, listen.” I told her what I’d found out from Mrs. Hogue.

  She picked right up. “So Jonas was Oscar’s stepson. And just like Mr. Broomall, he wouldn’t sell scrap to the ‘right people’.”

  “Right. Oscar must have taken some of the strychnine George bought that day for rat poison, fed it to Jonas—”

  “Why Oscar? Just because you don’t like him, and you like Murray? Why not Murray? Or even both of them?”

  “Because if Murray poisoned Jonas, he wouldn’t have done it in his own house, with those girls in the attic. Oscar must know what goes on there—he’s forever bitching about Murray being in business with Samuel. He must’ve seen his chance. Gave Jonas strychnine, dumped the body in Murray and Lily’s living room, told them to call Samuel and get him to cover it up as a natural death. Otherwise, he’d call the cops, tell them there was a dead man on the floor at Murray’s house, and when the cops started poking around, guess what they’d find upstairs. Maybe Oscar even waited to make sure Murray called Samuel, then went home and sat around ’til Samuel came by and told him it was all taken care of. Three birds with one stone. Oscar’s rid of Jonas, has Murray tied up, and Samuel one-down.”

  Harmony tapped a finger on the tabletop, thinking-rhythm. “Maybe you’re right, Leo, but there’s one thing.”

  “What?”

  “We really don’t know for sure that Jonas died of strychnine poisoning, do we?”

  Wait to be a hundred percent sure, all you’ll ever do in your life is stand around watching people suffer and die. Samuel’s words left my own mouth dry and sour. I ticked off reasons on my fingers. “Fresh supply of strychnine in the junkyard that day. Instant rigor mortis. A terrible expression on Jonas’ face. No records in my father’s office.”

  “Leo, I don’t care what you say. You still couldn’t prove in a court that Jonas died of strychnine poisoning.”

  “How am I supposed to get proof?” I think by this time I was shouting. “Absolute airtight proof. He’s dead and bur… Oh, no. Harmony, we can’t do that.”

  “It’s the only way to get proof.”

  I might’ve known. Harmony despised wrapping bandages at the Red Cross as much as she adored Samuel, maybe more. And now that she had her teeth into an adventure, she wasn’t about to let go. Jumping up and down, shouting. “We can do it, Leo, tonight. The Jewish cemetery’s just across the river in Grassville. We’ll go out there, find Jonas’ grave, come back, stop at Samuel’s office and get specimen bottles. Then go back to the cemetery at two or three in the morning. Tomorrow you can get someone at the hospital to run tests for strychnine.”

  “Just like that. How am I going to persuade somebody to check for strychnine without explaining why? And be sure Samuel doesn’t find out?”

  “Don’t you know any of the pathologists well enough to say you took tissue from a neighbor’s dog, you want to see if someone’s leaving strychnine around? And that you’ll check in later for the result?”

  I sighed. “I could ask Herman Korinsky.”

  She clapped hands, did a little dance. Even in the dim light from the overhead bulb, her green eyes sparkled. “Come on, then. Let’s go find the grave.”

  I shook my head. “Not now. Daytime, there’re always people around. The caretaker’s probably still working. We’d look funny, wandering from grave to grave, staring at tombstones. Better to go after dinner. Besides, this early, Samuel’s still in his office. Little tough getting specimen bottles.”

  “Okay. My family gets done with dinner about eight. Meet you then to go find the grave?”

  I shook my head. “That late, we may run out of light. Tell you what. Unless Samuel has an emergency, we’re through eating by seven-thirty. How about if I scout the grave myself? Then I can meet you at two o’clock, to, uh, dig up the evidence.”

  Her brows came together, lips tightened. “It was my idea.”

  “Fine. Tell me how you’d like to do it.”

  She exploded. “Damn, Leo! Why do you always have to be so…reasonable?” She paused. “Wait a minute. What if Samuel comes into your room during the night to take you on a call and you aren’t there? Okay, you can go find the grave by yourself. But then come back here afterward, sleep over.”

  Couldn’t argue that. “All right.”

  “No chance anyone’ll come in to take me on a call.”

  The venom in her voice hung in the air like a cloud. I put my arms around her, said, “I’ll come in and take you on a call. Tonight.”

  She looked up, face suddenly smeared with tears. “I don’t know what I’d ever do without you, Leo,” she said. “And Samuel.” She glanced back over her shoulder at the stairs leading up to her family’s kitchen. “Maybe put strychnine in my father’s dinner, the puffed-up old jerk. If I did, would you get samples from him, Leo? Would you turn me in?”

  I paused, finally managed an offhanded, “No, it’d be justifiable homicide. Just have to let you get away.”

  Then she really started crying. I couldn’t begin to figure why. “What’d I say?”

  She pulled away, wiped her eyes on her sleeve, looked up at me. I thought her face—and my heart—might crack. “What did you have to think so hard for?” I could barely hear her words. “If it was the other way around, I’d have said, ‘Leo, I wouldn’t ever turn you in, no matter what you did or why you did it.”

  She turned away, picked up her sax, started to play from where she’d left off, but now, the music was like a punch to my stomach. “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” played with despair, every note brimming with heartache. I walked across the room, stood in front of my easel, stared at the canvas, then started mixing paint. I painted, Harmony played the saxophone, we didn’t say another word for I’m not sure how long. Finally, I put down my brush and walked across the room, heading home for dinner.

  Harmony stopped playing mid-tune, threw off her saxophone, ran over, flung her arms around me. “I’m sorry.” A whisper.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I don’t know why I said what I did. I never would turn you in, not for anything. You know that.”

  Big smile. She hugged me harder. “But I wanted to hear you say it. Come back as soon as you can, Leo. I’ll
be waiting.”

  So, a quarter after two next morning, there we were, two kids on their bicycles, each with a shovel across the handlebars, riding over the Thirty-third Street Bridge into Grassville. Past the First-War Veterans’ Park, up to the gates of Mt. Pisgah Cemetery. Those days, the gates were never closed, no reason. We got off our bikes, hid them in the high grass behind the stone wall, took the shovels, started up the roadway. Harmony whispered in my ear, “Got the bottles?”

  I patted my pocket. “Two, just in case one breaks. And a pair of little scissors and forceps to take the samples.” I swallowed hard, thinking about opening Jonas Fleischmann’s coffin, finding his week-dead body, cutting into soft decomposing flesh. But if Harmony felt the least revolted at the thought of what we were up to, she didn’t show it. All the way along that winding driveway, then up the hill to the burial grounds, she never paused, never looked around. At the top of the hill I pointed left, whispered, “Over there, about halfway to the fence. Caretaker’s house is off in the other direction. If we’re quiet he’ll never hear.”

  Half-moon, no street lamps, but my eyes had pretty well adjusted. We started down a dirt footpath, went past a huge marble mausoleum, STEINBERG inscribed above the door—as in Steinberg Memorial Hospital. Old Saul Steinberg made a fortune in the Civil War, selling uniforms to both armies. As Harmony and I passed the mausoleum I realized it’d be directly between us and the caretaker’s, would hide us from view and muffle sound. Good. We walked past the Minkowitz plot, past Cohen, Schifrin, Walber, Meyer. I tapped Harmony’s shoulder, pointed toward the next headstone.

  Her glasses flashed as she moved her head to peer past me. “Bromnik?”

  “Remember?” I whispered. “Oscar Fleischmann married Jonas’ mother and adopted Jonas. He was born Jonas Bromnik. See, underneath Bromnik, it says Solomon, 1880-1908, and Stella, 1884-1932. Guess she didn’t want to be buried with Oscar.” I pointed at the fresh grave just beyond the two rectangular patches of ivy. “Jonas is next to her, no stone yet.”