“No, no, nothing like that! This is a really little favor. We just need a few minutes of your time.”
“What for?” Sacha asked suspiciously.
“Oh, nothing really. Just a social call.”
“Who are we going to see?”
“Tomorrow morning. We’ll pick you up at your house.”
“Who are we going to see?”
“It’s right nearby. It’ll just take a minute. And you don’t really have to do anything. Actually it would be better if you didn’t do anything. Or say anything either. You just have to, you know, stand there.”
“Who are we going to see?”
“It’s on Essex Street.” Moishe made the strangling goose sound in his throat again. “Um, at the candy store.”
Sacha’s mouth fell open.
“It’s not like that,” Bekah said when she saw his expression. “You don’t have to talk to Meyer Minsky. We’re going to do all the talking. Like Moishe says, you just have to stand there.”
“You’re going to the Essex Street Candy Store to talk to Meyer Minsky,” Sacha finally managed to squeeze out. “Just you two.”
“Not just us. The whole IWW central committee is coming.”
“Oh, and who are they?”
Bekah listed the names of five other teenagers, none of whom outweighed Sacha by more than a few pounds.
“Have you completely lost your minds? Do you have any idea what Minsky and his starkers are going to do to you—that is, when they’ve finished busting a gut laughing?”
“Well, of course,” Bekah said reasonably. “That’s why we need you to come.”
“See,” Moishe said eagerly, “everyone knows you’re in the Inquisitors. So they’ll think you can work powerful magic—”
“Even though we know you couldn’t hex your way out of a paper bag,” Bekah interrupted.
“Which means that you can serve as a force for peace by deterring all parties involved from resorting to violence,” Moishe pointed out. “And what could be better than serving as a force for peace in the world?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Sacha said sarcastically. “How about staying in one piece? Or maybe avoiding departing the world permanently, courtesy of Dopey Benny Fein?”
“Look, Sacha,” Bekah said, “you have to help us. You just have to. Unless we want to see blood run in the streets, we have to get Meyer Minsky on our side before the strike starts. Otherwise Magic, Inc., is just going to rent its starkers out to the highest bidder. And that means J. P. Morgaunt. And if Magic, Inc., comes in to break up the strike, well, you know what that means.”
Sacha did indeed know what that meant. Minsky was the most feared gangster in the Lower East Side, and he had made a fortune hiring out his thugs as strikebreakers. So if the IWW was going to win the strike, they needed to convince Minsky to fight on their side—or at least to stay out of the fight so they had a ghost of a chance against Morgaunt.
But there was still one big problem with Bekah’s scheme.
“How am I supposed to protect you from Magic, Inc., when I can’t work a spell to save my life?” Sacha asked.
“But they don’t know you can’t do magic,” Bekah pointed out. “All they know is that you work for the Inquisitors.”
“And that’s supposed to prove something?”
“Well, sure. The Inquisitors cast hexes on people all the time.”
“They do not!”
Bekah gave him another one of those looks—the ones she gave him when he’d just said something so stupid it wasn’t even worth laughing at. “Oh, Sacha. Listen to yourself. Why do you think people become Inquisitors? Because they like using magic to push people around, and being an Inquisitor is a good way to do it legally.”
“That’s ridicul—”
“Oh, really? Then why is it that the Wobblies they arrest always seem to fall down stairs or trip and hit their heads on the curb by accident? And why is even Meyer Minsky afraid to spend a night in the Tombs?”
“Well, Inquisitor Wolf doesn’t do anything like that!”
Bekah started to argue. But then a strange look came over her face. Not as if she disagreed with him, exactly. More like she was sorry for him.
“Sure, Sacha,” she said.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Really. I’m sure you’re right. You’re the one who works for him.”
“Why are you talking to me like that all of a sudden?”
“Like what? I’m just talking.”
“No, you’re not. You’re being . . . polite. In a totally not Kessler-like way. As if you think he’s brainwashed me and you’re not sure you can trust me anymore! How can you think that?”
“You said it, not me,” Bekah said.
Sacha turned to Moishe. “Do you think that too?”
“Well, you know, Sacha . . .” Moishe wriggled like an underfed Houdini trying to squirm his way out of a straightjacket.
“Fine! I’ll go with you to the stupid candy store and stand around while you talk to the stupid starkers.” Sacha cast a baleful glare at his sister. “When did you become so manipulative?”
“I’m not manipulative,” Bekah said cheerfully. “People who are really manipulative never admit they are. Whereas I’m perfectly happy to admit it.” She folded her arms across her chest and eyed Sacha down one side of her nose. “So. Can we count on you tomorrow morning?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Minsky’s Luck
THE NEXT DAY dawned bright and clear, with a kiss of warmth in the air that seemed to hold the promise of spring after all the long dreary months of winter. But Sacha didn’t have eyes for the sunshine. He trudged off toward Essex Street, trailing behind Moishe, Bekah, and the rest of the strike committee like a condemned man walking down death row to his own execution.
The Essex Street Candy Store would have been a Lower East Side institution even if it weren’t the headquarters of one of New York’s most formidable magical street gangs. It stood across the street and just a few doors down from the famous pickle store. But while the chest-high barrels on the sidewalk outside the pickle store held pickled cucumbers and green beans and onions, the candy store’s barrels held delicacies that all the kids on Hester Street dreamed of, drooled over, and saved their pennies for.
It was all indescribably delicious. And it was all sitting right out there on the street, just begging to be stolen. But no one ever stole so much as a gumball or a gobstopper from the Essex Street Candy Store. Because everyone from one end of Hester Street to the other had heard about what happened to the few sneak thieves foolish enough to steal from Meyer Minsky.
Gumdrops that turned into newts’ tails. Gumballs that turned into eyeballs. Lemon fizzes that gave people shivering fits. Chewing gum that kept you chewing until your teeth chattered and you crawled back to Essex Street begging them to make it stop.
Whenever someone mentioned those rumors in front of Meyer Minsky, he insisted that it was all nonsense and anyone would tell you he wasn’t the kind of guy who’d hex a child’s candy. But even if only half of the stories were true, you’d have to be completely crazy to steal anything from those barrels. And however crazy you’d have to be on a normal day, you’d have to be twice as crazy today, when Dopey Benny himself was standing guard just inside the front door of the shop.
Dopey Benny looked even bigger in the candy store than he’d looked in the Café Metropole. His hulking shadow engulfed the cash register, the newspaper rack, and three entire bins of gumballs and lollipops. His arms looked like they’d been stuffed into his shirtsleeves like sausages into sausage casings and were straining mightily to get back out again. His bristly neck was so thick that Sacha wondered if he had to fasten his shirt collar with a boot hook.
“You kids oughta stay off the sugar,” he said as they came into the shop. “It’ll rot your teeth right outta your head.”
“Um, yes, well,” Moishe said with a gulp. And frankly,
Sacha couldn’t blame him.
“Take it from me.” Benny grinned, showing teeth that would have looked petite on a carthorse. “Never touch duh stuff. And look. Never had a cavity yet.”
Bekah cleared her throat at Moishe, who was still staring up at Benny’s teeth. At first Sacha thought Moishe was just scared. But he’d learned over the last year that Moishe didn’t scare nearly as easily as he looked like he ought to. And sure enough, he turned out to have something else on his mind.
“So tell me this, Benny. You guys break every other magical law in existence. How come you can’t make candy that doesn’t give people cavities?”
“Can we stick to the—” Bekah began.
“No, I really want to know,” Moishe said. “It’s something I always wondered about. I mean, what’s stopping you? You’d make millions! You could give up your life of crime— that is, if you could get away with it.”
But Benny just wagged his head sadly. “Oh, it’s been tried,” he told Moishe.
“And?” Moishe asked, completely enthralled. Sacha noticed that everyone else was hanging on Benny’s words too.
“You don’t wanna know. And I couldn’t tell ya even if you did, because I promised I’d take the secret to the grave.” Benny nodded sagely. “Dat’s what this job is all about. Trust. Trust and teamwork. After all, dere’s no I in magic.”
“Well, actually—” Moishe began.
But Bekah had had enough. She stepped around the boys and craned her neck to stare the starker in the face. “That’s all very interesting, Mr. Fein, and we’ll take your dietary advice under consideration too. But right now we’d like to see Mr. Minsky.”
“Who?” Benny asked. It was amazing, Sacha thought, how a guy who went around the neighborhood looking terminally confused most of the time could be so incredibly bad at pretending to look confused.
“Me-yer Min-sky,” Bekah said, enunciating each syllable slowly and distinctly as if she suspected that Benny had suddenly become hard of hearing.
“I’m sorry, miss, I don’t know nobody by the name of—”
“Oh, come on!” Bekah snapped. “We’re not a bunch of uptown Inquisitors. We’re from the neighborhood. And we know exactly what goes on in the back room of this candy store and who’s responsible. And what’s more, we know where your mothers live! Meyer’s mother lived three blocks away on Orchard Street until he bought her a house in Brooklyn Heights last year. And Myrtle Fein lives two flights up from us in the fifth floor left-hand flat at number eighteen Hester Street, where she spends every Saturday afternoon gossiping with my mother—”
“Oh!” Benny said as if he’d been suddenly struck by divine revelation. “Dat’s where I know you from!”
“Yes, yes,” Bekah said impatiently. “I’m the one whose brother works for the Inquisitors. And we’ve brought him with us today, and he’s a very dangerous man, so I strongly advise you not to trifle with us!”
“Uh—hi, Benny,” Sacha said, ruining the effect somewhat.
“How’s life treatin’ ya?” Benny asked comfortably. “Your boss ever figure out who toasted the Klezmer King?”
“Er—not yet.”
“Benny!” Bekah interrupted. “Can we please go in and see Meyer now?”
“He’s not here, miss,” Benny intoned dutifully.
“Then why is his car parked across the street exactly where it’s parked every morning?”
Benny followed her pointing finger, and sure enough, there was Minsky’s car, glistening in the wintry morning sunlight. But Benny still wasn’t ready to give up the fight.
“Well, not every morning,” he began in a quibbling sort of voice.
“You’re right,” Bekah snapped. “He didn’t come down here for eight months last time he got sent up to Sing Sing.”
Benny’s face sagged mournfully. “Now, why’d you gotta go and bring that up? Just because a fella asked you—”
“She won’t do it again,” Moishe interrupted. “And if you don’t mind, Mr. Fein, perhaps you could just go back and tell Mr. Minsky that the central committee for the Industrial Witches of the World is here to see him about the Pentacle strike?”
“Who, you?” Suddenly Dopey Benny’s look of droopy-eyed mystification was completely genuine. He looked around the circle of Wobblies, and his mouth opened wider with every new face he saw. “Youze just a buncha kids!”
Moishe suppressed a sigh. “Who do you think works at Pentacle, Benny?”
“Oh, right . . . Well, but if there’s a strike and all, well, I mean, the cops’ll come. Maybe even the Inquisitors. And”—he leaned forward confidentially with a look on his face that was disturbingly reminiscent of Sacha’s mother—“you could get in trouble.”
Sacha tried to smother a laugh and only succeeded in turning it into a strangled sort of sneeze.
Dopey Benny’s mournful eyes turned upon Sacha. “Sounds like you got the hay fever,” he commiserated. “It’s a bad year for hay fever. I got it somethin’ awful.”
“Oh, jeepers!” Minsky called from the back room. “Just give up and send them in, Benny!”
Benny heaved a relieved sigh, followed them into Minsky’s inner sanctum, closed the door behind them, and leaned against it with his massive arms crossed over his chest.
Minsky was lounging in a leather-upholstered armchair, pointy-toed shoes crossed on a massive oak desk that would have looked more at home in J. P. Morgaunt’s library than the back room of a candy store. As the strike committee filed in, he began casually tossing his buffalo head nickel and catching it on the back of his left hand. “So what do you want from me?” he asked when he’d tossed five heads in a row.
Moishe and Bekah took it by turns to explain the situation.
“I don’t take sides unless I’m paid to,” Minsky said when they’d finished. “Picking sides is bad business.”
“We’re not asking you to take sides,” Moishe replied. “We’re just asking you to stay out of the fight.”
“Staying out is taking sides,” Minsky pointed out.
“Then take sides,” Bekah exploded. “Or are you too scared to?”
Minsky’s eyes settled on Bekah with a look of blank astonishment. “Are you calling me yellow?” he asked in a voice that made Sacha’s skin crawl. “And before you answer that question, maybe I should mention what happened to the last guy who called me yellow.”
Bekah met Minsky’s stare without flinching, though she did jump a little when he tossed the buffalo head nickel onto the desk, where it spun and clattered, and finally landed ominously tails up.
Benny shuffled nervously at the door. “Don’t be too hard on her, boss, she’s just a—”
“Just a what?” Meyer Minsky asked in his soft, smooth voice. “Just a kid? I don’t think so, Benny. I don’t think they’re just kids at all.”
He stood and walked over to Bekah, put one perfectly manicured finger under her chin, lifted her face up until they were practically nose to nose, and stared at her. And then he walked along the line of teenagers, staring them in the eye one after another until he got to Moishe.
Moishe stared Minsky back in the face without flinching—which was more than most gangsters in New York could manage to do. The stare lasted for almost a full minute, and by the end of it, the two of them were standing toe to toe and Moishe was practically cross-eyed.
“You actually think you’re going to beat J. P. Morgaunt,” Minsky said at last. “You really do. In fact, you think you’re going to change the whole damn world, don’t you?”
Moishe’s eyes were watering with the effort of not blinking. He looked like he’d forgotten to breathe, and Sacha started to worry that he was going to pass out. But finally he spoke. “Someone has to change the world,” he said. “Might as well be us.”
For a moment, Minsky didn’t move. And then he stepped back, laughing. “You hear that, Benny? These kids are gonna change the world! Whaddaya think of that?”
Dopey Benny still stood against the door with his
arms crossed, staring down at the strikers from under half-closed eyelids. “I think you kids should go back to woik,” he said finally. “It’d be more healthier for you.”
“That’s the most cowardly thing I’ve ever heard!” Bekah snapped. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Benny!”
“Well—but—I—”
Minsky chuckled at Benny’s discomfiture, and Bekah whirled on him and even lifted a finger as if she planned to shake it at the gangster while she scolded him. Then she remembered who she was talking to and gulped audibly.
“You were saying?” Minsky asked in a quiet purr.
For a moment, Sacha thought Bekah was going to back down—but he should have known his sister better. “I was about to say that no gentleman would take money to beat up girls,” she told Minsky with a contemptuous curl on her soft lips. “But it’s obvious that you aren’t a gentleman. And it’s just as obvious that you’re too afraid of Morgaunt to turn down his money and do what’s right!”
“Boss,” Benny said frantically, “she’s just a little goil! She don’t mean it! Don’t—don’t—”
“I won’t hold your harsh words against you,” Minsky told Bekah, “because I can see that you are following your conscience, just as a good Jewish girl should do. And as the Bible tells us, a woman of valor is worth the price of rubies. But to the men who have come here with you—and I give them the compliment of treating even the youngest among them as men, since they’re setting out to get their heads bashed in and leave their blood on the streets—to the men among you, I say this: think twice before you insult me as this girl has just done. This fight is between you and Morgaunt. You’ve told me that you think it’s my duty as a Jew to support you—”
“Your duty as a man!” Bekah interjected.
“Careful, Miss Kessler,” Minsky said with a sly smile. “When a girl can’t stop scolding a fellow, he’s liable to start thinking she’s sweet on him.”
That shut Bekah up—in fact she turned pale and buttoned her coat up to the throat and didn’t say another word.
The Watcher in the Shadows Page 14
