The Sandler Inquiry

by Noel Hynd

He fumbled a key with his hands. He pulled his glove off to get a better grip. But his fingers were so cold that they were almost numb.

  The metal key didn't wish to obey any more than the fingers did.

  He tried to force it into the lock on the door.

  At first it wouldn't turn. The lock was frozen.

  Hurry!" she said again, an excited, shrill whisper.

  The door opened. She climbed in quickly, turned, and grabbed his wrist, preventing him from going to the driver's side.

  – No time!" she snapped.

  "Get in! Get down!"

  Again, she knew the tricks as well as, if not better than, her pursuer.

  She pulled him onto the front seat and continued to instruct him.

  "Down," she said excitedly.

  "Stay down!"

  She slid her own body down beneath the steering wheel. He held himself in the leg room on the passenger side of the front seat. The street was dim, shadowy.

  "It's too late to try to drive" she explained.

  "He'll have to be tricked into thinking he's lost us."

  "Who is he?" he asked.

  She put a finger upraised to her lips to silence him. He stayed perfectly still, listening, wondering, feeling his heart pounding and thinking that there was no way he'd ever catch his breath. The car was worse than freezing. It was an icebox. He fought back the urge to cough as he panted for the frozen air.

  The bearded man stood on the corner, confused and baffled. He knew the direction the man and woman had gone. He also knew they were out of sight.

  Turned another corner? he wondered. Escaped into a hou@.

  There were low fences on the block. The man started walking down Pineapple Street toward Thomas's car, holding something ominous in a hand beneath his coat.

  He approached the car, close enough so that the shadow from his head and hat fell across the interior of the car. No more than three or four yards away; the light came from a street-level apartment window.

  He stopped.

  Thomas thought his heart would stop, too. He saw the shadow moving. He glanced at Leslie, almost afraid that the movement of his eyes would be too loud. Her face was intense, studying the situation and deciding what their next move would be.

  Their move, Thomas thought. Did they have one? Did she have one?

  Thomas knew he didn't.

  The gunman turned toward the car, his hand beneath his overcoat.

  All he had to do was look down.

  The shadow approached. We're screwed, Thomas thought.

  Within his gloves, his hands were soaking wet.

  The gunman turned completely, examining windows and fences and gates.

  Not a movement on the street. Nothing. Then two teenagers appeared at the end of the block on the other side of Pineapple Street.

  The gunman began to move. He walked back toward the Promenade, slowly examining the situation.

  Leslie allowed a minute to pass. Then slowly she raised her head, looking in each direction. Thomas watched her, marveling at her composure. She held a hand to him to indicate not to move.

  "Not yet, not yet;' she said.

  More seconds passed. She was convinced the man had drifted a safe distance from the block. "We can't make a mistake" she said.

  "If he sees you pulling out he'll shoot your tires out."

  "Terrific'" mumbled Thomas.

  "All right," she said.

  "Quickly."

  They switched positions in the car, Thomas climbing into the driver's seat and pushing the key at the ignition slot until it slipped in.

  Then he turned the key, waiting several long, painful seconds until the engine laboriously turned over. He stared in the rearview mirror the entire time, waiting for the bulky man in the overcoat to reappear.

  He gunned the engine.

  "Where to?" he asked.

  He backed the car jerkily until it touched the car behind him.

  Then nervously he allowed the front fender to scrape the car parked ahead of him. He pulled out.

  She seemed to consider the question.

  "My place;' she said.

  "Yours?" He had never seen it, nor ever had any indication where it was.

  We'll have to" she said.

  "Yours isn't safe anymore. Take the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan."

  "He turned off Willow Street, heading for the Bridge.

  "You know your directions pretty well for a foreigner," he noted, the remark being a remote form of accusation.

  "I learn quickly."

  Several seconds passed. He was still perplexed by what had transpired.

  "Who were they?" he asked at length.

  "Your latest troublemakers' she said. They were on the Brooklyn Bridge. From the corner of his eye he could see her admiring the Manhattan skyline. An overloaded car cut across the solid line into the lane in front of them. Standard bridge etiquette.

  "You're a popular man" she added.

  "You now have two competing sets of goons after you" He gave her a long, hard, and inquisitive look, removing his eyes from the road, also standard bridge etiquette.

  "How do you know that?"

  She fed him a cryptic smile.

  "Call it my artistic temperament' she said.

  "Or attribute it to the fact that I've spent my life as Arthur Sandler's daughter. I can sense it " she declared.

  "I know."

  He was without a reply since obviously she was not a woman to reveal one iota of unintended information. They neared the exit ramp in Manhattan. He continued to study his rearview mirror as he asked,

  "Where to next?"

  "We're going to West Thirtieth Street," she said.

  "Between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues" He looked at her as if to ask whether or not it was a serious request.

  – Yes," she answered,

  "I'm serious."

  The block of Thirtieth Street on which she lived met Thomas's expectations and surpassed them. It was a dark, heavily littered street which even during a bright afternoon would be worth a detour.

  There was an all-day garage which had closed at six, two vacant vandalized store fronts which had been Spanish grocery shops, and in a row toward Eleventh Avenue were three decaying warehouses. Across the fronts of these iron grates and metal grills had been pulled, protecting the interiors from becoming nocturnal discount centers for shoppers armed with crowbars.

  Nestled among these establishments were several old brick tenements, walk-up buildings in various stages of repair and disrepair.

  In better days the block had been a Lithuanian enclave. Now the newer immigrants from the West Indies and Central America populated the streets. The newer immigrants plus Leslie McAdam.

  The only sign of life on the street was a tawdry bar close to the corner, outside of which several flashy models of Detroit workmanship were double-parked. A Rheingold sign flashed in the bar's window.

  They walked by it quickly, just long enough to see two large black men fondling an equally large black woman at a window cash register. There was boisterous activity at a bar farther into the noisy dimness.

  Leslie explained that she lived one flight above it, and that she was in the habit of moving quickly past the bar and into her doorway, key in hand, of course.

  "One night I was followed in" she said.

  "They thought any white girl on the block had to be selling herself Thomas closed the front door behind him. The alcove and hallway reeked embarrassingly. They climbed the dimly lit staircase, the noise from the bar thundering on the other side of the wall.

  "Aren't you scared?" he was going to ask, but didn't, because obviously she wasn't. Not in relation to the more direct threats on her life, those she'd lived with for so long.

  Then he was struck from nowhere by a more invidious thought.

  Was this all part of a trap? Why was he defenseless being lured to a roach farm in the west thirties. He didn't know why he thought of it.

  After all, he trusted her di
dn't he but there was something macabre, out of place, about this setting. Suppose he was being taken here for his throat to be perforated? More than one person had insisted that she was a fraud. This was exactly the type of building in which a body would be found two weeks after the fact and the murderer would never be apprehended.

  He was on his guard as she unlocked her apartment door, stepped through it, and allowed him to follow.

  Then the thought of a physical threat to him eased away as he observed her surroundings.

  "What's the old axiom?" she asked.

  "Be it ever so humble…

  The chairs were overstuffed and threadbare, the floorboards worn and creaky when walked upon. The walls were of a gray plaster which might have been a pale green in better days but which had passed many years since last being on familiar terms with a paintbrush.

  The kitchen was narrow and cramped. It featured a single fluorescent light overhead. The stove was old-fashioned, the sink basin curiously stained with green, and the linoleum worn almost to the underlying woodwork.

  Thomas took it all in as he sat gingerly upon the set tee half waiting for a spare spring beneath him to barge upward.

  "It's not Versailles, is it?" she said with an apologetic smile.

  "I suppose it's comfortable," he said.

  "If you have to make do" There was noise from the sidewalk below where two sodden revelers were engaged in a heated and profane discussion with the fat woman from the cash register. Leslie went to one of two windows and pulled the shade down. Thomas glanced to the next room, a bedroom which was even more sparse than the living room. A simple wooden dresser. A narrow single bed which had a dingy brown cover over its concave middle.

  Thomas watched Leslie return from the window and sit down beside a dim thirty-year-old lamp beside the sofa. Here was a woman of grace, charm, and youth in a setting of gloom and despair. Here, within gray walls that were despairing, amid furniture which could better serve as firewood, and above a watering hole where man's primordial instincts took their last stand, the putative last of the Sandlers lived in exile. In a world removed from the faded elegance of the mansion on Eighty-ninth Street, she sought and awaited what she claimed would be her rightful restoration.

  Her hands were in her lap. She was clearly embarrassed to be seen in such surroundings.

  "No one will ever accuse me of squandering my inheritance in advance she said, forcing a slight smile.

  "How did you find this"- he searched for the word' place "I needed something fast" she said.

  "This is what I could afford The noise from the bar increased with profane shouts. There was the sound of a television and jukebox below.

  Thomas could hear footsteps on the floor above him.

  "How safe is it?" he asked.

  "How safe is anything?" she said.

  "This is safer than most. Four escape routes. Kitchen window, bathroom window, front door, back fire escape to the neighboring rooftops, six different escape routes from there" "You've got the angles figured well he said, admiring her inventiveness as a latter-day Houdini.

  "There's no particular brilliance involved. just self-preservation She glanced around the drab room, focusing on the empty, dirty walls. She slipped out of her shoes and undid the top button of her blouse, aspiring toward whatever small comfort she could find.

  "I suppose what bothers me most," she said with a half sigh and as if in response to a question, 'is the unimaginative squalor of it all "Sorry?" he asked.

  She turned to him, her arms folded as if stepping back from an easel to study it.

  "The apartment," she said.

  "Maybe I should invest in a few cans of wall paint."

  "Another color might help," he offered in agreement.

  "You miss the point," she said.

  "Not one other color. "Several I could do a mural " She glanced at the bare walls, as if conceptualizing her project.

  "Wouldn't that please the landlord?"

  "Maybe it would," he said, 'if your work became valuable someday."

  "Of course," she mused, imitating a carnival barker.

  "Come see the mural of the modern-day Anastasia, the claimant to the Sandler chemical fortune '" She uttered a low bitter laugh and continued.

  ' "Spent years trying to collect what was rightfully hers. Never collected a penny! Died young and broke! But out of this life of torment came art. R@ art! If you don't mind walking up one flight on Thirtieth Street' She glanced at him, then quickly turned away. A cynical smile was melting. It took him several seconds before he knew she was hiding tears.

  "Leslie," he said, rising and going to her.

  He took her in his arms, her back to him. Her hand was at her face. y I haven't cried in years" she said.

  "I doni, want you to see me. It's weakness, I know."

  "I won't look" he said with sincerity.

  A moment or two passed. She turned to him, face to face, her eyes slightly red but dry already.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  "You deserve better than having a weepy female on your hands." She didn't allow him time to answer. Instead, she added, motioning around her,

  "It's this place," she said.

  "It's abysmal. It depresses me "I understand," he said.

  "Honestly, I do."

  She nodded appreciatively.

  "Did you think of anything else?" she asked.

  "About De Septio? De Septio and your father? Or Arthur Sandler?"

  He shook his head again, wondering how they'd traveled back to that subject so abruptly.

  "There has to be something important," she said.

  "How can we possibly find out?"

  "The only real hope" he said, 'would be that Zenger would remember De Septio."

  "Zenger?"

  "My father's former partner."

  "Of course" she recalled.

  "I'd suggest that we go see him immediately She seemed startled.

  "We?"

  "Do you object?"

  There was a silent moment within the room while she considered it.

  "No" she said.

  "But I don't see why it's necessary."

  "It's not necessary. But it might be a good idea. You could question him yourself if you felt like it."

  "He won't want to see me," she said.

  "I know that in advance."

  He nodded.

  "I know. He won't know until you arrive at the door.

  Then he'll have no choice He could see again that she was pondering it, her mind examining the many facets of his suggestion.

  "He's expecting me tomorrow," Thomas said.

  "Instead of just me, he'll get us.

  "Tomorrow?"

  "I already telephoned " " he said.

  "I said I'd be there sometime by evening tomorrow. There's an Air New England flight-" "No airplanes " Her voice was firm.

  "The alternative is a hell of a long haul by car and ferry."

  "That's preferable."

  He weighed it, then gave in.

  "Have it your way," he said.

  Pensively she broke from his embrace. She went to the second window in the living room and pulled down a shade, sealing off the outside just as she might seal a secret within her soul.

  Thomas Daniels watched her graceful movement as the noise intensified from the bar below. No place at all for a princess, he thought. A woman who conveyed elegance and breeding, who said she was the last of a once-dignified family, deserved better than two and a half tacky rooms above a cheap red-light bar.

  "You'll stay with me tonight, won't you?" she asked.

  Deserved better, he thought. But would she ever have it? What could he honestly do to help?

  "Of course," he said.

  She turned from the window, speaking brightly now, her entire mood radically changed and elevated.

  "I'd be worried about you returning to your place," she said.

  "They'll be looking for you again."

  Whoever "they" are, he t
hought.

  "You're precious" she concluded.

  "I'll make you as comfortable here as I can."

  "Considering the events of this evening," he answered, 'tomorrow will be a good day for a trip."

  Part Five

  Chapter 22

  A cold rain was lashing the entire East Coast that next morning.

  Thomas and Leslie left Manhattan very early by car and drove northward through Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the southwestern tip of Massachusetts. The drive was torturous, with gusts of rain and wind battering the car and with the windshield frequently immersed by sheets of water kicked up from passing trucks.

  They arrived at Woods Hole at three in the afternoon. The rain still fell relentlessly. They waited at the gloomy colorless depot until the boarding of the late-afternoon steamer to Nantucket, the second and last boat out that day. The ferry encountered a severe squall crossing Nantucket Sound. On board, the storm felt even more intense than it was.

  "Where are we going to stay tonight?" she asked, two hours out from Woods Hole. She sat beside a large plate-glass window that looked out on gray sky and water.

  He shrugged.

  "It won't be a problem," he said.

  "There are a few places open year round' She snuggled close to him, her softness and warmth a comfort on a genuinely unpleasant voyage.

  "Let's find an inn for the night" she said.

  "The least we can do is have some fun." She gave him a soft kiss on the cheek, then, noting his sleepiness, disappeared for a few moments.

  When she returned and again filled the empty space next to him, he was looking out the window, lost in thought about Sandlers, forgers, and claimants to unfound wills.

  "I brought you something," she said. He looked at her.

  She pushed toward him a steaming white styrofoam cup.

  "Tea" she said.

  "I got one for each of us' He took it, the tag to the tea bag hanging out as the steam rose aggressively.

  He smiled.

  "Tea, huh?" he said amiably.

  "Even in North America you can't take the English out of an Englishwoman" She shook her head and sipped.

  "What's inside someone, what he or she is born with, doesn't get scrubbed out," she said. She sipped again "My mother used to tell me that when I was small. I didn't understand it then "But now?"