Genuine Gold

by Ann Aptaker

  Mona’s house is dark, she must be asleep. Even the creaking hinges on the screen door don’t wake her. It takes several rings of the doorbell for a light to come on and for Mona to finally call through the door, “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me, Mona. It’s Cantor.”

  She opens the door. She’s wrapped in a robe, but silhouetted in the lamplight from the parlor, I can’t really see her shadowed face. She says, “What’s goin’ on, Cantor, that you show up after three o’clock in the morn—?” Then, “Lilah? Lilah Day?”

  Lilah says, “Hello, Mona,” a little less numb now.

  “Let us in,” I say. “I need to get Lilah off the street.”

  With a tilt of her head, her stringy hair flopping, Mona signals us to follow her inside.

  When we’re in the parlor, I try to help Lilah off with her coat but she resists, wraps it tighter around her, says, “No, please, I’m cold.” It’s warm in Mona’s living room, I take my own coat and cap off, but I guess Lilah’s got the chill of shock. Her face is pale as milk, whiter than her cashmere coat, now smudged with mascara even at the sleeves, which she must’ve used to wipe her tears. The fancy coat’s ruined.

  I settle Lilah on the couch and ask Mona, “Still have that wine? Lilah could use some.”

  “Sure. One for you, too, Cantor?” I shake my head. Mona heads for the kitchen.

  I take out my pack of smokes, offer a cigarette to Lilah. She takes it, her hand shaking as she brings it to her lips. I take one for myself, light hers then mine. Lilah’s deep pull on the smoke settles her a little. She leans back on the couch.

  I sit down next to her, realize I’m sitting in the spot where Miss Theresa lay crushed and dying a little more than an hour ago. It occurs to me that the same time I was digging the pup’s grave might’ve been when someone slashed Gus-the-ink-artist’s throat and stuck a knife in Mickey’s back. How much death is going to cling to me tonight?

  I squelch that morbid thought, and try to ignore the tarot cards on the coffee table, the deck back in their box, Mona’s dark fairy tale about my future shuffled away.

  Better to keep focused on the hard reality of the night’s business. “Lilah, Mickey stole something from me, a small clay jar. It’s called a pyxis, and I have to get it back. I risked my neck bringing it to New York for someone who’s paying a lot of money, so I’m not about to just let it disappear. You have any idea where Mickey might’ve stashed it?”

  She shakes her head, slowly, her awareness still dull.

  “Think,” I say. “He said it was in a place I’d never find it, but you knew Mickey better than anyone, knew his habits—”

  There’s a sudden snap in her, the dullness nearly gone, pushed to her edges, letting a bright, hard hurt shine through. “I knew his habits, all right,” she says, her voice cold, sharp. “I was on the business end of those habits.” The next drag of her smoke is long and deep, as if she’s trying to obliterate memories of Mickey’s pawing habits, but she can’t. Her body, cringing, remembers.

  Pimping his sister is suddenly only one of my reasons for hating Mickey. Too bad his death is an inconvenience to my business, otherwise I’d spit on his grave, or maybe dance on it.

  Mona walks back into the living room with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. She pours a glass for herself and one for Lilah, who ignores it, lost in that protective numbness again.

  I take the glass, say, “Here, drink this. It’ll help,” and hold the glass to Lilah’s lips.

  That supple mouth, which only hours ago roamed my body with confidence, now just reluctantly obeys and takes a sip of the wine.

  Mona says, “What’s going on, Cantor? I don’t see you for twenty years and suddenly you’re on my doorstep two times in one night. And why is Lilah here? Poor thing looks like she’s about to fall over.”

  “There’s trouble at the tattoo parlor,” I say. “She can’t be there.”

  “What kinda trouble?”

  But it’s Lilah who answers. “Murder,” she says, her voice a monotone, dark and wispy as a shadow. “Bloody murder.”

  Mona looks as if every ghost she’s ever conjured has just shown up, uninvited, crowding her parlor. “Mother of God…Mickey, he’s dead?”

  I nod.

  “And that other guy, the tattoo guy? What’s his name?”

  Lilah mutters, “Gus.”

  I say, “Yeah, him, too.”

  Mona, serious as rosary beads, sits herself on the couch, puts an arm around Lilah. “You poor child,” she says. Lilah doesn’t resist, doesn’t even react when Mona runs a hand through Lilah’s hair, combing the short blond strands as if preparing her for a viewing.

  I say, “Keep her here tonight, Mona, okay? She’s in no shape to face the cops. Listen, you know Eddie Janko?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Good. I’ll have him come around in the morning and take Lilah back to the tattoo shop before the cops get there.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Mona says. “I will take her.”

  “Uh-uh, I’d rather Eddie handled it.”

  I guess I insulted Mona’s Coney Island pride, because she stiffens, gets a little huffy that I brushed her aside in favor of Eddie. “And what about you, Cantor?” she says. “Remember what the cards told you?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say, more dismissive than polite, while I put my coat and cap on.

  Mona’s voice follows me to the door. “There’s danger in your path, Cantor, and darkness, and a terrible cost. Remember.”

  *

  In a phone booth on Stillwell Avenue, I find the number, drop my dime in the slot, dial, and get Eddie on the line. He’s annoyed that I got him out of the bed he’d just gotten into. “It’s Cantor, Eddie. Listen, I’ve got Lilah stashed at Mona Carlotti’s. Know her place?”

  “Yeah. Over on Sixteenth.”

  “Go over there in the morning and walk Lilah back to the tattoo shop before the cops get there. Okay?”

  “Sure,” he says, sounding like he’s just been chosen to escort the prettiest bathing beauty on the boardwalk. “Glad to.”

  “G’night, Eddie,” I say, and hang up.

  My legs feel like rubber, my knees cranky, and all of me is exhausted as I climb the stairs to the Brighton Line platform at the Stillwell Avenue station. Lucky me, there’s a train waiting to pull out, and I make it into the last car just as the doors close. I have no trouble finding a seat: at nearly four a.m., I’m all alone in the car.

  I don’t take the subway very often anymore, not since I started earning the kind of dough that allows me to buy a new car whenever I want—like the ’52 Buick I picked up before I left for Athens—but the schoolroom-green walls of the train and the white enameled standees’ straps and poles greet me like old friends wondering where the hell I’ve been. I park myself in a corner seat whose woven cane isn’t too badly shredded. I’ve heard otherwise prim sweeties curse like a sailor when they sit down in the subway after a tough day at the office only to have a broken strand of cane tear their nylon stockings.

  When I was a kid, I used to enjoy the ride on these elevated tracks, keeping my face pressed to the window, watching low-slung Brooklyn roll by, with high-rise Manhattan looming in the distance. But tonight—actually, this dead dark predawn morning—I’m too bushed to care about the scenic tour. It’s not long before my head lolls…and I’m asleep.

  Chapter Seven

  A shower at my apartment and a change of clothes into a fresh shirt and a favorite deep green silk suit nearly bring me back to life. The strong black coffee poured by Doris at Pete’s luncheonette finishes the job. Pete’s is my favorite cheap eats joint, a sliver of a spot with a green-and-black checkerboard linoleum floor scuffed by the shuffle of actors, musicians, songwriters, whores, hustlers, gamblers, and gangsters who live in my neighborhood. We come for the good food, strong coffee, and the easygoing attitude among ourselves that stops short of asking the wrong sort of questions. Out front, the busted neon sign reading Pe e’s instead of Pete�
��s keeps the tourists away, which is fine by everyone—Pete, his help, and the regulars—because Mom and Pop Cornstalk order cheap, tip cheap, and linger too long.

  After a mug of hot black brew and a warm bagel with cream cheese and lox, my brain’s restored and I can finally think, though it ain’t easy. It’s just a little after seven and the only sleep I’ve had was my lurching shut-eye on the subway, and before that on a damp, lumpy mattress on a tramp freighter from Athens. Things have only gone downhill since: my goods stolen, three murders, and oh, yeah, a dead dog.

  And then there’s Rosie, tossing me over for her regular fare, though that loss was nicely soothed by Lilah’s sexual ministrations.

  Thinking about Lilah leads me to think about the hell she must be going through. Mickey might’ve treated her like dirt, but he was family. Seeing her brother in a pool of blood with a knife in his back is a horror that will linger in her soul for a long time, maybe forever.

  Thinking about Mickey with a knife in his back leads me to think again about what a louse he was, pimping his sister, pawing her for his own pleasure, stealing from me, which leads me to think about the places he might’ve stashed the pyxis—a safe deposit box? in a sandpit under the boardwalk? under a mattress in his tattoo parlor/brothel?—but I come up empty. He said it’s in a place I’d never find, and I believe him. I’ll need help puzzling it out.

  But all those thoughts can’t silence the other persistent whispers and visions inside my head: memories. Memories of the Coney Island life that made me, those snappy times of my naughty childhood and hooligan teens; scary times when I thought the Law or a gangster’s gun would get me; heartbreaking times when some girl would slap my face under the boardwalk because I wasn’t allowed the same koochie-koo privileges the boys had. Sure, I’ve come out on top since those days, I live and love the way I want, run a classier racket than cheap trinkets snatched on the beach, but being back to Coney hit me with a truth I’d been running from for years: the honky-tonk is still with me, inside me, is me, the shady operator in colorful clothes.

  I’m brought back to the here and now by the rattle of nearby dishes being cleared by Doris. Always attentive to the needs of her customers, Doris strolls in my direction while she wipes the marble counter with a rag in one hand and holds a pot of coffee in the other. Her pink uniform is still clean and crisp. By afternoon it’ll be wilted with sweat and spotted with mustard. But her permed salt-and-pepper hair will stay coiled around her thin face all day, and her friendly brown eyes and toothy smile will retain their wisdom and warmth, though her red lipstick is already seeping into the age lines around her mouth. “Can I hotten your cup, Cantor?” Even her cigarette-croak voice is warm and wise, like the voice of your favorite aunt who thinks you’re swell but your parents are boring. “You look like you could use another jolt,” she says. “Tell you the truth, you look like you could use a lotta jolts, maybe even spiked with a hooch pick-me-up.”

  I nod that she should pour the coffee, and as the black gold swirls in my mug, I say, “You remember that book several years ago, You Can’t Go Home Again?”

  “Can’t say I heard of it, but I heard a lotta people say that line: you can’t go home again. Always wondered why they think that. Of course you can go home again. Hell, I go home every night to the same old walls and same old husband!” Doris’s merry chuckle could pep up the sorriest soul, but as the chuckle fades, her brown eyes narrow, probing me gently. “You been tryin’ to go home, Cantor?”

  “Wasn’t planning on it. Anyway, it turns out actually going home’s got nothing to do with it. Home caught up with me.”

  “Too many ghosts, I guess.”

  That gives me the first laugh I’ve had since I got back from Greece. It’s not a big laugh, just a sharp blurt that finally shreds my unwanted nostalgia. “Yeah, ghosts! And new ones all the time, even canine ones, and they seem to follow me around. So keep your husband and your household pets locked away, Doris, if the Grim Reaper of Coney Island ever shows up at your door.”

  She puts the coffeepot down, leans on the counter, and looks at me like she can’t make up her mind if she wants to slap sense into me or pat my head and say there, there. Finally, with a shrug, she says, “Listen, you ain’t no Grim Reaper. I ain’t scared of you, Cantor Gold, despite your peculiar—um—y’know, romantic…tastes.”

  “And I thought you put up with me just because I’m a big tipper.”

  “Okay, yeah, there’s that. But also because you talk to this old hash slinger like I’m a person. Figure I owe you the same. So what’s troublin’ you?”

  I wouldn’t mind that hooch pick-me-up Doris mentioned, even at this early hour, but a draw on the strong coffee is all I’ve got. I let it warm my insides, further loosen my tongue, and as I put the mug back down on the counter, I say, “Since last night, even after all my careful plans, everything that can go wrong went wrong.”

  Doris treats that with a canny smile. “That’s just God havin’ a laugh.”

  “Didn’t know you believe in God, Doris.”

  She pours herself a mug of coffee while she considers the idea. After a sip of the brew, she says, “Don’t know that I do, don’t know that I don’t. You?”

  “Count me out.”

  “I guess you need some sorta proof, huh? Maybe a sign from above?”

  “Just a fair shake down here would be helpful.”

  *

  Mom Sheinbaum’s not crazy about seeing me at her door, but she lets me in anyway and leads me into her dining room, where she finishes a cup of tea and a bowl of fruit. The clashing floral patterns of the fruit bowl, teacup, and her housedress could give a person a headache. After a last swallow of tea, she says, “If you got useful information, have a seat, Cantor. If not, you’re just spoiling my breakfast, and I got enough stomach trouble already.” She punctuates this with a belch, as if to prove her point, and follows the belch with a woeful, “Oy.”

  I take off my coat and cap, say, “I should be the one asking for useful information,” and sit down at the dining table, light a smoke. “After all, my client’s paying for it.”

  “True,” Mom says. “But I got nothin’ new yet. I asked around, but I’ll get you something. I got people all over the place, they’ll dig good.”

  “Don’t worry about it. There’s been a change. Ever hear of Mickey Day?”

  She takes a minute to think about it, then she flicks her hand as if shooing a fly. “A kleyn shpiler, y’know, a small player. Operates out in your old neck of the woods. Used to be Mickey Sch—”

  “Schwartz. Yeah, I know. Solly Schwartz’s kid.”

  “Yeh, that’s him,” Mom says, wrinkling her nose as if a bad smell seeped into the room. “Sig tossed Solly and his gang outta Coney Island like old rags. But you were just a little kid back then. What’s Solly Schwartz’s boy got to do with you?”

  “Mickey’s dead. Took a knife in the back.”

  All that gets is a light shrug, her bulky body as unyielding as a steel safe, allowing no pity for the murdered dead, not even the customary underworld distaste for the sneaky method of murder. “Not surprised,” she says. “A schlepper like him invites trouble. So what’s your interest?”

  “Seems Mickey wasn’t such a small player after all. He’s the guy who arranged the attempt on the pyxis at the Piraeus docks and the successful grab for it last night. It was Mickey’s thugs who stole the goods and killed the doorman.” I slide Mom’s empty fruit bowl over to me, use it as an ashtray.

  Her button eyes narrow into dark points of disgust. “Don’t be a savage,” she says, sneering.

  Scolded into obedience, I get up from the table, get an ashtray from the sideboard, but while I’m there I open the liquor cabinet and pour myself a Chivas, that hooch pick-me-up I’ve needed since Doris poured me coffee. After a night of no sleep, and murder coming at me from all sides, whiskey is one of the fortifiers I’ll need to get me through the day. Another is the .38 under my arm.

  Mom says, “It’s not e
ven eight in the morning and you’re drinking, Cantor? Go ahead, kill yourself.”

  “Since when do you care?”

  That doesn’t get an answer, not even a look in my direction, just a deep breath over her pursed lips.

  I take my drink, my smoke, and the ashtray back to the table but I don’t sit down. A pull on the scotch keeps my blood pumping while I wait for Mom to decide to talk to me again.

  It doesn’t take long, though she still isn’t looking at me. “So this Schwartz kid stole your pixie—”

  “Pyxis.”

  “Yeh, pyxis, and now he’s dead, and you can’t find your goods. Is that it?”

  “That’s it. I came here figuring maybe you’ve heard things about his operation, maybe get a line on where he’s stashed it. Don’t forget, Miranda van Zell’s ten grand is still on your table.”

  The mention of money warms up Mom’s attitude. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “And there’s one other thing. I think it might’ve been Sig who ordered the hit on Mickey.”

  Mom’s warming cooperation cools again, but there’s no real ice behind it, just a chill in her eyes, a stiffening of her posture, which surprises me. Mom Sheinbaum is the only person I know who isn’t afraid of Sig Loreale, because Mom is the only person Sig indulges, even defers to. For all his hard ways, Sig is an old-fashioned guy who built his empire in an old-fashioned world, where even gangsters deferred to their mothers. Mom’s not Sig’s mother, but she’s underworld royalty, part of the old-time criminal legacy he’s part of, and she’s the mother of his beloved dead fiancée, Opal.

  So why the sudden chill in Mom at the idea that Sig might have ordered a murder, one of dozens he’s ordered—or committed—over the years?

  “If that’s true,” Mom says, “if Sig is in back of it, he’ll—” She waves her hand as if dismissing an irritating thought that’s spoiling her morning. “He’ll get rid of any buttinsky who pokes around in his business. Even you, mommaleh. It won’t matter how far back you two go. It won’t matter that you and your trinket racket amused him when you were a little pisher under the boardwalk. It won’t matter how many paintings and fancy tchotchkes you’ve gotten for him since those days. Sig will kill you.”