Genuine Gold

by Ann Aptaker

  I know I can be a heel. Sometimes it bothers me, sometimes it doesn’t. It bothers me now, but lying to Lilah would be worse. “I care about you, Lilah. I care what happens to you, want to help you. And you excite me, I want you right down to my marrow. I can make love to you day and night, as much as you want, whenever you want—”

  “But you can’t love me.” She releases from me, steps back with a sigh so deep I’m afraid it will drag her heart out of her chest and drop it on the floor. “Yeah, I’ve heard that line before. They’re happy to take my body but can’t love a whore’s heart.”

  “Stop it. That’s not what I meant. It’s just that love’s not on my menu. Not just with you, not with anybody.”

  “Then I feel sorry for you, Cantor. You’ve got stone for a heart.”

  Maybe I should explain to her that my heart’s not stone. It’s just been pummeled to pulp when I lost Sophie, and the only way I can keep my heart alive, keep it beating, is by locking it away in a steel cage.

  But I don’t mention it.

  *

  All the way back to the boardwalk to see Eddie at the Good Time Arcade, I try not to think about Lilah down there at the tattoo parlor, where the walls and floor are still stained with blood, and Lilah’s servicing a john. Brooding about Lilah wrapped in blood and sex would drive me crazy and distract me from my real purpose here: to find where the late not-so-lamented Mickey Schwartz Day hid Miranda van Zell’s treasure. To do that, I have to avoid getting tangled up in Sig Loreale’s shenanigans, and to avoid Sig’s shenanigans, I have to know what they are and who’s operating them. I can’t get free of Coney Island until I do.

  Eddie better have some answers.

  What Eddie has, as I walk into the arcade, is a cop in his face. It’s Lieutenant Esposito, and he’s jabbering at Eddie, poking a finger in his shoulder while Eddie sags like an old mutt being punished for peeing on the floor.

  I can’t hear Esposito through the racket of bells, whistles, and carny music in the arcade. But it may be just as well, because if the lieutenant really is Sig’s henchman, it’s probably not healthy for me to butt in on his rant.

  I have to risk it, though, if I want to find out what’s going on, why he’s pressing Eddie. So relying on the iffy idea that if Sig wanted me dead, I would be, I amble toward the conversation, until there’s an arm across my chest, blocking me.

  It’s Esposito’s lackey, Sergeant Pike of the long face, big ears, and misshapen fedora. “Don’t go over there,” he says, his voice low. This is the first time I’ve heard him speak. He’s got a rough, nasal voice, like a bear trying to whisper through a nasty cold.

  “Is that an official police order?” I say.

  “Keep your voice down, dammit. Look, I just figured you were smart enough to know a friendly suggestion when you hear it.”

  I can’t help smiling. It’s not a warm smile, not chummy, but the kind of tight, silly smile that spreads across your mouth when you can’t believe your ears. “Well now,” I say, dropping my voice when Pike makes a shushing gesture, “that’s a new one, a cop giving me a friendly suggestion. And just what did I do to earn your friendship, Sergeant Pike?”

  “It’s not what you did. It’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna scram.”

  “I don’t take orders from cops.”

  “Fine. So step on the lieutenant’s toes. See if I care. He’ll just toss you in the tank, maybe even gimme the go-ahead to rough you up.” His smile through his nasal whisper makes the threat even more irritating.

  “Maybe you’d better tell me what’s going on, Sergeant.”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything, Gold. But I’m gonna be a nice guy and give you a piece of advice. Leave the lieutenant alone.”

  “Fine by me. I came here to talk to Eddie.”

  “Yeah? What about?”

  If Pike wants to hold tight to his information, I’ll hold tight to mine. “Old friends. I want to ask him about old friends. I grew up here, y’know,” is all I give him.

  “So I’ve heard. Neighborhood’s changed since your day.”

  “So have a lot of things, like who’s taking whose money around here.”

  Through a grin that’s more sneering than friendly, his long face puckered like a squeezed lemon, he says, “Yeah.”

  Whatever Pike’s up to, whatever toying around with me he has in mind, it’s cut short by the arrival of Esposito. “Well, look who’s back, like that bad penny everyone talks about.”

  “It’s a public place, Lieutenant,” I say.

  “Uh-huh. Y’know, I could haul you in right now.”

  “Yeah? What for? I didn’t rob anybody, or kill anybody, either.”

  His thick-lipped sneer is almost as sour as Pike’s, but not quite, more like chicken fat gone rancid. “I could lock you up for that hat,” he says, “that fancy fedora. And for that suit you’ve got on under your coat. You’re in violation of the Criminal Code—the one about hiding your genuine…um…identity.”

  “Yeah, I know that one by heart. You guys like to hit me with that one every chance you get.”

  “Don’t give me lip, Gold. It’s against the law to be all tricked up like the opposite sex.”

  “Opposite which one, Lieutenant?”

  That actually gets a laugh from the guy. “You sure take chances, Gold! Besides, I’d love to see you in a skirt. I bet you’d look good in a skirt. I bet you have great knees.”

  “They do the job, Lieutenant. They bend when I walk up and down stairs.”

  Another laugh, even smarmier. Those fatty lips are sure getting a workout. “I bet that’s not the only time they bend! C’mon, Pike, let’s get outta here.” Esposito’s laughter gets lost in the arcade’s bells and carny music as he and Pike make their way to the door.

  When the Law boys are finally gone, I approach Eddie, who looks exhausted.

  “Hiya, Cantor,” he says, as if the two little words are all his mouth and tongue have the strength for.

  “What did Esposito want?”

  “Why you askin’ me that, Cantor? Why you want to make trouble?”

  Eddie’s singing a whole different tune than the one he sang last night and earlier today, when he was Johnny-on-the-spot to help me. But he wasn’t scared then. He’s scared now. “Look, Eddie, I’m not here to make trouble for you. If you’re scared of Esposito because he’s Loreale’s man—”

  “You got it all wrong. I ain’t scared. Not yet, anyways. But I’m gonna be plenty scared if you keep pokin’ around in things certain people don’t want you pokin’ around in. So I’m endin’ this conversation right now. I gotta get back to work.” He starts to walk away, nervously thumbing the coin changer on his belt.

  I grab his arm, stop him. “Then let’s talk about something else. If you can help me solve another problem, then I can stop poking around in all those things certain people don’t want me poking around in. I can get the hell away from Coney Island, and you’ll never see me or hear from me again. So tell me this, Eddie: You have any idea where Mickey would hide something?”

  “Like money? Where he’d hide money? Offshore, maybe, or—”

  “No, not money. An object. About this big.” My hands indicate about six inches tall.

  “Nah,” Eddie says, waving the idea away. “I wouldn’t know nothin’ about that. You should look through his bungalow.”

  “Already did.”

  “What about the tattoo joint?”

  “It’s on the list.”

  “Then why you wastin’ my time here?”

  I let his arm slip from my grip. I don’t explain why. I don’t have to. I guess the look on my face says it all.

  “Oh,” he says through a slow grin, the kind that savors smut. “Yeah, sure. That seat is occupied.” He slips some coins from his changer, tries to put them in my hand. “Need to kill some time? Here, play a little pokerino.”

  I don’t want to play pokerino. I want to get far away from Eddie’s ugly grin.

  *


  Outside on the boardwalk, the sun is still glaring off the ocean, and the salty air is still cold. Steely weather for me to stand around and do what Eddie made sound so crummy: kill time. Kill about an hour, I guess, unless I want to walk in and interrupt Lilah’s trade.

  That idea goes nowhere.

  So instead I’m stuck here on the boardwalk, pulling down the brim of my hat, shielding my face from the wind and my eyes from the glare off the ocean, looking along the beach, remembering the beach packed with summertime bodies in the old-fashioned bathing jerseys of my youth. The women looked like adorable kewpie dolls, the men looked like they wore their long underwear to the beach. Memories of luggers, sweating teenage guys hired to lug rented beach chairs and umbrellas to good spots. Memories of little tomboy me in my dungarees and ratty plaid short-sleeved shirt as I meandered through the crowds, pilfering watches and bracelets from the unwatched bags of smooching couples, or the satchels of old ladies cooling their thighs in the surf. Memories of stowing my loot in my strongbox buried in the sand under the boardwalk.

  My eyes and thoughts are pulled down to the boards, see the sun filter between the seams, and wonder if maybe Mickey had the same idea and buried the pyxis in the sand.

  And then I doubt it. He said it was in a place I’d never find it, and he knew, if he remembered my old ways, that if it was under the boardwalk, I’d find it.

  My old ways. I see them in my mind’s eye when I turn away from the ocean and look at the amusements, arcades, bath joints, and rides lined up along the boardwalk and beyond, a seaside extravaganza of wild colors and thrills. I learned a lot in those old days from Coney’s carny men like Eddie, fortune-tellers like Mona, and all the other Coney characters who strutted and strolled in top hats and straw boaters, or the sideshow performers in feathers and finery that would make Barnum and Bailey jealous. They taught me courage, and to show it with style. And I learned the patter of the operators, all mostly legit, but some palming your change from a buck, shorting you two bits and giving a sly count to make it tally for the suckers who believed it, or were too timid to challenge the more than slightly shady Coney Island sharpies. I learned plenty from gangsters like Sig and, before him, Solly.

  Solly Schwartz, Mickey’s disgraced pop. Before his downfall, he ran the place like he owned it, and in a certain way, he did. He took his cut from every hot dog, every oyster and clam sold in the neighborhood, every palm reading, every amusement ride, every kid on a carousel horse, every teenage Don Juan terrorizing girls in a bumper car, every shpritz, towel, and massage in the bathhouses. Solly even owned a bathhouse farther down the boardwalk, Shore Baths, a large, stuccoed building with a glass skylight arching across the roof. The place is closed now for the winter, like the other bathhouses. Sig probably took it over with the rest of Solly’s empire, leaving the poor guy with just a locker. I get a laugh trying to picture Sig using its steam room: a schvitz bath, the old timers used to call it. I stop laughing when the idea crosses my mind that maybe Sig used the steam room whenever Solly did, just to show off his triumph over the fat old gangster.

  But maybe not. Sig’s not the gloating type. He’s too smart to make unnecessary waves.

  None of these memories are getting me anywhere—

  Until they do. Until I realize that even if Mickey had lived to have his meeting with Sig, he’d never win Coney Island back because Sig is smart and Mickey was stupid. Sig never lets any information of any kind slip uncontrolled from his lips. He’s skimpy with his words, tells you only what he wants you to know. Mickey, though, babbled like a housewife over the backyard fence.

  We didn’t have a backyard fence last night, just a crummy coffee table between us, but if what I’m thinking is right, then the babblings of a jackass could lead to the jackpot.

  Chapter Eleven

  The door to the Shore Baths is locked, the big, arched windows with their pink and blue painted mermaid moldings boarded up for the winter. I’ve got my lock picks and could pick the lock, but there’s just enough passersby on the boardwalk to make that risky.

  Around back, facing an alley that serves as a cemetery for dead tires, broken thrill-ride hardware, and faded old signs with peeling paint, the back door’s boarded up, too, the lock blocked, so I can’t get at it. But the workers weren’t so thorough in their hammering and nailing along back windows. A board across one window is just loose enough at a corner for me to pry off using a piece of the castoff hardware as a tool.

  But the window’s locked from inside.

  The quiet of the alley is shattered when I break the glass, the shards crashing onto the bathhouse floor with a brittle clatter. But Coney’s off-season is my salvation: there’s no one else in the alley to hear the noise, or see me reach inside, unlock the window, open it, and climb through.

  Inside, I land in a back hallway that gets just enough light from the edge of the skylight for me to see my way to a door.

  The door leads into a blue tiled room, bigger than your average bus station washroom, smaller than a high school gym. With its drains on the floor, and spigots and rubber hoses protruding from the walls, you might confuse it with a torture chamber, but it’s not. It’s a hosing room, where attendants hose you down with needle-sharp sprays of warm water, a therapy believed to invigorate the circulation. My pop was an enthusiast of these hose downs. I always knew when he’d had a shpritz. He was extra frisky with my mother when he came home.

  I don’t bother looking into the drains; they’re small, too small to hide the pyxis, so I move on into other rooms. The drains are just as small in the hot bath pool and cold bath pool—the former tiled in fleshy pink, the latter tiled in aquamarine—so I don’t bother with them, either, though the swimming pool drains look promising. I hear my own breathing, deep and anxious, echoing around the cavernous blue and white tiled room and the empty pool as I unscrew the drain covers with my penknife, but the effort yields nothing.

  A place I’d never find it, Mickey bragged. So far, he’s right. But these were only just-in-case searches before heading for the place his loose lips let slip. So I forget about searching the men’s and women’s steam rooms and what the country club crowd would call a sauna, but the Coney denizens just call dry heat. And I breeze past the kitchen, where beer and sandwiches are served up in summer to a bathing-suited clientele on a boardwalk patio. I’m headed to the last private place Sig allowed the joint’s previous owner: the men’s locker room.

  Rows and rows of lockers face me when I walk in, some tall, the kind where you can hang your clothes, some little more than cubbyholes with doors. If Mickey’s using the locker he inherited from his father, and if Sig let Solly keep the locker he’d always had since he built the place, then I can forget about the little cubbies. Solly would’ve claimed a full-size locker for himself. And it would be in a prime spot, away from the drafts of the door and at an end, handy to the rear aisle.

  The lockers at the far end fit the bill, but which one? Which locker at the end of which of the ten rows is now Mickey’s?

  I head for the last locker in the last row, pull out my case of lock picks, choose a small pick and tension wrench, and go to work. The locker door opens. Nothing in there but a moldy towel, and nothing to identify the locker as Mickey’s. The next two are empty, the one after that has another towel and an abandoned pair of canvas beach shoes, which look too big for Mickey’s feet. I move on to the locker at the end of another row: bingo. It’s Mickey’s. I know because there’s a mustard-stained sandwich-and-beer order receipt on the floor with Mickey’s name scrawled on it.

  I found Mickey’s locker, but all I have to show for it is a mustard-smudged receipt. No jackpot.

  I take a last glance at the receipt, laugh—bitterly, I suppose—at this mustard-stained slip of paper that mocks me. Shore Baths Café, it says, Where the elite meet. Yeah, sure, some elite. Sweaty guys with pot bellies, workingmen with rough knuckles, tired wives, noisy kids.

  I was one of those kids once, though my family preferred Stau
ch’s Baths to Shore. But since Shore Baths was built and owned by Solly Schwartz, a gangster with strong lines to bootleggers, when Prohibition hit, everyone in Coney knew you could still get a beer and whiskey at the café at Solly’s bathhouse. The contraband came in on the ocean, picked up from freighters and trawlers by hard guys in small boats, and brought ashore in the middle of the night to out-of-the-way inlets along Coney Island Creek. Solly’s trucks—and later Sig’s trucks—bristling with gunmen met the boats and drove the booze to the bathhouse kitchen, where it was stored in tunnels.

  Speakeasy tunnels.

  I head to the kitchen.

  *

  Since the end of Prohibition, most of New York’s speakeasy tunnels are used for extra storage, everything from supplies of napkins and tablecloths, to glasses, silverware, and boxes of matches. Some saloons still use the tunnels to store extra booze. To satisfy their original purpose, the entrances to the tunnels were carefully hidden, but once found they were easily entered and exited. The last thing the bootlegging bunch needed was a hard to climb through hole in the wall while lugging cases of whiskey.

  I’m sure Solly hid the entrance to his speakeasy with that in mind: hard to find, easy to move through.

  It takes me a little while, but I find it behind a rack of hanging tablecloths inside a steel cabinet built into a wall. Telltale screw holes give away that the cabinet used to have a false back hiding the door. Tilting back my fedora, keeping my head down, the door’s big enough to walk through.

  The cold and pitch-dark tunnel hits me with the limey smell of damp rock, the gritty scrape of sand, and the sting of salty air. I feel around near the door for a light switch, find one, flip it, but nothing happens. The electricity must be turned off for the winter.

  I pull out my lighter, flick it into flame. All I see in the weak light is a narrow path between racks of shelves on either side of me, and the white edges of dishes and curved cup handles stacked on the shelves. I never knew dishware could give me the ghostly creeps.