Harry Lipkin, Private Eye

by Barry Fantoni

  Then I shuffled off through the glass doors to look for Rabbi Rifkin.

  · TWENTY-TWO ·

  Harry and Rabbi Rifkin Talk

  He was in his wheelchair. Sitting by a large aviary at the far end of a wide lawn surrounded by pale lilac rhododendrons and cherry-red azaleas. His beard had grown a couple of feet since I had last seen him and there was less hair under his old black velvet yarmulke. He was wearing a heavy dressing gown and had a thick wool blanket over his lap. Two large white surgical patches covered his eyes.

  “Guess who?” I said, going close.

  It took a moment for the old rabbi to put a name to the voice and a face to the name.

  “Harry Lipkin.” A pause. “You checking in?”

  I put a hand out and patted Rabbi Rifkin on the shoulder.

  “Depends on the catering,” I said.

  He made a sound. The sound we make when something’s lousy.

  “That bad?” I said.

  “I’ve eaten better. But since I am not paying, I’m not complaining.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Sure it makes sense. Why shouldn’t it?”

  It could have gone on like that for some time. Rabbis and their hypothetical this and their hypothetical that. It’s their job. I let it go.

  There was a short silence, then Lionel Rifkin waved his hand to a place behind me.

  “There are some garden chairs, Harry,” he said. “Near where you came in. Pull one over here. Sit by me.”

  I did as I was told. “The eyes, Lionel?” I asked. He said nothing. I asked again. I knew it was an intrusion but I couldn’t stop myself. “The wraps? How come?”

  He laughed. “They don’t ask me about Judgment Day. I don’t ask them about eyesight.”

  A Florida scrub jay landed on a perch in the aviary close enough to throw seed at us and listened in.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” I said. “None of my business.”

  “No big deal, Harry,” he said. “Detached retinas.”

  “Both of them?”

  He nodded.

  “Unlucky.”

  Another nod. And a shrug.

  “But they can fix retinas now.”

  “Some,” the rabbi said. “My sight has gone, Harry. Gone for good.”

  I had known Lionel Rifkin a long time. Nothing I could think of saying would be of any comfort. He gestured to the cage.

  “I spend my days out here by the aviary,” he continued. “Listening to them sing, under their wire sky. Cardinals. Mockingbirds. Waxwings …”

  He stopped talking. Listened. A bird chirped. He smiled to himself. Then he carried on.

  “There’s a nurse from Poland, Harry, who looks after me. Kasia. She knows about birds. She comes out here and tells me who sings what. I can already tell most of the birds here by their song. What we just heard was a pipit.”

  He paused. Sighed. Shifted in his chair. Adjusted his blanket. Sorrow dropped by. Hung around. Then went.

  “Sometimes she holds my hand,” he said.

  I left it before I spoke again. Let it settle. The mood. And I looked at him. Closer. The two big white cotton wool patches. His high beaked nose. The white beard and what was left of his hair. He’d become a bird. An owl. A snowy owl. It suited him but I didn’t say so. I told him instead why I was there.

  “Lionel,” I said. “I need some information. The kind I figure you can supply.”

  The rabbi moved his head. “Tell me.”

  “I am on a case.”

  “I didn’t think it was for a lecture on pipits.”

  “I am working for a woman called Norma Weinberger,” I explained. “She lives in Fort Lauderdale. Her late husband made hats.”

  Rabbi Rifkin threw his arms in the air. The blanket fell off his lap onto the grass.

  “No kidding? Isaac Weinberger.”

  I picked up the blanket and put it back.

  “You know him?”

  “I think I buried him. He was the only Jew I ever met without a sense of humor. I once told him the story of the unknown Jewish soldier. You heard it?” He didn’t wait to hear me say the entire Jewish population heard it. He made himself comfortable.

  “There’s a cemetery and in it is a memorial to the unknown Jewish soldier. On the stone is carved the name. Manny Rosen. Born 1923. Died 1943. A Gentile comes along and sees the memorial. He is puzzled. He notices an elderly Jew standing by. He decides to ask the Jew for an explanation. The Gentile says, can you tell me something? If I can, replies the Jew. The Gentile says if this is a memorial to the unknown soldier, how come you know his name? Simple, the Jew says. As a tailor, Manny Rosen was known. But as a soldier …?”

  We both went through the motions of laughing. Not as loud as the first time we heard it. But loud enough to scare the Florida scrub jay into taking cover.

  The rabbi stroked his beard.

  “Isaac Weinberger,” he said. “A humorous bankrupt. His wife was a handsome woman, Harry. When I knew her. Real handsome.”

  “Still is.”

  “Had the look of that film star. You know the one.”

  “Doris Day.”

  “But with dark hair.”

  “Someone is stealing her valuables,” I said. “Someone who works for her.”

  Rabbi Rifkin made a tutting noise.

  “I’m stuck for a motive,” I said. “The motive is the same for all her employees. Each one needs more than they get paid. One has to be stronger than the rest. I figured you might help.”

  He shrugged.

  “From weddings and bar mitzvahs I know. But from motives? Anyhow. Try me, Harry. You never know.”

  I gave it to him.

  “The guy who cooks for Mrs. Weinberger is an Ethiopian Jew. Amos Moses. He sends money home. They are rebuilding the synagogue. But there’s no way I can check that. It could be just a cover. I need to know for certain that Amos is on the level.”

  The rabbi thought. Birds sang. A warm breeze crossed the garden. His thinking bore fruit.

  “The man you want is Arlen Klein,” he said. “When Beth Jacob closed as a schul and linked up with the Jewish Museum, they put Klein in to run the appeals and charity work. Call him. Tell him I told you to. If there’s a man called Amos Moses sending money home, he’ll know.”

  A bell chimed in the main building. Rabbi Rifkin tapped his stomach.

  “Time to eat, Harry,” the rabbi said. “You want to give me a push?”

  I got up and wheeled Lionel Rifkin back silently across the lawn and all the way to the dining room. It made me feel useful in a way I hadn’t felt for a long time.

  I parked Rabbi Rifkin at his supper table dressed with a single lily in a slender vase and a fresh napkin rolled into a silver ring and a table card with his name printed on it.

  “Thanks a lot, Lionel,” I said. “You have been a big help.”

  The rabbi gave me a fragile smile.

  “God bless you, Harry,” he said.

  He couldn’t see it but I smiled back.

  · TWENTY-THREE ·

  Lieutenant Voss Returns with Some Unexpected News

  It was late when I got back home. The screen that they had erected around the dead kid was still on my front path but the cops and cadaver had gone. I made myself a glass of warm milk and ate two hazelnut and apple cookies. Then I put my dentures in water and went to bed.

  I was in a deep sleep when a chime from the doorbell woke me. I checked my bedside clock. It said five after seven.

  It was too early for the mailman and too late for the day laborers. People who ask if they can cut my lawn, put the tiles of my roof back, paint the front of the house, fix the plumbing, and service my Chevy. And they’ll do it all for five bucks.

  I put on my dressing gown and opened the door half awake.

  It was Lieutenant Voss. Same crumpled shirt. Same pants that needed a press. Same sharp eyes.

  “The day watch out of homicide?” I asked and coughed for five minutes.

&nbs
p; He waited for the noise to die down.

  “Six to four,” he said. “But I get plenty done.”

  I led him through the passage and into the kitchen.

  “Take a seat while I make some coffee,” I said. “You want a cup?”

  He nodded. Nothing else.

  I put water and fresh coffee in the percolator and switched on the heat.

  “You got a reason to call?” I said. “Or were you just passing and thought you’d drop by?”

  “A kid dies,” he said. “A kid in a smart suit. It looks like an accident. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. The kid has no ID. The only witness says the kid was a Christian missionary. The witness is a private investigator. He has a valid license to practice in the state of Florida. The private investigator has been around. He knows the score. His client comes first. He plays it that way. But his way doesn’t suit City Hall.”

  He left a pause. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee filled it.

  “The kid that died here,” Lieutenant Voss carried on. “On your path. Yesterday around noon. Guess what we found?”

  “I just got out of bed,” I said. “Later I do guessing. Right now I do coffee.”

  I took two mugs and placed them on the kitchen table.

  “When we got the kid back to the morgue,” Voss said, “I looked at his Italian shoes. His imported Italian suit. His handmade ninety-dollar shirt. The dead kid’s outfit would cost me a year’s salary. It didn’t add up. Selling God door to door. You’d get your pants and jacket from Kmart. Not Armani.”

  “Maybe his old man mined diamonds,” I said. “All kinds of people get wrapped up in religion.”

  I handed Voss his coffee.

  “We took his prints,” he said. “As a matter of routine.”

  I took a sip of coffee. It was hot. But I went cold. The prints. Harry. Schmuck. You forgot the prints.

  “The kid we took to the morgue sold narcotics,” Voss said. “His name was Redlan Donny Collins. Nineteen years old. His pals called him Little Chill. He spent his brief time on Earth dealing dope in every state with a coastline from here to New Jersey.”

  I looked at Voss.

  “So the kid sold narcotics. What’s that to me?”

  “If you are mixed up in something I want to know,” he said.

  I thought about it. Then I gave him have a little.

  “Okay, Voss,” I said. “Cop to cop. The kid sold dope to someone who works for a client of mine. He came to lean on me.”

  Voss drained his mug.

  “Nice coffee,” he said.

  He undid the front button of his jacket and made himself comfortable.

  “You got a name for me, Harry?”

  “You got a reason to know?”

  He gave me that washed-out look cops develop over the years.

  “Do I have to remind you that it is a criminal offense to use narcotics as well as to sell them? And that to be an accessory to a crime is also criminal?”

  He was fishing in a shallow stream and hoping something would bite.

  “The tile killed the kid, Voss,” I said. “That is all you are getting. All you need. Fill in your report and put ‘no suspicious circumstances’ at the bottom. Then take the rest of the day off.”

  Lieutenant Voss didn’t like it. I was holding something back. He knew. But he let it go. I had a hunch there was something else on his mind.

  “If that’s the way you want it,” he said.

  I said nothing.

  Voss took a card from his inside jacket pocket and placed it on the table next to his mug.

  “But if you think of something you think I should know, my number’s here. Call me. Day or night.”

  I picked up the card and put it in my dressing gown pocket. The policeman drank from his coffee.

  “Something else,” he said. “Something you might have missed.”

  I waited.

  “If you had killed Redlan Collins, Harry, you would be two hundred grand better off.”

  It wasn’t what I had expected.

  “How’s that?” I asked. “Did he mention me in his will?”

  Voss moved to the door.

  “That’s the price on the wanted posters. The money the state put up to see our recently dear departed ‘Little Chill’ in a denim suit with stripes. Tell your tale another way, Mr. Lipkin, and you could be a rich man.”

  Voss gave me time to think it through.

  “And you would make it official?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “I would say that you told me the kid pulled a gun and you hit him with a tile. Self-defense. Open and shut. They might even give you a medal as well as the bounty.”

  “You’d fix it like that?”

  “For ten percent,” he said. “Think it over.”

  “I thought it over,” I said. “It stinks. Collins was killed by an act of God. Nothing else. Lean on Jehovah for your ten percent, Voss, and don’t come bothering me again.”

  “And I thought you were bright,” he said.

  “Bright enough to tell your captain you were looking to pervert the course of justice,” I told him tough as it needed. “For a cut of the reward.”

  I looked him over. A police officer nearing the end of his time. His pension would scarcely fill his billfold. There’d be nothing left over after a week. Nothing extra to put aside. No badge. No free bullets. Every day the same. Lots of time to fill. All day every day. But it was a schnorrer’s trick to try to deal himself in. And his messing with my case would slow me down. He was best off my back.

  The lieutenant stared at me. Hard. A long time. His eyes didn’t blink once. Then he turned and walked out the room. I figured I’d seen the last of Voss.

  · TWENTY-FOUR ·

  Harry Gets Busy at Home

  Once Voss was out of the house I went into my office and called the Beth Jacob. I told Arlen Klein the reason for my call. He said he was busy but offered an hour for lunch.

  It was still early. I had plenty of time to take a long shower and get ready before driving over to the Beth Jacob.

  The bathroom overlooked my neighbor’s patio. I could hear them talking. At least I could hear Mrs. Feldman talking. In the years I had been living next to the Feldmans I had never heard Morton Feldman say more than a couple of sentences. Mrs. Feldman did his talking for him. Today she was talking for ten Morton Feldmans.

  “Are you listening to me, Morton? Those white sheet things they put up. In his front yard. And the police there all day. The man with the camera taking photos. The ambulance. Feh. Don’t argue with me, Morton. I am telling you. He killed someone. I know it. That Harry Lipkin. Tsuris. What have I said all along? A man they should lock up. Gloib mir. For his own good.”

  I picked a dry towel from the hook behind the bathroom door and spent the next half hour it takes me these days to dry off. Then I hung my towel back on the hook and went into my bedroom and got myself dressed. I turned on the clock radio and tuned into a local jazz station. I put on my pants to Woody Herman’s “Woodchopper’s Ball.” And I put a knot in my bow tie to Earl Hines’s “My Monday Date.”

  The bow tie was from Savile Row. Red silk with small black polka dots. My cousin Leon brought it back from a trip he made. Two days in London. Two days in Paris. Two days in Dublin. Two weeks in bed recovering.

  Dressed for the day I went to the office to see if anyone had called while I was in the shower. Some people can hear the phone ring under water. Not me. The red light was blinking on the machine and a little number told me that I had one call. I pressed the button and played it back.

  “Hi, Harry. How you doing? It’s Oscar Letto. I asked around for you. About the butler. Mr. Lee. He has a reputation. Lucky Lee. That’s what they call him around here. Like you say. He only comes one day a week. Never more. And he never bets on anything over evens. On a six-month run my information is Lee could be looking at anything between ten and twenty grand. That kind of money buys a lot of steamed rice. If he needed to steal from your client to make
extra he’d need to do a lot better from it than he does at Gulfstream. Let me know if I can help you further.”

  I pressed the button and the machine went back to recording mode. No sooner had the red light come back on than the phone rang again. I picked up the receiver. Mrs. Weinberger didn’t even give me a chance to say “Harry Lipkin. Private Investigator. How can I help?” She was straight in. No hello? No how are you? No is this a bad moment? Bang. In.

  “A Klog iz mir. That no-good gonif has struck again. During the night. And you will have no idea what he stole. They broke into my desk and stole a bundle of love letters tied with ribbon that my dear Isaac wrote me. Letters he wrote when we first met. I had taken them to read before I went to bed, as I sometimes do. Reading them makes me both happy and sad at the same time, mostly sad. I put them back in the drawer in my desk and this morning when I was looking in the drawer for something else they were gone. I looked through the drawer I don’t know how many times. My love letters. Stolen while I slept.”

  I tried to imagine a love letter written by Isaac Weinberger. There wasn’t time. And his widow was still talking.

  “How do you explain it, Mr. Lipkin? Who would do such a thing?”

  “That’s what you are paying me to find out,” I said.

  There was a short edgy pause. When she spoke again her voice was more nervous than scared.

  “Would you do something extra for me, Mr. Lipkin? A little more than maybe I have the right to ask?”

  “Try me,” I said. “As long as it’s not fixing roof tiles. Nothing that needs a ladder.”

  She let it go.

  “I just want you to spend the night here. At my home. It came to me suddenly. While I was taking my early morning dip. If you were here. You might catch the thief red-handed.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea. Something I could never have suggested. Not even if I had thought of it myself. A night in a client’s house. A widow sleeping alone. Me hiding in a dark corner with nothing to do from lights out to reveille. Better it came from her.