Flesh and Blood

by Thomas H. Cook

  “No,” Frank said.

  “Okay,” Tannenbaum said. “Then, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to work.” He looked at both of them pointedly. “Because I’m just a flatfoot in plainclothes, and so I still have a murder to solve.”

  24

  Frank was leaning on the black wrought-iron gate when Imalia’s car pulled up to the curb a few hours later. The rear door swung open immediately.

  “Hello, Frank,” Imalia said. She scooted back on the seat. “I’m off to the airport. Can we talk on the way?”

  Frank pulled himself into the car and closed the door behind him.

  “Sorry for mis inconvenience,” Imalia said lightly as the car made a left-hand turn on Ninth Avenue. “But I have to be in Washington tonight. It’s quite a rush. I have to be back in New York tomorrow morning. I’m planning a huge party at the American Museum of Fashion for Sunday night.”

  Frank nodded.

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I hope you don’t mind if I have one,” Imalia said. She pulled gently at a silver handle in front of her, and the bar swung into place. “I understand you have some important news,” she added as she dropped a single ice cube into her glass.

  “Nothing I couldn’t have told you on the phone,” Frank said.

  “I don’t like the phone,” Imalia said crossly. “It’s too impersonal. I guess it comes from working with fabric. I like the personal touch.” She poured a scotch, then sat back comfortably in her seat. “Now, what is it?”

  “As you know, Hannah had two sisters,” Frank began. “Both of them are dead. But one of them, Naomi, was married, and her husband is still alive.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “Here in New York,”

  Imalia looked at him excitedly. “You’ve located him?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s wonderful, Frank.”

  “He lives in Brooklyn,” Frank told her. “I spoke to him this morning.”

  “Can he have the body released?” Imalia asked anxiously.

  “He already has,” Frank said. “We went to Midtown North earlier today. He signed all the forms. Hannah’s body will be ready for burial whenever it can be arranged.”

  “Excellent, Frank,” Imalia said. “Just excellent. I mean it.”

  “Mr. Fischelson—that’s the brother-in-law—he said something about having her buried next to her sisters.”

  “And where are they buried?”

  “A Jewish cemetery in Brooklyn.”

  “Fine,” Imalia said without hesitation. “That’s certainly up to him, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “As for the expenses, I’d be happy to pay them.”

  “He might appreciate that,” Frank said. “I don’t get the idea that he has a lot of money.”

  “Consider it done,” Imalia said briskly. “Absolutely no problem. It would be an honor, really.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  “You do that.”

  “Do you want to know where it is?”

  Imalia looked at him, puzzled. “Where what is?”

  “The funeral,” Frank said. “The time and place.”

  “Oh, sure,” Imalia said. “Just leave it on my machine if I’m out.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good,” Imalia said crisply. She lifted her glass. “Sure you wouldn’t like to toast your success?”

  Frank shook his head.

  “Well, let me at least say that you’ve done a wonderful job on this, Frank,” Imalia told him. “Karen must be proud of you.”

  Frank said nothing.

  Imalia took a long drink, then returned her glass to the tray. “Of course, gratitude is not enough, is it?” she asked with a smile.

  Frank glanced out the one-way window of the limousine. They were moving into a world of sleek boutiques and exclusive restaurants and toward the naked steel girders of the 59th Street Bridge.

  “I mean your fee, of course,” Imalia said. “How would you like it?”

  Frank continued to stare out the window. Blocks of art galleries swept by, along with scores of shop windows stocked with the very best that could be bought, hand-tooled leather, velvet, satin, fine wines and Russian caviar, the finest things on earth.

  “Your fee, Frank,” Imalia said. “How would you like it?”

  Frank did not look toward her. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

  “Check? Cash?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Frank repeated.

  “And the amount?”

  Frank looked at her. “Two thousand dollars.”

  Imalia took out her checkbook. “Plus a bonus,” she said as she began to write it.

  Again Frank turned back to the window. The car moved smoothly along Madison Avenue, then took a slow, graceful right turn onto 57th Street.

  “Here you are,” Imalia said as she held the check toward him. “As you can see, I’ve added an extra two thousand.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Frank told her.

  “It is, if you really want service,” Imalia said brightly. “And after all, that’s what it’s all about, don’t you think?”

  Frank pocketed the check.

  “May I drop you somewhere?” Imalia asked.

  “Drop?”

  “Well, I don’t suppose you want to ride all the way out to La Guardia, do you?” Imalia asked.

  “No.”

  “Next corner all right?”

  “Yes,” Frank said.

  Imalia gave the order, and the car drifted over to the corner of 57th Street and Third Avenue.

  Frank got out immediately.

  “And once again, thank you so very much, Frank,” Imalia said as he stood on the busy corner. “I’ll recommend you to all my friends.” She smiled sweetly, and for an instant, Frank could see the girl she had once been, small, pale, her slender legs dangling from a fire escape above the teeming streets of Little Italy. For a moment he wanted to freeze her face just as he saw it, study it for hours, try to find the road that had taken her from Prince Street to the swank boutiques of the Upper East Side. It was a desire that she seemed to sense almost as quickly as he had felt it, and with a single, sudden movement, she closed the door between them, as if to block the purpose of his eyes.

  It was not a very long walk to Karen’s apartment, but he walked it slowly, thoughtfully, trying to come to terms with the vague uneasiness that always overtook him when a case was over. It was as if everything lived on the surface of something much deeper and more mysterious, a murky, shifting undercurrent. There were times when he wanted to dive deeper and deeper into it, define its limits, and then return to the upper reaches with an infinitely expanded sense of what lurked below, its dark, unreachable depths.

  He was still thinking vaguely of Hannah, still lost in the hazy emptiness of a completed assignment, when he opened the door to the apartment and found Karen in the living room, her arms folded sternly over her chest, staring at him with her light blue eyes.

  “I missed you last night,” she said.

  “Sorry.”

  “I decided not to go to work today,” Karen said. “I decided to wait for you. To wait as long as it took for you to come home.”

  Frank said nothing.

  “I am not an insecure woman, Frank,” Karen added.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I don’t cling to people, you know that.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I won’t cling to you,” she added flatly.

  “I know.”

  “But respect matters to me,” Karen said. “My self-respect matters.” She shook her head. “Maybe it was when we met. The way we met. Maybe I was just too vulnerable. Angelica and all that. Maybe you were. About Sarah. About Sheila. Both of us, too vulnerable.”

  She waited for him to answer, and when he didn’t, she added, “Maybe I made a big mistake, Frank.”

  “Maybe we both did,” Frank said. “That’s usu
ally the way it happens.”

  “So something’s wrong,” Karen said. “It’s not just been my imagination.”

  “No.”

  “It’s not just some case you’re on.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  She stood up slowly. “What is it then?”

  “I don’t know,” Frank said. “Time, maybe. Change.”

  “We’ve only been together for a year.”

  “Something else, then. I don’t know.”

  “Love,” Karen said bluntly. “What else could it be?”

  “I suppose,” Frank admitted.

  A terrible sadness moved into her face, but even as he saw it, Frank knew that it was not specifically for him, but for the way things were, their complications and disappointments, the way life came, lingered awhile, then passed away before you could ever hope to learn how to live it.

  “You were coming back for your things, weren’t you?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Your two suits. What else?”

  “Socks. Razor. Do you want a list?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “My office.”

  “You’re going to live there?”

  “For a while.”

  “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “Yes, I’m sure, Karen,” Frank said.

  She looked at him affectionately. “So am I, Frank. I can’t help it.”

  “Why should you even try?” Frank asked. He smiled. “You’re not a liar, Karen. You never have been.” He shrugged. “We tried something. It didn’t work. Sometimes, that’s all there is to it.”

  She started to say something, thought better of it for a moment, then decided to go ahead. “Do you have … somebody?”

  “No.”

  “I wish you did, Frank. I truly wish you did.”

  He did not answer her, and for a few seconds they simply gazed at each other as if they were strangers once again, just as they had been that first day, she in her paint-spattered jeans, he in his dusty brown suit.

  “I do,” Karen said finally. “Have someone.”

  “Lancaster,” Frank said. “I know.”

  Karen nodded. “We haven’t … but still …”

  “It doesn’t matter, Karen.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Karen said. She turned away for a moment, her eyes fixed on the terrace. Then, after a time, she faced him once again, “Listen, Frank, if money’s—”

  “No,” Frank said quickly, “I just got paid, as a matter of fact. Your friend, Imalia.”

  “You’re finished with that case?”

  Frank nodded.

  “How did it come out?”

  Frank smiled softly. “What difference does it make, Karen?”

  Something in her face softened inexpressibly. Then she walked over to him and gathered him into her arms. “Sorry,” she whispered. “So sorry.”

  He allowed his own arms to embrace her loosely. He felt the warmth of her body, the cool of her hair, and something already half-lost within him moved yet a little deeper into the enveloping shade.

  The phone was ringing as Frank came through the door of his office. He quickly laid his bundled clothes and supplies on the desk and answered it.

  “Frank, it’s Leo,” Tannenbaum said in a voice that seemed less dismissive than before. “I just wanted to let you know that we’ve released the body. Formally, I mean. All the paperwork’s been done.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No sweat,” Tannenbaum said. “The trail is too cold to fight over it.”

  “Did you call Mr. Fischelson?”

  “Yeah,” Tannenbaum said. “He said he’d arrange for it to be picked up this afternoon.”

  “Okay,” Frank said. “Thanks.”

  He hung up the phone, then picked it up again, and called Fischelson.

  “I understand the body’s been released already,” he said. “I want to thank you. I mean, on behalf of my client.”

  “I was happy to do it,” Fischelson said. “Like I said before, it was the least I could do.”

  “When are you planning to bury Hannah?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Where?”

  “Beth Israel,” Fischelson said. “It’s a cemetery in Brooklyn. I arranged for the burial to be at three o’clock.” He stopped, as if thinking about something for which he could not find the appropriate words.

  “As you know,” he said finally, “I wasn’t in touch with Hannah.”

  “Yes.”

  “As a matter of fact, you probably know more about her than I do.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So, I was wondering,” Fischelson went on hesitantly. “Did you get any idea about her being religious, anything like that?”

  “No.”

  “I mean, she was Jewish. Born Jewish. You know about her father?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well … What do you think? … Should I get a rabbi?”

  “Did you have one for her sisters?” Frank asked.

  “Yeah, I got one,” Fischelson said. “Mostly because of their father.”

  “Well, he was Hannah’s father, too,” Frank said with a sudden sense of lingering allegiance.

  “Yeah, he was,” Fischelson said. Then he hung up.

  Frank lifted his suit from the desk and hung it in the small closet next to the front door. Then he deposited his toothpaste, brush and shaving gear in the cramped little bathroom. It was all he had, but it did not really strike him as so little.

  For a few minutes he stood by the front window, his eyes lifted slightly to watch the people who passed along the sidewalk. Then he walked back to his desk and sat down. For a long time he sat in silence, his eyes staring at the unlit lamp that Karen had given him. The late afternoon light glowed faintly along its polished bronze surface, and for an instant he saw its beauty as Karen herself must have seen it, the carved base and slender, curving neck, the multicolored shade with its intricately woven pattern of stained glass. It was beautiful in the care that had been taken to create it, in the mind that had conceived it and the hands that had shaped it with a beauty that was incontestably grave and good, full of that imperishable labor which, it seemed to him, bestowed the one true value on all man’s worldly goods.

  25

  The Beth Israel Cemetery was an enormous expanse of jutting gray stones, large and small, some ornately sculptured, some plain and featureless. Those which rested in the far right corner of the grounds were modest, but dignified, and they seemed to impose a respectful silence on the few people who gathered around the open earth of Hannah Karlsberg’s grave.

  Imalia stood off to the side of the grave. She was dressed in a long black dress, with matching hat and veil, and she kept her gloved hands primly at her sides.

  Riviera was only a few feet away, the afternoon sun shimmering radiantly in his long white hair.

  Fischelson kept his place at the foot of the grave. He nodded as Frank stepped up beside him, but his eyes remained on the black-coated man who stood at the head of Hannah’s grave, praying quietly in Hebrew while he rocked gently back and forth, along with several other men who were dressed in the same black coats and hats.

  When the rabbi had finished, Fischelson threw a handful of broken earth onto the casket, then paid first the rabbi, then the others.

  “I never liked this, you know,” he said to Frank as the last of the men had taken the money and headed quickly back toward the gate of the cemetery.

  “The way they hang around the cemeteries.”

  “Who?”

  “The religious ones,” Fischelson said contemptuously, “the aging yeshiva boys.” He nodded toward the men who’d stood with the rabbi, and who could now be seen threading among the dark gray stones. “They stand there with their prayerbooks. Stand at the gate. Like vultures, if you ask me. They pray if you pay them.” He glanced angrily at Frank. “You call that religion?”

  Frank said nothing.

  “Ah, maybe I’
ve just gotten old and bitter,” Fischelson said as he looked back toward the three graves. “Life, you know. It doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. I don’t know why.”

  Imalia walked over quickly, nodding politely to the two of them. She offered her hand to Fischelson.

  “I’m very sorry,” she said, as she lifted the veil from her face and folded it back over the top of her hat. “Hannah was a wonderful person.”

  Fischelson nodded silently.

  “I wish I had known her better,” Imalia added. “But I can tell you that I certainly respected her, and that she’ll be missed by all of us.”

  “That’s certainly true,” Riviera said as he walked up behind her.

  Imalia smiled quietly, then drifted away, moving slowly toward the limousine which waited for her a few yards away.

  “Just a terrible thing, what happened to Hannah,” Riviera said as he stepped closer to Fischelson. “Terrible thing.” His eyes moved over to Frank. “But at least now, she’s at peace,” he said. He looked back at Fischelson, quickly shook his hand, then walked briskly away and disappeared into the limousine.

  Fischelson gave a final glance toward the three graves, then headed slowly toward the gate, his shoulders slightly hunched against the cold. Frank walked along beside him.

  “What should I have done?” Fischelson said as they neared the entrance to the cemetery. “Tell me that. Huh? What should I have done about Hannah? If it had been found out—this business with Feig, with Bornstein—if it had been found out, the whole union would have been destroyed.”

  Frank nodded.

  “It was reckless, what Hannah did,” Fischelson said vehemently. “It was stupid.”

  Frank said nothing.

  “But what I did destroyed her,” Fischelson added mournfully. “It was like I took a knife and cut out her heart. It was the same thing.”

  Far to the east, a wall of impenetrable gray clouds was approaching the city, the sort Frank remembered from his youth, heavy with snow and the hard winter winds.

  “It’s over,” he said. “She’s in the ground.”

  Fischelson’s eyes darted over to him. “I wish she’d died during the strike,” he said fiercely. “I wish some gun-thug had shot her in Union Square, shot her while she was still standing there with her hand in the air.” His voice suddenly broke. “I loved her,” he said. “What I told you before, it’s true.” He looked at Frank pointedly. “You know what I mean, don’t you?”