Flesh and Blood (30 page)

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?”

“Yes.”

“In love,” Fischelson said passionately. “In love with your wife's sister.” He laughed joylessly. “I told a guy about it once, a guy I worked with. Eddie Panuchi. I told him all about it, and he just draped his arm over my shoulder, and he said, ‘You know, Joe, when I hear something like this, I think of what my mother used to say about the same sort of situation, “Hey, it could have happened to a bishop.”'”

“Did you ever tell anyone else?” Frank asked.

“Besides Eddie? Of course not,” Fischelson said. “It was just between me and Hannah.” He shook his head wonderingly. “It was during the strike,” he went on. “I couldn't stand it anymore.” He lowered his head slowly, as if to receive the blow he thought he must deserve. “I went to her, to Hannah. I told her how I felt.” He stopped, and leaned tremulously against a single gray stone. “I loved Naomi. I really did. But with Hannah, it was this fire, this awful fire. Uncontrollable.” He looked at Frank beseechingly. “Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes.”

Fischelson smiled helplessly. “Do you know what Hannah said?” he asked. “This will tell you all you need to know about her.” He pushed himself away from the stone, straightening his body. “She put her hand on my face, and she said, ‘Joseph, one love at a time.'” His eyes turned to Frank. “She meant that a person could handle only one devotion, not two, and that if you couldn't put all your heart into something, I mean, the whole thing, you were nothing.” He shrugged wearily. “Maybe that was what made me tell them what I knew. Tell Stern, I mean. Maybe I wanted to take that one devotion from her, so that she would come to me.” His eyes drifted back toward the corner of the cemetery where the Kovatnik sisters lay, three of them together, as they had once shared their single room beneath the synagogue. “I really don't know if that had anything to do with it,” he added quietly, “the fact that she couldn't love me back.” He drew in a long, tormented breath. “But I can tell you this, Mr. Clemons, it's the only thing I've really thought about for the last forty years.”

They walked the rest of the way out of the cemetery in silence, then stood in silence until the bus arrived at its stop a few minutes later.

When the doors opened, Fischelson stepped on quickly and deposited his token.

“Thanks for your help,” Frank told him.

Fischelson smiled sadly as he turned toward Frank for a final word. “Do you think she's at peace?” he asked.

Frank did not answer, and in an instant the doors of the bus closed between them in a shrill hydraulic hiss.

For a time, Frank lingered on the corner, his hands sunk in his pockets, the collar of his coat pulled up against the increasingly chill wind. He didn't want to go back to his home, or office, or whatever it was now. He didn't even want to go back to the neighborhood which surrounded it. The bars didn't appeal to him, nor the grim hotel lobbies, nor the glittering arcades.

Instead he wandered back through the dark iron gate of the cemetery, back through the gray stones, to where Hannah's grave still lay open, waiting to be covered, a reddish trench stretched out between her sisters. For a while, he leaned against a neighboring stone and gazed into the gutted earth, toward the elegantly polished coffin. He smoked a cigarette pleasurelessly, found no place to put the butt, shoved it finally into his jacket pocket, and lit another. For a time, he watched the gray overhanging clouds, then the city of stones, the distant wrought-iron gate, and finally, the single red rose that waved coldly over Gilda Kovatnik's grave.

Frank was staring absently at his uncluttered desk when he heard someone coming through the door of his office, looked up, and saw Farouk.

“I'm sorry,” Farouk said as he closed the door behind him.

“About what?”

“The funeral,” Farouk said. “I had wanted to come.”

“It doesn't matter,” Frank told him. “I didn't expect anybody but Fischelson.”

“I wanted to come,” Farouk said. “I'd meant to. But there was a call.”

“It doesn't matter, Farouk,” Frank assured him. He lit a cigarette, then reached into the top drawer of his desk. “I have some money for you.”

“Money?”

“For your help,” Frank said.

“Ah, yes,” Farouk said, as if the whole question of payment had slipped his mind.

“The total fee was two thousand dollars,” Frank told him. “Plus a bonus.”

“Bonus?”

“Another two thousand.”

Farouk smiled. “Miss Covallo is very generous.”

“Yes, she is,” Frank said. He opened the envelope and drew out the stack of bills. “She gave me a check. I cashed it on the way back from the funeral.” He slid the bills across the desk. “Take your share.”

Farouk looked at the money wonderingly. “How much is that, my share?”

“I don't know.”

Farouk stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps ten percent. That would be four hundred dollars.”

“Whatever you say,” Frank told him. “Just peel off what you want.”

Farouk drew four one hundred dollar bills from the stack, then slid the money back to Frank. “Thank you,” he said.

Frank put the rest of the money in his jacket pocket, then reached for the bottle that rested, half-empty, on his desk. “Want a drink?”

“Yes, that would be good,” Farouk said. “To break the chill.”

They were on their third drink, and the basement shadows had deepened into a gray half-light when the door to the office opened once again.

Tony Riviera stopped instantly, his body in full silhouette against the brick wall of the corridor.

“I assume you're open for business,” he said.

Frank nodded slowly.

“Good,” Riviera said. He closed the door behind him, then pulled a chair up to Frank's desk. “I'm glad to find you in,” he said. His eyes drifted briefly toward Farouk, then shot back to Frank. “I've just come from a long talk with Miss Covallo. We were talking about the job you'd done on tracking down Mr. Fischelson. I don't have to tell you how pleased she is.”

Frank said nothing.

“We were thinking,” Riviera said, “that you might want to stay on the case a little longer.”

“Stay on the case?”

“That's right,” Riviera told him. He hesitated. “You must have guessed what I'm talking about.”