by Bari Wood
“Adam Levy . . .” Hawkins said. “The Jew on Sterling Street with thirty dollars and the plastic briefcase full of books. The short, thin, pale man . . . you remember,” Hawkins said. The boys stared. “He had hay fever and carried pills for it. He was a philosophy teacher and carried books. It’ll come back to you . . .” The boys pushed themselves back against the wall. “He had a father, a wife . . . the wife’s pregnant, by the way. . . .”
One of them started to cry, and the others looked at him, then at Hawkins. Another one turned to the wall, and Hawkins was stunned. He stood still for a moment, then he went to the door and left the boys alone.
He had three drinks with Ableson, told Baer to go home, and got his own car from the lot. Then he drove into the Heights, parked and walked back and forth in front of Alma’s house. Finally he found a phone booth and called her.
It was after one and only a few die-hard, run-down-looking hookers were left on the street. One passed the phone booth and oozed against the glass door so her breasts, pushed up in the street light, looked enormous.
Alma sounded sleepy.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“A block away.”
“Anything wrong, Roger?”
“Bad night.” Which was so inadequate he almost laughed.
“Okay, honey, come over.”
Alma had a duplex on the promenade, overlooking the bay, the bridges, the whole city. Some nights he’d turn off the lights and sit there in the dark watching the city like he’d watch a movie.
Alma’s ex-husband owned an insurance agency and he paid alimony on time. She broke dates to see Hawkins and she was sweet and funny and Mo said she was gorgeous. She was gorgeous tonight; her dark skin showed through her nightgown and her nipples looked black. He pushed her back and actually tore the nightgown getting it off. He was usually the gentlest lover; but tonight he was rough with her. For some reason he didn’t want to see her face and he turned her away from him and pushed into her so hard she gasped. When it was over, she fell asleep almost at once and he felt bereft. He wandered through the dark apartment for a while, then took a shower, half hoping the noise would wake her so he wouldn’t be alone, but it didn’t and he left her asleep, got dressed, and went down the stairs to the lobby.
The lobby guard nodded at him and went back to his National Enquirer. Hawkins crossed the street to the promenade and stood alone in the dark looking at the river. He thought of Adam in the drawer at Kings County and of Rachel getting through her first night alone in the hot apartment with Levy unconscious in the next room. He looked back up at Alma’s windows. If he saw a light he’d go back up there. They’d have a drink and maybe get really drunk together. She was lively and funny when she was drunk. Maybe they’d go dancing. There was an after-hours nightclub on Atlantic and they’d go there and dance until four. She loved to dance, her behind was full and tight, and she swung it subtly, barely moving her legs; the other men would stare at her, the way they always did, envying him. Then he’d take her home and make love to her again. Gently this time, taking a long time. The rest of the night. But the windows stayed dark and he walked back into the streets to his car. Shadows seemed to follow him, but when he looked back all he saw was full garbage bags lying at the curb. He walked a ways and looked again. There was nothing there.
He didn’t get home until almost four and he undressed, hung up the rumpled tux, and got into bed. But when he closed his eyes, he saw Adam in the morgue, his face covered with slashes. That wasn’t how Hawkins wanted to remember him and he made himself think of the first time he’d seen Adam twelve years ago.
They were in the International Arrivals building and the El Al flight had just landed. Levy was leaning against the rail of the visitors’ balcony, his hands pressed against the glass as the people poured through the gate into the customs hall. Then Levy cried, “There, Roger. There he is,” and Hawkins saw a short, slight young man who looked like Levy. He was tanned and handsome and he wore a yarmulke like Levy did. He looked up and saw his father; he waved so wildly the cap fell off. They went downstairs to wait; people came through the doors and ran into the arms of waiting relatives; the lobby was full of people hugging each other and crying, and Hawkins stood next to Levy, feeling alien, and alone. Then Adam came through the automatic doors holding his cap and carrying a huge valise. He dropped the case and he and Levy ran to each other. Levy kissed the man’s cheeks and eyelids. He held his son’s head in his hands and started kissing him all over again while Hawkins stood apart. Then Adam had turned to Hawkins. He was laughing and crying at the same time, and he said, “You’re black, so you must be Roger.”
Hawkins had nodded awkwardly and put out his hand, but Adam ignored the hand. He threw his arms around Hawkins, stretched his body and kissed Hawkins first on one cheek, then on the other, then he just hugged him, while Levy watched them with tears running down his face.
Chapter 3
Hawkins held his hands over the basin on the table in the hall. Old man Oshevsky saw that they were black and looked up blindly.
“Who’re you?”
“Roger Hawkins, Mr. Oshevsky.”
“Roger Hawkins the cop?”
Hawkins nodded.
“Where were you last night, cop?”
It took him a little time to remember, then he said wearily, “I was at a party, Mr. Oshevsky.”
Oshevsky’s cheeks turned purple. “Adam Levy’s getting stabbed and you’re at a party!”
Behind him in the line, Sam Arkin yelled, “Shut up, Oshevsky. How could he know?”
“Feh!” Oshevsky yelled back, holding the pitcher away from Hawkins. Hawkins kept his hands over the basin.
“Pour the water, Mr. Oshevsky,” he said, “or I’ll go into the house with dirty hands.”
The old man looked up at Hawkins while the others in line waited to see what would happen.
“It’s getting late,” Hawkins said, gently.
“Feh” the old man said again, but he poured the water over Hawkins’s hands, handed him a towel to dry them with, and Hawkins went into Levy’s apartment.
The place was hot and crowded and smelled of onions and smoked fish. Used paper plates littered tables, radiator tops, and windowsills. Most of the men in the room had beards and all wore hats. Hawkins took a black yarmulke from a pile on the table at the door and pushed it down over his hair. Eli Pinchik was leaning against the far wall of the foyer watching the crowd. The top of a small liquor bottle stuck out of his jacket pocket and his eyes were swollen and bloodshot. He saw Hawkins and grabbed his arm. “You didn’t come to the funeral. Your best friend dies and you don’t help bury him. Why?”
“Some of them wouldn’t want me there, Eli.”
Pinchik made a dry spitting gesture and looked through the arch at the men. “Because they’re schmucks, that’s why. . . .” He raised his voice, “Schmucks!” A few turned around but most ignored him. Pinchik sobbed and pulled out his bottle. “C’mon,” he said, “let’s get out of here.”
“Not till I see Levy . . .”
“I’ll be at the Union Dairy,” Pinchik said, “we gotta talk.” He went out the door and Hawkins looked over the other men’s heads for Levy.
He was sitting low on a mourning stool and Luria, Dworkin, Walinsky, and the rest sat on chairs to make a closed circle. Adam had told Hawkins that they mourned for seven days. For seven days the family of the dead couldn’t sit in chairs, shave, or cut their hair. They couldn’t put on new clothes or greet guests. Hawkins got through the crowd, breached the circle, and knelt at Levy’s feet so his head was almost level with Levy’s.
Without counting, Hawkins knew that there were eight men in the circle; some of them liked him, some didn’t.
Levy grabbed his hands. “You got the killers . . .” he said.
Hawkins didn’t answer.
“Abe said yo
u got my son’s killers.”
“We arrested some boys last night, Jake, but we had to let them go.”
“You let them go. . . .”
“We don’t have enough to hold them yet, but we’ll get it. . . .”
“How?” Luria asked. Hawkins ignored him and talked to Levy.
“We’ll get witnesses, evidence . . . blood on their clothes, knives, we’ll get it.” The men around him were quiet; he kept on talking to Levy. “There’s five of them, Jake. That means we’ve got a chance. We pull ’em in at odd hours when they don’t expect it; we push and keep pushing till we find the weak link . . .”
“Weak link?” That came from Walinsky, who leaned forward facing Hawkins.
“The one most likely to break.” They all leaned forward to listen and for no reason Hawkins wondered which one was the weak link in this circle. Every group had one, no matter how solid it seemed. Dworkin with his warm, brown eyes would be it. But Hawkins didn’t understand why was he thinking about weak links here. These men weren’t his enemies. Levy loved him, he loved Levy, and the others wouldn’t hurt him; some of them didn’t trust him or any black and never would, but they weren’t men to hurt anyone. Except Luria . . . he faced Luria and their eyes met and locked. Luria would hurt him; Levy rubbed Hawkins’s hand. “The weak link,” Levy said, “tell me about the weak link.”
“We . . . work on him; we scare him until he avoids the others. Then we spread rumors that he broke and the others’ll know he’s weak and they’ll believe it. Then they’ll get scared that we’ll make a deal and leave them out.”
“Deal . . .” Luria’s voice was flat, like his eyes. “What deal?”
Hawkins knew he had made a mistake.
“Tell Jacob about the deal,” Luria said.
“What are they talking about?” Levy asked.
This time it was Walinsky who answered.
“They make deals, Jacob, like you’d make with Garfinkel for a diamond; they grab the momzers† and they all sit in a chamber . . . lawyers in ties and the judge in his robe . . . and they handel.‡ You did first-degree murder, they say, but that’s hard to prove and expensive to try and it takes too long, so even though we know you’re guilty, even though you killed a man, or woman, or little child . . . plead guilty to second-degree, or third-degree. No jury. No big news trial . . . and oy, the money we save! The time! And at least we get your rat’s ass off the streets for a year or two. . . .”
“A year or two?” Levy asked.
“More like ten,” Hawkins pleaded. “Maybe twenty.” If we’re lucky, he thought. But they were young, there were five of them, and he knew twenty years was a dream.
“And with parole,” Luria hissed, “good behavior, and aptitude tests . . .”
“That shit won’t buy much time from a murder rap,” Hawkins said.
Luria was ready. “But some, right? A year, six months. So what are we talking about, Inspector, six years for killing Adam, seven?”
Levy put his hands over his ears but Luria pulled them away. “Listen to it, Jacob. You can’t hide now any more than you could then. Tell him, Hawkins. Tell the truth. Seven years for murder . . . tell him!”
Levy appealed to Hawkins, “It’ll be fifteen, won’t it? Twenty . . .”
Suddenly it was an auction. Do I hear twenty-five?
“I don’t know.”
“Then they’re right?” Levy was begging him, but he didn’t know for what. Luria waited, the whole circle waited.
Hawkins said, “Maybe.”
Levy looked at Hawkins for a long time, then said sadly, “Seven years isn’t enough.” A verdict he didn’t want to come to, Hawkins thought, but he didn’t know who was on trial for what. “Just not enough,” Levy said, and the circle shifted and seemed to ease back.
“Time to eat,” Dworkin said. He touched Hawkins’s arm. Hawkins shrugged him off. “Jacob, we’ll get them and they’ll go to prison. Shit, Jacob, it’s hell in there . . .” Levy wasn’t listening and Dworkin’s hand was back on Hawkins’s arm. “You have to eat, Roger.”
Hawkins didn’t know what he’d lost, only that he had.
Levy said softly, finally, “Go eat, Roger.”
Hawkins stood up. The men outside the circle were still talking and eating. They hadn’t heard any of this. They weren’t part of it any more than Hawkins was. He was dismissed. Alldmann and Roth moved to let him out; Dworkin kept a hold on his arm, and before he could say any more to Levy he was on the outside and Dworkin was leading him to the table. He looked back. It was a definite circle, seven men and one empty stool. A circle of men—a tribe in Brooklyn.
Dworkin filled a paper plate with salads, lox, and sturgeon and held it out to Hawkins. He didn’t take it. “Abe, why did Luria slap you?”
Dworkin held the plate. “He was very nervous,” he said. “It was a terrible night.”
“But you said something first. It sounded like Aunt Sophie.”
“Aunt Sophie?” Dworkin asked.
“But drawn out . . . Aaaauunt Sooophie.”
Dworkin looked down at the plate. “We have to find you some place to sit.” He paused, then he said, “Listen to me, we come from the same village; we lived there for generations, maybe centuries. And after so long we’re probably related. Cousins, at least. It’s possible. So Adam was a cousin. More—a son, because he was so bright, and we could be so proud of him.”
If they were a family, Hawkins thought, they didn’t look like one. But even if they were, something more connected them. Family men compete, discuss, argue. These men didn’t even have to talk to each other. They were quiet, but no one was uncomfortable. An outsider broke the circle, bent over Levy, and said something. Then he spoke to Walinsky; then he left the circle, and they relaxed, because it was only them again.
“We’ll try the dining room,” Dworkin said, and he went down the hall, waving at Hawkins to follow. But Hawkins stopped in the doorway to look one more time at the men in the circle.
Dworkin came back without the plate. “You must eat,” Dworkin told him. Then in the kindest voice he said, “Customs last because they have a reason. You loved him, too, your grief is sharp and you feel empty. Eat, you’ll see, the emptiness shrinks and with it a tiny edge of the sorrow. Lean down to me.” Hawkins did, thinking Dworkin wanted to whisper something. But he kissed Hawkins’s cheek gently, firmly, with what seemed great affection. Then he said, “I just cried out last night. The sound was meaningless but it startled poor Isaac and he struck out blindly. You know how it is. . . .” He patted Hawkins’s arm, then went back to his stool and sat down. No one greeted him, no one even looked up, but the circle was complete.
Hawkins passed the dining room where Dworkin’s daughter, Golda Cohen, guarded his plate; Rachel wasn’t there. He went to the bathroom. The place was so hot even the tiles were warm. He looked at himself in the mirror. What battle did he lose and Luria win? What was so hard for Levy to face then and now?
He opened the door and went out into the hall. Mrs. Rosenblatt was waiting. She patted him. “Good to see you, Roger. It’s been too long . . . call.” She went into the bathroom and he opened the door to Adam’s room and went inside.
The horses looked down; young, beautiful Levy smiled at him from the bedside table over a big wedding chalah. He went to the aquarium; the fish sensed his presence and came to the top waiting to be fed. “Your master’s dead,” he told them. They hung there for a time, angels, and gueramis, the sweet black mollies with the bug eyes that never fought or bit other fish.
“Dead,” he told them. Tears filled his eyes. Adam, he thought. Adam, my friend. I can’t imagine what it will be like without you on this earth, without being able to think of you living somewhere. To call or see . . .
The fish had waited long enough, and they swam away.
He found Rachel in the big bedroom that had b
een Levy’s; she sat on the bed crying and holding the edge of her skirt in a wad in her hand. The dress was black with long sleeves and a high neck, and a scarf covered her hair.
“I can’t get up,” she said. Her face was pale, shining with sweat and tears. The scarf pulled at the sides of her face, making her eyes slant.
“Help me,” she said, rocking from side to side, still trying to get up on her own.
Her scarf was damp, and he wanted to take it off and dry her hair for her. He wanted to loosen the neck of the dress and help her take off her shoes and stockings. He suddenly thought of a French movie he’d seen with Mo when they were young. Jeanne Moreau was in it, and everyone said it was hot stuff because this guy went down on her on camera. He and Mo tried to get dates, and couldn’t, but they went anyway. He could see the actress’s mouth right now, fat, bitten-looking in the front. He could see her lying back on the bed, naked except for a string of pearls around her neck. He could see her in a white nightgown, walking through a field of tall grass with gauzy movie light shining on a lake in the distance. The graceful reeds bent as she moved, and her voice was soft and exquisite as she said in French, with the English printed in white on the gray screen, Love can happen in an instant.
“Help me,” Rachel said again, and he crossed the room to her. She was white and Adam’s widow, he told himself. Adam had been his best friend, and this was the day of his funeral. He stood in front of her and told her to bend her arms and hold them stiff. He tried not to look at the damp curls of her hair that escaped the scarf, or her nipples poking against the front of her dress. He looked over her head, cupped her elbows, and hoisted her up off the bed. Her belly brushed him, pressed lightly against his, and he got an erection. He knew she could feel it, and he stepped back quickly and crossed his hands in front of him preacher style.
She smiled at him. “We’re moving,” she said softly.
“Where?”
“Way out on the Island. Near Golda. We’re buying a house and a shop with the insurance money.”
“A shop?” he said stupidly. “You and Jacob?”