by neetha Napew
“Hey, what’ll you take for one of those things?” a bearded man asked, pulling at Eric’s sleeve.
“No one has that much money,” Eric replied.
“I wouldn’t insult you by offering you money, man,” was the retort. “That’s enough, Mac,” the Cardinal head guard said, moving swiftly between the two men. Kris idly wondered what the man would have offered as she followed the others out of the foyer. The fresh breeze cooled her face and smelled of newly mown grass and other, less salubrious odors.
“What’s in there?” the guard asked, pointing to the Saks carriers. “Oh, there was a sale on,” she said whimsically and deposited them in the truck bed on one side of the dental chair. Her wrists and arms ached from lugging the oddments down so many flights. If they hadn’t had the floats, how would they have managed? With great relief, she hauled herself back into the front seat and reached for the bottle of water that she had seen earlier. She was parched. She handed it to Zainal when he slid in beside her. Murray pulled another container from the door pocket on his side and took a long swig before a whistle reminded him that a guard was clearing the sidewalk and street so they could depart.
“Where to now?” Murray asked.
“Onethirteen East Thirteenth Street,” Jelco said, consulting his notepad. “Eddie Spivak’s Dental Supplies.”
“A snap,” Murray said. “We can go right down Ninth, or would you prefer Broadway or even Fifth?”
“Most direct route, Murray. We gotta conserve gasoline, y’know,” Jelco said repressively.
“Gotcher!”
“Murray, is Macy’s still there?” Kris asked softly.
“Yeah, but it still don’t talk to Gimbels, which ain’t,” and he bestowed another of his frightening toothless grins on her, reminiscent of Popeye.
“Oh!”
There was more traffic on the street nowmost of it handcarts, many of them heaped with clothing and rolls of fabric. Kris remembered Floss and wondered what she had to trade for some blue cloth. As they passed a cart, she saw the blue had a huge stain down the middle of the bolt and she shrugged the incident aside.
They turned left on Fourteenth to Second Avenue and then turned right, and Kris noticed there seemed to be few vehicles. Maybe oneway streets were no longer required as traffic controls. She didn’t remember this area at all, if she’d ever been in it. There were three and fourstory houses, all made into tenements to judge by the fire escapes, interspersed with concreteblock buildings that would house familyowned businesses of some sort. There were two cafes: she could see people at the counters eating whatever it was, and drinking. Coffee? She licked her lips. A cuppa would taste nice right now. Give her some energy. She was beginning to sag with fatigue. She wondered how the rolls were holding up and if there were enough to “do lunch” for everyone. They still had two trays of rock squats.
“One hunnert and t’oiteen,” Murray said with some pride, pointing to a threestory building that had a storefront clearly marked EDDIE SPIVAK, DENTAL SUPPLIER.
Eric sighed with relief. Some of the groundlevel stores on both sides of the street looked empty from looting. Eddie Spivak’s windows boasted iron grills and there was a pullup aluminum shutter across the front, a certain deterrent to pilfering. Murray pulled over to the side and instantly people’s heads popped out of the upperstory windows.
“Neighbors!” he said with some disgust as he turned off the motor. “So?”
Eric had already vaulted out of the truck back and was running down the narrow walk between Eddie’s and number 115. He pounded on the door.
“Eddie? Eddie Spivak? It’s Eric, Eric Sachs. Are you there? Open up! Is he home?” Eric craned his neck up, looking through the iron slats of the fire escape at the observers. “I’m a dentist. An old customer of Eddie’s. Where is he?”
“He’s in. Leastwise,” an old woman cried in answer, “ain’t seen him or his missus today,” she added warily.
“EDDIE!” Eric put his hands to his mouth to shout. “IT’S ERIC
SACHS!” He rattled the doorknob and then stopped, peering through the grill on the small window set in the door, trying to see inside. Suddenly the door was pulled in and an old man stood in the doorway, staring at what to him was evidently an apparition. He had a scalpel in his raised hand that he immediately lowered after recognizing his visitor.
“Dr. Sachs!” The man came forward, embracing Eric enthusiastically. “I can’t believe my eyes and ears. It’s been years! Where did you go to?”
“Long story” Eric said, “but do you still have any supplies? I’m setting up my office in a new location and I need a few things ... if you have them.”
“Who’d rob a shop like mine?” Eddie said, shrugging. Then he saw the truck and its load. “You really are moving, aren’t you? Sudden?” “Sudden,” Eric said, grinning as Kris and Jelco joined them, Zainal following more slowly. “These are my friends Kris Bjornsen and Jelco. And Zainal behind them is also.”
“What’s a Greeme doing on this side of the Hudson?” Eddie asked, suddenly halfclosing the door as if he feared Jelco might barge into his premises.
“Escorting us. We had to work through coord channels, you might say,” Eric said with a dismissive flick of his hand.
“Haven’t done much business,” Eddie said in a gloomy tone. “Who has time for dentistry when the world has gone to pot?”
“I do,” Eric said. “How’s Suzie? The grandkids?”
“Suzie’s been ill, and I don’t know where my son, the lazy wretch, has got to.” Evidently the shortcomings of his son was an old topic of conversation between them, but Eddie stepped back and gestured politely for Eric to enter.
Kris, a spare pack with more than a dozen rolls in it looped over her arm, followed. There was an acrid smell in the air, similar to the one in Eric’s small laboratory. Every profession has a special kind of odor attached to it, she thought.
However, nothing was wrong with Eddie’s olfactory senses because he sniffed, probably catching the odor of the rolls.
“I need some porcelains. Some of the good Liechtenstein ones,” Eric said. “The darker shades, if you still have any.”
Eddie gave a shrug. “Darker shades aren’t that much in demand. Come.”
He beckoned them farther in and flipped at a wall switch. Lights came on.
“Well! Whaddya know. Lights. Lights, Suzie. She’s been doing some knitting, you see. Someone supplies the wool, she supplies the hands,” he said, again shrugging off such a necessity. “No one teaches girls housewifely arts anymore, you know”
The lights showed a small foyer with two stools and a countertop. Eddie lifted the edge of the section near the wall and walked back into an area where he stored his wares.
“Good to have light. You’ll be able to see the Vitapan shade chart.” He rooted under the counter for a moment and then handed Eric a piece of cardboard with what looked to Kris like teeth inserted around the edges. Eric immediately started examining it, glancing from time to time at Zainal. Then, as if recalling himself to the task at hand, Eric pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket.
“I gotta list of other things I’ll need. Jaw trays. Sizes one and two, mandibularoh, twentyone through twentyfour.”
Eddie gave a little guffaw. “Whom are you doing dentures for? Neanderthal man? Don’t know if I have any jaw trays those sizes. But maybe I have. . .” He walked straight to a row of cardboard boxes, neatly extracting one about halfway down with such a deft yank that none of the ones above it were disturbed. It clattered when he put it on the countertop.
“And some bonding gel. Several tubes of that, please.”
“Hmm. Got that, and you’re lucky,” he added a moment later, four tubes flat on his hand. “Last I got and who knows when more will be made. Not that there’s such a big demand for this either. Where are you setting up practice?”
“Botany,” Eric said, then tapped the porcelain teeth. “I’ll have all the colors from Bfour through Dthree.”
“Do
ne.” Eddie was pulling out yet another drawer: they could hear the clicking of glass against glass, and then he started pulling individual vials out, setting them on a tray.
“Next? You don’t know what a relief it is to be back at work,” Eddie said with a huge sigh.
“Who’s dere wid you, Eddie?” asked a querulous female voice from the small hall that led to the back of the building.
“Eric Sachs, Suzie.”
“Eric? But I heard he got transported.” Eddie gave Eric a wideeyed stare.
“I was, but I’m back, Suzie. Good to hear your voice,” Eric said, raising his to be heard.
“Oy, Eric, you wouldn’t believe what we’ve been through,” Suzie said, and a very fraillooking woman came into the light of the foyer. Her hair was skinned back from her face and bundled into a neat chignon. She clutched an old plaid dressing gown around her and her face looked pinched with hunger and sorrow.
“I have a little idea, Suzie m’dear, and it must have been dreadful for you,” Eric said sympathetically.
“Don’t kvetch, Suzie. This is business,” Eddie said, evidently to forestall a litany of disasters.
“How’s Molly keeping?” she asked, willing to exchange information as well as kvetch.
“I don’t really know,” Eric said, darting a glance at Kris.
“We may be able to find out today,” Kris said, hoping that Dan Vi_ tali might have a connection to the Florida coords so Eric could check the registry lists of the area.
“So many friends dead, and gone who knows where?” Suzie said, her tone plaintive. “How are you finding clients these days, Eric?” She pointed with a worn and arthritically gnarled hand at the tray Eddie was filling.
“I find those I can,” Eric replied. “It’s good to contemplate being useful again.” He shot a grin at Zainal, who was still in the shadows of the doorway.
“Useful is good,” Suzie agreed and sat down abruptly on one of the stools. It rocked under her and Eric steadied her by the arm. She wasn’t a big woman but awkward. She hauled a handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose. “Always a cold. Never am warm enough these days. I could have gone to visit Becky in Florida before it happened. At least I would have been warm.”
“Stop with the kvetching, Suzie. Who’s been warm this winter? No one.” He evidently asked and answered many questions out loud, for she shrugged and inched herself to a comfortable position on the stool, hugging her thick dressing gown around her. Then she sniffed, looking around.
“I smell bread. Oh, God, I’m going out of my mind. I can smell bread.” Then she looked at Kris. “I haven’t smelled bread in months!” “We have brought bread and some other food to trade for these items,” Eric said. “We thought that was better than money.”
“Never thought anything would be better than money,” Suzie said, rubbing her fingers together in an ageold gesture.
Though neither Eddie nor Eric had mentioned paying for the items that were now displayed on the countertop, Kris opened the backpack and, indeed, the odor of fresh bread wafted out. Kris offered Suzie a roll.
“I baked them myself,” she said, almost apologetically, and passed
her a roll. The old woman tentatively reached out for the bread, glancing at her husband as if she didn’t dare complete the gesture until he had agreed. He nodded.
“Take it,” Kris said and extended her hand until the roll was nearly in the woman’s fingers. They closed on the bread as if the woman was afraid Kris would snatch it away from her.
“Would you excuse me?” Suzie said, holding the roll protectively against her chest as she backed out of the room.
Kris placed the backpack on the counter and offered a roll to Eddie, who eyed it as Murray had, with longing.
“I’ve nothing to offer you to drink,” Eddie said wistfully. “We have all we need,” Eric said soothingly.
Eddie took another deep breath. “You could charge for the smell of it, you know,” he murmured. “What else?” he asked, hands on the edge of the counter.
Eric named a few more things, which Eddie scurried to find from his supplies.
“Now, I gotta tell you I can’t charge it, Eric, though you were always one of the promptest to settle your account,” Eddie said, eyeing the roll. “And two rolls ain’t enough.”
Kris peered into the backpack. “Fifteen, sixteen rolls.” “Well...”
“And some other food. Zainal, ask Dover to bring in a flat of the rock squats.”
“Rock squats?” Eddie asked, surprised.
“A sort of avian from Botany that is very tasty. Game bird. It’s been cooked.”
“Kosher?” Eddie asked.
“You’re asking kosher?” Eric said, surprised. He rested a hand on Eddie’s and squeezed reassuringly. “I know God is everywhere and sees all, but you look like you need a few good meals. However, to re assure you, this is a koshertype game bird and hunted, which is permissible, even if it is alien. Are you going to go kosher on me when I have good food to offer you in return for all this?”
“We do have gold,” Zainal suggested.
“Gold, smold, what good is gold with shortages like we got?’ Eddie demanded.
“You were never that orthodox, Eddie,” Eric said so firmly that Eddie Spivak gave a little shrug.
“No, but I still got my ethnic pride.”
Eric blew an exasperated breath out just as Dover came in with the rock squats. He had judiciously covered the tray with one of the clean bread towels. With a flourish, he flicked off the towel to show the browned halves of rock squat.
Despite longheld principles, Eddie peered at the display. Kris could see his lips moving, not so much from hunger as from counting. The flat held twentyfour portions. And, when he achieved the total, Eddie clasped his hands together, almost reverently.
“Enough food for days!” he said on a happy sigh. “And the bread, too?”
“Both. Enjoy and have good health,” Eric said. “ Is this enough for what I have purchased?”
“More than enough. Can we make soup out of it, too?” he asked Kris, pointing to the rock squats. “They look like chickens.”
Kris laughed. “Chicken soup is good for colds. I don’t know as we ever used it specifically for that on Botany, but it does make a good soup.”
“You have saved us, then, Eric,” Eddie said with great solemnity, clasping his hands together against his chest.
“The backpack isn’t ours to trade,” Kris said when she heard Jelco clear his throat. “And I could use the flat tray back, too, if you don’t mind.”
“A minute, please,” Eddie said and, flipping up the counter leaf, stepped out. He started for the hall down which Suzie had disap
peared and then whipped back, neatly picking up a rocksquat half before he was off again.
They could hear a shriek and then a gabble of excited comment before Eddie came back with a tray and a bread basket. He upended the backpack into the basket and carefully transferred the roasted meat to the tray, licking his fingers when he had finished the operation. “Hmm, not bad.” He grinned like a happy gnome. Eric held out his hand. “Then we have a done deal?”
Eddie grasped it, shaking firmly. “Best deal I’ve been able to make in weeks.”
Then Eric carefully packed away his supplies in the canvas carrier and pulled the loops over his arm.
“Will you be back again from this Botany place, Dr. Sachs?” Eddie asked as everyone shifted toward the door.
Eric gave a diffident shrug. “Who knows?”
They exchanged more good wishes as Eddie saw them to the door. Once in the alleyway, they could hear him closing bolts and turning keys.
Urchins had gathered around the truck, Murray trying to shoo them away while Wylee stood, legs spread, in the truck bed, trying to look fierce.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Jelco said, motioning for Kris and Zainal to get back in the front seat. “Didja get everything you needed, Doc?” Jelco asked as Eric carefully handed th
e backpack up to Dover, advising him to place it carefully.
“Actually, more than I hoped I’d find,” Eric said, swinging up onto the back of the truck. “Eddie Spivak always kept his inventory current. Nothing here is close to its useby date.”
Kris gave a chortle. “’Useby’ date has probably lost its significance. And I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m hungry. We’ve enough rock squats for lunch, you know. And about two dozen more rolls.”
“Let’s do this down the road a bit,” Jelco said, motioning to the kids who were now standing back from the truck. “I don’t want to cause a minor riot, being seen to have food.”
“Oh!” was all Kris could say. “Maybe we should. . .” she began, thinking of the wizened, hungry little faces.
“Charity begins at home,” Jelco said so firmly that Kris put her usual compassion on hold. They really didn’t have enough to share. They pulled up farther down Thirteenth, where there was no audience looking out of upper stories. Murray almost gulped down his portion of rock squat, licking his fingers for any juice, before he pulled apart his ration of roll. No one asked for seconds. But there were still supplies left.
They proceeded back to the Lincoln Tunnel, Kris trying not to look at the pathetic little clusters of people at street corners, ragged and hungrylooking. They stopped only long enough for the Eastside guards to check them off as returning, though the cargo was eyed with curiosity.
Kris didn’t even give a thought to the air she was breathing in this second pass under the Hudson River. She wouldn’t die of a lungful of tainted air. She took a deep breath once they came out on the other side.
“Hey, New Jersey smells pretty good.”
“Even Secaucus smells pretty good now there ain’t no more pigs raised there,” Murray said. “Mind you, I wouldn’t mind the smell if it’d get me a roast of pork now and again.”
They proceeded south on the turnpike until they saw the airport on the right. Also visible was the unmistakable bulk of the BASS1, sitting on the runway just where they had left it.
Their return must have been observed because Jelco’s phone buzzed. He answered it with an affirmativeevidently a response to a query about their mission’s success. He listened silently for a moment, casting a sideways glance at Zainal