Tarnished Gold

by Ann Aptaker

  “Well, will you look who’s here. Cantor Gold.” Her greeting comes at me in the old familiar Lower East Side immigrant singsong, a melody that slides up and down and curls around like a roller coaster. “The last time you were in my house, you held a gun on me. A gun!”

  “Yeah, well, you broke my heart. Can I come in?”

  She stands there like Cerberus guarding the gates of Hades, then turns to walk back into the house. “Sure, come in,” she says over her shoulder. “Why not? Wipe your feet.”

  The frilly pink housecoat Mom’s wearing flutters like feathers on a fat chicken as we cross the hall on our way to the dining room, where a half-full glass of tea, a floral teapot, and a pot of honey are on the table. A lace cloth covers the table, as always, letting only hints of the polished mahogany beneath peek through. Everything in the old-fashioned room, all the fussy mahogany furniture, even the rosy flowers on the teapot, shimmer in the room’s amber-shaded lamplight. The place is still cozy, on the surface; underneath, the mood is cold as a Russian night.

  Mom sits down in her usual chair at the head of the table, pours tea into the glass, and stirs in a spoonful of honey, leaving the spoon in the glass to absorb the heat, a habit leftover from the Old Country. As I pull out a chair and sit down, she says, “Don’t sit if you want some tea. Get yourself a glass from the sideboard.”

  “No thanks. I don’t want any tea.”

  She looks me over while sipping her own tea, her small green eyes crinkling above the rim of the glass. When she puts the glass down, a chilly smile accompanies the crinkling eyes. “Still with the men’s clothes, I see. And fancy-shmancy ones tonight. A bow tie, even. You got a big evening, Cantor?”

  “Maybe I got all dressed up for you, Mom.”

  “Hah. Don’t make me laugh. Almost—what?—maybe two years you don’t come to see me or do business with me, and suddenly you’re all dressed up like Clark Gable come to say hello? Mommaleh, don’t try and fool an old lady. So tell me, Cantor, why is it you’re here? You got some nice goods to show me after all? Or you want me to find you a good buyer?”

  “I want information. And I want something to drink, something a lot stronger than tea. You keeping it in the same place?”

  “Yeh, over there, the cabinet in the sideboard. What kind of information you want from me?”

  “A watercolor was stolen last night,” I say on my way to the whiskey cabinet, “stolen from a client. That’s bad for business. And whoever stole my client’s watercolor also stole her life. Cut her up.” Saying it, thinking about my visit last night with Mrs. J, I pour myself a badly needed double. After pulling down half of it in one swallow, I say, “She was a sweet old lady, a real—”

  “Wait,” Mom says, sitting up, “you mean that woman over on West End Avenue that’s in the newspaper? An old lady knifed or something?”

  “Yeah, that’s her.”

  “The news article says she has a brother here in New York. Yeah, that’s it. She was one of yours? Huh. From what the newspaper says, she didn’t seem like the type of person to get mixed up in business with you.”

  “Did the papers also say she survived Hitler? That her husband and children burned in the ovens of Auschwitz?”

  The color fades from Mom’s face, fast, as if all of her blood simply dried up and blew through her skin like dust. Everything about her suddenly seems weak, even the way she puts down her glass of tea, even the way she speaks. “Cantor, you’re looking for this woman’s killer?”

  “Her name was Hannah Jacobson, and I’m looking for a Dürer watercolor I brought into town and delivered to her last night. It used to belong to her husband, before the Nazis stole his art collection. Could be if I find her killer, I’ll find the art.”

  “And what will you do when you find this killer? Cantor, be careful. A person who would do that, who would do such a thing as that to a woman who survived that Hitler”—the Yiddish word for murderer shoots out of her mouth like she’s spitting stones—“this is not a person who is a human being.”

  The only other time I saw Esther Sheinbaum look this shaken was the night her daughter died. And now tonight, this woman who generally has the fortitude of a mountain that can’t be breached or a safe that can’t be cracked, tonight she sits here in her own dining room as if monsters are under her chair, ready to devour her.

  But a few deep breaths, deep enough to flush the poison of ancestral fear from her marrow, restores her. She sits up straight, her bulk imposing as a fortress, her eyes narrowing, once again the Empress of the Underworld. “So,” she says, “you think I might know something about this watercolor picture by whatsisname?”

  “Dürer.”

  With a tinge of renewed alarm, she says, “A German? You’re tangling with Nazis? You think because Hitler is gone that all those mamzers are finished? Five years the war’s over, but that monster Mengele is still running around loose. Maybe he’s even here in New York.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “Dürer’s been dead over four hundred years. He wasn’t a Nazi. Look, have you heard anything about a Renaissance watercolor moving through the pipes?”

  With a shrug and a wave so dismissive it feels like I’m being pushed out the door, she says, “I can’t help you, Cantor. You know I don’t deal in paintings and the like. That’s your line. I deal strictly in hard goods like jewelry and antique tchotchkes. So if you’re looking for information from me about a fancy painting, you might as well go home now. Shoo.”

  I finish my drink but pour another. I’m not ready to go yet, not ready to let her off.

  She watches me drink as if I’m an amusing disappointment, then says, “Better you should have some tea, Cantor. Too much whiskey will kill you.”

  “Your concern warms me all over, Mom. Listen, with all your contacts and all the people who owe you favors, you can probably pick up even the quietest whispers about anything that’s floating around, even a Dürer watercolor. I’m asking you to listen to the whispers and tell me what you hear.”

  “And who have you talked to so far?”

  “Mrs. Jacobson’s brother, and Max Hagen, from Pauling-Barnett.”

  “Max Hagen? That faygeleh?”

  “You know him? He made a big deal about not dirtying his hands with our kind.”

  “He doesn’t. But he’s cozy with people who do, people who’ve sat right here at this table.”

  “Anybody you can muscle for information?”

  She takes another sip of tea, looking at me over the rim of the glass, then takes her time about putting the glass down before she finally answers me, keeping me in my place. “You hold a gun on me,” she says, “you don’t talk to me nearly two years, and now you come around asking for favors? Maybe you could tell me why should I do this for you, Cantor?” She practically sneers it.

  “Because—oh, hell, never mind.” Annoyed at myself for even thinking the old stone mountain would give a damn, especially if there’s nothing in it for her, I polish off the scotch, put the glass down on the sideboard with more force than the furniture’s used to, and start out of the dining room.

  Before I’m out though, I get an idea. I turn back to Mom, say, “Don’t do it for me. Do it for Hannah Jacobson, and for her brother, who’s dead now, too, by the way. Murdered. Do it to spite the monsters.”

  She’s still sitting there like stone, but there’s just enough of something, some emotion creeping into the corners of her mouth, that forces her to mumble, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  *

  It’ll be a while until Mom gets back to me with any information she manages to scavenge, and until then there’s really nothing more I can do tonight. It’s been a lousy day, I should just pack it in, but I’m restless and it’s too early to cash out the night.

  So I’m headed for the Green Door Club, a favorite spot where the women are willing and the music is sweet, hidden away in an alley off the tawdry hip of Fourteenth Street.

  I find a parking spot nearby, then walk into the
shadowy alley, the only light coming secondhand through windows in the surrounding buildings, oblongs of light that linger or fade. A dim glow rises from the bottom of a stairway leading down to the basement of a building on the right of the alley. Lounging along the railing at the top of the stairs are sharp dressers in tailored suits and rakishly tilted hats, enjoying a smoke, conversation, and the embrace of women whose evening wraps and cocktail dresses could rival even the taste of one Miss Vivienne Parkhurst Trent. Corners of light find a red hem, a gold bodice, the upper edge of an aqua elbow-length glove. I hear, “Evening, Cantor,” here and there. Someone asks if the banged-up state of my face is the result of an act of chivalry or a jealous dame. The question gets a few laughs.

  At the bottom of the stairs is a pale green door with a polished brass handle. Weak light from a single bulb glows above the door. There’s no sign. If you need a sign, you don’t belong here.

  I walk in.

  Every nightspot has its own feel. The Green Door Club feels like an intimate party where your day job won’t come up for discussion. There are always familiar faces, a sprinkling of new ones to keep the night interesting, and everyone is comfortably enough juiced to let life’s dramas play out. The Green Door Club has seen dramas of hand-wringing emotional zeal.

  The red leather booths are full, so are most of the little white-clothed tables with couples in assorted varieties of evening wear: some in tuxedos or dinner jackets, some in suits, their dates and lovers in cocktail dresses and high heels. The unattached but hopeful assess their chances from positions at the long coppered bar, some seated on the bar stools, some standing, all of them posturing like dandified bucks or babes from Broadway. Blue music from a three-piece combo—the piano and saxophone dressed in pale green taffeta, the drum in a tuxedo—drifts through the smoke and the chatter and the laughs. Faces are caught by the light of small pink-shaded lamps on the tables. Jewelry flashes. Lipstick glistens. Couples dance. Bottles and glassware sparkle on the wall behind the bar. Forbidden love has a place to call home.

  Peg Monroe is behind the bar. Peg is tall, strong, and well padded, with skin the color of caramel, her short hair always neat with pomade. She has dark brown eyes that notice everything and a finely shaped mouth on a face too sweet for her swagger. It’s a face better suited to somebody’s virginal aunt, the one with the tough streak. Peg’s dark eyes will drill holes in you while a velvet trace of a Georgia drawl fondles you. Sometimes Peg wears a tie. Sometimes she wears a dress. Sometimes she wears a tie and a dress. You never know with Peg. Tonight she’s wearing a green-and-gray plaid tie open at the collar of a white shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. A big gold watch on her left wrist glitters as her large hands move with quickness and grace mixing drinks, handing them to a cocktail waitress, then pouring a highball for a pretty blonde in a strapless silver dress at the far end of the bar.

  “Evening, Slick,” Peg greets me as I slide onto a stool at the bar. Peg’s called me Slick since the night I sweet-talked an irate ex out of scratching my eyes out right in the middle of the dance floor. Peg described my contrition act as slick, and her name for me stuck. That was four years ago. “Shot of Chivas?” she says, already reaching for the bottle.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Make it a double.”

  She looks me over while she pours the drink. “Nice dinner duds,” she says. “Fancy evening?”

  “Maybe too fancy.”

  “And what’s with your chin? Every time I see you, Slick, there’s another gash on that handsome face of yours.”

  “I came in for a rough landing last night, that’s all.”

  “Interesting. You gonna share the story?”

  “Nope. I’m gonna drown it.” I down the double scotch in one pull. “Pour me another, Peg.”

  She holds the bottle above my glass but doesn’t pour. “Maybe you should take it a little slower this time,” she says.

  “What’s this? I’m not drunk.”

  “No, but you’re gonna be real fast, too fast, if you down doubles like that. Now take it slow, you hear?”

  I give her my most courtly smile. “Well, yes, ma’am,” I say. “Slow and easy.”

  Peg pours the double but keeps her eyes on me while I take a drink, careful not to suck it up in one pull.

  I take a look at that pretty blonde in the strapless silver number at the end of the bar. She has delicate shoulders, soft eyes, a cute mouth, and a dainty way of holding her highball glass. Her dress is the slinky sort, at least what I see of the upper half of it above the bar.

  Peg, catching me eyeing the blonde, says, “So, you ready to make your move?”

  Maybe that’s just what I need, a little warmth from a stranger, maybe a roll in the hay with no strings and no expectations to smooth out the jagged edges of my crummy day. I slide off my bar stool and walk toward the woman in the silver dress at the end of the bar.

  The closer I get to her the more I’m aware that her soft blue eyes have dark depths of sadness. Someone’s hurt this pretty little sweetheart, recently, I’d guess, and now she’s here to drown the pain. I should tell her there’s no drowning it, there’s only washing it clean enough not to poison the rest of you. It’s taken a lot of scotch over the last two years to wash my pain over Sophie, and it’s still not fully clean. Maybe it will never be.

  I wandered over here to ask the woman if I could buy her a drink, but I’m surprised to find myself saying instead, “Would you like to dance?”

  The sad eyes look me over like maybe I’m a leaky boat that’s washed up on her shore.

  Maybe if I introduce myself, take the Who the hell are you? element out of it, I’ll come off as courteous suitor and not that leaky boat. “My name’s Cantor Gold.”

  She says, “I know who you are,” through a voice that’s soft and distant, like someone whose body is here but whose mood isn’t. “Those scars on your face give you away. Your scars are famous. And your chin looks like you’ve recently added to the collection.”

  “Then we have something in common,” I say.

  She looks at me like I’ve just said something in a foreign language, one she’s not familiar with.

  “I mean, I think we both could use some soothing,” I say and extend my hand. “So, would you like to dance?”

  She pauses to think about it, looks at my hand, then my face, then back to my hand again, and decides I’m not such a leaky boat after all, or at least one not in danger of sinking both of us quite yet. She takes my hand and slides off the bar stool.

  Yeah, that strapless silver dress is slinky from top to bottom.

  “What’s your name?” I say.

  “Tess McBain.”

  “Pretty name, Tess.” I lead her to the small dance floor near the band. It’s crowded with couples moving body to body to a slow and melancholy tune that has plenty of sex sliding through the crooning saxophone. I take Tess in my arms, and we dance, cheek to cheek, heartbreak to heartbreak.

  She’s a wonderful dancer, smooth, her body responsive. My hand presses gently against the softness of her back, guiding her in the dance. Her hips fold themselves into mine. Her body is sexy and warm, its heat coming through the thin fabric of her dress, seeping into me, oozing into my most tender places. I can tell by the way she’s moving against me that she’s aware of the effect she’s having on me and that she’s pleased with it, which arouses me even more. I press more of me against her, absorb the swell of her breasts, slide my hand down her back to the delicious roundness of her ass. The longer we dance, the more slowly we sway, the music wraps around us and closes us off in our own erotic world.

  But it’s no good.

  My body is willing, but my soul needs a safer place to harbor after the horrors of last night and today.

  I stop dancing and pull away. “I’m sorry,” I say.

  With a nod of disappointment but not surprise, she says, “Yeah, me, too. I thought we might distract each other from our troubles for a while. I guess not.”

  “I wish we
could. I really do. Look, I don’t know who hurt you or why, but I have the feeling they’re a fool.”

  That gets the first smile from her since I saw her at the bar. “Why, thank you, Cantor Gold. You know, they say you’re dangerous, but I don’t think so. But I could be wrong.”

  *

  Home beckons.

  By the time I park in the basement garage and ride the elevator up to my apartment, I figure maybe Rosie can salvage things a little, at least soothe my bruises—the ones on my skin, the ones the Jacobson and Stern murders clawed me with, and the one Vivienne delivered to my ego by staying at Hagen’s. Maybe Rosie is that safe harbor I need tonight.

  Taking off my dinner jacket and untying the bow tie that feels like it’s choking me now, I don’t even bother turning on a light in the living room on my way to the bedroom. I don’t turn on a light here either, just flop down on my bed. A shaft of city light through the window guides my hand as I dial Rosie’s number on the bedside phone. Sweet Rosie. When I called her from my office this morning, she was on her way out the door for an early shift, so maybe she’s home now. And it’s only a little after eleven thirty. She’s probably still awake.

  The minute she picks up the phone and says hello, I feel better.

  “It’s me, Rosie,” I say. “You busy?”

  “What do you have in mind, Cantor?” If she said it any more seductively, I’d crawl through the phone and slither through the wire all the way to her place.

  “Well, we could—wait, hold on, someone’s at the door.”

  Out of habit, my heart races, because like last night, like any night during the last two years when there’s a buzz at my door, I hope and pray and imagine it’s Sophie: Sophie escaped from God knows who and what, Sophie coming back to me.

  But also like last night, it could be Lieutenant Huber and his lackey, Tommy the Cop, come to twist my arm some more. Or like this morning, it could be Jimmy Shea and his lackey, Screwy Sweeney, come to twist all of me some more.