Redemption Street

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “Are you a Jew?” he asked haltingly, swerving his head about.

  “Why?”

  “A proud man would answer yes or no, not why. Are you a proud man?”

  When I did not answer immediately, he actually smiled at me. He handed me a small sheet of paper and walked silently away. I didn’t chase after him. I read the flyer.

  ARE YOU A PROUD JEW?

  29 Short Mountain Road

  Old Rotterdam, NY

  7 PM

  That was it. That was the entire text: no phone number, no directions, no overt message, just a question. I neatly folded the little paper and slipped it behind my license. But out of sight is not always out of mind. The question even drowned out my father-in-law’s voice.

  I decided to pass up my chat with Doc Pepper. I needed to sit and have a drink. I looked at my watch and considered heading back to the Swan Song. It was getting close to dinnertime, and the bottle Mr. Roth had given me was waiting eagerly under my bed, but Hanrahan’s was a lot closer. I thought about smoking half a pack of cigarettes to get my lungs in shape before heading over. I decided to rough it.

  The usual crowd of losers surrounded the bar. By this I don’t mean to imply that the people of Old Rotterdam were necessarily losers, or that the patrons of Hanrahan’s were any worse than the patrons of any other watering hole. Not at all. Like I said before, cops know bars. Bars, especially ones that serve food, are naturally crowded between noon and two o’clock. The same is true between the hours of five and seven. But at four or four-fifteen, when those who have jobs are at them, the denizens of most bars are losers.

  No one’s drinking piña coladas or munching on a delightful Cobb salad. At four in the afternoon, they’re reading the Racing Form, smoking cigarettes or Tiparillos, drinking speed-rack scotch with a cheap beer chaser. “A bat and ball” is what the old-timers called it. Who was I to be a nonconformist? “A bat and ball,” I ordered without bothering to look up.

  “Hey, how are you?” It was Sally, Molly’s friend and Sam’s ex-employee.

  “Hey, Sally, what’s shakin’?”

  “Nothing shakes in Old Rotterdam, not even the leaves.”

  She went to service one of the losers at the other end of the bar, but came right back when she was finished.

  “Molly tells me you’re a city cop.”

  “I was,” I said, shoving a twenty at her. “Why don’t you buy something for yourself on me.” She did. Sally had a taste for Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. “Sam tells me your husband’s a professional wrestler.”

  “Sam’s so full of shit I’m surprised he’s got room in there for his internal organs. Cheers!” We hoisted our glasses. “I haven’t had a husband in five years, and he was a professional all right, a professional asshole.”

  We both liked that. I told her to buy herself another. She didn’t exactly put up a fight. No matter what you might think, bartending is a hazardous occupation. It’s a breeding ground for alcoholism. When I was on the job and we’d go unwind after a shift, it was always a toss-up whether the cops at the bar or the bartenders were the bigger drinkers. And it was doubly hard on an attractive, amiable woman like Sally. Men, even the lowliest bums, have rich fantasy lives. When they sit at the bar across from a pretty barmaid, they’re not thinking of floral arrangements. They’ll buy her two drinks for every one they drink, and then drop a ten or twenty on the bar to impress her.

  “I hear you used to work for Sam,” I said.

  That didn’t go over any too well. She kind of sneered, not so much at me as at herself. “I did, yeah. That was a long time ago. I’m not into that anymore.”

  I certainly wasn’t going to press her on the subject. I offered to buy her another drink as a peace offering.

  “No thanks,” she said, pushing my twenty back across the bar at me. “Your drink’s on me. Take care.”

  Sally walked to the other end of the bar, apparently more comfortable with her regular losers. I was all ready to leave when a big-bellied man of fifty in a brown uniform and trooper hat put his left hand on my right shoulder. He might’ve been fat, but he was strong. If I’d wanted to, I would have had a difficult time standing up.

  “I’m Lieutenant Bailey,” he said, “Old Rotterdam Police.”

  “I’m Moe—”

  “I know who you are, Prager. Would you please step outside with me.”

  “If you take your hand off my shoulder, I’d be happy to.”

  I left the twenty on the bar for Sally and followed the lieutenant out the door. Darkness had descended in the time I’d spent unintentionally offending the barmaid. The lieutenant’s cruiser was parked at a sloppy angle to the curb in front of Hanrahan’s. It was comforting to know small-town cops had as little respect for traffic laws as their big-city counterparts.

  “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

  “You’ve been harassing people in town, and we’d like that to stop as of five minutes ago,” he said plainly enough, in a nasty-cop tone. Cops tell, they don’t ask.

  “I’m a licensed investigator working a case. I didn’t harass a soul.”

  “Walking up to complete strangers, asking questions about a subject no one wants to talk about—around here, we call that harassment,” Bailey let me know.

  “Well, then, we agree to disagree.”

  “Well, then,” he mocked, “we’ll just have to have somebody swear out a complaint.”

  “You do that. I wonder what Councilman Hammerling will think about you trumping up charges.”

  “What’s he gonna do, get Old Rotterdam Rodney to bite my ankles? Hammerling’s a local joke, Prager. I wouldn’t want to count on him for getting your ass out of the frying pan.”

  “I’ll take your advice under consideration,” I mumbled, taking a step to leave.

  “That wasn’t advice, shithead,” he said, pushing me off balance.

  “Keep your fuckin’ hands offme, fat boy,” I warned.

  He didn’t like that. He grabbed my coat with his left hand and began to pull me toward him. I clapped my right palm over the back of his porky hand, pressed my thumb over the nail of his left thumb, and flexed my thumb hard. Lieutenant Bailey, all 250-odd pounds of him, shrank to his knees. An ounce more pressure and his thumb would have snapped like a pretzel stick. My instructor at the academy, a black belt in jiu-jitsu, called this a thumb crunch. I’m sure there was a mystical Japanese name for it, but the English term got the essence of the technique dead on.

  “Listen, you fat fuck, I’m just doing my job. With any luck I’ll be out of this town by the weekend. You wanna strong-arm somebody, try another candidate.”

  I released my grip and walked away into the fallen night. I turned back to see Bailey flexing the feeling back into his hand. Good thing he hadn’t taken a swing at me. There’s no doubt in my mind he could have kicked the living shit out of me, but for now I was the king of thumb wrestling. The thing about glory is that it is always short-lived. When I got back to my car, Lieutenant Bailey and three other uniforms were waiting.

  “Moses Prager,” one of the uniforms spoke, “you’re under arrest for assaulting a police officer. Turn and face your car. Spread your legs far apart, and place your hands on the roof of your automobile.”

  “I know the drill. I’m licensed to carry a firearm,” I shouted loudly enough for anyone in the general vicinity to hear. “My .38 is holstered on—”

  Before I could finish my sentence, I was being patted down and my revolver was being removed. Looking over my shoulder, I could see Bailey smiling at me. He probably thought it a wonderfully evil smile, but compared with my father-in-law’s it was purely amateur-hour material. I was cuffed, given my Miranda warning, shoved into the backseat of a cruiser, and driven to the station. I was inked, mug-shot, and put in a holding cell along with a twenty-something. Given the look of his eyes and the smell of sweat, my guess was he was in for DWI. When I entered, my cellmate retreated to a corner and curled up into a ball of himself.

 
I didn’t start screaming for my phone call, nor did I demand to see a lawyer, the judge, or the chaplain. I needed time to think this through. I didn’t know who I’d call, anyway. Sam? Maybe, eventually. The only lawyer I had lived in Forest Hills and was good at drawing up business documents but wouldn’t know criminal procedure if it bit him in the ass. I could live without seeing the judge for now, and since the electric chair had been unplugged years ago, I was unlikely to need the chaplain. Besides, getting demanding with cops only gives them another way to torment you. I knew the game. You can’t deny somebody something he doesn’t want.

  They served me dinner around seven: meat loaf, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, Coke, and Jell-O. When I got out I’d have to recommend the chef to Sam, though I suspect the food came from the local luncheonette. Somehow I didn’t think there’d be much need to keep a full-time kitchen staff on duty at the Old Rotterdam jail. My cellmate wasn’t hungry, nor was he very talkative. He did, however, stay rolled up in a ball longer than I thought humanly possible.

  “Come on, Prager,” the uniform who brought me in ordered. “Your arraignment won’t be until the morning. We’re moving you to more comfortable accommodations for the night. Do I have to cuff you?”

  “Not unless you want the practice,” I joked.

  “That’s fine. Come on.”

  He opened up the cell and marched me down a long corridor, through a steel security door, and into a tidy little cellblock. There were six empty cells, three on each side. They each came with two beds, and a stainless-steel sink and toilet. There was even a TV mounted so that it could be viewed from any of the cells.

  “Take your pick,” the cop gave me the option.

  I chose the cell closest to the TV. My jailer made no bones about my selection. He let me in and handed me the remote control. Once I was settled in, he turned the TV to face me more directly.

  “You want your call now?” he asked.

  “I’ll save it for the morning, thanks.” I made myself as comfortable as possible and got down to watching some serious TV. Though I enjoyed my buddies at the Swan Song, the Old Rotterdam jail was tough competition. The food was better, the TV worked, and the bedding was cleaner. Maybe it was a good thing Sam was selling. I guess I started drifting off a little past ten. I think I remember listening to the local news.

  I was yanked up, a pillowcase pulled over my head. My hands were held behind me; my wrists were cuffed. Something that felt like a two-by-four whacked my right kidney so hard I nearly blacked out. I wasn’t dreaming. Even in the fog of interrupted sleep, I knew this was payback time for treating Lieutenant Bailey with disrespect. I held my breath, waiting for the second blow. It never came. Instead, I was being pushed along by big strong hands—Bailey’s, no doubt—guiding me, tugging my clamped wrists this way or that. Now I was worried. I’d been too smart for my own good. If I’d only taken the opportunity to make my call, someone would know where I was.

  The big hands shoved me into a car. When I tried to sit up, I was shoved down. When I tried to right myself again, I was shoved back down. I didn’t go for a third attempt. I tried talking, trying rather unsuccessfully not to sound desperate. No one answered. It was a very short ride, maybe two minutes at most. That was good. I wasn’t being driven beyond the town limits into the vast woodlands and snowy terrain, where a stranger could easily disappear until the spring thaw.

  I was being yanked out of the car. The air was cold, but I was sweating so intensely that I imagined steam must have risen off my body. Bang! I was slammed into a car. Then that second blow finally came. This time so hard I almost revisited my meat-loaf dinner. My knees buckled like card-table hinges and I went down hard. I struggled to catch my breath without puking up my guts. I heard keys clink on the pavement. My hands were uncuffed. A car rode away, fast.

  I just lay there trying to orient myself. Then I realized that if I was in the middle of the road it might not be such a good idea to lie there too long. I pulled the pillowcase off my head as I scrambled to my feet. Still unsteady, I braced myself against a car, my car. I’d recognize that black-painted hood anywhere. My keys lay in the street, not too far from where I must have fallen. I reached over to pick them up, and when I did my kidneys screamed for me to take it easy.

  Strangely enough, my car door was open. There on the driver’s seat were my personal effects, including the pictures of Arthur Rosen, and an old yellow police folder. I checked my wallet and license holder. All the cash was there. Everything seemed to be in order, even my .38. But the file had me curious. I flicked on my dome light. I was looking at a sixteen-year-old file on one Robert Higgins. The file was rather thorough. There were black-and-white pictures, detectives’ handwritten notes, typed witness statements, crude maps of the Fir Grove, even a psychological evaluation of the young Mr. Higgins done by a state-appointed shrink. I didn’t spend much time reading the contents, but one thing was as obvious as the nose on my face: somebody was trying very hard—too hard, maybe—to get me to finger Anton Harder née Robby Higgins for the Fir Grove fire.

  When I dragged myself into the lobby of the Swan Song, Sam was pacing back and forth behind the front desk.He didn’t even appear to be enjoying the fancy cigar hanging out of his mouth.

  “You’re all right!” he said, looking genuinely relieved. “I was worried when you missed dinner. I was gonna call the cops.”

  “That’s rich.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind, Sam. Never mind.”

  “I’d say you don’t look so good,” he said, coming to get a better view, “but that would be a lie, toteleh. You look a lot worse than not so good. You okay?”

  “I’ve been worse.”

  Sam did his famous finger-wagging. “I may be dumb but I’m not stupid. You don’t want to talk about it, right?”

  “Right. I’m just gonna haul my ass upstairs and take a hot bath.”

  “Lukewarm,” he corrected. “A hot bath hasn’t been here since the war.”

  “Vietnam.”

  “French and Indian.”

  “Good night, Sam.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot. You got two messages.” He ran back around the front desk and handed me two slips of paper. One call had been from Katy. I was more intrigued by the second. It was from someone named Joe, and he left a local number at which I could call him at any hour. I knew lots of Joes. None, however, with a local number.

  “Thanks, Sam. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

  I called Katy back immediately upon getting upstairs. Her dad was improving almost by the minute, though the doctor wanted to keep him in the hospital for another day or two to run tests and for observation. The old man wasn’t happy about it, but he wasn’t about to piss Katy off. Her mother had calmed down considerably with the increasingly good news. Sarah missed her daddy, so I was told. No more, I assured my wife, than I missed the two of them. I just said I was beat and had to get some sleep. I promised to call every day until I got home.

  “You sound awful,” Katy pointed out.

  “Dead tired, that’s all. I have a feeling things are coming to a head. I love you. Kiss Sarah for me in the morning.”

  As Sam predicted, the water was lukewarm. That was all right. It seemed to ease the tenderness around my kidneys. Two wicked, fist-sized bruises had already begun to form before I got in the tub. I read the Robby Higgins file for relaxation. The lead detective had suspected Robby from the very first, but could find zero physical evidence and no witness to tie him to the crime scene. He had an alibi, though weak by most standards. He claimed to have spent the night with his father, who was up visiting, and his father backed him. Neither ever wavered from his story.

  The fire investigation, such as it was, was laughable according to the cops. In the margin of one of his interview sheets, the detective wrote: “Fire department determined smoking in bed on way to fire!” The fire inspector never wavered from his story either.

  In a desperate attempt to shake something loose, the d
etectives convinced a local judge to order a psychological examination of Robby Higgins. I read the report carefully and it added up to nothing. The shrink made sure to cover his behind by covering every base and some that hadn’t been invented. Robby Higgins might have done it and he might not have done it. He might have wanted to do it and might not have wanted to do it. He was conflicted. He was clear-headed. The doctor’s assessment was as easy to get a handle on as a suitcase full of fog. And what made it worse was trying to wade through all the Freudian mumbo-jumbo that persisted through the sixties.

  Shortly after the report was filed with the court, Robby Higgins moved to Pennsylvania with his dad. Though the cops continued to suspect him, short of new evidence there was nothing they could do. The police department was not immune from the momentum to get beyond the fire. The file was classified as inactive within a few months of the fire.

  Frankly, I was less intrigued by the file itself than by the arcane method used to put it in my possession. I’d already pretty much given up on Anton Harder as a suspect. Someone had a lot invested in getting me reinterested in him. Who? It had to be someone with money and/or influence, someone who had a lot to lose by my poking my nose around. Obviously this someone had some serious juice with the local police. I thought about R. B. Carter, but that didn’t make any sense no matter how I kicked it about. I’d sleep on it.

  I put the mysterious Joe’s number on the nightstand next to the bed. I tried shutting my eyes, but I needed to get the phone call out of the way.

  “Hello,” a man’s tentative voice answered.

  “Joe there?”

  There was a second’s hesitation, as if the man on the other end had to try and remember who Joe was. “This is Joe.”

  “This is Moe Prager. You called me before at the Swan Song.”

  “I recognized him from the picture you showed me.”

  “Arthur Rosen?”