by Lee Harris
“Jacket?”
“We had jackets made. On the back it said Morris Avenue Boys and on the front, right here over the pocket, our name. That’s half the reason we gave ourselves a name, so we could get jackets.”
“I didn’t know about the jackets. I toured your old homestead this afternoon with David Koch but he didn’t mention them. What I’m wondering—I talked to Dr. Greene last night. He’s the only one of the group who doesn’t want to see me.”
“Ernie’s always working, always busy, always going to international conferences. I wouldn’t put too much importance on his not meeting with you. He’s not a killer; he’s a saver of lives. I think sometimes how unbelievable it is that a kid I played ball with in the street grew up to do so much good. Believe me, Ernie may be a little brusque with strangers but he’s all good. Of all of us, he’s at the top.”
“That’s quite a tribute. I also haven’t been able to reach Bernie Reskin. I assume it’s just that he hasn’t been home when I’ve called.”
“Keep trying. Bernie’ll talk your ear off when you get to him. He’s quite a guy. He’s another person who’s devoted his life to helping other people. Teaching isn’t what it used to be, but he gets those kids to learn, he gets them into college, he’s really something.”
Arlene walked into the room holding a boy’s jacket in front of her. I hadn’t seen her leave. She was smiling broadly. She turned the jacket around and I saw Morris Avenue Boys in thick light-blue letters on the navy background.
“I love it,” I said.
“It’s falling apart, but isn’t that something?” She showed me her husband’s name on the front, then laid the jacket carefully on another chair.
“It’s my impression,” I said to her, “that women often know when certain things are going on even if their husbands don’t. Did Arthur Wien ever have an affair with the wife of one of the men in the group?”
She looked surprised. Her mouth opened but she said nothing. Finally she said, “Who told you that?”
“I heard it had happened,” I said.
“I’m floored. Artie and one of the wives? Whoever said that was misinformed or had a grudge.”
“Who would have a grudge?” I persisted.
“Nobody. Nothing like that ever happened. And if it did, I don’t know anything about it.” She looked troubled, whether because something had happened that she had no knowledge of or because of the insinuation, I could not tell.
I turned back to her husband. “Let me ask your advice. I’ll be in New York in the next day or two. How awful would it be if I just dropped in on Dr. Greene unannounced?”
“Go for it,” Bruce said. “What do you think’ll happen? He won’t have a temper tantrum; he’s not the type. He may not talk to you, but if he does, you can believe every word he says.”
“Can I believe you?” I asked.
“Why not? Do I look like a man who has something to hide?”
I assured him he didn’t and wrapped up our meeting. I had a copy of the famous first novel of Arthur Wien now and I couldn’t wait to get started reading it. And who had wanted or not wanted to sit next to Arthur Wien at the reunion?
10
We sat in the sitting area of our master bedroom suite, a luxury I could not have imagined four years ago when I left St. Stephen’s. One nice feature for a careful spender like me is that we put the upstairs on its own heating zone and did the same with the downstairs so we can turn down the rest of the house and keep ourselves warm in the winter and yes, cool in the summer. But the weather was so perfect this June night that we needed nothing more than to open the window and breathe the fresh air.
I had several of the photos from the reunion spread out in front of me on our little table. There was no picture of the whole group, just snapshots of a few here, a few there. I guessed who Cindy Wien was because she was the youngest, and I assumed the man beside her was her husband. To his left was a woman I had not met, but in another picture she sat to the right of Dr. Horowitz. She seemed perfectly happy there. The Meyers were at an end of the table, probably on the other side from the Wiens, and the Koches also seemed to be across from the Wiens. The arrangement didn’t tell me much but it gave me something to ask about.
“So you’ve seen all but two of the likely suspects and you’ve visited the Bronx,” Jack said. “Any leads?”
“They’re the nicest group of men and women I’ve ever met. If you asked me I would say not one of them could be a killer and I can’t think of a reason why any of them would want to kill Arthur Wien.”
“Maybe none of them did.”
“If none of them did, I’ve really got problems. I’m going to call Elsie in the morning and see if I can drop Eddie off again. I want to get back to the restaurant before the maitre d’s memory fades. I’ve got a picture of the Bellers, and I want to know if either of them was there on the night of Father’s Day.”
“You’re right. Do it fast.”
“And I’m thinking—” I hesitated because the thought of what I was planning made me very nervous. “I’m thinking of just dropping in on Dr. Greene and seeing if he’ll give me ten minutes of his time. I can’t really exclude him as a suspect if I never talk to him. And I can’t accuse him just because I haven’t spoken to him.”
“Give it a try. If he doesn’t talk to you, do what you can without him. But you know, an M.D. probably knows where to put an ice pick better than a guy who hasn’t studied the human body.”
“I know. And that makes Dr. Horowitz more of a suspect than the others too.”
“I see you’ve got a new book to read.”
“This is the great book, Jack, The Lost Boulevard, Arthur Wien’s first novel. Published before his thirtieth birthday. Can you believe that?”
“Since I’m almost the oldest person in my law class, I can’t. Tell me about it as you go along.”
“I’m also going to try to talk to the first Mrs. Wien. She lives in Manhattan, over on the West Side. With luck, I’ll hit the restaurant, talk to the doctor, and see her—all before I come back. That’ll leave the teacher. I’ll call him again tomorrow.”
“So what’ve you got? You must have something cooking up there.”
“Fred Beller,” I said. “I’ve been springing it on each of the men, that he’s here in New York—or was until yesterday—and they’re all speechless. None of them has seen him in twenty years.”
“Except Dr. Horowitz.”
“Except Dr. Horowitz, and I haven’t talked to him about it yet. But I’m sure he knows by now that I know. David Koch will have told him. The only other person in the group that saw Fred Beller was Arthur Wien.”
“I’m listening.”
“And there was something strange about their meeting. They ran into each other when the Bellers were visiting California. The Bellers invited Wien to visit if he was in Minneapolis. Wien did a book signing there and they were supposed to get together, but they didn’t.”
“And Beller didn’t tell you why.”
“He said Arthur’s schedule was too full. But Marge Beller stumbled when I asked her what happened. Her husband answered for her. There’s something weird there, Jack, and Fred Beller admitted he didn’t like Arthur Wien.”
“Well, I’m glad you came up with something. You’ve talked to a lot of people.”
“And maybe I’ll find something in this.” I handed him The Lost Boulevard. The cover picture was a street that seemed to extend to infinity, apartment houses along either side, a shadowy man’s face in the upper left, and an equally shadowy woman’s face in the lower right.
“How will you know what’s fact and what’s fiction?”
“I won’t unless I can get corroboration or denial from the men. It certainly looks like there’s a love story in it, doesn’t it?”
“What else? Who can write a coming-of-age novel without that?”
It was a question I had never asked. I came of age, if that was the proper description, so differently from other
people that I could not use myself as a typical example of anything. And I didn’t read many books about secular people in those critical years. This book would be an experience in many ways.
“Would you like to visit Elsie again today?” I asked Eddie at breakfast.
“See?” That was his name for Elsie.
“Yes, Elsie.”
“See.”
“Elsie wants to see you again.” I had already talked to her, and she said she had some shopping to do and would be glad to take Eddie with her. “She’s going to take you in the car.”
Eddie smiled. He was pushing a spoonful of cereal into his mouth, most of it reaching its target. He was wearing pajamas with yellow clowns wearing red hats, and I was trying to teach him the colors, but not at breakfast.
When he was finished and cleaned up, we went upstairs and picked out a pair of brown shorts and a shirt with brown-and-yellow designs on it. I dressed after he was ready and waited for the stroke of nine to call Alice Wien. For the first time, she answered.
I went through my explanation of who I was, why I called, and what I wanted. I wasn’t sure how much sympathy to express, since she wasn’t exactly on the best of terms with her ex-husband, so I kept it to a minimum.
“We could talk today if you’re coming into the city,” she said.
I told her that would be great, and we made an appointment. I decided to leave her for last as that would be my longest stop. First I would drop by the institute on the East Side where Dr. Greene worked. I wanted to get that over with because it made me nervous. Then I would go by the restaurant, which I assumed would not be open much before noon. Lastly, I would go over to the West Side and see Alice Wien.
Eddie was happy to be left with Elsie. I knew that might all change one day without notice, but for as long as it lasted, I was happy. If Elsie were my mother, I would think nothing of having Eddie visit her, but she wasn’t and I wasn’t sure what I would do if Eddie became obstreperous. But today that was not a problem. She waved me away and I drove down to the city.
I found a place to park almost halfway between the two East Side addresses I would visit. Then I walked to the institute, looking in shop windows as I went. It was a beautiful day.
The institute where Dr. Ernest Greene had spent many decades of his life operated under top security. Even if I had known the floor and office number, I would not have been allowed beyond the guards’ station. I gave them Dr. Greene’s name, admitted he was not expecting me, and waited. A phone call was made, a pair of eyes turned to me as though assessing my veracity—did I really look like a thief or a terrorist?—and the phone was hung up.
“He’ll be down in a few minutes. Please take a seat.”
The first hurdle was behind me. I sat in a comfortable chair and took The Lost Boulevard out of my bag. I had read myself to sleep last night, caught up in the characters, the story, the intrigues that Wien built in from the outset. Not all the characters were transparent to me. I assumed they would become more so as I read. But I recognized some of the landmarks David Koch had pointed out to me, buildings and businesses and streets and schools. I had read several pages when I heard a man’s voice ask, “Ms. Bennett?”
I looked up. A man the age of the rest of the group stood before me. He was wearing a casual shirt and no tie or jacket. I scrambled to get the book back in my bag. Then I stood up and offered my hand. “Dr. Greene?”
“You’re very persistent.”
“Dr. Horowitz asked me to look into the murder of Arthur Wien. I think it’s important that the killer not go free. I need the help of everyone who was at the dinner and everyone who knew him from childhood.”
“Come with me.”
I followed him to a windowed area of tables and chairs. We sat at right angles and I took out my notebook and pen.
“You seem to be a very young person,” he said when we were settled. “What exactly makes you a better investigator than the police?”
I explained briefly how I had investigated the 1950 murder of the mother of a pair of idiot savant twins when I first moved to Oakwood and how people had asked me to look into other murders that were unsolved.
“I’m impressed,” he said. “All right. Let’s get on with it.”
“Your friends say wonderful things about you, Dr. Greene. I don’t want to take a lot of your time so let me start asking questions. What was your relationship with Arthur Wien?”
“As I said on the phone the other night, I had almost no relationship with him. I saw him infrequently, usually when we had one of our reunions, and that was all. I went to his first wedding but not to his second. I think I met one of his children once. He lived in California most of the time and I only go out there for medical conferences. There wasn’t much of a relationship to talk about.”
“Did he ever come to you for favors?”
He studied me. I had the feeling he was looking right inside me, discerning my motives and determining their worthiness. “For a long time, back when we were all younger, Artie Wien was a man perennially without money. To hear him talk, you would think he owed half of California. He borrowed from everyone he knew and that included me. About thirty years ago he came to me and said he was desperate and could I lend him five hundred dollars. I gave him the five hundred. He spent the next two years calling and telling me he would pay it back, not to worry, he was good for it. The long and short of it is that eventually I told him to consider it a gift, that I didn’t want it back, with or without interest, and that he was never to ask me for another penny again. He never asked me, and I wrote it off as a bad debt and haven’t really thought about it until this moment. But that was my relationship with Artie.”
“You said he borrowed from everyone he knew. Did that include the other men in your group?”
“Of course it did. I have no reason to believe that he singled me out. I’m not a rich man, and I certainly wasn’t very well off thirty years ago.”
“That’s interesting because I’ve asked the others and not one has said he lent money to Mr. Wien.”
“I suppose every man’s honesty has its limits. Maybe they think that to admit having lent money—and possibly not having it paid back—makes them look like suspects. I haven’t been eating my heart out over the five hundred I gave him. I didn’t kill Artie, I don’t know who did—I’m sure it wasn’t any of us—and I’m very sorry that he’s dead. He was a talented man; he had a sense of humor; if he made mistakes in his life, well, haven’t we all?”
“What was his relationship to Fred Beller?”
“Fred Beller? I haven’t seen Fred in—I couldn’t tell you when the last time was.”
“I had lunch with him on Saturday.”
“You flew out to Minnesota to talk to Fred?”
“Fred and his wife were in New York for about a week. They were here on Father’s Day.”
“What exactly are you saying?” His rather smooth forehead showed an incipient vertical line.
“Just that. I found out by accident that he was here. I called and we arranged to meet for lunch at his hotel.”
Dr. Greene shook his head slowly. “And he never came to our party.”
“I guess not. Can you think of a reason why he didn’t? Was there something between him and Arthur Wien that prevented Fred Beller from being near him?”
“If there was, I’m not privy to that information.” He took off his wire-rimmed glasses and set them on the table in front of him. “I’m stunned,” he said. “I thought Fred never came to New York.”
“Can you tell me anything about his mother’s suicide?”
“Just that it was the disaster you can imagine it was. He came home from school one afternoon and there she was. She was a sad woman. In those days ordinary people didn’t go for psychiatric help. She might have benefited from it. On the other hand, how could she have afforded it? Our families weren’t rich. It was terrible for Fred. I don’t blame him for wanting to get away from where it happened and never coming back.”
I opened my bag and pulled out the book. As I set it on the table I saw the doctor smile.
“You’re reading our life history, I see.”
“Mrs. Kaplan gave it to me yesterday. I could hardly put it down last night.”
“Artie had a gift. Until that book came out, I had no idea he had been observing us and thinking about our lives. To me the D train was just a subway, but after I read that book, I realized that to him it was a way out. It’s an interesting book from many perspectives. It’s not the kind of book I ever read, but I can tell you I devoured every syllable of that one, even if Artie took Morty Horowitz and me and made us one rather schizophrenic creature. Or maybe a more accurate description would be a possessed soul and the possessing dybbuk.”
“Excuse me?”
“A dybbuk. That’s the demon that possesses a person. You need to exorcise it to get rid of it.”
“And you see the portrayal of that character that way?”
“Loosely.” He smiled and it struck me he was a man that didn’t smile much. “It’s a graphic way of describing Artie’s doctor character.”
“Wien seems to love all the boys very much, from what I’ve read.”
“He did. We all did. We were friends in an era when friendship meant something.”
“What can you tell me about Bruce Kaplan’s troubles?” I asked.
“If you know about it, you probably know as much as I do. He got in trouble. He always struck me as a pretty honest guy. Either he made a mistake, or someone else did and he paid for it.”
“I heard Arthur Wien had an affair with the wife of a member of your group.”
“I never heard that.” It was quick and dismissive.
“At the reunion, was there a problem with who should sit next to Arthur Wien?”
“There’s always a seating problem. This one is left handed; that one has to sit next to someone he hasn’t seen for ten years. There’s nothing new about that.”
“Did someone make a fuss that night?”
“I think so. I didn’t pay any attention to it.”
“As of this moment, I’ve spoken to everyone in the group except Bernie Reskin. I haven’t been able to reach him by phone.”