First, Do No Harm

by Larry Karp

  Why he didn’t graduate from college until 1950.

  “So like I was sayin’, I go to New York, get a lawyer, pay what I can, nobody knows who the dough’s comin’ from. They sell his house for him, which pays the rest of his bills at Crestview. By the time he’s out, I’ve got that hardware store, a cow with gold tits, so I get my lawyer to send money straight to your old man’s college, tuition, room, board, the works, every single semester. Then, the whole four years he’s in Europe, my mouthpiece sends him jack to live on. Let him say no to that.”

  For a moment I saw Murray as he must’ve looked to Dad, shoulders square, eyes flashing, his right hand pumping high above his head. He let loose a raucous crow, the old Hobart buyer and seller’s victory cry. “Runs in our families, see? Pop put Samuel through school, I put Leo through.”

  “But that’s not the whole story,” I said.

  As if I’d splashed cold water in his face. “What the hell you mean, not the whole story?”

  “Oscar lived his life on autopilot—push his button, then watch him yell and scream and wave his fists. Did he ever once plan anything even a minute ahead? When Samuel told him the appliance store was sold, all he could think to do was push money into my grandfather’s hand, there! Now it’s sold to me. I can’t begin to see Oscar working out a complicated scheme to poison Jonas, drag him over to your house, dump him in your living room, and then hold you, Lily and Samuel for ransom.”

  “Yeah?” Canny eyes, sizing me up. Was I holding four aces or bluffing off a ten-high?

  “You told Samuel and my dad that Jonas loved the ladies, but never the same one long enough to get married. Even if he happened to get one of them pregnant, right?”

  Murray’s face swung sharply away, as if I’d slapped him. I kept myself talking, faster. “I’ll bet especially if he got one of them pregnant. Remember Jack’s Pharmacy, down on Sixteenth, closest drugstore to your old house? Jack’s son-in-law runs it now. On my way out here I stopped to look over their poison log from July, ‘forty-three.”

  Murray turned back, stared at me. “Shit,” said his face. “Four A’s.”

  “Do I have to show you the page Angela Gumpert signed? ‘Strychnine, to poison a rat.’ A rat who got her pregnant and wouldn’t do what in 1943 was the only decent thing to do?”

  “All these years…” I could hardly make out the words. “But what the hell difference does it make now? Except for me and Leo, they’re dead, every one of them. You’re good, Dockie, damn good at putting together two and two. Yeah, it was Jonas, all right. He was some piece a work, my brother, had Mama’s looks and a twenty-four carat gift of gab. Girls were nuts over him from the time he was ten years old. Most honest businessman you ever saw, wouldn’t touch black market metal, but he’d shtup a different girl every night and tell her she was his one and only. Like a game for him.

  “Then the war. Worst thing a guy could do was put horns on a serviceman. My dumb-ass brother actually kept score. He was up to sixteen when he got holda Angela, that poor broad, she’d married a sailor, had a quick baby, then the guy got himself blown up someplace in the Pacific. Jonas hears a couple guys in the junkyard talking about it, and sees his big chance. Already got sixteen Silver Star Shtups, now he can get a Gold Star. Guy could talk like an angel while he’s screwing like the devil, and he’s in Angela’s pants before she knows they’re offa her. Naturally, he couldn’t take time to put on a rubber, so next thing she knows she’s in the family way, with a battleax mother-in-law and two very nasty brothers-in-law who ain’t gonna like her news one bit.

  “So she goes to Jonas, and Jonas drops her on Lily and Samuel. This poor Italian Catholic girl, she can’t even look Samuel in the face when he talks about abortion, but what else is she supposed to do? She can’t live seven months in that attic with the baby she’s already got, and besides, what’s she gonna tell her family and her husband’s family? Her own mother’s dead, so Samuel goes to the mother-in-law, tells her Angela’s got very serious nerve problems ’counta what happened to her husband, and Samuel’s got her in a special hospital in New York, no visitors. Can Mother-in-law keep the baby for a week, maybe two, then look after Angela for a month or so after that? What’s the old bag gonna say except yes?

  “Now it’s all set—we think. But the night before the abortion, Angela calls up Jonas, says she wants to talk to him. He comes over, she takes him in the kitchen, and the rest we only find out later. Angela makes one last pitch for a walk down the aisle, and of course Jonas says no way. Okay, she says, it’s jake by her as long as he covers alla the costs, and while they’re talking about that, she gives him coffee, strychnine’s already in the cup. Lily and me hear this terrible screeching, we run in, and there’s Jonas down on the floor, going like a jackknife, open-shut-open-shut. Angela’s standing over him, screaming about how he ain’t ever gonna mess up any more women. He’s just plain screaming, then he goes blue in the face an’ stops breathing. Angela doesn’t even notice, just goes on hollering about how that’ll fix you, you son of a bitch.

  “I look at Lily, she looks at me. Cops get a foot inside the door, our whole operation’s straight down the tube, and Lily and me and Samuel are in for heavy time. So I schlep Jonas into the living room, Lily gets Angela upstairs, then she calls up Samuel. No ans…uh…your old man told you about his mother? Your grandma?”

  “That she was addicted? Yes.”

  “Okay then. Your grandfather was the first doc in Hobart had an answering service, knew he needed it. Lily calls, tells the operator it’s an emergency, operator gives Lily the number where Samuel’s at. Lily calls there, tells him what happened. ‘Heart attack, huh?’ Samuel says. ‘Be right over.’ The rest you know. Samuel went to Pop’s afterwards to make sure Pop swallowed the heart attack story. Then we cremated Jonas so no one could ever check and find out what he really died of.” Murray blew a low whistle between his teeth. “Loose ends we got dangling around our lives…all these years, that poison-book, just sitting there at Jack’s, waiting for you to come around and look at it.”

  “I didn’t exactly say I looked at it—”

  “Hell you didn’t. You said—”

  “That I stopped to look over their poison log from July, ‘forty-three. Druggists usually don’t destroy old poison logs, just stash them in the attic or basement and forget about them. The stuff in Jack’s basement goes back to 1924, piles higher than my head. Filthiest damn place I’ve ever seen. I quit looking for that log after the third time I had to clean rat shit off my hands. But I’ll bet anything it’s there. If you’d made me dig it out, I would’ve.”

  Murray looked stricken; then he snickered. “Oh, man! I don’t believe in that reincarnation stuff, but if anybody could ever come back to life it’d be Samuel Firestone. All you need’s a Panama.”

  “Glad to finally tell your story?”

  Little wave. “Six one, half dozen the other.” The old junkman rested a hand on my shoulder, sized me up. “Tell you, Dockie. What I really wish is I could one more time see Samuel and Lily and George, look ’em in the eye, tell ’em I’m sorry. But that ain’t never gonna happen.” If Murray looked like a frightened spaniel before, now he looked like a mournful overweight beagle, liquid brown eyes endlessly sad above puffy folds of skin. “Only one left for me to talk to is your old man, and yeah, I did pay his way through school, but that ain’t enough. Before one of us croaks, I’d like to at least look him in the eye an’ tell him there ain’t been one minute the whole last sixty years I didn’t feel sorry for what I done.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

  Murray narrowed his eyes. “Bet you figure he’s a real tough nut, your old man.”

  I smiled. “Bingo yourself.”

  “Yeah. Well. He is tough, hadda be. What-all he went through that summer woulda stopped most people cold. His father, his mother, then afterwards the girl. I never in my life saw a person suffer like your old man suffered for that girl, whole summer long
he was absolutely devoted to her, heart and soul and kidneys. You only know one parta him, just like you only know the one parta his old man he picked out to tell you.”

  I took Route Twenty-three, Pompton Turnpike, out of Verona, drove Charlie Barnet’s once-upon-a-time musical inspiration into Great Notch, where I stopped at a diner and chewed Murray’s request along with a turkey sandwich. I’d carried more junk away from Verona than I’d bargained for. “Me and your old man, we’re more alike than you probably think,” Murray once told Dad, and how right he was. With the best intentions, the Sorcerer and the Junkman paved twin freeways to hell. Helene probably would tell me if I couldn’t get to well enough, just leave bad enough alone. Quit now, go back to New York, let the story lie.

  But stories should never lie, nor end unfinished.

  I threw money on the table, ran out to the car, got back on the road, twenty minutes into downtown Hobart. Found a meter on Market Street, hoofed a block to the big white granite Hobart City Hall. Pigeons scurried around my feet. I sprinted past the towering statue of Alexander Hamilton, prime target for the Pigeon Bomb Brigade, took the worn graystone steps two at a time into the building, rode the creaking elevator to the fourth floor, zipped into the Office of Vital Statistics. A dark-haired woman slowly sneaking up on middle age sat behind a counter, framed by frosted glass panels. She asked how she might help me.

  “I need to see a couple of death certificates,” I said.

  She reached to a pile of forms. “Fill out one of these for each certificate you wish. You can leave them here or mail them in. Allow four to six weeks…”

  Her canned speech tailed off as she saw the green paper rectangle I pushed toward her, Ben Franklin giving her a steady double-O. “It’s a family matter,” I said. “Urgent.”

  She looked around. Another clerk, busy talking to another customer. No one else in the room. “I see…” the woman said, then pulled in the money with a hand like the claw on an arcade machine. “We’re not terribly busy right now. I think we can accommodate you.”

  On the road again, Hobart to Peconic Bay, early rush hour. Plenty of time to think. Tempting, so tempting, to drive only as far as Manhattan, give Mr. Avis back his car, pick up Helene and go somewhere for dinner, definitely a couple of drinks. But I knew I’d hate myself in the morning, and probably every morning after that.

  As I turned into my parents’ driveway, the late-afternoon sun splashed flame over the stucco house. Fierce glare off windows, I threw up a hand to shade my eyes. Only one other car there, Dad’s gray Jag, good. No need for Plan B, the one that took Mother into account.

  I used my front-door key, stood, listened. Silence. I started through the vestibule, walked slowly into the living room, stopped in front of Mother’s piano just long enough to glance at her portrait. Then I took off down the left hallway. Dad’s den was at the end of that hall, as far as a person could go and still be inside the house. His painting studio was all the way in the other direction, past the kitchen. I walked the length of the hall, stopped in front of the door, raised a fist—and froze.

  Dad’s den, his room. Over the years, I’d managed a few peeks when he came out for dinner or to go back to his studio, but I never saw anything remarkable. Big rolltop desk, wooden chair, a leather sofa, books, paintings, a table radio. Every so often, I heard soft music behind that door, figured it came from the radio.

  I looked at my fist, willed it forward, couple of knocks. No answer. I tried the knob. Locked.

  Without thinking, I drew back a foot and kicked in the door.

  I wrenched splintered fragments out of my way, ducked through the frame, charged across the room to a small music box on an ebony table at the far side of the sofa. The colorful card inside the opened lid featured hovering angels, children at play, and a man turning the crank of a street organ. On a central panel, six tune titles in flowing script—“Sweet Bye and Bye,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” “Camptown Races,” “Gaudeamus Igitur,” “O Susanna,” “Home Sweet Home.”

  Like a sandbag to the ribs. I wiped at my eyes, then looked up at the wall, at a painting I had seen before, but only in glimpses, and not many of those. A girl blowing a saxophone, sandy hair flying every which way, dimples you could disappear into. Brilliant green eyes glowed behind huge lenses. Dad never did portraits, never, but there was his tiny black LEO in the lower right corner. Not a particularly large canvas, just about the right size to sit on a portable easel in a basement, under an unshaded light bulb. I couldn’t recognize my own mother from the face in the painting over the piano, but I could’ve counted Harmony’s freckles.

  I walked back through the smashed door panel, leaned against the wall, just let the waterworks run. How do you get your mind around sixty years and counting in purgatory?

  I gave myself a couple of minutes, then swabbed my sleeve across my face and pulled myself upright. Work to do, not going to be easy.

  Still no sounds other than my own. In his studio, all the way at the other end of the house, Dad wouldn’t have heard my break-and-enter. I walked back through the kitchen, then down the hall to the open studio doorway.

  He stood at the far end of the room, next to the window, brush in hand. I tiptoed in. My shadow fell across his canvas.

  He wheeled, turned a face on me ragged with anguish. Lips bloodless and contorted, skin loose under hollow eyes, jaw full-open on its hinges. I backed away.

  “Martin! God damn it to hell, you startled me.”

  Was he trying to position himself between his work and me? “Saturday, you wanted to talk to me,” I said. “Today, other way ’round.” I pointed at the wet paintbrush in his hand. “I can go out if you want, wait ’til you’re done.”

  He shot a glance at his watch, then shook his head. “No. Your mother’s over visiting Millie Hartog, won’t be back for another hour. Just let me clean up.” He grabbed palette and brushes, walked to the sink.

  Something about the painting… I looked more closely. A little boy, right arm splinted, lay on a mattress on the floor of a dimly lit room. Over him stood a hefty woman in a short, sheer nightgown, shoulders hunched, head bowed. Opposite the woman, a dark, unkempt man leaned against the wall, black hair falling over his piggy eyes. Anger, humiliation—the misery of the couple took my breath away. Two other figures were incomplete, faces blurred, attitudes unclear. A man wearing a Panama hat stood in profile, arm extended, seemingly talking to the couple; at his side, a tall boy held a big black bag that looked too heavy for him. I reached a finger. Paint on most of the canvas was long dry, but scrapes and irregularities in the wet paint over the man and boy attested to Dad’s frustration. One thing was clear. What light there was in that squalid room emanated from the man in the Panama.

  Voice from over my shoulder. “See anyone you know?”

  Dad set his palette and brushes onto a small wooden table, lowered himself into a straightbacked chair, motioned me toward another one across a little worktable. As I sat, he stretched his long legs, then fixed that look on me guaranteed to turn my trousers into short pants. “All right,” he said. “What’s up? Cut to the chase.”

  Did he know what was coming? Couldn’t tell, but he was taking great care to look anywhere except at his painting. I swallowed, moistened my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “Your story the other day… I’ve been thinking.” I tried to launch a graceful dive into treacherous conversational currents. “I was out to Verona this morning—spent a little time at the Wapping Ridge Residence for Seniors of Highly Independent Means.”

  Dad stared, flummoxed.

  “I talked to one of the inmates…Murray Fleischmann.”

  Now Dad barely managed to stay seated. “Murray Fleischmann? I didn’t think…wouldn’t have thought he was still alive.”

  “Eighty-six,” I said. “With all his marbles bright and shiny.”

  Dad shook his head. “I’ll be goddamned.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said.

  “All right
, Martin.” Fighting to get back into control. “Why did you go to see Murray, and what did he tell you?”

  “Got a little time, Dad?”

  “I already told you. Your mother’ll be back in an hour.”

  Chapter 19

  Dad listened carefully, not a word while I told him how Jonas Fleischmann really died, what happened to Oscar and George, how Red Dexter’s coverup scheme led to Samuel’s death, and what Murray’s life had been since that summer. I finished into silence. Finally Dad spoke through his teeth. “Always knew I blew it, just never how badly.”

  I leaned across the worktable. “Dad, it was wartime. You played in the majors at sixteen, with some pretty savvy vets.” Lips tight, jaw set, he looked ready to go off, but I went first. “You’re every bit as arrogant as Samuel ever was.”

  Flash of shock in Dad’s eyes.

  “You think you earned the whole rap for that disaster? Goddamn it, give Oscar Fleischmann the credit he deserves—people like him spread rottenness like cancer. Give Dr. and Mrs. Belmont credit for being so stupid with Harmony. Give Harmony some credit herself for running off alone to the junkyard instead of figuring there must’ve been a good reason why you didn’t show. Most of all, give Samuel credit. Getting a sixteen-year-old kid to put eight balls in the air when he was still—”

  “Enough.”

  Could’ve meant “Shut up,” but it sounded more like “My turn.” I waited.

  Dad sighed. No Manhattans under his belt now; words were not going to come without a battle. “Bending rules for a sick person’s benefit, sure. But before you can bend a rule, you’ve got to know the fucking thing even exists, and Samuel wouldn’t have recognized a rule hung in front of his face in neon lights. He was law unto himself, unrestricted license. When he finally lost his footing he had nothing to grab hold of, and a whole world came crashing down around him.”

  “Crushing his wife and Harmony. George, George’s family. Mangling Lily and Murray. Crippling his own son. He earned his credit, Dad.”