Ellen Kearns was one of only two girls in a family of heavy-equipment union men, with the one closest to her age, her brother Matty Kearns, a member of the Operating Engineers Union before he finished high school. Ellen was brought up as both a strict Roman Catholic and also a woman who believed that you took the man’s name upon marriage and were a limited partner thereafter. She and every other woman in the area knew the value of male opinions: they only had to watch the male on the block as he walked back from the racetrack, with gills white and eyes frozen.
The first time her brother Matty went to the track, he told Ellen, “I’m not going to work today. I’m going to make money without going to work.”
“How can you be so sure?” Ellen said.
“We’re smart today,” he said.
In 1921, Tom Welch, trainer of the horse Naturalist, stepped out from the stable area of Aqueduct Race Track and onto busy Rockaway Boulevard and mentioned to at least a couple of people that he was delighted by the training moves of his horse. He felt the animal would shoot home ahead of everything in the big race coming up, the Paumonok Handicap. Naturalist was a seven-year-old, but those listening to Welch assumed there was nothing unusual about that, for the horse was owned by a rich man, Joseph D. Widener, who discarded nothing of value: Widener wore his grandfather’s suits, and ordered his kitchen help to save all empty egg shells for possible use as fertilizer.
As horse trainer Welch’s conversation began to circulate through Ozone Park, many working people began to plan the acquisition of sudden fortunes. They bet the living room couches on Naturalist, which had a fine price, 4-1, and of course could not lose.
On Paumonok Day, women out on the stoops on 101st Street listened to the loudspeaker as its sound drifted across the farmland. Naturalist was on top all right, running magnificently, and then jockey Charlie Turner found himself on an animal who was looking about for a soft bed of hay. At this point, the track announcer blurted out, “That is On Watch … coming on!” This caused spectators to sag. On 101st Street women’s knuckles turned white as they gripped their brooms. The horse On Watch ran past the aged Naturalist and won the race by half a length. Naturalist went back to the barn and slept with all four legs sticking straight up in the air. Many of the horse’s Ozone Park supporters crept home and took seats on the floor, for there was no furniture left in the front room.
When Matty Kearns got home that night, he said to younger sister Ellen, “You got any money hid?”
“Bus money for Rockaway.”
“You better give it to me. I need bus money for work.”
Ellen Kearns was raised to yield to a man on every issue, except, in her case, her religion in a mixed marriage. When she married Billy Kaufhold, her Catholicism remained firm and his Lutheran belief, watery at best, became part of his past. All children were to be raised as Catholic as possible.
Four years into their marriage, on December 7, 1941, Billy and Ellen Kaufhold were in Charlie’s Oriental Bar, on Metropolitan Avenue and 62nd Street. The bar was crowded and both the owner and his wife were serving. The pair spoke with heavy German accents, not unnatural in Ridgewood, and seemed happy and relaxed, although now and then Charlie kept ducking through a doorway that led downstairs to the basement. “Tap the keg,” he said. There was a radio on the back bar that had on music and a football game and then over it came the news about Pearl Harbor. The bar became silent and excited, with people indicating with their hands that they needed drinks in a hurry and then Charlie said he needed a breath of air. He went out the side door of the bar, leaving his light-haired wife to handle the crowd. Suddenly, she sighed, wiped her hands on her apron, and said she best retrieve her husband. She went out the side door. As all attention in the bar was on the radio reports about the war, nobody noticed the lack of a bartender until an empty glass was involved. Long minutes passed, with neither the woman nor her husband returning, and there was some grumbling. Billy Kaufhold looked nervously at his empty glass, went into a pocket, brought out his silver shield, pinned it to his lapel, and shouted, “This place is under martial law.” He got behind the bar and served drinks with his badge on.
Later, here they came through both doors, squads of FBI agents, and one of them ran up to the bar and called out to Billy, “Officer, is there anybody here we should detain?”
“Not that I know of,” Billy said.
“All right. On with it.” The agent followed the others down the basement stairs. Billy Kaufhold, fingering his badge, went down after them. There was a short-wave radio that took up most of the basement wall. A German submarine commander was bitching over the radio that nobody was answering him. The FBI agent in charge congratulated Billy for having the street sense to come to this bar and, a mere New York City patrolman, try to arrest these dangerous spies. “It’s too bad you didn’t get here in time to catch them,” the agent, who gave his name as Bowman, said to Billy. The agent then said that he would notify Billy’s superiors about his work in defense of the nation.
When the FBI man made good, Billy was awarded a detective’s gold shield and a post in the 103rd Precinct, in Jamaica, which had the greatest concentration of bookmakers in Queens County and therefore the greatest challenge to law enforcement: when Billy arrived, the question in the 103rd was whether detectives should become partners, at a percentage, with bookmakers, or simply take a fixed payoff each week. When one of the bookmakers, Tony Buffalo, said the police could be his partners if they shared in his losses, too, the police voted to retain their fixed weekly payments.
Kaufhold immediately used the detective’s pay, plus extra money from bookmakers, to move into a new apartment on 66th Street in Glendale. And right away, he was more comfortable in better bars. The nicest place to drink in the 103rd Precinct was in Constantine’s Restaurant, which was on Hillside Avenue and Parsons Boulevard. The restaurant was popular and crowded, but the barroom had a tile floor that urged you to take a drink. Over the months, Billy spent long hours in Constantine’s, even though the place often committed the most serious sin of charging him for a drink.
One night in March of 1942, while he was supposed to be protecting the citizens of Queens during the hours from four to midnight, Billy was in Constantine’s. He glanced about as the FBI agent, Bowman, walked in, lips tight, brown Glen plaid suit unwrinkled, carrying a brown hat in one hand. When Billy roared a greeting, the agent jerked his head vigorously and went to the men’s room. Billy followed.
“The man parking cars,” the agent said. “We have an agenda for him. His name is Kleinstuber. Do you know him?”
“Oh, sure I do. What does he do?”
“Spy.”
“Oh, I thought he was acting quiffy.”
“You know we had three Germans land from a submarine out at Amagansett,” the agent said.
“The ones the Coast Guard guy caught.”
“They were supposed to come here and get money from this guy parking cars outside.”
“Grab him!” Billy said.
“Not so fast. We’re waiting to see just who comes along. The Director himself sent orders that we are not to summarily lift him. The Director wants us to get other bodies.”
“I’m trying to remember who he talks to,” Billy said.
“Oh, we overhear him talking. The trouble is, we don’t have anybody who speaks German.”
“Well, I do,” Billy said.
“Then why don’t you go out there and see what you can get for us? The Director would be pretty pleased, I’ll tell you that.”
Billy went to the bar, threw down his drink, wiped his mouth, and sauntered outside where the parking valet stood at the narrow entrance to the lot.
“Stell dir mal vor: der Typ da drinne hinter der Theke ist Jude,” Kaufhold said.
“Don’t do that,” Kleinstuber, the valet, said. “Talk in English.”
“Was kümmert’s mich?” Kaufhold said.
“I said, speak in English. If someone hears you speaking German around here, they suspe
ct.”
“I guess so,” Kaufhold said.
“My job is bad enough as it is,” the valet said. He jammed the red cap with the gold lettering “Constantine’s” down over his eyes. “All right, I go to my work now.” He walked back down the narrow driveway to the parking lot.
Billy sauntered across Hillside Avenue and went around a corner to a newsstand, where Bowman stood nervously with two other agents.
“Who’s watching him?” Billy said.
“We’ve blanketed the area,” the agent said.
“That’s good. Because I don’t want him getting away.”
“He won’t. Believe me. Now what did he say?”
“He asked me if I knew anybody who worked on the docks. He wants the times troop ships leave. He says he is going to blow up every fuckin’ troop ship they load in New York.”
“Why, that monster,” the agent said.
“I’d get him now,” Billy said.
“I think we’ve got to move up our agenda for this monster,” the agent said. He went into the newsstand and got on the phone.
At midnight, when Billy was going off duty at the 103rd, there was a commotion downstairs and when he walked in, there were over a dozen FBI agents around the booking desk and then a few more crowded into the captain’s office, where Bowman was seated, and across from him, in handcuffs, covered by drawn pistols, was Kleinstuber.
When he saw Kaufhold, Bowman beckoned.
Kleinstuber glared at Kaufhold. “I say nothing to him.”
“Yes, you did,” Billy said.
“I said hello and good-bye,” Kleinstuber said.
“You told me you wanted to blow up a ship with President Roosevelt on it,” Billy said.
“Liar!”
“You told me you wanted to see Roosevelt swim in the ocean with his braces on.”
“You lie!”
“You fucking Nazi!”
Billy went home enthralled. The New York Mirror the next day said that Kleinstuber, the master spy, was in America on a sworn mission to personally kill President Roosevelt, and that he boasted of this to members of the German community in Queens. When he reported for work, Billy was informed that he had been raised to detective second grade on orders coming directly from the police commissioner’s office.
“You must have some fucking rabbi,” the squad commander told Billy.
At the zenith of his career, Billy spent so much time cavorting about Jamaica, mostly in Constantine’s, but also in the Paddock Bar under the el at 165th Street, and with the horse trainers and sportswriters at the Hotel Whitman, that his presence at home amounted to that of a boarder. One day, his sister Frances arrived and, as always, Billy Kaufhold was silent as the strong one of the family spoke.
“I can’t tell you how to live, because I don’t know the half of your life,” she told him. “Besides, from what I do know, you can’t live any other way. I can tell you that I worry, and I think so does your wife, that you don’t have any children.”
From then on, Billy and his wife attempted to have a child, and when none materialized over a couple of years, they tried the medical information of the day.
“There seems to be nothing wrong with you. Perhaps it’s simply a matter of time,” a gynecologist said to Ellen.
“We’ve gone through a lot of time,” she said.
“Well. Oh, come in,” the doctor said, pointing to Billy, who was peering in from the waiting room. “We’re just saying that everything seems to be in order. Ah. This is just a thought.” The doctor pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes. “Ah. Perhaps you should be tested,” he said to Billy.
“There never was anything the matter with me,” Billy said.
“We’re thinking of the present,” the doctor said.
“I’ve only gotten stronger as a man,” Billy said.
“Wouldn’t it be sensible to be certain of that?” the doctor said.
“What’s sensible is for her to go home and calm down and have a baby,” Billy said. He walked out of the waiting room and grabbed his coat.
By 1950, with the baby boom in full swing, and so many young women in Queens morning sick that pregnancy dominated the precinct conversation, Kaufhold was still unable to father any children. Mention of anything bearing on the subject made him defensive. The use of the word sire at the racetrack caused him to turn his head. Then one day at the precinct, the mayor of New York arrived for an inspection tour. Billy Kaufhold positioned himself on the staircase leading to the detective room so the mayor would be certain to notice him. Which he did.
“When did you come on the force, lad?”
“Twenty-six, Mister Mayor.”
“And when were you married, lad?”
“Thirty-seven.”
The mayor’s eyes narrowed. “Well, if you’re living by the rules of your church, you’ve got three at home by now. Haven’t you?”
All the inspectors and captains accompanying the mayor laughed. So did Kaufhold. Now feet shifted, as the mayor’s party began to move on. The mayor did not. His eyes narrowed and he looked intensely into Kaufhold’s.
“How many are there now?” he said to Kaufhold again.
“None,” Kaufhold murmured.
“Are you a Protestant, lad?”
“I am. The wife isn’t.”
“Tell her I was inquiring.” The mayor’s eyes widened in amusement and he clapped Kaufhold on the shoulder. “Good lad!” He went up the stairs and Kaufhold left the building and walked the streets with his face red with embarrassment.
Six months later, he was in the Sea Grill on New York Boulevard, a few doors down from the side entrance to Gertz’s department store and across the street from the Terminal Pants Shop, which had become famous as the place where the musician Fats Waller bought his clothes. The Sea Grill had a circular bar, and seated across from Kaufhold were two young people, a chubby guy who was under twenty and a young girl with a child’s face but a powerful little body almost cut in half by a thick brown leather belt.
“I had it,” the chubby young guy said.
“What do you mean, you had it?” the girl said, with a Southern accent. ·
“I can’t go no more.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“That I can’t go no more.”
She put a cigarette into her small, pouting, tough mouth and then, exhaling, said nastily, “Wayll, I expect you ought to be poisoned.”
“What are you saying that for?”
“Because you just ought to be poisoned, that’s why.”
She was looking at the beer in her hand as she talked. Easily, with no particular haste or new sound of anger, she flicked her hand and the beer went into the guy’s face. She slid off the stool and walked out the door. The chubby guy remained on the stool, the front of his yellow shirt dark and wet from the beer. He stared at the bar for long moments. Then his hand slapped the bar.
“I had it with that bitch!”
The bartender, watching the guy leave by the other door, said, “Oh, they’ll have some more trouble.”
“They’re young to be fighting like this,” Billy Kaufhold said.
“They come in here to do their fighting, I guess,” the bartender said. “They live in a room on the other side of the trestle. I don’t know what they’re doing here. I know she’s from the South. They got a new kid. You’d never know, looking at her.”
“And they do fight,” Kaufhold said sadly.
“Sure do,” the bartender said.
An hour later, as Billy Kaufhold was leaving the bar, a patrol car was moving slowly down the street. Billy waved and the car stopped.
“What address is this, anyway?” the cop asked him.
“Ninety-one something,” Billy said.
“We’re looking for an eighty-four number,” the cop said.
“Other side of the trestle. Don’t you know your own precinct?” Billy said.
“We’re from Brooklyn. We just got put here.”
“It’s down there two blocks,” Billy said. “What do you have there?”
“Family disturbance. What the hell else is there out here?”
The car went on and Billy started to walk to the left, to the bus that ran under the Jamaica Avenue el and out to the trolley up to Ridgewood. Then he turned around and walked back toward the railroad trestle. He passed the Green Bus Lines terminal on Archer Avenue, where there was a line of faces, loafers from all over, inside the double glass doors. He was under the trestle when he saw the patrol car parked in front of a three-story wooden house the color of tree bark. It was one of five houses that were atop a bare slope. Cement steps led up to each house. Loud noise from the house the color of tree bark caused Billy to look up. Standing with his back to a second-floor window that had no shade, in a room lit by a bare ceiling bulb, was one of the cops. He was holding up his hands for silence, but this only made the noise inside the room louder.
The front door to the house was open and Billy stepped into a dark entranceway and went up creaking old stairs to the musty room on the second floor. In the doorway with her back to him was the young girl.
“I told y’all, I’m leaving,” she said.
“What about this?” the young guy said.
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
Billy looked over her shoulder and saw a baby, about as new as a baby can get, on the bed.
“You better take her,” the guy said to the girl.
“Good-bye,” the girl said.
“I said you better take her.”
“And I said, good-bye.”
Kaufhold stepped past her and into the bedroom. “Don’t you want this baby?” he asked her.
“I’m leaving.”
He looked at the guy. “You don’t want this baby, either?”
“Hayell, no.”
“The two of you sure?”
Both nodded.
“Don’t fool yourselves,” Kaufhold said.
“I sure don’t ever want to see this place or anything in it again,” the girl said.
“You’re a winner,” Kaufhold said. “All right. The two of you don’t want this baby, then I’m taking this baby.”
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