“All right.” She took a closer look at the box, ran her slim fingers along the edge, peered into the corners, lifted it up and looked at the bottom. I held the lid face down on my lap. Adele shrugged. “Could be anything really.”
“You sure about that?”
“Uh-huh.” Her eyes narrowed. “Now you really do look like the cat that ate the cream.”
“Do I?”
“You do.” And she gave me a chilly kind of smile, so cool in fact, that I shivered involuntarily. “What do you see?”
I turned over the lid.
“This was an expensive box holding pricey things. See? Look here.” And I pointed in the corner. “There's a piece of fabric here that had been stitched in. Not just any fabric, silk. And if you look carefully in the centre, you can see through the dirt and grime the lettering there. Lettering that had been printed originally in what looks like gold leaf. Some sort of trademark or monogram. Too bad it's small, faded and covered in dirt. I'd wager that the original fabric had the same, only larger and screened in.”
She was listening to me now. I'd become suddenly more interesting than the Ed Sullivan Show. “Fascinating Mr. Holmes.”
“Just trying to impress you, Adele.”
“Well, I'm impressed.”
“I think this was a dress box, maybe even for a wedding dress. Something fancy and special anyway.”
Adele took another look. “Yes, I suppose that makes sense. How does this help you?”
I shrugged. “Not sure, yet. Every fragment of information adds something, brings things into focus.” I took a look at the contents.
“See anything?” Adele asked.
“Toys,” I murmured.
“What?”
“They're all pieces of broken toys, tokens of childhood.”
Adele bit her lip. “That's a little too deep, don't you think?”
“You said Henry was a good guy, right? Everybody liked Henry. Everybody has good things to say about him.” I'd annoyed her.
“So?”
“So, maybe a guy like that needs something to hang on to, something to connect back to the time he was happy, something like his childhood. You said he had a happy childhood, didn't you?”
Adele nodded slowly. “Well, apart from my uncle, Henry's dad, dying so young. We were well taken care of. I don't remember worrying too much when I was a kid. Henry and I spent a lot of time playing together.”
“What about other kids?”
“Sure, we played with the kids in the neighborhood.”
“This neighborhood? Your aunt and Henry lived here?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Anywhere special?”
“Gee, this is a trip down memory lane. We played in the lane out back but mainly Henley Park two blocks over. They had swings, a slide, a sandbox and a jungle gym. The usual stuff.”
“Still there?”
“I believe so.”
“Okay.” I placed the lid back on the box. “You can put it back now.” She didn't like taking orders either but with a jaundiced look, she flounced out with the box and put it back in the cupboard.
She re-appeared looking thoughtful. “Is there anything else you need, Mo?”
“No, nothing else Adele. Not at this time anyway.”
“Thank you for stopping by. It's been enlightening.”
“Sure.” I rose to go. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“My pleasure, Mo.” I asked myself if she was conning me. I couldn't figure why or for what.
Henley Park lay like a bedraggled square plot of dirt with some withered grass thrown in at the last minute. The swings hung there still but the chains were blotched with rust. I noticed the cracked, splintered seats of the teeter-totter while the jungle gym leaned at a sharp angle. But none of that stopped kids from fighting over the swings or crawling over the jungle gym like energetic ants. Somehow, it didn't seem to matter. This perfect May day opened up before me with a clear, blue sky, light breeze and the temperature right around 70 degrees. Hopped up kids on some natural high while their parents chatted in groups or basked in the warmth on the few rickety benches scattered at each of the corners of the square. Kids in this neighbourhood didn't have a lot. Maybe this was it and that was all it took to make them happy. Just like it made Henry Turner and his cousin Adele happy some years back when I'm sure the state of Henley Park looked cleaner and brighter. I glanced around. Along with the kids, I saw toys scattered in the sand and the dirt, some in need of serious repair. I'd found buried treasure in Henley Park. Is this where Henry had been digging?
I entered the flat to the sound of the phone ringing.
“Yeah?”
“Mo, it's your aunt Zelda. Your uncle Lou is dead.”
No holding back with Zelda, she hit you between the eyes without hesitation. Don't get me wrong, my uncle's death caused me sincere regret, but his death led to something else altogether that caused me considerable grief.
“What happened?”
“Stroke. Dropped like a fly while playing bridge. Too bad. He had a slam going.”
“When?”
“Last night about eleven.”
“I'm sorry, Aunt Zelda.”
“Yeah, me too. Fifty-two years we were married and in all that time that man didn't listen to me once. How many times did I tell him to stop with the cigars? Fell on deaf ears and this is the result.”
“When you're right, you're right.”
She sighed heavily. “Don't I know it,” she said sadly. “This is one time that being right doesn't feel so good.”
“When's the funeral?”
“Tomorrow morning at ten-thirty. Dawes Road, you know it?”
“Yeah, I know it.” I hesitated, then cleared my throat. “Is he..?”
“They're giving him a day pass so he can see his brother buried and spend a few minutes at the shiva.”
“Right. I'll see you tomorrow Aunt Zelda.”
“Of course, darling. Wear a nice suit.”
“The nicest.”
She hung up. As if funerals didn't give me heartburn, having to see the sorry excuse for a human being that, according to rumour, was my father, would make it worse. Jake Gold was about to put in an appearance.
25
Dawes Road cemetery lay situated in the east part of the city, so far east it seemed like another country. Why sane-minded people would buy burial plots in the middle of nowhere defied belief. It took at least 45-minutes to drive from civilization–a schlep of the highest order. Brick bungalows dispersed in large plots distanced from each other and the road. An actual landscape existed out of the city, one of gentle hills and swaying trees. And headstones of different hues–onyx, rose-coloured marble and sandstone–all resembling jagged teeth set against the recently shorn grass. Each headstone carried a family of pebbles on its shoulders—blessings for the departed.
For an inmate, however, the trip made for a nice day out especially as the dry, warm weather continued. Far too nice a day for a funeral, I thought. Too cheery and life-affirming. Funerals should take place in dark, gloomy conditions where wind and rain whipped up the leaves around the gravesite, inverted umbrellas, and blew hats off bowed heads. Serious weather befitting a solemn occasion. Not a day when you'd rather be at the beach.
I parked the Chevy on Dawes Road opposite the chain link fence bordering the cemetery. Plenty of parking. My uncle Lou hadn't been mister popular. I removed my hat and put it in the back seat and fitted a yarmulke on my head. Birdie already wore his and I have to admit, it suited him. He resembled an African prince. Made of burgundy velvet with gold brocade, its seams sharp and crisp. Mine shouted cheap, wrinkled, black nylon. I'd pilfered it from Aaron Finkleman's bar mitzvah in 1948. I'd worn it twice since then, both times for funerals. But it matched my suit. Birdie wore an electric blue, double-breasted number that radiated in the warming sun. It was his preaching suit, he said and always drew favorable comments in church from the congregants, especially the ladies.
Nev
ertheless, he drew more than a few bewildered looks from a huddle of mourners. I heard the mutterings. “Schwarze,” they intoned. He ignored them with grace and elegance. But I grabbed the elbow of a distant cousin at the centre of it, a guy about my age but portly in stature and arrogant of expression.
“Button up, yid,” I hissed. “Or I'll do it for you.”
The fat cousin yanked his elbow away, scowled like a flatulent bulldog and moved off. I'd confirmed that my branch of the family consisted of gangsters, men of violent nature. I would have felt an enormous feeling of satisfaction slapping him out but then I remembered it was a funeral, after all.
It blew over when Zelda, looking like a small child, reached up to Birdie and gave him a kiss. He bent down to her and she smacked him on each cheek and spoke to him in a loud voice.
“Thanks darling, for coming to see my Lou off. He would have appreciated it.”
“You are most welcome,” Birdie boomed and Zelda beamed up at him, reflecting the sunshine back toward his smiling face. Birdie had that effect on older women. They just loved him. As for me, that was a different story. They could take me or leave me. Zelda turned to me and gave me a hug. I smelled the Estee Lauder–White Musk perfume–she always wore and the hint of powder. She looked brittle. I could feel it through her mourning suit.
“Nice to see you, Mo, my darling. Your uncle Lou always liked you.”
“He was a prince,” I said.
“Well, I wouldn't go that far,” she replied. “But he wasn't a frog either. A few warts here and there, maybe,” and she sniffed into the handkerchief she held in her gloved hand.
The group comprised perhaps twenty mourners in all, some relatives, mainly cousins. I shook hands with Zelda and Lou's son, Brian, who earned an honest buck as an accountant. The others consisted of old cronies of my uncle's, bridge partners, guys he knew from the 'Y', guys from the old neighborhood at Spadina and College. My uncle worked in the garment industry on Spadina his entire life. He made a decent living and more than that, the living he made had been honestly earned. No graft. No corruption. No double deals. Sometimes, I found it hard to believe that he and my father came from the same family. That they grew up in the same house and came from the same parents. They went to the same schools and haunted the same streets. At the all-important corner, though, Lou went one way and Jake went the other. The rabbi stood expectantly at the open gravesite but nobody moved. There was an anticipation of something happening.
The answer came in the form of a patrol car that turned languidly on to Dawes Road and pulled up opposite the crowd in a no parking zone. That was the cops for you. Didn't care about the rules. The chauffeur got out. An officer in uniform. He opened the driver's side back door first and a burly guy in a rumpled suit stepped out holding his creased fedora in a pair of mitts the size of a first baseman's glove. The uniform went to the other side and the burly guy followed him. Another cop in a rumpled suit exited the patrol car.
The three cops stood around the door peering in. Finally, a head appeared but the rest of him remained obscured. He still wore his hair in a ducktail but now it looked like moldy plastic trowelled on to his scalp. The cops stepped back and I got a better look. Still the same swagger but his chest had sunk to his gut and he had that green-white prison pallor. Dark blotches under his eyes made him look owlish. He wore an old suit from the Forties that hung on his shrunken frame. No tie. His hands had been cuffed in front and the two burly cops moved him forward between them. He looked like a midget. The ever-present smirk creased his thin lips. The one I couldn't wipe off no matter how hard I tried.
Birdie put his paw on my shoulder and I nodded. Couldn't say that Jake didn't make an entrance. All eyes focused on him as he walked stiffly toward the motley crowd of the bereaved. As he approached, the other mourners turned and began to file slowly toward the hole where the rabbi stood waiting. The rabbi's assistant had placed a plastic tub filled with water and a roll of paper toweling on a rickety stand. Each of us dipped fingers in the tub and dried them on a sheet of paper provided. Now we were cleansed. Didn't think that would work for Jake. I knew he looked at me. I could feel him bore a hole in the back of my head.
The rabbi, who showed a hefty paunch–looked beyond middle-aged and had the yellow skin and dark teeth of a heavy smoker–beckoned us over. The crowed shuffled forward. Punctuated between coughs and rasps, his voice rumbled out of a flabby chest. It sounded deep and sonorous. The brim of his hat looked frayed as did the cuffs of his midnight blue suit jacket. His bearing remained dignified, his demeanour sober. He held a small prayer book but didn't refer to it.
I recalled the words, striding out of the mist of childhood: Yitgaddal veyitqaddash shmeh rabba….May His great name be exalted and sanctified is God's great name…Beʻalma di vra khir'uteh…in the world in which He created according to His will…veyamlikh malkhuteh…May He establish his kingdom…veyatzmakh purqaneh viqarev (ketz) meshiheh…and may His salvation blossom and His anointed be near…behayekhon uvyomekhon…during your lifetime and during your days…uvkhaye dekhol bet yisrael…and during the lifetimes of all the House of Israel…beʻagala uvizman qariv veʼimru amen…speedily and very soon. Say, Amen.
I remembered from Hebrew school that the prayer had been inspired by Ezekiel in the Old Testament. Its purpose was to acknowledge the sanctity of God, not to mourn necessarily. Seemed like a bit of a paradox but I had to admit with everyone mumbling the words, swaying in the gentle breeze, standing before the open pit where my uncle Lou would soon reside, it did have a powerful effect even on the lapsed and the ignorant like me. I glanced at Birdie. He swayed to the rhythm of the words keeping his eyes closed. The cops had shed their hats and held them down at their sides. No one corrected this behavior because they were goyim and probably figured it didn't matter, either to God or to Uncle Lou. They marked respect in their own manner, heathen or not. The old man bowed his greasy head and kept his gaze on the ruptured turf striving for some shred of piety.
The service didn't take long. They never did. No point wasting time when the corpse needed to be put in the ground. The hearse had pulled up as far as it could go. Birdie and I and four other men under the age of 80, carried it forward, trying not to trip on the narrow path. The diggers laid a harness over the hole and we set the coffin down readied to be lowered. As it descended, the rabbi continued to intone. The diggers removed the straps and Lou was all set to embark on his eternal rest. My cousin, Brian, picked up the shovel. The diggers stood back respectfully. Each of the men, in turn, took the shovel and spread dirt over the coffin. There was a thrum on the lid as knotted clods rained down. Birdie wielded the shovel one-handed. I dipped the blade in once, twice, three times watching as my uncle disappeared for the last time, then I turned and handed the shovel to the next in line.
“You'll come back to the house,” my aunt said.
“What about him?”
“Him too,” Zelda said. “And his escorts.”
26
Birdie and I stopped at the threshold of my aunt's bungalow.
“You go ahead,” I said.
He nodded, pulled open the squeaky screen door, its hinges screaming and disappeared inside. Better than a guard dog, my uncle had said. The cops beat us there. The patrol car rested out front. Uncle Lou's folding chair stood in the same place it had always been where he'd sit on the porch, smoke a cigar and drink some tea watching the world go by, taking in the life of the street. We'd lived in a similar house half a block down but only for a short while. The bailiffs chased us out. They always chased us.
I used to like hanging out on the porch. Kids from the neighbourhood gathered and we'd sit around and jaw until it was time to go in for supper and all the Moms started calling out into the street. I sat down and fired up a Sweet Cap enjoying the light and warmth of the day. People came to the house to pay their respects and I nodded to them as they went inside. I took a final drag, ground out the butt, flicked it into the mangy hedge and went in. Zelda had put out
a spread. People balanced plates and cups and yakked like it was a party. I guess in a way it was. Birdie delicately held Zelda's arm and ran interference on anyone too pushy.
“Uncle Lou doesn't know what he's missing,” I said.
“He knows,” Zelda replied. “He was always sharp that away. Go on, help yourself to something. I don't suppose it would do any good to say you're too skinny and you look like you've been fighting.” Birdie snorted and I gave him a sharp look.
“She's got your number,” he boomed.
“No, it wouldn't,” I said to her. “But a decent bagel, some lox and cream cheese and a strong cup of coffee wouldn't hurt.”
“I made some mandel brot too. I know it's your favourite.”
I almost blushed. “Thanks.”
Any second and she'd grab a hunk of my cheek. I spotted the old man in the living room seated at the end of the sofa bed. Zelda had finally removed the plastic cover. It had been a while since I'd been there. The cops stood around him and I noticed their plates piled high with potato and egg salad and rye bread while Jake nibbled on a cheese blintz. He'd always had a weakness for them and I doubted that the cafeteria in the Don Jail had them on the menu. He caught my eye and winked. He leaned over to the nearest cop and spoke to him. The cop laughed and nodded. My old man put his paper plate down on the coffee table. I noticed he hadn't been given any cutlery–as a precaution I supposed. He got to his feet awkwardly. The cuffs had been removed, as a gesture of goodwill. Hitching his pants up, he moved toward me. He knew he took centre stage in that small house. No one said anything or even looked obviously in his direction but he could feel it and so could everyone else. People eased out of his way.
“Boychick,” he said.
“Don't call me that,” I replied.
“Sure, Mo, whatever you say.”
He put his hands up to show his sincerity. I glanced over his shoulder at the cops, who had paused in their conversation and lunch to watch. The older one, the senior man of the trio held my look then nodded in my direction and turned his attention back to his plate. I don't think they figured me as an accomplice aiding in my old man's escape. Not with my years on the force.
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