Quest

by Richard Ben Sapir

  Harry Rawson thought Detective Modelstein was splendid, absolutely splendid, fine police work, and he asked Artie if he might be his guest for a drink at his suite in the Sherry Netherland.

  Artie, still willing to do a little more basking, agreed.

  “They didn’t think New York was a risk because they were sure stones cut like that were before gem prints, you know. And so they figured if they cut the stones, who could prove anything?” Artie explained at the suite, giving credit to the Rawson family gem prints. Artie couldn’t help noticing the luxury of the place.

  “A well-done to Detective Modelstein,” said Rawson, holding up a glass of whiskey in a toast. Artie pointed out that they had forgotten the ice.

  “You take whiskey with ice?” asked Rawson.

  “It’s like drinking it out of a bottle if you don’t.”

  “What a strange way to look at it. You know ice numbs the soul of a good drink.”

  “I take it with ice,” said Artie. It was an elegant suite, with heavy drapes to the ceiling, antique-like furniture, spacious high ceilings with ornamental moldings, and every moment Artie expected Claire Andrews to come out of the bedroom, half-dressed, to be surprised by Artie, and to be embarrassed. He was sure they had to have something going on.

  When the ice came, both of them drank a toast. Rawson was in a smoking jacket and seemed to linger over the taste of the whiskey. Then he leaned forward, over the small glass table on which the whiskey and glasses and ice had been set.

  “Tell me, Modelstein, how do you see it? The whole thing.”

  “You mean the theft of the cellar, the murder, the diamonds?”

  “Yes. The overall picture.”

  “The cellar was broken up, of course. And this guy Battissen was never really a dealer at that level of stones. It was out of his league. He must have been killed within a day after he had the cellar.”

  “Level?”

  “I am told the big stones are something else and are traded and sold by different kinds of people than I deal with.”

  “Exactly. That’s who we’re after. Good point.”

  “I dunno,” said Artie, shrugging. It was more complicated than that. “These are people I know. Nothing special about them. The Schnauer kid. Gotbaum, the cutter from Tel Aviv. They’re at the level I deal with. They aren’t anything special.”

  “But you’re after the ones who are special. The big cheeses. The killer.”

  “Someone killed Battissen. I don’t think it was the Schnauer kid.”

  “Do you think the cutter did it to Battissen? Was the cutter in this country then? Who did it? Who are they? Where is the rest of it? That’s what I believe you’re after.”

  “Sure,” said Artie. He did not like being led, especially when he knew where he was going.

  “Not that you haven’t been splendid so far.”

  The compliment was more patronizing than the advice.

  “We’re on this thing, Mr. Rawson. I think we’ll find out that the cutter bought the stones from the killer, or someone the killer sold them to, and then brought the Schnauer kid into it as dealer because of the kid’s New York connection. We’re on it. People are going to go to jail.”

  Rawson put down his glass. He leaned forward, fixing Artie in a constant gaze.

  “Actually, I am not interested in legally pummeling some poor rabbi’s son. I think the poor man has suffered enough just by being implicated. The disgrace as you can imagine—”

  “He broke the law, Mr. Rawson.”

  “Indeed, but I think we have the golden opportunity we are looking for. You seem to believe the cutter, this Gotbaum, is not our man. And, of course, the poor boy who undoubtedly spent most of his life in a yeshiva, as you, a Jew, must know, is not the big cheese we’re after. We have them, and they have the big cheese. We’re in a perfect position to trade. Don’t you think?”

  Artie shrugged.

  “It’s the key, Detective Modelstein. We’ve got to use it now.”

  “We’ll certainly put pressure on them,” said Artie.

  “Good,” said Rawson and asked for the names of the cutter and the rabbi’s son as well as the names of the two homicide detectives.

  Artie was not so innocent as not to smell an end run. Rawson wanted the rest of the cellar; Artie wanted the collar to stick on the Reb’s son and the cutter. Rawson, Artie was sure, was willing to trade a simple little police arrest in New York City for information leading to the rest of the cellar. The diamonds were already recovered. He had no interest in justice being meted out to the two at hand. As owner of the cellar, he could refuse to press property charges. The case could go out the window.

  “I can get you the exact names of the cutter and everyone back at the headquarters. Just give me a little time,” said Artie.

  “To do what?” asked Rawson.

  “Get the names.”

  Rawson cocked an eyebrow and smiled.

  “Race you, old boy,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For what you’re going to do, and what I’m going to do.”

  “This isn’t a game for me. I live here. I work here,” said Artie.

  “Not a game for me at all either. I just want you to know I am not sneaking around behind your back.”

  “You have a right to protect your property interests to the best of your ability.”

  “I never figured you for a cold bastard, Modelstein,” said Rawson. He grinned broadly. Artie shrugged again and had a bit of difficulty looking him in the face. It was some great game to this man, like polo. Artie could see the Rawson type going into some hell pit in some distant land, explaining cheerily: “Because it was there, old boy.”

  Artie had always known this kind existed, but it was exceedingly unnerving to meet him face to face. He was sure Rawson would be useful in a war, but in peacetime a danger. He had avoided eye contact because he found himself liking this handsome, suave, wealthy British liability.

  “You know where to reach me for any official help,” said Artie, and then dashed off to get to Claire Andrews ahead of Rawson. Unless he had gotten to her already, unless they had an affair going already. He hoped he had one thing to work with. Rawson’s involvement proved that at one time at least, the cellar had been stolen goods. And Claire Andrews working on the beatification of her father would have to be against that fact. Artie hated having to go to her for this, but he knew Mordechai Baluzzian would be there in some downtown store long after this lady left. And Baluzzian was part of his world.

  Nuisance, as was his wont, chose to walk across Claire’s computer keyboard just as she had come to a crucial decision on the cellars. In all the scattered references to cellars, she still had not discovered even a hint of jewel adornment. What had been a key isolating factor at the beginning was now a wall. There was no such thing so far as a cellar with those kinds of jewels. The Elizabethans just did not use them for that.

  The conclusion might have been that this was not a cellar at all, even though it had that ugly British trunk shape to it, and Harry Rawson did say it was a cellar. Yet his claim, too, had something spurious about it.

  Was it wishful thinking?

  No, she thought, as Nuisance made a place for himself in her lap. On first examination, the Rawsons were not great lords. They were not Wellingtons or Kents. And nowhere in the ownership of cellars did she see any lesser personages in possession of these great British pieces.

  But problems, she had found, were often solutions that hadn’t been worked out completely yet. The gems made it an extraordinarily important piece. And something that important had to be associated with someone or something famous. The Rawsons were never more than knights, according to her English research. And that was the point, that was what she was writing down when Nuisance chose to walk across the keyboard, almost erasing her day’s work.

  “I hate you,” she said. And then stopped herself from flinging him across the room and kissed his furry neck. He was better than a pet. A pet
listened to directions. Nuisance had a mind of his own. She understood now what cat lovers understood. You were with another being who didn’t need your approval.

  With one hand, she made a new overall directory in her system. It was for history. She had come a long way since that day when she made a mark on the wall. She had made inquiries into sales of saltcellars over the last fifty years. She was sure her grandmother on her father’s side had not owned it. She was a poor woman. So Dad must have bought it within the last fifty years.

  There was no sales record, yet something else emerged. From the crude picture she sent them, not one goldsmith could identify the cellar.

  At first she had thought it was because of her crude drawing, but they acknowledged that while her sketching was more than a bit rough, it was good enough to tell them they had never seen it either in presence, sketch, or photograph. And certainly if one had been sold or stolen in the last fifty years, they would have heard of it. Several times she mentioned spring of 1945, and several times she was told that that too was in the last fifty years.

  So either the Rawsons for some reason of their own had kept their theft silent, or there was some question as to the validity of the Scotland Yard report.

  In either case, she realized for the time being, the sale of the cellar itself was a dim path with diminishing rewards. Not much could be done there, barring some sudden revelation like a sales slip somewhere. She had enough control over her search now to understand she was making a major directional change. Now history alone was going to tell her about this jeweled thing that had belonged to her father.

  She was also discovering many other things, the foremost being that she could live alone and in a strange city. If she hadn’t been so distraught, and actually so desperate about things, she thought she might never have tried this. But trying it, she found she could do it, and other things as well.

  She could make a fuss. She could pursue a course and not worry what everyone else would think of her. She was neither a McCafferty nor the daughter of Vern Andrews who had to act a certain way. She was in a city where no one had ever heard of either.

  She had interests to pursue just as everyone else had interests to pursue, and she would let them take care of theirs because she was taking care of hers. No one else was going to do it for her. No one else was secretly seeking her father’s favor or knew that she was a McCafferty. What she got, she earned. And if she didn’t earn it, she wasn’t going to get it.

  None of this, of course, could replace people saying hello to her in the morning, or chats about flowers, or being asked how she felt, or caring about how someone else felt. There had to be at least two hundred other people in this apartment building, and she didn’t know any of them. She knew they had friends because she saw people visiting. But being next door to someone did not mean knowing them. It meant a cursory politeness, at most.

  People made their friends not by place in this city but in some other way. Work. Sex. Or something she had yet to find.

  “If it weren’t for you, Nuisance, I would be lonely to despair,” she said. But she was lonely. It was just that with Nuisance, she wasn’t alone being lonely.

  Arthur Modelstein phoned that afternoon as she was preparing dinner, and she was delighted to hear from him. Something had come up concerning the cellar and he wanted to talk to her.

  “You’ve got to let me make you dinner,” she said.

  “Okay. But look, have you made any decisions today on the cellar?”

  “I make decisions every time I sit down at that computer.”

  “Have you spoken to Harry Rawson today?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask what he said? This is important.”

  “He said he wanted to talk to me.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You’re wonderful. Look, let me talk to you before he does. You should hear the whole story.”

  “Arthur, you must think I am some compulsive little girl who can be swayed by the first person she talks to.”

  “Well, I’m not sure what kind of relationship you have with him. You see?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Well, you weren’t exactly dressed for ditch-digging the last time I saw you both.”

  Why were men like that? Why was this detective like that? Didn’t anyone wait for evidence? Why did they assume things?

  “Oh, no. Not Harry Rawson. It was more a business dinner if anything.”

  “Oh,” came the detective’s voice in a high pitch. He sounded honestly happy and surprised about that. “Well, good. Look, I’m coming over. I want you to hear me out.”

  “Would you like pastrami? I can make you pastrami.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a Jewish dish.”

  “You don’t make pastrami. You buy it. At a delicatessen. What do you eat in Ohio?”

  “I don’t know. Creamed chicken. Tuna casserole. Roasts. Vegetables. Food.”

  “Buy some pastrami. I’ll bring dessert.”

  “I can cook. I make spaghetti.”

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t.”

  “I’m glad to hear from you again, Arthur.”

  “Yeah. Well, good. Okay. Coming over.”

  Artie was not sure how to broach the request. He was sure that he had a touchy woman on his hands and that any hint that she might not be capable of something or was naïve in some way could set her off.

  So, carefully, so as not to seem as though he was talking down to her, he began with police procedures and how the law was a strange thing and often people made deals that went wrong.

  He laid out a fact.

  “We recovered the diamonds in an arrest.”

  “Wonderful,” said Claire. She was at the stove making dinner. Artie sat at the kitchen table. The vinyl tablecloth still had the creases from its packaged folding.

  “We know that because the prints matched close enough to Captain Rawson’s list.” There. It was out.

  And it didn’t bother her.

  “It only proves the gem prints match. It doesn’t prove anything more to me.”

  “Good,” said Artie.

  He felt relieved that he had gotten through that point because the prints did prove the diamonds were Rawson’s in 1945 and certainly did damage to Claire’s claim on the cellar. Of course, a civil court still had to work that out, but until it did, Claire’s criminal complaint was still valid. And that was what Artie needed.

  “Will you insist upon seeing proof that it belonged to his family?” she asked. “I don’t see anything so far that would indicate he actually owned it other than a report of theft. The Rawsons don’t have a bill of sale either. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about that, Arthur.”

  She pointed with a fork she was using to stir spaghetti. She cooked while Artie sat at the kitchen table and tried to drink a Seagram’s Seven and ginger ale. It was a popular cocktail in Ohio.

  He was seeing Claire in what might be considered her work clothes, faded jeans and a checkered shirt—like the ones she had worn before. The fork stirred the boiling spaghetti and then went back to pointing out the problem of the ownership of the cellar. She hadn’t gotten his drift yet. She went on about the cellar, and Artie nodded as though she made a world of sense.

  “Do you think I should have newspapers of that period examined?” she asked. “British ones. I haven’t really done my British research as I should. I’ve been locked in America. The answer is in Britain and I know it. Your diamonds taught me something. No matter how bleak something looks, all the facts are not in, Arthur, until they are in. Don’t you think?”

  Finally Artie had to say it. Flat out, he had to beg.

  “I need your help,” he said.

  “What on earth for?” said Claire. She poured the boiling spaghetti into a colander and then ran cold water over it briefly before she divided the portions and covered them with a canned sauce she had heated. Then she set one plate before Arthur and one befo
re herself, brought out some grated parmesan cheese, and there she had it. Dinner. What was so hard about cooking?

  Salad would have been nice, she noted, but she had not had time.

  “Try your spaghetti.”

  “In a minute,” he said. “There are going to be people, Rawson in particular, who are going to suggest to you, as a claimant, which you are, a legal claimant, that you should drop charges against the dealers in the diamonds. They’ll say this is the only way to get to what they will say are the real thieves.”

  “That sounds like a reasonable approach.”

  “I’m going to ask you to continue to press charges and not pull this case out from underneath me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to get these guys without trading off.”

  “That sounds reasonable also.”

  “There’s something more going on here. You don’t know immigrants. My grandparents came over from Russia.”

  “I thought Fiddler on the Roof was beautiful,” said Claire.

  “Yeah. It was a nice play. Nice movie. That’s not what I’m talking about. In these foreign lands, a cop was always someone who was in truth just another piece of shit. Cops would rob people if they could, and they were just another bunch of crooks who could be bought off. I’m not saying there aren’t cops on the take here. But if they are, they’re breaking the law and not upholding tradition. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I think I do,” said Claire.

  “I’m a cop. My grandparents were immigrants. There are new immigrants here who don’t trust cops. They’ve tried to bribe me, like routine. It’s their way from the old country. So I’ve ignored that generally, even though it’s technically a criminal offense. These people for the first time came to me with information that helped me arrest these two on the diamonds. If we should let these two go, these new immigrants are not going to understand we are after bigger fish. They are going to believe we were reached, that we sided with those who were here before, and business here is business as usual like in their old world.”