Closing Time

by Fusilli, Jim;

  “That’s an answer,” I nodded.

  “If I wanted to scare Solly, I’d walk up to him and say ‘Boo.’ He’d shit himself.”

  I said, “Your son is—”

  “A putz. I don’t have nothing to do with him. I wouldn’t waste my time blowing up his phony pictures.”

  The teenager came up behind me and placed a glass of water and a knife and fork at my elbow.

  I asked Rosenzweig, “You’re a little hard on him, don’t you think?”

  “He’s a nancy boy. Soft.” Rosenzweig made a fist.

  “He’s got no fight in him. I carried him on my back. Now he’s got Yoyo to do it.”

  “Yoyo?”

  “I call her Yoyo. Like the Beatle guy’s wife.”

  The empty-eyed teen returned. He scratched his head and stared at me. Then he asked, “Breakfast or lunch?”

  I looked at my watch. It was 10:40. Too late for breakfast and too early for lunch. “Nothing,” I said.

  “Come on, big man,” Rosenzweig chided. “You can’t take up a stool when they got this kind of crowd.”

  I looked down the row. Now, Rosenzweig and I were the only two customers.

  “Point taken,” I said. I ordered an iced tea.

  “I thought you tough guys drank bourbon.”

  “It’s been a while since I’ve been one of the guys.”

  He smiled wryly. “Now I know more about you than you do about me.”

  “They airlifted you out of Hungnam and you went where? Yokohama? Osaka? You got out before Pusan.”

  He frowned in suspicion.

  “What was it General Walker said? ‘Stand or die’?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “‘Stand or die.’”

  “I believe you may not be able to do much with that left arm, Mr. Rosenzweig.”

  “I get by,” he said, as he looked away, wilting.

  “You’re a bit of a wiseass, Mr. Rosenzweig, and a bully. Maybe that’s your right. Maybe you earned it. But I’ve got a friend in the hospital, and I’m going to find out who hurt her. So maybe you’ll pay me the respect you won’t give Sid. Or Sol. Or Lin-Lin.”

  He stared at the newspapers.

  “All right?”

  He looked at me. “My son’s got no guts. And if he’s ashamed of me, he can go to hell. I wouldn’t bother trying to scare him.”

  “Maybe he just needs a father.”

  “He had a father. Solly’s the one who changed everything. He left. And for what? She don’t want a husband. She wants a meal ticket.”

  The teenager had slipped the iced tea near the paper napkin behind me. I took a sip. It was flavored with cinnamon and it was awful. To clear away the taste, I withdrew the lemon and bit on the moist pulp.

  “Where were you on Monday?”

  “I was here. I was with Sid. They get people in here, believe it or not. People saw me.”

  “And Monday night?”

  “I watch TV from eight to midnight.” He paused. “I saw McNaulty when I put out the garbage.”

  “Maybe Gertie can vouch for you.”

  He seemed surprised. Then he said softly, “She can.”

  I nodded. “That’s all I wanted.” As I stood, I added, “I didn’t mean any disrespect. I know what you gave in Korea.”

  “People your age don’t know shit about Korea.” With his left hand, he reached for the sugar dispenser and lifted it, but not very high. “See,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  I nodded.

  He added, “Korea don’t have nothing to do with it.”

  I threw two bills on the counter and left.

  Outside, Sid was leaning against a parking meter. He was an old man, hunched, tired yet oddly hopeful. Younger men and women strolling through the mid-morning sun passed him without a second glance.

  He came toward me, waddling as much as walking, holding on to a small plastic bag from the drugstore. “He don’t hate Solly,” Sid said.

  “No?”

  “He thinks Solly hates him.”

  “Why would he hate his father?”

  “Chick’s not easy. He was very tough on Solly. He wanted different, you know, maybe like him. Somebody, you know…Not a painter.”

  “I see.” The McDonald’s on the other side of Sixth was crowded, and the fast-paced pickup basketball games were under way at the Cage up the block. I didn’t see anyone I knew.

  Sid added, “Maybe if he didn’t go change his name.”

  “You don’t hate your blood over a name, Sid.”

  “The name is blood for a Jew from Poland who comes here all the way, six years old, with his mother and sisters. Fighting then in the war. A hero, he is. Rosenzweig is his name, not Beck. Is it too much for his son to be proud of him?”

  I shook my head.

  “Maybe Chick should’ve done better. But maybe Solly could’ve been better?”

  “You have kids, Sid?”

  “Three. All girls. And five grandchildren. All boys. Go figure. You?”

  I said yes.

  “It’s not easy. It’s never easy.”

  “Yeah, but you forgive them, Sid. That’s part of the job.”

  He nodded in agreement, then said, “But Chick don’t forgive too good.”

  We shook hands and I headed north, toward midtown, past the leather-goods store, under the Waverly marquee, past the Rollerblading, fuchsia-haired woman and her endless legs.

  Sol Beck and Lin-Lin Chin lived on the first two floors of a brownstone closer to Varick than Sixth, on King, a block south of the perpetual queue outside the Film Forum. Their place was no more than a short, brisk walk from where Chaim Rosenzweig lived, from Gertie and the All-American Diner or from Judy’s gallery. I wondered briefly if they all took roundabout paths to other parts of the Village, deliberately avoiding one another, peering left, right, stealth-like, in some pathetic comedy, Spy vs. Spy. Or did they expect to see one another and were prepared for a vitriolic confrontation, ready to sling incriminations like condemning stones, to recite through clenched teeth irrational bits of family legend as if they were fact? You; no, you: with spittle, bile. “As far as I’m concerned,” one would scream, finally, “you’re already dead.” Or perhaps they imagined a reconciliation, a tearful embrace, concessions, forgiveness; a new beginning, an inspiring sunrise, fade in Alfred Newman strings, roll credits.

  I turned right on King and, halfway to Varick, went to the door and rang the bell; an irony, albeit a small one: Beck and his father both lived in apartments that began under the stairs. Lin-Lin answered. She wore a long black t-shirt over black jeans. Her hair shone in the stark light from the naked bulb above her. An orange cat curled around her ankle.

  “Terry.”

  “Your father-in-law’s got a cat.”

  “You have seen him already?”

  I nodded.

  She lifted the cat. “Come in. Please.”

  She stepped aside and I entered. The hall was made narrow by the stairs that led to the second floor, where, I imagined, Beck’s studio sat alongside a bedroom and drawing room, the latter mandatory in this type of building when it was constructed as a private home nearly a century ago. An eat-in kitchen, once part of the servants’ quarters, was to my right, and a three-speed bicycle hung on the wall beyond the entrance to the kitchen. A long denim jacket had been tossed on the newel post. The mail, including magazines, sat on a painted radiator below an ornate mirror, next to a spidery potted plant.

  I noticed at the end of the corridor a tarp that covered things that were thigh-high and square. It was a familiar sight.

  I pointed at the tarp. “Pull those from Judy’s?”

  She looked toward the paintings under the tarp. “No, those aren’t from the exhibition. Edie has those.”

  “I see.”

  I waited for her to continue, to tell me what paintings were under the tarp. But she didn’t.

  “You want your husband to hear this?” I asked finally.

  As she let the cat drop to the
floor, she said, “I don’t think I would like to disturb him. He’s working now. You understand, I am sure.”

  We followed the scurrying cat to the kitchen. More robust potted plants covered the front window, and an eclectic collection of spices—red pepper flakes, dried thyme, star anise, rosemary—were stacked unevenly on the ledge. The sink was an old-fashioned kind: a double, porcelain, without a drain board; and the U-shaped pipes underneath were visible, though copper couplings had been added. As I slid into the wooden seat at the round table, I noticed another sitting room beyond the kitchen, beyond a curtain of plastic golden beads. It too held an assortment of paintings under a tarp.

  “I was going to have tea. Will you join me?”

  I shook my head.

  “Sol enjoys green tea now. I bring it to him when he’s working.”

  Green tea tastes like liquid dirt to me.

  “You live in TriBeCa, I understand,” she said. “I think Sol would like to move to something bigger. But there is a very lovely light upstairs from the middle of the morning. The studio faces south.”

  As did Marina’s, I thought.

  “In TriBeCa, it is not inexpensive,” she added. “You must have great success.”

  Approaching a heavy stove as old as the sink, Lin-Lin grabbed a box of stick matches, struck one and held it under a cast-iron pot. A whoosh; blue flame. I visualized the delicate tea leaves clinging to the surface of the water in the pot.

  She replaced the matchbox on the shelf above the stove and joined me at the table, peeking discreetly at my small stack of international newspapers. “Tell me about Sol’s father.”

  I leaned my elbows on the table. “He’s a bitter old man and he feels his son somehow betrayed him.”

  “Yes, this is what we know.”

  “But he’s not the one who placed the bomb in the gallery.”

  She tilted her head. “You know this already?”

  “‘Know’ is a tricky word,” I said. “I can tell you what I think.”

  As I sat back, she leaned in, folding her thin arms in front of her on the bare wood. “Please.”

  “You and Sol might be basing your opinion on a faulty premise,” I began. “In the military, demolition experts don’t spend much time constructing bombs. Nor do they know much about defusing them. They use dynamite, shape charges, make gel gas, which is kind of like napalm in a barrel.”

  Lin-Lin frowned, not so much in displeasure as in concentration.

  I continued. “These types of explosives aren’t very precise. They aren’t meant to create small, contained explosions, like the one at Judy’s. These gel-gas things are about as subtle as a bomb dropped from a plane. Carnage is the usual result.”

  “A contained explosion. What is that, exactly?”

  “Whoever planted the bomb in Judy’s wanted to do a minimum of damage, that’s obvious.”

  “But Judy was almost killed.”

  I nodded. “Because she was in the storage area when it went off. No one could’ve expected that. Especially after the call.”

  She reflected for a moment. “I think the bomb was very dangerous.”

  “It was intended to kick up a lot of dust, blow out a couple of windows,” I said. “Judy was very unlucky.”

  The teakettle began to whistle. Lin-Lin excused herself and went to the jet. She cut the flame, but didn’t lift the kettle. She returned to the table without making Beck’s tea.

  As she sat, I said, “Then there’s the problem of your father-in-law’s disability.”

  “Problem?”

  “You know he was wounded in Korea.”

  “Yes,” she replied, “but he is fine. I have seen him many times.”

  “I don’t think he can lift his left arm above his shoulder. I don’t think he can handle much weight.”

  “How much does a bomb weigh?”

  “I don’t know what was used, but I assume it was placed among the ceiling pipes, so no one would stumble on it accidentally. He’d have to secure it up there, and I don’t think he’s got the strength for that.”

  “Someone put it there for him, I’m sure.”

  Sid? Gertie? “I don’t think so.”

  She seemed to sigh. “If not him, then who?”

  “You’ll have to ask the police about that.”

  “Do you think the bomb was meant to hurt Judy or destroy her gallery?” she asked.

  “I think someone tried to disrupt the opening.”

  “So you think someone was trying to hurt Sol?”

  I shrugged. “What else could it be?”

  She paused to think, then suddenly stood. “I’m not sure you are right, Terry.” She smiled.

  I stood as well. Behind her, the teakettle stopped hissing. “Rosenzweig feels that there are enough people to account for him on Monday. He ate in a diner on Sixth, and he’s got a friend who spends the evenings with him.”

  “I think he had a helper,” she said. “I think he did it.”

  “Lin-Lin, you need to consider what his motive would be.”

  She began to move toward the corridor, toward the door. I followed.

  “He hates Sol,” she said. “That is certain.”

  “I’m not sure hatred is what it is. Sol somehow upset the order of things, and it gnaws at Rosenzweig, but it happened a while ago. There’s no reason to take action now.”

  “Oh, I disagree. Now is Sol’s time to succeed. I think his father would hate for him to have success on his own.”

  “You may be right,” I replied. I’d given my opinion. She rejected it. I wasn’t going to argue with her.

  When she reached for the door, the orange cat appeared. But she didn’t appear to want to escape. She seemed to want to observe, and she studied me with wide, passionless eyes.

  “Is there a fee for your services?” Lin-Lin asked. She bent to scoop up the cat.

  “No,” I said. “It’s for Judy.”

  I said goodbye as she opened the door.

  I headed east to Sixth. I figured I’d walk home, and after lunch, pick up Bella at school, help with her homework or join in on whatever distraction she’d cooked up to help her dodge her school assignments. Perhaps I could arrive in time to convince Mrs. Maoli that a feast isn’t necessary every night of the week. She used to listen to Marina. Maybe one day she’d listen to me. Sure.

  I paused for a moment at the corner of King and Sixth, and absently looked toward uptown before proceeding south. There, on the east side of Sixth, backpack slung on his shoulder, was Sol Beck. He was walking slowly, dragging, but he didn’t seem any more troubled or distracted than before. In his hand was a plastic bag of supplies from Pearl Paints: long brushes and sketch pads too bulky to fit in the backpack. Head down, he wore an odd sort of baseball cap, an old, baggy blazer, white shirt, black jeans, sneakers.

  Working upstairs, my ass. “He’s working now. You understand, I am sure.”

  Sure, Lin-Lin. Thanks.

  FIVE

  The Zora Neale Hurston Elementary School had won a variety of honors over the years, mostly for academic excellence, several for community service; its graduates populated Fortune 500 companies, white-shoe law firms, major media outlets, faculties at Ivy League schools, scientific research institutions and medical centers throughout the country. Seven alumni were federal judges; two were high-ranking officials in the Pentagon, another was the lieutenant governor of South Carolina, and her husband, also a Hurston graduate, had written a popular, if controversial, book that cited the works of Claude McKay, Jean Toomer and Langston Hughes to defend the value of teaching Western literature to minority students. Many others had succeeded in the arts; for example, 19 graduates held positions with orchestras throughout the country, and one had written North Star, the opera on the life of Frederick Douglass. Thus, it was a favorite stop for politicians, black and white, who liked to hold it up as a model of superior achievement in the minority community. This I found ironic, since the principal reason for the success of Hurston Elementary
was that it was one of the few schools in Harlem not run by the uninspired, self-protecting civil servants at the New York City Board of Education. A private school that annually had three times as many applications as it had available openings in its kindergarten class, Hurston Elementary was in fact a model, but one of how a school can succeed with an independent vision, a dedicated staff, committed parents who were involved in shaping the curriculum and extracurricular activities, and the support of private enterprise. According to the Letter from the Principal, Everett Langhorne, that was on the school’s student-run web site, Chase, Sprint, Cisco Systems, Black Enterprise and PepsiCo were among the companies that had funded activities at Hurston.

  I called ahead to make an appointment to visit the school, which was located on 125th, off Amsterdam, not very far from Columbia University. I had asked to see Langhorne—his very impressive letter, direct, eloquent even, and entirely focused on the achievements of students past and present, had me interested in him—but instead was granted an 11 A.M. conference with the vice principal. I showered, shaved, threw on a clean polo shirt, jeans and a pair of loafers, put thoughts of Sol Beck, Lin-Lin Chin and Chick Rosenzweig in my back pocket, and flagged a cab to take me to Harlem.

  The school building, on the north side of the wide street across from the General Grant apartments, was a converted neighborhood bank, the kind that once housed smiling tellers, eager loan officers, a roving manager with a gold watch and fob extending from his dark vest, and waist-high tables with clogged ballpoint pens linked to small, beaded chains. Here, long ago, a customer could get a free toaster by opening a checking account, and an old woman on a meager pension could come in to verify what was written in flowery Palmer penmanship in her passport-sized savings book and be greeted by name, offered a seat and a sip of cool water in a Dixie cup. The building still felt welcoming, yet its spotless redbrick and white columns gave it a stately air, not unlike the aura of the private schools on the Upper East Side. Above me, the school flag—a black field, rimmed north and south in discreet green, yellow and red, with the words Zora Neale Hurston in bold goldenrod type—flew on a brass pole next to the Stars and Stripes.

  I entered the building and in the vestibule was greeted immediately by another banner—“Education/Articulation”—and a muscular security guard. His head was clean-shaven and his skin, stretched taut over his sturdy frame, matched the coffee-black color of his intense eyes. He was my height and wore a Beretta nine-millimeter along with a police-style uniform of pale-blue shirt, navy polyester slacks and steel-toed boots. Politely but firmly, he asked me to identify myself—he said precisely that: “Please identify yourself, sir”—and accepted my card, looking at it quickly, as if he could not dare risk taking his eye off me.