Elsinore

by Jerome Charyn

  He visited the billionaire in his emergency room, a luxurious suite twice the size of his tower apartment. It had its own kitchen and bottles of blood. Phipps was lying like a wraith in a little monk’s bed. He wore the same flannel robe. His skin was so white that Frog believed he was in the company of a death mask. Then Phipps stirred, and something like a tear arrived on that white skin.

  “You fool. I never killed her. She was my woman.”

  “When?”

  “Before you were born, Sid. Before you were born.”

  And the billionaire started to chant in a language that was desolate and so, so sweet. Frog was much too stunned to cry. “You are the great Hirsch.”

  “Was, you mean. That’s how I met Frieda Kronstadt. It was Prohibition. And I was at a rum party. I was pissing alcohol. A couple of gangsters asked me to sing. I went through the whole liturgy. I made love to Kronstadt behind a sofa. I was sixteen. She was twenty-six or -seven. I earned as much money as Babe Ruth. I had mink collars on all my coats. I was a rotten, stinking snot-nose kid. I ate coal in Milwaukee when I was nine and ten. I starved, Sid. And then this music teacher came along, a fallen rabbi who was fond of little boys. Morris Love. He showed me how to warble, how to play on all the registers I had. He was touching me all the time. He taught me the whole synagogue service. I ditched him when I was twelve. I was the wizard of Milwaukee. Hirschele, the prodigy who’d lived on shoe leather. But there weren’t enough synagogues on Wisconsin Avenue to keep me in the style I wanted. I fled the coop. I hired and fired managers. I wanted no more Morris Loves. I sang the whole United States. I bankrupted the chief rabbi of Havana in a poker game. I seduced three of his daughters. I was the little prince of Montreal. I began beating women in a drunken rage. Not Kronstadt. Never. I couldn’t keep track of all my bank accounts. Synagogues booked me two years in advance. I demanded a dressing room, like an opera star. I knew every significant whore in every town.”

  “And heiress,” Holden said.

  The cantor smiled. “Should I tell you how many mothers proposed their daughters to me, how many fathers let me peek into their treasure chests?”

  “What happened in Chicago, Hirsch?”

  “That’s a buried name, Sid. I’d rather you didn’t use if.”

  “What happened in Chicago?”

  “I was drunk. There was one more heiress. We were battling on the windowsills. I don’t remember her name. Her father was a milliner, the richest in the world. First I said I’d marry her, then I said I wouldn’t. She fell. I pushed her. It amounted to the same thing. I wanted her dead. And maybe I was sick of singing. Holden, I never gave one shit about God, and here I was, the holy man, with a black pompon on a big white hat. I’d sold myself to Morris Love. The great Hirsch’s balls had been in Morris’ mouth.”

  “You were just a kid,” Holden said.

  “I don’t need absolution from a bumper like you. Let me finish. I got out of the synagogue racket. There was no room for a tainted cantor, no matter what his voice was like. I lost my bookings. Only one little shul in Guatemala would have me. I punched around, shaved my beard, and joined the Pinkertons. I solved a couple of big cases. But I was always singing to myself, humming my own synagogue service while I was tracking down jewel thieves for some client. And then the officers of Hester Street put in a call for the hot detective. Don’t think I didn’t laugh. They’d banned me from their shul. I could have a little revenge and solve the Kronstadt case … not for them, Sid. Not for them.”

  “But Morton Katz recognized you right away.”

  “Only because I wanted him to. Jesus, Sid, I was a Pinkerton. I could have powdered my face. I knew the choirboy would be on the synagogue’s reception committee. I let him tag along. We visited whorehouses together. He blushed like a Jesuit, but he was all eyes. I played ‘bow and arrow’ with him. I was the hunter. He was the imbecile choirboy. Took me a day and a half to discover who had murdered Kronstadt. But I didn’t tell Katz. I pretended to continue the search … with Morton the detective. He saw the link between Kronstadt and his hero, Hirsch. He got sadder and sadder, thinking I was the maniac of Hester Street.”

  “Well, who killed the heiress?”

  “A pimp. Marcus Reims. He was in love with her. Kronstadt wouldn’t have him. She humiliated Marcus at some café. Could have been the Garden Cafeteria. I’m not sure. She slapped his face. Marcus followed her home and ripped her to death. And so I returned the favor, right under Katz’s nose. Had a little party with Marcus. Just me and him. I returned to Seattle and resigned from the Pinkertons. Then I got rich.”

  “And you fell in love with Judith Church.”

  “I had my Supper Club and Judith. She ran away.”

  “You destroyed her husband, she got ill, and you put her in Elsinore.”

  “We were talking about Kronstadt. Judith’s not your business.”

  “You raped her, didn’t you, old man? In front of all your big doctors.”

  “Shut your mouth, Sid.”

  “You were the billionaire, and she was the mad lady in your private farm.… I think you made up this Marcus. That’s what I think.”

  “Just ask any of the Westies about Marcus Reims. I ended his life. That’s a fact.”

  “And Judith gave birth at Elsinore … she had a little girl.”

  “I told you once. Shut your mouth.”

  “What are you going to do, old man? Hire Kit and his broom handle. He’d never get near me. Judith Church had a daughter in Vermont. She grew up to be Mrs. Vanderwelle. They bleed you, and you let them. Why?”

  “It’s piss in a bucket. It’s hayseeds.”

  “Your collateral is going down and down because of them. They’re robbing you blind.”

  “It’s piss, I said.”

  “You’re hallucinating, old man. Why won’t you talk about little Judith?”

  “I saw her once,” the cantor said, biting his fist. “She was a month old, but she wasn’t my baby. Judith was sleeping with every bummer and bulldog at the place. To spite me, Sid. No, I didn’t want to look at that child. I fired the whole staff. I brought in new doctors, loyal to me.”

  “And you never slept with her at Elsinore?”

  The cantor rubbed his eyes. “I might have … once or twice. I wouldn’t rape her, Sid. She was willing, all right.”

  “She might not have recognized you. You could have been anybody, a doctor, or one of the bulldogs.”

  “Oh, she recognized me, Sid. She cackled my name, bit me on the mouth. Didn’t touch her after that. Months and months went by, and next thing I know she’s big around the waist. I didn’t want to look at that baby. Oh, I wouldn’t abandon the child. I paid for her schooling like a proper dad … and then she shows up one bloody afternoon. At the foundation. Calls herself Mrs. Vanderwelle, but I’m no fool. And I had a pain in the heart, just as if she’d been my own lost child. Little Judith, you say. Let her be little Judith. Short in the legs, with a bow in her hair. Didn’t have her mother’s graces. But I had to keep from blubbering, because she was my girl in a way. I was the fist behind whatever father she had. I loved her, Holden. I never really understood what it meant to be a dad. I was crazed with worry. I thought of that red baby in the woods, a month old. I should have sung her to sleep with a cantor’s lullaby. I couldn’t. Of course she hates me. And I let her and her mama eat me alive. But that’s what my millions are for. My accountants repair the damage.… Holden, the. leakage is someplace else.”

  “Like where?”

  “Aladdin.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “It was a laundering operation, Sid. It always was. Just like most of the portfolios at the foundation. I never made money on Nick Tiel.”

  “Wait a minute? You were behind the Swisser all these years?”

  “I bankrolled Aladdin. It was my baby.”

  “And Swiss was only the middleman. I had a boss and I never knew about it. I bumped for you, didn’t I? You arranged all the hits.”

&n
bsp; “Not every single one,” the cantor said. “Say seventy-five percent.”

  “That’s because you had other bumpers, like my dad.”

  “I was very selective with Holden Sr. I only used him in a pinch.”

  “How would you define a pinch, old man?”

  “Like right now. Swiss and Bronshtein and Bibo are working together, pulling, pulling from my accounts. That’s why I went to Spain. It had nothing to do with bearer bonds. I had to feel Bibo out. He’s joined the Swiss all right.”

  “Then why didn’t he kill you … and me?”

  “He’s the king of Pescadores. And a king could be a little generous. But he’s wrong. I’ve been shutting down his territories ever since we got back.”

  “And what about the trip to Chappy?”

  “I had to see if the Cardinales were involved with Swiss. But Ethan is senile. And so are his sons. I was never interested in their money.”

  “Then all that talk about funny paper was a big joke. I was your stupid cavalier.”

  “No, Sid. My insurance policy. I couldn’t come with an army. It would have given my hand away. I had you.”

  “Had me, huh? You gutted my dad, you took my wife from me, gave her to the Swiss, and encouraged Paul Abruzzi to lend my sweetheart to Judith Church.”

  “I had to get her out of your system. She was always having breakdowns, Sid.”

  “That’s a lot of crap. You figured I’d never go on the road with you if Fay was around. So you had Paul grab her from me. It was your idea.”

  Holden had to keep himself from smashing the cantor in his monk’s bed. His mouth started to twitch.

  “Go on,” the cantor said. “Do it. I’d rather be bumped by a real bumper than Bibo’s little shits. They’d botch the job. And I’d be an invalid for the rest of my life.”

  “What the hell did you want with me, old man? Why did you bring me out of retirement?”

  “Ain’t it obvious, Sid. Bronshtein, Bibo, and the Swiss need handling, Holden style. I’d include Swiss’ bride in the package, but I know you’re sentimental about the twig. I am too.”

  “She’s not his bride,” Holden said. “She’s a bigamist.”

  “No disparagement intended. None at all. She’s been meddling, but I’ll forgive her. Holden, it’s Bibo or me.”

  “Afraid of the boy general?”

  “I’m talking business, not the shakes.”

  “Well, I’m not buying your little package. You can dance with Bibo all by yourself.”

  “Then kill me, Holden. End it here. I’m your employer. I’d like the job done.”

  “I couldn’t bump a cantor,” Holden said. And he left the emergency room. But there were funny people outside, men in surgical masks and hospital gowns. And Holden wasn’t crazy about their eyes. They must have been MDs from some forbidden synagogue or school where healing wasn’t much of an art. He could imagine the kind of hardware they had under their gowns. He wasn’t going to leave the cantor to them. Phippsy wouldn’t survive the night.

  He found an office with a phone, two floors above the foundation. He got little Judith on the line. “I want to hire you and your mama. I need an installation.”

  “You can’t afford us, Holden.”

  And he had to whisper around all the masks who paraded in front of the door, winking at Holden, because they had all the time in the world. Holden returned to the emergency room.

  “Changed your mind, Sid?”

  “Quiet.” The monk’s bed had no wheels, and Holden couldn’t trundle the cantor around, use the bed as a battering ram. The masked men serenaded Holden from the other side of the door. But they couldn’t warble like a cantor. There was too much bile.

  “El Presidente, we’re waiting for you. Bibo sends his love.”

  All right, Holden thought, there were worse ways to die than in the company of a cantor.

  “Phippsy, sing for me.”

  “I can’t. My voice is gone.”

  “I never admired your millions. Or the Supper Club … Morton Katz is a lucky devil. He sang in your choir.”

  “Singing won’t get us out of here, Sid.”

  “It’s hopeless. I can’t carry you on my back. And Bibo has a dozen men in masks. With automatics under their gowns. I might sock a couple. I might squeeze their necks. But I couldn’t bring you out alive.”

  The door opened and Holden saw a little circus of policewomen. The Manhattan Mimes. With pistols and badges and hair in ponytails under their hats. Holden could swear a few of the women were men. That was Judith’s genius. To scare these phony doctors with lady cops. They were all roly-poly in their big black shoes. Judith had given them that perfect pitch of menacing clowns. Even Holden was worried, and he understood who they were.

  The tallest clown must have been Judith. How much could he tell from her taut, rubberized face? Was she staring at the cantor? Holden wasn’t sure. The cantor couldn’t have known what these crazy policewomen were about. And then Frog did catch Judith’s eyes. She was looking at the great Hirsch as if he were some kind of pet snake. Love, Holden thought. Love itself was a snake. A little garter snake that could bite like the Devil.

  The masked doctors were gone. The presence of so many Mimes in police uniforms had driven them out of the building. Frog dressed the cantor.

  “Where are we going, Sid?”

  “Where it’s safe.”

  “But this is all mine. I’m the king here.”

  “That’s the problem. You’re an easy target. Too many people know about you.”

  The policewomen accompanied them to the elevator, handcuffs dangling from their trousers like obscene toys. Little Judith was in the lobby. Frog had to laugh. His phone call hadn’t brought the Mimes. Little Judith must have prepared this installation long before Holden got on the line.

  He stepped around the cantor for a moment to whisper in little Judith’s ear. “It’s complicated, isn’t it? Your affairs with Phippsy. You ruin him and you save his life.”

  “I work for Howard Phipps.”

  “Yeah, his lawyer lady. You want him hurt but not dead. I’m in the middle of some weird romance. And Mrs. Vanderwelle, I don’t like it.”

  Then he took Hirschele away from the Mimes. “Thank you, but Mr. Phipps is my responsibility now.”

  He shoved the cantor into a taxicab. They drove north, then Frog switched cabs and shuttled downtown. The journey was like a row of jagged teeth. They arrived at the Esterhazy Houses in their sixth cab.

  Frog created a furor at the front desk. The nurses wouldn’t admit a new patient off the street. Frog scratched a check for three hundred thousand dollars. He knew now that he could never bankrupt Aladdin. Aladdin was one more of the cantor’s money drops. Dollars flowed in and out, in and out, and Frog’s checkbook was irrelevant to the whole machine.

  The head administrator of the golden-age club pondered with the check in his hand. “But he has no references.”

  “I’m telling you, this is Hirschele Feldstein, the foremost cantor of his era.”

  “Holden,” the cantor muttered. “Shut your mouth. You’re giving my secrets away.”

  “I do recollect a cantor named Hirsch,” the administrator said. “But he can’t bully his way in here … even with your donation. I need a reference.”

  “Then call Morton Katz, for Christ’s sake.”

  Morton appeared in his pajamas.

  The administrator appealed to him. “Is this the cantor Hirsch?”

  “No,” Katz said.

  The administrator returned the check, his face a shallow color.

  “Morton,” Holden said, “look again.”

  “This isn’t Hirsch,” Katz said.

  The cantor smiled, cleared his throat, and started to sing some aria out of the synagogue service. Or at least Holden thought it was an aria. The melody froze him to the floor. Morton fainted. The nurses blew air into his mouth.

  The administrator seized the check.

  “Hirschele,” Katz s
aid, terrible tears in his eyes.

  The cantor stopped singing. “Choirboy,” he said. “You could never follow a tune.”

  And Holden slipped out of the Esterhazy Houses.

  15

  Frog went back home to his office. He had a rage, but against whom? The cantor? The Mimes? Little Judith? It was twilight hour at the fur market. There wasn’t a soul out on the streets. He entered Aladdin with his own key. Frog’s fur coats were missing. The forest had been picked clean. He knew it was no ordinary burglar. And Frog was without a .22 long to pop whoever had to be popped.

  “Bronshtein,” he said, “come on out.”

  The furrier emerged from Holden’s office with half a dozen jackals. Frog could read their eyes. They were the same phony doctors without masks.

  “Bronshtein, where’s my. two million for this month?”

  “Holden, your accounting is rotten. You ought to think of your own life.”

  “I’ll think about it later. Where’s my money, please?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t catch on to my hatbox trick. Did Howard accept the hatboxes?”

  “No.”

  “Because he knew they were filled with funny paper.”

  “I’m speechless,” Holden said. “Everywhere I go I walk into a swindle.”

  “Holden, you swindled yourself the day you started working for Howard Phipps.”

  “Don’t preach. Just tell me how you got into my office.”

  “Money,” Bronshtein said. “It works miracles. Everybody is bribable. Except maybe you and your dad.”