Elsinore

by Jerome Charyn

  “Leave my dad out of this.”

  “Holden, Holden, he was a very great artist, your dad. I shivered while he was alive. I offered him millions and a Swiss chalet. But he died a chauffeur.”

  “Bronshtein, I’m sick of talking. Tell your jackals to shoot.”

  “We’re not assassins. Bibo thinks the world of you.”

  “I’d be happier if he liked me less. And why does he send such animals to attack Phipps in his own building?”

  “Howard didn’t leave us much of a choice. All our pacts mean nothing to him. We sweat and he sits in his Supper Club. He ought to retire. We can’t be his boys for the rest of our lives.”

  “He’s not even ninety,” Holden said. “And you shouldn’t have made a move on him.”

  “Holden, he’s the one who made the move. He bought Aladdin out from under Swiss. He comes to Pescadores with his new canceler, asking for bonds. He withdraws cash from all our French accounts. I’ve had to shut two of my fur shops.”

  “Don’t cry. You have another fifty. And all of Aladdin’s coats.… Bronshtein, if you wanted to chat, why didn’t you come alone?”

  “In the middle of a war? I couldn’t take the chance. Have I threatened you, Holden? Have I hurt you? I had to join up with the Swiss. Howard’s been brutal. Holden, you can reason with him. He can’t walk through us like a hurricane and expect us not to fight back. Howard has a daughter, I hear. A certain Mrs. Vanderwelle. Illegitimate, but a daughter nonetheless. We’ll be obliged to—”

  Frog slapped Bronshtein on the mouth. The jackals drew their guns and grinned. “Good-bye, El Presidente, good-bye, good-bye.”

  “No,” the furrier said with a handkerchief over his mouth. “No violence. Not today.”

  “Bronshtein, maybe you hooked yourself to the wrong star. Bibo got ambitious. And you figured to stuff the old man, give him heartburn for his ninetieth birthday. He was having some money problems, so you got together with the Swiss and decided to pounce. And you were my favorite furrier.… Get the hell out of Aladdin. And take your dogs.”

  The furrier left, and Holden’s teeth started to chatter. He wasn’t frightened of Bibo. Whatever revelations Frog had about his dad were like a lousy dream. He couldn’t have had a career without Holden Sr. His dad was the prince of bumpers, a man who never circulated much. And Frog had his picture in Vanity Fair.

  He went uptown to little Judith. She wasn’t home. Frog visited her Chinese restaurant on Third, figuring he’d grab a midnight meal. But he didn’t have to eat alone. Little Judith sat at her window seat, looking forlorn. She didn’t seem like some architect or general who could hurt or help the cantor according to her own calendar. She had Frog’s whole history in her computers at the foundation. She could summon up the cantor’s enemies, friends, associates, and silent partners. Frog wondered what the printout would be on his dad.

  He joined Judith at her table. She was having lobster Cantonese. “The kitchen just closed,” she said. “But I’m a regular. I can ask them to prepare something for you.”

  “Not hungry,” Frog said. “Do you always eat alone, Mrs. Vanderwelle?”

  “You know my habits. You’ve been following me around long enough. Besides, I have a beau.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Sidney Holden.”

  Frog touched his lip. He wasn’t clever enough to contain little Judith. “We spent one night together.”

  “You’re still my beau. That’s the way I’m built. When I like a man, I can’t let go.”

  “I thought you haven’t been with anyone but your husband.”

  “Not until I met you.”

  “Can we stop this?” Holden said. “There’s a furrier out on the street who’s very interested in you. He has six jackals behind him. His name is Bronshtein.”

  She started to laugh. “Bronshtein of the hatboxes. He’s harmless.”

  “Mrs. Vanderwelle, I know my business. It isn’t smart to have a window seat. Suppose I was one of the jackals and I snuck up on you like this.”

  “Holden, you wouldn’t have a chance.” She pulled a .22 long out from her lap, with a silvered grip, the kind of gun Frog might have used.

  “I’ve dealt with Bronshtein,” he said. “The man can be dangerous. How did Bronshtein meet your father?”

  “No one knows who my real father is, not even my mom.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be technical. I need a fix on Bronshtein. Did he meet Howard on some paquebot?”

  “You’re confusing him with the Swiss. He was a petty criminal in Alsace until Howard picked him up and turned him into a furrier with a Parisian address.”

  “Another one of Phippsy’s protégés.”

  “He betrayed Howard several times.”

  “And you? What the hell is your relationship with Howard Phipps?”

  “I keep him alive … and wound him as often as I can.”

  “Maybe you like him more than you think.”

  “No. It isn’t much fun wounding a dead man.”

  “And what happens after you leak all the liquid out of him? Will you defend him in bankruptcy court like a good little girl?”

  “I might,” she said, “if he can still pay my salary.”

  “I’d pay it with an Aladdin check,” Holden said, reaching across the table to grab her hands. “He didn’t kill Kronstadt. He told me. It was some pimp named Marcus Reims.”

  “You poor Frog,” she said. “Marcus Reims is one of the aliases he used. Kronstadt worked with him. Hirschele Feldstein was a cantor and a thief.”

  “Jekyll and Hyde,” Holden said. “I don’t believe it.”

  “It was very pragmatic,” Judith said. “He’d come to a town with his beard, play the pious man, sing until all the widows wept, and run from the synagogue to the local whorehouse … that’s where his passion was. He’d drink, gamble, talk to safecrackers.”

  “I don’t believe it. With a voice like that he didn’t have to steal.”

  “You have it ass backwards. Singing was his cover. He was a thief when he was nine or ten.”

  “And Kronstadt died because of that?”

  “Holden, I can’t bring back nineteen twenty-seven.”

  Frog lost his grip. Little Judith was the one who had him by the hands. She pulled him out of his chair. Her mouth was next to his. Jesus Christ, they were in front of the window. An amateur could have shot out his lights. Frog had never kissed in the Chinks’. The bow fell out of her hair. Love’s a garter snake.

  He wasn’t going to spend another night with little Judith, not until he settled things with Bibo. If the cantor was Marcus Reims, Frog would deal with that too. But Bibo came first.

  “Come home with me,” Judith said.

  “I can’t.”

  Her lips were inside his ear, and when she spoke, his head felt like a horn.

  He wasn’t sure if the Carlos Marx had a fax machine. And so he sent a cable to Bibo, in care of the Calle Don Quijote.

  GENERAL, WE HAVE TO MEET.

  Frog didn’t have to wait very long. A note arrived under Aladdin’s door.

  You can find Bibo at the Carlton in Bilbao. Monday next.

  He booked a ticket one way. He wasn’t trying to conserve Aladdin’s money. Frog had no sense where he’d be next.

  A Cantor’s

  Lullaby

  16

  He woke like a dead man in a dormitory of dead men. Good, he thought. I’ve crossed the goddamn river and I still have all my bones. He didn’t have to fear dying anymore. He didn’t have to wake at three in the morning and start to shiver, thinking what his death rattle would be like, and worse than that: the irrevocable nothingness beyond the rattle. If he could feel his own death, then death didn’t matter. He could go on planning whatever mischief he had in mind. He was the same Hirschele Feldstein Phipps. He wondered if he would have to seek nourishment as a corpse. Could he suck the salt on his fingers and call it a meal?

  Then he saw the choirboy’s face near his bed an
d he groaned, realizing now that he hadn’t crossed any rivers. It was the stupidest speculation. He would have to fear dying all over again. Sid Holden had brought him to the Esterhazy Houses. With all his millions he was a common boarder at a golden-age club.

  “Choirboy, what the hell do you want?”

  “You are the great Hirsch. I didn’t see a ghost.”

  “Would it make any difference?”

  “I can’t sleep,” said Morton Katz. “Kronstadt has been speaking to me for sixty years.”

  “You never even met the lady.”

  “But I can’t help it if I hear her. She has a voice.”

  “Shut up about Kronstadt. I have memories.”

  “I know,” Katz said. “You killed her.”

  “Are you sure you want to say that out loud, choirboy? I have friends in high places … and I could hire a couple of lowlifes to kick your teeth in.”

  “Granted, but how would it change things?”

  “Go on. Tell me you haven’t been able to sleep for sixty years. I love that, choirboy. Because if I made you miserable, it means a lot.”

  “You were my idol.”

  “But the Hester Street Hungarian still wouldn’t let me sing in their precious shul.”

  “We couldn’t,” Katz said. “On account of the scandal.”

  “A woman falls out the window, and I don’t exist as a cantor? Is that justice, choirboy?”

  “No, but it’s the conservative nature of synagogues.”

  “Ah, I’m better off with my millions. People tire of cantors. My voice could have cracked, and I would have had to make my living in the minor leagues. I might still be singing in Des Moines. Or the game room at Esterhazy Houses. Choirboy, get me out of this dump.”

  “I can’t. Mr. Holden signed you in.”

  “He doesn’t have my power of attorney. He’s a hirerling, a pencil I shove from place to place.”

  “But he must have had a reason to bring you here. He’s a sensible man.”

  “Choirboy, you talk like the president of a shul.”

  “I am the president,” Katz said.

  “That figures. Now go to bed. You’re blocking my view of all these fine old men.”

  “But we have to talk about—”

  “Go.”

  Morton Katz shuffled to his own station. The cantor started to cry. He was forever crying these days. He’d plotted his entire life just so he wouldn’t have to end up at an old-age home, and here he was, thanks to Sid Holden. Hiding out at Esterhazy, among the feeble and the lame. If he stayed here long enough, they’d lose his ticket, and not all his millions could buy him out of this place.

  There wasn’t much of a line to Hirschele’s existence. No matter what he accumulated, he felt poor. He’d never left that coal bin in Milwaukee. His Supper Club was only an extension of the cellar, thirty floors above the ground. This cavern had a little sunlight, but he’d rather suck on coal.

  He had a phone installed near his bed. Workmen suddenly appeared, with wires, jacks, and cables. They smiled at all the old men. They handed Hirsch small bundles of cash. Pocket money for the cantor. They began to do repairs in the dormitory. They built Morton Katz a cupboard over his bed.

  “Who are you?” Morton asked. “Devils?”

  “We’re from a religious order, sir.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “The Phipps Foundation.”

  And the workmen left.

  The dormitory was flooded with traffic, day and night. The cantor didn’t stop talking on the telephone. Then he decided to take all the old men on an outing. Morton Katz refused to go.

  “Choirboy,” Hirsch said. “You can’t break ranks. It’s not democratic. You’ll spoil our fun.”

  Katz got on the bus that was waiting outside Esterhazy. The bus drove to Little Bangladesh on East Sixth. And that party of pensioners walked into a restaurant called the Bengal Lance. The maître d’ was holding a shotgun.

  Hirsch accompanied him into the cloakroom. “Herman, you’re embarrassing the hell out of me.”

  “Sorry, boss, but we have to be careful. Bibo’s lads have been cruising again.”

  “Where’s your chef?”

  “We ran out of food a couple of days ago. I sent him home.”

  “Then order out,” Hirsch said.

  “We weren’t expecting a picnic, boss.”

  “Well, I couldn’t bring my friends to the Supper Club. I had to close it, Herman. I mean, if Bibo could infiltrate my staff and send two knifers down on my neck … I’d have been a dead man without Sid Holden.”

  Food arrived from next door, and the old men ate downstairs in the Bengal Lance’s lower dining room. Hirsch was more comfortable in this cavern. It reminded him of Milwaukee.

  The Lance was a laundering operation, like Aladdin. It functioned as a restaurant from time to time. But it stopped pretending while Bibo’s men were in town. Hirsch didn’t care about his other “launderies.” His own reputation was on the line. He’d promised the old men a decent meal, with tandoori bread and chicken. Not their usual string beans and strawberry jam.

  The cantor returned with the old men to their dorm. He liked having them around, even that mournful choirboy.

  The Phipps Foundation was wherever Hirsch happened to be. He didn’t need a building or his Supper Club. He was Howard Phipps. It excited him to think of the armada he was sending to Pescadores. He would shut Bibo’s town, put the boy general out of business. He hummed to himself. Then a shadow landed on his bed. And all his joy was gone.

  “How’d you find me?”

  “You’ve been making too many phone calls, Howard.”

  The old men had never seen such a tall beauty. They liked the power she seemed to have over Hirsch.

  “Sit down,” he said, but she wouldn’t sit. She’d never come to him before. He’d financed her troupe, but she wouldn’t visit him at the foundation. He had to chew a knuckle to keep from crying. He hadn’t suffered while he couldn’t see her face. He’d lived without the expectation of Judith. But now the pain of his long bachelorhood returned. He barked in front of Judith like a baby.

  “We should have got married the minute we met.”

  “Oh, yes. You would have cut the ears off every man who looked at me.”

  “I would have learned to behave.”

  “Where, Howard? When?”

  “I’m not a delinquent,” he said, ashamed to have the old men witness him like that. “Judith, couldn’t we go into a quiet little corner?”

  “There are no quiet corners,” she said. “And you can’t lock me in another Elsinore. I’d scratch your eyes out.”

  “Who’s the violent one?” he asked. “Me or you?”

  “I had the best teacher. A murderer and a madman.”

  “Shhh,” he said. “You’ll give my mates a bad idea of their dormitory captain. I’m responsible for their well-being.”

  “Always the leader, aren’t you, Howard?”

  “It’s better than sitting in a coffin and waiting to die.” He couldn’t control his sobs. “Judith, I’m sorry for what I did. Can’t you stay with me? I’m not so jealous now.”

  “But I’d give you a reason to be jealous … every night.”

  “Good. But stay with me.”

  “Should I climb into your bed, Howard?”

  “Here? We’d have to get a curtain.”

  “I don’t want a curtain.”

  “You never loved me,” he said.

  “I was your prisoner, Howard, your faithful prisoner … for a while.”

  “But you encouraged our daughter to work for me.”

  “Our daughter? She has none of your blood. None.”

  “She’s still our daughter.”

  “Then stop this stupid war with the general. She’ll get caught in the middle, Howard. She’ll get hurt.”

  “Bibo wouldn’t dare.… Why’d you come, Judith? To lecture me after all this time? I pay you a salary, remember? I support the Mimes
. I tolerate your little attacks. I let you nibble off a finger here and there. But I’ve survived your amputations. And if Bibo threatens all I have, then it’s his hard luck.”

  “I saw you a week ago in your bed. And I was naive enough to think that there was something more than murder in your eyes.”

  “You were one of those sweethearts, the lady cops? I was groggy, dear, or I would have recognized you. I’ll write you a check. You deserve a bonus.”

  “Howard, go to hell.”

  And Judith swung outside the perimeters of Hirsch’s office-bed.

  “Wait,” he told her. “Wait.”

  But she was already beyond the cantor’s reach. And no amount of barking and bawling could bring her back. The old men gaped at him. Morton Katz was glad. Because the cantor’s crying seemed connected to the Kronstadt case. Katz slept much better with Hirsch in the dorm.

  But Hirsch wasn’t dreaming of Kronstadt. His chamberlains arrived one after the other. Lawyers, thugs, munitions dealers, and Paul Abruzzi, the Queens D.A.

  “You don’t have to be polite, Paul. You can ask me how come I’m crying.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  “Judith left me again … she does it every twenty years.”

  “I didn’t know you’d gotten back together with her.”

  “She was here, at Esterhazy. You missed her by half an hour. She wanted to climb into my bed. But I had to be a little modest around all these old men. They could eat their hearts out, watching me and Judith. It wasn’t fair. How are things in your arena, Paul?”

  “I have three of my squads searching around the clock. We’ll find those rat bastards.”

  “I don’t like promises. Either deliver or shut up.”

  “Howard, I’m doing the best I can.”

  “I paid for your ticket, Paul. I got you elected to the district attorney’s table. I opened doors. So don’t give me this half-assed shit. Bibo’s on the rampage. I want his men dropped. Where’s my Sid?”

  “Sidney Holden?”

  “What other Sid is there?”

  “He’s not out on the street? I have my sources. They would have seen Holden.”

  “I’m not interested in your sources. Don’t return without Sid … and Paul, shake hands with some of my mates. It comforts them to know that a district attorney is in the building.”