The door of the apartment was scarred and unpainted, and Frank half-expected that there’d be no answer to his knock. He tapped lightly, then a little harder, and a voice, old and faintly irritated, sounded behind the door.
“Nothing. I don’t need nothing.”
“I’m not selling anything,” Frank said hurriedly.
“What do you want?”
“I’m looking for Molly Gold.”
“What for?”
“I understand she was a friend of Hannah Karlsberg’s,” Frank said.
There was a long silence, and from out in the hall, Frank could hear the woman’s thin, quick breaths.
“She’s dead,” Frank added. “Someone murdered her.”
A series of locks and chains rattled behind the door. Then it creaked open, and through a thin slant of light, Frank could make out an old woman’s face. Her skin was wrinkled and yellowish, a crumpled sack for her head. A stubby unfiltered cigarette dangled from her unpainted lips, and wreathed her head in a pallid ring of smoke.
“Are you Molly Gold?” Frank asked immediately.
“Molly Gold, that’s right,” the woman answered. She plucked the half-chewed cigarette from her mouth and stared evenly into Frank’s eyes. “Who are you?”
He handed her one of his cards.
She squinted intently as she looked at it. “What’s this?”
“My identification,” Frank explained. “I’m a private investigator.”
The old woman cackled lightly. “You think I can read this little thing?” She thrust the card back to him. “It’s all a blur to me.” She laughed again, then stepped back from the door. “Come in.”
The living room was cramped, but neatly arranged. There were no cans or bottles strewn about, and the small white tablecloth that had been spread over the little table by the window looked as if it had been recently washed. And yet, despite the cleanliness and order, the room gave off a sense of something moving through the last stages of a long decay.
“Sit down,” the old woman said, “unless you’d rather stand. Me, I don’t care.”
Frank took a seat and waited for her to move uneasily to the table and sit down.
“I’m checking on a few things about Miss Karlsberg,” he said.
The old woman wiped a strand of gray hair from her eyes and peered at him suspiciously. “That little card,” she said, “I don’t believe that. Whatever it said, I don’t believe it.” She smiled cunningly. “What are you, local? Local heat? State? Federal? What?”
“None of them,” Frank said.
The old woman’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “I don’t fence nothing. Not one thing. And as far as anything else—no matter what it is—I’m too old for it.”
Frank took out his notebook. “Did you read anything in the paper about Hannah Karlsberg?” he asked.
The old woman said nothing. She turned slightly toward the window, parted the shades, and stared out. “You got backup?”
“I’m alone.”
“Cops don’t come alone,” the woman said. She whirled around to face him. “They come in packs,” she hissed. “Like wolves. Like hyenas, that’s the way they come.”
Frank drew in a long, slow breath and returned his eyes to his notebook. “The police are holding her body until a relative comes forward to claim it. That’s what I’m looking for, a relative.”
Molly stared at him quizzically. “How’d you find me?”
“A man named Burke mentioned you. Stanley Burke.”
“He don’t know where I live.”
“The police do,” Frank said bluntly.
“They gave you my address?”
“That’s right.”
“What for?” the old woman asked tauntingly. “You going to give them something back, right? For their trouble. What are you going to give them? Me?”
“I’m not sure they’re interested in you right now,” Frank said.
Molly’s face soured. “Oh, they’re still interested in Molly Gold,” she said bitterly. Then she laughed. “You know why? ‘Cause they want to know about Nico. Nico and his drugs, how he got them into the country.”
“Nico?”
“Constanza. Nico Constanza.”
“They may be interested in that,” Frank said. “But I’m not.”
Molly peered at him doubtfully.
“I’m only interested in Hannah Karlsberg,” Frank assured her. Once again he glanced back down at his notebook. “Mr. Burke said that you and Hannah were friends.”
Molly snuffed out her cigarette. “He said that?”
“Yes.”
“We talked a little, Hannah and me,” Molly said. “But I don’t know if you could call us friends.” She shook her head. “She was shy. She kept to herself. She’d changed from the old days.”
“You knew her before you worked together?”
“Yes,” Molly said. “In the old neighborhood. She was named Kovatnik then.”
“Yes, I know.”
“She changed her name some time,” the old woman went on. “Wanted a more fancy name. Karlsberg’s more fancy.”
“Yes, it is.”
“But it didn’t fool anybody,” Molly said. “A lot of people remembered her from the old neighborhood. A new name don’t mean a thing to them.”
“These people,” Frank said, “they knew her from her days on Fifth Street?”
The old woman looked puzzled. “Fifth Street? No. Orchard Street.”
“You mean, from her shop?”
“She worked in Feig’s place,” Molly explained. “My shop was a few blocks down. We were both at the sewing machines in those days.” She lifted her hands, her fingers bent with arthritis. “See what it does to you? My hands have been this way for almost twenty years.” She smiled sneeringly. “But the cops, they don’t want to know nothing about that. They just want to know about Constanza, what I did for him.” She cackled to herself. “Which was nothing. I told Hannah that. I said, ‘I don’t do nothing for that pig.’” She stared at Frank intently. “What you do in this world, you do it for yourself,” she said vehemently. “Because nobody does nothing for the next guy. Nobody. You understand what I’m saying? Nobody does a fucking thing.”
Frank nodded quickly. “When did you first meet Hannah?”
“At this little park,” Molly said. For a moment she grew silent, as if trying to recall everything in minute detail. “Where the girls used to go after their shifts,” she added finally. “There was a little park, you see, and we’d stand around awhile, sort of breathe the air, loosen up a little from stooping.” She smiled. “Hannah had a way about her in the old days, a friendly way. She liked people, I think.” She shrugged. “I was just one of the people she liked. There were a lot of us. She liked groups, joining things, being together. That was Hannah, always around people, talking to them.”
Frank saw the pictures on her wall again, a middle-aged woman, alone in Paris, London, Rome. He heard Riviera’s voice: She always kept to herself. Then Burke’s: She had her own operation. Then Imalia’s: I didn’t know her personally. I’m not sure anybody did.
“Who was she?” he heard himself whisper.
The old woman leaned forward, cupping her ear with her hand. “What was that?”
“Liking people,” Frank said. “Being liked. That must have helped with the union.”
Molly nodded firmly. “Oh yeah, it helped. It helped plenty. And Hannah, she could take control of things, too. She liked to take control, and people trusted her.” She smiled with a certain carefully controlled pride. “We had a big strike, you know.”
“In 1936.”
“Lasted for months,” the old woman said triumphantly. “But we won it.”
“And Hannah was one of the leaders,” Frank said, urging her on.
“She stuck it to Feig, that’s what,” Molly said. “She fucked him good. He never recovered. He had to sell his shop, the bastard. Nobody would work for him, not after that business with the girl.” She g
lanced toward the small kitchen to the right. “Want a whiskey?”
“No, thanks.”
She got to her feet. “Me, I’d like one,” she said emphatically. Then she walked to the kitchen, poured the drink, and returned to her seat. “I like it by itself,” she said. She took a long drink, then wiped her mouth neatly with the paper napkin she’d brought along with the glass. “It’s not a Jewish thing, drinking. That’s what my mother used to say. ‘Go ahead,’ she’d say, ‘Go drink like the goyim.’” She laughed derisively. “I was always a party girl, you know. My mother used to say, ‘Molly, you’re a party girl, and that’s your trouble.’” She shook her head. “We had such fights, my mother and me. That’s why I moved out. Went on my own.” She took another sip. “Mama was right, you know. She was right about me.” She glared at the nearly empty glass for a moment, then lifted her eyes toward Frank. “But what’s worth more than a party, huh? What the fuck is worth more than a goddamn good time?” She laughed heartily. “Mama never could answer that one. Worked all day, waited on Papa for the rest of the time. What’s the point of that, huh? You tell me.”
“Miss Karlsberg had two sisters,” Frank said, gently coaxing her mind ahead to the thirties.
The old woman nodded slowly, reluctantly returning to the subject. “Naomi and Gilda,” she said dully, her eyes dropping back toward the glass.
“Do you know what happened to them?”
“I heard that Naomi got married,” Molly said. “I don’t remember hearing much about the other one.”
“Do you remember who she married?”
“No.”
“After the strike, Hannah sort of disappeared,” Frank told her. “Do you have any idea where she went?”
The old woman shook her head. “Unless she went to work for the union people. You could check with them.”
“When did you go to work for Constanza?”
“Time flies,” Molly said. “Can you believe it, I went to work for Nico in 1957.”
“And that’s when you saw Hannah again?”
“That’s right,” Molly said. “She showed up about three weeks later. She came into the office one day. There was a man with her, and the three of them talked for a while not far from my machine. Hannah did most of the talking, but sometimes the other man would say something to Hannah in Spanish.”
“Spanish?”
“Yeah,” Molly said. She laughed. “It sort of pissed Nico off. the way they’d do that. He was Italian, you know. He didn’t speak a word of Spanish.”
“But Hannah did?” Frank asked.
“Oh yeah,” Molly said authoritatively, “and she sounded like she was real good at it.”
“What was she saying to the other man?” Frank asked.
“I don’t know,” Molly said with a shrug. She took another quick drink from the glass. “The only thing I recognized was the word for money. I remember that. Lots of talk about money.” She rubbed her fingers together greedily. “Dinero, dinero, dinero,” she said with a laugh. “That’s the only Spanish word I know.”
“Did you hear anything else?” Frank asked. “I mean, in English.”
The old woman shook her head firmly. “Not that I can remember,” she said. She slapped her ears lightly with the palms of her hands. “The shops are noisy,” she said, “everybody’s always bustling around. You get distracted.” She snapped a cigarette from the pack on the table and lit it. “That Nico, he was a pig. Everyone thought I was his girl, you know. He had an eye for me. But it didn’t work the other way around, no matter what people thought. Never. Not for anything. Not with that pig.”
“Did you talk to Hannah often while you worked for Constanza?” Frank asked.
“She was always in Brooklyn,” Molly said. “Not Manhattan.”
“But when she came to Manhattan.”
“Yeah, we would talk,” Molly said. “But she was shy. Not like when she was a girl.”
“What did you talk about?” Frank asked immediately.
“This and that,” Molly said. “I don’t remember much of it. She wasn’t a party girl, Hannah. Maybe at one time, maybe she could have been. But when she worked for Nico, her party days were over.” She smiled. “She dressed in these businesssuit dresses. You know what I mean? Little skirt and a plain blouse, and one of those little jackets.” She shook her head. “Definitely not a party type.”
“What type was she?”
“Strictly business, that’s what I’d say,” Molly told him. “She looked like she wouldn’t take any bullshit.” She smiled. “Even in the old days she was like that. You know, like, ‘Hey, don’t fuck with me.’ That kind of person.”
Frank nodded.
“Except …” Molly added slowly, “except sometimes …”
“Sometimes what?” Frank asked.
Molly shook her head, then took another drink, her eyes rolling up toward the ceiling as she finished the glass. “Sometimes she didn’t seem like that at all. Sometimes she looked completely different.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nico would be talking, and it was like she wasn’t hearing him at all,” Molly explained. “Maybe the minute before, she was listening real careful, but then, it was like something clicked, and she just tuned out.” She looked at Frank curiously, as if she were trying to solve some infinitely involved mystery. “She was like the song,” she said finally. “She was lost in the stars. Her mind would wander. You’d be talking to her, and her eyes would shift around, you know, over to the machines, the girls. She looked like she was lost in the stars, like she didn’t know who or what she was.”
Frank could feel an odd weariness overtaking him as he made his way down the narrow brick corridor to his office. In his mind, he could see Hannah in her sleeping gown as she marked the date of her birthday on the wall calendar, then later, as she had appeared that first day at Sol Feig’s shop, dressed in white, and then, still later, wrapped in her thick overcoat, her fist in the air, her voice hanging in the leafless winter trees of Union Square: Each man lives in his neighbor’s debt, and the payment of that debt is justice.
He fumbled for his keys a moment, found them, then opened the door slowly and stepped into the interior darkness. For an instant, it seemed wholly to engulf him, as if he’d stepped off the edge of the world, and he stood rigidly in place until a sound, very slight, drew his attention, and he felt his hand reach for the pistol at his back, then his own body tense as he felt another hand grab his and twist it firmly.
“Do not fear,” a voice said, the mouth so close he could feel its warm breath at his ear. “It is Farouk.”
Instantly the light came on, and Farouk released him.
“How’d you get in here?” Frank demanded as he spun around to face him.
“It is not difficult,” Farouk said. “I was waiting. I fell asleep on your sofa. Then I heard movement, and I saw only a man in the dark. I was not sure that it was you.”
Frank drew in a deep, calming breath. “Well, what do you want?”
Farouk shrugged innocently. “Must there be something?” He smiled. “Perhaps it is only for the companionship.”
Frank walked over to his desk and sat down.
Farouk took the chair in front of it. “So, what have you found out?”
“Not a lot,” Frank admitted. He took out a cigarette and lit it. “Except that she spoke Spanish.”
Farouk’s eyes brightened suddenly, as if someone had lit a small candle just behind them. “Spanish?” he asked softly. “She spoke Spanish?”
“Yes.”
“Yiddish, this I would understand,” Farouk said. “Polish, yes. Perhaps even Russian or German. But Spanish?”
“I don’t know where she learned it,” Frank told him. “I don’t know why she learned it.”
“Sometimes, it’s only curiosity,” Farouk said, “sometimes, a way to spend the hours.” He smiled quietly. “Those pictures, the ones in her room. Always alone. This can make you want to fill the time.”
“Learning a language?”
“Perhaps,” Farouk said. He looked pointedly at Frank. “In my case, also.” He lifted his hands helplessly. “For others, it’s some other thing. To build a model ship, perhaps. There is sports. There is whiskey.”
Frank said nothing.
“Did she speak it well?” Farouk asked after a moment.
“Evidently.”
“Like it was learned from others who spoke it well?”
“What do you mean?”
“Not from a book.”
Frank shook his head. “She spoke it well, that’s all I know.”
Something seemed to crawl slowly into Farouk’s mind. “This is something I can help with, this Spanish. I can be of assistance.”
“How?”
Farouk stood up. “It’s late,” he said. “And I must help Consuelo.”
“Consuelo?”
“Whom you know as Toby,” Farouk said hurriedly as he stepped toward the door. He stopped for a moment when he reached it, then looked back at Frank. “It really was for the companionship, you know,” he said. Then he turned quickly and walked out the door.
Karen was admiring her new dress in the mirror as Frank walked into the bedroom. She twirled gracefully, and the hem rose in a soft outward wave, then descended.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“Very nice.”
“A gift.”
“Nice,” Frank repeated as he slumped down on the bed. “Who gave it to you?”
“Imalia Covallo,” Karen said enthusiastically. “Such beautiful colors.” She shifted lightly on her feet, and the long, billowy skirt rocked left and right. “I was just trying it on. I’m not going to wear it to the theater tonight.”
Frank glanced toward the window. The night air seemed immensely thick and suffocating, and he thought instantly of the black air of the morgue, the way it must feel inside the sealed refrigerated vaults.
Karen turned briskly again, still admiring the skirt. “I must say I’m tempted, though.”
Frank turned back to her. “Tempted to what?”
“To wear it to the theater,” Karen said. “But it’s much too formal for that.” She smiled happily. “Besides, Imalia’s giving a benefit for the ballet on Sunday, and I thought I might wear it then.”
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