Flesh and Blood

by Thomas H. Cook

  “Yes.”

  “In love,” Fischelson said passionately. “In love with your wife’s sister.” He laughed joylessly. “I told a guy about it once, a guy I worked with. Eddie Panuchi. I told him all about it, and he just draped his arm over my shoulder, and he said, ‘You know, Joe, when I hear something like this, I think of what my mother used to say about the same sort of situation, “Hey, it could have happened to a bishop.”’”

  “Did you ever tell anyone else?” Frank asked.

  “Besides Eddie? Of course not,” Fischelson said. “It was just between me and Hannah.” He shook his head wonderingly. “It was during the strike,” he went on. “I couldn’t stand it anymore.” He lowered his head slowly, as if to receive the blow he thought he must deserve. “I went to her, to Hannah. I told her how I felt.” He stopped, and leaned tremulously against a single gray stone. “I loved Naomi. I really did. But with Hannah, it was this fire, this awful fire. Uncontrollable.” He looked at Frank beseechingly. “Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  Fischelson smiled helplessly. “Do you know what Hannah said?” he asked. “This will tell you all you need to know about her.” He pushed himself away from the stone, straightening his body. “She put her hand on my face, and she said, ‘Joseph, one love at a time.’” His eyes turned to Frank. “She meant that a person could handle only one devotion, not two, and that if you couldn’t put all your heart into something, I mean, the whole thing, you were nothing.” He shrugged wearily. “Maybe that was what made me tell them what I knew. Tell Stern, I mean. Maybe I wanted to take that one devotion from her, so that she would come to me.” His eyes drifted back toward the corner of the cemetery where the Kovatnik sisters lay, three of them together, as they had once shared their single room beneath the synagogue. “I really don’t know if that had anything to do with it,” he added quietly, “the fact that she couldn’t love me back.” He drew in a long, tormented breath. “But I can tell you this, Mr. Clemons, it’s the only thing I’ve really thought about for the last forty years.”

  They walked the rest of the way out of the cemetery in silence, then stood in silence until the bus arrived at its stop a few minutes later.

  When the doors opened, Fischelson stepped on quickly and deposited his token.

  “Thanks for your help,” Frank told him.

  Fischelson smiled sadly as he turned toward Frank for a final word. “Do you think she’s at peace?” he asked.

  Frank did not answer, and in an instant the doors of the bus closed between them in a shrill hydraulic hiss.

  For a time, Frank lingered on the corner, his hands sunk in his pockets, the collar of his coat pulled up against the increasingly chill wind. He didn’t want to go back to his home, or office, or whatever it was now. He didn’t even want to go back to the neighborhood which surrounded it. The bars didn’t appeal to him, nor the grim hotel lobbies, nor the glittering arcades.

  Instead he wandered back through the dark iron gate of the cemetery, back through the gray stones, to where Hannah’s grave still lay open, waiting to be covered, a reddish trench stretched out between her sisters. For a while, he leaned against a neighboring stone and gazed into the gutted earth, toward the elegantly polished coffin. He smoked a cigarette pleasurelessly, found no place to put the butt, shoved it finally into his jacket pocket, and lit another. For a time, he watched the gray overhanging clouds, then the city of stones, the distant wrought-iron gate, and finally, the single red rose that waved coldly over Gilda Kovatnik’s grave.

  Frank was staring absently at his uncluttered desk when he heard someone coming through the door of his office, looked up, and saw Farouk.

  “I’m sorry,” Farouk said as he closed the door behind him.

  “About what?”

  “The funeral,” Farouk said. “I had wanted to come.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Frank told him. “I didn’t expect anybody but Fischelson.”

  “I wanted to come,” Farouk said. “I’d meant to. But there was a call.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Farouk,” Frank assured him. He lit a cigarette, then reached into the top drawer of his desk. “I have some money for you.”

  “Money?”

  “For your help,” Frank said.

  “Ah, yes,” Farouk said, as if the whole question of payment had slipped his mind.

  “The total fee was two thousand dollars,” Frank told him. “Plus a bonus.”

  “Bonus?”

  “Another two thousand.”

  Farouk smiled. “Miss Covallo is very generous.”

  “Yes, she is,” Frank said. He opened the envelope and drew out the stack of bills. “She gave me a check. I cashed it on the way back from the funeral.” He slid the bills across the desk. “Take your share.”

  Farouk looked at the money wonderingly. “How much is that, my share?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Farouk stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps ten percent. That would be four hundred dollars.”

  “Whatever you say,” Frank told him. “Just peel off what you want.”

  Farouk drew four one hundred dollar bills from the stack, then slid the money back to Frank. “Thank you,” he said.

  Frank put the rest of the money in his jacket pocket, then reached for the bottle that rested, half-empty, on his desk. “Want a drink?”

  “Yes, that would be good,” Farouk said. “To break the chill.”

  They were on their third drink, and the basement shadows had deepened into a gray half-light when the door to the office opened once again.

  Tony Riviera stopped instantly, his body in full silhouette against the brick wall of the corridor.

  “I assume you’re open for business,” he said.

  Frank nodded slowly.

  “Good,” Riviera said. He closed the door behind him, then pulled a chair up to Frank’s desk. “I’m glad to find you in,” he said. His eyes drifted briefly toward Farouk, then shot back to Frank. “I’ve just come from a long talk with Miss Covallo. We were talking about the job you’d done on tracking down Mr. Fischelson. I don’t have to tell you how pleased she is.”

  Frank said nothing.

  “We were thinking,” Riviera said, “that you might want to stay on the case a little longer.”

  “Stay on the case?”

  “That’s right,” Riviera told him. He hesitated. “You must have guessed what I’m talking about.”

  “Her killer,” Farouk blurted.

  “Yes,” Riviera said. “That’s exactly right. The fact is, he’s still out there. Hannah may be at peace, but … somehow it’s not enough.”

  Frank and Farouk exchanged glances, but neither of them spoke.

  “You know, in Spain …” Riviera began. Then he stopped and looked pointedly at Farouk. “I’m from Spain.”

  Farouk nodded. “Yes, I thought so.”

  Riviera looked pleased. “Really? Why?”

  “The accent,” Farouk explained. “It is truly Spanish.”

  “Yes, it is,” Riviera said. “You’re very perceptive.”

  “My ears are good,” Farouk said. “But then, I have traveled. I have often heard English spoken by Castilians.”

  “Castilian, yes,” Riviera said delightedly. “Purely Castilian.” He smiled at Farouk appreciatively for a moment, then returned his eyes to Frank. “In any event,” he said, “Miss Covallo is interested to know if you”—he glanced quickly at Farouk—“you two would be willing to work a little longer on the case.”

  “Purely as a murder case,” Frank said.

  “That’s right,” Riviera told him. “Something that’s much more in your line, I’m told.”

  “I don’t really have any leads,” Frank said. “I’d have to start pretty much from scratch.”

  “That’s no problem,” Riviera assured him. “As a matter of fact, Miss Covallo expected that. After all, nobody’s asked you to find Hannah’s killer.” He stopped and glanced back and forth from Fr
ank to Farouk. “Until now.”

  “Have the police made any progress?” Farouk asked.

  “Not that we’re aware of,” Riviera said. “That’s why Miss Covallo is interested in your continuing to work on it. She doesn’t think the police are doing very much.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think the trail is very cold by now,” Riviera said. “And when that happens, people have a tendency to put their attention on other things.” He waited for some response, then added, “Miss Covallo wants someone to put all their attention on Hannah. It’s just that simple. Same fee as before, no time limit.”

  Frank looked at Farouk. “What do you think?”

  Farouk nodded slowly. “I am willing, of course. But I must leave it to you.”

  “All right,” Frank said as he returned his attention to Riviera. “We’ll look into it.”

  “Very good,” Riviera said as he stood up. “I’m glad you can stay on it.” He turned and offered his hand to Farouk. “I think the sooner we find the lousy bicho who killed Hannah Karlsberg, the better off everyone will be.”

  For a moment Farouk looked at Riviera oddly, then he pumped his hand twice, and released it.

  “Yes, of course,” he said.

  Riviera turned to Frank, shook his hand, and walked quickly to the door. “Well, good luck,” he said, as he opened the door and stepped into the corridor. “You can report whatever you find to Miss Covallo.”

  For a few minutes after Riviera left, Frank and Farouk continued to sit silently in the steadily darkening air of the office, each sipping slowly at what was left of his drink.

  “We don’t really have anything, do we?” Frank said at last.

  “Don’t have what?”

  “Anything,” Frank said. “A single lead.”

  “Nothing,” Farouk agreed.

  “We’re back to the beginning.”

  Farouk nodded heavily. “Yes. The beginning.”

  “Or the middle,” Frank added. “Or the end.” In his mind, he saw Hannah Karlsberg’s life run like a speeding film before him, the murderous journey across the sea, the arrival in a foreign land, the basement apartment on Fifth Street, the sweatshop on the Lower East Side, her body in a white dress, then a wool coat, her hand in the air, then on a marriage license, then gone entirely, lost in a bloody stump, and finally just an open grave between two others, with nothing to adorn them but a rose.

  26

  Frank drew the small white vase out of his coat pocket and turned its base outward, toward the man behind the counter.

  The man gazed casually at the small adhesive label which had been attached to the bottom of the vase. “Yes, that’s ours,” he said.

  Frank took out his identification, showed it to the man, then indicated Farouk. “My associate.”

  “Hello.”

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Frank set the vase down on the counter. “You use a lot of these?” he asked.

  “Of course,” the man said. “It usually has a single flower in it. An orchid, sometimes. A tulip. A rose. Where did you get it?”

  “Off a grave.”

  The man smiled. “Well, that’s a little odd, but it can happen.”

  “Do you deliver flowers?”

  “Of course.”

  “To cemeteries?”

  “Anywhere.”

  “If they were delivered, would you have a record of it?”

  “Absolutely,” the man said. “Where did you find the vase?”

  “Beth Israel.”

  “Any particular person?”

  “A woman named Kovatnik,” Frank said, “Gilda Kovatnik.”

  The man nodded peremptorily, then disappeared into the back of the room.

  “A nice place,” Farouk said as he stared about, his eyes glancing from one flower or fern to the next. “To work with flowers wouldn’t be so bad.”

  “I guess not,” Frank said.

  Farouk sniffed the air appreciatively. “And the sweetness, that is also good.” He smiled. “Like a bakery.”

  The man returned with a large gray ledger. “That’s a regular delivery,” he said as he placed the book down on the counter.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a standing order,” the man explained. “We deliver a single red rose once a week.” He read the details from the book. “To Beth Israel Cemetery, the grave of Gilda Kovatnik, Row 11, Plot 72.”

  “Paid in advance?” Frank asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  Again, the man’s eyes fell to the book. “Cash.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “It’s a man.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “An older man. Very tall. He comes in here once a month.”

  “And orders a flower?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  The man shrugged. “It’s a regular American long-stem rose.”

  “I mean for the person who pays the bill,” Frank said.

  “Oh,” the man said. He laughed lightly. “Sorry.” He looked at the book for a moment, then back up at Frank. “Kincaid,” he said, “Benjamin Kincaid.”

  Frank and Farouk exchanged glances instantly. Then Frank turned back to the man behind the counter. “You wouldn’t happen to have an address, would you?” he asked.

  “Of course,” the man said lightly. “Twenty-five fifty-seven Parkman Street.”

  Frank started to take out his notebook, but Farouk grabbed his arm. “There is no need,” he said. “I know where that is.”

  “It is in Boerum Hill,” Farouk said as he and Frank emerged from the subway on Clinton Street. “Near my old home.” He smiled pleasantly. “Come, I will show you.”

  They walked south along Clinton until they reached Atlantic Avenue.

  “Here it is,” Farouk said as he glanced up and down the street, “the place of my youth.”

  It was the small, closely knit Arab quarter, a world of crowded shops where fresh dates and cashews were sold from enormous barrels and burlap sacks. The raw meaty smell of kibbee mingled with the sweetness of halvah and honeyed cakes, and as Farouk strolled slowly eastward, sniffing the air, he seemed to return to a time that was even more distant than his youth, when the desert tribes still wandered over the featureless sands.

  “When you are in exile,” he said as they stopped for a traffic light at the corner of Court Street, “there is a strangeness to it … a not-here-ness, you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you also miss your home?”

  “No,” Frank said. “Something else. I don’t know what.” He lit a cigarette. “You lived around here, Farouk?”

  Farouk nodded toward an ornately decorated Middle Eastern restaurant on the opposite corner of the street. “On the third floor,” he said. “There was no restaurant on the street then. It was a store for spices. Garlic. Clove. It is the way our apartment smelled.”

  “I remember the smell of cotton poison,” Frank told him. “The bush pilots used to fly over the fields, spraying this white powder. It had a dry, sweet smell.” He shrugged. “It’s hard to describe it.”

  The light changed and the two of them strolled on down Atlantic Avenue until they reached Parkman Street.

  “This way,” Farouk said as he guided Frank to the right.

  It was a street of dilapidated brownstones whose crumbling, graffiti-strewn facades looked down on littered sidewalks and gutted automobiles, and yet, as Frank walked along it, he could feel the simple life that sustained it. Despite the cold, a knot of teenagers gathered on a broken stoop and listened to the blaring music that came from their enormous silver radio. Across from them, two old men trudged forward against the slicing wind which swept in off the bay. In the distance, a couple quarreled loudly, while only a few yards behind them, a young child wrapped in heavy clothes, spun round and round on a small rusty tricycle.
It was all of this that gave the street and its surrounding neighborhood a sense of deep reality and concreteness, of being cradled in a network of interwoven experiences, and as Frank made his way through it, he thought again of Hannah, as she sat alone at the end of the table, staring back at the three stern-faced men, of the second exile which they had imposed upon her, and of how she now reminded him of Ruth, whose Old Testament story his own father had so often related to his stricken congregation; Ruth, stripped of her homeland and her people.

  “She should never have left,” Frank said suddenly, almost to himself, as he stopped at the front of 2557 Parkman Street.

  Farouk looked at him. “Who?”

  “Hannah.”

  “Left what?”

  For an instant, he started to answer, “New York. She should never have left New York.” But then he saw her in the steaming shop again, saw her in the snow of Orchard Street, and finally, as she stood before the crowds of Union Square; and suddenly he realized that it was more than New York that she had left behind, more than Orchard Street.

  “Left what?” Farouk repeated.

  “Her one devotion,” Frank answered quietly. “Her one and only love.” Then he started up the stairs.

  Farouk reached for the buzzer to apartment 3-B, then stopped, his stubby finger held motionlessly in the air. “Do you have any kind of weapon with you, Frank?” he asked.

  Frank nodded. “You?”

  Farouk patted under his left shoulder. “Always,” he said grimly. Then he pressed the buzzer.

  Silence.

  He pressed again.

  Silence.

  “Perhaps the super?” he asked.

  “Okay.”

  Farouk pressed the buzzer for apartment 1-A, and almost immediately the door just beyond the entrance opened and a slender, well-groomed black man came to the door.

  “Yes?” he asked as he opened the door.

  Frank produced his identification.

  The man eyed it casually. “As I understand it, you have no legal authority,” he said.

  “What?”

  “No legal authority,” the man repeated. “I have to understand these things, because many times people in these buildings are sought after by certain people. Some have legal authority. Some do not. You, for example, do not. Naturalization, that is another matter. As are agents of the Internal Revenue Service. But a private investigator has no legal authority in the state of New York.” He stopped. “Now, what are you doing, collecting bills, or something of that nature?”