Redemption Street (8 page)

“Stinks, doesn’t it? It’s this freeze-dried crap we mix with hot water. Then we put it in the urns to give the impression that it’s brewed. I’m always afraid to look at the percentage of real coffee in the packages,” he admitted.

“Smart thing,” I said, trying to wash the taste out of my mouth with something that was supposed to be orange juice. “They probably measure the percentage of real coffee in parts per million.”

“Probably,” Sam agreed. “Listen, if you don’t mind me asking, what the fuck are you doing here? It’s not that I’m not flattered you chose my establishment, but your being on the premises brings the average age around here down from ninety-eight to ninety-seven and eleven months and twenty-nine days.”

“Research,” I snapped back without hesitation. “I’m doing research on the demise of the Cat—”

“Bullshit! Pardon my French, Mr. Moe, but you can’t bullshit an old bullshitter like me. You might be able to feed the Molly Treats of the world that line of crap, but not old Sam. So …”

“Were you around when the workers’ quarters at the Fir Grove burned down?”

Sam changed. I can’t say how, exactly. His expression remained constant. The corners of his mouth didn’t suddenly turn down, nor did he furrow his brow. He did not avert his sparkly blue eyes. He did not cough or hem and haw. Yet something was different, as if the gases in his exhalation had turned sour.

“I was around. I was around the fucking corner. I was the entertainment director of the Fir Grove back then. I did two shows a night, emceed, ran the dance contest, bussed the tables, and cleaned the toilets if I had to. It was a real top-notch job, just below child molester and just above cancer-study participant. Why you wanna know,
boychik
?”

“That’s what I’m here researching.” And for the very first time since I received it, I showed someone my license. That I kept it in the same case as my old cop badge was completely calculated. Like I’d told Dr. Prince, badges help cut through the crap.

“Sixteen years after the fact.” The old comedian beamed. “Now, that’s what I call a late start.”

“What can you tell me about it?”

“What’s to tell? Some putz was smoking in bed, and—poof!—teenagers well done. You working for Hammerling, that publicity-seeking missile?”

“No.”

“For who, then? Who would be interested so long after it happened?”

“Sorry, Sam, I can’t tell you that. But I bet you knew that?”

“Sure, Sudden Sam knows all, sees all, says nothing.” He rolled his hands and fingers at me like Svengali putting his victim into a trance. “You hypnotized yet? My fingers are gettin’ stiff already.”

“Anything left of the old place”—I was curious—”the Fir Grove, I mean?”

Sam shrugged. “Maybe some stuff. They bulldozed a lot of it. This I know for sure. I don’t get over there much. Only the hayseeds—”

“—and the Hasids. Yeah, I know. Molly told me.”

“Yeah, well, I like to think of ‘em as the rebels and the rabbis myself. See for yourself. Take a ride over, but leave your
chai
in your room,” he suggested, placing his hand on my forearm.

“Why?”

He patted my arm. “You’ll see when you get there.”

Before I could ask him about his odd warning, a chubby Hispanic man in chefs pants and hat approached Sam. He bowed to me slightly.
“Jefe,”
he addressed Sam, “the old people, they comeeng.”

Sam got up without a word of goodbye and marched into the dining room right past the cook. The cook smirked, shrugged his shoulders in puzzlement, and headed back to his kitchen station. I waited a moment or two before heading through the dining room. I was curious to see if my fellow guests were really as close to meeting their Maker as Sam made them out to be.

It was still early, but there were several fully seated tables. Most of the breakfast diners were old ladies. Most were closer to Sam’s age than Methusehah’s. I spotted a cane here and there, two walkers, and one wheelchair. It wasn’t quite the hospice Sudden Sam had made it out to be. As I walked through the dining room, I felt a tug on my arm. An elderly gent, rather elegantly dressed for this hour of the morning, had latched on to me.

“Friend of Gutterman’s?” he asked.

“A guest just like yourself,” I said, smiling down at the man, who vaguely reminded me of my dad.

“A guest, maybe, but not like me.” He let go of me and threw his arms in the air. “You must be a special guest for Sam to share his bacon with you.”

“Nothing special about me. Sam says no one knows about the bacon.”

“Sam says a lot of things. Sam’s a—”

“Sam’s gonna burn your cane for firewood, Mr. Roth.” The old comedian appeared out of thin air. He introduced me formally to Mr. Roth. Mr. Roth didn’t seem much in the mood to chat anymore and went back to the task of forcing down his breakfast.

“Here,” Sam said, handing me a piece of paper as he ushered me out of the dining room. “These are directions from here to where the old Fir Grove was. Listen, I wasn’t kidding before about leaving your jewelry behind. You still carry?”

“My off-duty piece, yeah.”

“Good. There’s some real
meshuggenehs
around there. Serious people. Watch yourself. I can’t afford to lose a full-price customer.” He winked.

The sky was cloudy, but not threatening. Some of the snow had melted, and the roads, though winding, were less of a challenge than they’d been the previous day. As I approached the vicinity of what had once been the Fir Grove, I saw one half of the cast for the favorite local joke. Crowds of bearded men in long black robes or coats, fur and black felt hats trudged along the roadside, followed by groups of younger boys in yarmulkes, with curls extending down their cheeks along their ears. Behind the men and boys were a few women and girls. Their skirts, revealed beneath their coats when the wind came up, were uniformly long. It was Saturday, Shabbas, the Jewish Sabbath. Unfamiliar with the area, I couldn’t know whether they were coming from or going to temple. I could see the look of condescension and disdain on the men’s faces as I slowed to pass. “Bad Jew!” their eyes accused. The women did not look at all.

On the streets of Crown Heights, Williamsburg, or Borough Park, I would have barely noticed the Hasidim. I was used to them in their Brooklyn enclaves, their self-imposed ghettos. It was just that they seemed so out of place here in the snow, among the tall pines and country roads. But, no, that’s a lie. I always noticed and was never comfortable with them. The sight of them evoked two powerful and wildly opposite responses in me. I both envied their faith and was horribly embarrassed by them. Their faith allowed them a kind of freedom I could never have. So sure were they in their knowledge of God that they could ignore the real world. They could even thumb their noses at the rest of us by wearing their curls and beards and black coats. “Look. Look at us!” they seemed to say. “We know the truth.”

I left my discomfort in the rearview mirror. A few miles up the road I noticed two carved-granite pine trees standing silent vigil at the entrance to what had been the driveway up to the Fir Grove Hotel. They weren’t quite in the same class as Cleopatra’s Needles, but they were impressive nonetheless. Astride the stone trees were three-foot-by-three-foot rough-hewn hunks of rock to which, I imagined, were once affixed brass plaques reading “FIR GROVE HOTEL.” You could still make out the holes where the bolts had fitted, holding the plaques in place. These days, however, in lieu of brass were two plywood placards held to the rock with duct tape. Their message was simple: “KEEP OUT.”

I did not.

Just like the driveway at the Swan Song, the pavement was chewed up and neglected. The approach was a steep uphill climb, and the entire driveway was an impressive semicircle around what would have been the great lawn. I stopped my car at the stone-and-concrete footing where the main house of the old Fir Grove had once stood. I tried imagining it in its mid-century splendor, but since I’d never actually seen the old place, all I could picture in my mind’s eye was the dilapidated main house of the Swan Song. I wondered where the workers’ quarters had been and realized I was probably going about this all wrong. I should have gone to the library first and done a little research. But should-haves are like ifs, they’re both tremendous wastes of time.

I drove a little farther on down the driveway, until I spotted a left turnoff. Ahead of me, the snow marked out a huge, slightly sunken rectangle. The guest parking lot, I suspected. I continued to the very back edge of the lot, which was marked by wildly overgrown hedges. Now out of my car, I stepped through the tangle of hedges, its branches slapping my cheeks as I went. On the other side of the thicket, I finally got my first glimpse of what had become of the old place.

I was atop a hill. Several feet ahead of me were concrete steps leading down to where the pool had been. A moot fiberglass slide and a set of rusty metal bars that had once held the diving board helped delineate opposite ends of the pool. To the right of the pool, rising out of the snow, stood two ten-foot-high poles. A half-moon backboard dangled off the top of one of the poles, swinging in the wind like the blade of the executioner’s ax. These days, my surgical knee ached at even the thought of playing hoops. No one had played ball here in a very long time. Looking out at the impotent equipment, I found myself thinking of Coney Island. Once the world’s playground, it, too, had been abandoned, the frames of its disused rides rising out of the earth like metal and wooden bones of vanquished dinosaurs. But it was neither the pool area nor Coney Island that currently captured my attention.

I managed to descend the steps without breaking my neck. No small feat, given the state of the wrought-iron guardrail. About half a football field beyond the pool area I saw smoke rising above yet another hedgerow. As I approached I could smell it. It smelled of pine resin and bacon. And, perhaps for the first time in sixteen years, I imagined the horror of the night the workers’ quarters burned to the ground, the panic and terror. I’d seen the ugly things fire did to people. But it was the smells of fire that stayed with you, particularly the smell of burnt human hair. I thought of the flames licking at Andrea and shuddered.

Stepping through the second hedge, I was still preoccupied with the image of Andrea’s charred body. So I was unprepared for the thud of heavy paws against my chest that sent me sprawling in the snow. Scrambling to stand and reaching for my .38, I slipped back down. As I continued to fumble for my gun, I caught sight of the thick-chested Rottweiler that had put me down in the first place. He came at me again, a string of white saliva dripping from his blunted snout. As I raised my pistol into the best shooting position I could manage there on my ass in the snow, two things convinced me to lower my weapon. One was the rattle of the heavy chain which I noticed would prevent the dog from actually getting to me. The other, and by far more convincing, reason was the unmistakable
chicking
of a round being chambered into a pump-action shotgun. In fact, I did more than just lower my weapon. I tossed it into the snow and raised my hands way, way up.

“On your feet, asshole!” the man with the shotgun ordered. “This is private property. What are you doin’ here?”

He was a tall man in his thirties. He sported a stocking cap and long underwear. In fact, he would have looked quite ridiculous if it weren’t for the shotgun aimed at my chest. He was standing on the wooden steps of a double-wide trailer, which itself was set on cinder blocks. Two flags flew behind him, on either side of the front door: the good old Confederate flag over his right shoulder and a Nazi flag over his left. The red-and-black Nazi flag wasn’t the typical swastika flag but, rather, one that bore a black cross. It was the Maltese Cross, a favorite with motorcycle gangs.

Earlier, I had seen one half of the favorite local joke: the Hasids. Now it was my turn to meet the hayseeds. This was where the other half lived. No wonder Sam warned me to leave my jewelry at home. I somehow got the feeling no one was going to invite me in for a little chopped liver on matzoh.

“I’m a cop!” I lied. “I got my badge in my pocket.” I nodded my chin at my chest.

“Let’s see. Slow.”

I waved my badge at him, but he didn’t put the gun down. Cops, apparently, weren’t the rage around here either. There were several other trailers in the little compound, and Mr. Pump Action and I were beginning to attract a crowd. Doors were opening and people, including women and children, in various states of dress, were sticking their heads out to have a look-see. It did not escape the attention of my friend with the shotgun that we were no longer alone. He eased up a bit now that we had an audience.

“That’s not a local badge!” he shouted for everyone to hear.

“NewYork City,” I answered.

“Jew Yorker, huh? Okay, you can put your arms down and go pick up your piece.”

As I knelt to pick up my .38, I took a look around. Along with the double-wides were a few ratty car-trailers, sheds, even a shack or two. There were cars in various states of disrepair strewn about the place, some with flat tires, some on milk crates. Not every residence flew racist flags. But there were dogs, lots of dogs, though most of them were a lot scrawnier than my pal the Rottweiler.

I also noticed that no one, not even the guy with the shotgun, was willing to approach me. Everybody seemed to be waiting, but for what or whom was unclear. It didn’t remain unclear for very long. The front door of the double-wide immediately to the right of Mr. Pump Action’s swung open. All heads, including mine, swung that way, and the crowd held its collective breath. Through the door came a little man so thin he was nearly two-dimensional. Only in the movies do Nazi types look like blue-eyed, blond-haired supermen. In real life they usually look like the kids no one wants to play with. This clown was no exception.

He stood about five foot seven on tippy-toes and was, I guessed, in his mid-twenties. He looked like a cat sneeze could snap his femur. He wore his hair slicked back, but the natural wave of his dark-brown hair defeated the look of authority he was going for. Having tried to tame my own hair in this manner and to the same end, I almost felt sorry for him. He had a rather too-long face, plain brown eyes, and a skinny nose that had caught too many unblocked left hooks.