The Blood Lie (10 page)

“I don't trust those party lines one bit. There are too many gossips with nothing better to do than eavesdrop on other people's conversations. I don't want to accidentally spread this rumor any further than it's already gotten.”

“But—”

“You let me handle this my own way,” she said and was about to pick up the receiver again when the phone rang.

“Hello?…Oh, Dr. Levine, is everything all right? Be careful how you say it, now… You too? I knew the other storekeepers were in for it, but your medical office?… Yes, I know. Did he say where he was going next or…I see…Well, I was just about to call the Kauffmans and Kaplans. If you want to try reaching Dr. Grunbaum and, let's see, maybe the Liptons, that would help…Yes, yes, I'll stay in touch. You too.”

“Jack,” she said when she hung up, “I want you to take Harry and Martha into my bedroom and lock yourselves in there. Carry Martha in and tell her everything's all right.”

“But Mama—”

“No buts. I have calls to make, and that's where I want the three of you.”

“For how long?”

“Until I say so.”

“But I can help you.”

The phone rang again. Mrs. Pool gave Jack her I-mean-it look. He left to find Martha and Harry.

At 11:30, Martha was curled up under an Adirondack blanket, asleep on her parents' bed, and Harry was stretched out on the floor, trying to lose himself in the latest issue of
Life
magazine. Jack sat in the rocking chair near the window, holding his
shofar
and studying a crack that zigzagged its way across the ceiling. He was thinking, thinking and wondering, and suddenly he was agonizing:
What will they do to me if Daisy is found hurt? Or dead? Or if she's never found—what then?
An image of a bleak stinking prison cell seized his thoughts. And right behind that the body of Leo Frank—strung from a tree branch,
his neck snapping against the rope, a crowd below him kicking and spitting on his dangling body.

Outside somewhere, he could hear muffled voices, but all he could see through the window were a few lit houses and, thanks to its slightly elevated position at the top of Hill Street, the south side of the synagogue. He tried harder to focus on the ceiling fissure. When Martha rolled dreamily from her back to her side, he murmured, “Must be nice.”

“What must be nice?” Harry asked.

“To be able to sleep.”

Downstairs, the phone sounded, as it had been doing every few minutes, and someone picked up on the first ring. “Harry, open the door,” Jack said. “Just a little. I want to hear.”

Harry got up and cracked the door, letting in dribs and drabs of Mrs. Pool's voice. “Now, Hannah,” she was saying. “All Albert will have to do is let him in and…Yes, go inside the shop with him…Just him, just the one, I expect…Call me…”

Outside, the voices abruptly turned into sharp bellows. Harry jumped back and Jack jumped up, the cold heat of panic sweeping up his insides and spilling down his skin.
Are they coming to get me—to drag me to the lockup or the noose? What do they want me to do, or do they want to do something to me?
Down to his very core, Jack was afraid, and he hated everyone responsible for his fear—the trooper, the crowds, the whole town. He even hated himself.

“We should go to the cellar,” Harry said. He had his nightshirt on but hadn't taken off his trousers yet, and he absent-mindedly tried to tuck the nightshirt into his pants. “C'mon.”

Jack didn't answer.

“Come on,” Harry repeated.

“Shhh, you'll wake Martha up,” Jack whispered. “Listen, we're not going anywhere. The basement's no safer than here. It's worse—the lock on that damned Bilco door is practically rusted out. Just hold your horses.”

Harry untucked his half-tucked nightshirt, sat on the floor cross-legged, and sighed melodramatically. “Hey, doesn't that sound like Scottie Logan's father out there? He never liked us, you know.”

“What makes you think that?” Jack asked, moving closer to the window. He thought he heard a girl's voice, but the street was black, and he couldn't see anyone.

“Because. Because once I heard Mr. Logan tell Scottie that God made Jews ugly for the same reason He put rattles on snakes: to warn their prey.”

“What? You never told me about that.”

“Why should I? I bet you don't tell me every dumb thing you hear.”

“Yeah, well, who else do you hear out there?”

Harry paused to listen. “Can't tell. They aren't so close anymore.”

It was true. The shouts were moving down the street, and then they turned the corner and disappeared. The hush echoed in Jack's ears. For a moment, one glimmering moment, he allowed himself to believe that the crowd had nothing to do with Daisy or him. Maybe it was just a bunch of partygoers, on their way home from an evening of dancing and laughing and eating finger cakes.

But no. Those were Jew-haters out there. Of that, he hadn't a shred of doubt.

“What do we do now?” asked Harry.

“Let's forget about all that. They're probably just some jerks full of giggle water, that's all.”

“You mean…?”

“I bet they're fried to the hat. Hey, look, how about you and me play a game? Twenty questions or something.”

“A game? Why?”

“No reason, just a change of pace. Maybe we could—” A strange sound downstairs cut him off.

“Wh-what's that?” Harry breathed.

Jack was already at the door. “I'm going down.”

“I'll go with you,” said Harry, springing up.

“No. You can't.”

“But—”

“But nothing. You stay here with Martha.”

Harry lowered his head and sank back onto the floor.

“Look,” Jack said. “It's your job to take care of Martha, all right? We can't both go down there, and we both shouldn't be up here. Lock the door behind me.”

When Jack got to the living room, he found his father clutching a rock the size of a baseball and his mother picking up glass shards from the rug and dropping them into her apron pocket—the same pocket where she kept her story pad and pencil. Jack wondered what story she might write about this later tonight, when she couldn't sleep. Would she tell the truth, or would she write herself into the saner world of her imagination?

“Mama?” Jack said.

Mrs. Pool straightened up. “Jack, get back in the bedroom, and keep everyone away from the window.”

“But I can do this for you.”

“No. I want you upstairs. With the door locked.”

The fear on her face alarmed him. Part of him wanted to run back upstairs to his hiding place. Besides, he already had one sliced finger; what if the glass made more cuts? What if he couldn't play his Vivaldi piece properly? But his mother shouldn't have to do this alone. And yet…

Jack stood there, the cool air sweeping over his face, when the phone rang. Mrs. Pool went to the hallway to answer it. “Hello?… Yes, Benny, I'm listening…”

“This is a good rock,” Mr. Pool said to Jack. “Not like what you trip on in the street. More the kind you go looking for. Round, like fist. Good for throwing. Like throwing a fist.” He looked old and brittle in the yellow lamplight, like a worn cornhusk that might dissolve into a pile of dust at any second.

“What about the rabbi?” Jack asked. “Has anyone told him?”

The outside voices became audible again, although only as a distant whir. “I call the rabbi's house a hundred times,” Mr. Pool said. “Must be he is at
shul
.”

“Do you want me to go get him? I could—”

“No! You are not to leave the house again.”

“But—”

“Jack,” Mr. Pool said, setting down the rock on the lamp stand. “What can the rabbi do tonight? Let him finish making ready for Yom Kippur. In the daylight, we talk to him.”

“He used his gun to get in?” Mrs. Pool was saying from the other room. “But—now watch what you say over the phone, Benny…And then what? He just left?”

“Son of a bitch!” Jack kicked the baseboard.

“Easy,” said his father. “A broken window, that is bad enough. We don't need any broken walls.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Pool, “it would be good of you to do that… Good night, Benny.” She replaced the receiver and walked briskly back into the living room, looking ashen.

“What was that about?” Mr. Pool asked.

“Simon Slavin's dress shop. Si's in Albany for the holy days, and when he wasn't there to let the trooper in, the trooper let himself in. Used the butt of his gun to smash the shop window and climbed right in. Went through the place—must have taken him all of one minute, it's so tiny—and then just left the store wide open.” She picked up another piece of glass and rolled it over in her hands. “And what are you still doing down here, Jack? Martha and Harry are up there alone.”

“Jack, get yourself some rest,” Mr. Pool added. “It will be all right.”

“All right?” Jack half-laughed. “How can things be all right? Nothing will ever be all right.” He turned toward the stairs in anticipation of a cold, sleepless night.

“Thank God that's over,” Gus said. He piled the last case of whiskey into the cab of the truck which Roy Royman had parked twenty yards from the river at the edge of Paradise Woods.

The two men climbed in and slammed their doors shut. “It's not one in the morning yet,” Royman said. “That wasn't as bad as I expected.”

“Thanks to me.” Gus bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it between his teeth, unlit. “Dimwit trooper!”

“Well, we both know you're the brains behind the operation. I'm just the muscles and good looks.”

“Never mind that. Just let's move this load to the shed so we can be done with it. I'm telling you, if this stuff wasn't liquid gold, it wouldn't be worth half the trouble.”

As Royman started the engine, Gus looked out into the blackness of the woods, wondering if Daisy Durham was still out there somewhere, wondering if his wife was still in the Durhams' kitchen finding chores for herself, wondering what had really happened to the kid and when she would surface. Then he dug a matchbook out of his pocket, lit the cigar, and sat back to enjoy the ride. He and Royman were going to make sixty bucks off this stash, enough for each of them to buy a fishing boat or put a down payment on a new car.
Sixty bucks off the slobs and the drunks and even the Jews
, he thought with a smile.

On Danforth Street, Victor sat in his parked car, crumbling Gus' list of Jewish businesses. Besides Pool's Dry Goods, he'd searched the tailor's place, a dental office, a men's suit shop, a doctor's office, a dress boutique, a stationer's, and a fruit and vegetable shop. The accused all cooperated, except for the dentist, Dr. Grunbaum, who submitted only after Victor threatened to arrest him. By the end of it all, Victor hadn't gained a scrap of evidence and had lost several precious hours—it was the middle of the night already. He considered Gus' idea of searching the Jews' homes, but no, that would take too long. Then he decided that maybe their preacher could provide some answers.