Brooklyn Secrets (16 page)

“I gave a talk at a conference at Oxford. Oxford! I had to wear my academic robe.”

Ruby laughed. “I bet you wore nice shoes with it.”

“I certainly did. Belgian pumps, ivory linen and oxblood leather. Matching bag, too. From Saks, no less!”

“Well, of course. I mean, it was Oxford!”

She and Ruby laughed when she added, “Of course I can't remember what I had for breakfast!”

They were laughing but I was ready to snap. How could I get them to focus? We had a small amount of time, and they were all over the place this morning.

Lil deftly pulled the tray of mini-Danishes closer and picked out several. Ruby lightly smacked her hand and said, “What are you doing, dear? Your diabetes…”

Lil sat back, still holding the tray.

“Ruby, don't be ridiculous. One, you are not my nurse. Or my doctor or my mother, heaven forbid. Two, they cover it with extra insulin now. And three, who the hell cares? The best part of stage 4 cancer, let me tell you, is I do what I want now.”

Ruby responded by making her spine a little straighter. “I am only trying to watch out for your health.”

“What health? I'm a sick person but not a child. Remember that.” Her expression was unsmiling and unapologetic.

It looked like a good moment for me to jump in.

Chapter Eighteen

“I love chatting with you ladies and any morning with pastry is a treat but—and please forgive me—I am here to do some work. I don't have the time today to do the recorded interview that we discussed, but I do have some questions.”

“Of course you do!” Ruby sat up straight. “Lil, focus. You can keep the pastry for later. If you must.”

She was oblivious to both Lil's hard stare and her deliberate reach for one more.

“You've found something?” Lil's cloudy eyes lit up. “You have. I can feel it.”

“Yes and no. I've found a few things but I don't know what they mean. I'm hoping one of you might be able to help.” I brought onto the screen the enlarged photo that included someone identified as F. Krawitz and turned it to face them. “Who is this?”

Ruby gave it her considered attention, but Lillian had tears in her eyes. “Frank. That is my brother Frank. It really looks like him, not like what you showed me before. I've never seen this photo.” It took a moment before she could speak. She gently touched the screen. “My parents didn't have photos at home, like people do now. No one had cameras. There was no money for even a cheap photo studio. So I haven't seen a photo of Frank in…it's been decades. It's been a whole lifetime.” She looked at me. “Can I have this one? To have in my room with me?”

“I'll get one printed for you. And framed.”

“Yes, that's Frank, certainly. But who are these other people?” Ruby leaned over to read the blurry caption. “Oh. Oh. Why, Lil, what was he doing with them? They didn't associate with these criminals, our brothers. They had the good sense to just ignore them. Most of the boys did.”

She tapped the computer screen. “Lil, dear, you are not focused. Erica has questions for us about this photo. I assume she does?”

Lil blinked a few times. “I'm ready now. Ask away.”

“I know something.” Ruby was too dignified to wave her hand up in the air, but she had that look of Ooh, ooh, call on me. “I know where this was taken. Come on, Lil, you could figure it out too.”

Lil stared at the screen again as I made the photo a little bigger.

“I'll be damned! That's our building. They were hanging around the front of our building.”

Ruby patted her hand. “Good work. And we know it's our building because even though the street numbers faded away, that window right there—” She jabbed the screen—“
that
window was where I slept, and you can see some of my clothes folded up on the windowsill. Hot summer nights when I couldn't sleep I used to sit by the open window and watch the world go by.”

“The world? Ha. Well, it was all the world we knew back then. But I expect what you want is not old ladies waxing nostalgic. You want to know what they were doing there, and why is Frank with them? And I don't know! That is the mystery.”

“Probably no one still alive knows. Lil, I believe you are wasting Erica's time, asking her to look for information about Frank. It's impossible. She's a busy person, as we were, making her way in the world.” There was some heat in her voice, scolding and something else. Before I had a chance to pursue that, we started to lose Lil's attention.

She smiled softly, and her eyes closed.

“You are not obligated.” Now Ruby was laying down the law to me. She glanced at Lil, then whispered, “You have a life, and work to do. This is no more than a whim of a very old lady who has neither. No need for you to indulge her.”

“But if I can, I will. And I have another question.”

“Lil!” Ruby leaned over and tapped her friend's arm with a sharp, polished nail. “No drifting. We have more work to do.”

She opened her eyes. “I wasn't asleep. Just resting my eyes.”

“Thank you both. There is a name on the photo. K. Schwartz. It's a long shot, but just in case it means something to you?”

“But it does.” Lil was not fully back with us but she was trying. “I believe it does. There was this kid, a skinny, annoying kid, really only a little older than us, who got hold of a camera from somewhere. Probably stole it.”

“Yes! He was always shoving it into people's faces, snapping away, like he was playing make-believe, the hotshot newspaperman in a movie. He should live so long!”

Lillian started laughing. “I haven't heard you use an expression like that in, oh, must be a lifetime!”

“It's all this talking about the old days.” She shook her head. “I sounded like my mother just then, didn't I, instead of scary Dr. Boyle. So that kid? I remember him too. They called him…what? What was it?”

“Kallie.”

“Kelly?”

“No. Kallie. Or Kal.” Lil's whole face lit up. “Or Bug! That was because he was so annoying. He used to follow Frank around.”

“That's right. Kal. Kalman, probably. But why do you want to know?”

“I'm not sure why I do. There might be one more connection I'm not seeing. But I'm glad you are sitting down. Ready for this? He did become someone famous. Sort of famous, anyway, in his day.”

“Really?”

“Seriously? That annoying Bug?”

“Yes indeed, under his nickname Espy.”

“For ESP?” Lil was still a sharp one when she focused.

“Exactly. Because he was so good at finding crime scenes to photograph, they said he must have ESP.”

“Well, I'll be damned.”

“Lil! Language!”

“Oh, stop. When did you become so proper? After you married the Yale professor?” Ruby turned pink. “Honey, I remember the days we used much worse language, showing off how bohemian we had become.” She turned back to me. “I remember his photos, even used some in a class, and I never knew I knew him. So to speak.”

“I'm still not connecting the name. He was a crime photographer? Probably for the kind of tabloid I wouldn't dream of reading.” Ruby was still miffed.

“But there were times when you couldn't walk past a newsstand without seeing some of his work. Here. Take a look.” I handed over the book I had brought, open to a row of papers with the same screaming headline and the same front page photo.

The two white heads bent over the pages, irritation forgotten for now.

They flipped, gasped at some, and finally Ruby patted one and said, “I remember this. This very picture. Lil, remember?”

“Oh, lord, I do. Yes, I do. They tried to keep it from us…”

“Protecting us. We were still kids. But we sneaked looks at the newsstand…”

“Of course As any smart kid would have.”

It was in front of a bar, just down the block from Moonlight Min's Candy Store.
A body sprawled on the sidewalk. It was a crowded scene, with cops, ambulance, medics, and many, many bystanders. The caption said this was the photo that got Espy his first real newspaper job. He was fifteen and dropped out of school to work chasing the news.

It was the shooting of Bernie Rosenblatt, the local hero of his time, the champion boxer killed in a robbery.

“Frank's friend, Bernie was,” Lil said softly. “Of course I was bound to know about this.”

“You and me and everyone. The whole neighborhood was talking about it.”

“It looks like the whole neighborhood saw it! Is that possible?”

They looked at each other and nodded.

“We didn't see it then—we were home in bed. In fact our parents always told us never to walk on that block, day or night.”

“And did you? Never walk there?”

“Of course we did. Even I did, and I was a real good girl. Not like some who always broke rules.” She nodded her head toward Lil, but Lil's attention was turned inward.

She gasped. “Frank was there. I just remembered that. Is that possible, to remember after a whole lifetime of forgetting?” She sighed. “Maybe I'm imagining it, that he was there. That I heard him tell my parents. He was crying, my big, strong brother.” She nodded emphatically. “Nope, not making up that detail. It happened.”

She went on slowly. “They were friends.”

“Yes, we got that already. Get to the point.”

Lil paid exactly no attention to Ruby's comment. I myself was listening hard, and madly taking notes too.

“They were friends, and it was a busy ordinary evening. A street full of people going about their business.”

“And hanging around, too. Lots of people were out of work and hanging around was their only business.” Ruby tossed her head. “And getting into trouble.”

“Yes, all of that. And Bernie was really well known. He had dinner with us a few times. Did you know that, Ruby? He and Frank went way back. He used to bring something to contribute, cold cuts, something. Because some times, we did not have enough to share with a guest. And then my mother would give up her meal.” She blinked a few times.

“So he was famous, an athlete in all the papers.”

She shrugged. “What did I know? I was a kid. I knew he always brought me candy.”

“And that day?”

She arched an eyebrow at me. “Don't the history books tell you?”

“Yes they do. And the old newspapers. That shot…” I patted the page. “…that shot was in every paper in New York. But the books disagree a little.”

“So what can we possibly add to the story? You probably know more than we do.”

“What we can add, Ruby, is how it felt to be there. Everyone was crying, not only Frank, that's for sure. But like I started to say, I think Frank was there. They were out together and there was a robbery. Not at Min's.” She pointed to the candy store in the photo. “There was a real Min, you know. Scary woman. No one would have dared to knock off her place. The robbery was a bar, I think.” She pointed to it. “There. And he jumped in. And got killed. Just like that.”

“That is what the history books say, pretty much. There is some disagreement about which place was getting robbed, and why someone would rob a bar in the daytime. Why did he jump in?”

“I suppose he thought he was tougher than anyone.”

I nodded.

“But Frank. Frank was next to him when he fell. He tried to stop the bleeding, he said. To Mom and Pop, not to me. I was listening from behind the door.”

“He must have seen blood before. We saw plenty of street fighting.”

“Ruby, for God's sake, this wasn't a broken nose! Poor Bernie bled out in the ambulance. He was there—my brother going to the hospital with his friend. I think I remember that.” She stopped, overcome.

Ruby stood up so quickly her chair scraped the floor. “Lil, you are tired. They said not too much activity. I am taking you back. No, Erica, I don't need help.”

“I'm not tired. Not a bit.” Actually, she looked exhausted. “If you are bored, you can take yourself off.”

“Lillian, why would you say that to me? I am only trying looking after you. Your nurse said.”

She looked back at her friend with hard eyes. “I am sick but I am not senile. Not yet, anyway. You were always a bossy kid even when we were children. ‘No, no, draw the potsy squares this way.' ‘Wear your matching socks.' ‘That boy isn't good enough for you.'”

“After all these years? That's what you remember?” Ruby was still standing, face an angry red, voice shaking. “And when was I not right? Never, that's when. He wasn't good enough for you, as you learned the hard way. And your socks don't match now.”

With that parting shot, she turned as if to walk into another room but Lil's chilly voice stopped her. “You always want to end the conversation when we talk about crime in the old days. Why is that? Was your brother maybe more involved than you want to say?”

“
My
brother? Who never took his head out of a book? Ridiculous. Now
your
brother…” She stopped with a gasp and covered her mouth.

“Never.” Lil seemed to get a little smaller in her chair, deflating. “Or maybe. Who the hell knows? I'd like to know, but maybe I won't find out in time.” She looked up. “Oh, Ruby, for god's sake, sit down. Enough drama for one morning.”

This was deteriorating into a schoolyard spat. Someone needed to be the grownup here. It would have to be me.

“You are delightful and charming mature women.” I summoned up a level of gracious hostess I did not know I possessed. “Ruby, let me fill your cup again.” She handed it over, mechanically, eyes looking past us. “And why don't you take that last piece of cheese Danish?” I turned to Lillian. “You do look a little tired.” She looked a lot tired. “Would you like another cup too? You like it with lots of sugar?”

She nodded, slowly. “Yes, I'm ready to go back and rest. And I'll take the Danish, too, in case I am peckish later.”

She turned to me. “Now you know the truth about us. We are only pretending to be sweet old ladies. White hair notwithstanding, we're as evil as when we were drawing with chalk on the sidewalk, full of piss and vinegar.”

“You always had a vulgar streak.”

Lillian said flatly, “We've proven that, right, Erica?”

Her aide turned up to take her back.

“I'll stay here and finish my tea,” Ruby said. “I am a little tired too. I need to sit quietly and sort out all these memories.”

***

On my mind all the way home was the knowledge that Lil didn't have much longer. I wondered if Ruby had faced up to that.

And I wondered about the murder they had described. I knew the killer was never found. Wouldn't anyone wonder what really happened? Or was I just getting weird, writing this difficult chapter about crime? I thought about that on the way home, too.

It was a small miracle I did not get lost.