Redemption Street (17 page)

“What?”

“Forget it, Sam, we’ve already been down that road. You got a room for me?”

He did, my same room. And, to make me feel right at home, he hadn’t touched it since I left. My bet was he paid his cleaning staff per room.

“Is Mr. Roth—”

“That’s their airport bus pulling up outside.” Sam pointed over my shoulder. “He’ll be down in a minute.”

I didn’t wait. Mr. Roth never seemed quite comfortable in front of Sam and me, so I headed up to his room. Unlike Sam, Mr. Roth wasn’t dancing. He was rather melancholy.

“I thought you’d be happy to see me,” I said.

“Oh, I am, believe me. But I’ll miss you. A son like you, I could have been proud of.”

Though tempted, I didn’t ask him to explain. “That’s a generous thing to say, Izzy. Thank you. I’ll miss you, too.”

My calling him Izzy made him smile. He handed me a sheet of paper with his address and phone number. I gave him a business card from the store and wrote my home number and address on the back.

“A pleasure,” he said, extending his hand.

“A pleasure.”

“Here.” He reached for something on the bed. “I bought this for you to enjoy and remember our making friends. We’re friends, right?”

“Friends.”

The gift he gave me was clearly a gift-wrapped bottle of liquor of some sort. Shrewd, huh? Three years in the wine business and I could spot a bottle of liquor a mile away. The gift wrapping was the standard patterned foil, but the wrapping job itself was rather shoddy. I began to unwrap the bottle.

“Please, Mr. Moe, save it for when I’m gone,” Mr. Roth implored, grabbing my wrist. “Maybe tomorrow or the next day, you’ll open it up and think of our nice talks.”

“For you, Mr. Roth, anything. Have a safe flight home.”

“You’ll call sometime?”

“I promise.”

He finally let go of my wrist. “The best of luck to you with what you’re working on. I’ll be interested to know how it turns out.”

I helped him on with his coat, handed him his cane, and carried his bags down to the bus. He carried my bottle. I didn’t stay and wave as the bus pulled away. I hated long goodbyes.

The Swan Song was eerily quiet now that the Boca Raton contingent was gone. There were a few other guests besides myself, but we were easily outnumbered by Sam and the staff. I’d have to ask Sam how he managed to keep the place up and running with such a dearth of cash flow. I would have asked him right then and there if I could have found him, but he had gone, too, probably to the bank.

I went back up to my room. Sam was as good as his word: it was untouched. I slid Mr. Roth’s gift under my bed, pulled the pictures of Arthur Rosen out of my bag, and considered when to begin trying out my new strategy. There was no time like the present, of course, but I was more than a little worn out by the last forty-eight hours and by the prospect of not seeing Sarah for several more days. I closed my eyes, remembering the feel of Katy’s naked back against me. The warmth of the recollection was dampened, however, by the sound of Francis Maloney Sr.’s aphasic gibberish rattling around in my skull.

“‘atch hout ‘ut ‘ou ‘sh ‘or. ‘atch hout ‘ut ‘ou ‘sh ‘or. ‘atch hout ‘ut ‘ou ‘sh ‘or….”

Why should I watch out what I wish for? That man could get under my skin like no one else. Now he had a new mantra to go along with his warnings about ghosts. Gee, I couldn’t wait for what he had planned next. I grabbed the pictures of Arthur Rosen and got out of that room. There was no time like the present.

By the time I hit the lobby on my way out, Sam Gutterman had returned from parts unknown. I didn’t waste any time before showing him the pictures.

“Sure, I’ve seen him before,” Sam said, chortling. “In the dictionary, next to the word ‘psycho.’ A friend of yours?”

“An acquaintance, Arthur Rosen.”

The name seemed to have about as much impact on him as the death of a blade of grass. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time explaining myself. If Sam didn’t know him, he didn’t know him.
C’est la guerre!
But Sam was curious.

“Who is he, really?”

“Was,” I corrected, producing one of the autopsy photos.

“I’ll take a five-by-seven and two wallet-sized.”

“You’re a sick man, Sam.”

“If you don t joke, you cry. So who was he?”

“The older brother of Karen Rosen, one of the girls who died in the fire.”

There was a limit to Sam’s curiosity and we’d reached it. Now it was my turn. I asked him about how he could afford to keep the Swan Song up and running.

“I can’t. We’re closing for the season next week. Everybody out! Even you,
toteleh
. And just between you, me, and the duct tape, I don’t think I’m reopening.”

“Why?”

“You mean besides the fact that when I have guests offseason they make the Ancient Mariner feel like a teenager? You mean besides the fact that every building on the estate is the perfect setting to reenact ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’?”

“You’re pretty well read.” I noted, ignoring his hyperbole.

“What, just because I’m a nasty old prick you think I never picked a book up in my life? See Spot run. Run. Run. Run.”

“Okay, sorry. So why are you thinking of closing up?”

“
Gelt
. There’s a development company buying up every big piece of land they can get their hands on. For golf courses, I think. I know for a fact two of the other hotels are already under contract. Of course, the developer’s offering
dreck mit dreck
, but when the ugliest girl in town is also the only girl in town, she don’t look so bad.”

“So this is the Swan Song’s swan song.”

“I bet you waited your whole life to make such a joke.”

“No,” I protested, “not my whole life.”

“Some things,
boychik
, are better left unsaid.”

Sam had to go. He had to oversee the mowing of the polo grounds and the polishing of the good silver.

Much to my surprise, Molly Treat had abandoned her desk at Town Hall. I figured Molly was a lock to know something about Arthur Rosen’s movements in town over the last several years. I guess I could always wait for Saturday night and show up at Hanrahan’s, though I think if I heard “Piano Man” again I couldn’t be held accountable for my actions. Hammerling seemed to be missing in action as well. That was unfortunate, but not tragic—I wasn’t sure what he could have told me.

So I was batting 0 for 3. My new approach, my brilliant idea to trace Arthur’s footsteps—which were bound to be fresher than those of his dead sister had gotten me to the same place as my old approach. Then it occurred to me that I might have a good idea but I was going about it in the wrong way. Instead of seeking out people I was acquainted with, people who knew bits and pieces of the story, I’d try my hand with strangers.

After a few awkward attempts with passersby, I worked out a routine. I walked into all the shops along Main Street. In rapid succession, I’d flash my badge, then a mug shot of Arthur Rosen at the counterman and/or customers waiting in line. Several people were pretty certain they’d seen Arthur Rosen in town. A few knew his name.

“That crazy fella,” the counterman at the hardware store said. “I remember him. All he wanted to talk about was the fire.”

The more I showed his picture, the more I got that reaction. Some folks were less kindly than the guy at the hardware store. As Molly Treat, Hammerling, and the doctor had warned, the citizenry of Old Rotterdam was more than a little bit touchy about the fire.

“What’d he do now?” a persnickety old biddy at the library wanted to know. “He kill somebody?”

“He did,” I answered plainly. “Himself.”

“No surprise there.” She walked away, quite satisfied with her powers of prognostication.

I didn’t know whether to be simply discouraged or depressed. Clearly, Arthur Rosen had made a general nuisance of himself. No wonder Hammerling had emphasized the detrimental effect of being associated with Arthur. He was about as popular as a case of crabs. I decided to try Doc Pepper and his wife. Maybe they could tell me something of interest about Arthur Rosen sans running negative commentary.

On my way over, I passed what used to be the local synagogue. The Hasidic sects would have their own, but this building had served the summer crowd; the Conservative and High Holy Day Jews up from the city. It wasn’t quite a storefront, nor was it the Wailing Wall. Temple Beth Shalom was a converted—no pun intended—two-family, wood-frame house painted a somber blue, sandwiched between a vacated bakery and an empty Laundromat. Its old-fashioned black-felt-and-glass billboard was still affixed to one wall. Where once white plastic lettering had announced births, deaths, dances, and services, the following was the only word left: CL SED. There is something particularly sad about the death of any congregation. It’s a symbol of atrophy, the death of community. And when I saw my reflection in the billboard glass, my nose where the O in CL SED should have been, I recognized my culpability and that of the other unobservant in the death of congregations everywhere.

As I turned away from my reflection, I sensed another presence.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” The words I hadn’t uttered since I was a kid poured out of my mouth as if I’d said them only yesterday.

Out of the shadows near the alleyway of the abandoned bakery stepped the man in the threadbare suit I’d seen float by the hardware store. As Molly had said, he wore the infamous yellow star sewn to the chest of his coat. He was more frail, less ghoulish up close, and younger than I had thought.

“Are you a Jew?” he asked haltingly, swerving his head about.

“Why?”

“A proud man would answer yes or no, not why. Are you a proud man?”

When I did not answer immediately, he actually smiled at me. He handed me a small sheet of paper and walked silently away. I didn’t chase after him. I read the flyer.

ARE YOU A PROUD JEW?
29 Short Mountain Road
Old Rotterdam, NY
7 PM

That was it. That was the entire text: no phone number, no directions, no overt message, just a question. I neatly folded the little paper and slipped it behind my license. But out of sight is not always out of mind. The question even drowned out my father-in-law’s voice.

I decided to pass up my chat with Doc Pepper. I needed to sit and have a drink. I looked at my watch and considered heading back to the Swan Song. It was getting close to dinnertime, and the bottle Mr. Roth had given me was waiting eagerly under my bed, but Hanrahan’s was a lot closer. I thought about smoking half a pack of cigarettes to get my lungs in shape before heading over. I decided to rough it.

The usual crowd of losers surrounded the bar. By this I don’t mean to imply that the people of Old Rotterdam were necessarily losers, or that the patrons of Hanrahan’s were any worse than the patrons of any other watering hole. Not at all. Like I said before, cops know bars. Bars, especially ones that serve food, are naturally crowded between noon and two o’clock. The same is true between the hours of five and seven. But at four or four-fifteen, when those who have jobs are at them, the denizens of most bars are losers.

No one’s drinking piña coladas or munching on a delightful Cobb salad. At four in the afternoon, they’re reading the
Racing Form
, smoking cigarettes or Tiparillos, drinking speed-rack scotch with a cheap beer chaser. “A bat and ball” is what the old-timers called it. Who was I to be a nonconformist? “A bat and ball,” I ordered without bothering to look up.

“Hey, how are you?” It was Sally, Molly’s friend and Sam’s ex-employee.

“Hey, Sally, what’s shakin’?”

“Nothing shakes in Old Rotterdam, not even the leaves.”

She went to service one of the losers at the other end of the bar, but came right back when she was finished.

“Molly tells me you’re a city cop.”

“I was,” I said, shoving a twenty at her. “Why don’t you buy something for yourself on me.” She did. Sally had a taste for Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. “Sam tells me your husband’s a professional wrestler.”

“Sam’s so full of shit I’m surprised he’s got room in there for his internal organs. Cheers!” We hoisted our glasses. “I haven’t had a husband in five years, and he was a professional all right, a professional asshole.”

We both liked that. I told her to buy herself another. She didn’t exactly put up a fight. No matter what you might think, bartending is a hazardous occupation. It’s a breeding ground for alcoholism. When I was on the job and we’d go unwind after a shift, it was always a toss-up whether the cops at the bar or the bartenders were the bigger drinkers. And it was doubly hard on an attractive, amiable woman like Sally. Men, even the lowliest bums, have rich fantasy lives. When they sit at the bar across from a pretty barmaid, they’re not thinking of floral arrangements. They’ll buy her two drinks for every one they drink, and then drop a ten or twenty on the bar to impress her.

“I hear you used to work for Sam,” I said.

That didn’t go over any too well. She kind of sneered, not so much at me as at herself. “I did, yeah. That was a long time ago. I’m not into that anymore.”

I certainly wasn’t going to press her on the subject. I offered to buy her another drink as a peace offering.

“No thanks,” she said, pushing my twenty back across the bar at me. “Your drink’s on me. Take care.”

Sally walked to the other end of the bar, apparently more comfortable with her regular losers. I was all ready to leave when a big-bellied man of fifty in a brown uniform and trooper hat put his left hand on my right shoulder. He might’ve been fat, but he was strong. If I’d wanted to, I would have had a difficult time standing up.

“I’m Lieutenant Bailey,” he said, “Old Rotterdam Police.”

“I’m Moe—”

“I know who you are, Prager. Would you please step outside with me.”

“If you take your hand off my shoulder, I’d be happy to.”

I left the twenty on the bar for Sally and followed the lieutenant out the door. Darkness had descended in the time I’d spent unintentionally offending the barmaid. The lieutenant’s cruiser was parked at a sloppy angle to the curb in front of Hanrahan’s. It was comforting to know small-town cops had as little respect for traffic laws as their big-city counterparts.