Redemption Street (4 page)

Carter threw up his hands. “Try telling that to Arthur Rosen. Apparently, the initial investigation into the fire was rather perfunctory and shoddy. There wasn’t much to investigate, really. I mean, they went through the motions, held the necessary inquiries and panels. Believe me, I have since looked into it. But even in the mid-sixties, the Catskills were heading into the financial abyss. Let’s just say the locals thought it best to get beyond the fire, to get back to business.”

“But the Rosens weren’t satisfied?”

“Christ, Prager, do you think my family were happy?” He let his real anger show for the first time. “What parent is satisfied with any explanation of their child’s death? There isn’t a satisfactory explanation in the universe. But we accepted it and tried getting beyond Andrea’s dying that way. It took years for my mom not to imagine her only daughter burning up alive every time she shut her eyes. Can you imagine the torturous second-guessing my parents put themselves through? If they hadn’t let her go. If they had forced her to go to a better hotel. If … If … If …”

“What about the Rosens?”

“No, they spent their life savings hiring and firing lawyers, detectives, anyone and everyone. They sued everybody you could sue and even some you could not.”

“But what was the point? What were they looking for?”

Carter laughed bitterly. “Karen, I suppose. First they just could not believe she was really dead, so they sued the local cops, the fire department, the coroner’s office, the DA, the dogcatcher. Then it was the hotel owner and his insurance company. Then, when the owner went into default and the bank tried to sell the land, they sued the bank. But it really started getting ugly when they went after the families of the other kids caught in the fire. They—”

“They what?”

“You seem surprised, Mr. Prager. Don’t be. You see, Karen wasn’t a smoker, so her death had to be one of the other employees’ fault. They sent private investigators to our homes. ‘Did your daughter smoke?’ ‘Can you ever recall her falling to sleep with a lit cigarette?’ They subpoenaed my parents. Eventually, we had the subpoena quashed and the case was thrown out, but can you understand the pain this caused? And it was always that Arthur pushing and pushing his parents. They quieted down for a few years. Then, about two, possibly three years ago, Arthur started up again. He was worse with his parents gone.”

“Did you ever try to—”

“—reason with him?” he finished my question. “Of course. When I first began making real money, I offered him and the parents the moon, anything, for them to just leave it be, to let my folks rest. Then, when that nut started up again, I offered to pay a team of expert investigators go over the case from top to bottom. Not good enough. That paranoid schmuck just kept repeating, ‘Something’s wrong, something’s wrong.’ Something
was
wrong. Our sisters were dead, and nothing was going to fix that. Gone is gone, forever. He’s certifiable, Arthur, a genuine manic-depressive. I thought he’d eventually let it go.”

“I guess not.”

Carter shook his head at me. “Obviously. If anything, Arthur got more obsessed. He began, let us say, to get more extreme.”

“Look, you can’t know how terrible I feel for you and your family, but I’m not an idiot. Arthur, as
meshugge
as he might be, has gotten somebody’s ear, or we wouldn’t be having this chat in the back of your limo. Otherwise, why would you care if he came to see me?”

“Maybe I should apologize for my earlier assessment of your capabilities.” He bowed slightly. “Yes, he has gotten someone’s ear, as you say. Some dipshit Catskill politician is
trying
to make a name for himself. He has decided to fight to reopen the case and hold a new inquiry, even a new coroner’s inquest. He has been getting quite a bit of ink out of it. Ink to a politician is like blood in the water to a shark. So far, it’s just talk. There really aren’t any substantive grounds on which to reopen the case, but … I will not put my parents through this again.” He slammed his fist into the car door. “I won’t!”

“But what’s this got to do with—”

“—with you, Mr. Prager? I suppose, nothing. Arthur’s been trying to hire investigators to go up to the Catskills and try and find something, anything to help push the politicos to reopen things. He knows that once the press gets bored with the story the ink will dry up and so will his hopes. The sharks will find a new carcass on which to feed.”

“And you’ve been cleaning up after him, haven’t you?” I smirked. “You’ve been paying off everyone he’s gone to see. I’m just the most recent mess you’ve come to clean up. Christ, he must be scraping the bottom of the barrel if he came to me. How much it cost you so far?”

“Less than the pain it would cause my parents,” he said, removing a leather-bound checkbook from his inside jacket pocket.

“So far, I’ve shielded them from this last go-around. They’re too old for this. It took too many years for them to bury Andrea, and I won’t let that nut rob her grave. Who should I make the check out to?”

“I don’t want your money. I wouldn’t’ve taken the job anyway.” He didn’t put the checkbook away. “Let’s call it insurance, then.”

“Let’s not. Let’s take my word for it. But if you wanna give me something, you can answer a question for me.”

Carter stealthily slipped his checkbook away. “What is it?”

“Why the name change?”

That caught him off guard a little. “I’ve found it advantageous not to be pigeonholed. I have financial interests outside the city. Don’t fool yourself, Prager. Anti-Semitism didn’t die in a bunker in 1945. The world’s just as rotten as it’s always been, worse maybe. The skin on the apple is shinier, but the worms have gotten better at eating from the inside out.”

There must have been a signaling button somewhere, or maybe Blue Pinstripe was listening all along, but regardless of means the message was delivered. My door was being pulled back even as Carter was sharing the last syllables of his delightful worldview. There were no pleasant goodbyes, handshakes, or we’ll-have-to-get-togethers. The business was taken care of and that was that. I didn’t watch the Lincoln pull away. I was having a hard time reconciling the differences between that calculating son of a bitch and his sister, the girl I had loved from afar. But, then again, maybe losing Andrea the way he did would make a son of a bitch of anyone.

I went back inside and made a few calls. I’d have to pretend to work out some other day.

Chapter Three
November 25th (Evening)

Klaus was just locking the front door when the phone rang. Aaron, already pissed off at me for, as he saw it, abandoning my family for Thanksgiving, picked up.

He waved the phone angrily in my direction. “For you.”

“Who is it?”

My big brother ignored the question. Placing the phone on the register, he scolded: “Make it short. I’ve got your former family to get home to.”

“Please, you sound like a grandma from one of those morose Yiddish films Mommy used to watch.
Oy vay iz mir
”—I clutched my heart—”the Cossacks are killing the cattle and you married a
shiksa!
Better I should be dead than the cows.”

He waved his hand at me in disgust.

“Hello …”

It was a friend from the job, Jim Finney. It’d been Finn I’d called earlier after my chitchat with R. B. Carter.

Finney dispensed with the usual foreplay. “Got a pen handy?”

There was a lot about my tête-à-tête with R. B. Carter that bugged me, but mostly I didn’t like the implication that I could have been bought off. Of course I could be bought off, everyone could. The truest of all Hollywood clichés is that everyone’s got a price. It’s just that no one likes getting his face rubbed in it. But I hadn’t called Finn about Carter. No, for the moment anyway, I was more curious about Arthur Rosen.

“Yeah, Finn, I got a pen.”

“He’s a real nut job, this one.”

“I know. I’ve had the dubious pleasure of making his acquaintance.”

“Rosen, Arthur J.,” Finney read matter-of-factly. “Born May 26, 1946, Madison Park Hospital, Brooklyn, blah, blah, blah. Six arrests for what you’d expect—three disorderlies, one for urinating in a public place, you know, that kinda crap. Been in and out of Bellevue and Kings County so many times they keep the porch light on for him.”

“Address, Finn, what’s his address?”

“Last known address …” His voice trailed off. “Last known address is … I don’t see a recent one. Oh, wait … You ever hear of a place called Sunshine Manor?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s like a halfway house down in Alphabet City.”

“Give the gimpy Heeb a cigar,” Finney teased. “You want the number?”

“Nah, that’s okay. Thanks. Enjoy your holiday.”

“Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.”

Bearded and pale, the guy at the front desk looked like Rasputin after they fished him out of the river. It got worse. When the mad monk looked up from his book, I noticed he had a double dose of that lazy-eye thing going on, so that it was difficult to know if you were standing in his line of sight. Talk about the inmates running the asylum. If this guy was at the front desk, I couldn’t wait to see what was behind door number two.

“I need to see one of your … an inma—” I stuttered.

“We call them clients or patients, if you prefer,” Rasputin corrected, flashing an uneven but very friendly smile. He pointed to the clock on the wall behind me. “Unfortunately, it’s well past visiting hours. Even then, we don’t usually allow unscheduled visitation. It can have a very destabilizing effect on the—”

“—clients. I understand. But,” I said, producing my old badge. “Can’t you make an exception?” I didn’t bother explaining about my being retired.

His friendly smile went the way of thirty-three-cent-a-gallon gasoline. “Have you got a warrant or probable cause?”

“Look, I’m not here to bust balls. Can I talk to somebody in charge?”

“You already are. I’m Dr. Prince.”

“You always do desk duty, Doc?” I wondered, not sure I quite believed him.

“It’s the holiday,” he said, the smile creeping back. “We like to let as much of the staff as we can get an early start. This is tough work here. Rewarding, but very tough. I didn’t catch your name, Officer, or is it Detective?”

I stuck out my hand. “Moe Prager. And it’s neither. I’m not anything official anymore. I just find that the badge helps cuts through the bullshit sometimes.”

He took a firm grip of my hand. “I wish it were that easy for me. I don’t think you can conceive the amount of bullshit I have to cut through. Maybe you’ll lend me that badge sometime, it might be worth the shot. So—who is it you’d like to see?”

“Arthur Rosen. Is he still—”

“Another private investigator, huh?” The shrink let go of my hand. Given the look of disgust on his face, I’m surprised he didn’t immediately go for the disinfectant. “You’re not a stupid man, Mr. Prager. You must know that Mr. Rosen is not fully capable of making rational decisions. And I’m afraid your presence will only feed his—”

I threw my hands up in surrender, explaining I had no intention of taking the case. I understood, I said, that Arthur Rosen wasn’t exactly making lucid decisions when it came to the matter of his long-dead sister. I told the doctor about Rosen’s showing up at the shop, about my having gone to school with his sister, about the article in
Gotham Magazine
.

“Look, Doc, I kinda kicked him outta my store the other day. I couldn’t remember his sister, and then, when he told me she was dead … I mean, what was I supposed to think? I just want a few minutes to apologize. That’s all.”

Dr. Prince asked me to give him a minute while he found someone to cover the desk for him. He made a call or two. Eventually, a slender young black man came and took Rasputin’s seat. A few whispered words passed between them.

Prince led the way up the stairs. He told me he wasn’t Rosen’s therapist, but as clinic director was fairly familiar with the file. He laid down some preconditions for my talk with Arthur. He, Dr. Prince, would enter the room first and make certain Rosen was willing to meet with me. Prince would remain in the room for the duration of the visit. I was not to raise my voice or have physical contact with Rosen beyond a handshake, and then only if Rosen initiated the contact. If Rosen became agitated, I was to leave immediately. I was to leave immediately if Dr. Prince, for whatever reason, indicated that I should.

“Do I have to sign away my firstborn?” I whispered as we stepped out into the hall.

He understood I was joking, and I understood it was his job to protect the patient.

Sunshine Manor was a converted four-story walk-up, so it did not feel institutional, per se. In appearance, it rather reminded me of my grandparents’ old building on Avenue P and East 4th Street in Brooklyn. Their hallway was always fragrant with the sweetly sulfurous scent of frying onions and garlic, roasting chickens, and meats stewing on the stove. But any stirrings of romance over my past were murdered by the nostril-burning, lung-choking minty-pine scent of industrial cleaner. Hospitals, jails, courthouse washrooms—they all smelled this way. Looks can deceive, but not smells.

Dr. Prince, reading the expression on my face, explained that this was only a semi-secure facility. “This is, for lack of a better term, a halfway house. The people staying with us have been thoroughly evaluated and are not considered dangers to others or, for the most part, to themselves. Depending upon the situation, the clients are allowed a certain amount of unsupervised time outside the confines of the building. Many of them have jobs. As long as they take their meds and follow the rules, they have a lot of freedom. There are curfews and bed checks and small windows on the doors, but, with few exceptions, we don’t lock people in. Here we are,” he said, tilting his head at the door.

I bowed. “I know, you first. I’ll wait right here.”

He knocked, announced himself, hesitated a second or two, and pushed the door in. “Arthur, there’s someone here to … Holy shit!”

I didn’t wait for an engraved invitation.

I smelled death even as I crossed the threshold. Maybe I just imagined I did. Not all death smells the same. Ask any cop. There’s old death, death where rigor has set in and let go. Death where flies have had time to lay their eggs. There’s death that stinks of maggots and flesh rotting in the heat of a sealed black garbage bag beneath the noonday sun. This was not what I smelled as I ran into Arthur Rosen’s room.