Chapter 3
Hawkins held his hands over the basin on the table in the hall. Old man Oshevsky saw that they were black and looked up blindly.
“Who’re you?”
“Roger Hawkins, Mr. Oshevsky.”
“Roger Hawkins the cop?”
Hawkins nodded.
“Where were you last night, cop?”
It took him a little time to remember, then he said wearily, “I was at a party, Mr. Oshevsky.”
Oshevsky’s cheeks turned purple. “Adam Levy’s getting stabbed and you’re at a party!”
Behind him in the line, Sam Arkin yelled, “Shut up, Oshevsky. How could he know?”
“Feh!” Oshevsky yelled back, holding the pitcher away from Hawkins. Hawkins kept his hands over the basin.
“Pour the water, Mr. Oshevsky,” he said, “or I’ll go into the house with dirty hands.”
The old man looked up at Hawkins while the others in line waited to see what would happen.
“It’s getting late,” Hawkins said, gently.
“Feh” the old man said again, but he poured the water over Hawkins’s hands, handed him a towel to dry them with, and Hawkins went into Levy’s apartment.
The place was hot and crowded and smelled of onions and smoked fish. Used paper plates littered tables, radiator tops, and windowsills. Most of the men in the room had beards and all wore hats. Hawkins took a black yarmulke from a pile on the table at the door and pushed it down over his hair. Eli Pinchik was leaning against the far wall of the foyer watching the crowd. The top of a small liquor bottle stuck out of his jacket pocket and his eyes were swollen and bloodshot. He saw Hawkins and grabbed his arm. “You didn’t come to the funeral. Your best friend dies and you don’t help bury him. Why?”
“Some of them wouldn’t want me there, Eli.”
Pinchik made a dry spitting gesture and looked through the arch at the men. “Because they’re schmucks, that’s why. . . .” He raised his voice, “Schmucks!” A few turned around but most ignored him. Pinchik sobbed and pulled out his bottle. “C’mon,” he said, “let’s get out of here.”
“Not till I see Levy . . .”
“I’ll be at the Union Dairy,” Pinchik said, “we gotta talk.” He went out the door and Hawkins looked over the other men’s heads for Levy.
He was sitting low on a mourning stool and Luria, Dworkin, Walinsky, and the rest sat on chairs to make a closed circle. Adam had told Hawkins that they mourned for seven days. For seven days the family of the dead couldn’t sit in chairs, shave, or cut their hair. They couldn’t put on new clothes or greet guests. Hawkins got through the crowd, breached the circle, and knelt at Levy’s feet so his head was almost level with Levy’s.
Without counting, Hawkins knew that there were eight men in the circle; some of them liked him, some didn’t.
Levy grabbed his hands. “You got the killers . . .” he said.
Hawkins didn’t answer.
“Abe said you got my son’s killers.”
“We arrested some boys last night, Jake, but we had to let them go.”
“You let them go. . . .”
“We don’t have enough to hold them yet, but we’ll get it. . . .”
“How?” Luria asked. Hawkins ignored him and talked to Levy.
“We’ll get witnesses, evidence . . . blood on their clothes, knives, we’ll get it.” The men around him were quiet; he kept on talking to Levy. “There’s five of them, Jake. That means we’ve got a chance. We pull ’em in at odd hours when they don’t expect it; we push and keep pushing till we find the weak link . . .”
“Weak link?” That came from Walinsky, who leaned forward facing Hawkins.
“The one most likely to break.” They all leaned forward to listen and for no reason Hawkins wondered which one was the weak link in this circle. Every group had one, no matter how solid it seemed. Dworkin with his warm, brown eyes would be it. But Hawkins didn’t understand why was he thinking about weak links here. These men weren’t his enemies. Levy loved him, he loved Levy, and the others wouldn’t hurt him; some of them didn’t trust him or any black and never would, but they weren’t men to hurt anyone. Except Luria . . . he faced Luria and their eyes met and locked. Luria would hurt him; Levy rubbed Hawkins’s hand. “The weak link,” Levy said, “tell me about the weak link.”
“We . . . work on him; we scare him until he avoids the others. Then we spread rumors that he broke and the others’ll know he’s weak and they’ll believe it. Then they’ll get scared that we’ll make a deal and leave them out.”
“Deal . . .” Luria’s voice was flat, like his eyes. “What deal?”
Hawkins knew he had made a mistake.
“Tell Jacob about the deal,” Luria said.
“What are they talking about?” Levy asked.
This time it was Walinsky who answered.
“They make deals, Jacob, like you’d make with Garfinkel for a diamond; they grab the momzers† and they all sit in a chamber . . . lawyers in ties and the judge in his robe . . . and they handel.‡ You did first-degree murder, they say, but that’s hard to prove and expensive to try and it takes too long, so even though we know you’re guilty, even though you killed a man, or woman, or little child . . . plead guilty to second-degree, or third-degree. No jury. No big news trial . . . and oy, the money we save! The time! And at least we get your rat’s ass off the streets for a year or two. . . .”
“A year or two?” Levy asked.
“More like ten,” Hawkins pleaded. “Maybe twenty.” If we’re lucky, he thought. But they were young, there were five of them, and he knew twenty years was a dream.
“And with parole,” Luria hissed, “good behavior, and aptitude tests . . .”
“That shit won’t buy much time from a murder rap,” Hawkins said.
Luria was ready. “But some, right? A year, six months. So what are we talking about, Inspector, six years for killing Adam, seven?”
Levy put his hands over his ears but Luria pulled them away. “Listen to it, Jacob. You can’t hide now any more than you could then. Tell him, Hawkins. Tell the truth. Seven years for murder . . . tell him!”
Levy appealed to Hawkins, “It’ll be fifteen, won’t it? Twenty . . .”
Suddenly it was an auction. Do I hear twenty-five?
“I don’t know.”
“Then they’re right?” Levy was begging him, but he didn’t know for what. Luria waited, the whole circle waited.
Hawkins said, “Maybe.”
Levy looked at Hawkins for a long time, then said sadly, “Seven years isn’t enough.” A verdict he didn’t want to come to, Hawkins thought, but he didn’t know who was on trial for what. “Just not enough,” Levy said, and the circle shifted and seemed to ease back.
“Time to eat,” Dworkin said. He touched Hawkins’s arm. Hawkins shrugged him off. “Jacob, we’ll get them and they’ll go to prison. Shit, Jacob, it’s hell in there . . .” Levy wasn’t listening and Dworkin’s hand was back on Hawkins’s arm. “You have to eat, Roger.”
Hawkins didn’t know what he’d lost, only that he had.
Levy said softly, finally, “Go eat, Roger.”
Hawkins stood up. The men outside the circle were still talking and eating. They hadn’t heard any of this. They weren’t part of it any more than Hawkins was. He was dismissed. Alldmann and Roth moved to let him out; Dworkin kept a hold on his arm, and before he could say any more to Levy he was on the outside and Dworkin was leading him to the table. He looked back. It was a definite circle, seven men and one empty stool. A circle of men—a tribe in Brooklyn.
Dworkin filled a paper plate with salads, lox, and sturgeon and held it out to Hawkins. He didn’t take it. “Abe, why did Luria slap you?”
Dworkin held the plate. “He was very nervous,” he said. “It was a terrible night.”
“But you said something first. It sounded like Aunt Sophie.”
“Aunt Sophie?” Dworkin asked.
“But drawn out . . . Aaaauunt Sooophie.”
Dworkin looked down at the plate. “We have to find you some place to sit.” He paused, then he said, “Listen to me, we come from the same village; we lived there for generations, maybe centuries. And after so long we’re probably related. Cousins, at least. It’s possible. So Adam was a cousin. More—a son, because he was so bright, and we could be so proud of him.”
If they were a family, Hawkins thought, they didn’t look like one. But even if they were, something more connected them. Family men compete, discuss, argue. These men didn’t even have to talk to each other. They were quiet, but no one was uncomfortable. An outsider broke the circle, bent over Levy, and said something. Then he spoke to Walinsky; then he left the circle, and they relaxed, because it was only them again.
“We’ll try the dining room,” Dworkin said, and he went down the hall, waving at Hawkins to follow. But Hawkins stopped in the doorway to look one more time at the men in the circle.
Dworkin came back without the plate. “You must eat,” Dworkin told him. Then in the kindest voice he said, “Customs last because they have a reason. You loved him, too, your grief is sharp and you feel empty. Eat, you’ll see, the emptiness shrinks and with it a tiny edge of the sorrow. Lean down to me.” Hawkins did, thinking Dworkin wanted to whisper something. But he kissed Hawkins’s cheek gently, firmly, with what seemed great affection. Then he said, “I just cried out last night. The sound was meaningless but it startled poor Isaac and he struck out blindly. You know how it is. . . .” He patted Hawkins’s arm, then went back to his stool and sat down. No one greeted him, no one even looked up, but the circle was complete.
Hawkins passed the dining room where Dworkin’s daughter, Golda Cohen, guarded his plate; Rachel wasn’t there. He went to the bathroom. The place was so hot even the tiles were warm. He looked at himself in the mirror. What battle did he lose and Luria win? What was so hard for Levy to face then and now?
He opened the door and went out into the hall. Mrs. Rosenblatt was waiting. She patted him. “Good to see you, Roger. It’s been too long . . . call.” She went into the bathroom and he opened the door to Adam’s room and went inside.
The horses looked down; young, beautiful Levy smiled at him from the bedside table over a big wedding chalah. He went to the aquarium; the fish sensed his presence and came to the top waiting to be fed. “Your master’s dead,” he told them. They hung there for a time, angels, and gueramis, the sweet black mollies with the bug eyes that never fought or bit other fish.
“Dead,” he told them. Tears filled his eyes. Adam, he thought. Adam, my friend. I can’t imagine what it will be like without you on this earth, without being able to think of you living somewhere. To call or see . . .
The fish had waited long enough, and they swam away.
He found Rachel in the big bedroom that had been Levy’s; she sat on the bed crying and holding the edge of her skirt in a wad in her hand. The dress was black with long sleeves and a high neck, and a scarf covered her hair.
“I can’t get up,” she said. Her face was pale, shining with sweat and tears. The scarf pulled at the sides of her face, making her eyes slant.
“Help me,” she said, rocking from side to side, still trying to get up on her own.
Her scarf was damp, and he wanted to take it off and dry her hair for her. He wanted to loosen the neck of the dress and help her take off her shoes and stockings. He suddenly thought of a French movie he’d seen with Mo when they were young. Jeanne Moreau was in it, and everyone said it was hot stuff because this guy went down on her on camera. He and Mo tried to get dates, and couldn’t, but they went anyway. He could see the actress’s mouth right now, fat, bitten-looking in the front. He could see her lying back on the bed, naked except for a string of pearls around her neck. He could see her in a white nightgown, walking through a field of tall grass with gauzy movie light shining on a lake in the distance. The graceful reeds bent as she moved, and her voice was soft and exquisite as she said in French, with the English printed in white on the gray screen, Love can happen in an instant.
“Help me,” Rachel said again, and he crossed the room to her. She was white and Adam’s widow, he told himself. Adam had been his best friend, and this was the day of his funeral. He stood in front of her and told her to bend her arms and hold them stiff. He tried not to look at the damp curls of her hair that escaped the scarf, or her nipples poking against the front of her dress. He looked over her head, cupped her elbows, and hoisted her up off the bed. Her belly brushed him, pressed lightly against his, and he got an erection. He knew she could feel it, and he stepped back quickly and crossed his hands in front of him preacher style.
She smiled at him. “We’re moving,” she said softly.
“Where?”
“Way out on the Island. Near Golda. We’re buying a house and a shop with the insurance money.”
“A shop?” he said stupidly. “You and Jacob?”
She nodded, still smiling at him. He sensed that she wanted to look down at his body. “It’s hard to imagine a Brooklyn Yiddish bookstore way out on the Island,” he said. They were whispering to each other.
“We’ll carry stationery, too, and some paperbacks. We’ll do all right. Jacob’ll give you the address . . . you’ll come to see us, won’t you? There’s a garden, and we’ll be near the Sound. . . .”
A tear ran down her cheek. He reached up to wipe it away, but before he could touch her the door opened, light from the hall came into the dim hot room, and Golda Cohen marched in. She stared at Hawkins and he knew how bad it looked: he was alone in a dark room with Rachel, reaching for her; he was big and black, she was frail and white, and he still had the hard on, which felt solid and frighteningly free; it would sway if he moved.
“I thought you’d gotten lost,” Golda said. He didn’t answer. She tried to look stern. “There’s fifty pounds of pickled fish waiting for you and my ass is melted.” She turned to Rachel. “You look like shit.”
He looked at that face; did she? he wondered. And how did she usually look? He remembered her as Adam’s bride, lifting her veil to kiss her new husband who was blushing and had shining eyes.
“It’s a hell in this place,” Golda said.
Rachel was looking at Hawkins over Golda’s shoulder.
“Come home with me,” Golda said. “It’s air-conditioned, you can sit by the pool tomorrow. . . .”
“I can’t leave Jacob,” Rachel said.
“They’ll be here for seven days. He won’t even know you’re gone,” Golda said.
Hawkins backed to the door.
“He needs me, Golda.”
Golda shrugged. She had light red dyed hair, a big pleasant face, and eyes as warm as her father’s.
“The invitation stands. Tonight, tomorrow night. Any night you say.” Her voice was gruff but full of kindness. Then she turned to Hawkins. “You’ll be glad to hear I threw all that crap out. There was enough salt in that fish to pickle your balls.”
He got the door open.
“They put out a coffee urn, and some Danish,” she was saying to Rachel, “and they spilled coffee on your bubbe’s§ lace cloth. I put seltzer on it, but you can see the stain. We’ll try vinegar.”
Hawkins went out into the hall and closed the door.
Hawkins ordered coffee in a cup, not in the glass they usually served at the Union Dairy. Pinchik did, too, then took out the bottle and in plain sight of everyone poured vodka in the coffee. The cream curdled instantly.
Pinchik tried it. “Awful,” he said.
“Awful,” Hawkins agreed.
“Roger, we’re moving.”
Pinchik and Levy were moving; Adam was dead. Hawkins looked out of the window at the street. It was almost ten, but it was warm and clear, and the street was crowded with people. Fat Spanish women in flowered cotton dresses and men in shirt-sleeves passed the window. Some kids had opened a hydrant, and the water ran slowly in the gutter carrying leaves and litter with it. Jewish men in wide-brimmed black hats and long coats stepped carefully across the river the hydrant water made, then walked on, arm in arm. Pinchik followed Hawkins’s eyes, and he looked through the window, too, as he talked.
“I don’t want to go,” Pinchik said softly. “I was born two blocks from here; I was bar mitzvahed at Shaare Tikvah, and married at the Candlelight; I was gonna die here.” He smiled wanly. “. . . to die in Brooklyn, in Beth Israel a few miles from here. In a semiprivate room with a view of the bay. A good room to die in . . . color TV, phone. In the morning I watch the tankers come in, in the afternoon I watch As the World Turns, at night, the stars, the ceiling, The Rockford Files . . . then die.”
He turned his head away. “This was my hometown, Roger, as surely as if I’d come from Cairo, Illinois, or Ames, Iowa. People forget that when you say you’re from Brooklyn. But it’s true. My hometown. Now I gotta go.”
“Just because of Adam . . .”
“Just because of Adam? Are you crazy?”
“No. Adam could have been murdered in Cairo, Illinois, or Ames, Iowa.”
“But he wasn’t. Christ, look out there, Roger. The streets are filthy and the nice old houses . . . Lensky’s, Shirmer’s, the del Pinos’ . . . they’re rooming houses with little hot plates in the bedrooms and one toilet for every floor. And the people are different. Oh, I know, we’re supposed to love each other anyway. But they’re different in ways that task me. I hate them, they hate me. My son is eight, and full of life, but he won’t go out to play. He’s scared, Roger. It’s still light at seven, but he sits in the kitchen like an old man and stares out of the window. Five times this year they stole his lunch money. Five times! The last time, one of the little bastards kicked him in the balls. An eight-year-old kid. What should I do? Nu, tell me. I could teach him to fight like them, I suppose. But is the rest of the world like Flatbush and Bed-Stuy? Is it? Do I want an eight-year-old kid around who kicks other kids in the balls, or pounds them in the face or stabs them? Do I?”
Hawkins couldn’t answer.
“No, Roger. I’m gonna figure that my son can get by without learning to kill. I’m gonna figure that there is civilization out there. And that’s where I’m going.”
“Where is it,” Hawkins asked at last, “this civilization?”
“Riverdale,” Pinchik answered. They laughed so hard that old Yoshe, the waiter, told them to shut up because they were disturbing the other customers.
He took Pinchik’s new address and phone number and they promised each other they’d get together at least once a month.
Chaim Garfield had read about the murder of the rabbi’s son. He tried not to think about it, especially now on Rosh Hashanah, but the details kept coming back to him. Stabbed twenty times, the paper had said. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, looked up through the branches of a tree, and prayed that Reb Levy had not had to see his son’s body. Other people on the street looked curiously at him, and he walked on up Route 9A to 236th Street, then across to the river. It was late, the services were over at most shuls by now, and the people were home for dinner. Dinner was waiting for him, too. There would be chicken basted with honey and orange juice, tsimmes made with honey and apples, and honey cake. Everything sweet in hopes the new year would be the same. He walked with his head up like he always did, not looking where he was going, and he tripped on the uneven sidewalk and had to grab a tree trunk to keep from falling. He shook his head at himself and went on. He left shops, houses, buildings behind and reached the riverbank in front of a huge gray stone apartment building. There must be a hundred miles of hallways in the place, he thought; more. He didn’t like this backdrop for the ritual he had to perform, but there were probably other people at the prettier river accesses and he wanted to be alone.
He wasn’t usually a loner; he liked being with people. He’d been trained for the rabbinate by the rabbi of Vorka, and when they sent him to Theresienstadt, the “model” camp, the older men kept up the teaching. He wasn’t sure anymore if there was a God, or how he felt about him if there was, but he’d stayed a rabbi when he got to America, first in Washington Heights, then in Riverdale. First because he liked people; he wasn’t sure why else—inertia maybe. He wanted to be alone for this ritual because the others believed in it, or looked like they did, and he didn’t. He was going to do it anyway. Again, he wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he always had.
He half slid down the short bank and stood on a narrow stone shelf above the river. It was clear, the rain had stopped, there was no fog and he could see the lights on the Jersey shore and on the bridge. He stood at the edge of the shelf so the river was only a few feet below him, and he bowed his head. He didn’t pray. He looked into the water instead and thought that sturgeon were living there again, and shad, then he turned out the pockets of his jacket and trousers, symbolically brushing sins out of his clothes into the water. He brushed lint out of them, and crumbs of tobacco; they made a small scum on the river, which was gone in an instant. He unrolled his cuffs and brushed them into the water, too, then took off his jacket and flapped it over the river. Then, still holding his jacket over the fast current, he said in Hebrew, “Cast all our sins into the depths of the sea; and may You cast all the sins of Your people . . . the house of Israel . . . into a place where they will not be remembered, or visited, or ever again come to mind.”
Later that night, after his daughters had gone back home to Scarsdale and Hartsdale with their husbands and children and his wife had made her last phone call and gone to sleep, he went into the clean kitchen that still smelled of honey, and, with just the moonlight to show him where things were, he prepared a box of food—a jar of honey, a wrapped piece of honey cake, chicken, and a plastic container of tsimmes—to take to Ossining tomorrow, to his brother Meyer who was serving a life sentence for murder.