Everyone, Mike learned, went to Levinson’s Loan Office, at Twenty-Fifth and State. Mike was the only white in the store, with the exception of its owner, Hersh Feldstein, Levinson’s son-in-law.
Hersh and his black customer were separated by the wicket. Hersh had the loupe in his eye and was prying the back off a large gold pocket watch.
“My grandfather gave it to me,” the customer said. Hersh nodded.
“Seventeen jewels,” the man said.
Hersh closed the watch, and polished it with a jeweler’s cloth. He handed it back through the wicket. “I can let you have ten bucks,” he said.
“What about I want to sell it?” the customer said.
“Look in the window,” Hersh said. “I got a million of ’em.”
“Then whyn’t you take one more?” the man said.
“You’re better,” Hersh said, “you want to sell it, take it to the barbershop, Remington’s, someplace, show it around.”
“I showed it around,” the man said, “nobody wanted to touch it.”
“There you go.” Hersh smiled.
“I got this watch,” the man said.
“I din’t ask you where you got it,” Hersh said. “I understand. You got a business, I got a business.”
“Give me the ten bucks,” the man said.
Hersh took the watch back, and began filling out a pawn ticket. He looked up at Mike. “One moment,” he said.
Hersh showed Mike the entry in the pawn book: one platinum brooch, shape of a violin, fourteen stones, value fifty-five dollars, fifteen dollars in pawn, Miss Ruth Watkins.
“Why’d you turn her in?” Mike said.
“I run a business,” Hersh said, “people needing money come in here with various articles, if I can I accommodate them. How would I feed my family, I considered myself the Champion of Abstract Justice?”
“You didn’t turn her in?” Mike said.
“Kid,” Hersh said, “you ever hear ‘Live and let live’?”
“I have,” Mike said.
“I work amongst the colored,” Hersh said, “we get along, why shouldn’t we? I’m not in the business, turning people in.”
“Somebody knew she came here,” Mike said.
“Yeah, that’s not unlikely,” Hersh said, “as the cops came by, with the insurance people, every pawnshop the South Side, examining the books.”
“Looking for the brooch?” Mike said.
“The entry, it would seem, caught their attention.” He showed Mike the card clipped to the page bearing the entry of the brooch: Mid-Continental Insurance.
“They wrote it down?” Mike said.
“They wrote her address down,” Hersh said.
Mike shook his head to clear it.
“They come by often?” Mike said.
“I’m walking a tightrope,” Hersh said. “My customers tolerate me, the cops tolerate me, everybody tolerates me, many would love to find a reason, ruin my fucken life because I’m white, or a Jew, or white and a Jew, or a pawnbroker or all of the above. But we get along. Who’s in charge of that? I am. And it’s just doing business.”
“Was this unusual, that the cops came by with the insurance guy?” Mike said.
Hersh sighed.
“Was it?”
“The piece was valuable, but not that valuable,” Hersh said.
“The piece, the violin, they ask about it specifically?”
“What is it to you, finally?” Hersh said.
“I’m doing my job,” Mike said. “For the gallant Tribune.”
“What is that job?” Hersh said.
“I’d like to find out who killed the girl.”
“I would too,” Hersh said.
“Why?”
“I liked her,” Hersh said. “She was a nice kid.”
“Why’d you remember her?”
“She was quite good-looking. Beautifully dressed . . .”
“You’d seen her before?”
“Never saw her before.”
“You’d remember?”
“I remember everything,” Hersh said.
“What was she wearing?” Mike said.
“Lamb coat, Persian.”
“She try to pawn it?” Mike said.
Hersh closed the record book.
“She try to pawn it?” Mike repeated.
“Alright, she did. I wouldn’t touch it,” Hersh said.
“Why not?”
“Oh, come on,” Hersh said.
“Specifically,” Mike said.
“Well, it had initials in it, they weren’t hers.”
“What were the initials?”
“As I recall, they were L.G.,” Hersh said.
“As you ‘recall,’” Mike said, “I thought you remembered everything.”
“It was a figure of speech,” Hersh said. “She cop the coat?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Mike said.
“Why’d they kill her?” Hersh said.
“Apparently these things happen,” Mike said.
The offices of Mid-Continental Insurance were on the fourth floor of the Monadnock Block.
Mike’s press card obtained him an interview with Mr. Everett Shields, head of the Claims Department.
“We very much appreciate your interest,” Mr. Shields said.
“I would do whatever I could,” Mike said, “to help your company, as our interests, it seems, are the same. Those interests are human interests.”
Mr. Shields nodded as if he considered Mike’s avowal not only true, but laudable.
“We had a claim,” Mr. Shields said, “upon”—he consulted the sheet of paper on his desk—“the contents of a safe. A wall safe. The residence leased to Jacob Weiss, Three Ten East Lake Shore Drive . . .”
“A safe,” Mike said.
“The articles insured . . .” He gestured to the sheet, giving Mike to understand that the safe’s contents were not his to divulge. Mike inclined his head in respect. “We sent our investigator to . . .” He checked his notes. “To the apartment. The safe was opened, and empty.”
“And you contacted the police . . .”
“We did,” Mr. Shields said.
Mike took out his notebook, to proclaim his status as champion of the truth.
He opened it, and laid it down on the desk. He took no notes. The trick had been taught him as a cub reporter, by an old City Desk hand. “The notebook? You’re a reporter; what does a ‘reporter’ do? He’s nosy. The notebook? You don’t use it, you have established yourself as someone so engrossed that you have forgotten even your profession, so wrapped up are you in their tale.” The trick had sharpened his memory and Mike had never taken a note in his life.
“. . . and they responded instantly.”
“The police,” Mike said.
“Yes.”
“Was that unusual?”
“It was . . . ,” Mr. Shields said. “Yes. Especially that interest in an old claim . . .”
“Why?”
“Well. They, as we both know, have more important things to do.” Mr. Shields waved his hand at the window, and Chicago beyond.
Mike chuckled appreciatively. “But they’re obligated. To solve the crime.”
“In theory, yes,” Mr. Shields said. “But . . .”
Mike sat, not immobile, but still. Deciding to let it come. The El ran by, outside the window. Mr. Shields rubbed his temples.
“It was, yes. We’d made the request, actually, as a matter of form.”
“A matter of form, why?” Mike said.
“As the safe’s contents”—he put his finger on the page—“were of limited value. Our procedure requires a notification of the police. Usually done by the policy’s holder. But, in this case . . .”
“Who held the policy?”
“Jacob Weiss.”
“But Jacob Weiss was dead,” Mike said. “He’s been dead a year.”
“Yes,” Mr. Shields said.
“Well, then,” Mike said. “Who made the claim?”
“I . . . ,” Mr. Shields said as he peered at the form, “I’m not permitted to disclose . . .”
“Wait,” Mike said. “You said an old claim.”
“An old claim?”
“You said the police were interested in an old claim.”
“Yes, they were more interested in that.”
“In?”
“In the diamond brooch. It was reported stolen a year ago.”
“It wasn’t in the safe?” Mike said.
“Oh no,” Mr. Shields said, “it was . . . it was stolen by a Pullman porter.” He pointed at the page. “We paid that claim.”
“Then,” Mike said, “could you suggest why the police are interested in it now?”