Flesh and Blood Page 17

  “Where?”

  “At the Museum of American Art,” Karen said. “You know, the new one on Fifth Avenue.”

  Frank nodded.

  “Imalia’s a Sustaining Member,” Karen said.

  Frank stretched out on the bed, his long leg dangling awkwardly over the edge. For a moment he closed his eyes, and immediately Hannah Karlsberg’s face drifted into his mind, a white oval on a field of black, the blue lips parting slightly, as if she were beginning to stir again, struggling to regain her breath.

  “By the way,” Karen asked suddenly, “did you find what you were looking for?”

  His eyes opened. No, he thought, have you, has anyone?

  “You said you were looking for something on a case,” Karen told him. “On Seventh Avenue.”

  “Oh, that,” Frank said. “A few things.”

  She turned from the mirror and smiled brightly. “Anything you can talk about?”

  “No.”

  “You really stick to that, don’t you?”

  “Stick to what?”

  “Confidentiality.”

  “Yes.”

  “But it must be difficult sometimes,” Karen added. She sat down beside him and ran her fingers across his chest. “Difficult, I mean to keep it all inside.”

  He closed his eyes again. “It’s just part of the business,” he said.

  “I guess,” Karen said.

  He could feel her fingers as they lingered on his chest.

  “Want to come along with Jeffrey and me?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “It’s supposed to be a very good play.”

  “No, thanks,” Frank said, his eyes still closed.

  “We haven’t been out to the theater in a long time,” Karen added.

  “Not tonight,” Frank told her. “I think I’ll just catch a little sleep.”

  Karen laughed. “Sleep. You’ll be back on the streets by midnight.”

  Frank rolled away from her slightly. “Maybe.”

  He felt her fingers as they left him, but only a small and steadily weakening part of him yearned for their return.

  17

  Frank was waiting outside the doors of the American Garment Workers Union when they opened at nine o’clock the next morning.

  The tall middle-aged man who opened them seemed surprised to see him. “You look like you’ve been waiting here all night,” he said.

  “Just since eight.”

  “What’s the matter? You couldn’t go through the local rep or something?”

  “It’s not exactly union business,” Frank told him.

  “No? What is it then?”

  Frank took out his identification.

  The man looked at it, unimpressed. “Private dick, huh? What’s this about?”

  “Hannah Karlsberg.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “A woman who was once associated with the union.”

  “Once associated?” the man said suspiciously. “What does that mean?”

  “A long time ago.”

  The man stared at him silently.

  “The ’35 strike,” Frank added.

  The man faked a shiver. “Oh, that was a bad one. The old-timers still talk about it. What’d she have to do with that?”

  “She was one of the shop leaders,” Frank told him.

  “Where was her shop?”

  “Lower East Side. Orchard Street.”

  “Heart of the battle, so they say.”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “Well, let me see,” the man said as he walked a bit further into the vestibule. “Is this a pension problem, something like that?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Was she entitled to death benefits?”

  “I don’t think so,” Frank said, “but that’s not what I’m looking into.”

  The man turned the corner of the front desk and sat down in the chair behind it. “What’s the deal, then?”

  “She was murdered,” Frank said. “And the police won’t release her body until a relative asks for it.”

  “And you’re looking for the relative?”

  “That’s right.”

  The man nodded. “Okay,” he said. “First I’ll send you up to Records. Third floor. Ask for Benny Pacheco. He’s the chief paper-pusher up there. Tell him Chickie Potamkin sent you.”

  “Thanks,” Frank said. He walked to the elevator and took it two flights up.

  Benny Pacheco glanced away from his computer monitor as Frank entered his office.

  “Mr. Potamkin sent me up,” he said. He took out his identification. “Frank Clemons.”

  Pacheco looked at the identification for a moment, then glanced back up at Frank.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “It’s about a woman who once belonged to the union.” Frank told him. “Her name was Hannah Kovatnik.”

  “When did she join?”

  “I don’t know for sure. She was in the strike in 1935.”

  Pacheco nodded. “That was a long time ago. Is she still alive?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know how long she was a member?”

  “No.”

  “Well, all the records are here,” Pacheco said as he turned to the monitor. “Something should come up.” He tapped softly at the keys, his eyes still on the screen. “There it is,” he said after a moment. “Hannah Kovatnik. She worked for Sol Feig Clothing Manufacturers from 1932 to 1936.” He looked at Frank. “Is that the woman you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you want to know about her?”

  “Anything you can tell me.”

  “Well, she lived on Orchard Street,” Pacheco said. “Looks like it was in the same building as the factory.” He looked at Frank. “Did you know that?”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes swept back to the screen. “She had no injuries on the job, as far as I can tell. She didn’t file any claims with us.” He hit a key on the computer keyboard. “She didn’t hold any union office except shop representative, and of course, there was no pay for that.”

  Frank nodded.

  “She remained in the union for three years,” Pacheco continued, “and she was severed from it in September of 1936.” He turned back to Frank. “That’s about it.”

  “Severed?” Frank asked immediately. “You mean she quit?”

  “No, I mean she was severed. She was dropped from the rolls.”

  Frank looked at him quizzically.

  “A union is like anything else,” Pacheco explained. “It has its rules. Apparently Miss Kovatnik broke a few of them.”

  “What rules are you talking about?”

  “Well, the big one is dues,” Pacheco said. “You don’t pay your dues, you don’t stay in the union.”

  “Is that what happened to her?”

  “No,” Pacheco said as his eyes drifted back to the screen.

  “What was it then?” Frank asked immediately.

  Pacheco’s eyes darted over to the lower left-hand corner of the screen. “She was severed for failure to conform to union ethics,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Failure to what?” Frank asked as he took out his notebook.

  “Failure to conform with union ethics,” Pacheco repeated. He looked at Frank. “That could mean anything,” he explained. “It’s sort of a catchall. It allows the union to get rid of people it can’t deal with for some reason. They could drop you for, say, being a drunk, or for being too violent, too radical, for being a generally abusive person. Hell, it could be just about anything.”

  “Well, what exactly did it mean in Hannah’s case?” Frank asked.

  “We don’t have that sort of information on computer,” Pacheco said. “This is really a status program. Who’s in, who’s out. Complaints. Medical stuff. That sort of thing.” He glanced at Frank. “There’s a number code, though, which tells us things in general. Miss Kovatnik’s severance, for example, is listed as number seven—which means that it was an e
thics violation.”

  Frank took the union paper from his jacket pocket and opened it to the photograph of Hannah in Union Square.

  “I brought this with me,” he said. “You mind taking a look?”

  Pacheco glanced at the photograph. “Is that her?”

  “Yes,” Frank said emphatically. “She spoke at that rally. She published in your paper. Somebody wrote an article about her.”

  “None of that would be on the computer,” Pacheco told him. “Unless she received some sort of compensation for it.”

  “I see.”

  “But that doesn’t mean we don’t have other records,” Pacheco added quickly. “We have plenty of stuff. It’s just that most of it is in the archives.”

  “Where are they?”

  “In the Research Department,” Pacheco said. “You want to try it out?”

  “Yes.”

  Pacheco reached for the phone and dialed two digits. “Hello, Harry. You got a minute? Yeah. Yeah. I have a Mr. Clemons. He’s a private investigator looking into the records of one of our former members. I don’t know. Yes. Hannah Kovatnik.” He snapped the phone back to its cradle. “He’ll be right down,” he said.

  Only a moment later, Frank turned toward the door of Pacheco’s office and saw a tall, elderly man in a light blue suit. He was muscular and barrel chested, and as Frank looked at him, he realized just what a formidable presence he must have been in his youth. Even now, with silvery hair and slightly crumpled posture, he looked like the sort of man who only said things once.

  “Harry Silverman,” he said as he offered Frank his hand.

  “Harry’s sort of the historian of the union,” Pacheco said brightly. “Isn’t that what you’d say, Harry?”

  Harry smiled. “It depends on how much vodka I’ve had, what I’ll say.” He looked at Frank. “What’s your name?”

  “Frank Clemons.”

  “And what are you looking for?”

  “Like Mr. Pacheco told you,” Frank said, “I’m trying to trace one of your former members.”

  “That’s usually no problem,” Silverman said lightly. “But today’s a little different. We got a tip that a certain person is incapacitated for the moment, and I got to cash in on mat information right away.” He glanced at his watch. “Listen, you don’t mind going for a little ride, do you?”

  Frank shook his head. “Okay with me.”

  “The things is, it’s way out in Brooklyn. Around Coney Island. Be back in a couple hours. Is that too much time?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” Silverman said brightly. “Let’s go.”

  Frank followed Silverman down the back stairs, out the door, then around the corner to a dark green late-model Ford.

  “Get in,” Silverman said loudly as he unlocked the passenger door. “It’s an American car. One of the few left in New York.”

  Frank pulled himself into the front seat, then waited as Silverman walked briskly to the driver’s side, got in, and pulled away.

  “American car,” Silverman repeated with a sigh. “We buy American in mis union.” He smiled wistfully. “We still got a few old ideas hanging around us.” He turned east not far from Union Square and headed toward FDR Drive. “Things change, of course,” he added. “Used to be, it was strictly a Jewish thing, the garment trade.” He shook his head. “Now you got Mexicans, Haitians, Orientals, some legal, some not. Old kikes like me get to feeling isolated.” He smiled impishly. “But what the hell, that’s the way it works, history. We adjust to it. And we keep one thing in mind. Solidarity. As long as we hold to that, there’s a chance for everybody.”

  “She believed in that,” Frank said. “She made a speech about it. Hannah did, I mean.”

  “Hannah Kovatnik,” Silverman repeated thoughtfully. “It rings a bell, that name.” He shrugged. “Of course, that calling me the historian of the union is a crock of shit. Historian, that’s what they call old punch-drunk organizers who can’t cut it anymore.” He shook his head. “I’m not quite that bad off yet.”

  “She was in the 1935 strike,” Frank told him.

  Silverman’s face darkened. “That was a rough one,” he said. “Winter and snow and all those bastards freezing their asses off trying to get a living wage. Almost three-fourths of the garment factories had closed by then. So you can imagine the problem.” He grinned. “And the police? Jesus. We’d of been better off dealing with Pinkertons than those fucking micks.”

  Frank said nothing.

  Silverman’s eyes swept over to him. “If you’re Irish, no offense.”

  “She worked at one of the sweatshops on Orchard Street,” Frank added.

  “Like a lot of people.”

  “She was sort of the leader of it, I think.”

  “That right?” Silverman said. “What’s your interest in her? That’d help me check out the archives.”

  “She was murdered two weeks ago,” Frank said. “The police won’t release her body. It takes a relative to make them. I’m trying to find one.”

  “That doesn’t sound hard.”

  “It wouldn’t be, usually,” Frank said, “but it is with Hannah.”

  “Why?”

  “The only link is her two sisters,” Frank said. “But I can’t find them.”

  “Were they in the union?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You have their names?”

  “Naomi and Gilda.”

  “Last name Kovatnik?”

  “At least until they got married it was,” Frank said.

  “Well, it’s a start anyway,” Silverman said. “I can have Benny do a routine computer check, and the rest I can handle with my files.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Frank said.

  Silverman laughed. “You a Southerner, or what?”

  “From Atlanta.”

  Silverman shook his head wearily. “You got some hard-headed people down there. You say ‘union,’ they hear ‘atheist Commie bastard.’”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’re making some progress, though,” Silverman added. “But it’s an uphill struggle all the way.” He shrugged. “Of course, there’s nothing new in that.”

  Frank nodded.

  Silverman returned to the subject. “So,” he said, “besides tracking down the sisters, what’s the rest of your plan?”

  “To sort of work my way through Hannah’s own life,” Frank said. “See what I can find.”

  “How far have you gotten?”

  “Up to the spring of 1936 in one direction, and back to 1954 in the other.”

  “Which leaves almost twenty years,” Silverman said. “That’s a long time.”

  “For blank space it is,” Frank admitted.

  Silverman nosed the car into the quickly moving traffic of FDR Drive. “So how can I help you?” he asked.

  Frank took out his notebook and began flipping through the pages. “I need to know what she did after the strike,” he said. “Who she went to work for, that sort of thing.”

  “We may not be much help there,” Silverman admitted. “When they leave us, they’re pretty much on their own.”

  “Any friends she might have had that she stayed in contact with,” Frank added. “Anybody who could fill in the years, maybe know something about the sisters.”

  Silverman nodded silently as he headed up the ramp and then onto the towering bulwark of the Brooklyn Bridge.

  “The thing is,” Frank said as his eyes drifted out across the harbor toward the Statue of Liberty and, just behind it, the crumbling ruin of Ellis Island. “The thing is, I don’t really know what happened to her. I don’t even know what her work was like or why she left it.”

  Silverman’s face darkened suddenly as he stared out across the grim rows of warehouses that lined the harbor. “Well, I can help you with that last one,” he said quietly. “At least I can give you a taste of it.”

  18

  Silverman pulled the car into the rear parking lot of a small brick building not
far from the whirling rides of Coney Island.

  “This is a hotshop,” he said as he got out of the car and closed the door. “You know what that is?”

  “One with a lot of complaints,” Frank said.

  Silverman smiled. “How’d you know that?”

  “It’s come up a few times in connection with Hannah.”

  “I guess her shop was plenty hot in 1935.”

  “Yes.”

  “Most of them were in those days,” Silverman said. “But back then about the worst that could happen to you would be you’d lose your job, maybe get cracked over the head by some fucking gun-thug.” He shook his head despairingly. “That was bad enough. But it’s worse now. With the illegals, I mean. With them, it can be life or death. They start any union trouble, the owners can pretty much hand them over to Naturalization. After that, they can be shipped back to some banana republic where they have to sleep in the streets, beg for water. For a few, it means prison, torture, a bullet in the back of the head.”

  Frank nodded.

  “So in a situation like that,” Silverman added, “we’re not really talking about complaints, because the people who work here are too scared to go to anybody.”

  “What are you doing then?” Frank asked.

  “Like you, investigating,” Silverman told him. “We know a little bit about what’s going on around here, but we’d like to know a little more.”

  Silverman nodded quickly, then headed toward the single metal door at the back of the building. “This shithole is owned by some douchebag out on Long Island. It’s packed with illegals, but we don’t really give a shit about that. The way they’re being treated, now that’s another question.” He stopped at the door, then glanced quickly at Frank. “Anybody asks you, you’re a sewing-machine salesman, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Silverman rapped noisily at the door, then stepped back as it creaked open.

  A large black man stepped out onto the small concrete porch. “Yeah?”

  Silverman smiled cheerfully and handed the man a card. “My name’s Gianelli,” he said. “I’m a sales rep with Dothan Garment Machines.”

  “We’re pretty busy right now,” the man said suspiciously.

  “Yeah, well, that’s part of the trade, right?” Silverman said happily. “Not to mention the American way, if you know what I mean.”