Flesh and Blood Page 8

  “When do I pay you?”

  “When I’ve found a relative,” Frank said. “Or failed to find one.”

  “Do you think that’s likely?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She shrugged. “Well, just do your best,” she said softly. “That’s all anyone can do.”

  He left Imalia at the front of her office, then continued south through the thickening afternoon crowds. The smell of street hot dogs, shish kebab and roasting chestnuts filled the air around him. Several Salvation Army volunteers stood stiffly in their worn blue uniforms, ringing their bells softly as the holiday crowds swarmed in and out of the luxurious shops and towering department stores of midtown Manhattan. He turned west on 47th Street, then south again on Fifth Avenue, elbowing his way to the enormous marble library on the corner of 42nd Street. An escape artist was pulling himself through a tangle of chains, and each time he dislodged some part of his thin, wiry body, the crowd that had gathered on the steps in front of him applauded loudly. Farther down, an armless man was drawing sidewalk murals with his toes, and farther still, at the corner of 41st Street, a group of black children were break-dancing on strips of flattened cardboard.

  He turned west again on 38th Street, and finally stopped at the center of the Garment District. A bust of Golda Meir stared out across a small cement courtyard, and Frank took a seat on one of the benches near it. Across Seventh Avenue, he could see the small, modest memorial which the Ladies Garment Workers had erected to honor the generations of textile workers who’d manned the sewing machines and fabric cutters of the industry. It was the bronze figure of a man at a sewing machine, his fingers holding to a bit of fabric while his feet pumped at the wide steel pedal. He looked oddly content, happy in his work, and as Frank gazed at the figure from a few yards away, he could not see the raw competitiveness and volatility which Imalia Covallo had described. The man seemed buoyant and unwearied, and because of that, it was easy to picture him rising happily at the end of the day and walking briskly home to a full dinner and a joyous family.

  He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. It was nearly four in the afternoon, and the crowds were swirling about the courtyard in a chaos of moving bodies. Young men pushed bulky racks of clothing through them, waving their arms as they lumbered forward. Frank took a deep draw on the cigarette, leaned his head back slightly and closed his eyes.

  He opened them again only a few seconds later, and allowed them to settle on the building across the street. Over the shoulder of the statue, he could see the building’s revolving door as it turned ceaselessly, emitting a steady stream of well-dressed men and women. They looked oddly similar, all freshly washed and stylishly dressed, so similar that for an instant he did not even recognize Karen as she stepped quickly out of the building, then paused a moment and waited until Lancaster joined her on the street. They laughed lightly, then turned to cross the wide, bustling avenue, moving directly toward him across Seventh. She was only a few yards away before she suddenly caught sight of him, and for an instant, her face seemed to darken. Then, just as suddenly, it regained its light, and after a moment of hesitation she rushed up to him, with Lancaster following somewhat sheepishly behind.

  “Hi, Frank,” she said brightly.

  Frank nodded.

  “What are you doing around here?”

  “Working a case.”

  She touched Lancaster’s shoulder. “You know Jeffrey.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hello,” Jeffrey said.

  Again Frank nodded.

  “Jeffrey is thinking about doing some designs,” Karen said. “I was just introducing him around Fashion Avenue a little. I thought some of the designers might be interested in his work. It would do very well for clothing.”

  Frank dropped his cigarette to the sidewalk and crushed it with the toe of his shoe. “Good luck,” he said to Lancaster with a quick smile.

  “It’s a real decision for me,” Jeffrey said. “The old prostitution question.”

  “Every artist has to face it,” Karen explained. She shrugged. “It’s just something that goes with the territory.”

  Frank said nothing. For a moment his eyes were drawn back to the bronze statue, to its idealized portrait of a man at home in his work, at one with his labor, happy with how his hands served his heart.

  “We’ve been making the rounds in the building across the street,” Karen said.

  Frank turned toward her. “Any luck?”

  Karen and Jeffrey exchanged glances, as if trying to decide who should answer.

  “I’d say so,” Karen said finally.”I think we made some progress today.” She looked at Jeffrey. “Don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Jeffrey said. He wore gray pleated trousers and a dark blue jacket and white, open-collared shirt. His manner was quiet, calm, diplomatic, and in their short acquaintanceship, Frank had never seen him play the tormented, desolate artist, which, it seemed to him, was also something that too often went with the territory.

  “Yes, I think we made some progress,” Karen said, a little nervously.

  “The fact is,” Jeffrey said with a slight, self-conscious laugh, “I need money, and doing fashion designs might be a way of getting it.”

  “Not to exclude your other work, though,” Karen said quickly.

  Jeffrey looked a little embarrassed by Karen’s speedy defense. “Well, that’s the plan anyway,” he said.

  Karen turned back to Frank. “Listen, Frank,” she said.”We were thinking of having dinner and then a show.” There was a moment of awkward hesitation, then she went on.”Well, how about joining us?”

  “No, thanks,” Frank said.

  “I wish you would,” Jeffrey said. “We’ve never gotten to know each other, really.”

  “I have this case,” Frank said quietly. “I have to meet a guy.” His eyes drifted over to the bronze statue once again, drifted down the rounded shoulder and along the rolled-up sleeve to where the hand pressed downward into the flap of cloth.

  “Well, we wouldn’t have dinner until six or seven,” Karen told him.

  “No, thanks,” Frank said. He looked back toward her, and for a moment lost himself in the face, not as he saw it now, but as he had seen it the first time, so silent, dark, grave. He could feel something in him sinking slowly toward the bottom. “I have this case,” he added.

  “We’d really like to have you,” Karen said.

  He shook his head. “I can’t do it, Karen,” he said softly.

  Her eyes stared at him with a sudden, inexpressible resolve. “Okay,” she said.

  He offered her a thin, resilient smile. “But you have fun, though.”

  “I’ll be back home before midnight,” she said, as if to reassure him. “Will you be home by then?”

  “I guess.”

  “Good,” Karen said. “See you then.” She turned quickly, her long, slender arm curling for just a moment around Lancaster’s waist as she led him up the avenue toward the spinning lights of Times Square.

  9

  The directory in the lobby of the building listed Imalia Covallo Enterprises in bold white letters. It was on the twenty-second floor, and its outer office was elegantly decorated, Beautifully designed fabrics covered the walls, some framed like paintings, some simply hung in large pleated waves that seemed to flow in a gently rolling stream along the four lavender-colored walls.

  There was an enormous antique desk at the far end of the vestibule. A woman with long dark hair sat behind it. She smiled sweetly as Frank stepped up to her.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Riviera,” he said.

  “Is he expecting you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your name?”

  “Frank Clemons.”

  “Just a moment, please,” the woman said. She picked up a phone and said something into it. Then she turned back to Frank. “He’ll be right out. Take a seat if you like.”

  Frank remained standing for the few seconds it took for Riviera to join him in the fo
yer.

  He was older than Frank expected, probably in his sixties, and he had close-cropped white hair along the sides of his head. He wore thick wire glasses, and behind the lenses his eyes were an unexpected pale blue. His skin was brown and slightly wrinkled, but he looked strong, robust, someone who could give orders well.

  “Mr. Clemons,” he said cheerfully. “Tony Riviera.” He thrust out his hand and Frank shook it.

  “Imalia says that I should help you in any way I can,” Riviera said, “but she didn’t exactly say what it was all about.”

  “Hannah Karlsberg,” Frank told him.

  “What about her?”

  “Her murder,” he answered, before he could stop himself.

  Riviera’s face seemed to tighten somewhat. “Aren’t the police handling that?”

  “Yes,” Frank said.

  “But you’re not with the police?”

  “No,” Frank told him. “I’m sort of looking into it on my own.”

  “On your own?” Riviera asked unbelievingly.

  “That’s right.”

  Riviera stared at him evenly. “I see.” For a moment his body seemed to hang in suspension. Then, suddenly, it jumped to life again. “Well, Imalia wants you to be given full cooperation,” he said. “And around here, Imalia Covallo makes the rules.” He did not seem to resent that fact so much as fully comprehend it. “Well, let’s go back into my office,” he added immediately, “and we’ll look into how I can help you.”

  Frank followed Riviera through a labyrinth of corridors until they reached a spacious office near the rear of the building. The grayish-purple light of late afternoon flooded through a tall line of windows behind Riviera’s desk. Down below, Frank could see the enormous black roof of Macy’s. It looked like an immense parking lot which someone had built above the city.

  “Now,” Riviera said as he sat down behind his desk, “what can I do for you?”

  Frank eased himself into one of the two chairs which sat in front of the desk and took out his notebook. “How well did you know Hannah Karlsberg?” he asked.

  “I gave all this sort of information to the police,” Riviera said. “At first, they were thinking that someone she worked with might have done it, some disgruntled employee.” He looked at Frank quizzically. “I guess that’s the usual theory.”

  Frank said nothing.

  “But Hannah got along with everyone,” Riviera added. “That’s what I told them. She was aloof, but she was well liked.”

  “How well did you know her, Mr. Riviera?” Frank asked.

  “Relatively well,” Riviera said.

  “How long had you known her?”

  “Well, I really didn’t get to know her until she came to work for Imalia,” Riviera said. “But I’d seen her once or twice when I used to do a job or two on the Lower East Side.”

  “So you knew her before she came to work for Ms. Covallo?” Frank asked.

  “Sort of. When I was a little boy, I’d see her around Orchard Street,” Riviera explained. “But this was years before she came to work here. I hadn’t really known who she was in those days.” He smiled. “I don’t know if you could really tell much from recent pictures, but when Hannah was a girl, she was a real shayna maidel.”

  Frank glanced up from his notebook. “A what?”

  “Shayna maidel,” Riviera repeated. “It’s Yiddish. It means ‘pretty girl.’” He laughed softly. “Despite my name,” he said, “I’m Jewish.” He leaned forward slightly. “I am a Sephardic Jew, Mr. Clemons, a Spanish Jew.” He waited for Frank to respond in some way, and when he didn’t, Riviera continued. “I always like to clear that misunderstanding up.”

  “What misunderstanding?”

  “That because my name is Riviera, that I’m a Puerto Rican or a Mexican or something like that,” Riviera said. “The fact is, people have a tendency to treat Hispanics as if they’re ignorant menials.” His eyes narrowed sternly. “I long ago learned that in this country, you can’t allow people to think that.” He flattened his hands on the polished wooden surface of the desk and pushed them toward Frank. “Do you see those knuckles? Do they look a little strange to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I broke them quite a few times when I was growing up on the Lower East Side,” Riviera said. “Antonio Riviera, that was me. The blacks didn’t like me because I was a Jew.” He shrugged. “And as for the Jews, they were mostly Ashkenazi, Eastern European Jews. They didn’t like me because I was Sephardic, and Sephardim are supposed to think of themselves as superior.” He smiled cunningly. “Usually they do think of themselves as superior,” he said. “And usually, if I might add this, they’re right.” He leaned back in his chair. “So, now that the record’s straight, go on to your next question.”

  “How did you happen to meet her?” Frank asked.

  “Why all this going back into the distant past, Mr. Clemons?”

  “I like to get some kind of history,” Frank told him.

  “Why is that?”

  “It helps me know the person,” Frank said.

  “And that helps you what?”

  Frank shrugged. “Feel something for them.”

  Riviera smiled appreciatively. “It’s not all that different in fashion, you know?” he said. “When I start to design a dress, the first thing I do is imagine a beautiful woman in it. Not just a model, not just a clotheshorse, but a real woman, as you say, with a past of some kind. Very elegant, perhaps. Maybe even a little dangerous. Perhaps a spy.” He laughed. “Who knows, perhaps even a murderess?”

  He took a deep breath, and let it out in a sudden burst. “But you know how it is in life. You walk down the street and there’s your dress, your beautiful, elegant dress, draped like a set of kitchen curtains over some old hound who never in her life did anything more dangerous than book a cruise to Martinique.” For a moment he fell into an odd sullenness, then, with a shrug, he came out of it. “But that’s the thing about the fashion business,” he said dismissively. “If you have any mind at all, you develop a certain contempt for your best customers.”

  Frank quickly wrote it down, then glanced back up toward Riviera. “How did you happen to meet Hannah?”

  “I was doing some work for a guy named Bornstein in those days,” Riviera said. “I was a bundle-boy back then, a kid who carried bundles of finished garments out of the sweatshops. I worked for Bornstein in various ways. He was a big macher—a big wheel, you might say—in the garment shops. A sort of broker, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t.”

  “He was hired by the people who owned the shops to keep them supplied with workers,” Riviera explained. “When you got piecework production, a high task-rate, and a lot of cash sunk in the machinery, you don’t like to see the machines sitting idle. It was real important to keep that bobbin on the move. Bornstein brokered for the owners, made sure they had a steady supply of people.”

  “Brokered?”

  “It worked this way,” Riviera went on. “If you had a problem, maybe some girl who all of a sudden got sick, got married, sewed her fingers together, anything like that, you had to get a replacement right away. If you own a garment shop, every second a machine is idle, you’re losing money.” He laughed again, this time almost coldly. “The needle trade runs on speed. Fast fingers. Fast brains.”

  “And it was Bornstein’s job to get replacements?”

  “To keep me shop full of workers, that’s right,” Riviera said.

  “And Hannah worked for him?”

  Riviera shook his head. “No. At that time Hannah was in the shops. You know, at the machines, like just about every other nice Jewish girl on the Lower East Side.”

  Suddenly, for the first time, Frank saw Hannah Karlsberg in her youth, a young girl stooped over a sewing machine, her fingers dancing around the needle as it incessantly hammered the stitching home.

  “Now, like I said,” Riviera continued. “I did a few odd jobs for Bornstein back in those days, and one afternoon
I was going to meet him at Battery Park, and when—”

  “What year was this?” Frank interrupted quickly.

  “Well, that was the winter of 1935,” Riviera told him. “Cold goddamn winter it was, too. I remember the way the place looked that day. Very run-down. There were Hoovervilles all over the city back then. Little shantytowns on the wharfs. And Battery Park was pretty dreary. It was cold, too. It looked like the bay was going to freeze over. I remember there was a bunch of guys standing by a fifty-gallon drum. They’d made a fire in it and a huge blaze was coming out of it. They were huddled around it to keep warm.”

  “And this was in Battery Park?” Frank said, as he wrote it down.

  “That’s right,” Riviera said. “And when I got there, I could tell that Bornstein was trying to pick up this young girl.” He laughed heartily. “I mean, I was a kid, but I’d been on the streets for a while, and knew about things. And I could tell that Bornstein had a real eye for this girl.” The laughter trailed off. “He ran through quite a few girls in those days, let me tell you. He did a little agenting on the side, you know, actresses from the Yiddish theater who had hopes for Hollywood. I think he may have even pimped a little, set up an out-of-town buyer with something for his big weekend in the city.” He shook his head. “Bornstein was into everything.”

  “And Hannah?”

  “She was just sitting next to him on a bench in the park,” Riviera said. “When I came up, she left. Bornstein kept an eye on her as she walked away. He was really pissed. ‘The rabbi’s daughter,’ he said. ‘She don’t spread her legs for nobody.’” He grimaced. “Bornstein was a crude bastard, a real crude bastard. I didn’t like working for him, but in those days, you had to take whatever came around.”

  Frank said nothing.

  “I mean, it was the early thirties, like I said,” Riviera added. “Hard times, let me tell you. People today, they don’t know what trouble is.” He frowned contemptuously. “They’re soft. They got no guts. There are some things they won’t do, you know?” He laughed mockingly. “But you couldn’t live like that back then. Not on the Lower East Side. You couldn’t afford it. Like they say, the wolf was at the door.”