Coney (31 page)

“
Zorg zuch nischt
.”

The Yiddish escaped his lips, chasing away the reverie and presenting a nagging present. He looked at his watch: five after nine. At ten he was due in Sea Gate for a reading. He jumped out of bed, noting mournfully his creased, crumpled clothes.

On the subway he spit on his palms and smoothed his clothes.
Correct dress
, he thought.
They expect a bum. Who else would come begging so early in the morning—and late yet?

Running from the Norton's Point terminus toward Sea Gate, he saw a familiar back moving unsteadily, as if hurt.

“Moishe,” he yelled.

Catzker turned. He extended his arms to Stolz, keening:

“Oy, oy, oy.”

Stolz embraced him.

“What Moishe, what?”

“Oy, oy, oy.”

“Moishe, who died!”

“No one, Aba.”

“Then what?

Catzker told of Harry's message from Menter.

“No! No, Moishe! With Heshele's life he does not play.”

“But how?”

“The police.”

“Yes, let us go.”

“Just me, Moishe.”

“Why?”

“Think of it dramatically: one murderer turns in another. It satisfies the audience's deep yearning for retribution.”

“You are not a murderer, Aba. Stop talking nonsense.”

“Ah, but I am, Moishe. It can't be expunged. Even self-defense is no defense against dreams that come in the night. And besides, if something goes wrong, what do I have to lose? What lies ahead? Mourning Jews murdered in Germany? I have no readers. I have no family. A few friends may cry before telling jokes. Heshele will say Kaddish. What more could I ask?”

“No, Aba, together.”

“Insane man, does it require two to talk to the police? You must not be involved in this. Walk with me to the station, but wait outside.”

Inside the precinct house, Stolz told a uniformed policeman that he wished to see the head man. He refused to explain, except that it was very important and he was not crazy. He was shown to a small room, where was a man who resembled W.C. Fields was seated behind a desk. The man stood up. His body was lean and wiry, completely at odds with his head. He offered his hand:

“I am Detective Shay.”

“Aba Stolz.”

“You have some information for me?” The detective spoke slowly, precisely, as if brackets constrained each word.

“Yes.”

“Well?”

Aba coughed.

“Do you have some water?”

Shay left the room and brought back a paper cup filled with water. Aba gulped, spilling some on his shirt. He patted it dry, thinking,
Good-bye four wrinkles
.

“Arson,” he blurted.

“What?”

“Arson. Planned by a man named Victor Menter.”

“How do you know?”

“I was to commit it.”

“Who else?”

Aba told of the freaks, aware that he would probably be taken for a madman. But the detective listened intently.

“Have you told this to anyone else?” he asked.

“No.”

Shay stood and pointed his index finger at Stolz.

“Don't. You never know who's listening. Menter is a powerful man. You're a brave man and you're lucky you came to me. Keep it that way. Now go about your business like nothing happened. Leave everything to me. On your way out, give your name and address to the cop behind the desk, just like it was a run-of-the-mill thing. And remember, it's just between us for now.”

Aba asked Moishe to accompany him to the house where they awaited the great poet. At the entrance, they embraced.

“I love you, Moishe.”

“And I you.”

“Life is strange, but in the end there is clarity.”

“Oy
, a Stolz theory. You don't have time.”

“Let Heshele grow straight and tall,” Aba said.

“That is your job, too.”

Catzker watched his friend mount the cement steps of the red brick house. There was a slight tear in the back of Aba's shirt. Tomorrow, he commanded himself, you will buy him a new one.

Stolz pressed the white bell button. The perforated golden metal beside it challenged: “Who dat?”

“Aba Stolz.”

“Say again.”

“Aba Stolz.”

“Yeah.”

He was buzzed in. A tall Negro women holding a sponge in one hand and an envelope in the other bore down on him. She handed him the envelope and stood, hands on hips, while he read its contents.

Stolz waved the bill in front of his eyes, thinking,
Five dollars for reading, ten for not. I am on my way to becoming a rich man.

The woman whistled, and said:

“Iffin I had dat, I'd get me some real Sunday dresses.”

“I think that's what I'll do,” Stolz replied.

He watched her face consult with her ears as to what she had heard. She was worried. She had been instructed to hand over an envelope and had already overstepped her boundaries with a personal comment to a crazy man who was worth ten dollars to her employers. That made him important. He could report her for sass, which would mean her job.

Her eyes pleaded with him to forget she existed. God, he remembered praying when he saw hooligans on a Warsaw street, make me invisible. God had not heard his prayers, which was as it should be, because he probably did not exist. But if he did, Aba Stolz would show Him something about answered prayers.

“Just jivin', Mama. Rest easy.”

His Negro slang, lying like bacon grease on his
schmaltz
-coated tongue, produced the buffoon accent of a low Jewish comic. Leslie could imitate perfectly. Yet, Yiddish in her mouth sounded anti-Semitic. Authenticity, he had concluded, does not give license to shout
Jew
in a crowded world of anti-Semites.

The maid, he realized, was now sure of dismissal, since his words, meant to soothe, were in her ears anti-Negro.
From your mouth to God's ears
was the eternal Yiddish plea. He left quickly, getting out of the God business.

He walked out of the gate and onto Surf Avenue. He heard the ocean and children's shrieks.
Not my world
, he thought, closing his eyes and experiencing blindness. An arm doubled over his, crushing his flesh. Vince was beside him.

“Don't say nothin'. Just walk.”

What about screaming, he thought, is that OK? How did he know it was me? He knows. He knows. I know. I knew. An eye for an eye. A murder for a murderer. He heard Ronald Colman's words on the way to the guillotine:
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done. …
Strange, he thought, a perfect English accent. Inside me is a polished goy.

Vince shoved him into the passenger seat, locked the door and slid behind the wheel. He turned toward Stolz and smiled. Were his eyes more zealous than usual? Yes. Yes. It is in anticipation of killing. He probably gets an erection. He looked for a bulge, but saw none. Maybe I'm not his type.

The car moved slowly up Surf Avenue.

“Where are we going?” Stolz asked.

“Just for a ride.”

“You're taking me for a ride.”

“You seen too much gangster movies.”

“How's Menter?”

Vince's right arm swung off the wheel. The back of his hand crushed Stolz's nose. It spurted blood on his shirt and pants. Vince wiped his hand on Stolz's shirtsleeve. Stolz held a handkerchief to his nose. The sight of his own blood, as usual, brought him to the edge of passing out. Pins and needles danced on his scalp. His head became weightless, floating. He closed his eyes to avert a blackout. He felt giddy.

“The Polish
pogromchiks
hit harder,” he said derisively.

“Don't gimme dat kike shit.”

“Where is Menter locked up?”

“Locked up, my ass! You t'ink a shitass like you can get Vic? Don't make me laugh. You'll see soon. We goin' to see him. So be a good boy and maybe he'll be good to you.”

“No!” Stolz screamed.

“You t'ought you could get Vic. What a jerk.”

Indeed a jerk, Stolz thought. A dead jerk, who saved no one, nothing.

They were on a highway, passing signs to Canarsie.

“We going to Canarsie, Vince?”

“Yeah. Somethin' to do before we see Vic.”

“How are you going to kill me?”

“You jerk! If I was goin' to, I wouldda done it long ago. I do what I gotta, den we go see Vic.”

He tries to keep me calm, not to make trouble, not to try to jump out of the car, Stolz thought. Or maybe …

Life, a wriggling worm, itched his testicles. He scratched. Life felt good. Vince grabbed his arm.

“No moves, get it.”

“Just an itch, Vince,” he said. “Life.”

On the way to the gallows, Stolz pondered, what should one think. Will it hurt? Is there a God? Can I escape? No. Death is the
only subject. Proximity provides light. A once-in-a-lifetime privilege not to be squandered.

The country from which no traveler has returned
, Stolz lectured to a fascinated bust of Shakespeare,
is not a country at all. It is the last thing we see on earth. What did you see, dear William? A nurse's hand? A cup of broth? Your second best bed? A horse bearing down on you? That's your view of eternity. No vast landscape. A cup. A horse. A finger. Furthermore, sirrah, we do not travel. Eternity is brought to us. Mine will be a gun or a knife.

“Vince,” he said, “ did you ever think of putting notches in your hands?”

“What?”

“You know, like the cowboys. Every time they killed a man they notched the handle of their gun.”

“Ha-ha.”

“I'm serious. As a matter of fact, if you lend me your knife, I'd like to put two notches in mine.”

“You tryin'a scare me?”

“I
have
killed two people. One of them was my mother.”

“I don' like dose kinda jokes.”

“No joke, Vince. When they broke down the door, I hid under the bed. When I got out, they had split her head open.”

“Who the fuck you talkin' about?”

“Pogromchiks
. Polish killers, who kill Jews because Jesus tells them to. One
pogromchik
kills more than you ever will.”

“Did dey really kill your mudder?”

“Yes.”

“And you let 'em?”

“Yes.”

“An' did nottin'?”

“I killed the one who killed her.”

“So it's OK.”

“What about my mother?”

“Her time was up.”

“She was forty-five.”

“Her time was up. I know guys younger, dere time was up.”

“So if you kill someone, their time is up.”

“Right.”

“You know, Vince, this is the first time I ever told anyone about hiding under the bed when my mother was killed. It's like a confession and you're a priest. Forgive me, Father Vince.”

“Cut dat kike shit.”

The car left the highway, bumping along a dirt road, past hills of junked cars. They stopped on a stretch of weeds and withered grass.

“Walk wit' me,” Vince said.

Is eternity also sound? Stolz thought. Will it be this voice forever?

He thought to run. No, he told himself, not like an animal. With dignity. He laughed out loud.

“Don't go crazy now,” Vince said, gripping him under the arm.

Stolz looked for a gun. They walked. A burning entered his back. He coughed. The burning went in and come out, faster and faster. His lungs were clogged. He tried to breathe through his mouth. It was filled with blood.

Eternity, he thought, with whom? He reached for Leslie, brown flesh against a white sheet. She sang:
Everything a good man needs
. A good eternity. He was falling. Leslie dimmed. His mother's split head appeared. A halo hovered over it.

After Catzker had left Stolz he walked to the bay side of Sea Gate and watched the pleasure boats in the marina bob up and down, smirking their wellbeing at him. He then wandered aimlessly.

The day had heated up. Families headed for the beach loaded down like pack mules with canvas folding chairs, enormous beach umbrellas, picnic baskets overflowing with food and buckets of ice filled with beer and soda pop bottles. God's in his heaven, all's right with the world, for
allrightniks
, he recited aloud.

A boy about Harry's age, wearing bathing trunks and carrying a towel in a paper bag, bumped a bike down outside steps. Seeing Catzker, he looked puzzled. Catzker knew why. His was an unfamiliar face. The boy knew everyone on the block, or even in the next two or three blocks. He was under orders from his parents to report unfamiliar faces to the cruising patrol cars. He pedaled past Catzker, head down, escaping.

Suddenly, nausea bent Catzker over. He retched. A woman at a second-floor window screamed:

“Drunk slob. Manny, call the cops!”

He ran until his heart rebelled against dying. A police cruiser crawled up beside him. The cop called him over.