The Sea Beach Line (13 page)

“Mom.”

“Yes, my darling?”

“The papercuts?”

“Yes. The papercuts. Your grandmother made these beautiful papercuts. Beautiful little things. The whole time I was growing up.”

“I don't remember.”

“Well, she had to stop on account of her arthritis.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. It really was quite a shame. But she had made so many beautiful things, and saved them in a box. Now that I'm semiretired, and for the first time able to do crafts—Bernie says I can say art, but it's not art to me; maybe arts and crafts—I want to go back and look at my mother's work. And Howard has prevented me from doing this.”

“They'll turn up.” I remembered my tea and took a sip. It had cooled considerably, and was not pleasurable to drink.

“How do you know they'll turn up? Maybe they won't. And you didn't answer my question.”

“What question?”

“You're looking at going back to school?”

“What? No, they didn't want me back.”

“Not there. I know. But I talked to Becca this morning. I thought she said you had an interview at NYU?”

“Huh? Oh, no, that was something different.”

“So you're not going to apply to NYU?”

“Are you serious? There's no way they'd let me into NYU.”

“Well, no, it might be a reach. But there are other schools. I went to Hunter, you know, in the city. It's not such a bad school.”

“I know.”

“Well. So what are you doing? Have you been looking for work? You're not sitting around smoking dope all day are you?” I wouldn't have minded a joint, actually, after this conversation. My mother was always on my case about drugs because she regretted spending her early adult life as a bohemian, partying in the East Village and marrying my father. She didn't want Becca and me to end up like Alojzy and the other people they had known, and became obsessed with raising us as middle-class, college-bound Jewish children. When I arrived in New Mexico, she told me my expulsion had “devastated” her.

“No, no. I'm doing things, I was just on my way out the door.”

“Oh, to where?”

“To talk to a guy. A friend of Dad's.”

“One of Bernie's friends?” I didn't know why she'd think that. I sometimes called my mom and Bernie my “parents” as collective shorthand, but I never referred to Bernie as “Dad,” or really as anything other than “Bernie.” “Who? Oh, did you finally call that Mr. Clybourne, like Bernie suggested? I'm sure he could help you find a job.”

“No, not Bernie. Alojzy. A guy who knows Alojzy.”

“Oh. Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“Isaac. Isaac Edel. I don't think that's the best kind of person for you to be spending your time around. The kind of life your father led . . . it was attractive to me, when I was very young. He led me down a lot of roads I wouldn't have gone down otherwise.” Her voice grew soft, dreamy. We both noticed it, and she didn't speak for a moment. I heard her sigh, build herself back up so she could tear him down. “Well, alleys, maybe. But there were dark places down there. There were reasons I had to get away from him. There were reasons I got you kids away from him.”

“He was always good to me.”

“What? Good to you? Are you serious, Izzy? When he abandoned you—for the second time!—when you were a teenager, it broke your heart.”

“Broke my heart? I don't think I was heartbroken.”

“You didn't smile for six months.”

“So? I was a teenager.”

“And that's when you started to go off the wrong track, and get involved with the drugs. That was his fault too. Look what came from that.”

“No, that had nothing to do with him.” People did drugs because they wanted to. It was no one else's fault. Drugs—and drug culture—had been attractive to me for as long as I could remember. “Listen, Mom. I'm trying to figure out what happened. I talked to that guy, Goldov.”

“Who?”

“The guy who sent the note about Dad being missing.”

“Oh. Yes. He said your father was dead.”

“He seems to think so. But did you hear anything else? From anyone? I mean, how do we know for sure he's dead?”

“We don't know, for
sure
.”

“Didn't you say Bernie was going to check it out?”

“He looked into it. He couldn't find any record either way, to show that he was dead, or deported, or in the hospital, or in prison. Nothing. But your father used so many fake names, it doesn't really prove anything. He was in the country illegally until he married me, you know. He had a stolen green card. And Bernie is a forensic accountant, not a CIA analyst.”

“So we don't know.”

“No, we don't know for sure. But I'm sorry, sweetheart, he's likely dead. It's amazing he didn't die years and years ago. You're lucky he lived long enough to have you children! He was your father, it's true, but he wasn't a very good one, and now he's gone. Let him go. I let him go a long time ago. There's no use chasing down any alleys for something that isn't there.”

“Mom, I have to go.”

“Where, to hang out with Alojzy's hoodlum friend?”

“Mom.”

“Lie to me. Tell me another. Tell me you're going to speak to an admissions counselor at Hunter. Or you have an interview for an internship. At the very least, an informational interview.”

“Bye, Mom.”

7

FOR THE SECOND TIME
in three days, I took the Q train from Manhattan to Brighton Beach. I leaned against the pole of the elevated tracks, hoping I bore enough of a resemblance to Alojzy that Timur's man would recognize me.

“Izzy Edel.” I turned around. The man facing me was a few inches shorter than me, but built like a weight lifter. Under his black blazer he wore a silk shirt with the top third of the buttons undone. Probably the shirt had popped open when he flexed his muscles. How strange, I thought, to see a short, balding, middle-aged man with such virility. Moving up from his torso to his face, I recognized him. He was man in suit #1, from the list I'd made that afternoon. Would Timur be man in suit #2?

“You're the man I spoke to on the phone?” I asked.

“Yes. I am Roman.” We shook hands. “Come.” He put a hand on my back, and we started walking. “You came alone?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And you came on your own behalf?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Nobody sent you?”

“Who would send me?”

“People making an inquiry into where Alojzy went. Police. Maybe your family has an investigator?” This surprised me. Why would anyone investigate Alojzy's disappearance? Why would Roman even suspect that?

“Nobody cares about Alojzy except me,” I said. Roman didn't respond. He led me down a side street to a restaurant that looked closed.

“Arms up,” he commanded.

“What?” I said. What had I been brought down here for?

“Pat down. Standard precaution.”

After a quick search, Roman seemed satisfied I wasn't carrying a recording device or weapon. Next, he demanded my ID, ostensibly to verify that I was really an Edel. He inspected my expired driver's license, nodded, and handed it back. A young Hasidic man exited the restaurant's curtained front door. Roman caught the door before it closed, and gestured for me to walk in ahead of him.

Though no light had escaped through the blacked-out window, the restaurant itself was brightly lit. Turkic warriors rushed heroically across the wall toward death. On a muted flat-screen TV mounted up by the ceiling, girls with long black hair twirled against computerized backdrops while men waited for them, leaning on their Mercedes. It was odd that an Orthodox Jew had been inside what was clearly a nonkosher restaurant, but I shrugged it off. That was Brooklyn for you. Besides, if I didn't have the Yankees cap over my kippah, someone could have made the same comment about me.

At a small table against the sidewall, a man with a long white beard and another with a short black beard were drinking tea. The only other occupied table was set in the back corner. A tall, elegant-looking man was seated at this table with his back to the wall, sipping mineral water and scrolling through e-mails on his BlackBerry. He rose as I came in. Yes, he was man in suit #2 from the sketchbook. Things were lining up.

“Isaac! Welcome!” He came around the table and gave me a hearty handshake. “Alojzy Edel is like a brother to me. His son is like a
nephew to me.” After Roman's suspicion and interrogation, Timur's warm greeting was welcome, if disorienting. I had introduced myself to Roman as Izzy. Did Timur know me as Isaac from talking to Alojzy? Timur was clearly a different breed than Roman. He wore a tailored suit and silk tie with a diamond tiepin. His formality probably didn't allow for nicknames. I had met men like Roman before—Alojzy was a man like Roman, in some ways—but I didn't think I had ever met a man like Timur.

We sat down, and the table was soon filled with platters of kebabs, eggplant and cucumber salads, big loaves of flat bread, and a pot of tea. I had rarely seen so much food outside of a wedding or a funeral. Was this all on my account? Why would Timur need to impress me? Most likely Timur was just a big roller, who spent lavishly and excessively every day of his life. Impressed though I was, I also felt uneasy, like a crab staring at a pile of chicken necks and unable to see the wire trap around it. Forcing the feeling down, I decided I was done retreating out of fear.

“Please, Isaac,” Timur urged me. “Eat. No, no, take more. You are my guest. First food, then business. Enjoy this food! Even in Tashkent, you don't find better shashlik. Sayyid here will be insulted if you don't partake of his cooking.” The white beard looked up from his tea and nodded in our direction. “As will I,” said Timur, placing his hand over his heart like he was pledging allegiance.

The food was delicious. I hardly ever ate meat, except a kosher hot dog now and then, and hadn't known I'd been missing anything until my teeth tore through the tender cubes of lamb. The kebabs were served over beds of juice-drenched onion, as good as the meat itself, which I scooped up with slabs of bread. Roman—who had produced a bottle of vodka from somewhere—advised me to pour vinegar on everything, to bring out the sweetness of the food with a bit of the bitter.

“Listen, Mr. Timur—”

“Just Timur. You didn't try the veal kebabs.” Another tray of kebabs appeared on the table. Unlike Roman, Timur didn't have a strong Russian accent. Nor did he sound like an American. His speech was precise and stateless. It was clear that phone calls, pat-downs, and other
petty or unpleasant tasks were handled by Roman because Timur was above all that.

“Oh, thank you, I'm stuffed.”

“Nonsense. Sayyid will be offended. Here, take.”

“Thank you.” I accepted some veal on my plate. “And, Timur, thank you very much for your hospitality here.”

“It is my pleasure.”

“But the reason I called you . . .” I wanted to ask my questions about my father, but I was overwhelmed and intimidated by the hospitality.

“The storage bill, you said?” Roman asked.

“Yes, I'd like to address that,” I said. “But more generally, do you know anything about my father's current whereabouts? People are saying he's dead. But I don't believe it.”

“That's good,” Timur said. “Because I don't believe it either.” So I wasn't the only one who doubted the rumors of Alojzy's death. Someone with much more authority than Goldov or Mendy felt the same way. This was comforting. “It is true Edel has disappeared. But he must have had his
reasons
for doing so.” The way he said the word “reasons” made me think he knew what some of them were—and made me think I wasn't supposed to inquire further. “Tell me, do you know much of what your father does?”

“What he does for you?” Despite the intimacy of the dinner, I still didn't know who Timur was, or what he did. Roman's cagey demeanor on the phone and in the street had only raised questions. What was Timur's relationship to my father, and why did he have me come all the way down here and treat me so well?

“Yes. For me, and for himself. What I mean is, do you know much of your father's enterprises?”

“I know about the books he sells.”

“Other than that?”

“No, I'm afraid I don't about anything else.” I didn't want to sound naïve—there was clearly something criminal in Alojzy's relationship to these men—but I really didn't know what was at play here.

“I see.” Timur seemed relieved, though it was hard to read his reactions. “That is just as well. I'm sure you do know that your father
is involved in some sensitive business. It is not good to ask a lot of questions. Interfering, trying to find people or facts that don't want to be found.” Timur sounded like he was welcoming me and threatening me at the same time. “I'm sure we can trust you, based on your parentage?”