The Sea Beach Line (46 page)

22

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN
best to stash the painting somewhere, so I wouldn't lose my bargaining chip if Roman and Timur or the rebbe's sons came after me, but I couldn't think of a safe place. Al used to stash things at the lockers in Port Authority and Grand Central, but they had all been removed after September 11. Andrew's apartment would have worked—his ankle monitor was the perfect alarm system if anyone came after him—but I didn't think he'd want to risk adding art theft to whatever charges he was already facing. Besides, he didn't really owe me any favors.
The Sea Beach Line
would have to stay with me.

I was almost back to Becca's apartment when the cell phone rang.

“Hi, Roman,” I said.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Izzy. You stupid little bastard.” He was angry, but there was also a note of respect in his voice.

“Goldov gave you guys my message?”

“Yes. We must speak, to straighten things out. Can you meet me at—”

“No,” I said. “I choose the place.” If Roman chose a location, he would likely have other guys waiting around to snatch me up when I tried to leave. Just like they'd snatched Rayna. I needed someplace open, public, and neutral, with plenty of entrances. “I'll be in the main branch of the library, on Fifth Avenue, at two p.m. this afternoon. In the Rose Main Reading Room. One of the tables on the north side.”

“Fine. Hasta la vista, baby.”

I went out again around twelve thirty to meet Roman. The temperature had not risen since the early morning, which was strange. It was dark and windy for so late in the spring. As I crossed Second Avenue on my way to the 6 train, a yellow cab speeding to make the turn onto Seventy-Ninth Street almost struck me and another woman in the crosswalk. The woman jumped forward; I pivoted around the front fender of the cab as it stopped short. I punched downward into the hood of the car with both fists. The full weight of my body was behind the blows, and I felt the metal dent.

“Fuck you!” I shouted, not looking back.

The cab, suddenly in less of a hurry, followed beside me down Seventy-Ninth. The driver was shouting and gesturing. I refused to give him the courtesy of turning my head to look at him. He was angry that I had hit his car, but I didn't hear any authority in his voice, only pleading.

I stopped and turned so my whole body was facing the street. The car stopped short, skidding forward so that we were neck and neck. I leaned down toward the window.

“If you get out of your car,” I said, “I'll fucking kill you.”

I didn't sound like myself. But I recognized the voice: it was Al, as I'd heard him in numerous street interactions in Brooklyn. He was gone now. It was time for me to stand up for myself. I looked right at the cabdriver, who was bigger than me, but a lot older and a little flabbier. I hoped he wasn't as crazy as I was. Maybe he was. Who knows what type of life he'd led in Pakistan or Bangladesh or wherever before he came here. Maybe his dad was dead, too. Maybe his dad's body had been thrown in a river. Maybe his girl had been
kidnapped or arrested. People were thrown into secret dungeons all the time. I knew I wasn't special. It didn't matter. Right or wrong, I couldn't back down. “Drive away,” I said. He shrugged and drove away. Probably he had kids of his own now, and couldn't risk it. Fuck him, and fuck his kids too.

I was in the reading room by one p.m., waiting at a long oak table, beneath the fifty-foot-high ceilings. Painted clouds blew across the wall behind me. There was no difference between inside and outside. I sat and waited. I didn't read.

Roman arrived at one thirty. As near as I could tell, he was alone. He looked both surprised and impressed to see that I was already there. He came around the table and slid in next to me.

“You know,” he said, “you scared the shit out of old Goldov. Put some lead in his leg, eh? He thought you were going to put some in his head as well.” My violence seemed to amuse Roman. It was strange to hear such a boisterous man converse in a whisper.

“Maybe I should have,” I said.

“I guess you do take after your father, after all.” I was loyal to my father. But he was not a loyal man. So I only took after him so much.

“Sure I do. Does that mean you're going to throw me in the harbor?”

“Goldov's been telling you stories.” Roman spoke derisively, but he didn't actually contest the story's veracity. This was probably the closest thing I was going to get to an admission. In his mind it was justified; Al was no longer useful. Trying to get medical help for my father would have put Roman and Timur's operation at risk. So they tossed him overboard.

“You threw him away,” I said. “Was he still breathing? Maybe he could have been revived.”

“No. People don't come back, Izzy. Don't you know that?”

“Why did you and Timur tell me he was alive? Why did you guys string me along?”

“You believed what you wanted to believe. Your foolishness is not our responsibility.” They had lied to me, but I recognized that his statement contained some truth. I had played myself.

“Fine, but why talk to me at all, or bring me into things? Why not just ignore me?”

“Your first call spooked Timur, so we had to check you out. We had to be friendly, get lay of the land.” Roman wasn't going to say anything too specific or incriminating, now that we were on the outs, but I got his point. He had checked me for a wire before my first meeting with Timur. My family could have been working with the authorities, or could have hired a private investigator to look into Alojzy's death. Timur and Roman probably thought I was putting together a claim for a life insurance payout. Wining and dining me was just a way to make sure no one was looking into their business too closely. “And then when we saw you were such the puppy dog, so eager to impress, Timur figured we could use you. Anything we ask, you say, ‘Absolutely!' You didn't even ask to be paid, most of the time, so long as we let you live in the closet.” Roman was trying to get a rise out of me.

“Well,” I said, keeping my voice calm and even, “that time is over.”

“So it is.
Ladno
. You have the painting?” I nodded. “Where is it?”

“Somewhere safe.” I hoped no one was ransacking Becca's apartment as we spoke. But that seemed unlikely; the apartment was in a doorman building, which had recently been under federal surveillance.

“Naturally. Timur thought we should beat it out of you. I thought so too. But the rebbe, he is a compassionate man. He is granting your request.”

“I can see Rayna? Where? When?” Roman grinned, and I regretted my eagerness immediately. Once again, I was their goddamn puppy.

“The Galuth Museum. You will return the painting to where it belongs.” This made sense. The rebbe wanted to meet on his own turf, on his own terms, but he didn't want me to come into the Glupsker community, with all its prying eyes. “Tonight, ten p.m.”

“That's fine,” I said, standing up. The agreement seemed genuine, but I still wanted to make sure to slip out first, so I could go through the runaround of the library's stone staircases, then cut through the gift shop and out the small north entrance before Roman or anyone else he had with him could follow me. “I'll be there.”

I didn't have a clear idea of what was going to happen that night, but I was filled with anticipation. I was going to see Rayna again. Back uptown, I went to the diner and ate a big meal of eggs, potatoes, and coffee, then went back to Becca's apartment and looked through all of Al's sketchbooks one more time. Now that I knew for certain he was dead, they took on a different meaning. They were no longer the volumes of an atlas, but more like history books. Leaving a sketchbook open on a drawing of Becca, my mother, and me, I picked up the phone and dialed my mother's number.

“Hello?”

“Mom.”

“Isaac. How are you? Have you heard about the hurricane warning for New York City?”

“Not really.” Mendy had said there was going to be a big storm, but I didn't realize it was anything as serious as a hurricane. “My friend mentioned something about it.”

“Listen to the news. It's a big deal. And be careful.”

“Okay. Look, I wanted to tell you something, Mom: Alojzy is dead.”

“You know for sure now? You sound sure.”

“Yes. I talked to the man who sent us that notecard. He gave me some more details, and then I spoke to someone who actually witnessed him die.” Roman hadn't given details, but as far as I was concerned he had confirmed Goldov's account. “It sounds like he had a heart attack when he was working. He fell in the harbor so no body was recovered. But it's confirmed. He's gone.” My mother let out a long wail. I could hear her heart snapping in two. I had to move the phone back from my ear.

“My poor sweet Ally,” she wailed. “My poor Ally. And you with no father.”

“I don't understand,” I said. Wasn't I the only one who hadn't accepted that he was gone all along? “I thought you said you let him go a long time ago?”

“I know what I said, Isaac. And you're old enough to understand why I had to say it, over and over. But you don't think I ever really let him go, do you? He was the love of my life. I cried when I got the notecard from that man, and I'll cry twice as hard now.

“Thank you for calling, Isaac,” she said, regaining her composure. “It's good to know for sure, even if it means we have to accept it. Have you spoken to your sister about this?”

“No, I haven't had the opportunity. I'll see her when she gets home from work this evening.”

“Well, be gentle about it. She's not so tough as she seems. Thank you for calling. I have to go sit out on the
portal
now, and think a little by myself.” Usually I was the one trying to get off the phone. My mother had had to deal with things by herself when Al left, and we were too young to help. She had an inner life I knew almost nothing about. “Wait! Bernie wants to talk to you. If Bernie is willing to use the telephone, it must be important.”

“Okay. I love you, Mom.” I heard the noises of people shuffling themselves. So Bernie had been standing right next to her. He must have come when my mom screamed. I wondered if he heard what she said about Al being the love of her life. But then, Bernie wasn't stupid, he must have known.

“Hello, Isaac.”

“Hello, Bernie.”

“Listen, when we talked the other night, I spoke very negatively about my father.”

“Yes.”

“One thing I should say, though, is that despite everything, I still said kaddish at shul for him when he died.”

“You prayed for him?”

“Yes, I did. I said kaddish for him. For a year. It's a son's obligation.”

“I'm obligated to say kaddish for Alojzy?” Spending two months performing Al's daily rituals wasn't enough. Tradition dictated that I also had to pray for a man who'd never prayed for himself.

“You have it verified now, that he's dead?”

“Yes.”

“Then you should say kaddish. As long as he was only missing, it's taught that you should maintain hope rather than mourn.”

“I did. I maintained hope.”

“I know you did, Isaac. But now it's time to mourn. There's another prayer, the
El Malei Rachamim
, that is specifically for the deceased. But the mourner's kaddish—not that it's not for the dead, there are teachings that it helps their souls—is for the mourner too. For you.”

Becca came home around four thirty in the afternoon. I was surprised; it was rare that she made it back before eight. She carried her laptop case in one hand, and a paper grocery bag in the other. I took the groceries from her.

“Decided to play hooky?” I said.

“No, they closed the office early because of the storm warning.”

“I talked to Mom earlier. She mentioned the storm.”

“That's good. It could be really bad. Have you been watching the news?”

“No. I've had other things on my mind.”

“You should still pay attention to the world around you. I was going to mention it last night, but you were asleep when I came home. This storm started in the Caribbean, and did a lot of damage to some of the islands down there a few days ago. They thought it would dissipate in the ocean, but now it's coming up the coast, and it's probably going to make landfall in Jersey this evening. They don't know how bad it's going to hit the city.” I put the groceries away in the cabinets and refrigerator while she talked. “It's way early in the year for a storm this bad. But businesses are closing, and they might even shut down trains in case the tunnels flood. There are warnings and advisories in effect. It's pretty crazy. I had to elbow some old bitches to get my hands on candles and milk at the store.”