A Cast of Killers (2 page)

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he
did not notice when his driver overshot Forty-Eighth Street and
pulled up in front of a gleaming, new red-brick skyscraper at
Forty-Ninth and Eighth. T.S. had heard it was being built, but he
had not seen it yet. Its existence was a shock.

"Sorry, buddy." The driver shrugged. It was
not his problem. "Con Ed was tearing up the streets back
there."

T.S. was too stymied by the new building to
reply and simply paid his bill and climbed out to stare. Someone
had put a lot of money into this building, and thus into the
neighborhood. Perhaps times were changing after all. But it was
funny. He was not as happy as he thought he'd be.

The building loomed above him, its upper
floors blocked by the brilliant glare of the sunlight high above.
It was at least forty stories high on its Eighth Avenue side. T.S.
peered around the corner—it stretched down the block all the way to
Ninth Avenue, where it tapered down to a more modest six stories in
height. Construction was still going on inside the lower floor
interiors and torn brown paper ineffectually blocked the internal
debris. But outside, brass fixtures and cornices winked in the
bright sunlight, beckoning smartly dressed people, who fled from
their cabs to step briskly through the building's revolving doors,
anxious to trade the grime of the neighborhood for its high-tech,
sterile interior.

T.S. paused to read the directory and saw
that a major advertising agency had moved into the building. That
explained all the slim bodies, deep tans, boxy shoulders, short
hairdos and male ponytails flowing past him. Hell's Kitchen would
never be the same.

On the other hand, he noticed with surprising
satisfaction, the sidewalk surrounding the new edifice was
thoroughly splattered with reddish spots. When cleaning the brick
and brass for a final time, careless workmen had evidently allowed
chemicals to spatter in the wind and fall onto the not-quite-set
concrete—giving the new sidewalks a mottled, almost bloodstained,
look.

So Hell's Kitchen had not given up without a
fight, T.S. decided. And it had drawn the borders right up to the
very base of the new intruder.

The thought pleased him and confused him at
the same time. Hell's Kitchen always had that effect on his heart.
It unsettled T.S., stirring up visions of his poverty-stricken
German immigrant ancestors, whose dreams and hard work had helped
him escape these very blocks. He experienced the same restless
yearnings whenever he examined the hopeful faces that appeared so
often in the old photographs showing scores of people crowded on
the decks of ocean liners, their faces upturned to gaze at the
Statue of Liberty, their dreams worn so nakedly that people a
hundred years later could see plainly the longing there. Their
ability to believe made T.S. feel lost; their will to succeed made
him feel ashamed. His own life had been so much easier.

How could he have been so unwilling to help
out at the soup kitchen? If Auntie Lil could do it, so could he.
T.S. shook his head, put the familiar guilt behind him, and walked
determinedly toward Forty-Eighth Street. His destination was
obvious. A long line of people stretched around a corner and snaked
uptown along the east side of Eighth Avenue. As T.S. drew closer,
he saw that the queue led to a small basement entrance tucked under
the stoop of a sagging, Baroque-style church. City grime stained
its sweeping front steps and the main entrance doors were blocked
by a massive locked wrought-iron gate. A smaller, collapsible gate
prevented anyone from waiting on the steps. Like so many other
churches in the city, St. Barnabas could no longer afford to offer
sanctuary to the spiritually needy— too many of them also needed an
empty pew that they could call home.

The church's side basement entrance was also
protected by a locked wrought-iron gate. A large clapboard sign on
the sidewalk out front announced:

st. barnabas soup kitchen. 3:oo p.m.

all who are
hungry are welcome.

There were, apparently, plenty who were
hungry. And they were just as Auntie Lil had described them: people
of all shapes, sizes, colors and ages. Some were young with ancient
faces; they waited in line and looked away when others stared, as
if afraid that they could not offer a good enough excuse for their
presence. Others were just plain old and stood patiently with the
expertise of those who have spent their lives waiting in lines. A
number of people were disheveled, dusty and dirty. These mumbled
incoherently to themselves and were left unobtrusively alone by the
others—who knew better than to make eye contact.

T.S. passed by the line and noticed an
oddity. There were a surprising number of elderly ladies: trim,
neatly dressed in styles of bygone eras, their hair carefully
coiffed in swirls on top of their heads, slightly garish makeup
perfectly in place, all of them dignified and quiet. What were they
all doing here? One after another, they stood silently in line,
staring at the wrought-iron gate that led to the basement soup
kitchen. T.S. glanced at his watch: it was only two-fifteen. Over
half an hour before any of them would eat.

He hesitated near the locked basement
entrance. A plump woman wrestling with a garbage can on the other
side of the gate noticed his discomfort. She paused in her efforts
and tucked a frizzy lock of gray hair back behind an ear. She was
in her mid-fifties, about thirty pounds overweight, and had
attempted to disguise the extra baggage with a broad, khaki-colored
skirt of such unrelentingly starched sturdiness that it looked like
it could easily withstand a charge of elephants without wrinkling.
She wore a short-sleeved, plaid shirt and had a vaguely masculine
air about her. T.S. had run into her type before: she was from New
England, the outfit declared, and was a capable woman who could
take care of herself and was sick and tired of picking up after
weak men. In short, she terrified T.S. He stepped back reflexively
under the power of her stare as she, in turn, surveyed his own
attire. Finally, the woman arrived at a reluctant conclusion,
rewarded him with a perfunctory glare and produced a set of keys
from her skirt's pockets. She was not the kind of woman to wear a
skirt without pockets.

"About time you showed up," she growled
through the bars. "Where's the other volunteer?"

She was obviously taking charm lessons from
Auntie Lil. "I'm not the regular volunteer," T.S. explained
faintly. "My Aunt Lil dragged me down here at the last minute to
help out."

"I'm not surprised. Your aunt appears capable
of anything." The woman primly unlocked the gate and the crowd
moved back obediently, their eyes following T.S. inside. "She's
quite the organizer," she added nastily, leaving no doubt that it
was the kindest description of Auntie Lil that she could possibly
dredge up.

T.S. followed her through a narrow concrete
tunnel into a low basement room reminiscent of the barren cafeteria
of a poor school on the wrong side of town. The room stretched out
with a dreary sameness: a too low ceiling, harsh fluorescent
lighting, scuffed linoleum of a vague brownish tint, rows of long,
collapsible tables lined with bright aqua plastic chairs that
cracked and sagged and were studded with worn black spots.

Dusty plastic flowers in empty glass jars
adorned the center of every table. A handful of earnest young
people were quickly setting out cutlery and paper napkins. He had
entered a time warp. Both male volunteers had long, frizzy
ponytails held back with rubber bands and were wearing tie-dyed
T-shirts with faded jeans. The two women wore their long, straight
hair parted in the middle in a style not popular since the 1960s.
Their long flowered dresses were equally out of date. And, T.S.
acknowledged sadly, their concern for the hungry was considered
just as old-fashioned by many.

Steam and chatter beckoned him around a far
corner where he discovered just how apt the name "Hell's Kitchen"
could be. Behind a low counter lined with cafeteria-style rails,
Auntie Lil bent over two enormous pots that billowed forth steam
above a huge, industrial metal stove. Another woman sniffed at the
strange-smelling brew with her. Just then, the grumpy woman who had
let T.S. in the gate, elbowed both women aside without apology and
withdrew several large pans of corn bread from the oven. It was a
domesticated version of the witches' scene from Macbeth, made even
more bizarre by the imposing figure of a priest who hovered at
Auntie Lil's elbow, peering over her shoulder.

Unseen, T.S. advanced to a few feet of the
group and watched with familiar amusement. Auntie Lil was making a
major production of tasting the bubbling stew, he knew, and the
supporting players had taken the stage.

At eighty-four years old, Auntie Lil had the
energy and physical presence of a woman thirty years younger. She
had never been slim but neither had she ever been fat. Sturdy was
the best way to describe her. She was of German stock, as her
strong chin, rounded face and large apple cheeks clearly implied.
Her bone structure made heavy wrinkling nearly impossible, but her
skin, while pink and glowing with good health, was crisscrossed
with fine lines over its rosy surface. Her eyes were clear and a
steely blue. They did not twinkle with old lady amusement as some
people thought at first, but sparkled instead with a stubborn inner
fire (as everyone soon discovered). Her mind was sharp and her
physical abilities still impressive. After more than sixty years of
working in the fashion industry, Auntie Lil had acquired an innate
nimbleness and confidence of movement that defied old age. She
believed in acting first and thinking later. Her hands were large
and rawboned, yet still skillful enough to thread a needle on her
very first try.

Although Auntie Lil had devised patterns for
the world's most expensive dresses, she preferred pants suits above
all other forms of attire. Today, she was dressed in bright red
knit trousers and a matching tunic. She had wrapped a multicolored
jungle print scarf around her thick, white hair. After many years
of wearing it long, her hair had recently been cut and it escaped
from under the scarf in wiry curls to bounce in wild disarray.
Brightly painted, carved wooden fish earrings dangled from each ear
and her feet were encased in thick white socks and Moroccan leather
sandals. As usual, she was a walking United Nations, splashed with
enough bright colors to discourage the entire research team of the
Eastman Kodak Corporation.

"More chili powder?" the robust priest asked
Auntie Lil earnestly. An abundant crop of silver hair curled about
his massive head in leonine splendor. His features were strong and
authoritative, lacking any hint of meekness or piety, and he was
very tall. He was also built like an aging linebacker. His stomach
strained out against his priestly garb below a massive bulldog-like
chest. He looked like he should have been quaffing quarts of brew
in an Irish pub, instead of supervising little old ladies in a New
York City soup kitchen. He was a veritable giant of a priest and,
T.S. admitted to himself, a good choice for coping with the
sometimes physically dangerous demands of running a church in the
inner city.

"Perhaps just a touch more chili?" the priest
meekly suggested again, when no one bothered to answer him.

Auntie Lil shook her head firmly and raised
one arm in an imperious command for silence. She rolled the stew
about her tongue and lifted her eyes toward heaven as if seeking
divine guidance.

"A touch of cumin?" the priest tried
desperately. "Or a little curry, perhaps?"

"Are you insane?" Auntie Lil asked calmly. He
was but a mere speck of humanity, her tone implied, attempting to
interfere with the divine creation of great cuisine.

"Ah ha!" Auntie Lil smacked the enormous
spoon on the stove's metal surface with a bang. Her assistants
jumped back in surprise and everyone in the room turned to stare.
"More onion!" she declared with celestial inspiration, one finger
pointed at the ceiling.

The priest nodded his head in solemn
agreement, but the grumpy matron cutting corn bread scowled
furiously before banging her knife on the counter with great
irritation and pulling several large onions out of a drawer. She
plunked them angrily on a cutting surface and began to chop with
the homicidal vigor of an ax murderer. T.S. knew at once that she
had been the Queen Bee of the kitchen before Auntie Lil had
arrived. No wonder she had hated him on sight.

The priest noticed the woman's distress.
"Thank you, Fran. As always, you're such a help," he murmured,
patting her shoulder with the kind of cautious enthusiasm you'd
reserve for an unknown Doberman Pinscher. But the priest's
automatic praise was more than enough for grumpy Fran. She turned
her face up at the priest and beamed a radiant smile back at him,
eyes filled with adoration. Her happy expression transformed her
broad face into one that held hints of a former, perhaps even
startling, beauty. The priest beamed back at her while the rest of
the kitchen staff clanged past without taking any notice.

"Don't just stand there, Theodore," Auntie
Lil suddenly commanded T.S. from across the room. "Help me with
this chili."

"Nice to see you, too. Aunt Lil," he replied,
giving her leathery cheek an affectionate peck. "Don't tell me that
Father Whoever is foolish enough to have actually turned you loose
in the kitchen? Haven't those poor people outside suffered
enough?"

She handed him a potholder. "I'll have you
know that this a secret chili recipe brought back to me by a
genuine cowboy from Santa Fe in the thirties."

"That's good. All those cowboys waiting
outside are going to really love it."

She ignored him. She was good at that.
"Father Whoever is Father Stebbins. If you're not going to go to
church on a regular basis, at least show it some respect. Perhaps
he'll put in a good word for you upstairs."