Elsinore (16 page)

“I manage,” Phipps said. “And I can always depend on you.”

“Why did you send Kit Shea after President Katz?”

Phipps started his crazy cackling laugh. His body shivered under the robe. “President Katz. That's a good one. He's an antique choirboy.”

“Was he in your choir, Phippsy?”

“Never had a choir, Sid.”

“And I suppose his shul didn't bring you to Manhattan to find out who killed the heiress?”

“I was a Pinkerton. It's no big secret. Sure, Hester Street hired me. A private detective has his following.”

“Like a cantor, huh?”

“Or anybody else.”

“You knew Kronstadt, didn't you?”

“Of course. That was the whole point of the investigation.”

“Phippsy, what was her first name?”

“Frieda. But she never used it. We called her Kronstadt. Everybody did.”

“Was she beautiful?”

“No, no. Not like Judith. But she was attractive enough … and warm, Sid. Kronstadt was warm.”

“How'd you meet her?”

“At some soiree. She was running around with a couple of Irish hoods. I liked her. We got along. I wasn't a Pinkerton then.”

“What were you, Phippsy?”

“A fresh kid.”

“You finished her.”

The billionaire looked at Holden out of watery blue eyes. “I did not.”

“Then why Kit Shea?”

“It's old business. I didn't want the choirboy poking around in my past. I sent Kitty to warn him.”

“With a broom handle?”

“I never ask a man about his techniques.”

“But it's Mrs. Vanderwelle who introduced me to Morton Katz. Why didn't you punish her?”

“I'd like a snack, Sid. Let's go downstairs to the Club.”

And Frog went down with Phippsy to that make-believe Manhattan. A full orchestra was playing. Holden had violins in his soup. “It's like a paquebot in here. We could be drifting on some crazy sea.… My father worked for you. He was your man.”

“He ran errands for me from time to time.”

“He was your man. You sat him down in some deep cover. He played the chauffeur … God, I'm so stupid. He bumped for you. That's how I got my reputation. People were frightened of my dad: So I became the second Holden. I was educated in a school I didn't even know about. You've been nursing me all along. For twenty years. I was the fucking ghost of a ghost. Why did you take me out of the nursery all of a sudden? You needed a bumper, didn't you? I fit the bill. I was your customized boy. Who did you want me to hit?”

The billionaire sucked on some jello. And Holden thought of Kronstadt and Paul Abruzzi and Morton Katz and his own dad's elliptical life. He figured it was fair to destroy Phippsy in Phippsy's restaurant. But he'd never bumped out of so much pain. It was worse than a vendetta. Because Phipps was almost like an uncle who'd risen out of the ocean to harrow the Frog. Or a granddad. And then Holden recognized two waiters he'd never seen before in Phippsy's womb of time. Their coats weren't any less splendid than the other waiters'. But they were bringing food that Phipps had never ordered. And Holden freed one leg as the waiters dropped their trays and lunged at Phippsy with a pair of knives. The old man never moved or cried. And for a moment Frog wondered if he was caught in yet another staged event. But he didn't have the luxury to search for some essential grammar. Even if the whole scene had been choreographed, Frog had to act. His heel landed in the first waiter's groin. He'd twisted the second waiter to one side, so that the knife fell into Phippsy's flannel shoulder. The rest of the waiters stood frozen as Frog punched the two men into the polished floor. He could see his own reflection. He looked like some angel of death. He stopped punching. The two men crawled out of the Supper Club. The billionaire sat with a knife in his shoulder. He smiled, said, “I ain't hurt, Sid,” and tumbled into Holden's arms.

Frog carried him downstairs to the emergency room.

14

He waited and waited for that second delivery of hat-boxes with two million inside. But Bronshtein must have lost interest in the Aladdin label. The coats were never collected. They seemed to grow like trees in Aladdin's factory and showroom. Frog had a fortune of Nick Tiels. But he couldn't get rid of the coats. The sables and minks had a poisonous skin. He gave up the illusion of being an entrepreneur. He was only a president on paper. Aladdin didn't even have any books. He could scratch “S. Holden” on a check. The check would clear, but Frog couldn't define himself against a bank account. And he couldn't crawl outside of whatever comedy he was in. He could have closed the shop, resigned, donated the Nick Tiels to his favorite charity, but he didn't have one. He might as well have lived in Beirut, along the “green line” that separated the Christians and the Muslims, and all the other warring broods. Holden's green line was in his head.

He visited the billionaire in his emergency room, a luxurious suite twice the size of his tower apartment. It had its own kitchen and bottles of blood. Phipps was lying like a wraith in a little monk's bed. He wore the same flannel robe. His skin was so white that Frog believed he was in the company of a death mask. Then Phipps stirred, and something like a tear arrived on that white skin.

“You fool. I never killed her. She was my woman.”

“When?”

“Before you were born, Sid. Before you were born.”

And the billionaire started to chant in a language that was desolate and so, so sweet. Frog was much too stunned to cry. “You are the great Hirsch.”

“Was, you mean. That's how I met Frieda Kronstadt. It was Prohibition. And I was at a rum party. I was pissing alcohol. A couple of gangsters asked me to sing. I went through the whole liturgy. I made love to Kronstadt behind a sofa. I was sixteen. She was twenty-six or -seven. I earned as much money as Babe Ruth. I had mink collars on all my coats. I was a rotten, stinking snot-nose kid. I ate coal in Milwaukee when I was nine and ten. I starved, Sid. And then this music teacher came along, a fallen rabbi who was fond of little boys. Morris Love. He showed me how to warble, how to play on all the registers I had. He was touching me all the time. He taught me the whole synagogue service. I ditched him when I was twelve. I was the wizard of Milwaukee. Hirschele, the prodigy who'd lived on shoe leather. But there weren't enough synagogues on Wisconsin Avenue to keep me in the style I wanted. I fled the coop. I hired and fired managers. I wanted no more Morris Loves. I sang the whole United States. I bankrupted the chief rabbi of Havana in a poker game. I seduced three of his daughters. I was the little prince of Montreal. I began beating women in a drunken rage. Not Kronstadt. Never. I couldn't keep track of all my bank accounts. Synagogues booked me two years in advance. I demanded a dressing room, like an opera star. I knew every significant whore in every town.”

“And heiress,” Holden said.

The cantor smiled. “Should I tell you how many mothers proposed their daughters to me, how many fathers let me peek into their treasure chests?”

“What happened in Chicago, Hirsch?”

“That's a buried name, Sid. I'd rather you didn't use if.”

“What happened in Chicago?”

“I was drunk. There was one more heiress. We were battling on the windowsills. I don't remember her name. Her father was a milliner, the richest in the world. First I said I'd marry her, then I said I wouldn't. She fell. I pushed her. It amounted to the same thing. I wanted her dead. And maybe I was sick of singing. Holden, I never gave one shit about God, and here I was, the holy man, with a black pompon on a big white hat. I'd sold myself to Morris Love. The great Hirsch's balls had been in Morris' mouth.”

“You were just a kid,” Holden said.

“I don't need absolution from a bumper like you. Let me finish. I got out of the synagogue racket. There was no room for a tainted cantor, no matter what his voice was like. I lost my bookings. Only one little shul in Guatemala would have me. I punched around, shaved my beard, and joined the Pinkertons. I solved a couple of big cases. But I was always singing to myself, humming my own synagogue service while I was tracking down jewel thieves for some client. And then the officers of Hester Street put in a call for the hot detective. Don't think I didn't laugh. They'd banned me from their shul. I could have a little revenge and solve the Kronstadt case … not for them, Sid. Not for them.”

“But Morton Katz recognized you right away.”

“Only because I wanted him to. Jesus, Sid, I was a Pinkerton. I could have powdered my face. I knew the choirboy would be on the synagogue's reception committee. I let him tag along. We visited whorehouses together. He blushed like a Jesuit, but he was all eyes. I played ‘bow and arrow' with him. I was the hunter. He was the imbecile choirboy. Took me a day and a half to discover who had murdered Kronstadt. But I didn't tell Katz. I pretended to continue the search … with Morton the detective. He saw the link between Kronstadt and his hero, Hirsch. He got sadder and sadder, thinking I was the maniac of Hester Street.”

“Well, who killed the heiress?”

“A pimp. Marcus Reims. He was in love with her. Kronstadt wouldn't have him. She humiliated Marcus at some café. Could have been the Garden Cafeteria. I'm not sure. She slapped his face. Marcus followed her home and ripped her to death. And so I returned the favor, right under Katz's nose. Had a little party with Marcus. Just me and him. I returned to Seattle and resigned from the Pinkertons. Then I got rich.”

“And you fell in love with Judith Church.”

“I had my Supper Club and Judith. She ran away.”

“You destroyed her husband, she got ill, and you put her in Elsinore.”

“We were talking about Kronstadt. Judith's not your business.”

“You raped her, didn't you, old man? In front of all your big doctors.”

“Shut your mouth, Sid.”

“You were the billionaire, and she was the mad lady in your private farm.… I think you made up this Marcus. That's what I think.”

“Just ask any of the Westies about Marcus Reims. I ended his life. That's a fact.”

“And Judith gave birth at Elsinore … she had a little girl.”

“I told you once. Shut your mouth.”

“What are you going to do, old man? Hire Kit and his broom handle. He'd never get near me. Judith Church had a daughter in Vermont. She grew up to be Mrs. Vanderwelle. They bleed you, and you let them. Why?”

“It's piss in a bucket. It's hayseeds.”

“Your collateral is going down and down because of them. They're robbing you blind.”

“It's piss, I said.”

“You're hallucinating, old man. Why won't you talk about little Judith?”

“I saw her once,” the cantor said, biting his fist. “She was a month old, but she wasn't my baby. Judith was sleeping with every bummer and bulldog at the place. To spite me, Sid. No, I didn't want to look at that child. I fired the whole staff. I brought in new doctors, loyal to me.”

“And you never slept with her at Elsinore?”

The cantor rubbed his eyes. “I might have … once or twice. I wouldn't rape her, Sid. She was willing, all right.”

“She might not have recognized you. You could have been anybody, a doctor, or one of the bulldogs.”

“Oh, she recognized me, Sid. She cackled my name, bit me on the mouth. Didn't touch her after that. Months and months went by, and next thing I know she's big around the waist. I didn't want to look at that baby. Oh, I wouldn't abandon the child. I paid for her schooling like a proper dad … and then she shows up one bloody afternoon. At the foundation. Calls herself Mrs. Vanderwelle, but I'm no fool. And I had a pain in the heart, just as if she'd been my own lost child. Little Judith, you say. Let her be little Judith. Short in the legs, with a bow in her hair. Didn't have her mother's graces. But I had to keep from blubbering, because she was my girl in a way. I was the fist behind whatever father she had. I loved her, Holden. I never really understood what it meant to be a dad. I was crazed with worry. I thought of that red baby in the woods, a month old. I should have sung her to sleep with a cantor's lullaby. I couldn't. Of course she hates me. And I let her and her mama eat me alive. But that's what my millions are for. My accountants repair the damage.… Holden, the. leakage is someplace else.”

“Like where?”

“Aladdin.”

“I don't get it.”

“It was a laundering operation, Sid. It always was. Just like most of the portfolios at the foundation. I never made money on Nick Tiel.”

“Wait a minute? You were behind the Swisser all these years?”

“I bankrolled Aladdin. It was my baby.”

“And Swiss was only the middleman. I had a boss and I never knew about it. I bumped for you, didn't I? You arranged all the hits.”

“Not every single one,” the cantor said. “Say seventy-five percent.”

“That's because you had other bumpers, like my dad.”

“I was very selective with Holden Sr. I only used him in a pinch.”

“How would you define a pinch, old man?”

“Like right now. Swiss and Bronshtein and Bibo are working together, pulling, pulling from my accounts. That's why I went to Spain. It had nothing to do with bearer bonds. I had to feel Bibo out. He's joined the Swiss all right.”

“Then why didn't he kill you … and me?”

“He's the king of Pescadores. And a king could be a little generous. But he's wrong. I've been shutting down his territories ever since we got back.”

“And what about the trip to Chappy?”

“I had to see if the Cardinales were involved with Swiss. But Ethan is senile. And so are his sons. I was never interested in their money.”

“Then all that talk about funny paper was a big joke. I was your stupid cavalier.”