Manhattan Mayhem (26 page)

Okay. Now we were getting somewhere. I cleared my throat. “I’m sure. And now your girls are lovely, lovely grown-up women. Aren’t they, Emil?” Subtle. Nothing heavy handed. I felt proud of myself.

But Emil shrugged. “I don’t know …”

Jamey tilted his head. “Sure you do. You’re the papa, you had to raise them and then marry them off so some other guy would buy their dresses and food. And then you get grandbabies.”

I stared at Jamey. “Full of surprises, you are, kiddo.”

Emil’s wrinkled old mouth puckered. Something was bothering him. I leaped in, hoping this would lead us to the
right
memories, the ones we wanted to hear. “So. Now. As Jamey said, your lovely girls all married handsome gentlemen—” I had to pause as Bull gave in to a fit of coughing, which sounded suspiciously like laughter. He finally settled down, red faced. “All done?” I asked him politely. He nodded. I returned to Emil. “So, they all married, did they?”

Again Emil shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Jamey stepped closer. “Why don’t you know? They’re your family. Right?”

Emil gave Bull a frightened look. He reached for his cane, his big hands fumbling and shaking. Jamey picked it up and handed it to him. Emil snatched it angrily. “I don’t know because I don’t know. If I know, den I must know what it is your Slick Nick and Bull want to hear. I don’t
want
to remember!”

Bull and I tried to hush him, but Jamey wouldn’t quit. “Don’t you live with your family?”

Emil turned, head trembling violently. “No, no. I don’t know.”

“Then who takes care of you? You’re sorta clean, ya don’t live on the streets, that’s clear enough. And look at the fat on ya. Somebody must keep you fed. Who?”

Emil stared wide-eyed down at Jamey. “I don’t know.” Despite his frail wobbles, he tried to go around Jamey.

But Jamey planted his fireplug body in front of him. Emil growled
at him, but the kid didn’t seem worried. His words sounded stern. “Look. You don’t dump your family. You seem okay to me, for an ex-con. Families gotta take you back, anyway. ’At’s why you got family, Ma says.”

Emil stopped suddenly and peered at the little boy. He never wore glasses, but I’ll bet he needed them. “Your ma says dat?”

Jamey nodded vigorously.

“Do you—do you—have a papa?” Emil asked Jamey.

Jamey tilted his head. “Sure. Every kid’s got a pop somewheres. Ma says so, anyway.”

“Ah, ah, zo, he does not live in ze same house with you?”

Jamey shook his raggedy hair. A no, I presume. “He’s too busy, Ma says. I think he ran off. In fact … well, I just think it’s good he’s gone. Good for Ma, I mean. And us.”

“Us?” Emil inquired.

Jamey nodded. “Me an’ my brothers.”

Emil leaned on his cane. He wobbled, the cane wobbled, but in spite of all that movement, he appeared to be thinking. I rushed up to his side and touched his elbow.

“Emil.”

He jerked his arm away from me but stayed where he was. Okay. Maybe still thinking.

“Mr. James,” he suddenly said. “May I go home with you today?”

Jamey seemed taken aback, but he shrugged. “Sure. Near dinner time anyway. Ma always makes enough for an army. From habit, she says.”

And while Bull and I stood watching, the two shuffled away arm in arm, going east on Wall Street. I wanted badly to follow, but how to lose the well-muscled person at my side?

We stood together and watched the two figures until they turned north on a side street and disappeared from sight.

“Ah, well, Bull. Nice seeing you again.”

Bull glanced down at me, a wide grin on his face. “I’ll bet.” He strolled off. To do his duty, no doubt.

I waited until I decided Bull was too far away to notice, then I ran as fast as I’ve ever run in my life, trying to catch up to Emil and Jamey. I darted in and out of all the side streets, nothing. Nothing in sight for me to follow. Damn it, nothing!

The next morning, no obliging hunchback strolled my way. Nor any stray dough, either. I held down a curb in front of a strip club—quiet at this time of the morning—and tried to come up with a new plan. I kept in mind that just possibly, possibly, I still had some luck left over from yesterday.

Just then, whistling from a tortured songbird pierced my sensitive ears—and then I recognized it as some theater production’s theme song. Jamey strode right behind me, lips puckered. His arms were holding a huge cloth bag—his mother’s collected chores for the day, I guessed.

He didn’t stop. Obviously, the dear boy hadn’t seen me. I jumped up, patting dust from the seat of my trousers. “Jamey! I say, Jamey, old son!” He paused, saw me, and then turned around and waited for me to catch up. “Hiya, Slick,” he said.

I took a moment to unclench my teeth. “Dear boy. I’m so sorry Emil never finished his story about the roller-skating lady. Ah, perhaps … perhaps we might try again today?”

“Why? Find some money somewheres?” The wretched boy laughed.

I stood and looked at the kid. He didn’t move. I didn’t move. He looked odd, a peculiar gleam sparkling in his eyes. Still, neither of us moved or even spoke. Finally, he sighed. “Gotta go, Nick. Sorry.” He began backing away from me, tilted his head in a goodbye motion, and then turned and resumed his cheery progress across Forty-Second Street.

Suddenly, he turned and shouted, “Mr. Emil won’t be at Wall Street today.”

“Why not?”

“Just thought I’d save you a useless trip. Mr. Emil found more, uh, interesting places to be, see?”

“No, I
don’t
see!” I turned my back on the kid and strode off.
But I saw, all right.

I heaved a sigh and set off eastward. It’s said to be peaceful by the river. Who’d said that—oh, yes, Emil. There must’ve been a river somewhere near Sing Sing. I might as well try to calm myself. Because I knew Emil, like the Dangerous Bull (take your pick of Bulls), would also no longer be found on Wall Street. I’m no child; everything had become instantly clear to me … well, after seeing Jamey again. The expression on his face had said it all, and I got it, as they say in the crude popular vernacular.

As I sat on the edge of the seawall, legs dangling, watching the gaily painted tiny tugboats push and haul the monstrous barges up and down the East River, I suddenly realized the first clue I’d bungled. That scarlet hair. I’d ignored my own intuition, never wise! The second clue: Bull’s unusually (to me) extensive knowledge of Emil’s daughters. Third clue … well, in no certain order … Emil said if he remembered his family, he’d be compelled to “know” what everyone wanted him to remember.
That
was a big clue!

The biggest clue of all—Jamey said his
ma
had said a family must take one back,
even if coming home as an ex-con.
Remembering how hard that had flattened poor Emil …

But my very first mistake? The luck from the hunchback had clearly been meant for Jamey. Emil’s grandchild. One of many, I’d wager. Rose had, no doubt, bequeathed her girls with her own brilliant shade of red hair, and Emil had stolen to try to support them all. And through Jamey, Emil finally discovered he would still find a welcome among his family.

I stood up, smacked the dust from my trousers yet again, and strolled up toward the beautiful sailing ships anchored there, letting the breeze and the sights restore me. But I still wondered: which daughter had Bull married? And when Emil “remembered” for the good of his wonderful, beloved family in these hard times where he’d stashed his stolen goods, would Bull turn the lovely old man in?

Nah.

ANGELA ZEMAN
claims that wit never dies in her stories, but other life forms must fend for themselves. Her work spans several subgenres. In 2012 Otto Penzler reissued her first novel,
The Witch and the Borscht Pearl,
plus a collection of related short stories as e-books and print-on-demand books. She is published by Mysterious Press,
Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine,
and various anthologists. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Private Eye Writers of America, and the International Crime Writers Association/North America. Learn more about her and her work at
AngelaZeman.com
.

“The stinkin’ rat finks have our uniforms on! They’re sending our troops the wrong way!”

Voices didn’t travel far in the tree cover or under the sledgehammer sounds of explosions. Sergeant Sam Rabinowitz watched as Private Jacobs jumped out of the Jeep and tore up to him to say it again. “Hold on, Private,” Rabinowitz said.

“A truck driver just told me that!” Jacobs had been assigned a forward position to support an intersection with a fellow MP. Their squad’s mission was to direct Allied troop traffic south of the Belgian city of Bastogne.

Sergeant Rabinowitz ordered the squad to fall out. He knew rumors
in wartime were often used as strategy by both sides. He had his men park their gear on snow and heaps of fallen branches, then permitted them to pop the hood of the Jeep so they could warm any drinkable liquids by setting their tin cups around the engine.

Rabinowitz sat with Maroney, the radioman, on a large low rock. Communication had been pretty well shot—static, then five words, then two, then static, then nothing. While Maroney worked, Rabinowitz slid his bayonet out of its scabbard on his belt, sliced off a hunk of salami he had in his pack, and offered it to Maroney before he cut a piece for himself.

Wet had entered a separation in Rabinowitz’s boot. The ache was almost smothered by numbness, a sign that it could turn to frostbite. He tried to ignore it. The whole platoon had suffered many more serious casualties than swollen toes in the advance along the eighty-mile front, later named the Battle of the Bulge for its geography.

Private Mike Kelley shoved back into the group from a piss run, along with another soldier they hadn’t seen before. The new man said he was headed back to the front after being separated from his squad. Sergeant Rabinowitz asked where he was from and a few other things, and then he turned his attention back to his communications grunt.