Death Of A Dream Maker (2 page)

He would not beg for details. He would retain his
pride and leave before his resolve crumbled in favor of
curiosity.

The last wisps of light were fading from the winter
sky as he hurried to his car. Auntie Lil's Flushing neighborhood
had changed a great deal over the years, each wave of immigrants
bringing new color and customs to this previously middle-class
enclave. Auntie Lil loved the changes. T.S. was not so sure. He had
to shoo a clan of sullen teenagers off the hood of his car and
inspect it for scratches before he pulled away. At least he had
found a parking spot. He tuned the radio to his favorite station —
twenty-hour-a-day news—and settled back for the frustrating trip
across the construction-jammed highways that led to the Midtown
Tunnel and Manhattan.

He had only gone two blocks when the news bulletin
broke. He nearly rammed the rear of a bus when he realized what he
had heard:

“This just in,” the announcer intoned against a
jangling backdrop of electronic theme music. “The victim of this
afternoon's bomb blast in Manhattan's garment district has been
identified as Max Rosenbloom, owner and founder of Max Rose
Fashions. More details in a moment.”

For the first time in the fifty-five years of his
life, T.S. pulled an illegal U-turn and sped back to Queens. His
parking space was gone and he did not hesitate when he spotted a
pay lot. This was no time to worry about saving five dollars. He
turned in and tossed his keys to the attendant, already on the run
back to her apartment. He knew that he needed to be the one to
break the news to Auntie Lil.

T.S. would never forget the change in Auntie Lil's
eyes when he told her that Max Rosenbloom was dead. Though a
flicker of stubborn inner fire remained, the outer sparkle
faded—shrinking to a flat pinpoint that turned inward across the
years. “Could you leave me for a while, Theodore?” she asked in a
voice that, oddly enough, suddenly sounded very much younger.

“Do you think you should be alone?” he protested.

“I won't really be alone,” she said quietly.

Reluctantly, T.S. turned to go. He paused unnoticed
at the doorway and watched as she methodically searched for a
number of small objects. First she retrieved a tarnished bracelet
of silver from a small box on a shelf and placed it on the dining
room table beside the leather album she had left there earlier.
Returning from the living room, she added a cobalt-blue art deco
vase sprinkled with silver stars and, beside it, a tiny watercolor
that had long been propped on the mantel. It was a private and
unfathomable shrine.

When Auntie Lil wandered back to her bedroom in
search of more mementos, T.S. inched closer and peered at the
surface of the faded painting. It showed a small waterfall in front
of an English Tudor cottage; yellow flowers bloomed at the base of
a sturdy wooden door. Then he saw that she had opened the leather
album to two pages filled with fading black-and-white photographs.
They had thin white ruffled borders and a brownish surface tint,
and the images were still clear: the same man and woman shown in a
dozen different places and times. Here they were marching at the
front of a parade, in a setting that was clearly New York City of
another era. The couple reappeared on a beach dressed in bathing
costumes that evoked the Depression, their arms around each other.
A small boy stood at the corner of the photograph staring up at
them, his eyes wide as he scrutinized the couple for clues to his
own romantic future. The background showed a carnival made up of
dusty tents bearing painted signs that promised exotic
attractions.

Other photos showed the pair standing triumphantly at
the top of a mountain; posed on bicycles comically old; basking in
the sun by the side of a lake; and sprawled across a blanket in a
meadow. There were two photos of the couple riding horses in a
desert. They wore blue jeans and matching light-colored shirts. The
sun could be seen setting spectacularly behind a mesa.

The final pose showed the man and the woman in
evening dress, their heads pressed together as they beamed out at
the photographer. Behind them, T.S. could spot half of a large
orchestra and other couples twirling on a dance floor. He examined
the photo more closely. What faces they had! Determined and strong,
eyes blazing at the camera defiantly as if they had joined together
to fight a lost battle and found themselves unexpectedly
winning.

The man in the photo had thick black hair, and a wide
square nose that fit his strong chin line well. The woman had
startling clear skin with a glow that was visible even in the old,
faded photograph. Her cheekbones were wide, her eyes large and
oval, and her nose was unabashedly masculine.

T.S. scurried back to the door when he heard his aunt
approach. He slipped out before she could see him and paused in the
hallway to pull his coat around him in response to an imaginary
chill. He walked back to his car contemplating the eternal
mysteries of time and love.

He had never thought of Auntie Lil as a great beauty
before. Yet, posed beside Max Rosenbloom, she had radiated a
magnificence that had, quite literally, taken his breath away.

The private grief that overtook Auntie Lil remained
hidden to the outside world. And, within twenty-four hours, her
indomitable spirit triumphed. When she called T.S. the next
evening, he realized that the Auntie Lil he loved so much had
returned.

“The two events are connected,” she said at once.
“Our planned meeting and his death.”

Concern would not let T.S. skip the subject of her
sorrow completely. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Of course I am,” she snapped back. Her peevishness
reassured him. “It will do no one any good, least of all Max, for
me to sit around weeping. Someone killed him and I intend to find
out who.”

“I thought revenge was a dish best eaten cold,” T.S.
pointed out feebly, taken aback by the rage that hummed beneath her
words.

“Cold does not begin to describe my resolve at this
moment,” Auntie Lil answered tersely. “I loved Max for nearly fifty
years. And I knew him well enough to be certain that he would want
me to spend every breath I have left finding out who killed him.
Using a car bomb? What a cowardly way to kill someone. Max did not
even have the satisfaction of meeting his murderer
face-to-face.”

T.S. did not hear this last remark. He was too busy
trying to puzzle out her love for Max Rosenbloom. How could she
have loved him for fifty years? T.S. had never even heard of him
before. Was it possible to deeply love someone and not see them,
even when you lived in the same city?

He simply did not know. T.S. did not understand
matters of the heart. That was the price he was paying for having
buried himself in his career as a personnel manager at a stuffy
private bank for the last thirty years. When he had retired
recently at the early age of fifty-five, T.S. had been somewhat
dismayed to discover that, while he knew much about other people,
he knew very little about himself.

“Are you going to help me or not?” Auntie Lil
demanded, affronted by his preoccupied silence.

“Of course I'll help,” T.S. said. “Despite what I
find to be a rather imperious tone on your part. And mostly because
it would do no good to refuse.”

“I'm sorry, Theodore,” Auntie Lil apologized. “You
have no idea how many years I have sifted through over the past
twenty-four hours. If I sound abrupt, it is only because I am
afraid that letting go of my anger will leave me with nothing
else.”

“No offense taken. What do you want me to do?” T.S.
asked. They sparred constantly, but he loved her very much. If
Auntie Lil needed his help, she had it.

“l received the
Times
this morning, but, as
usual, the information is dry as toast. They spent three paragraphs
saying nothing. Can you bring me every media report you can find on
the murder? I know nothing about his personal life for the past
twenty years — only that his business had continued to grow.”

In other words, her pride would not allow her to go
tabloid shopping where she’d be recognized. Well, T.S. had done
worse in his life than buy tabloids. Besides, he knew a good
newsstand off Times Square that sold papers from all around the
country to thousands of people every day. He could buy the
Daily
Ax Murderer Chronicles
there and not receive a second
glance.

“I'll be over after dinner,” T.S. promised, not
willing to risk a meal at Auntie Lil's. Whether she cooked in or
ordered out, the end result was the same as far as he was
concerned: heartburn every time.

“If you had known him, you'd understand what a loss
his death is,” Auntie Lil explained. Papers from all over the
state, and a few from Florida, were spread across her dining room
table. The old photo album lay open at her elbow. “He was a dream
maker, a man who knew what he wanted and very quietly set about to
make those dreams come true. I never knew anyone else like him. He
believed in many things, in justice and opportunity and all those
ideals that America doesn't stand for anymore because everyone is
too busy shopping at malls. He despised stupid people and lazy
people, and hated cowards, but he loved everyone else. It didn't
matter what color you were or what age you were or who your family
was. If you could do the job, Max would let you do it. And he'd
reward you well.”

“You worked for him?” T.S. asked.

“Of course not. I quit working for his father the day
I met Max. Can you imagine what a mess that would have been? It was
bad enough without that complication.”

Auntie Lil did not say anything more, so T.S. had to
be content with what he gleaned from the media. The first newspaper
account painted the story of a successful businessman: Max
Rosenbloom, age seventy-five. Founder of Max Rose Fashions, one of
the first successful mass-market manufacturers of reasonably-priced
quality women's apparel. Had joined his father's modest tailoring
business following World War II, then turned it into one of the
largest wholesalers on the East Coast within a decade. His
influence was easily overlooked by the public since Max Rose
fashions were often sold under store brand names—an approach that
he had pioneered and profited from handsomely. But he had been more
than a marketing whiz in the pre-MBA specialization days. He was
also the inventor of several machines now standard in the industry,
including a computerized pattern method, an integrated finishing
component, and a hidden security tag system.

T.S. read the next paragraph with even greater
interest: Max had testified a few years ago as part of a failed
federal investigation into Mob influence within the garment
industry.

“Sure it was there,” was the essence of his
testimony; every day someone new approached him for bribes and
threatened to block the shipping of his merchandise. And every day
he told them the same thing: he hadn't come that far to give in to
every two-bit crook that swaggered down Seventh Avenue. But he
didn't name anyone and claimed he didn't remember their names. T.S.
wondered if this could possibly be true.

“You read all that stuff about the Mob?” T.S.
asked.

“I read about it when it happened.” Auntie Lil looked
at him from over her reading glasses. She usually tried to hide
this weakness from him. That she wore them was a sign of her
preoccupation. “I have absolutely no doubt that what Max said was
true. He did not give in to strong-arm tactics. He was an early
union organizer, and he'd run into thugs before. He knew how far he
could go, how to fight back, and how to bend the rules. He was
probably the only manufacturer in New York City they let
alone.”

“Sounds unlikely,” T.S. said as he unfolded another
newspaper. “Look at this headline. They're flat out claiming Max’s
death was a Mob hit. They report that it was a professionally
constructed bomb attached to the underside of the car. With a
timer.” He pointed to another publication. “This one says Mob hit,
too. And it reports that Max wasn't even driving his own car. Says
it belonged to a relative.”

Auntie Lil grabbed the newspapers, her face flushing
a dangerous red as she scanned the lurid headlines. “The one thing
I am absolutely certain of is that Max would never become involved
in organized crime,” she said. “He was scrupulously honest and
detested the cowardice of violence.” She stared at T.S. “People all
over the country are reading this garbage and judging him. It is up
to us to clear his name.”

“Clearing his name could be harder than finding the
killer,” T.S. pointed out.

“Then we had better get back to work,” she
replied.

They read further. Auntie Lil was not pleased to
discover that her beloved Max Rosenbloom had a wife.

“She's forty years younger than him,” T.S. said,
surprise overruling his usual tact. “Her name is Sabrina.”

“Let me see that,” Auntie Lil demanded tersely. She
read the paragraph carefully. “This doesn't sound like the Max I
knew. He detested younger women. Found them silly. Why, I was nine
years older than him and we fell in love anyway. That was one of
the things he liked about me. I cannot imagine why he would be
married to someone so much younger.”

But you're going to find out,
T.S. thought to
himself.

“No children,” he announced, scrutinizing an account
from a Florida paper. “But lots of nephews and a niece. One brother
and one sister. He spent part of the year down in Sarasota, where
he spread money around like water, if the publicity they gave his
death is any indication. Wonder who inherits the business?”

“My money's on the brother,” Auntie Lil said. “His
name is Abe. He's a year older than Max, but he had neither the
brains nor the drive that Max did.”