The Letter Writer (14 page)

“Right. But Longchamps must have, what, a dozen locations? And you just happened to pick the one where these three guys showed up to conduct a little business?”

“If you must know, I am told that it is a location where such people are commonly known to gather. Their presence, in and of itself, should not come as a surprise.”

“Exactly my point. And how'd you happen to come by this knowledge?”

“In the course of serving my clients, of course, as I told you the other night.”

Cain smiled and leaned across the table so that Danziger had to look him in the eye. “You know, at some point you're going to have to level with me about your past if you expect to maintain my trust and confidence.”

“I could make the same demand of you.”

“And if we're ever working a case in Horton, you'll have every right. But we're in your old haunts, chasing your old ghosts. Or avoiding them, I'm not sure which, and that uncertainty is a little troubling.”

Danziger looked down at his coffee cup. Cain waited through several seconds of silence before Danziger spoke. “When I was young, I moved in different circles from the ones I move in now. Somewhat recklessly so, as the young are inclined to do. A fast crowd. That is how my mother would have described it, had she lived to see it.”

“Was this back when you used to ride to big-shot funerals in taxis? In '28 you wouldn't have exactly been a callow young buck.”

“I have had experiences of which I am not proud, but I have most assuredly put them behind me. I serve a different calling now, as you have seen for yourself at my place of business. A different clientele, one that depends upon my good offices for vital information. And, as I said, that other life…”

“It's behind you now?”

“Yes.” His eyes flashed. “Besides, you are hardly one to be talking about withholding information. It is said that you are already pursuing an interest in my friend Fedya's niece, Miss Beryl Blum.”

Cain, caught off guard, couldn't help but laugh, if only because Beryl's name immediately put him in a cheerful frame of mind. He was impressed that Danziger already knew that he had telephoned her, having finally gotten up his nerve late Sunday afternoon. In his experience, most women would've expected him to follow convention by asking her out for the following weekend. Beryl had instead insisted that they meet on Monday, today, after work.

“Why wait all week?” she'd said, her frankness as thrilling as it was jarring. “We're both interested in each other, and we're no longer seventeen. How about tomorrow?”

Maybe that was the way of all New York women, although Cain doubted it. She seemed to broadcast an air of independence, as if daring others to object. If he were still living in Horton it might have put him off. But after everything he'd endured over the past several months it felt bracing, refreshing. So they'd arranged to meet, and this morning he'd dressed in his newest shirt and cleanest suit, and he'd walked to work in a fine mood indeed.

“You don't sound too happy about it,” he told Danziger.

“Fedya has already come calling to berate me for unleashing the ravening goy on his favorite niece. And a policeman, no less. He is an inveterate snob in these matters. He would prefer a surgeon, or a university dean. Some nice boy whose mother was still close at hand.”

By now Danziger was smiling. Cain figured it was partly out of mischief, partly because he'd managed to so deftly change the subject. Feeling magnanimous, Cain decided he didn't mind. “Tell your friend I'll be on my best behavior.”

“Yes, but will she? That is his real worry. She is a young woman of modern ideas and immodest habits. But that is your life, your concern. Not mine, yes? So perhaps we should refrain from discussing these kinds of private affairs, especially when there is still so much work to be done.”

Cain got the message well enough: Stay out of my private affairs and I'll stay out of yours. He decided to play along for now. Their working arrangement was beginning to feel dangerous enough without adding further complications.

They left the Royal just as Freddie snapped his towel at another horsefly. To Cain it sounded for all the world like a gunshot.

SHE WANTED TO KNOW
everything there was to know about him, and for the first time in ages Cain was inclined to tell it. A year's worth of sexual deprivation certainly explained part of his eagerness. But something more was at work, too—a deeper need to start unpinning the tight wrapping he had pulled up around himself beginning with the sad events of the previous fall.

Spring had started the process, and now Beryl Blum was accelerating it with each and every question. He felt himself opening like the petals of a flower, breathing in light and energy in rejuvenating gulps with each revelation. And so, fairly early in their dinner conversation, Cain found himself uttering these words, even though he was elbow to elbow with other diners at Guffanti's, an Italian place on Seventh:

“I have a daughter. You should know that about me. She's coming up to join me at the end of the school year.”

“So you're…?”

“Still married, with a divorce in the works. It's not a question of if, but when. My wife's institutionalized somewhere, getting treatment for her drinking. For other things, too, I think, although my father-in-law won't say. Plenty of it was my fault, some of it wasn't. There's a long story behind it. I can tell it to you whenever you'd like to hear it.”

She leaned forward and didn't frown, didn't look away. Already he believed she was extraordinary, and this seemed like further proof.

“I'll take you up on that offer when we're in more private surroundings. Thank you for leveling with me. I gather it's a painful story.”

“Embarrassing, too, most of it.” He took a sip of his drink, relieved to have that off his chest. Before the evening, he had worried that he would feel Clovis's presence hovering nearby. Instead, the opposite seemed to be happening, which was one reason he felt able to talk about her with Beryl, and about everything else that had happened.

“What about your life?” he said. “I haven't shut up since we sat down. I've hardly asked you a thing.”

“My fault. I've been asking all the questions.”

“Is that because I'm a cop? Trying to find out if I pass muster?”

She smiled. “I wish I could answer with an absolute no, but it wouldn't be honest.”

“It's a common enough phenomenon among certain types of women.”

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. “And what type would that be? Snobby?”

“That's part of it. Usually involving either a certain caliber of family name or a certain caliber of university.”

“Well, you definitely won't find me in the Blue Book, but would Columbia qualify for the latter?”

“Absolutely.”

“Chapel Hill is no slouch.”

“For a state school in the South, she thought, but was too polite to say.” She lowered her head and laughed softly, an appealing gesture. Then she reached across the table and touched his hand.

“I hear you also thought about graduate school.”

“Someone's been talking about me.”

“My uncle Fedya was determined to vet you on my behalf. He blames himself for this entire evening, so he demanded an immediate audience with Danziger.”

“So I heard.”

“But Danziger didn't breathe a word about a wife and a child.”

“Maybe he was protecting me,” Cain said, warmed by the thought.

“I think he was. My uncle said Danziger seems quite attached to you.”

“I like him, too. But, speaking of someone who needs vetting, well…”

“I take it he hasn't exactly clued you in on his wayward youth.”

“He's told you?”

“No. But my uncle has a few stories.”

“And?”

She lowered her head again, hiding her smile. Cain knew he was becoming far too enchanted, but saw no reason to fight it.

“I'd be talking out of school if I were to reveal them.”

“You're probably right. And don't think I didn't notice that you've stopped calling him Sascha. You're looking out for him, aren't you?”

“You really don't know the first thing about his life, do you?”

“That's certainly what I'm beginning to suspect.”

“ ‘Beginning to suspect.' He even has you talking like him. He has that effect on everyone. Tell me, when you're with Danziger do you ever start feeling like you're reading lines straight out of a nineteenth-century English novel?”

“At least half the time I'm with him.”

They laughed. Then she turned serious.

“Not to overdo it, but if the two of you are truly pursuing anyone with, as Danziger might say, a dubious enough background that they might actually do you harm, then wouldn't it behoove you to learn a little more about him?”

Another touch of his hand, with a thrill reaching to his toes. A grown man of thirty-four, and Cain was reacting like a teen in a soda shop, enthralled by the idea of so much as a good-night kiss.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

She shrugged.

“I'm not sure. I probably don't know the half of it. Only a few legends, from Uncle Fedya. But there are bound to be records, aren't there? As long as you know his real name.”

“Sascha?”

“For Alexander. Maximilian is actually his middle name.”

“Is he really a Danziger?”

“He is now.”

“He changed it?”

“So I'm told.”

“Legally?”

“That seems to be a matter for debate. He chose Danziger because one side of his family was from Danzig, in West Prussia.”

“His father's side.”

“So he did tell you that much.”

“Yes. But I don't know his old name. Do you?”

She smiled uncomfortably, saying nothing. He decided not to press the point, and was about to move on when she spoke again.

“There was a woman, once. I do know that.”

“Was? How did he lose her?”

“I don't know. But I gather it's not something that he talks about anymore, even with Fedya.”

“Maybe that explains why he's a bachelor. What else do you know?”

“Not all that much. Or nothing that I'd feel comfortable telling you, even though I'd like to help, because, well, I'd hate to think the two of you might be ambushed.”

“Ambushed? By what? Or who?”

“I'm not sure. It's all sort of hazy, even from what little I know, and I'm probably making it sound far worse than it was. But, well, I'd feel terrible if I were to hurt him by saying something I shouldn't. And not just for his sake. Maybe you don't realize how important he's become in so many lives. People who are vulnerable and old, people whose way of life has almost vanished.”

“Oh, I think I have an idea of that.”

“Do you? For them he's the last link to everything they left behind. Their families, their pasts. If he disappears, so will all of that. Dust to dust. And if by telling you too much I somehow destroyed his work…” She shook her head.

“Who said anything about destroying him? Or even hurting him. I wouldn't dream of it. I happen to like him. A lot.”

“I know. I can see that, and I believe it's genuine. But sometimes when you start poking around in someone else's shadows…Well, you're a policeman, you know how that can go. Things come out of hiding. Things that can't be put away twice. And then the whole edifice crumbles.”

“Edifice. Exactly how Danziger would have put it.”

She smiled, but still looked troubled. “Then I think of the two of you, walking into some situation for which you have no warning, partly because you know so little about him, and that worries me as well.”

“How bad can it be? All he's told me was that he ran with a fast crowd.”

She shook her head and rubbed her arms, as if she had taken a chill.

“Let me think about it some more,” she said.

“Sure.”

Their dinner arrived—two plates of spaghetti along with a chilled bottle of Orvieto. Cain broke off the end of a long breadstick. He twirled his fork through the noodles and the thick red sauce, the likes of which he'd never seen down south—rich with chopped onions, peppers, and chicken livers. He overheard the man at the next table ordering a cocktail called a Clover Club, and he marveled that he was here at all—in a Manhattan restaurant with an interesting woman, seated elbow to elbow with what felt like half the noisy city.

The waiter poured more wine, and their conversation drifted comfortably toward other topics—their childhoods, their neighborhoods, their jobs.

Beryl worked for the Red Cross, in programs aiding newly arrived immigrants, often from war zones. Sometimes her wards were from enemy nations, and many had already been tagged for deportation. She spoke German, Russian, and a smattering of Polish, which meant she often dealt with people who'd suffered quite a lot, and, in the case of the deportees, whose suffering was likely to continue.

“That Japanese man on the subway,” she said. “What made you want to help him?”

“It's part of my job.”

“I doubt many of your colleagues would see it that way.”

He considered arguing the point. Then he thought of Maloney, and the other night at the bar.

“You didn't exactly back down, either.”

“It's my job, too, working with people like him. People who are in a fix, even the ones from places that aren't very popular right now. My boss seems to think they're the ones I'm best suited to help.”

“And you don't?”

“What I really want to do is go overseas. Europe, anywhere near the front. But I'm not a nurse, and they've got plenty of volunteers for the glamor jobs. My boss says I'm needed more here.”

“Remind me to send him a thank-you note for keeping you ashore.”

When the check arrived she again surprised him by insisting on paying her share. Although he was secretly relieved—the meal had set him back more than he expected—he was embarrassed, too.

“We should all do our part,” she said. “It's the wartime spirit.”

“Yeah, but…”

“You'll just have to get used to the way I do things.”

He supposed that would be easy enough.

They went for a walk afterwards. It was a beautiful night, soft air blown free of grit by a spring breeze off the Hudson. The pale glow of twilight still lit the western sky as darkness fell on the dimmed skyline. The usual crowds were out, jostling and weaving. But with Beryl at his side Cain no longer felt hemmed in. Each passing face seemed filled with potential. Every stray voice told a story worth hearing.

“This place never stops amazing me,” he said, invigorated by the energy around them. “You've got the whole world on one island. People from everywhere.”

“Even from Horton.”

“Yep.” He smiled. “Even from there.”

She took his left arm and returned his smile. He hadn't felt this content for longer than he cared to remember. She could've said good night at that very moment and there still would have been enough residual goodwill to coast him straight on through to dawn. Rounding a corner his leg stiffened, and he reflexively reached for his thigh, as if to stroke the long wrinkly scar where his muscles were knotted beneath the skin.

“Your limp,” she said, the words making him flinch. “Is that part of what brought you here?”

“Yes.”

“Don't be ashamed. It makes you a better cop.”

“I doubt the department sees it that way.”

“Well, the department's wrong. Pain, humility. They change you. I see so many cops—sorry, police officers—who've never experienced much of either, and it shows in their work, their attitude.”

He shrugged. “I was never exactly a bust-'em-up kind of policeman, even beforehand.”

“You weren't exactly living in a bust-'em-up town.”

“You'd be surprised. Especially on a Saturday night, in some roadhouse or shotgun shack where a guy was beating his wife half to death. A drunk with a sawed-off and a belly full of corn liquor. Throw in a few rowdy friends and neighbors and that's as bust-'em-up as it gets. Makes the Bowery look tame.”

“Maybe so.”

“Definitely so. Where would you like to go?”

“Anywhere with a little peace and quiet.”

He wanted to suggest his apartment, but felt like that would be moving too fast, although with Beryl maybe the usual rules didn't apply.

“There's a quiet little bar around the corner. In the old days I'm told it was a speakeasy.”

“How about your apartment?”

He blushed in spite of himself. The sheltered boy, out on the town with the bold woman.

“Sure. Fair warning, though. All I have to drink is beer.”

“My mother's side of the family is from Bavaria. They'd say you're well stocked.”

Pete, the night doorman, greeted them with a smile and uncharacteristic courtesy. He seemed to approve of Cain's choice in women. Or maybe he was just relieved to finally witness a spark of happiness in the life of his loneliest tenant. No one wanted one of those depressed lodgers who ended up hanging himself from a ceiling pipe.

Cain fetched beer from the fridge and threw open a window. Kids squealed in the street below, playing kickball. From a radio came the voice of Red Barber, informing Dodger fans that pitcher Kirby Higbe was sitting in the catbird seat. That's how Cain felt as he settled onto the couch next to Beryl. He handed her a beaded bottle of Schlitz.

“Are you always so polite? Holding open doors, staying to my left on the sidewalk. Almost courtly.”

“Way I was raised.”

“A Southern gentleman.” Clovis's old line, but the image didn't linger. “The shyness, though. I didn't expect that.”

He looked down at his feet. “It's been a while. Dating, I mean.”

“I suppose it has.”

She touched his cheek. He set his beer on the floor. They searched each other's eyes for a moment, and then kissed, gently, lips barely brushing. Then again, easing closer on the couch as the springs groaned.