The Letter Writer (20 page)

“Oh, just fine, sir.” Eileen looked down at the floor. Then she and Olivia exchanged glances like two people caught in the act. Cain guessed Eileen must have done something indulgent—let the girl eat too many sweets, maybe. No big deal, so he let it pass.

“Can I have dessert now?” Olivia asked. “Some bread with butter and sugar on it?”

“Only if you wash your hands first.” So much for his initial theory about sweets. Olivia and Eileen again exchanged glances, and he was about to probe deeper when he noticed his daughter was wearing a round white disk on a lanyard, with her name and grade written in block letters.

“What's that you're wearing?”

“It's an ID tag, sir,” Eileen said. “All the schoolchildren have them now, in case there's some sort of…
disturbance
due to the war.”

Olivia walked to the bread box in the kitchen. Eileen stepped closer and lowered her voice.

“They do air raid drills and make them hide under their desks, sir. I think it scared her half to death. But I'm sure you'll hear soon enough. Tomorrow then, sir? Bright and early again?”

“Not as bright and early as this morning, thank goodness. The regular time.”

“Very well, sir.”

And off she went, with at least an hour's worth of bus and subway rides before she made it home. Say what he would about Euston, Eileen was indispensible.

He and Olivia sat on the couch with her plate of sugary buttered bread and a glass of milk.

“Good?”

“Mmm-hmm,” spoken through a mouthful.

“Tell me about your first day at school.”

She shrugged.

“Not much to tell.”

“What are the other kids like?”

She shrugged again. No words this time. For a few seconds she seemed lost in thought.

“I need to know something,” she said.

“Okay. Ask away.”

“Can U-boats shoot at us if they come ashore? Benny Stern said they could. He also said they could unload sabby tars, and send them all over the city.”

“U-boats can't get close enough to shore to shoot at us here, honey. And I think he was talking about
saboteurs,
but I wouldn't worry about them, either. It's from a French word. The first saboteur was some worker who threw his wooden shoe—his
sabot
—into a machine at his factory, to make it break.”

“So I could wreck a whole factory with my sandals?”

“Or even your tap shoes. Then they might think Shirley Temple did it.”

He'd hoped for a laugh, but got a frown.

“I outgrew those shoes, and nobody talks about her anymore, Daddy. She's fourteen.”

“Oh, I see. All grown up.”

Olivia nodded, and maybe she was right. With a war on, fourteen was pretty old, for her and all her classmates. Make it to eighteen and you might even be bound for Europe or the Pacific, at least if you were a boy.

“I'm full,” she said. The milk was gone, but half the bread remained. “You want the rest?”

“No, thanks. Not my kind of dessert.”

“To each his own, said the lady as she kissed the cow.”

Her words took him aback. It was an old expression of Clovis's.

“Haven't heard that one in a while,” he said, hoping for a response. Instead, she averted her eyes like she'd been caught in a lie. Then she yawned and leaned against him, and soon was either asleep or pretending to be—a dodge he knew from his own childhood.

Let her rest. Maybe it would ease her mind before she climbed into bed. These worries of war could rob you of more than sleep. And now she was channeling favorite sayings of her mother, as if seeking refuge in happier times of the past. He nudged her gently.

“Time to put on your PJs, sweetie.”

She opened her eyes and nodded. He went to the kitchen to put away her plate, then he tucked her in. After switching off the light he went to the refrigerator for a beer. He supposed he should scramble an egg for dinner, but he didn't have the energy. Mostly what he needed was companionship, and he again eyed the phone before dismissing the idea.

He took the beer to the living room, undressed, and sat at the foot of the unfolded bed with the windows open, listening to the sounds of a Chelsea night. Exhausted as he was, he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep for hours.

“SERGEANT CAIN, IS THAT YOU?”

The man's voice, muddied by the sediment of sleep, seemed to reach Cain from the bottom of the Hudson.

“Wake up, sleepyhead.”

It was first light. He was standing barefoot, and the Bakelite receiver of the telephone was somehow in his right hand. That told him that the phone must have been ringing, and that he must have walked to the kitchen to answer it.

“Come again?” Cain rasped.

“Time to get up, asshole.” Spoken like a cop, cocksure and in charge. Cain heard laughter in the background, the toot of a boat.

“Who is this?” His head began to clear.

“Your girlfriend's in need, Sergeant Cain. Says she wants it bad. Up here in Harlem, no less. But not to worry, no brown sugar. Purely the white stuff, just the way you Southern boys like it.”

He was about to hang up when the voice snapped back at him, all business this time. “It's Larsen from the two-five, asshole. Get up here before she scrams.”

“Where? Who?”

Cain fumbled for his notebook from the pocket of his jacket, which was draped across a chair.

“Out at the end of a hundred thirty-seventh.”

“Which end?”

“Harlem River, right off Madison Ave. Check your fucking map, farm boy. Nowhere near your jurisdiction, but since you're so in love with poaching why stop now?”

The line clicked.

“Shit.”

He grabbed his pants, started looking for his shoes. Not a stitch of clothing that didn't need cleaning, but at this hour who the hell would notice? Olivia was still asleep, thank goodness. He phoned Eileen, waking her up and feeling bad about it. She promised to be there as soon as possible, but he couldn't just leave Olivia by herself, without even a doorman to guard the way for the next two hours.

Cain wondered what Larsen could have meant by referring to his “girlfriend.” Surely not Beryl? He fought down a panicky feeling that something had gone wrong, and then he dialed her number. It took a dozen rings before anyone picked up, and then a few minutes more before Beryl came to the phone.

“Woodrow? Is everything all right?”

“I was worried about you. I'll explain later. In the meantime, do you think it would be at all possible for you to come by here, quick as you can? I've been called away to something, and Miss Eileen won't be here for at least an hour to look after Olivia, or even longer, and—”

“Give me fifteen minutes.”

It took her closer to twenty, but in the meantime Cain shaved, got dressed, and made a cup of coffee. After Beryl arrived, he knelt by Olivia's bed and touched her shoulder.

“Sweetie?”

Her eyes opened.

“I have to go somewhere this morning. I've called Miss Eileen and she'll be here in a while. But in the meantime Miss Beryl, my friend you met the other night, will look after you, okay?”

“Okay.” Her eyes were wide open now, her voice uncertain.

“You can go back to sleep if you want.”

“What's happened?”

“I'm not sure. I'll find out when I get there.”

“Is it the Germans?”

“No, no, sweetie. Just police business. Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Okay.”

She sat up, not looking so sure about things. He knew from her eyes that she wouldn't be going back to sleep. He probably shouldn't have disturbed her, but the thought of her waking up unexpectedly with only a stranger for company had been too troubling.

Beryl had poured a cup of coffee.

“Eileen should be here in less than an hour,” he said. “Thanks for doing this.”

She smiled.

“Happy to help. You surprise me. I would've thought that, well…”

“That I'd have been too embarrassed to ask you? Too much of a prude?”

“Well, yes.”

“I'm a fast learner. Give me time.”

She reached up, stroked his cheek.

“You look worn out.”

“I'll nap on the subway.”

“Is it serious?”

“Guess I'll find out when I get there.”

He checked for his shield. Then for his notebook, and lastly for his gun.

Harlem was yet another new frontier for Cain, a place that until now he'd only read about in the papers or heard about from other cops, who never had much good to say. “Nothing but niggers,” from Maloney, predictably enough, although the newspapers weren't a whole lot better.

New York's city of Negroes!

He'd spotted that line in the
Daily News,
and descriptions in the
Times
weren't much different. Both papers reported on the doings in Harlem as if it were a foreign country, and most dispatches told of exotic crimes or quaint local customs.

Coming up out of the subway, he saw that the sidewalks were already crowded with men and women on their way to work. The voices were unexpectedly pleasing to his ear, with Southern locutions here and there. Close his eyes and he'd almost feel at home. The door of a breakfast joint opened to his right, unleashing the smell of bacon and warm toast.

He boarded a crowded eastbound bus, finding a seat toward the middle. On board it was warm, people fanning themselves with newspapers. Half the windows were jammed brokenly in the shut position, as if the bus company had taken the worst of its fleet and sent it here. His was the only white face. No one seemed to mind his presence, but everyone had taken notice.

Horton was a town where whites tended to reveal their social standing, and at least some of their politics, by the words they used to describe dark-skinned people. “Nigger” rolled freely off the tongues of those at the bottom, like Tom Strayhorn, the drunk who'd killed Rob. But even among the would-be gentry, who generally preferred “colored” or the standard-issue “Negro,” a host of far less salubrious terms, as Danziger might have said, often came into play. Cain's grandmother had always said “niggra,” no doubt thinking it to be quite acceptable. A jolly uncle, one of his favorites, went back and forth between “nig nog” and “jigaboo,” depending on his mood. Cain himself was one of those Southerners who figured that an educated white man would never stoop to such usages, partly out of respect, but partly as well to indicate his place among the enlightened, a university man. In New York he'd given it no thought at all until now, seated on this bus, where his own social standing was beside the point. And that's when the thought occurred to him that many of these passengers—or at least many of the ones with the South still in their vowels—had come here specifically to escape places like Horton, and people like him. It was humbling, a little shaming. He glanced behind him, caught a probing gaze from an older man, and then turned back toward the front.

At the next stop a white cop in uniform boarded, and there was a noticeable change in the atmosphere. A few men stared openly, almost defiantly. Others looked away—out the window, or down at the floor. The cop didn't take a seat, pointedly avoiding one that a woman up front had opened for him by moving aside. He stood near the door, gripping a rail with his left hand while keeping a hand firmly atop his billy. His face broadcast an attitude somewhere between “I dare you” and “Who gives a fuck?”

The cop caught Cain's eye and nodded. Cain nodded back before realizing what he was doing, complicit now in this weird dynamic. He reddened under the collar, feeling like he'd betrayed his fellow passengers. Someone nearby made a remark he couldn't quite hear, and there was muffled laughter, the nodding of a few heads.

“Yes, yes,” an older man said, drawing a glare from the uniform, who, mercifully, got off at the next stop. Cain relaxed a bit, but spent the rest of the ride staring out the window, and when he exited he felt their eyes on him, the man who'd shown his true allegiance. Another small way in which this city had turned out to be a lot like home.

At the end of 137th, he spotted a circle of uniformed cops down by the wharves, gathered like mourners around something on the ground. One of them saw him approaching and nodded to the others, who parted to open up a view of a woman's bare legs, bent slightly at the knees. Her glossy black slip was ripped along the thigh. There was something familiar about the translucent whiteness of her skin. As he moved closer he swallowed a lump in his throat when he saw that it was Angela Feinman, her head twisted at such a terrible angle that he knew right away that her neck was broken. He stopped, exhaled deeply, and collected himself.

The other cops smirked. A plainclothesman approached on his right.

“Are you Cain?”

He nodded.

“ 'Bout time, lover boy. She's been asking for you since sun-up.”

The plainclothesman handed him a folded scrap of paper. Cain saw it was the page he'd torn from his notebook a few days ago at the theater, with his scribbled name and address.

“You must be Larsen.”

“
Detective Sergeant
Larsen.”

Cain squatted by the body, not wanting to touch, but wishing he could comfort her. A desolate sense of loneliness loomed about the cold, white body, her eyes staring at nothing. There was a purple bruise on her forehead, another on her left arm. No bullet holes, as far as he could tell, and no cigarette burns. Just the terrible wrenching of her neck.

A few flecks of encrusted blood caught his eye on the skin above her right breast. There was a small, fresh cut, probably from a knife, in the shape of an
L,
the mark of the Silver Shirts. Left as a calling card, perhaps. It looked as if one of their missing Germans was still alive and well, unless there were more of these fellows out there than he and Danziger had bargained for.

“Any idea who did this?” he asked Larsen.

“We were thinking you might know, seeing as how your name and number were stuffed in her garter, like it was her most valued possession.” That got a few laughs from their audience. “What do you know about that cut mark? I'm thinking it's intentional.”

“Probably. It's the sign of a Nazi group, the Silver Shirts. I'll give you some names.”

“You could start by telling me hers.”

“Angela Feinman. Worked at a theater at Third and 96th. Next of kin's a brother, Joel, who owns the place.”

Larsen nodded to a uniform, who headed off to a radio patrol car to call it in.

They made him wait around until Joel arrived, which was fine with Cain because he had questions to ask. Larsen softened up after Cain gave him the names for Dieter and Gerhard, the two missing Germans, and the detective's mood improved further when Cain told him about the possible connection to the earlier murders of Werner Hansch and Klaus Schaller. If his disclosure meant that the cases would now be handed off to the Borough Homicide Bureau, then so be it. Obviously he hadn't been up to the job by himself, or even with Danziger's help, and Angela Feinman had paid for his inability to close it. He told Larsen the gist of his earlier conversation with Angela at the theater.

“And you've been working both those homicides?”

“Hansch, anyway. Schaller officially belongs to the one-nine.”

“Surprised they haven't kicked it up to Borough.”

“Probably will now. My captain will dance a jig.”

“That bad, huh? Sounds just like mine. Here comes her brother. How 'bout I give you a few minutes alone with him?”

“That would be great. Thanks.”

Joel Feinman, bald and unshaven and wearing a gray suit that was too tight around his massive shoulders, advanced up 137th like a man facing a firing squad. Cain intercepted him before he could reach the body.

“I've confirmed that it's your sister, in case you don't want to look.”

“I want to see her,” he said. “I'm her brother, for fuck's sake.”

Feinman knelt next to Angela, covering his face with his right hand as his body sagged. He heaved out a sob and wiped his eyes, nearly losing his balance. Everyone gave him room, no more laughter, the uniforms turning their backs and lighting cigarettes. Their smoke caught on a breeze and blew toward the river. Joel stayed next to her a few minutes longer, touching Angela's shoulders and then her face. When he finally stood his lapels were wet with tears.

He walked straight over to Cain.

“Who found her?”

“You'll have to ask Detective Larsen. I spoke with her a few days ago, at the theater. That's why they called me here, she still had my number. Sounded like a pretty rough clientele you've got there. You think this had anything to do with her job?”

“Fucking Nazis. She loved making a buck off of 'em.” He paused, shook his head. “Okay, so did I. But this…” He shook his head, took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. “Stupid fucks.”

“Tell me something. Your English, well, it's a whole lot better than hers, if you don't mind me saying.”

“She didn't come over until a few years ago. Barely got outta there, you wanna know the truth. I thought I'd saved her life.” He shook his head. “Those
Dummkopfs
in the cheap seats thought her name was Sabine. Sabine Heinz, like the fucking ketchup. Just Aryan enough to fool them.”

That solved the little mystery of Werner Hansch and his crude tattoo. No wonder she hadn't wanted to talk about Sabine.

“Did you know a customer named Werner Hansch?”

Feinman shook his head. Impossible to say if he was telling the truth.

“What about Klaus Schaller?”

He looked up abruptly.

“The guy who got shot? Five blocks away?”

“Five blocks from where?”

“From my house. It was in the papers.”

“Yeah, him. Hansch is dead, too. That also made the papers, but not with his name. He had ‘Sabine' tattooed on his arm. They fished him out of the Hudson a few days before Schaller was shot. That's when I asked your sister about him, before we even knew his name. She probably figured out who it was when I mentioned the tattoo, but she didn't let on.”