L.A. 46, page 19
“Then, possibly because we all got a little more money and the do-gooders and the one-worlders started beating the drum for us so-called underprivileged minority groups, suddenly everything changed. We weren’t good friends any more. We were too conscious of what we were, that we differed from each other.”
Grace Arness sucked at the cigarette she was holding. “That’s all very well, Mr. Katz. But mine is not a religious or a racial problem.”
“I know,” Katz said. “And I’m not just being a windy old man. I’m coming to that part. The part of being different. Not that it mattered too much to Marta and myself. As it happens, we both have pretty thick skins. But the business of being different, of being either a Jew or a gentile, of hearing the kids talk about it at school, of being called a dirty little sheeny, worried hell out of my Shirley who was only six years old at the time.
“Night after night she would ask me, ‘But how am I different, papa? What is a Jew? What is a sheeny?’ They were good questions but I didn’t know the answer. So, for Shirley’s sake, I tried to find out so I could tell her. I talked to Father Murphy, the parish priest, I talked to Rabbi Goldman. Nice guys, both of them. But if they knew the answer, neither of them could tell me. All they could do was give me a lot of double-talk about the one true church and God’s chosen people. So who said the Catholics came first? Who elected us chosen? They quoted from the Talmud and the Bible. For six months I had Jesus and Bar Kochba and false and real prophets and all the saints preached at me. One assured me the Messiah had come. The other was equally positive that the triumph of Israel was still to be accomplished by the miraculous power of a Messiah who was still to descend out of heaven.
“It was like walking into a horse parlor. You laid down your money and you made your choice. But this was something I could tell a child? This would explain to my little girl why Kathy Kelly’s mother said she couldn’t play with her any more? This explained why a boy had spit on her dress?”
“I think I see what you mean,” the girl said quietly. Katz shook his head. “No. I’m still coming to my point. Finally, in desperation, I hooked Phillip’s dictionary one night and got myself even more confused. In the dictionary it says a Jew is:
“ ‘1. A person descended or regarded as descended from the ancient Hebrews of Biblical times. 2. A person whose religion is Judaism. 3. A citizen or subject of the tribe of the kingdom of Judah.’
“This applied to me? With my father and his father both born on Second Avenue and both good Tammany men since they were old enough to get out and hustle a vote? Okay. So I look up gentile. And that one you can play across the board. You can be:
“ ‘1. Not Jewish. 2. Heathen, pagan. 3. Not Mormon. 4. Of a clan, tribe, people or nation.’
“So isn’t everyone? But in the end, and this is what I’m coming to, it was my Shirley who solved her own problem. One day that winter we had a big snow and on their way home from first grade Shirley and the Burnelli boy got lost. When Marta finally found them they were both so blue with cold that when she got them back to our flat, she peeled them down to their little hides and plopped them into a bathtub of hot water and let them soak while she heated goose grease for their chests and made hot chocolate for their stomachs. And that night, at supper, what do you think Shirley told me?”
“What did she tell you?”
“Happy and excited about it as she could be, she told me, ‘Now I know, Papa. Now I know what a Jew is. Now I know the difference. Gentiles have little bells between their legs where we have little roses.’ ”
Grace smiled wryly. “I get and appreciate your point, Mr. Katz. But while it may mitigate my problem, it doesn’t solve it.”
“No,” Katz admitted, “But you should be able to live with it. People have lived with worse. All right. A few genes go wrong now and then. What can you expect in a world that was made in six days?” He rose to his feet. “Now I better get out of here. You’re sure you don’t want to blow the whistle on Romero?”
“I’m positive.” The model walked to the door with him. “But thanks a lot, Mr. Katz.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Katz walked slowly back the way he had come, past the Romero apartment. But instead of going up to Jack Gam’s penthouse, he took the elevator down to the garage.
Most of the stalls were empty. The Japanese-American handyman who came three days a week, always on Saturday to make sure the Casa del Sol was at its best on Sunday, had hosed the cement floor. The shallow standing pools of oily water gave an illusion of coolness but the lower level smelled of gasoline and spent monoxide and old oil. There also was an odor of the accumulated garbage piled behind the heavy metal fire door at the alley end of the building against Monday’s collection.
Katz felt very tired. His heels scuffed on the cement as he walked through the hot silence to his car and unlocked and raised the trunk. After looking around to make sure he was alone, he opened the battered foot locker in the trunk and felt under the neatly folded black broadcloth overcoat and heavy winter suits.
The short barreled thirty-eight revolver felt heavy and unfamiliar in his hand. The oily rag protecting it was redolent of mothballs. He unwrapped the gun and wiped it carefully with an old towel, then spun the cylinder. The gun was in good condition and he was glad he’d overcome his reluctance to bring it to California.
He found a box of shells wrapped in a white silk scarf and broke the gun and loaded it. Next came the problem of how to carry it. He thought a moment and pulled the tail of his shirt out from under his trousers and snugged the gun between his lean belly and his belt and dropped the tail of the shirt over it.
Romero was garbage. There was always one in every poolroom. That was the way things were now. That was the way they’d always been.
Katz closed the trunk of his car and walked the length of the garage and up the ramp to the front of the Casa del Sol.
A smart-looking French poodle restraining an aging blonde at the end of his leash was using the small square of yellowing grass. With their short skirts swishing as they moved, their tanned legs twinkling in the sun, two little girls from the building next door where they admitted children, were playing sky blue on the walk and squealing and laughing as they hopped the goals they were inexpertly lagging with a mashed beer can. As he stood, alternately watching the girls and looking up at the sky, Katz could swear there had been a break in the weather during the last few minutes. The sun was as hot as ever. There were no clouds in the sky. The dusty looking branches of the olive and eucalyptus trees lining the street still drooped, motionless. Small eddies of heat still emanated from the pavement. But he imagined he could feel a faint cool breeze on his cheeks.
An omen? A portent? A premonition?
Katz wished he was a religious man. He wished he could believe in something. Almost without volition, his lips moved in the half-forgotten first part of the pronouncement that from time immemorial had been the credo and the faith into which he’d been born.
“Shemai Yisroel Adonoi elohainu Adonoi echod . . . Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”
Katz stopped the Shemai there and took a cigar from his shirt pocket and lit it. Who was he kidding? He had no right to pray. It would do him no good. Besides, when a man had lived outside the law, it was a form of welshing to pray to die under its protection.
He had trouble getting his smoke to draw. That was one thing they could never say of Ernie Katz. He’d never begged. He’d never welshed on a bet. He’d never run out on a friend. He’d always made his markers good.
Katz realized that one of the little girls was screaming shrilly, “Quick. Stop it, Mister,” and reached out with his foot to stop the smashed beer can lagger from skidding down the ramp into the garage.
“Gee! Are you quick!” The child smiled as he picked up the piece of metal and tossed it back within the confines of the chalked sky blue. “Thank you, Mister. Mrs. Malloy always yells at us when we go down into the garage.”
“Think nothing of it, honey,” Katz said. “It was my pleasure.”
He smiled back at the little girls and his queasiness suddenly left him. His cigar was drawing nicely now. The aging blonde at the end of the poodle’s leash looked younger than she had. Less blowsy, too.
The Romero-Miss Arness incident had left a bad taste in his mouth. The girl’s reaction to being raped still puzzled him. He thought she should have allowed him to call the police. But physically he felt fine. He’d never felt better in his life.
21
CORONA del MAR (AP) Wallace K.
Faber IV, eighteen-year-old Marine attached to ET Pendleton, son of Wallace K. Faber III, wealthy Los Angeles real estate developer, was killed instantly early this morning when he drove his car at a high rate of speed into a jackknifed produce truck on the coast highway. The local police blame the fatal accident on the fog and the driver of the truck was not held . . .
It was a few minutes before five o’clock when Eva Mazeric awakened. With the blinds closed, the strange bedroom was dark. She lay listening to the small noises in the apartment and out in the lanai, trying to orient herself, attempting to analyze the way she felt. She felt strange due no doubt to the drug Jack Gam had given to sedate her. But it was more than that. The day before, ever since she’d read Miss Schmidt’s letter, she’d had the sensation of running as fast as she could. During the scene at the Beefeater and at the station house, she’d been hysterical. Now she felt as though some powerful vacuum had been attached to her body, sucking out all substance and emotion, leaving her empty.
She pushed back the sheet that covered her and raised one knee. She wished she never had to open her eyes again. Mr. and Mrs. Katz, Mr. Morton, Mrs. Eden, Jack
Gam and everyone had been very kind. But that didn’t alter her situation. They were the sort of people who would be kind to a stray dog.
She tugged at her nightdress and looked at her lower body. On the surface it seemed an innocuous compilation of flesh to have given her so much trouble in such a short span of years. Not that she intended to have the child. She would find some way to take care of that. She knew a number of girls who’d had abortions. One of them would give her the name of a doctor who would do what had to be done. She’d raise the money somehow. But what happened after that? Where would she go? Who would want her?
She brushed her nightdress back into place. The way she felt now, whether Paul had known or not was immaterial. At least, Herr Hauptman had been honest about what he’d wanted. At least, in spite of the son of a bitch he’d been, he’d murmured, “Forgive me, kleine liebchen” when he’d forced her. The comers of Eva’s mouth turned down. For that matter, from a purely sensual angle, he’d been a much better lover than Paul.
She rose to her feet and cracked the blinds to look out. It was beginning to get dark. The only two people in the lanai were Mr. Melkha and the kid from Apartment 33.
Saturday night in the big city.
She sat down on the edge of the bed wishing she had a cigarette. Then, conscious of a presence, she looked up and saw Mrs. Katz standing in the open doorway of the bedroom.
“You’re awake?” the older woman asked.
Eva admitted the obvious. “Yes.”
“How do you feel, Eva?”
The girl was honest with her. “I don’t know. I don’t feel much of anything. I was just sitting here thinking how nice it would be if I hadn’t had to wake up at all.”
Mrs. Katz made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Now, Eva. You mustn’t be so bitter. You’ll see. Everything will come out all right.”
Eva merely looked at her. Mrs. Katz meant well. But if just once more the older woman told her that everything was going to be all right, she was going to scream. And if she started screaming, she wouldn’t be able to stop.
“After you have some coffee, maybe things will look a little better. There’s some hot on the stove. I’ll bring a cup.”
Eva stood up. “No, please. I’m not an invalid. I’ll come into the other room.” She took a deep breath and ran the palms of her hands over her breasts, then down over her thighs. “Physically I feel fine. I don’t even have a headache. Who knows? I mean about Paul and myself.”
Mrs. Katz made the clucking sound again. “Now I know you’re feeling better.” She answered the question. “Just those who were here last night.”
“Is Paul in the building?”
“No. That’s something else. No one has seen him since Dr. Gam talked to him after you were brought home this morning.”
“He knew?”
“According to Ernie, no. I haven’t talked to Dr. Gam but Ernie told me not two hours ago that Paul took it very hard.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Ernie also said that, according to Dr. Gam, Paul had checked with the mayor in the town where you and he lived, and the mayor cabled him back that there was no doubt that you were dead.”
“That’s easy for Paul to say now.”
The older woman shrugged. “That I wouldn’t know. But while no one has seen or talked to Paul since I last talked to Ernie, about fifteen minutes ago a messenger came to the door with a big box of flowers and a letter for you.”
“From Paul?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want his flowers and I don’t want to read anything he has to say.”
Mrs. Katz evaded the issue. “Right now I want you should drink some coffee. There’s some on the stove, waiting. I’ll bring you a cup.”
Somebody had brought one of her robes along with her nightdress from her apartment Eva put it on and was relieved to find a package of cigarettes and a book of matches in one of the pockets. She lit one of the cigarettes and sucked smoke into her lungs. The harsh smoke burned her lungs but it tasted good.
Before walking out to the kitchenette, she opened the blinds again and looked up at her own apartment. The door was closed. The blinds were drawn. It was getting dark. As she watched, Mrs. Malloy turned on the floodlights in the lanai and the pool. Mr. Katz and Mr. Melkha were sitting together puffing placidly at their cigars. They were talking with earnest concentration.
Belting her robe securely, she walked a trifle unsteadily into the other room.
On the coffee table there was a long florist’s box of the type used to hold American beauties. Eva read the card. It was addressed to Mrs. Paul Mazeric. Judging from the size of the box, Paul had paid a small fortune for the flowers. Outside of a few bunches of half-wilted violets he’d purchased from street corner vendors, it was the first time he’d ever bought her flowers, even when she’d told him she was pregnant. Evidently Paul thought more of her as a sister than he had as a wife.
It wasn’t much of a compliment.
The coffee Mrs. Katz had poured was hot. She drank two cups, then kicked off her slippers and lifted her heels to the seat of the chair and sat hugging her knees. It was cool and quiet in the Katz apartment. She wished she never had to go anywhere else. She wished she didn’t have to think.
“I don’t know how to thank you for taking me in, Mrs. Katz,” she said. “But maybe some day I’ll figure out a way. This may sound cornball. It probably is but it’s the truth. While I don’t remember my mother, I’d like to think she was like you.”
Mrs. Katz was pleased. “You couldn’t have said a nicer thing. Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to eat?”
“Not right now, thank you.”
Mrs. Katz looked at the girl a moment. Then she said, “Look, Mrs. Mazeric. Could I talk to you like a mother?”
Eva lit another cigarette and snuffed the old one in her saucer. “Of course.”
The other woman sat across the table from her. “What has happened to you has been a shock. It isn’t right such a thing should happen to any girl. But you mustn’t let this make you do anything foolish. It still isn’t the end of the world.”
“That’s what Jack Gam said last night.”
“See? And he went to college. You like Dr. Gam?”
“Very much.”
“And he likes you.” Marta gave the psychiatrist her personal seal of approval. “Dr. Gam is a good man. Almost as good as my Ernie. But that’s not what I started to say. You being the way you are, I mean with the baby, you have a big problem. But being bitter about it and hating yourself and Paul and everyone who happens to be a man, isn’t going to help anything. Twenty-one years, that’s all you are. A young woman. No, a child. With your whole life before you.”
“I know. I thought of that when I woke up a few minutes ago.”
“You can’t let this wreck your life. It can be just something that happened to you when you were twenty-one.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“I’d say it to my own daughter. But what I’m getting at is this. Before you do anything, you should know all the facts. And if Paul didn’t know, I think at least you should read his letter or talk to him, so you will know how to plan. Maybe you can work this out together.”
“The way I feel right now I don’t even want to think about him.”
“You hate him that much? He was mean to you? He made you go hungry? He ran around with other women? He came home drunk and beat you?”
“No,” Eva admitted. “In his way Paul has always been very decent to me. At first I was more concerned about him than about myself.”
“That was why, after you got the letter, you went to Dr. Gam for advice, then couldn’t talk about it?”
“Yes.”
