“That putz couldn’t save himself from walking down a hill,” she said disdainfully.
It wasn’t that funny, but Fearless laughed loud and long.
“What’s that you say, Fanny?” he crooned. “He can’t walk wit’out fallin’ down?”
The old lady started laughing too. She laughed so hard that she doubled over in the chair with her head on her knees. She forced herself to stand, still laughing, and went to a cupboard where she located a pint bottle of peach schnapps. She poured all three of us generous shots in squat glasses. The liquor was strong, and good. We finished off the first pint and put a serious dent in a second.
I was smiling with them after a while, feeling pretty good. So when Fearless said, “Sure, Fanny, we’ll stay here with you,” I didn’t see anything wrong with it. After all, we were already there, and it was after nine; we didn’t have a home to go to, and I still had some questions to ask about Elana Love.
I made a little nod and said, “Well, if we got to go, we might as well be eatin’ good and feelin’ high.”
FEARLESS GOT IT into his head to wash the dishes. Fanny offered to help, but he said that he missed simple chores after his twelve weeks in jail. He’d already explained to her that he’d gotten into an altercation with three mechanics that tried to cheat him. I thought that that would turn the sweet old lady against us, but instead she said, “My Sol was in jail. It’s a bad place where many good men go.”
SHE AND I RETIRED to the sitting room while Fearless hummed and played in the soapy water. Sol had a glass box filled with English Ovals, an imported cigarette. I smoked a few of these while we talked.
“I take it you don’t like Gella’s old man,” I said.
She made a quizzical face that suddenly became bright. “Oh,” she said, “you mean the putz.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s a coarse man,” Fanny said. “Not rude or foul-mouthed but unfinished, without manners, like a pig farmer or a policeman.”
“You don’t like the cops either?”
The schnapps made conversation easy.
“When I was a child,” she said, “the police, the army, and the pig farmers were our enemies. Morris isn’t bad, he’s just stupid about things. He’s always coming around offering to work on the house, to cut the grass. He’s telling me that he wants to help when Sol” — she sighed and looked to the ceiling — “when Sol was in prison. He’s always telling me he wants to help, but I tell him no. He thinks I’m too old to be bothered with a checkbook or the plumber, but I’m not.”
“What was that he said just before he stomped off?”
“I don’t remember,” Fanny said, but she did.
“Swatted?” I prodded. “Swear?”
“Svartza,” she whispered.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means black, but not in a nice way,” she admitted.
“Oh.”
“I would never be bothered with him, but Gella loves him — because he’s fat.”
“Huh?”
“That’s true,” she said, widening her eyes as much as she could. “She loves him because he’s so big and fat she thinks that he can protect her.”
“Protect her from what?”
“Her family was from Estonia, like us. Only they moved to Germany after the First World War. Her father, Schmoil, Solly’s brother’s son, was a rich man and smart.” Fanny pointed at her temple to show me the degree of his intelligence. I realized then that she also had had a good share of schnapps. “We left Europe after they moved. Schmoil stayed on and did business. He owned three newspapers but sold them when he saw what was coming. He put all of his money into his art collection and moved it to Switzerland. Then he moved his wife and kinder to Vienna. He thought that they would be safe there.”
“That don’t sound too safe.”
“A wife, a grandmother, three uncles, and seven children,” Fanny said, “and only him and Gella survived. They were all betrayed by a Jew, but my Solly saved Schmoil and Gella.”
“He did?” I said. I found it hard to believe that the little old man I’d seen could have saved anybody.
“When Schmoil and Gella ran, my Sol hired smugglers in Italy to put them in barrels and take them to Africa. Then he bought them passports and brought them here.” Fanny had been whispering, and I could see why. Whatever he did, it didn’t sound legal.
“Wow,” I said. “Damn. That’s a great thing. That why they put him in jail?”
“No. They said he was a thief,” Fanny said sadly. “I don’t know. He sold his tailor’s shop and went to work for those goy accountants.”
“Who?”
“Lawson and Widlow. He went to work for them.”
“If he was a tailor, why’d they need him?”
“He did his own bookkeeping for years, and he went to work for almost nothing. He stayed late every night finishing everything they gave him. He stopped laughing with me, and then one day the police came and take him away.”
“And then,” I said, seeing my opening, “after he was in jail a while, a woman named Elana Love came to your door.”
“You know her?” There was surprise and anger in the old woman’s voice.
“You see, Fanny,” I said, “Fearless an’ me aren’t really gardeners…” I related, more or less, the story of me and Elana Love.
“And this man, her boyfriend,” Fanny asked when I was through, “he’s the one that hurt Sol?”
“I don’t think it was him in the cowboy hat, but he was probably the other one. I’d bet on it.”
“But you will find out because you want the money back for your store,” she said.
“I’d like my store back,” I agreed. “At least I’d like a new place. But like I said, Leon is three kinds of bad. It might not be worth —”
“I will pay you.” It was the kind of interruption that I didn’t mind.
“What?”
“You don’t have money, Mr. Minton. You will need something.” She got everything right, right down to calling me mister. “Now that Solly’s in the hospital, I have to do something. My nephew is a fool, and Gella is just a girl. I don’t trust the police.… All I have is you and your friend. I heard those men shouting at Solly too. They said they wanted the money he stole.”
“I thought you said he didn’t steal anything?”
“He told those men that they were the thieves. He told them they were gonif and they worked for thieves.”
“You tell the cops that?” I asked.
“I was afraid to tell them anything.”
“So what can I do?”
“You said they were looking for a bond. I gave a bond to that woman. Sol had given it to me. I asked him if it was stolen, and he told me no.”
“And you believe that even after those men came in here after him?”
“Solly would never lie to me,” Fanny said with dignity. “He’s in trouble, but he wants to protect me. I want you to help me find out what kind of trouble he’s in.”
“But I could tell you that right now,” I said. “It’s that bond.”
“No,” she said. “It is more than that.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. He told me the bond was nothing but in a way that I knew there was something he wouldn’t say.”
“You don’t think Leon came here after the money Sol owed him?”
“He wanted money stolen,” Fanny said stubbornly, “not money owed.”
“How much money we talkin’ about here?” I said. “I mean, what will you pay me?”
“I have one hundred dollars. I will give that to you and then, when you tell me what she says, I’ll give a hundred more.”