A truck horn beeps. “So okay,” she hears Aaron instructing the cabbie. “One right turn, and you’ll hit Broadway.”
Fine Dining Before Curtain Time. That’s what the matchbooks advertise. Charades on Broadway, across from the Winter Garden. A deco masonry facade with a scribble of neon sketching its name in the gathering dusk, punctuated by flashing masks of comedy and tragedy. Aaron makes a show of discreetly tipping the liveried doorman who holds the door of the cab for them, calling him Smitty. “Thanks, Smitty, my friend. You’re a mensch,” he says.
“Thank you, Mr. Perlman,” says Smitty in a raspy voice. Though Rachel cannot help but notice a hint of something in the aged brown eyes above the man’s smile. Pain? Resentment? Something older. Something stronger.
“A new guy,” Aaron explains out of Smitty’s earshot.
“What happened to Mr. Rubenstein?”
“Made tracks for Florida. Leo decided to hire a colored guy to replace him, like it’s Gone with the Wind or something. I dunno. He thinks it’s snazzier. Also cheaper.”
Inside, it’s faux Corinthian columns, marble-tile floors with carpet runners, and Moroccan leather booths the color of cognac. Inside, the faces are white. It may be otherwise in the kitchen with the Puerto Rican guys hired as dishwashers, but out front is a sea of whiteness because, here in New York at least, even the Jews are considered white. The only person who isn’t included in that description is the snowy-haired gentleman at the piano, dabbling on the ivories. Rachel doesn’t know what his real name is because everybody calls him Professor. He nods as he always nods, with a smile at Rachel whenever she appears, but it’s a blind smile, the same smile he offers to all who bother to notice him at the piano bench. His expression alters attentively when Aaron leans over to him, slipping him a little appreciation, saying, “Gimme some of the sweet stuff, Professor. Ya know what I mean?”
“Oh, I do know, Mr. Perlman.” The Professor grins. “I do know precisely,” he says as if they’re sharing a moment of deep understanding of the arc of the universe. But when the man seeks out a tingle-tangle melody on the piano keys, to Rachel’s ear, it’s really no different from the tingle-tangle melody he was playing a moment before.
Her husband, on the other hand, appears brightly satisfied. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” he declares.
When Abe, the great golem-sized majordomo, looms toward them in his tuxedo, Aaron gives him a comradely slap on the shoulder. “Evening, my friend,” says Aaron.
“Evening, Mr. P.,” Abe replies. “And happy birthday, Mrs. P.”
“Thank you, Mr. Goldman.”
“So we ready to go here?” Aaron inquires, rubbing his palms together in a lightly greedy fashion. “Table twenty like I said?”
Abe confirms. “Best table in the house as ordered, ready and waiting.”
But on the journey to the Best Table in the House, Rachel feels Aaron physically clench. “H’boy, here we go,” he whispers to himself, and then she sees why.
It’s Leo. Leo Blume, the owner, silver-haired and sleek as a seal in his immaculate white dinner jacket. A Jew who came from nothing. The Baxter Street side of the Bend. “Bottle Alley,” Leo says. “The gutter.” That’s the story he tells. Now Hedda Hopper should be so lucky as to get a table during his dinner rush. He holds court at Table 27, one of the brass-studded, crescent-shaped booths in the main dining room. A premium table, as Aaron has explained it to her: not too near the service corridors, so there’s no noise from the kitchen, near enough to the piano dais to hear “Stardust” without straining, but not so close that a person can’t have a conversation. And Leo always takes the outside spot on the left-hand side, just in case he has to launch himself into the aisle in the event that a customer has a heart attack, or the waiter drops a lighted baked Alaska, or Red bombers have been spotted over Rockaway, or Oscar Hammerstein walks into the bar with his wife, Dot, for a midnight Bloody Mary.
Smoking his thick Montecristo B, Leo is busy gabbing away on the jade-green telephone, but spotting their approach, he cuts short his call, his voice full of gravel. “Milty, I gotta call ya back,” he says into the green receiver, then frowns, apparently dissatisfied with Milty’s response. “So I’ll call ya back,” he insists and hangs up, muttering. “My shmegegi brother, God love ’im.” And then he shows Rachel his trademarked smile. Charming as a barracuda. “Ketsl, you’re gorgeous tonight, sweetheart,” he tells her, standing to exchange a peck on the cheek with her. “Like starshine.”
Aaron smiles stupidly. “Am I married to Audrey Hepburn or what?”
“So look, I won’t horn in,” he tells them. “’Cause I know you two got an evening planned. I just wanted to say that dinner tonight is on me, got it? Soup to nuts.”
The smile has stiffened on Aaron’s face. “No. Leo. Please. Not necessary.”
But Leo only shrugs. “It’s nothing. A gesture on your beautiful wife’s birthday, that’s all. So go. Enjoy. And happy birthday, ketsl,” he adds. “Mit mazl zolstu zikh yern.”
“A sheinem dank, Leo,” she replies.
“Ha! I love that this girl speaks Yiddish! Ir zent a sheyn shtern,” he tells her, calling her a shining star before he motions to Abe. “Abe. Take this lovely lady and her husband to their table, will ya? And remember. My party tonight.”
Abe’s been on the staff since Leo opened the place after Prohibition and is as much a fixture at Charades as the Comedy & Tragedy ashtrays that everybody steals. As much a fixture as the Moroccan leather booths or the Tiffany chandeliers. His belly’s as big as a barrel now, his forehead is livid with liver spots, and his earlobes have flattened and elongated like an elephant’s. But even after twenty years of Sure, Mr. Blume and Whatever you say, Mr. Blume, he still sounds genial and pleased to serve. “Sure thing, Mr. Blume,” says Abe with a smile. “Whatever you say.”
The Best Table in the House features snow-white linen, gleaming silverware, and Comedy & Tragedy dinner plates rimmed in gold leaf. A flame flickers in a red Venetian lowboy candle lamp. Izzie is one of the middle-aged waiters schlepping hash here since Roosevelt’s first term. He is resplendent as a grand duke in a crimson Eton jacket with epaulettes and golden aiguillette as he oversees the delivery of their highballs by a young runner, also in livery but without the tinsel. Aaron, however, is disconnected. He looks slightly petulant, so Rachel is smiling for both of them.
“A vodka gimlet for the lady,” Izzie is announcing, “and for the gentleman, a whiskey sour.”
“Yeah, thanks, Iz,” Aaron replies dully. “We’ll start off with a couple of the marinated herrings.”
“Yes, sir. Perfect choice.”
“So what’s the tuna tonight? Off the trucks or off the docks?”
“Tonight? The trucks,” Izzie regrets to report.
“Forget it then,” Aaron instructs. “We’ll do the poached salmon with the eggplant. And make sure Monsieur Bouillabaisse in the kitchen goes easy on the fennel, okay? You tell him that comes from me, okay?” he adds.
“Absolutely, Mr. P. Be back in a jiff with your appetizers.” Izzie and the runner exit, but Aaron only huffs and lights a Lucky with a snap of his Zippo.
“What’s the matter?” Rachel finally asks.
Deadpan. “Nothing.”