The Recycled Citizen (3 page)

“No, I think they were Dolph’s,” said Sarah. “Look out, Max, there’s sugar or something dribbling out on the rug.”

“Sugar?”

“One takes it, you know,” said Theonia, “those little packets they put out at lunch counters. The extra carbohydrates help get one through the night if one has to sleep in a cold doorway.”

Max nodded, but he didn’t seem to be listening. He’d spread a newspaper over the library table and laid the bag on top. Now he was ripping the folds apart, finding a few grains still caught inside.

“Got something we can examine it with, Brooks?”

“Just a second.” Brooks ran lightly up the elegantly proportioned but rather steep and narrow staircase. In a moment he was back with an old-fashioned brass microscope in his hand.

“Picked it up years ago at the Morgan Memorial thrift shop,” he explained, fiddling with the adjustments. “Now let’s have a speck or two of that stuff on a slide.”

He produced a pair of needlepointed tweezers and a slim oblong of glass, selected a few grains and arranged the slide under the lens.

“Ah yes, very interesting. Not salt, surely. Rather like sugar in its crystalline structure, and you know, Max, that doesn’t surprise me.”

“So what do you think it is?”

“I think it mightn’t be a bad idea to get this over to the police laboratory.”

Max shook his head. “I’d rather get my own chemist to run the analysis if you don’t want to take the responsibility, for which I wouldn’t blame you. Only I’d rather not go to the police unless I’m sure there’s something to go for. And then I’ll want to even less,” he added soberly. “You know, Brooks, we could put Dolph and Mary out of business if we let it be even suspected somebody’s running drugs through the SCRC.”

“Then what would happen to all those waifs and strays who are looking to them for a nice, cozy funeral?” grunted Jem. “Far be it from me to indulge in an excess of sweetness and light, but I have to admit it would disturb me to see some poor bum lying around unplanted because my Cousin Adolphus was in the jug for peddling dope. Gad, can’t you see the old blowhard sitting in a concrete cell with a honey bucket beside him, bellowing for the warden to bring him the
Wall Street Journal
?”

“Uncle Jem, that’s not a bit funny,” Sarah protested. “Don’t you realize Dolph actually could wind up getting arrested?”

“But surely not convicted?”

“No, of course not. Merely detained long enough to ruin his fund drive and break Mary’s heart.”

She hadn’t realized how close she was to crying until Max did something he normally wouldn’t have dreamed of, to distract her. He picked up one of the cups that had held the Snoozybye Tea, a piece of blue and white export china that had come back in one of the Kelling clippers from Hangkow sometime during the, late 1800s, and handed it to Theonia.

“Okay, you’re the expert. What’s your prognostication?”

Theonia inclined her head, took the cup in her fingers, tilted it upside down and let a few dregs run out into the saucer. For some little time she gazed at the flecks adhering to the inside. Then, without saying anything, she hurled the precious bit of porcelain straight at the back of the fireplace, smashing it to slivers against the soot-blackened bricks. She stood up, smoothed down her velvet skirt, said in her usual dovelike coo, “If you people will excuse me, there are some things I have to attend to upstairs,” and went.

“We now assume,” said Jem, “that the party is over. Call a cab, will you, Brooks?”

M
AX WAS ON THE
phone to Marseilles when Sarah got up, giving somebody named Pepe urgent instructions about two Paul Klee paintings and a Winslow Homer.

“What an unusual combination,” she remarked when he at last hung up. “That would have been Pepe le Moko at the other end, I suppose. I thought you’d intended to go to Marseilles yourself.”

“I had, until this business of Dolph’s came up. Pepe can handle the French end without me, I hope. It’s high time I began delegating more responsibility. Actually his last name’s Ginsberg, pronounced GeensBAIR. You met him when we were in Paris, remember? The guy who looks like a mink wearing a purple T-shirt. How’s the kid this morning?”

“I haven’t asked. I don’t think he’s awake yet. Would you like a glass of milk?”

“God, no.”

“Neither would I.” Nevertheless Sarah went to the refrigerator. “It’s always the woman who pays,” she complained, licking a narrow white, mustache off her upper lip. “Do you actually mean to say you’re staying home because of what happened last night?”

“Why not? I’m practicing to be a family man. Dolph and Mary are family, aren’t they? Frankly,
kätzele,
I’ve been holding my breath for fear something like this would come up. Those printed scavenging bags were a serious mistake, in my opinion.”

“But they’re meant to give the SCRC members a feeling they’re doing a real job instead of just pawing around in trash bins,” Sarah protested. “It’s part of the self-esteem thing. Besides, Dolph got them for nothing from that old crony of his who owns a printing company.”

“I know.” Max poured juice for himself and Sarah. “The only trouble with building up an identity is that it makes you too damned easy to identify.”

He drank some of his juice. “Suppose I’m out on the corner dealing and I see somebody who looks as if he might be a narc bearing down on me. Naturally I don’t care to get caught with a pocketful of drugs. I see this nice old guy shuffling through the garbage, and I see he’s carrying a nice, convenient shopping bag that says SCRC on it in nice, conspicuous letters. I figure he’s not going to be too far away after the narcotics agent frisks me and finds me clean, and that bag will be easy to spot. I drop my merchandise in among his junk, let him wander off on his appointed rounds, follow him as soon as the coast is clear, and engage him in light conversation while I rip his bag open and get my goods back.”

He drank the rest of his juice. “Or else I join a respectable organization, get myself an official SCRC membership card and a bag that will make it easy for my customers to spot me. I run my business right out of that shopping bag until some dissatisfied customer hits me over the head and robs my store.”

“Which do you think happened to Chet Arthur?”

“I’m trying not to think anything about Chet Arthur until we’ve got a chemist’s report. That powder might have been something he used to cure his athlete’s foot, for all I know.”

“Yes dear. I’m sure you’d cancel your trip to Marseilles for a case of athlete’s foot. How about scrambled eggs and a toasted bagel?”

“How about a toasted bagel and a little kootchy-koo?”

“That’s what you said to me eight months ago, and look what happened.” Sarah gave her husband a chaste kiss on the brow and went to toast the bagels, which she still tended to regard as glamorous and exotic gourmet fare. “When do you plan to see the chemist?”

“As soon as I can get away. I’m expecting a call from Ghent.”

“Good news, I hope.”

“So do I. Ah, that must be it now.”

But it wasn’t Ghent, it was Mary Kelling. “Max, I’ve been thinking.”

“Would you care to share your thoughts?” he prompted when she seemed reluctant to go on.

“Well, I don’t want to make a bad matter worse, but after you folks left last night, I got to wondering what Chet Arthur had been doing over in the Back Bay. The thing of it is, Chet had his little quirks, as most of us old fogies do, and one of them was that he was scared stiff of going anywhere beyond Arlington Street. That’s all made land, you know: Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester, Hereford, and clear down to Kenmore Square, if my memory serves me.”

“I know,” said Max. “They leveled off Fort Hill and part of Beacon and chucked them into the Charles River Basin back around 1800, wasn’t it?”

“I guess so,” said Mary. “Anyway, Chet got it into his head that some day that whole area was going to turn back into one big mud puddle, which isn’t so crazy as it might sound, in my opinion, the way they’re putting up those big skyscrapers as if there was something to anchor them into; But that’s not what I called about. What I’m getting at is, Chet wouldn’t have gone down Marlborough Street if you paid him a hundred dollars a step, so how did he get way over near Mass Ave?” She used the abbreviation as a born Bostonian naturally would. “I haven’t brought this up with Dolph and I’d just as soon not, until after the funeral’s out of the way, but I didn’t think it would be right not to tell you.”

“I’m glad you did,” Max lied gallantly. “So you have no idea how he could have got there? He wasn’t desperate for a place to sleep, for instance?”

“Why should he have been? It wasn’t that cold last night, and anyway, Chet was no common vagrant. He collected Social Security every month and earned more from the center than any other member we’ve got. Which still wasn’t much, goodness knows, but it kept him off the streets. He rented a room from the janitor of an apartment building up off Cambridge Street somewhere. Osmond Loveday could tell you. The address is in his file.”

“What time does Loveday get in?”

“He ought to be at the center by now, I should think. He walks over every morning at half past seven to unlock the door so whoever’s on breakfast duty can get in to make the coffee and set out the cereal or whatever we’re serving. Then he walks back uptown, eats his own breakfast at a cafeteria across from the Common and comes back to the center at half past eight on the nose. He walks home at eleven, does his exercises, has an apple and a glass of skim milk for lunch, takes a nap, shows up again at two o’clock and works till half past five. That only comes to a six-hour day, but he fills in on the weekends sometimes, so it evens out more or less.”

“If you say so. Getting back to Arthur, couldn’t he have taken the subway or got a lift in a car?”

“Chet hated cars, and he wouldn’t ride the Green Line because it goes through the Back Bay.”

“Can you think of anything Chet liked?”

“Money,” said Mary. “Chet always knew how much he had coming to him when he brought in his salvage, and he made darn sure he got it, right down to the last penny.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere, maybe. What if somebody owed him money and wouldn’t pay? Would Chet chase after the welsher and try to make him cough up, even if it meant going into the Back Bay?”

“I suppose we never know what somebody might do under pressure,” Mary conceded. “All I can say is, it doesn’t seem likely. What good would the money be if he drowned trying to get it? Not that he would, I mean, but that’s how it would seem to Chet.”

“You’re probably right. I’ll drop in at the center later on. Are you going to be there?”

“If I’m not, I expect Dolph will be. But Osmond can tell you anything you want to know. How’s Sarah feeling this morning?”

They exchanged a few courtesies, then Max hung up and told Sarah what Mary had said. The call from Ghent came through. Max said he was ready to roll and was Sarah coming with him?

“I certainly am. Give me one minute.”

“Take two if necessary. I’ll get your coat. Which one do you want?”

“That white loden jacket you brought me from Austria, please. I can still fasten the top button, I think.”

Sarah had bought herself a full-cut jumper dress in a darkish green color that matched the jacket’s braid. The chemist was favorably impressed. “Let me get you a chair, Mrs. Bittersohn. This won’t take long.”

It didn’t. He came back looking a little frightened.

“Foot powder?” Max asked him.

“No, as a matter of fact, it’s heroin. You’re not supposed to have that sort of thing in your possession, you know, Mr. Bittersohn. By rights I ought to turn it in to the police.”

“I’ll turn it in myself,” Max promised him.

“Er—soon?”

“As soon as I possibly can.”

“That’s good enough for me. Anything interesting in the art line these days?”

The chemist, an elderly man with a face like an eagle’s, wanted to chat about art forgery techniques. Max didn’t. “We’ll see what we can dig up for you, Mr. Smithers. Thanks for the quick service.”

“My pleasure. Glad to have met you, Mrs. Bittersohn.”

Sarah, who was feeling rather sick from the laboratory odors and especially from what she’d just heard, said she was glad, too; and they left.

“Heroin?” she said when she’d got enough fresh air to quiet her stomach. “Max, that’s terrible.”

“It’s not good, baby. How do you feel?”

“How do you expect? Come on, we’d better get over to the center and see what Mr. Loveday has to say.”

“Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“The doctor says I have to exercise.”

“He didn’t say you had to get mixed up in a drug-related murder.”

“He didn’t say not to. Darling, I can’t sit home and crochet booties all day. I can’t crochet anything, it just comes out one big tangle. Anyway, your sister Miriam’s handling that end of the business. She’s up to three sweater sets and a fancy afghan for the baby carriage already.”

“Do we have a baby carriage?”

“We have that adorable wicker stroller your mother used to wheel you in when you were a year old, and the pram Aunt Emma’s parents ordered from London before Young Bed was born. Of course the pram’s carried her own sons, their children, and a few grandbabies by now, but she assures me there’s still plenty of mileage in it. Aunt Appie wanted to give us Lionel’s, but those four hyenas of his had reduced it to shreds long ago. His wife threw the remains out with the trash that time she cast off the shackles of motherhood and went to live with Tigger. Whatever happened to Tigger, I wonder? She used to be one of Aunt Appie’s standard nuisances, but she hasn’t been around for ages.”

Max shrugged. “Maybe she washed her face and died of the shock. Last time I saw her was in Rotterdam.”

“Max, you beast! You never told me.”

“Did you really want to know? As a matter of fact, I’d forgotten all about it till you mentioned her just now.”

“What was Tigger doing in Rotterdam?”

“I didn’t stop to ask.”

“Did she see you?”

“I made damn sure she didn’t.”