Onion Street

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Knowing what I had to do and doing it wasn’t nearly the same thing. I understood that what I was about to get myself into was stupid, and possibly dangerous, and a dozen other things that should have prevented me from even considering it, but there are times when the Brooklyn motto of “Hey, what the fuck!” applies, and you push ahead. The dead winter calm that hung over Manhattan Beach didn’t exactly inspire me to action. The only sounds I heard other than the huuh … huuh … huuh … of my own nervous breaths were the water gently slapping the wood pilings in the Sheepshead Bay side of the peninsula, and the whispered rush and retreat of the ocean on the other side.

I parked near Doc Mishkin’s driveway, staring through the night and the bare hedges at Hyman Bergman’s house. With no lights on, the place seemed as black and lifeless as an abandoned coal mine. I think even a single lighted bulb in any window would have given me some hope of success, but there was only darkness. I’m not sure what I had expected. It was, after all, just before midnight and I didn’t really see either Bergman or Susan Kasten as night owls. One was more taciturn than the other. I’m not sure I had ever met two less friendly human beings in my life. At least the old man had the Nazis as an excuse.

I got out of the car and made my way across the street. Once there, I hesitated at the edge of the driveway for no good reason, or maybe for the best of reasons: I was scared. Just recently, scared seemed to be my baseline state of being. Forcing myself to move, I slinked quietly down the driveway, which, since I intended to ring the bell or pound on the front door until someone answered, didn’t make much sense. So when I got to the door, I went all in and pressed the bell so many times that not even the deaf could miss the sounding of the chimes. It went on that way for more than a minute. My finger was getting tired and I was getting discouraged — discouraged, as in losing whatever little courage I’d mustered up. But I just kept thinking about Mindy, about what her face looked like and how she might never be herself again. Then, just as I was about to stop ringing the bell and start pounding, a light popped on in the front room and the door pulled back.

Susan Kasten stood in the doorway, her usual disdainful glare replaced by a look of utter surprise and grudging respect.

“You wanna talk to me,” I said, “then let’s talk.”

“Come in and close the door behind you.”

She stepped back without turning her back to me. It was as if she didn’t trust that I wouldn’t jump her and kick the shit out of her the second I got the chance. I didn’t blame her for not trusting me. Given that she and her band of hapless idiots had tried to abduct me, it would have been very satisfying. But that wasn’t why I was here, and so as she moved further into the house, I just followed. I didn’t get very far before someone pressed the tip of a gun barrel to the back of my neck. So much for my brilliant plan.

“Look who it is. If it ain’t my favorite honky mothafucka. Man, I am gonna enjoy taking you apart one piece at a time.” I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Jimmy.

“How’s the nose?” I asked.

Susan Kasten laughed. That was twice in two days, but just like the last time, it was a humorless laugh, the laugh of a mother shark.

“I’ll show you how the nose is, mothafucka.” And with that, Jimmy whipped the barrel of the gun across the back of my head, sending me to my knees and then to the floor. “That’s how it is, funny boy.”

I wasn’t out of it. I wasn’t totally in it, either. The back of my head burned more than ached, and I felt something wet on my fingers when I reached to feel the damage. I was bleeding. I wasn’t exactly gushing blood. Still, blood coming out of my head wasn’t reason to celebrate. The cobwebs cleared pretty quickly, but I stayed down.

“If you haven’t yet deduced it, Moe, Mr. Jimmy doesn’t have much of a sense of humor,” said Susan, kneeling beside me. “Four hundred years of oppression has blotted out his sense of humor. But please don’t misunderstand, he does have a strong sense of purpose.”

“Four hundred years, huh? He looks great for his age. What’s his secret?”

I heard the revolver’s hammer click back and thought my journey was about over.

“Don’t be an idiot!” Susan jumped up and stood between Jimmy and me. “We already have enough on our hands. Give me the gun and get back downstairs.”

“Don’t be orderin’ me around, bitch. Jus’ ’cause we agreed to be part of this thing don’t make you the boss a me. The white oppressor’s been orderin’ my people around for — ”

“Give me the gun and save the speech for after the revolution, Jimmy,” Susan cut him off. “And Jimmy, if you call me a bitch again, I will have you crucified.”

I didn’t see what was happening, but Jimmy stepped past me.

“This ain’t over between us,” he whispered as he passed, and then a door slammed shut. I heard his boots thudding down a wooden staircase.

“Get up, Moe, and go where I tell you. I think you know me well enough to understand that I’m not like Jimmy. I will just shoot you if you don’t answer the questions I ask you or if you make any move I don’t like.”

Less than a minute later, we were sitting across from each other at a round kitchen table. I didn’t know much about guns, but I knew that the table was large enough so that there was no way I could get to her before she would be able to get off a shot. I didn’t have a second of doubt that she would shoot me. Whoever had picked her to run things had made the right choice. It wasn’t her fault that her soldiers were the student revolutionary equivalents of F Troop. Jimmy talked big, but he was just an angry young man. Black or white, it didn’t matter; guys my age were angry because they just were. Wind them up, put guns in their hands, and you have an army. Just ask LBJ and McNamara. Susan wasn’t like them. She was calculating, committed, and ruthless. She was what Bobby’s parents had hoped he would be.

She aimed the gun at me. “You still in the mood to talk?”

“Sure.”

“So talk,” she said.

“Isn’t it weird how Jews always wind up sitting in the kitchen even when one of them is Joe Stalin’s love child and she’s holding a gun? Where’s the sponge cake and coffee?”

Susan smirked. “That’s your one smart remark. The next one will earn you a.38 caliber bullet in your kneecap. Once you have killed, what is a bullet in the kneecap? And Moe, be assured, we have killed before.”

“Billy O’Day,” I said, my voice full of pride. “That was pretty cowardly.”

She stared at me coldly. “Do you want a lollipop or a gold star? Remember, no more wisecracks, no more commentary. Now, what do you know and who else knows it? From the beginning.”

I didn’t hesitate. “The night of the last big campus demonstration, after I bailed Bobby Friedman out of jail, I got together with Mindy Weinstock at Burgundy House. She was in the strangest mood. She was already drunk and smoking a cigarette when I got there. She said some stuff about being really sad about Samantha Hope that didn’t make any sense. Mindy always hated Sam, so I couldn’t figure it out. What was really strange was that I’d had a great talk with her just before leaving to bail Bobby out. Now, two hours later, my girlfriend was like a different person. And then, before she splits, Mindy says she’s got something to tell me only I can’t ask her any questions about it. She warns me to stay away from Bobby for a while. Bobby’s my best friend and one of Mindy’s oldest friends, so you can understand why that confused me and made me curious.”

Susan Kasten shook her head. “I knew involving her was a mistake,” she said as if to herself. “Go on.”

“The next day, the day of the big storm, I cut class and went over to Burgundy House to clean up, but Bobby’s car was parked out front. As I was crossing the street, he came down the driveway. All of a sudden, another car comes flying down the block, headed straight for Bobby. I shoved him out of the way. A few seconds later we heard the car crash. When Bobby and I got to the car, the driver and his passenger were gone. So I knew Mindy wasn’t just fucking around with me. Somebody was trying to kill Bobby, and the car he tried to do it with was a car stolen from your neighbor’s house.”

She smiled at me, the smile even icier than her usual cold stare. “I would love to sit here and listen to your entire narrative, Moe, but we have other, more pressing matters to deal with tonight. What do you think you know? I don’t care about how you came to know it.”

“I know that there’s this group called the Committee, and that they used to meet in an apartment above your grandfather’s shop. I think the Committee is set up like the Mafia’s Commission, but that instead of the Five Families, the people who are on the Committee represent all the radical groups on campus: the Panthers, the Weathermen, like that. I think both Mindy and Bobby were connected to the Committee, but I don’t know exactly how. Clearly, Bobby did something to piss you guys off, something to do with what happened to Samantha Hope and Marty Lavitz. Mindy heard you meant to execute Bobby and was torn about it. You found out she’d warned me, and you decided you had to get rid of her too. That’s why you tried to kill Bobby and sent that Abdul Salaam guy after Mindy to silence her. Then — ”

Susan Kasten was laughing again. This time, it almost sounded like human laughter … almost.

“Moe, have you ever heard the expression that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing?”

“Sure.”

“Well, you have proven it true. I suppose you think yourself very smart for all of your nosing around. You must feel like a real Mike Hammer. Well, Moe, you know nothing. You’ve gotten to the bottom of nothing. You are just like the rest of the dumb jocks on campus walking around with your heads in the sand. All you care about is not getting drafted. You all think you don’t want to be your fathers, that the lives they live aren’t worth living. You are a joke, all of you. You can’t even see that all you want is to be just like them. At least your fathers had the courage to fight fascism before they were brainwashed into turning on the best ally the working man has ever had.”

“The Soviet Union?” I snorted. “Stalin? Yeah, he was great at murdering or imprisoning workers at a faster rate than Hitler. Look, I think Vietnam is a ridiculous war that’s gonna ruin the country. I’m with you there. You want to spew that other propaganda, Susan, feel free. Just don’t try and sell Fidel or Chairman Mao to me. You couldn’t do that with all the Green Stamps in all the world.”

“I was wrong about you, Moe. You are not just another dumb Brooklyn College jock. You’re far worse, because you are purposefully blind. I’ve seen you in class. You have a very good mind. You are more insightful than the other robots, and for that you are a tragic figure. You have no purpose in life, no cause for being. You would have been your father if not for getting involved in this. That will all change tonight.” She stood up, her face back to its shark-eyed warmth. “Downstairs. Now!”

She marched me down the same stairs down which Jimmy had gone. As I walked carefully down the narrow, steep steps, I heard that Jimmy wasn’t alone there waiting. It was only when I got to the bottom of the steps that I realized my recent fears were justified: I was going to die.