Snow in August

10

The cops came to see Michael one Monday night while his mother was working at the Grandview. He was at the kitchen table, rushing through homework before getting to a new Captain Marvel and a Crime Does Not Pay that he had traded for with Jimmy Kabinsky. There were books on the table, his canvas schoolbag open on a chair. His fingers were stained with ink from the leaky fountain pen. The stew his mother had left in the pot was still warm on the stove, his plate in the sink, to be washed and dried before she came home. WNEW played quietly on the radio. Harry James. “Ciribiribin.” He finished the long division and was halfway through the English grammar homework, glancing in a longing way at the cover story on Pretty Boy Floyd in the crime comic, when he heard heavy steps in the hall outside the door. Then a baritone murmur. Two sharp knocks.

“Who is it?” he called.

“Police,” came the voice. “Open up.”

Michael’s heart thumped. This was the first time the police had ever been to their flat. He wished his mother were there.

“Let’s go,” the hard voice said. “We ain’t got all night.”

He opened the door and saw Abbott and Costello, the two detectives who had been moving around the parish for weeks. Up close, Costello was very fat, with slabs of pink flesh framing a small mouth and tiny nose. Abbott had gray skin, deep black circles under his eyes, a flattened prizefighter’s nose, and an unlit cigar wedged between his fingers. Each wore an overcoat. Each wore a gray fedora.

“You Michael Devlin?” Costello said.

“Yes.”

“Your mother home?”

“No. She’s at work.”

“What about your father?”

“He’s dead.”

They gazed warily past Michael into the kitchen.

“You’re alone?”

“Yes.”

They stepped past him, one on either side, and Abbott closed the kitchen door behind him. Their bulk made the kitchen smaller.

“We’re detectives,” the fat one said. They remained standing, eyes moving around the kitchen and into the dark rooms beyond.

“You know Mr. Greenberg? Yossel Greenberg? Guy they call Mister G?”

“I used to go in his candy store. But he moved away.”

“He moved into a hospital, kid,” the gray-faced one said. He put the cigar in his mouth, snapped a lighter, and took a drag. Blue smoke drifted from his mouth. “His skull is fractured in two places. He might never come out alive.”

“We understand you was in the candy store the day he got beat up by this bum Frankie McCarthy,” Costello said.

Michael said nothing. He could feel the knife entering his cheek at the hinge of his jaw and the slash that would give him the mark of the squealer for the rest of his life. He stared at the floor. If he stared long enough, maybe they would be gone when he looked up.

“Well?” the gray-faced Abbott said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michael said.

Costello sighed. He put a fat finger on Michael’s catechism book.

“You’re a Catlick, right?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Me too,” he said, wheezing sadly. “And I see a surplice on a hanger over there, so you must be an altar boy, right?”

“Right.”

“I was one too,” he said. “Years ago. Ad Deum qui laetificat and all that.”

“Two altar boys,” the gray-faced cop said. “Fancy that.”

Costello stood over Michael. He picked up the book and dropped it again.

“And I see you study the Baltimore Catechism.”

“Yes.”

“So you know lyin’ is a sin, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So why are you lyin’, Michael?”

The boy was quiet for a long moment.

“Maybe you should come back when my mother’s here,” he said in a low voice, looking away from them.

“You think your mother would tell you to lie? She’s a Catlick too. And a brutal crime has been committed. Your mother would understand we can’t put this Frankie McCarthy away unless we got witnesses. And you’re a witness, kid. According to our sources…. So why would you lie?”

“Maybe this explains it,” Abbott said. He was holding up a small Yiddish-English phrase book. Costello took it from him and held it in his short, pudgy fingers.

“A Yiddish phrase book?” Costello said. “I see, said the blind man. I see. It comes clearer. Like maybe you was helpin’ yourself to some stuff in Mister G’s when Frankie was beating him into a pulp?”

“No!” Michael said. He lunged for the phrase book, but Costello held it out of his reach.

“Where’d you get this, then?” the fat cop said.

“Rabbi Hirsch gave it to me,” Michael said.

“Who the hell is Rabbi Hirsch?”

“From the synagogue on Kelly Street,” Michael said. “I’m the Shabbos goy there.”

Costello turned to the gray-faced detective. “Well, whattaya know? An altar boy that speaks Hebe.”

Abbott chuckled.

“Maybe he can say in Hebe: You’re going to the fucking can.”

And then the fat cop slammed his hand against the icebox door.

“You love the fuckin’ Jews so much,” he shouted, “then help us catch the bum that beat one up!”

Michael wanted to cry, but he held back the tears. He felt himself trembling.

“Mister G is in Kings County Hospital,” the fat one said. “His head is broke. He could die. You know what that means? It means a murder rap against Frankie McCarthy. You know what it means to you? It means you could be an accessory after the fact. You keep your mout’ shut, you’re guilty too. Of coverin’ up a homicide! You and your friends that were in the candy store that day. Alla yiz. And I’ll see that yiz get put away.”

“That would be some disgrace,” Abbott said, dragging on the cigar. “Break your mother’s heart.”

The fat one pointed at the framed photograph on the wall.

“That your father?”

“Yes.”

“He die in the war?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“The Battle of the Bulge.”

Costello sighed.

“The worst battle of the war.”

“Much worse than Pearl Harbor,” the gray-faced cop said.

“You think he died for nothin’?” Costello asked, poking a finger in Michael’s chest.

“No! He died for his country!”

“You think he died so a shithead like Frankie McCarthy could beat up a Jew?”

“No.”

“You think he’d be proud of you, you cover up for a bum like that?”

The door opened behind them, and Kate Devlin stood there, her face surprised. Michael went to her, trying very hard not to cry.

“Jesus Mary and Joseph, what is this?” she said. “Who the hell are you two bozos?”

The fat cop reached into his back pocket for a wallet. Michael could see his gun, polished blue steel in a worn leather holster.

“Sorry, ma’am,” the fat one said. “We’re detectives.” He showed his badge and handed her a business card. She didn’t take it, and he laid it on the table. “We’re investigating the beating of Mr. Greenberg, from the candy store. He might die, y’ see. And—”

She glowered at them.

“Get out of my house,” she said.

“Listen, we think your son knows—”

“If you don’t get out,” she said, “I’ll throw you out.”

The two cops tipped their fedoras to her and eased around toward the door. Kate Devlin continued hugging her son.

“We’ll be back,” the gray-faced cop said.

“I’m sure you will,” she said sharply. “Good night.”

She locked the door behind them. Then she exhaled and separated from Michael and sat down hard at the table.

“What was that all about?”

He told her. When he was finished, she shook her head sadly. And then got up to run water into the teapot.

“You’re more Irish than I thought,” she said, almost proudly. “In the Old Country, there was nobody lower than an informer. Scum of God’s sweet earth, informers. The bloody British used them against us for centuries. They corrupted weak men, they destroyed families.” While the teapot simmered on the gas range, she started washing Michael’s plate. “It goes all the way back to Judas, who took his money and informed on Jesus. Many’s a gutless man took the king’s shilling and left for Australia or London, leaving a load of misery behind him. I’m proud of you, son.”

“But what about Frankie McCarthy?” Michael said. “He did it.”

“If the police don’t get him,” she said, “God will.”

She poured two cups of tea.

“Open that window, Michael, will you?” she said. “I can’t stand the smell of a cigar.”