“Enough, I guess. Enough to let him get me out of there.”
“I did the math last night, Candy,” I said. “Sashi isn’t that baby.”
She hung her head. “There wasn’t a baby. I went off my birth control pills and when I had my next heavy period, I told him I miscarried. Don’t hate me, Mr. Prager.” She was crying now, finally, for a baby that never was and a lie that would live forever.
“I couldn’t hate you and believe me, I’m in no position to chastise people for their secrets. Does Sarah know?”
“Oh, God, no. Please don’t tell her.”
“Listen to me, Candy. I won’t tell her, but this is where it ends. From this point on, I won’t keep any secrets for you except if they help me find Sashi. So don’t tell me anything else that doesn’t have to do with Sashi. She’s who I’m here about. Do we understand each other?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m gonna have to talk to Max eventually, you know?”
“I know.”
“And this isn’t going to cost you anything, so you don’t have to worry about the extra money.”
“But-”
“-nothing. I have my reasons.”
“You want Sarah back,” she said.
“That’s right. You’re not the only one here who wants to bring a daughter home.”
FIVE
Detective Jordan McKenna of the Nassau County PD agreed to meet me for lunch at the Caan’s Kosher Deli on Glen Cove Road. Once nearly as ubiquitous as pizzerias, kosher delis were now headed the way of the passenger pigeon and the Sony Walkman. I loved the smell of Caan’s, the perfume of sour pickles and pastrami, but I loved it as much for the memories of my childhood it evoked as for its aromatic siren’s song. Yet the reason I picked Caan’s had far less to do with my desire to reminisce than with convenience and pragmatism. Not only was it less than ten minutes away from Sea Cliff, it also happened to be in the same upscale shopping plaza as our first Long Island wine store: Red, White and You.
Although RWY, as we called it, was a big money maker for Aaron and me, it was my least favorite store. It was the kind of store where most of the customers took more interest in a wine’s cachet than its bouquet. They always wanted what was hot, what was trendy, and that usually equated to overpriced, but what did they care? If you could afford to live in this area, it didn’t really matter. When Beaujolais Nouveau became the rage in the early ‘80s, our RWY customers were willing to pay absurd amounts of money to make sure they got the first off-loaded cases. Then later, when Pinot Noir and Zinfandel and then Malbec got hot, it was much the same. And the prices our customers would pay for the best years of Opus 1… my god, it was insane. To paraphrase my late friend and former Chief of Detectives of the NYPD Larry “Mac” McDonald, the parking lot here often resembled a Porsche dealership. The odd thing is that even though I could now afford to live out here and to drive a Porsche and to pray at the altar of Long Island’s holiest of holies, The Church of Conspicuous Consumption, the thought of it turned my stomach. No matter how much money was in my bank account or how much stock was in my portfolio, in my heart I would always be just a poor schmuck from Brooklyn, a broken down ex-cop and the son of a failed businessman. I guess I wouldn’t want it any other way.
The other reason I chose Caan’s was that I knew my brother Aaron would be at RWY all day and I needed to tell him in person that I’d taken a case. That was part of our deal. As far back as 1978 when we opened our first store, City On The Vine on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, it was agreed that I could take on private cases at my leisure. I never wanted to be a shopkeeper and I certainly never intended on getting into the wine business. That was Aaron’s dream. All I did was hitch my cart onto it and go for the ride. Frankly, I hated the wine trade. As I’ve often said, there’s only so many times you can explain the difference between champagne and methode champenoise without going utterly mad. When I was on the cops, I was sure I was going to be a lifer, one of those guys you’d have to force off the job at gunpoint. Then in 1977, when I got back to the precinct house after doing crowd control at Son of Sam’s arraignment, I slipped on a piece of carbon paper and tore my knee to shreds. So much for the impact of my aspirations on a cold and random universe.
“What’s wrong?” Aaron said when I walked into the store. Some people say hello; Aaron says what’s wrong. It is his nature in the same way as having stripes is in a zebra’s nature. “Did the zoning board in Bridgehampton turn-”
“Nothing’s wrong and no, everything is going smoothly with the zoning board. Sunrise and Vine will open on schedule on budget.”
“Then what?”
“I’m taking a case.”
“Of what, Sancerre Rouge?”
“No, shithead. I’m working a case… as an investigator.”
I braced myself for the inevitable backlash. Although my right to take on cases was part of our partnership agreement, Aaron rarely gave in without a fight. Even when I opened Prager amp; Melendez Investigations with Carmella, splitting my time between the two businesses, Aaron never tired of browbeating me for trying to be the PI Peter Pan, of not wanting to grow up. He was right, of course, but his tirades couldn’t stop me. I wasn’t easily stopped.
“What’s the case?” he asked.
“What?”
“What’s the case? Is your hearing going now?”
“Sarah spoke to you, didn’t she?” I said. “No, she didn’t.”
“You’re a lot of things, big brother. A good liar isn’t one of them.”
“Okay, yeah, we spoke. She told me about Candy’s kid and everything. Besides, when could I ever refuse my niece anything?”
“I think maybe this time you should have.”
“Why?”
“Because I got a bad feeling about this one.”
“A week, ten days tops,” he said in a feeble attempt to play the heavy.
“If the girl isn’t dead already. I doubt she’ll last that long.” Aaron had nothing to say to that.
Detective McKenna was in his late thirties. Dressed in an unbuttoned black trench coat, Payless shoes, a blue Sears suit, and an ill-matching Father’s Day tie, he was busy checking his watch when I walked up to him. I recognized his face from a photograph of him I’d seen online. I would have spotted him anyway. McKenna had cop written all over him. He looked tired, but as I got older I thought everyone looked tired. I think maybe I was tired.
“Detective McKenna?” I said as if I didn’t already know the answer, and offered my right hand.
“Mr. Prager.” He shook it, but with little enthusiasm. I recognized the vibe. This had all the ingredients of a bad first date, and there are few things as unpleasant and awkward as a bad first date. “You’re late.” He had the second generation map of Ireland on his puss and the first generation Long Island twang in his voice.
“Actually, I was early.”
I pointed at the wine store and explained. He rolled his eyes. I couldn’t blame him. McKenna probably thought this was all a waste of time, time better spent tracking down leads or knocking on doors than paying a courtesy call on some shopkeeper playing at Sherlock Holmes. No professional wants to deal with a hobbyist.
“Let’s have lunch,” I said, gesturing at Caan’s entrance.
Inside, the lunch crowd had waned and we were pretty much alone in the back room. I ordered pastrami and he ordered corned beef. A real shocker, that.
“For chrissakes, McKenna, give it a rest, it isn’t St. Paddy’s Day. You could’ve ordered some kishka or kasha varnishkes or maybe beef tongue on club.”
He stared at me blankly, a bit taken aback at my willingness to break his balls. Then he seemed to get it and
