Walter took his time about answering. “I think we have. Nice of you to take an interest in the business, Tammy.”
“Like I keep telling Pea, I’m not in the business. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t do anything to Mrs. Robinson. She doesn’t deserve any of your business practices, Walter.”
Walter smiled softly. Tamara leaned back in her seat. She should have known not to mention this. But she couldn’t stand anyone to have an opinion about how she conducted herself; the faintest sulfurous whiff of it scalded her throat.
“Tammy, tell me, why do you think my ‘practices,’ as you call them, would be so unpleasant for her?”
Tamara swallowed acid. “I’ve heard stories.”
“And you think I would treat a loyal, hard worker like Mrs. Robinson the same way I treat, oh, I can’t imagine—some gangster? Some street runner? A stoolie?”
“I’m not saying you’d … hurt her exactly, but … well, Walter, you have to know your reputation!”
“I know Red Man’s reputation,” he said mildly. “It doesn’t seem that you much object my business practices when they help you, Tammy. Who has been sending you money all these months?”
Tamara clenched her lips shut and didn’t say anything.
“I made a promise to Dev, and I’m going to keep it. Phyllis—” he started, but then, uncharacteristically, stopped himself. He turned around in his seat. “Let’s get inside. I don’t want to keep Miriam waiting.”
“Where the hell are we?” she said.
“Riverdale. I thought you could meet my family.”
She closed her mouth. She had danced in this world long enough to know that a man’s family was separate, sacred. A family was a soft target.
Walter stepped out of the car and she opened her door before he could come around. It was one thing to play chauffeur in Grand Central Station, another to do it in front of his Riverdale mansion, which was a gift she had never thought to receive.
From the outside the house seemed enormous, brick and marble and neoclassical columns framing stained and lead-paneled glass. The inside was marginally less imposing, made warm by mosaic parquet flooring in the foyer and gauzy curtains over the floor-to-ceiling windows. A white woman greeted Tamara effusively as soon as she stepped inside, touching her hand with an ease that shocked her. The woman must be Walter’s wife, she must be, but Tamara couldn’t quite believe a white person so willing to treat with black skin.
“You must be Tamara,” the woman said, going on tiptoe to kiss cheeks. “Walt has told me so much about you.”
Walt. Here the man the Lower East Side knew as Red Man, and not just for his skin, was called Walt. Tamara glanced at him while his wife squeezed her hands with every appearance of delight and his smile was wide and wondering. It transformed him, and she thought, Nice to meet you, Walt.
“Tamara, this is Miriam, my wife. Where are the twins?”
“Playing out back. Should I call them in?”
“No, let them stay. Tamara can meet them at dinner. What’s that I smell?”
“Just some chicken and matzoh balls for the soup. Oh, and kasha and some pickles—I’m sorry, Tamara, do you like kasha? The twins can’t get enough lately, but I won’t feel offended at all if it isn’t to your taste. I do try to keep kosher in the house.”
Walter put his arm around her shoulders, and she seemed as tiny as a doll beside him. “Miriam is the best cook I know,” he said.
“I’m just so happy to meet one of Walt’s work associates,” said Miriam. “He’s always thought so highly of you.”
Tamara could not imagine what Walter had told her about his work or his associates, but she was only being honest when she said she would be delighted to share their table tonight. No wonder he had guarded this space, no wonder he treasured her. Miriam was kind in a way that Walter craved. Maybe because without it, he’d be a monster. Tamara thought about the recent flood of Jewish immigrants from Europe, some of whom she had hosted at the Pelican, and what they said Hitler was doing to the ones who couldn’t get out. She hoped Miriam didn’t have any family back over there.
The children were Chaim and Rachel, eight-year-olds who looked more like each other than either of their parents, though she caught something of Walter in their silent, efficient appraisal as she faced them over dinner.
“So what do you do?” Rachel asked. “Do you negotiate?”
“I book talent and I dance,” Tamara said, before she could hear Miriam’s well-meaning explanation of her husband’s negotiations. “But right now I’m taking care of a friend.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s sick,” Walter said.
“She’s pregnant,” Tamara said.
Rachel grabbed a pickle. “I don’t want to be pregnant. I want to run the business with Daddy.”
“And what does Daddy think?”
“That Rachel and Chaim can be whatever they want,” Walter said, and gave her a faint Red Man smile.
Miriam brought out dessert, a pastry of layered dough and honey topped with pistachios, sickly sweet and unspeakably delicious. As the twins coated their fingers with sticky honey syrup, Tamara found herself reaching for that little handkerchief-wrapped square in her suit jacket pocket. They’d been calling her since that morning, and she felt safer bringing the cards out here, as though they would be reluctant to embarrass her in front of company.
Rachel was immediately intrigued. “Are those for betting on poker?” she asked.
Miriam’s smile was just as bright, but it had a wary edge. So she certainly knew something about her husband’s business, then. Tamara shook her head quickly.
“No, these cards aren’t for betting. They’re just for tricks.” And fortunes, but she decided that Miriam wouldn’t likely approve of that, either.
Instead she played simple tricks for the kids: a cut-to-it, half-and-half, and one she called the made-you-look, which involved switching a card they’d already picked by sleight of hand. These were, strangely enough, among the first things Aunt Winnie taught Tamara, when she began her apprenticeship. Learning to make
