The Museum of Extraordinary Things(26)

Eddie went to the bureau for some whiskey and glasses. Before the fire he would have merely insisted his visitor leave, now he felt the thorn of compassion. He put down a glass in front of Weiss and asked, “Have you been to the precinct? Spoken with the police?”

“The police?” Weiss’s face furrowed with distrust. “No.” He gulped the whiskey and tapped his glass on the table for more. “I wanted someone I can trust. That’s why I came to you.”

“Me? Why would you trust me?”

Weiss shook his head, amazed by how dense the younger man was. “Because you are one of us, Ezekiel.”

“I’m not! Look at me.”

Eddie wore a blue shirt and black trousers. He had no tallit around his shoulders, a garment that showed a covenant with God, and no remnants of his Orthodox upbringing. His hair was cropped short, and he’d long ago forsaken the practice of wearing a skullcap. His large, pale feet were bare, allowing a glimpse of a tattoo of a trident he’d had inked on his ankle, a true embarrassment, even to him. He’d gone to the infamous Samuel O’Reilly’s shop one drunken evening, where the owner used Edison’s newly invented electric tattoo machine. Eddie had immediately regretted his choice when he awoke the next morning with a throbbing headache. Tattoos were strictly forbidden for his people, and men of his faith so marked could not be buried in a religious cemetery. Eddie’s regret, however, had less to do with faith than with the fact that the tattoo was so crudely drawn.

Weiss eyed the younger man sadly. “You think your father would send me to the wrong man? You think he doesn’t know his own son? You’re the one who can find people.”

“Mr. Weiss, please.” Eddie downed his whiskey and began a second glass. He wouldn’t mind getting drunk.

“He said you worked for Hochman.”

“He knew that?”

“A father knows his son.”

Eddie shook his head. “No.” He would get drunk, he had decided, without a doubt.

“He told me it was you, not that fake wizard, who discovered the boy under the bridge. The shyster took the credit, but you were the one who found him. Your father said you always had this talent. You guided him through the forest when you were a little boy. He said he would have been dead without you, or wandering there still.”

Eddie was stunned. He’d never thought he’d been the one to lead them out of the woods. And surely he’d never told his father how he earned his money. He knew that his father would have disapproved of Hochman and his methods. Now it seemed the elder Cohen had known precisely what Eddie was doing on the nights he’d sneaked out. He wondered if his father had lain in bed, eyes open, as Eddie let himself out the door. Perhaps he’d gone so far as to rise from the thin mattress, slip his coat over his pajamas, and track Eddie to the Hall of Love so he might stand in the dark on Sheriff Street and mourn what his son had become. Perhaps he’d had their suitcase in hand.

“You shouldn’t go around trusting people you don’t even know,” Eddie advised his visitor. “You’ll get into trouble that way.”

“I know your father, and that’s enough for me.” Weiss narrowed his eyes. “Do you want money? Because I have it.” The older man reached into the pocket of his overcoat, but Eddie stopped him.

“No. No money.” Eddie sat back in his chair and rubbed at his temples. His head was throbbing. “Even if I could do what you want, there’s no guarantee you would like what I found.”

Weiss shook his head, disagreeing. “If you find the truth, then you’ve found what I want.”

“What if Hannah is dead? You want to know that?”

“If she is, show me the locket. That’s when I’ll believe it. That’s when I’ll say the Kaddish and lay her to rest.”

Weiss reached for a photograph in his vest pocket. It was a poor example of the craft, snapped in one of those new ten-cent machines so popular at photo galleries at Coney Island and on Fourteenth Street. The image was already fading, turning milky, but the beauty of Weiss’s daughter was unmistakable. She had long, pale hair and delicate features.

“Your father said you would find her,” Weiss said, his voice seized by emotion. “Don’t make him into a liar.”



After Weiss’s visit, Eddie slept, awaking in the morning on the floor. He’d finished the whiskey after Weiss had gone, and added a good measure of gin, a lethal combination. Apparently he’d fallen asleep beside the dog. Now his back and legs ached. He had a cough and the room felt damp. If he wasn’t careful, he would find himself coming down with pneumonia, as Moses Levy had.

Eddie went to retrieve a tin box stowed beneath the floorboards. There was cash inside, his savings. He had hoped to buy a camera that would allow him to use flexible film, a new style in the art that made the development process faster and easier, but he could forgo such things. He’d gotten in the habit of hiding his earnings when he was a boy, choosing a clever spot, just beneath the table where he and his father took their meager supper each evening. In his loft he kept his savings in the same place. Eddie folded the bills into an envelope.

As he grabbed his coat to go out, Eddie spied a flash of silver light in the pail beside the sink, as if a star had fallen through the skylight. It was the trout, motionless at the bottom of the pail. He felt a rush of regret. He should have taken it back to the river, for a fish was born to be a fish, whether or not he’d been caught. He quickly folded the trout into a sheaf of newspaper, for he couldn’t leave it to stink, nor had he the heart to toss it into the trash pile in the alley. He whistled for Mitts and, with the wrapped fish resting in the crook of his arm, set out.