I repeated my question.
Korvutz said, “Bright had ideas. My benefit. ‘Have a tenant board, Mr. K., gonna make things smoother.’ I thought it was bullshit.”
“But you agreed.”
“Someone wanna help, it’s no skin off. I’m figuring Bright’s gonna ask for something, I want, I say no. Turns out it was nothing.”
“He never asked for anything?”
“Go figure.”
“No break on the rent?”
“Hey,” said Korvutz, “that I do before.”
“How much of a discount did you give him?”
“Who remembers – maybe coupla thousand total.”
“Goodness of your heart,” I said.
Korvutz turned to me. “Like I said, I met him twice. He want to help out, why not? In the end, it don’t help. Stupid tenant board.”
“No help with the condo-conversion.”
Scowling, he walked faster. “That building screwed me. Financed it with other properties, shoulda known better than to invest in that piece of shit. Then I got short, rates are getting worse, the banks not gonna lend unless they got you by the – the paperwork get all – crazy time it take this damn city to get something done. What the hell do you care? You want know about Dale Ass-kissey? That’s the story. Period.”
I said, “How’d he come to rent from you?”
“Referral.”
“From who?”
“What’s the difference?”
We walked until Gigi grew fascinated with the scents emanating from a trash can on the corner of Sixty-ninth.
“Go, already,” said Korvutz. “Dog.”
I said, “Who referred Bright to you?”
“Again?”
“What’s the big secret?”
“I didn’t even want new tenants. You convert, you need it empty. Bright get guaranteed no-hassle, I say what the hell, okay. That’s my problem. Soft heart.”
Gigi moved from the trash can. We covered another half a block before I said, “Who guaranteed him?”
“This is a big goddamn deal, huh?”
“Sonia Glusevitch?”
Korvutz licked his lips. “You know Sonia?”
“I know she’s your cousin and she served on the board with Dale.”
“Cousin,” he said, as if learning a new word. “Her mother’s second husband is nephew of one of my stepsisters.”
“She knew Dale and recommended him.”
Reluctant nod.
“Was she involved with him?”
“Sonia was married.”
“Same question,” I said.
“I don’t nosy in other people’s business.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Look,” said Korvutz, “Sonia come to me, say she got friend need a place. I say six months, tops.”
“That could’ve fit Dale Bright’s needs perfectly.”
“What you mean?”
“He moves around,” I said.
“Good for him.”
“There’s no record of him after he left your building. Any idea where he went?”
“I should know?”
“Where’d Sonia meet him?”
“That I know,” said Korvutz. “Doing a show.”
“What kind of show?”
“Sonia want to be actress. That time, she has terrible English, she a little better now. One year I’m here from Belarus, I’m talking perfect. Two years, I got the Puerto Rican Spanish, five years I’m talking to Chinese people. Hasta luego ying chang chung.”
“Sonia has no gift for language.”
“Sonia?” Chuckle. “What they say, not swiftest knife in pantry?”
“But she thought she could act.”
“Wanna be big star.”
“Movies or stage plays?”
“Even now,” said Korvutz, “she go to classes at the New School. Paint pictures, make pots, ashtrays, candleholders.”
“Artistic.”
“Live off divorce money, you got time take lessons.”
“Rich ex.”
“Plastic surgeon. He do her boobies, like what he do, marry her, get to look at it all the time.”
“What’s his name?”
“Who remembers?”
“He marries your cousin and you don’t remember?”
“Jewish guy,” he said. “They get married in Anguilla, no one invited. Five years, she move to a big house in Lawrence, then divorce.”
“She still gets alimony?”
“She live good.”
“Where’s this doctor’s office?”
“Also the Five Towns.”
“Which one?”
“Maybe Lawrence, maybe Cedarhurst.”
“You don’t remember his name.”
“Jew name, some kind of Witz, maybe Markowitz, maybe Leibowitz – no, no, Lefkowitz. Bob Lefkowitz. Plays tennis.” Miming a wide swing.
“So Sonia was seeing Dale Bright while she was married to Dr. Lefkowitz.”
Silence.
I said, “You already told me she was.”
“What I say is she tell me Bright needs apartment.”
“Living with her husband but she kept an apartment on West Thirty-fifth?”
Korvutz looked away. The cords in his neck were miniature bridge struts. “I give her apartment, so what?”
Gigi beelined for another can.
Korvutz said, “Here we go again.”
I said, “What show was Sonia in when she met Dale Bright?”
“Who remembers?”
“Did you see it?”
“She keep saying come. For free. Finally, I have to go. Some stupid place.”
“Downtown?”
“East Village, no theater. Room over a Mexican restaurant, they set up chairs, piano, black drapes. Everyone dressed black, black bathrobes, black hoods. The whole time they run around chanting. At the end, someone throws up. Then you clap.”
“What was the name of the show?”
“Maybe Black Bathrobes and Throwing Up?” Snickering at his own wit.
I pulled out the list I’d gotten from the newspaper files, began reading off titles.
“Yeah,” said Korvutz. “That’s the one, Dark Nose Holiday. What the hell does that mean, Dark Nose? I ask Sonia. She say it’s climb into someone’s brain. Like a tunnel here.” Wiggling a nostril. “In here the truth.” Laughing. “Achoo, eh? No more truth.”
Gigi checked out the flower bed in a towering brick building. I examined the listings for Dark Nose Holiday. The Times was the only paper to capsulize the play. “Neo-absurdist drama exploring mystical meta-motivations.” No cast or credits cited.
I said, “How many people were in the play?”
“This is important?”
“Could be.”
“How many? Four? I don’t know. Not a lot.”
“Was Dale Bright one of the actors?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I told you, hoods, the faces you don’t see, maybe it was him, maybe Mickey Mouse.”
“Sonia definitely said she’d met him at the production.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“What else do you know about him?”
“Nothing.”
“When the Safrans disappeared-”
“Uh-uh, no, no, I told you, we don’t go there. They almost ruined my life.”
“The Safrans?”
“The cops. Harassing, I try to do business, they come in the office with badges, bye-bye business. This Italian guy, look like a gangster. Harass ’cause I’m Belarusssian, want to know about smuggling, Moscow Mafia. Stupid.”
“Prejudiced,” I said.
“I keep telling him, look, you not going to find nothing ’cause there is nothing to find.”
Gigi trotted to a discarded cardboard box and lifted her leg.
Korvutz saluted the air above his head. “Finally, dog.”
I said, “The Safrans only interest me because-”
“Good night and good luck. Only reason I talk to you first place I don’t want you bothering my kid no more. Also, I got nothing to hide. You gonna be back in L.A. soon?”
“Soon enough.”
“Say hello to the palm trees.”
“Talking about the Safrans really bothers you.”
Keeping his mouth shut, he blew out air, ballooning the skin around his lips.
I said, “If you’ve got nothing to hide-”
The air escaped in a hiss. “Maybe they fly to the moon. Maybe Ass-kiss do something to them. Do I give a shit? Not even a little one – not even a Gigi shit.”