is Detective Angela Clemmons.”
The old man bows several times, his hands still clasped. “So happy to meet you. You are a very pretty lady.” He wags his finger at her. “Be careful of my friend here. He is most handsome, is he not?”
Angela shrugs indifferently, then smirks at me.
He points at her again, laughs. “Ooooh. Detective Sam. I think it is you who should be careful.
“We are investigating the hanging over on Third,” I say quickly, wanting to terminate the uncomfortable moment.” Mister Axelbrad shakes his head. “Ocnod. So sad. He was in here last week, you know? Bought a … what was it? Oh, yes, a clock.” He shrugs his thin shoulders. “Buys a clock and the poor bastard didn’t have much time left. God has a sense of humor, no?”
“Did you know him well, sir?” Angela asks, looking at a dusty Darth Vader helmet.
“Ocnod? Not at all. He came in a few times, just looking around. He looked my age, you know, so I tried to engage him in conversation, but he didn’t make an effort. Turned down my offer for some tea.” He shrugs. “Shy maybe, or just not sociable.”
“Too bad,” I say. “He say anything about anyone bothering him, harassing him?”
Mister Axelbrad shakes his head. “Hard enough getting a hello out of him.”
“How often are you at this store, sir,” Angela asks.
“My brother and I rotate between the two stores. So I’m here three days a week usually.” He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “I don’t like so much working at the other place … ever since …” He pats my cheek and smiles, and I take a deep breath to slow my heart, which has been in the red zone since we walked through the door. “And my brother doesn’t like working there anymore either. Might shut it down and work here for another year or two. My Hannah wants me to retire.” He shrugs. “Maybe she is right. It is about time.”
Angela touches his arm. “Have you seen anyone around who’s caught your eye? You know, someone who didn’t look right among all these other people who don’t look right?”
“Yes, a woman!” he says, angrily swatting at the air. “An awful woman. Oy-vey! A big man-woman. Had a fucking swastika here.” He jabs his finger at the back of his hand. “Farshtinkener! I saw it and my stomach …” He clenches his fist “. . . it did like this.” He steps over to a counter loaded with old, dusty junk, and picks up a foot and a half-long bone, bleached, chipped, from an animal’s leg, or a human’s, maybe. “I lift this up in my hand like this, and I tell her, ‘You nafka! You whore. You get out of my shop or I will beat your ugly face in.’”
“What did she do?” I ask, thinking he looks like Samson had he lived into his senior years.
“The bitch left,” he says with a shrug. “Who wants their face beat in with someone’s bone?”
“What day?” Angela asks, eyeing the weapon. “What was she looking at in here?”
“A week ago, I think. Looking at knives, under the counter there. I felt like giving her a knife,” He smacks his stomach. “Right in the kishka.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “You’re all right, Mister Axelbrad.”
“I see you have two video cameras in the corners back there,” Angela says. “Do you have tapes of when she came in?”
He shrugs. “Sorry. They are empty. For show only.”
“No problem,” I say. “How is business?”
He shrugs. “Could be better. But I don’t worry so much about it. A bi gezunt, eh? So long as you’ve got your health.”
I hand him my card. “I think you already have one but here’s another. Call me if anything catches your eye. For sure call me if you see the woman again.”
“That nafka!” he says loudly lifting the bone over his head. “If I call you, you better hurry before I bone her.”
“Promise me you won’t do any boning,” I say, gently taking the bone from him and setting it on the counter.
“I will, my boy. But you should know I live by this, “Call on God, but row away from the rocks.” He shrugs. “I have a temper, I’m sorry to say. My dear Hannah has been telling me for fifty years I need to control my temper. I try. It’s all I can do.”
I squeeze his shoulder. “Try real hard, okay. For me?”
He pats my face again. “I will try hard for you, my sweet boy.” He looks at Angela. “You take care of him.”
Angela smiles.
* * *
Turns out, Angela is quite the health food enthusiast. She takes me to her favorite lunch place, a vegetarian joint where most of the customers look like they are in dire need of protein and Vitamin B-12. Angela says she eats meat but likes the sandwiches here. She orders one so stuffed full of vegetation it would overdose a rabbit. I order the same thing but to be funny I ask for four slices of ham with extra mayo, which couldn’t have shocked the skinny hippie dude behind the counter more if I’d slapped his mother.
Angela says she has been doing yoga three times a week for about six years and weight training twice a week for about ten years.
“Well, it’s obviously working for you.” Oh man. That sounded like flirting and could even be construed as sexual harassment.
She blushes, as much as a black person can blush, and says, “Thank you, Sam,” all sweet and coy-like.
Angela is an attractive woman and there is where the thought ends. The slow body scan she gave me in the office made me feel uncomfortable as did the smiles we exchanged in the car after our getting-to-know-you spat. Of course, it didn’t help we looked at naked men together, nor did Mister Axelbrad’s teasing. Now my comment about her having a nice body is like a gusting Santa Ana wind buffeting an out-of-control fire in a southern California canyon.
Am I over thinking this? Hope so.
It’s two p.m. by the time we finish lunch. We head toward the river walk where Mark and David were jumped, but there is construction in the area and not a parking place to be found, even for a police car. It’s getting late anyway so we head back to the office, and fill out reports about our conversation with Terrance at the bathhouse and with Efrem Axelbrad at Second Chance. I call down to Central Precinct duty sergeant and ask her to have the Old Town beat cars keep an eye out for the two women we were told about and get their names and other vitals.
Angela and I fill in Steve and BJ on what we learned. Steve loves hearing about our arrest of the panhandler, especially liking the fact I used a couple of martial arts moves. “This is what I’ve been saying,” Steve says to the lieutenant. “Did you know ghosts sit around campfires telling Chuck Norris stories?”
BJ isn’t amused by any of it and asks me to remain as Steve and Angela leave the office. Guess I’m in trouble already and I have yet to work a full day, but in trouble for what?
BJ straightens some papers on his desk that don’t need straightening and clears his throat that doesn’t need clearing.
