Penelope Read online

  “And may I ask why?” from Mrs. Hendley Johnson.

  “Only to ascertain whether a certain article had been left at the store. I assure you, Mrs. Johnson, this will result in neither trouble nor aggravation to your work.”

  “How can I be sure that I am talking to the police department? One doesn’t give names over the phone.”

  “You can hang up, and then ask the operator to connect you with Centre Street.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” said Mrs. Johnson, obviously eager to get back to her guests. “On Tuesdays, Mrs. Jerome Green is the day manager at the Second Avenue store. Her number is Butterfield 2-1012.”

  Cohen thanked her, glanced at the circle of silent, cynical faces, dialed for a line, and then dialed BU 2-1012.

  “Mrs. Green?” he said. “This is Larry Cohen—”

  “The district attorney?”

  “One of them. Perhaps you remember, we met at your daughter’s wedding.”

  “My dear boy,” Mrs. Green said, “I knew your mother long before I ever had anything to wed to anything else. How is your mother?”

  “Fine—just fine. Getting on, but just fine.”

  “Will you give her my best? We must have lunch or something, the way time flies. At your age, all the time in the world is waiting, but we oldsters cannot be spendthrifts with it.”

  “Mrs. Green?”

  “Of course, this is not a social call at this time of the night. I do hope it’s a crime or something of that sort. You know, New York is the great criminal city of the Western world, but you can live here a lifetime and never see anything worse than a traffic violation. Of course, you are cheek by jowl with criminals day in and day out, aren’t you?”

  “Not exactly, Mrs. Green. However, this is a sort of criminal business. Were you at the thrift store today?”

  “Indeed I was, and might I say that we are a cause worth keeping in mind, not only for the work we do, but whatever you give us represents a tax deduction up to its value. That may not appeal to you—”

  “It does indeed, Mrs. Green, and I will keep it in mind. But right now, I wonder whether someone gave you a gift today—a yellow suit by Givenchy?”

  “Did you say Givenchy?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I knew it. I knew it. I just knew it—”

  “Then the suit was given to you?”

  “You know, the labels were torn out. I said to Claire Ebbling, now that is an unusual suit. But she would not have it. People don’t give us unusual suits, according to Claire—in spite of the fact that last year someone gave us a huge star sapphire and never knowing what it was. I said it was a designer suit—but no, she knew better. And then Sadaba came in—”

  “Sadaba?”

  “You know—Sadaba on Madison Avenue—the one who always talks about herself in the third person. You know, you come into her shop and she says to you, ‘Sadaba welcomes you. Sadaba asks you to sit down and look upon Sadaba’s treasures. Sadaba haunts the Paris salons to find each treasure for you. Sadaba only desires you should look like a queen’—and everything in that incredible accent. But you know, I have often suspected that her treasures sometimes originate a good deal closer than Paris. And her prices! My dear boy, I just haven’t the courage to mention what her prices are.”

  “Mrs. Green,” Cohen said, “are you telling me that this yellow suit, this Givenchy, was given to your thrift store today, and that subsequently a woman called Sadaba who operates a dress salon on Madison Avenue came in and purchased it?”

  “Well, of course—and for fifteen dollars! Oh, I could—I could just walk out of the window. You know, if it were anyone else, I would telephone her and say, ‘But darling, a treasure is one thing and a cause is another. We are not Bergdorf’s. We operate a charity store in the cause of cancer research, and we are all volunteers, and I do think that the least you could do is to volunteer a twenty dollar bill onto the fifteen in the cause of research, since you did come into a treasure.’”

  “Would you permit me to send you my own check?” Cohen asked.

  “Darling boy, I should not permit it, but I will.”

  “And tell me now, Mrs. Green, what time was the suit left at your store?”

  “Oh—in the afternoon. About four, I would guess.”

  “By a woman with black hair and a broken nose?”

  “How did you know?”

  “And where do I find Sadaba?”

  “The east side of Madison, between Seventy-fourth and Seventy-fifth.”

  “That’s the store. Would you know where she lives?”

  “Over the store, my dear—current style, of course. She owns the whole building, one of those Madison Avenue granite-front types. She’s positively richer than God. Salon on floors one and two, and living quarters above. Very poshy, but she will poor mouth you to death. And if you go there, be prepared to buy. Her claws are like fish hooks, and her prices are like the national debt.”

  “I will be eminently wary,” Cohen said. “And I do thank you with all my heart, my dear Mrs. Green. You have been a great help to us.”

  “And you will remember me to your mother?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And dear boy, make out your check to Sloan-Kettering. You can send it to me, or to the store.”

  “I will indeed.”

  “Bless your heart.”

  Larry Cohen replaced the telephone. He could not resist a slight smirk of satisfaction as he looked about him from face to face.

  Riding uptown with Captain Bixbee and Lieutenant Rothschild, Sergeant Adrian Kelly at the wheel, Larry Cohen explained that rather than any crystal ball being at his service, it was a simple matter of folkways. Class structure and folkways.

  “It’s a new world,” Captain Bixbee said. “It listens different and it reasons different. It breaks the law different. A punk with a knife terrorizes a subway car full of people, and no one puts him over a knee. In my time—”

  “I know,” said Larry Cohen, “only I don’t believe it was that different. My great-grandfather came over here in the steerage and began by peddling dry goods out of a pushcart on the Lower East Side. Then he bought a wagon and peddled to the farms in Nassau County, and before he died he had a nice little store in the vicinity of Fourteenth Street. His son, my grandfather, began with one store and died owning twenty-two, Woolworth’s largest competitor in the metropolitan area. His son, my father, spent most of his life learning to be a gentleman and how not to look like a Jew. He went to Lawrenceville and Yale, had three wives, and let the business be managed by those who knew how to manage it. It had quadrupled in size by the time I came to what passes for maturity, had gone public, and provided more money than my father could spend—which maintained for me the privilege of being not only a rich man’s son but a gentleman’s son. Being the fourth generation, I decided to work for a living.”

  “My heart bleeds for you,” said Rothschild. “I suppose all this elucidates for us how come you are a specialist on the folkways of the rich. In my case, my father came over by steerage, and the only thing he left to me was a trunkful of doubts. Still, it is peculiar that we are both cops.”

  “You consider a district attorney a cop?” Cohen wanted to know.

  “The worst kind,” Bixbee said. “We only pick up the poor bastards. You hound them to what the penologists call reconstruction. Anyway, how come a high-class lawyer like yourself, Larry, is out running down the evidence in such off hours?”

  “Could I let go of it now? I have been guessing you all green with jealousy. And who could go to sleep without meeting Sadaba?”

  “I could,” Rothschild said.

  “Anyway,” Cohen told them, “I am at that point in a marriage where perhaps it is best that my wife and I see a little less of each other.”

  “For the’ rich, that presents no problem,” Bixbee said.

  “No? Well, I live with my father’s sins. Usually, I do not run after dames. It’s less complicated to play cops an
d robbers. But Penelope—”

  “She is old enough to be your mother,” Rothschild said.

  “Oh no—no, sir. Maybe seven or eight years, but my God, that’s a woman.”

  “That’s an empty-headed bit of fluff,” Bixbee decided.

  “Oh, you are so wrong, Captain,” Larry Cohen replied, “—so wrong indeed.”

  “A name like Penelope,” Rothschild reflected. “That is one hell of a name.”

  “She could not be called anything else. Absolutely not.”

  It was half past ten when they drew up in front of Sadaba’s Dress Salon. Madison Avenue, at that hour in the evening, was almost deserted, lit gently by the rich glow of the antique shops and the art galleries, offering the treasures and riches of the whole world to those who had ceased to count their dollars in smaller multiples than thousands. Walkers on this cold winter night were few; but though the street was almost deserted, there on the next corner, like an old, bruised pensioner seeking recognition, stood the bereaved branch of the City Federal Bank. Rothschild pointed it out to Cohen.

  “Like one tight, happy family,” Cohen nodded.

  In Sadaba’s shop, however, the lights were still on, the front door masked with a shade; and after Sergeant Kelly had parked, the four men walked over to the door of the dress salon and knocked. There were steps inside, and an edge of the shade was pushed back to show the shadowed face of a man.

  “Sadaba,” said the male voice from behind the door, is tour men.

  “Four men?”

  “Four men.”

  “Is no woman, Ducky?”

  “Is four men.”

  “Tell them we are close. Sadaba works eighteen hours a day, is not enough. Tell them go away, Ducky.”

  “Go away.”

  “Police,” said Rothschild tiredly. “Lieutenant Rothschild—Nineteenth Precinct.”

  “Sadaba!”

  “Yes.”

  “Is police.”

  “Is police, Sadaba wants to see credentials.”

  A woman’s steps toward the door; Rothschild took out his wallet and opened it to display his badge and credentials. The shade was pushed farther back and a woman looked out.

  “Looks all right. Ah, open the door, Ducky. There is not five dollar on the place, so to rob Sadaba is like investing in Broadway show.”

  Ducky opened the door. He was a small man, no more than five feet two or three inches, dapper, waxed mustache, a diamond ring on each hand, thin hair plastered to his skull. Behind him stood Sadaba, who was five feet and ten inches in her flat-heeled shoes, dressed in high-style black, hair dyed jet black and pulled back tightly, makeup heavy and bold. Sadaba would never see fifty again and possibly not sixty, but there was nothing in voice or action to indicate the inroads of age. Once she had appraised the four men, and assured herself that three of them at least could not be other than cops, she spread her arms and said:

  “Close the door, Ducky. Dollinks, come in and see. I have no more secrets now. For Sadaba there is no rest, no peace—vork, vork, vork. Is it a life? I am hoping you are accusing me of murder. Sadaba murders Sadaba. Because that is the truth.”

  Ducky, meanwhile, was drawing up chairs for the visitors. On Ducky’s part, every movement evidenced a tremendous and long-standing respect for the police.

  “Not at all,” said Rothschild. “The truth is that we are accusing you of nothing at all. It is just that you can be of some help to us, Mrs. Sadaba.”

  “Mrs.?” She lifted her shoulders and put out her hands, palms up. “Mrs.? No … not even Miss. Sadaba is Sadaba. Do I ask for fame? Do I ring a bell for the vorld to hear? No. Sadaba is Sadaba. She is content. So call me Sadaba.”

  “Sadaba?”

  “Exactly. Your name is Lieutenant Rothschild, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are related to the Rothschilds—to the Rothschilds?”

  “No.”

  “Neither am I. So call me Sadaba. Sadaba is Sadaba.”

  “Yes. Thank you,” said Rothschild, feeling that a thickening cloud of confusion had descended upon him. “Now—Sadaba—we are interested in a yellow suit—”

  “For your vife—of course. But I must varn you, Sadaba’s creations are not cheap. Every penny they are worth—but not cheap.”

  “No—no,” said Rothschild. “I am afraid you misunderstand me. We are not here to buy clothes—”

  “Then vy are you interested in clothes? Sadaba works eighteen hours a day. Is it fair to vaste my time?”

  “No—no, ma’am,” Rothschild replied. “But, you see, we were told that you bought a yellow suit today at the Sloan-Kettering Thrift Store on Second Avenue, and we would like very much to look at that suit.”

  “Is not for sale,” Sadaba shrugged.

  “You see, we don’t want to buy it,” Larry Cohen put in. “We only want to look at it.”

  Rothschild threw him a grateful glance, and Sadaba snorted, “Sadaba is ashamed you should look at it. A rag.”

  “We are not here to buy it, only to look at it.”

  “In Sadaba’s shop, her clients do not look at rags. Not even at Seventh Avenue sixty-nine, fifty wholesale. Am I right, Ducky?”

  “Sadaba is right,” Ducky nodded.

  “All summer, Sadaba closes her shop and she hunts through Europe for creations—creations, not rags. For rags, you look in a rag store.”

  “Will you tell me one thing, madam?” Rothschild said desperately. “Did you or did you not buy a dress at the Sloan-Kettering Thrift Store today?”

  “No.”

  “No?” Rothschild shouted.

  “Not a dress, but a yellow suit,” Cohen said patiently. “The lieutenant is asking whether you bought a yellow suit today.”

  “So vy is he asking a dress?”

  “He made an error.”

  “Ah. A suit, yes. A dress, no.”

  “Is that suit in this building?”

  Sadaba said to Ducky, “Is the suit in the building, Ducky?”

  “I think so, Sadaba.”

  “Sadaba thinks so also,” Sadaba agreed.

  “Would you please bring it to us and let us look at it?” said Cohen. “We are not going to confiscate it unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless we determine that it is stolen property,” said Rothschild, “in which case, it must be returned to its rightful owner.”

  “Sadaba does not remember vere it is,” Sadaba shrugged. “Could take a veek to find it here.”

  “You had better start remembering,” Bixbee said coldly. “Otherwise, we are going to charge you as a receiver of stolen property and you can spend tonight in a cell.”

  “Vy get angry?” Sadaba smiled. “Sadaba remembers. Ducky—go bring the yellow rag. Better it should not be in my shop.”

  Ducky went through the drapes at the end of Sadaba’s lounge, and a moment later returned with a bright-yellow suit. Rothschild held out his hand for it, and Ducky gave it to him—as a forester might give his liege lord a well-deserved haunch of venison to dispel all suspicion of poaching. The three men crowded around Rothschild, who examined the suit inside and outside—fixing finally upon a label sewn inside the jacket, namely: GIVENCHY—Paris.

  “This label—” said Rothschild to Sadaba.

  “Is nothing. Some cheap French store.”

  “Oh?”

  “Is nothing.” Sadaba smiled.

  “How did it get there?”

  “A label? In every creation is a label.”

  “Except,” Cohen put in, “that I spoke to Mrs. Green earlier tonight, and she informed us that when this suit was left at the store today, there were no labels in it.”

  “Is making an error.” Sadaba shrugged.

  “By overlooking a Givenchy label?”

  “Oh? You have heard of Givenchy?”

  “I have heard,” Cohen said.

  Sadaba looked from one face to another.

  “We have all heard,” Cohen said.

  “Oh.”<
br />
  “Then you sewed in this label?” Rothschild asked.

  “Is a crime? This is a creation of Givenchy, no? You heard of Bernard Berenson, the art specialist?”

  Cohen smiled slightly, and nodded.

  “So when he is looking on a Raphael, says is no-Raphael but Leonardo da Vinci, is he swindler? He is specialist on art. Sadaba is specialist on creations. So what is the difference?”

  “We are not accusing you of any criminal act,” Rothschild said, forcing himself. “We only wished to see the suit you bought today.”

  “Is here, no?”

  “Yes. Now, could you tell us anything else concerning this suit—anything at all?”

  “Sadaba brings to her clients creations—Diors, Given-chys, Chanels, Balenciagas, Lanvins; but Sadaba does not lecture on what is in the soul of a creator when he creates creations.”

  “That is not exactly what the lieutenant means,” Cohen explained. “He wants to know whether you have ever seen this suit being worn.”

  Sadaba’s eyes became wary, and she said, “Sadaba slaves eighteen hours a day. Who sees anything?”

  “This afternoon,” Rothschild said, “the new branch of the City Federal Bank across the street from here was held up. It was robbed by a woman wearing this suit—so far as we can ascertain. A woman with black hair.”

  “Size ten,” Sadaba said softly, almost to herself.

  “You are aware of the robbery?”

  “Of course! Poor Ducky, it upset him so much, he is lying down for two hours with a sick headache. Is this a life? Tell Sadaba. Oh, Sadaba remembers, believe me, Sadaba is only a little girl then, but she remembers Petrograd, the beauty, the gala, the balls—all the beauty is crushed now and wiped from the face of the earth, but Sadaba remembers. Is right, Ducky—no?”

  “Is right,” Ducky nodded.

  “So Sadaba slaves. But maybe better times come to Sadaba.”

  “To get back to the robbery—”

  “Who knows about the robbery? Dollink, Sadaba knows nothing, Sadaba sees nothing. Sadaba is not even knowing the bank is robbed until Ducky tells her. Dollink—please, is very late. You are taking the yellow rag with you?”