He says louder, “Alter Litvak.”

Litvak looks up, puzzled and myopic. He was a man for a fistfight, barrel-chested, a hunter, a fisherman, a soldier. When he reached for a chessman, you saw the flash of the lightning bolt on his big gold Army Ranger ring. Now he looks shrunken, depleted, the king in the story reduced by the curse of eternal life to a cricket in the ashes of the hearth. Only the vaulting nose remains as testament to the former grandeur of his face. Looking at the wreckage of the man, Landsman thinks that if his father had not taken his own life, he would in all likelihood be dead nevertheless.

Litvak makes an impatient or petitioning gestur with his hand. He takes from his breast pocket a marbled black notepad and a fat fountain pen. He wears his beard neatly trimmed, as ever. A houndstooth blazer, tasseled boat shoes, a display handkerchief, a scarf strung through his lapels. The man has not lost his sporting air. In the pleats of his throat is a shining scar, a whitish comma tinged with pink. As he writes in the pad with his big Waterman, Litvak’s breath comes through his great fleshy nose in patient gusts. The scratch of the nib is all that remains to him for a voice. He passes the pad to Landsman. His script is steady and clear.

Do I know you

His gaze sharpens, and he cocks his head to one side, sizing Landsman up, reading the wrinkled suit, the porkpie hat, the face like Hershel the dog’s, knowing Landsman without recognizing him. He takes back the pad and appends one word to his question.

Do I know you Detective

“Meyer Landsman,” Landsman says, handing the old man a business card. “You knew my father. I used to come here with him from time to time. Back when the club was in the coffee shop.”

The red-rimmed eyes widen. Wonder mingles with horror as Mr. Litvak intensifies his study of Landsman, searching for some proof of this unlikely claim. He turns a page in his pad and pronounces his findings in the matter.

Impossible No way Meyerle Landsman could be such a lumpy old sack of onions

“Afraid so,” Landsman says.

What are you doing here terrible chess player

“I was only a kid,” Landsman says, horrified to detect a creak of self-pity in his tone. What an awful place, what wretched men, what a cruel and pointless game. “Mr. Litvak, you don’t happen to know a man, I gather he plays here sometimes, a Jew maybe they call him Frank?”

Yes I know him has he done something wrong

“How well do you know him?”

Not as well as I would like

“Do you know where he lives, Mr. Litvak? Have you seen him recently?”

Months pls say you are not a homicide det.

“Again,” Landsman says, “I’m afraid so.”

The old man blinks. If he is shocked or saddened by the inference, you can’t read it anywhere in his face or body language. But then a man not in control of his emotions would never get very far with the Reti Opening. Maybe there is a hint of shakiness in the word he writes next in his pad.

Overdose?

“Gunshot,” Landsman says.

The door to the club creaks open, and a couple of patzers come in from the alley looking gray and cold. A gaunt scarecrow barely out of his teens, with a trimmed golden beard and a suit that’s too small for him, and a short, chubby man, dark and curly-bearded, in a suit that’s much too large. Their crew cuts look patchy, as if self-inflicted, and they wear matching black crocheted yarmulkes. They hesitate a moment in the doorway, abashed, looking at Mr. Litvak as if they expect to be scolded.

The old man speaks then, inhaling the words, his voice a dinosaurian ghost. It’s an awful sound, a malfunction of the windpipe. A moment after it fades, mun realizes that he said, “My grandnephews.”

Litvak waves them in and passes Landsman’s card to the chubby one.

“Nice to meet you, Detective,” the chubby one says with the hint of an accent, maybe Australian. He takes the empty chair, glances at the board, and smartly brings out his own king’s knight. “Sorry, Uncle Alter. That one was late, as usual.”

The skinny one hangs back with his hand on the open door of the club.

“Landsman!” Berko calls from the alley, where he has Fishkin and Lapidus corralled beside the Dumpster. It appears to Landsman that Lapidus is bawling like a child. “What the hell?”

“Right there,” Landsman says. “I have to go, Mr. Litvak.” For an instant he handles the bones, horn, and leather of the old man’s hand. “Where can I reach you if I need to talk to you some more?”

Litvak writes out an address and tears the leaf from his pad.

“Madagascar?” Landsman says, reading the name of some unimaginable street in Tananarive. “That’s a new one.” At the sight of that faraway address, at the thought of that house on rue Jean Bart, Landsman feels a profound ebb in his will to pursue the matter of the dead yid in 208. What difference will it make if he catches the killer? A year from now, Jews will be Africans, and this old ballroom will be filled with teadancing gentiles, and every case that ever was opened or closed by a Sitka policeman will have been filed in cabinet nine. “When are you leaving?”

“Next week,” says the chubby great-nephew, sounding doubtful.

The old man emits another horrible reptilian croak, one that nobody understands. He writes, then slides the notepad across to his great-nephew.

“’Man makes plans,’” the kid reads. “’And God laughs.’”

11

Sometimes when the younger black hats are caught by the police, they turn haughty and angry and demand their rights as American subjects. And sometimes they break down and cry. Men tend to cry, in Landsman’s experience, when they have been living for a long time with a sense of rightness and safety, and then they realize that all along, just under their boots, ley the abyss. That is part of the policeman’s job, to jerk back the pretty carpet that covers over the deep jagged hole in the floor. Landsman wonders if that’s how it is with Saltiel Lapidus. Tears stream down his cheeks. A glinting thread of mucus dangles from his right nostril.

“Mr. Lapidus is feeling a little sad,” Berko says. “But he won’t say why.”

Landsman feels around in the pocket of his overcoat for a package of Kleenex and finds one miraculous sheet. Lapidus hesitates, then takes it and blows his nose with feeling.

“I swear to you, I didn’t know the man,” Lapidus says. “I don’t know where he lived, who he was. I don’t know anything. I swear on my life. We played chess a few times. He always won.”

“You’re just grieving for the sake of humanity, then,” Landsman says, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his tone.

“Exactly right,” Lapidus says, and then he balls the tissue in his fist and tosses that crumpled flower into the gutter.

“Are you going to take us in?” Fishkin demands. “Because if you are, then I want to call a lawyer. And if you’re not, then you have to let us go.”

“A black-hat lawyer,” Berko says, and it’s a kind of moan or plea directed toward Landsman. “Woe is me.”

“Get going, then,” Landsman says.

Berko gives them a nod. The two men crunch off through the filthy slush of the alley.

“So, nu, I’m irritated,” Berko says. “I admit this one is starting to irritate me.”

Landsman nods and scratches at the stubble of his chin in a way that is meant to signify deep ratiocination, but his heart and thoughts are hung up in the memory of chess games that he lost to men who were already old thirty years ago.

“Did you see that old guy in there?” he says. “By the door. Alter Litvak. Been hanging around the Einstein for years. Used to play my father. Your father, too.”

“I’ve heard the name.” Berko looks back at the steel fire door that is the Einstein Club’s grand entrance. “War hero. Cuba.”