Redemption Street by Reed Farrel Coleman Read Free Book Online Page B

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Chapter Five
November 27th
    Katy’s resistance to my Catskills adventure was a stroll in the park compared with Aaron’s reaction. Unlike Katy, though, my big brother couldn’t have cared less that I had taken a dead man’s case. It mattered not to him whether my client was President Reagan or the Ghost of Christmas Past. To Aaron, there was no good reason to miss work short of open-heart surgery. And then only with a signed note from the doctor. We went round and round like a two-headed dog chasing its tail.
    Dizzy from the chase, I put an end to it. “Look, Aaron, I haven’t taken a vacation day or a personal day since Sarah was born. I got four weeks coming to me, so I’m takin’ one of them. What’s the big deal? It’s not like I’m takin’ Christmas-and-New Year’s week.”
    “And for that I’m supposed to be grateful?”
    “No, you’re just supposed to understand. It was part of the agreement when we went into this business. I have the right to work cases.”
    “I have the right to wear a bra and panties and run through Times Square,” he chided, “but it doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”
    “That’s an image I don’t want to think about.”
    We both laughed. Aaron surrendered.
    He slapped my face playfully. “Get back soon or I’ll start wearing sensible pumps and a handbag into work. Go already.”
    I gave Aaron my buddy Kosta’s phone number and suggested he call him if things in the store got out of hand. Kosta was initially Katy’s friend, but we’d grown pretty close. He managed a few punk and new wave bands. Yet even in punk’s heyday, he was only slightly less successful at rock-and-roll management than the captain of the Titanic was at iceberg avoidance. Kosta was heading down the homestretch toward the poverty line.
    “Don’t worry.” I cut Aaron off before he could object. “Kosta knows wine.”
    “Be safe, little brother,” he said. “Be safe.”
    November was through teasing. It had definitely decided to pack up the denim jackets and stick them in the attic next to the plastic garbage bag marked “Indian Summer.” Time had come to haul out the parkas and boots. And if there were any lingering questions about November’s intentions, the mean shade of gray hanging in the air outside my windshield answered most of them. The remaining questions were answered by my throbbing knee. “Snow,” it said in its unique kind of Morse code. “Snow.” Just what I needed for my drive upstate.
    Us denizens of the five boroughs referred to the Catskills as “upstate,” but that was just another manifestation of our warped view of the universe. What do you expect? There are still a sizable number of lower-Manhattanites who consider Chelsea a northern suburb, Brooklyn another country, and Yonkers a distant planet. What they thought of the rest of the world, who can say? Potsdam, up on the Canadian border—now, that’s upstate. Buffalo and Rochester to the northwest, they’re upstate. In truth, the Catskills, a low mountain range only an hour or two north of the city, was actually downstate.
    During the thirties, forties, and fifties, the Catskills had flourished as a summer-vacation spot for New York City’s lower-and middle-class populations. With its rich green valleys, numerous lakes, waterfalls, and scenic vistas, the Catskills offered a nearby escape from the sweltering city streets. The Catskills also offered something else: a place for individual ethnic groups to get relief from the pressures of the melting pot and associate in peace with their own. The Irish and Italians had their own enclaves in the mountains, but the Catskills would always be most closely associated with the Jews.
    The Borscht Belt was a series of hotels that had sprung up in the Catskills over the years to service a vibrant Jewish clientele. The Concord, Grossinger’s, Kutshers, Brown’s were the big-name places that every Jewish kid knew. Unlimited quantities of bland kosher food,