The Prince of West End Avenue by Alan Isler Read Free Book Online

past and closed the door tightly. (In unguarded moments, the door opens a crack, and I hear again the pitiful voices. But quick as a wink, to preserve my sanity, I snap the door shut again.)

    Ike's letters are not useful to our riddle; The key's the end (less wise), not in the middle. Whoever tries to mouth the culprit's name Must end in ordure to assign the blame.
    Now, for all my linguistic ability, I admit I have never been very good at this sort of thing. It is not that I lack ingenuity, but rather that the specific ingenuity needed to solve a charade, it seems to me, is the peculiar property of the riddler himself. His verbal associations, /^mental synapses, so to speak, are unlikely to be another's. How to get into the mind of the riddler? Aye, there's the rub. Still, the first couplet is patent: it alludes to a thief and a theft, and it implies that the cause of justice is mine. So far, so good. The second couplet is more troublesome. Theseus in the labyrinth at least had help; how am I to find the minotaur? Well, I shan't bother to record the many false starts, the hours of perplexity, the culs-de-sac encountered along the way, but shall instead proceed immediately to the solution. Ike, of course, was the popular name of the late President Eisenhower, in my opinion a much underrated man, whose initials are D.D.E. But, says the couplet, these letters are "useless" to our RIDDLE. Very well, get rid of them! RIDDLE minus DDE equals RIL. The answer is already obvious. Put KEY'S at the "end" and wo&'RILKEY'S. But we are to use KEY'S "less" WISE—that is, minus WISE, or Y's. And there you have it: RILKE!
    So that's how I know my letter from Rilke was stolen, not accidentally thrown out or mislaid.
    The third couplet, of course, conceals the name of the thief. But with the sort of irony that typifies my life, it is in a code that I am unable to crack. As yet.
    The Revolutionary Council, to which I earlier alluded, has begun its deliberations. I was sitting quietly in the library

    reading in the Times its leisurely accounts of daily outrages when the Red Dwarf peered round the door, spotted me, and sidled in. He leaned over me and whispered in my ear, "Comrade, we've nothing to lose but our chains." Glancing furtively around the room, he placed a finger to his lips. "Ssh." We were alone in the library. "There's to be a meeting of the Central Committee at Goldstein's, comrade. Ten-thirty sharp. Be there." And then, perhaps because he saw the expression on my face, he pulled an imaginary forelock: "The favor of your honored presence, noble sir, would be gratefully appreciated."
    As it happened, I had other plans for the morning— little tasks, accumulated odds and ends, shopping in the neighborhood, and so forth—and was about to tell him so when the door opened again and in came La Dawidowicz. She ignored us, of course. The Red Dwarf's finger flew once more to his lips. "Ssh." Then, in a loud voice, effecting casualness, he said, "I see by the papers, the obituaries, that fourteen corpses are to be given Christian burial." La Dawidowicz sniffed. The Red Dwarf chortled and bounded for the door. There he danced his little jig. "Mum's the word," he said, winking knowingly, and vanished. Where at his age does he find his energy?
    Goldstein's Dairy Restaurant, located on Broadway, is only a short walk from the Emma Lazarus and hence very popular with many of our residents. Here one can drink coffee or tea, play dominoes, devour such forbidden dainties as blintzes or apple fritters with sour cream, and, most important, on occasion see faces other than those encountered daily in the residents' lounge. I have been going there for years, well before I entered the Emma Lazarus, before I met the Contessa even. Bruce Goldstein, the proprietor, is a florid, portly man now in his late fifties, young by my standards, and a bit of a dandy. He is the only man on the West Side, for instance,

    whom I have ever seen wearing a mink overcoat,