Chapter Thirty-Two

THIRTY-TWO

FEbrUARY 1925

Augusta knew her father would worry when he learned that Esther was treating Mitzi Diamond. She still remembered how shaken he’d been when Zip bought the bicycle for Irving. “I wish that man had never set foot in my store,” said her father bitterly.

“What does that mean?” Augusta asked.

“It means that men like Zip Diamond are dangerous.”

“But why would he be dangerous for you? I thought he was mostly involved in gambling—horses and baseball and the neighborhood card parlors.”

Solomon Stern shook his head. “Men like that don’t stop at one vice,” he said. “Where there’s gambling, liquor always follows. And liquor now is big, big business. When Prohibition started, the government took all the alcohol off the market. Pharmacists can sell it for medicinal purposes, but only when a customer has a prescription.”

Augusta had seen the special forms. Customers were allowed one pint every ten days, as long as they brought in a new prescription each time. “What does that have to do with Zip Diamond?”

“Speakeasies are selling dreck —bathtub gin and watered-down spirits, dyed and cut with wood alcohol. Half of it will make you sick, and some of it might even kill you. But pharmacies can still get quality whiskey—bottled-in-bond at 100 proof, aged, and stamped by the U.S. government. Which means that everyone wants what we’re selling.” Solomon paused, as if the next part pained him to say. “A few years ago, some of Zip’s associates paid huge bribes for drug licenses. They set up fake pharmacies so their bookkeepers could make everything look good on paper. They paid off the distributors and the warehouse operators and got their hands on the alcohol withdrawal permits to make sure everything ran smoothly. But the government started cracking down on the permits. So now the racketeers have been forcing pharmacy owners to go into business with them.”

Augusta had no idea all this illegal activity was happening in drugstores like Stern’s. She could not hide her shock. “Have any of those men approached you?”

“Once or twice, but I got lucky. There was some pharmacist with a little store in the Bronx who tried to poison one of the bootleggers with fake pills. After that, the men around here decided they needed a druggist they could actually trust. I’m more valuable to them as a real pharmacist than as some kind of fake business partner.”

“Then you don’t have anything to worry about.”

Augusta’s father scratched his head. “Maybe,” he said. “But it’s not that simple. Every time somebody new comes along, they want to change the status quo. Now that Zip Diamond knows where to find me, I just hope he won’t make trouble.”

But that had been a year and a half ago now, and so far Solomon Stern had heard nothing else. Zip had never returned to his store. Either the man and his family were never sick or they were getting their medicine somewhere else.

After a month of taking Esther’s remedy, Mitzi Diamond was a changed woman. Finally, she could sleep at night without sweating through her nightgown. Her aches and pains and palpitations disappeared. Her energy and zest for life were back.

Like many of the women in the neighborhood, she began visiting Esther every other week. At first she came on the days Esther requested, but as she settled into her former vigor, the humility and patience that had accompanied her symptoms waned. She began showing up whenever she liked, and if other people had appointments, she was not content to wait her turn. Instead, she decided to come early in the morning in order to make sure that she was the first person seen.

Esther was quite firm with all her patrons about the hours that they were welcome in her home. She preferred to make appointments if possible, but whether people were new or repeat customers, it was common knowledge that Esther never saw customers before nine o’clock in the morning. This was to ensure that her nephew would not have to encounter any of them coming or going. Solomon knew about her business, of course, but the two of them had come to a delicate arrangement, built partly on Solomon’s willful ignorance and partly on the precision of Esther’s arrangements.

Both, therefore, were caught off guard when someone knocked a few minutes after eight o’clock one morning. Augusta’s father was usually gone by then, but Mrs. Diamond had arrived just as he was leaving. Augusta followed him to the foyer and stood behind him as he opened the door.

“May I help you?” he asked when confronted with the sable-clad woman standing unapologetically in his hallway.

“I’m here to see Esther,” Mrs. Diamond said, without offering her name. Even with her father standing between them, Augusta could smell the cloying sweetness of Mrs. Diamond’s French perfume.

Given both the hour and the extravagance of the woman’s appearance, Mr. Stern assumed that this customer was new. He had never seen Mrs. Diamond before.

“There’s been a misunderstanding,” he said politely. “Esther doesn’t see customers for another hour yet.”

“This is the only time that is convenient for me today,” said Mrs. Diamond. “She will have to see me now.”

Decades of running a retail establishment had trained Solomon Stern in the art of customer service. Over the years he’d been cried to, screamed at, and even threatened on occasion. Customers had been thoughtless and rude. He’d been awakened in the night for a single stamp and told he should be grateful for the business. But nothing had prepared him for this stranger’s unequivocal sense of entitlement. Augusta watched as his pupils darkened with a palpable disgust.

“Ah,” he said, frowning. “Time for me to go. Augusta, I’ll leave this to you and your aunt.” He stepped around Mrs. Diamond without looking back. Augusta knew he would have questions later, but for now she put that out of her mind.

She led Mrs. Diamond to the kitchen, where Esther was still sitting with one hand wrapped around the handle of her teacup. She had not bothered to tidy up the table but had left everything exactly as it was. Augusta could see from the tightness of Esther’s features that her aunt was annoyed.

When Esther did not stand or say hello, Mrs. Diamond stood awkwardly beside the table and waited for Esther to acknowledge her presence. When this did not happen, she cleared her throat. “Good morning, Esther,” she said.

But Esther still did not respond. She took a few bites of her toast and washed it down with a sip of tea. When she finished, she addressed her niece. “Augusta,” she said, “I’m going to wash. Please clean the breakfast dishes before you leave for school.”

Mrs. Diamond blinked in surprise and crossed her fur-covered arms over her chest. “I have a very busy morning,” she snapped.

Unmoved, Esther drained the last bit of tea from her cup. Only then did she turn to Mrs. Diamond. “You can wait here, in the kitchen,” she said. “I’ll see you at nine o’clock.”

After Esther left the room, Mrs. Diamond shook off her coat and threw it over the back of a chair. She smoothed the folds of her skirt and tucked a hair behind her ear. An awkward silence filled the space, but Augusta did not trust herself to break it. Would Esther want her to offer Mrs. Diamond tea and make her comfortable while she waited? Or was the whole point to leave her ill at ease as retribution for her disrespect?

It was Mrs. Diamond who spoke first. “Is Esther your grandmother?” she asked.

Augusta shook her head. “My grandmother’s sister,” she explained. “She came to live with us after my mother died.”

Usually when Augusta mentioned her mother’s passing, she was met with sympathetic smiles. But Mrs. Diamond’s expression did not soften. A dead mother was unfortunate, but Mitzi Diamond had witnessed many unfortunate things.

“You’re lucky to have her,” Mrs. Diamond said sharply. “I’ve met a lot of foolish women in my life, but that aunt of yours? She’s no fool.”

At dinner, Augusta’s father had questions. “Esther, why was that woman at our door so early?”

“I apologize for the disturbance, Solomon. It won’t happen again.”

“She didn’t look like your typical customer. Not many of them arrive in fur coats.”

Esther shrugged. “All kinds of women come to me for assistance. I’m sure it is the same for you. A rich man buys aspirin the same as a poor one. Their headaches may strike for different reasons, but they both come to you for the same pill.”

Augusta’s father nodded in agreement. “Who was she anyway?” he asked. “I haven’t seen her in my store.”

“Her name is Mitzi Diamond,” said Esther.

Solomon Stern almost spat out his food. “Diamond? As in Zip Diamond’s wife ?”

“I don’t know anything about her husband,” said Esther. “Why should her husband matter to me?”

“Because he’s probably the most powerful and dangerous man in all of Brownsville! Augusta, why didn’t you warn your aunt? Why didn’t you tell me this was going on?”

Augusta sank down in her seat. “I didn’t… I didn’t think it was important…”

“Dammit, Augusta! Of course it’s important! What’s going to happen if Esther can’t help? Or if Mrs. Diamond isn’t satisfied with her treatment?”

“All of my customers are satisfied,” said Esther.

“That isn’t the point,” Augusta’s father insisted. “I saw what she was like this morning—demanding that she be attended to immediately. Do either of you honestly think she won’t do something like that again? She’s used to people falling all over themselves to give her whatever she asks. She’s used to getting everything she wants.”

“She knows she will get no special treatment from me,” Esther said. “I made sure she understands this.”

“Papa,” Augusta interjected, “she’s so grateful to Aunt Esther for helping her. You should have seen how weak she was at first.”

Solomon Stern shook his head sadly. “There’s nothing weak about a woman like that. Mitzi Diamond has all her husband’s power behind her. To have lasted this long as that man’s wife means she’s more ruthless than any of us could possibly imagine.”