Alligators May Be Present: A Novel

While You Were Out

While You Were Out G lassman’s encounter with Shuman had rocked him. He was in no condition to remain in the office. So when lunchtime arrived, he quietly slipped away and drove home. Haberdashery . . . Haberdashery . . . Haberdashery. . . . Shuman’s mention of the shmatteh business started Glassman thinking of his grandfather ’s haberdashery. He softly sounded out the word over and over again on the drive home until it began to sound nonsensical to his ears. But there was something unmistakably sophisticated about the name, as well. It was a word perfectly suited to the dignified tone that Teenie naturally assumed whenever she referred to the business. Not a chance she ever called Fishbein’s Haberdashery a hat store. Teenie had taken over the store after Abe vanished. What else could she do? Ever resourceful, she managed to maintain a decent business well into the seventies—long after the fashion currency of men’s hats waned—by somehow convincing Lackawanna’s male population that a real gentleman in New York and Chicago, despite unfounded rumors to the contrary, still wouldn’t be caught dead in the street without a proper hat on his head. To remain afloat, however , she gradually expanded her line of fine shirts and ties, and took on a limited, but natty, line of wool sports jackets and suits. By the 34 35 late seventies, Fishbein’s Haberdashery was practically a misnomer as she carried only a fraction of the fine hats that Abe had once stocked. “I loved President Kennedy dearly,” she told Glassman shortly after he moved to Florida. “All the Jews in Lackawanna voted for him. But I could have killed him when he showed up at his inauguration with a bare kop. He almost put me out of business!” Abe was still in Lackawanna during the Kennedy years, and the way Teenie deftly elided his existence with a few choice words wasn’t lost upon Glassman. Regardless, he would always think of Abe when he thought of Fishbein’s Haberdashery. His grandfather behind the counter in the haberdashery was Glassman’s second gleaming vision of Abe, a complement of sorts to Abe in the acrid pigeon coop. It was the off-season, as far as men’s hats were concerned, during the summer when he and his family visited Lackawanna. So his grandfather didn’t mind him messing up the displays as he donned all the fancy hats—Stetsons, Cavanaughs, Dobbs. He even let him try on the expensive handmade foreign hats, the Borsalino from Italy and some Austrian number made out of luxurious velour. The hats were so big on him that they rested over his eyes on the bridge of his nose and on the tops of his ears, partially obscuring his vision as he stood in front of the full-sized mirror aping the expressions of the few customers that visited the store. When he summoned the vision of his grandfather , he was leaning upon the counter just aside the antique register , looking upon him smilingly. But, unless Glassman’s memory was playing tricks on him, his grandfather’s gaze slowly grew absent, his smile fixed woodenly on his face long after he seemed to be thinking about something else just beyond Glassman’s shoulder. And his grandfather’s face—again, unless Glassman’s mind was playing tricks on him—his grandfather’s face was the face of Irving Shuman. The hum of the automatic garage door opening thankfully interrupted Glassman’s reverie. He and Rebecca had purchased a modest, white, two-bedroom house. It was built in 1970, which practically made it a historic landmark. Glassman was bemused to discover that any house built before 1990 was considered “old construction” in Florida. No matter. It was the architectural obsolescence of the ranch-style, low-ceilinged home that accounted for the successful outcome of their lowball offer. Their real estate agent, a genteel woman with one of the few southern accents Glassman had heard in Florida, only reluctantly presented the offer to the owners. She warned her “first time buyers” that this just wasn’t the way things were done in Ropa Gatos. The owners were bound to be offended and would reject the “offer” outright without countering. She had almost convinced Glassman to up the offer by ten thousand dollars before Rebecca caught the drift of the conversation, ripped the phone from his hand, and...