"Down at the shul when I went to say Yiskor for Papa, they told me about you. They said you didn't come to the funeral because you were afraid somebody might ask you for a few pennies."
"From California I should come in one day?"
Norman shouted. "Wings I ain't got."
He started for the door.
"Wait a minute, David," his mother said quietly. She turned to her brother. "When you needed five hundred dollars before the war for your business, who did you get it from?" She waited a moment before answering herself. "From your poor schnorrer of a brother-in-law, Chaim, the junkman.
He gave you the money and you gave him a piece of paper.
The piece of paper I still got but did we ever see the money?"
"Paper?"
Bernie said. "What paper?"
"I still got it," she said.
"In the box Chaim put it in that night, the night he gave you the money."
"Let me see." Bernie's eyes followed her as she left the room.
He was beginning to remember now.
It was a certificate promising his brother-in-law five per cent of the Norman Company stock when he bought out the old Diamond Film Company.
He had forgotten all about it. But a smart lawyer could make it worth a lot of money.
His sister came back into the room and handed him a sheet of paper.
It was faded and yellow but the date on it was still bright and clear.
September 7, 1912. That was fourteen years ago. How time had flown.
He looked at his sister.
"It's against my policy to hire relatives," he said. "It looks bad for the business."
"So who's to know he's your nephew?" Esther said. "Besides, who will do more for you than your own flesh and blood?"
He stared at her for a moment, then got to his feet.
"All right. I’ll do it.
It's against my better judgment but maybe you're right.
Blood is thicker than water.
Over on Forty-third Street, near the river, we got a warehouse.
They'll put him to work."
"Thank you, Uncle Bernie," David said gratefully.
"Mind you, not one word about being my nephew.
One word I hear and you're finished."
"I won't say anything, Uncle Bernie."
Norman started for the door.
But before he went out, he turned, the paper in his hand. He folded it and put it into his pocket.
"This I'm taking with me," he said to his sister. "When I get back to my office, they'll send you a check for the five hundred dollars with interest for the fourteen years. At three per cent."
A worried look came over his sister's face.
"Are you sure you can afford it, Bernie?" she asked quickly. "There is no hurry.
We'll manage if David is working."
"Afford it, shmafford it," Norman said magnanimously. "Let nobody say that Bernie Norman doesn't keep his word."
It was a dirty gray factory building down near the Hudson River, which had fallen into disuse and been converted into lofts.
There were two large freight elevators in the back and three small passenger elevators near the front entrance, scarcely large enough to handle the crowd of workers that surged in at eight o'clock each morning and out at six o'clock each night.
The building was shared by five tenants.
The ground floor housed an automobile-parts company; the second, a commercial cosmetic manufacturer; the third, the pressing plant for a small record company; the fourth, the factory of the Henri France Company, the world's largest manufacturer of popular-priced contraceptives and prophylactics.
The fifth and sixth floors belonged to Norman Pictures.
David arrived early.
He got off the elevator on the sixth floor and walked slowly down the wide aisle between rows of steel and wooden shelves.
At the end, near the back windows, were several desks, placed back to back.
"Hello," David called. "Anybody here?"
His voice echoed eerily through the cavernous empty floor.
There was a clock over one of the desks. It said seven thirty.
The freight-elevator door clanged open and a white-haired man stuck his head out and peered down the aisle at David.